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Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit
rbochan writes "The new Darwin Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History
has 'failed to find a corporate sponsor in the United States because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution' according to articles at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph, and The Register. The $US3 million needed for the exhibit was met by private charitable donations."
Pathetic. I am much more willing to give my business to those companies that can take a stand. Furthermore, as a professor in the biosciences, I am especially troubled by stories like this. Perhaps even more disturbing is that this does not appear to be a news item covered in the mainstream US media. I had to learn about this first from Slashdot, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph and The Register, thanks to ~rbochan.
Arguably, much of our current understanding of biology and bioscience (development of drugs and antibiotics, medicine etc...etc...etc...) and many things that may surprise you are due to a fundamental understanding of biology. Try future developments in body armor, engineering, acoustics, propulsion and search algorithms on for size. All of those disparate fields have been influenced and guided by cross-polination from bioscience and ignoring or even worse, rejecting a scientific understanding of the world will only hold us back.
It is particularly ironic because one of the missions of the American Museum of Natural History is education of those very same individuals and corporations who are benefitting from decades of science education in the United States.
Religious extremism come in many flavors folks, and if we are not careful, we are going to lose our edge. Remember, this country is only a couple hundred years old. Those societies that have embraced education and science historically are those societies that survive.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Doesn't stop companies from sponsoring computer exhibits.
Sad but not surprising.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Maybe they don't want to repeat the performance of the dinosaurs.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
I guess some zealots just won't trust anything that comes from Apple. Sad, really. :)
Seriously, I don't know many Christians, even young-earth creationists, who'd actively go after companies that promoted this exhibit. Jerry Falwell's group might bitch a bit, but they do that anyway.
From the Register article:
Absolutely shameful. I'm almost ashamed to be a Christian...and I'm definitely ashamed of being an American. Exactly when was it that my country decide to abdicate rationality in favor of wanton superstition, reprehensible pseudoscience, and gross ignorance? Or was America ever rational to begin with?
I may sound rather strident on this issue, but as you'll understand, this hits rather close to home. You see, in my church there is a Sunday school class where ID is being taught as a viable alternative to evolutionary theory. Every time I hear the teacher talking about such intellectually bankrupt concepts as 'irreducible complexity' I want to scream, but I'm not sure how to approach this without alienating the rest of the church. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
As in those presenting the current crop of alternate theories have a leg to stand on? This is really news to me.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
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I think Darwin's theory needs to evolve to survive in its ever changing environment.
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
This is God damn rediclious!
They need a trained workforce that understands biology and chemistry. If the religious wack jobs can't handle it, let them boycott the latest antibiotics. After all, bacteria don't evolve, right?
What about making a balanced exhibit that companies CAN support without losing business, and letting people viewing the exhibit come to their own conclusions? I personally would find a Scofield/Darwin/Coppe exhibit to be very enlightening- even if I think the evidence behind Darwin (Spontaneous Genesis) and Coppe (Intelligent Design) would knock Scofield (Young Earth Creationism) all hollow (but then again, that's how it should be isn't it, since this is in historical order of theories proposed?)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Does Bevets have a /. user?
Uh, as long as the exhibit is accurate in that Darwin had an anti-religous agenda.
Care to back that up with some evidence (from sources other than the creationist research orgs)?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Darwin Exhibit, huh. Does it include the evolution of DRM on audio CD's, and the roadkill *coughSonycough* along the way?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
None of the high tech companies can belly up to the bar and pick up the tab? That's just sad. I especially think the biotech companies have a duty to pick sides here. Where would some of them be without genetic engineering, proof of evolution if I've ever seen it? Genzyme, Biogen I'm looking at you! Or a company like Intel. What are christians going to give up computers because a chip maker sponsored the right side of the debate? Not after what the Vatican just said. So a small handful of fanatics clinging to dogma are going to push us all around with threats of boycots. I believe that's part of the definition of terrorism.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Now only the geeks will learn about it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Unfortunately, you're in the minority. The aggregate spending by religious extremist rednecks most likely far, far exceeds that which you (and other intelligent people) spend. Even if you'd deal with a company that helped fund such an exhibit, it is quite plausible that they'd lose many times that gain if there were a boycott by the religious factions.
You are correct about the most long-lived civilizations placing an emphasis on education. That has been shown historically time and time again. Such civilizations fail when their focus switches from education and development towards combat and religious extremism.
It may not be a pleasant idea at first, but many academics should consider leaving the US for greener pastures. Many European and Asian countries would gladly welcome true scholars from America who wish to advance knowledge, rather than fool around with religious fundamentalism. The standard of living will most likely be acceptable, and the cultures often far more becoming of scientific progress.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I am quite embarrased to count these people in my faith. Also I would like to point out that the pope has stated that the Bible is completely compatable with evolution.
It is the same cloth worn by those who would destroy buildings and kill innocents (see Fallujah, New York, etc.) as that of those who would seek to destroy the most life-giving force in the modern world: science and the (modern medicines and medical) miracles provided by science. But, to be fundamentalist, means you cannot accept that knowledge, in all of its forms, is postitive rather than negative. Dissent and other evidence-based forays into being a rality-based human being, cannot live in the same room as the fundamentalist, for the fundamentalist seeks to destroy and hate that (knowledge) which threatens his (or her) fundamentalism.
If you are a fundamentalist (you support Bush), then ask yourself why you got a vaccine shot this flu season? Ask yourself why you visited your state-licensed medical doctor this year? Ask yourself why you allow your dentist to place a gel of fluoride mineral upon your teeth once a year? You do trust in science but somehow you support the most anti-science politician to be seen in recent years. For shame. For shame upon you and the darkness you seek to spread.
Sponsored by [Anonymous Coward]
ooooh GOD can't you people see where this is heading,
The End of Science has come.
Apocalypse monk
so did the bhuddist fundamentalist support it? what about the muslims and hinduists? why single out one religion? troll!
You are a retard.
Both evolution and Darwin himself are silent on the topic of religion.
It falls outside of the scope of his work.
My pics.
Now we just need to devise a way to use such occult knowledge to take advantage of the ignorant...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You can ignore what's wrong without worry. It's a lot harder to ignore what you know is right. It's a lot more likely that the dinosaurs are millions of years old, rather than that the entire Earth was created only 8K years ago and God put the fossils there to confound the unbelievers.
Trying to remove the only theory that actually has some evidence to support it from discussion overall, or elevate truly unproven speculations to having equal weight, only confuses children -- and harms the nation's future.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...is that it was not intelligently designed.
E C-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF
If they had only put a picture of Michaelangelo's 'Creation of Adam' instead of crusty ole Darwin, the money would have come pouring in.
Imagine the creationist's surprise when they find out that God is a woman in a surgeon's uniform.
Suggested reading: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4F
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Unfortunately, Darwin is no longer an inquisitive scientist (and Christian) who went to the Galapagos islands a century or so ago and postulated some theories about how we came to be... He's, uh, "evolved" into a symbol of pure evil to the Born Agains.
Like the cartoon says...
http://www.nunchux.com/matthew/Darwinwrong.gif
What are you talking about? They blame the Apple for all the problems we now face.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
There is a better theory, oh yes there is:
The universe was created one attosecond ago. With all beings, you & me, their intelligence and their memory, all the carbon dated materials, and your conscience of the present message.
The controversy about creationism or evolution, is of course, just part of this attosecond creation, and you could better put your energy in considering why He chose to create this controversy as part of our last-attosecond-universe, rather than participate in the debate.
Ok, nuf said. prove me wrong buddy.
NB: read my lips: _no_ _bush_
This whole debate is not about evolution in the sense of physical evolution, but mental evolution. It can be proven fairly conclusively that organisms evolve (anyone who has ever dabbled with fruit flies knows this). Darwin called it the "Theory" of Evolution because when it was proposed, that's exaclty what it was, a theory. A theory which has been verified through many thousands of experiments and observations.
But while it appears that the physical mechanism of evolution works well to shape and adapt an organism to its environment, the same cannot be said for mental evolution. The mind is a tricky thing. The most sophisticated computer you will ever find, but it can play tricks upon itself, believe in contradictory statements (Captain Kirk was famous for defeating computers with illogical statements, but his brain was perfectly capable of handling them), and send false impressions/sensations to the body.
Evolution on the mental scale belongs to the individual. Knowledge is the fuel that is poured on the fire of mentality to make it possible for us to reason and dream and grow. Despite that, there are those who douse their flames with idolatry, obstinance, and ignorance. What they "believe" is more important that what "is." And down that path lie pride, bigotry, and fear-mongering.
Do I beleieve in God? Sure. Why not? I haven't seen any other theories out there as to where everything came from. Why not believe in some supernatural being, until such time as we have something more concrete? But don't let that belief blind you to reality and the wonders it holds. As I tell people, who says God couldn't have created Adam and Eve through evolution? Where do Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson get off telling God how he should run his universe? Seems like the ultimate sin of hubris to me.
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Don't see much for backing that up yet.
If you've ever actually done any looking into the area you would see that Darwin himself didn't not strongly champion his theory of evolution.
For those without a clue train ticket, the Darwin's theory of evolution does not have to be at odds with modern religion. It was placed there by the puritanical christianity strains in this country of ours, they always have to have something to yell about. Don't see it happing much in other, overwhelmingly christian countries now do you.
When debating with many sects of American Protestantism, whose views of Roman Catholicism range from suspicion to abject hatred.
Check before you post next time. Darwin was Christian - and literalist, at that - for most of the time he was working on his theory. Even after he renounced Christianity in 1851, he was more of an agnostic than anything else. He even kept helping with parish work - hardly the actions of someone with an "anti-religious agenda".
To know recursion, you must first know recursion.
He had an anti-religious agenda? Great! I like this guy more and more! I mean, we all know that religion in all it's forms is a bunch of bullshit. Staggering, blatant bullshit. Bullshit of the highest order!
I hope these Christian idiots cry out more and more because we're finally starting to see what these people really are. The more they bellow out, the more intelligent people will just shake their heads and move on with their lives. This will be the death-nell for religion and it's about time. It's time for these idiots to grow up and stop believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and God and for them to STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIFE. I was one for tolerance. For letting people do what they wish and believe in what they wish in the privacy of their own homes. But now this minority...yes they're in a minority...of Christian assholes is now effecting my life, and in a very negative way.
It's time we take anyone that's religious and start treating them as if they had a mental illness. Stop giving these morons any air-time. Who the fuck cares if Billy Graham(and no, I don't care if I spelled his name right) had a vision about this country. If you have visions, that's an illness! Don't you get it? If God talks to you, you need to be on medication.
Yes, I know I'm going to be modded down to flame or troll or whatever. I don't care. I'm sick of this shit.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Does the suffering of Gallileo mean nothing at all to you?
Stick Men
They're right that they haven't been able to find funding but making the blanket claim that it's due to apprehension of Darwin vs. Creationism vs. Intelligent Design is pure bull. The three explanations aren't even at odds unless someone's being so enormously thick as to ignore any explanation that isn't their own. At that point we're arguing with someone who just wants to hear their own voice and has selectively tuned out all other voices just for the sake of argument.
I suggest a boycott of all articles which are spun to involve global warming or the creation of the universe. Let's stick to the real issue. In this case the real issue is who funded the project before and why they really dropped funding. None of this hand-waving "blame the religious fanatics" bunk.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
There's no denying that evolution is far from established fact and is fundamentally a theory with PLENTY of holes and unanswered questions.
As to the mechanism of evolution, yes there is debate in the scientific commmunity. As to whether evolution has occurred, there is no debate in the scientific community.
To me I see those zealots who accept evolution as fact in the same light as how *they* perceive Christians and Christianity: mindless minions of bad logic and reasoning.
So you reject the notion that there is any evidence for the *fact* that evolution has occurred?
Explain why there are so many shared genes between species. In fact, the human genome is one big code sharing exercise.
It just seems like evolutionists want to skip a whole bunch of steps and not do the actual science required to figure out if the evidence supports their theory or not.
What steps have they skipped?
That's the scientific method, folks. You never PROVE anything: you have evidence that either supports or doesn't support your theory.
And you haven't done anything to support your position other than flap your arms around wildly.
Show us the holes in evolution. Show us where steps have been missed. Show us how YOU would apply the scientific method any differently to, say, the theory of gravity.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Don't you just love intelligent design, such flawless logic!!! Reminds me of this ever more relevant excert from one of the great movies of all time:
BEDEVERE:
Tell me. What do you do with witches?
CROWD:
Burn! Burn them up! Burn!...
BEDEVERE:
And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1:
More witches!
VILLAGER #2:
Wood!
BEDEVERE:
So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3:
B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE:
Good! Heh heh.
CROWD:
Oh, yeah. Oh.
BEDEVERE:
So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1:
Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE:
Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
RANDOM:
Oh, yeah. True. Uhh...
BEDEVERE:
Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No, it floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1:
Throw her into the pond!
CROWD:
The pond! Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE:
What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1:
Bread!
VILLAGER #2:
Apples!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1:
Cider!
VILLAGER #2:
Uh, gra-- gravy!
VILLAGER #1:
Cherries!
VILLAGER #2:
Mud!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, churches! Churches!
VILLAGER #2:
Lead! Lead!
ARTHUR:
A duck!
BEDEVERE:
Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:
If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE:
And therefore?
CROWD:
A witch! A witch!...
HA HAHA AHHAHAHA HAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA, wheez,HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA HHAHAHAH AHA, sorry, i'm laughing with you, sorry again, i can't think of comment here that would be anything but a troll. but to me, this situation occuring at all is a troll against modern society and against the rest of the earth. and for the record, i'm not american, i'm canadian, i also was planning on moving to the US years ago, but your crazy country just keeps going down the tubes faster like its building up momentum. hopefully things will change for you, i hope, i am under the impression that by the next generation of americans, US may slip has a world power, the lack of education and tech no how will certainly be a barrier towards maintaining that #1 world power status that you currently hold.
Its ok to have Madi Gras, sell/rent x-rated content in video stores and make tons of shows and movies with suggestive content and language in the US.. but its un-christian to talk about evolution?
whats next.... the Al Crusaders?
Even if that were true (and I think you're thinking of Huxley), it has nothing to do with his theory or with evolution. Do you think that any exhibit about Newton's Theory of Gravity should have to "be accurate" in that Newton was a religious crank who spent a large part of his time working on insane theories of alchemy? Are Newton's beliefs about alchemy in any way relevent to his theories of gravity, thermodynamics or light?
In any case, Darwin's experience of religion was fairly limited. Most religions by now have come to terms with the discoveries of science and natural philosophy, including most forms of Christianity. It is not "Christians" who object to the Theory of Gravity^WRelativity^WEvolution, it is a tiny, but vocal (and annoying, and scary), minority of Christians. Christians who no more represent the mainstream of Christianity than the Muslim suicide bombers (who they strongly resemble) represent the mainstream of Mohammedism.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended
us to forgo their use."
-- Galileo Galilei
http://amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/cam/
Can you cite a single theory that doesn't have holes? Are we to reject Einsteinian gravity because we don't have a quantum theory to go along with it? And who do you suppose these alleged zealots are? Are you calling about 99.9% of the scientific community zealots because they reject Creationism or its ugly child Intelligent Design?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
..but they can't be discussed anymore until ID goes away.
At the time he developed the theory of natural selection, Darwin was a Christian who had actually studied for the clergy, though probably for career reasons rather than a strong inclination to preach. He was never anti-religion and in fact, he delayed publication of his work in part because he realized the philosophical implications of his work. He eventually identified himself as agnostic.
Wasn't the "Scopes/Monkey" Trial a couple of decades ago? I just assumed we were past this. I'm one of your "Born Agains" (nothing like an open mind stereotyping others) but I'm also a college-educated man who considers himself well-read. Darwin was an amazing scientist, he looked at the world in ways other people were afraid to. He backed up his claims with scientific fact. Are these companies afraid to side with facts? Hmm.
The truth is, faith and science aren't good bedfellows, and that's ok. Sure apologetics will always be there in an attempt to prove everything in the good book and disprove scientific discovery, but there are those in the scientific world trying to do the same to the "Born Agains." I doubt corporate sponsors have a whole lot to worry about, they aren't the ones in the fight and dropping a few bones for an exhibit won't change that.
I agree, and if it wasn't for the 'faith force field' that God uses to bind us to this planet, we would all float away in space.
This heated debate is a non-issue. Actually alot of modern science also supports the design theory. Big bang anyone? Anyhow, this _also_ is irrelevant. I mean, let's say you're the Almighty One. Would you really want to enlight nomads about how they evolved from apes? Chance is they would worship the gold cow anyway, because in that case they would of thought Moses was humoring them! That isn't the bible's purpose IMHO. Let science be science and religion be religion...
Turing test for today: cavemen
I should wear my tin-foil hat more often!:)
The ID-ers seem to take issue with the validity of evolution, particularly the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection for survival.
Pat Roberston just told the people of Dover PA (who ousted the ID school board candidates in this month's election) that they shouldn't be surprised when the next natural disaster occurs and God ignores their pleas and lets them perish, all because they tossed out the ID-ers.
Hmmmm... would bird flu qualify as a natural disaster? I wish no one, certainly not the people of Dover any harm, but how ironic if Robertson's prediction comes true at the hands of an advantageous (for the virus) random genetic variation and biologically successful (again for the virus) natural selection.
They either have to concede that it was natural, or blame it on God - cuz after all, he designed it.
Yes, I posted much the same on Christopher Lydon's OpenSource, but since it's not REALLY open source I figured this crowd may not see it (*ducks*).
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
And moving to Australia!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
The evolution theory is a theory of processes, not a description of each step.
Of course there are some issues which might need a closer look, such as the Cambrian Explosion. And of course some more subtheories such as punctated equilibrium and convergent evolution might be proposed and be incorporated. You can discuss if evolution is a more a result of selection on the level of genes or on the level of populations. But those things are not "holes". Whatever the outcome of the scientific debate on these issues, it will not mean a fundamental change to the evolution theory as it is understood now.
So what are the holes you are talking about?
Sadly, this is nothing new. KCET, the producing station of "Cosmos" series almost went bankrupt back in the 80s because they had a hard time securing corporate underwriters for that series.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Darwin in no way had an anti-religous agenda. He even considered becoming an Anglican priest when he was younger. Sure, after he developed the theory of natural selection he became an agnostic, as many (but not all), people who really understand the theory since also have, but he didn't discover natural selection as part of any agenda other than the furthering of biology
Stop debating creationism vs Darwinism. I want equal time (and coroprate support) for the FSM Theory (and religion). I just spent the last night working on education material for my new found religion.
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
Hey you self important dummy.1 02-97/Article3.html 6 2,00.html
http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/0
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-137
I'll say it again "the pope has stated that the Bible is completely compatable with evolution"
Unless of course you don't think the Pope is christian?
Where is the 'intelligently designed' tortoise that has super-speed and the ability to easily right itself after tipping over on its back? I guess the designers can only work on one thing at a time.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm REALLY getting tired of this "fundamentalist conservative backlash" sticking their religion into science. Now its affecting corporate sponsorships.
I wonder if these yahoos believe in a flat earth at the center of the universe, with stars as the holes in the firmament which let in the light of heaven. I mean, if they want to take the bible literally, then they should also assume the beliefs of the society which created it. Perhaps we need a lesson in our science classes, warning students to not get too close to the edge of the world, lest the fall off.
Now if we could only convince them Terry Pratchett is a prophet... >;^)=
They are just a crude, naive means of tackling the hill-climbing problem. I cannot overemphasize how naive they are. In particular, the selection criteria are artificial and much like neural net training, essentially push the "intelligence" outside of the system to the trainer. In fact, it more closely resembles so-called Intelligent Design, simply abstracting the intelligent agent to a level outside the system under consideration.
It doesn't form part of his evolutionary work per se but he _did_ write about this. In his autobiography, he mentions things which are included in an excerpt. He began as an orthodox christian but was agnostic by the end. I still don't feel he had an agenda about it and can find no evidence of such a thing but only he really knew for sure.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
In the Declaration of Independence (shown below) that Thomas Jefferson drafted, he wrote:
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Franklin argued successfully for substituting "self-evident" for sacred and undeniable." It was a significant and fortuitous change. Jefferson's wording implied a divine origin for men's rights. Franklin used a term from science and based the rights on reason. All men, he implied, could investigate and prove the proposition. Franklin made natural rights sacred because they were true, while in Jefferson's version they were true because they were sacred.
As an outsider watching from the far north, I've always thought Franklin's substitution of truths as self evident relfected the ideas put forth by Euclid. Jefferson OTOH towed the line from Aristotle. The early chrisitian church fathers adopted the ideas of Aristotle. Aritotle's ideas on teleology inform the christian ideas of intelligent design. These same ideas were first succinctly put forth in 'The Great Chain of Being'...'the historian of ideas Arthur Lovejoythere thus resulted a...'
"conception of the plan and structure of the world which, through the Middle Ages and down to the late eighteenth century...most educated men were to accept without question - the conception of the universe as a "Great Chain of Being", composed of an immense, or...infinite, number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents...through "every possible" grade up to the ens perfectissumu"'
Religion is an evolutionary adaptations' ploy wherein if you want to get along you go along, and, as the better fit suggests the better ploy, the benefits are seen as the blessings of god. Any adaptation is necessarily more good or more bad and thus morality is born. It amounts to a patriarchical ploy (a pick up line) that says I'm a big man in the community and made in the image of the biggest man in the universe, won't you come home with me and let me impregnate you, please I really gotta spread my seed, my god says I'm gonnna have children greater than all the sands on the beach.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
The next time you get into an Intelligent Design debate, ask this question of the ID advocate: Are you afraid of the Avian Flu?
:P
If they answer "Yes" you can slam them. Basically, the Avian Flu is only a threat if you think evolution is valid. The only way it can be a problem to humans is if it mutates, evolves, into a strain that can spread from human to human.
So, if they're afraid of the Avian Flu, they MUST believe in evolution. If they're not afraid of it, all the better. They'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."
~Hebrews 11:3
Apparently people had trouble believing that God created the universe long before Darwin was around. This is not a new problem. Creation science and ID proponents think that by discrediting Darwin's theory about the origin of species they can "solve" this problem for humanity.
I definitely believe that God purposefully created the universe and its contents. I believe that he "designed" all the species of life. How he did it all, I cannot know for sure. And much to my chagrin, science does not seem to back me up on this belief. I still believe it, though.
The ultimate truth that is being conveyed by the first chapter of Genesis is that God created the universe. If you strip away all of the details, that is the central theme. And I believe that is the only thing necessary for Christians to believe about the origin of the universe. If you do not believe that God had any hand in creating the universe, however, that has serious theological implications.
The topic is worth debating, but it is not worth fighting over. A Christian's beliefs about the mode of creation are a matter of personal conscience and cannot disqualify that person from the salvation which comes through Jesus Christ.
OK, suggestions is a nutshell: 1) Engage in rational debate. 2) Do not fight or scream or result to ad hominem attacks (do not harm your relationship with other members of the church). 3) If necessary, agree to disagree. Don't beat a dead horse. This works for me in discussing politics in the church, so it may cross over to science.
The whole "Dis-separation of church and state" that our current administration has done absolutely freaks me out more than any of the other 'popular ridicule points'. Obviously there are plenty of other kooks out there that are disturbing as hell but never before (at least in my lifetime) have I seen such a thing be viewed as "OK".
I could say more but I wont.
do() || do_not();
I agree that ID is not science.
Since origins cannot be tested, observed or falsified, it is not a scientific field of study. As a proponent of ID, I only care that my philosophy is taught in the science classroom as long as the naturalist's philosophy of origins is taught there. Sagan's line "The universe is all that there is, all that there ever was, and all that will be" haunts me. Why must materialist philosophy be taught in science class? As long as we're doing the wrong thing in that way, you should teach my philosophy there too.
Please note that I think that scientific study is a good thing. I also think that scientists should consider all possibilities. Gould contended that scientists have an 'a priori commitment to naturalism' which in my view prevents scientists from considering whether something supernatural might be the primary cause.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Scientists have let evolution become synonymous with the idea that life has only ever come from other life via evolution (biogenesis?). Evolution DOES happen. That doesn't mean that evolution is the only way in which life has ever been created. The religious folks in this country are claiming an apple (God created the universe) and the response is an orange (species change over time given factors in their environment). Until this gets sorted out evolution == biogenesis will be what the public sees and people like Darwin who have come up with very useful observations in the scientific field will be villified.
Slightly off-topic, but whatever...
Any other christians that post on slashdot getting bothered that ID is the new christian view on creation?
It is nothing more than a cop-out and compromise with the evolution theory meant to be less-offensive to non-christians and draw people on to our side of the argument. How is it more plausible than a completely-God creation like in the Bible? I think the problem most non-christian people have with creationism is that God has anything to do with it, so I dont see why they would be more succeptible to agreeing with ID just because it has less God in it.
...how society seems to be regressing backwards into one that fears fire and lightning as the wrath of gods, believes that man just suddenly popped out of nowhere from dust and dirt, and that science is the devil's work.
What next? Start burning witches again?
Didn't you know? If you're not for us, you're against us. It's a universal scientific principle now.
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/20 05/11/intelligent_des.html
Step 1. Install Sony DRM
Step 2. Rename Evolution --> $sys$Evolution
Step 3. ????
Step 4. Jesus Profits!!!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If I wanted to raise 10 billion dollars for world peace, and no one gave me any money, does that mean that EVERYONE is against world peace?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
What's yours?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
As I understand the "problem" with Evolution as described by Darwin is that it may accurately describe what we observe, but it has no predictive power.
This is the more scientific definition of theory:
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena. (dictionary.com)
How has evolution been repeatedly tested? Is there a theorem, mathmatical model that can describe evolution? I may be wrong here, but it's closer to a hypothesis with a not-yet-made theorem to prove/disprove the hypothesis.
Another problem exists because the word "theory" is not used in a disciplined way. Many people use "theory" to describe something when they should probably use conjecture. But "theory" sounds so much more persuasive.
The last problem is faith. A person can believe in something with no material proof. So "faith" has somehow injected itself into what is cold hard science. I don't know how you persuade a person that takes creationism on faith that it's a good story and we humans tend to need a creation story. (Jung)
If I haven't offended enough people yet, I actually wouldn't have a problem with teaching comparing many alternative interpretations of the biological record. It's fun to see and a good way to teach the scientific method.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Lack of funding at the Museum of Natural History is not a new thing. More than one exhibit in the museum haven't been updated in decades. This has created one of Washington's worst museums; plenty of items on display are covered in dust, fiberglass replicas of important objects created for children to handle are broken, and most artifacts from ancient cultures lack displays indicating dates, locales, and/or provenance. There are even items on display with tages typed on a typewriter and accented by hand in blue ink, in a few cases misspellings are crossed out and corrected above.
While I certainly believe that American Corporations are afraid to touch the issue of evolution right now, it's also a stretch to claim that fear of being tied to evolution is the reason this museum has a hard time coming up with funds.
The real problem is that most churches have abandoned the Bible and have no clear authority so that anything goes. Without an established standard of doctrine, the church is left to the whims of sinful human beings with their own prejudices and imaginings. This is exactly why I left the Episcopal Church. It's become a theology zoo with every crazy idea expressed and scripture becomes only an afterthought, which even when it is consulted, is reconstructed and made to mean exactly something other than what the inspired writers meant when they put quill to paper. Most churches today are so infested with liberal theology, or its evil cousin, neo-Orthodoxy, that debates like this even take place. God's word used to mean something once. In most churches, it doesn't anymore.
Just keep on helping the elite (megacorps and plutocrats) make wedge issues the core of the American political debate, you stupid fucking sheeple!
Meanwhile they ship our jobs off to the 3rd world, import cheap 3rd world immigrant labor, lower the taxes on the rich. and make us all slaves to the corporate monopolies, and extort us for healthcare.
and you dumbasses just keep lapping up the wedge issue politics like religion vs evolution, terry schiavo, abortion, race and gender identity politics, etc.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I'm not going to debate certain aspects of evolution because I think it would be ridiculous. Yes, we have a fossil records. Yes, dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Yes, there are enough similarities betweem certain species to support the idea that they descended from common ancestors. Yes, the earth is roughly four gazillion years old based on our understanding of carbon dating, etc.. That's all well and good.
But it doesn't PROVE evolution.
They're not doing the hard science and answering the tough questions, like why, for instance, if intelligence in humans is SO important and crucial to our survival (we have no sharp teeth, claws, we can't run or climb or swim well compared to the rest of the animal kingdom), then why did it take so long for intelligence to develop in humans (say within the past 100,000 years)? How was it possible that WE survived all those years effectively at a huge disadvantage physically?
That's a tough question that NO ONE has been able to answer definitively with facts.
Instead, what we get is "there was once this primordial soup in the oceans (what it was we couldn't tell ya but it was there! and we can't replicate it!) and then some shit went down and here we are."
Wow. I'm stunned by the brilliance of that.
And you're right: gravity is based on theory, just like relativity, and most of the "hard" sciences. But there are smart people doing responsible tough science on those theories. And they don't just throw shit on the wall to see what sticks.
How many sad deranged people actually listen to the fuck wad named pat robertson. He is a sad pathetic wacko. first the guy prays the supreme court judices dies. Then he says a city should die for voting out stupid ID people in the school board. someone please take some pictures of robertson doing something freaky with a dozen prostitutes, so that people can see him for what he is. I big fat hypocritical asswipe.
Didn't you know? If you're not for us, you're against us. It's a universal scientific principle now.
The Vice-President has shown he can peddle in both directions when the victim of the attack is a decorated war veteran.
The VFW must have beat Bush-Cheney up pretty badly for them to start describing John Murtha (a Democrat AND a critic of the Iraq war) in such glowing terms as those used by the Veep on Sunday.
That lip contortion that you see on Cheney's face isn't a scowl - it is the lasting impression on his mouth from talking out of both sides for forty years.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Yes, I'm serious. Fundamentalist christians need to stop taking the Bible literally.
Ironically, one of the major thrusts of the 95 theses and Luther's movement is that people were going to actually start reading the bible in its own langauges and stop relying on Latin translations, centuries-old commentaries, and allegories--in other words, to take the Bible more literally.
Something thathas always bothered me about this debate is how both sides abuse the very concept of science. Is just me or does anyone else believe that for any theory to be remotley scientific it has to have definitive experimentation. To many idiots with PHD's are running experiments with results that indicate or suggest something to be true, but hey never proove it definitively. Assumptions are always made. This is why I'm a strong believer that neither evolution or creationism(ID or whatever you call it) should be taught in the science classroom. Put it back in Philosophy 101 where people are used to questions that can't be answered. Evolution won't be proven unless you observe a specieces for a billion years. Creationism won't be proven unless someone convinces God to donate a tissue sample to a lab. Both sides are simply making guesses based on inconclusive evidence several years (I won't argue how many) after the fact.
--sarcasm mode on--
The University of Kansas?
--sarcasm mode off--
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
You could also save yourself some time and get the Wikipedia search extension for Firefox.
Is something burning?
Oh, it's my karma.
There is as much of a "heated debate" between scientists and fundamentalists as there is a "heated debate" between scientists and flat earthers. Scientists may be annoyed at the idiocy of the "intelligent design" nonsense, but there is no debate.
Thank you for your well-stated comment. You may want to consider, though, that some people find the use of the term "Mohammedism" to be inappropriate (they prefer the term "Islam").
m /beginnings/intro.html
I normally have little patience for politicaly correct "goodspeak", but in this case the objection makes fair sense. The problem with the word "Mohammedism" is that it can be taken to imply the worship of the prophet Mohammed, which is not part of Islamic theology http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/isla
Thank you for considering this comment.
Please don't blame/insult the rednecks. Generally the religious extremists think they are above the rednecks. On top of that, my cousin who has talked about himself being a redneck is the least religious extremist on my mom's side of the family besides me. My father's side of the family is mostly Catholics, so they've got the religious side down, but apparently the pope has come down on the side of evolution. My mom's side was Catholic, but have mostly scattered to various apparently unaffiliated churches.
As an aside, intelligent design has many interesting philosophical points, and that's where it belongs, philosopy, not biology. Unfortunately Philosopy education in the United States is poor as well, which contributes to the problem.
Creation Watch is a good resource to know about these pityful facts. By the way, the whole world is laughing at the USA.
The Illuminati.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Discovery Institute Announces Challenge To The Periodic Table.
Tuesday November 22, 3:00 pm
Seattle, WA -- The Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture, well know for it's push to have Intelligent Design be recognized as a real science as opposed to a pseudo science like astrology, phrenology or paleontology, announced today a plan to challenge the use of the Mendeleev periodic table in public schools. The Center's Director Stephen Meyer, Ph.D. said "The current Mendeleev periodic table contains many myths and half truths. Has anyone ever really seen a single hydrogen or oxygen molecule? Of course not. All we ask is that our periodic table also be taught in public schools."
Here is a detailed chart of the proposed Stolidus periodic table:
The Discovery Institute plans on distributing copies of the new periodic table to most Christian churches during the holidays. A special "picture book" version will be made available to Baptists."I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Actually on the Earth where I live, we have this thing called "gravity". It's based on science. It's cool. Drop your Geek Atheist Dipshit translation of the Bible and check it out some time.
6009 years, 1 month, 1 day, and (checks watch) about 14 hours; and those skeletons are a joke of God's that the palentologists haven't gotten yet. You'd think examining the duckbill platypus would give folk a hint about Her sense of humor, but the fundamentalists don't seem to understand that either.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
It's understandable that some animal-rights groups might be against the treatment of some animals by research scientists. They're more against animal testing than they are against science as a whole, for instance. The religious extremists, on the other hand, are often completely against science. They're not against a very specific technique, but against the whole of science.
Again, you're confused. Many Europeans do not resent genetic research. They do not, however, believe it to be correct to use such knowledge in ways that would violate basic human rights. We're talking about using such knowledge to create slaves, for instance. Or to dangerously modify crops.
The people you deem as "anti-science leftists" (many of whom are extremely conservative or libertarian) are often very pro-science. They take a stand against what may very well be considered unjustifiable use of scientific knowledge. We're talking about taking a stand against genetically modified crops, animal testing, and so forth. They're not against the entirety of science, unlike many religious fundamentalists.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I'm not going to debate certain aspects of evolution because I think it would be ridiculous. Yes, we have a fossil records. Yes, dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Yes, there are enough similarities betweem certain species to support the idea that they descended from common ancestors. Yes, the earth is roughly four gazillion years old based on our understanding of carbon dating, etc.. That's all well and good.
But it doesn't PROVE evolution.
Then I guess nothing other than the evidence you have cited yourself will ever convince you that evolution is real.
They're not doing the hard science and answering the tough questions, like why, for instance, if intelligence in humans is SO important and crucial to our survival (we have no sharp teeth, claws, we can't run or climb or swim well compared to the rest of the animal kingdom), then why did it take so long for intelligence to develop in humans (say within the past 100,000 years)? How was it possible that WE survived all those years effectively at a huge disadvantage physically?
That intelligence did not develop in the last 100K years. It developed over the course of 3.5 million years.
That's a tough question that NO ONE has been able to answer definitively with facts.
Pick up a good anthropology text written in the last twenty years. You will see the evidence presented for gradual intellectual development in higher primates including humans.
Instead, what we get is "there was once this primordial soup in the oceans (what it was we couldn't tell ya but it was there! and we can't replicate it!) and then some shit went down and here we are."
That is abiogenesis, not evolution.
You have skipped about 4.5 billion years of development from the primordial soup and humans too.
Wow. I'm stunned by the brilliance of that.
Then you don't read much.
And you're right: gravity is based on theory, just like relativity, and most of the "hard" sciences.
What constitutes a "hard" science?
But there are smart people doing responsible tough science on those theories. And they don't just throw shit on the wall to see what sticks.
Neither do geologists, biologists, paleontologists, or anthropologists.
Have you ever taken one of these courses to see how the ideas that support them were develeoped?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I didn't know before now that it was possible to make even less sense and rave even more senselessly than the anti-evolutionists.
I find it hard to believe that 51% of adult Americans don't believe in evolution. In fact, I don't believe that poll.
I happen to believe in evolution. I consider myself to be Christian. I don't actually see what being Christian has to do with a belief in evolution. Things evolve. Even things that are created evolve. What's so hard to grasp about that?
I happen to believe in Creationism. I consider myself a scientist. I don't see what being a scientist has to do with a belief in Creationism. Things get created. Even things that later evolve can be created. What's so hard to grasp about that?
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/news/a rchive/2005/11/22/national/a091747S60.DTL&o=0
It lived 14 years and made people happy.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
These figures/beliefs were created by the same creatures who believe and idolise them, i.e. humans.
In our existance (this world, universe) there are things that occur in this world that we cannot yet explain, this can make us feel somewhat insignificant and futile in our existance. It raises such questions as
- Why am I here?
- What is my purpose?
- What will happen to me when I no longer exist?
- What will be the consequences of my actions in this life?
This can somewhat be related to the need to believe in something!! (put simply in one aspect). Humans also feel compelled to hold morals and respect for others. Some(most) of us naturally become upset when people are treated unfairly(+many synonyms). Religion has been designed and evolved to accomodate and somewhat enforce this. E.g. don't kill, don't steal, don't cheat people, don't kill animals, don't eat meat, don't be greedy etc. Someone could probably better explain this need better than I can but be seen to be present in every culture with certain themes current through out.Here are some other characters that I have believed in over my life (especially as a child) that were created by man
- Santa Claus
- The Tooth fairy
- The Easter bunny
- Superman
- The Teeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Monkey Magic
- Jesus
I was told by an enlightened Christian friend in the past that I would be going to hell after I died due to me not accepting God and Jesus... at the time I didn't ask her what the consequences were for no longer believing in the other characters, I wonder what the consequences would be?--
This is for you Claire
Er.....Wow...I was going for +1 funny.........but the fact that someone actually bought that line of shit was even better!! aaahahahahahah.
Why would any company donate $3,000,000 to piss off a large percentage of their customer base?
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Eh. I liked this debate better back when it was called the Monkey Trial.
I wonder if they'll still be arguing over this BS in another thousand years, or if we'll evolve our way out of this desperate clinging to hokey religions.
You get what you pay for, fellas.
If you post it, they will read.
If that doesn't discourage people, we should make sure they know the horrors that various Christian churches have brought upon this world throughout the past 2000 years. We should add some other accurate exhibits documenting the spanish inquisitions, crusades, child molestation, "divine right" monarchy, Paul and others designing the religion for maximum acceptance rather than principles, Martin Luther's hate filled rants. We could even document how the church absorbed heathen holidays and renamed them to Christmas and Easter.
There are at least two definitions of private in play here:
1. Everything not the government.
This lumps businesses and human beings together.
2. Human beings.
This excludes corporations.
Sometimes there is a third definition in which human beings and non-profit corporations get lumped together.
Someone needs to explain this joke to me because I've missed the boat.
Theories have holes. That's what separates them from facts. It's a novel idea.
And Einstein was smart enough to label his theories as "theories". One day, maybe, we'll have all the evidence and knowledge in place to elevate it to "established fact". That will be a long time coming and a lot of work by a lot of smart people.
The supporters of the theory of evolution just want to skip all that nasty business of work and evidence and got straight from theory to established fact practically overnight.
Why?
...why you belong to an organization that claims a monopoly on truth (John 14:6) and yet is closely associated with supersition and pseudoscience.
There's a fundamental issue that precludes Christianity from being compatible with evolutionary theory.
The Bible teaches that there was no death prior to the fall of man. Specifically taught in Genesis, and reinforced in the new testament was that sin entered the world through the actions of one man, and death came to the earth as a result.
Theologically speaking, since death could not have preceeded sin, and sin did not occur until the fall in the garden:
Evolution - which requires a constant cycle of life death and life - is not consistent with the problem of mankind, or the solution - Jesus Christ.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
So, if you can never prove anything, but just have evidence to support your theory, than how does something become an 'established fact?' We'll get back to that one. Furthermore, if a century of scientific research included the various alterations to Darwin's original and nascent theory, that includes observation, testing, peer-review, more testing and observation, as well as the ability to predict certain events, is skipping a 'whole bunch of steps' than what do you suggest should be done in order to prove or disprove the theory of evolution. Oh...wait, you can't because you can never 'prove' anything. We'll get back to that as well.
Finally, you state that evolutionists are zealots who are minions of bad logic and reasoning. I'm going to assume that you are a Christian--since rarely people insult themselves--and are therefore above bad logic and reasoning. Wait...let's go back to your post:
You've stated that nothing can be proven and that evolution is far from established fact. So, wouldn't that make it impossible for evolution to become an established fact? Take this further, since we never prove anything, isn't it possible that you are a dog posting on Slashdot? Or, isn't it possible that you not only don't understand evolution, but don't even understand logic and are just echoing something you read on the web about the 'holes' and 'flaws' of evolution. Isn't it possible that your are a mindless minion of bad logic and reasoning and maybe should take the time to learn about the difference between facts, scientific laws and theories?
But that's just a theory.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
However, what I fail to understand is how people who are supposed biologists can put so much credence in a theory that flies in the face of other established "facts." It is a fact that two different species, when mated, cannot produce reproductible offspring. It has never happened. There is no evidence to indicate that this has ever happened. Yet, somehow evolutionists want us to believe that not only can one species mutate into another, but that they do this in male-female pairs!
I don't know about you, but I think it is a far greater stretch of the imagination to believe that every species derives from a male-female pair of a predecessor species which somehow mutated simultaneously, spontaneously, and identically, and that this happens over and over again throughout history such that it involves every species of life in the universe. The alternative of there being an omniscient and almighty creator that made the universe according to his pleasure and for his good purpose seems a lot more plausible.
"So what are the holes you are talking about?"
Here is an example. The Earth's rotation is slowing down. If it has been slowing down for "billions of years" then why has it not stopped by now? Either it was spinning so fast that it would have flown apart or something comes along and speeds it up every now and then. Or maybe the Earth is not billions of years old. There is a lot of solid science that suggests that the earth could not possibly be billions of years, or even millions of years old. For some reason though, it is acceptable to sweep all problems with evolution under the rug when teaching it so that we ensure that most Americans are as dogmatic about it as most Slashdot readers seem to be.
I know just about everybody else who posted in response took it seriously, but I took it as merely stating the fundamentalist viewpoint towards Darwin and not the actual truth of Darwin's situation.
Then answer this, smart guy.
Sure, #######.
Show me a single-celled organism evolve into a multi-celled organism.
zygote ==> blastocyte.
It is exactly parallel to some essential evolutionary steps, and it happens to everyone!
There are these leaps in evolution that requires some magical altering of how life works at all that evolution just can't explain.
This claim is completely baseless. The leaps of evolution are exactly what does explain how life works. It is, so far, the only theory that adequately explains empirical data on speciation and the differentiation of lifeforms. Just the patterns that ID loves to refer to as *designed*, just the challenges that ID refers to as *irreducible* are the strongest corroboration of the theory of evolution.
You can't expect anyone to believe that you have flowers that rely on bees to fertilize them and bees that rely on flowers to feed on that have managed to "evolve" from some roots.
There are several problems here, beginning with the expectation of belief. No one expects you to *believe* anything. You believe in a God, you accept a theory. An essential insight that you miss is the fact that evolution is opportunistic, not deterministic. Bees eat flower sap because it is there and few other organisms compete for it. Thousands of species of flowers have nothing to do with bees, relying on beetles, ants or birds.
How droll that we are still having this pseudo-debate. I thought this subject tired and thoroughly vanquished thirty years ago in high-school. Now we are further behind than ever. America has been ever superstitious and resistant to authority (scientific or political, even religious). It is the infantile wing of American anti-authoritarianism, and the charlatans that do not scruple to pander to it, which feeds this disease of faith-based doubting.
illegitimii non ingravare
Thank you for this reply, I wish I had the mod points to raise this above his 'argument'.
I would also like to point out that you nailed it with :
"That intelligence did not develop in the last 100K years. It developed over the course of 3.5 million years."
Written history != the whole of human development. I do not know how this idea is propogated, but it does.
However, it vanished without a trace. Which is why it's called "the lost colony."
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Yes, they were. They were fleeing the intolerance of the Anglican Church because the Pilgrims, being Puritan Separatists, would not conform to the more liberal established church in England. They were Calvinists who felt that the English Church had not done enough to root out Romish practices in the Church.
No, you get attacked for attempting to create a theocracy that ALL of the founding fathers would oppose with their dying breath. Morality doesn't imply any particular religion or even religion in general. Infact, some of our religions have practices that are INCOMPATABLE with the sorts of shenanigans twits like you try to pull.
Moral awareness is fundementally incompatable with mindless blind faith. Turning off the brain only leaves you vulnerable to trickery (Jones, Fallwell, Baker, Bush).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
In the arguments that I've had with my family about evolution (brought up in a Christian household, I'm agnostic), I've just pointed out that the early parts of Genesis might just be an allegory, a simple way to fill in a 'back story', which provides a context for the rest of the Old Testament. All civilisations have one and Judaism's is no more or less absurd than, say the Hawaiian stories about Pele.
So lets say God creates the universe. What's more impressive:
A) God creating the universe, earth, plants and animals plus Man to look after them all, in 6 days, using an unexplained superpower 'mojo'. or whatever, Perhaps his angels are on hand to help with burying the fossils, doing the fiddly bits around the fjords, keeping an eye on Satan etc.). I mean he's all powerful, it's a basic construction job. Hardest part was making the materials from scratch and working in the dark for the first couple of days.
Or:
B) God creating the laws and principles that we understand as mathematics, thermodynamics, mechanics, relativity, chemistry, inheritance and selection etc. etc. - lighting the blue touch paper and knowing (because obviously he'd have to be omnipotent) that eventually, on a small watery planet (among others), the conditions for life will result in a race of creatures, who eventually (just before they destroy themselves) begin to gain some small understanding of the beauty and elegance of his creation and their own insignificance within it.
Of course B is just as much an argument for there being no God at all. But isn't that what faith is all about?
There's a far better reason for this corporate shyness. Books on eugenics are popular. I know, I've edited several, including the just-out Lady Eugenist, which details how one of the nineteenth century's most radical feminists, Victoria Woodhull (the first woman to run for President), was also a rabid early proponent of eugenics. In what was perhaps her last public statement, in 1927 the New York Times quoted her praising Buck v. Bell, a 1927 Supreme Court decision declaring forced sterilization constitutional (In 1973, Roe v. Wade continued to refer Buck v. Bell favorably.) Understand Woodhull and you undertand why mainstream feminists are such champions of legalized abortion for poor women. The same can be said about most liberals. Their eagerness to see a poor black woman have the "choice" to abort her baby isn't matched by a similar zeal to give her any choice about how that child is educated.
Check out any book on eugenics in the U.S. and you're likely to find mention of the American Museum of Natural History and several of their better known scientists. They were one of the foremost institutional champions of eugenics and, if memory serves me correctly, of the Darwinian racism that resulted in our nasty 1927 immigration restriction laws.
Like it or not, a belief that those from northern and western Europe were superior to all the earth's other "races" was a dogma once held by those who were also the most zealous defenders of evolution including, covertly, Darwin himself, who found outrageous the suggestion that Australian aborigines were on the same level as people from his race and class.
In July of 1925 the prestigious Forum magazine had two very interesting contrasting articles. One was "Mr. Bryan Speaks to Darwin," by William Jennings Bryan, best known as the fundamentalist opponent of evolution at the Scopes Monkey Trial. The other was the Rev. William Inge, a liberal English clergyman and a great champion of eugenics. The magazine noted that, "It would be difficult to find in all Christiandom a greater contrast between the beliefs of two men professing the same faith."
Bryan, we aren't often told, was such a champion of ordinary people, that he was called the Great Commoner. Inge, known as the "Gloomy Dean," bears quite a bit of resemblance to those who listen to NPR and talk of fleeing "Bush's Amerika" for cheese-loving France. Inge was also the very sort of racist we now link to Nazism. In July of 1925, he told Forum: "America, I am afraid, is becoming less Anglo-Saxon every year.... I know the new immigration laws are designed to preserve the dominance of the Northern European stock.... I doubt whether southern Mediterreans are desirable people to introduce into the country."
That's why the Gloomy Dean clashed with Bryan but got along marvelously with Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. You can read and download the whole story from the discussion of birth control and eugenics at Inkling University.
And no, most corporate executives don't know that history in any detail. But they are clever people, and I suspect they sense that the American Museum of Natural History still has that same feeling of elistist snobbery that once drove it to promote eugenics and dogmas about the racial supremacy of those from Northern Europe. It is, after all, inherent in the very idea of the "survival of the fittest." And they quite rightly don't want to have anything to do with that sort of attitude.
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Eugenics and Other Evils, The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective, Lady Eugenists and (very soon) Free Lover: Sex, Marriage and Eugenics in the Writings of Victoria Woodhull.
Evolution does not guarantee that any structure will form. Intelligence is one solution to a particular set of problems, but the overwhelming number of organisms on this planet survive without even possessing more than one cell. However, that being said, intelligence of any kind will give an organism some specific benefits as far as judging, measuring and accumulating information about the environment. Rerun the tape from say, 500 million years ago, and there's no guarantee that you would have any organism with a brain larger than a few thousand neurons. But once you do have organisms with nerve bundles capable of not only receiving sensory data, but manipulating it, then such a species will overcome some of the barriers to such an expensive adaptation (remember, all structures require energy to develop and maintain, which is eye the biomass of this planet is overwhelmingly unicellular). As each member of a population is going to have some variation, some members will have larger or more complicated neural networks, and providing that such a feature of the primitive brain makes those particular members even slightly more likely to survive and reproduce, then, statistically, you will start to see brain size and complexity increase.
This is precisely what we see with hominid evolution. The earliest bipedal apes had brains little larger than a chimpanzee's. As we can see from modern chimps, a larger brain isn't necessarily required for survival. But for early hominids bipedalism meant a new environment, new pressures that a larger brain would make individual members more likely to reproduce. To loosely paraphrase Richard Dawkins, half a brain is better than no brain at all.
You seem to assume that there is some direction to evolution, that somehow a brain must be an inevitable organ, or that human intelligence is some necessary result of some ladder of evolution. Well, it isn't. It's simply good fortune on our part that a larger neural organ in some distant ancestor gave that critter a slight edge in the survival game. Play the tape again, and you might not have anything more complex than a planarian.
But evolution is not a shit-at-the-wall discipline. It makes some key predictions which have been confirmed numerous times since Darwin's day. The faunal progression was the earliest confirmation, but is no longer the most important. The key evidence for evolution now is the molecular data, which clearly shows, as was predicted, that all extant organisms fit within a nested hierarchy with its root to be found in a single common ancestor. With each species we analyze the genome of, we find this key observation only bolstered. All life on this planet came from a single common ancestral population, probably 3.5 to 3.9 billion years ago, though horizontal gene transfer means that it won't be a single ancestor, but rather a small bush of unicellular organisms swapping genes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Shouldn't that be: Step 4. Jesus Prophets!!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Because to do otherwise would leave you with not a whole lot to spend your evenings on.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I always get a kick out of how mad people become when someone suggests the idea that God created the earth. Why is this such a bad idea? Why is this so bad for science? All I have seen in the posts so far has been anti-religious attacks calling Christians ignorant, non-thinking extremeists who are trying to cause an end to all scientific progress. (They must have forgotten about the many great Christian scientists and thinkers throughout history and today).
So how about it? Why is Creationism so bad?
Science and Genesis are not in conflict.
It seems to be apparent that fundamentalist Christians are taking Genisis literally, which is a mistake.
What really should disturb most people is that science attempts to secularize the big picture, which is definitely a mistake.
There have been many bright people who have made enormous contributions to science. Unfortunately, they have limited their vision by secularizing their own existance as well as attempted to secularize the existance of others. This is tragic and disturbing.
I think there are a lot of forward thinking people out there who do not take Genesis literally and who do not secularize our existance. These are the true enlightened people who have vision for much bigger things than us.
"God does not play games with the Universe." -Einstein
"Just because we can read, write and do a little math does not mean we deserve to conquer the universe" -Vonegut
So you support my point. I say 100,00 years ago the first signs of human intellidence appear, you say over the course of 3.5 million years. How is it we survived? According to the theory of evolution and "survival of the fittest", we shouldn't be here. But we are. Why?
Look at it another way: wouldn't certain animal species that use elaborate mechanisms (think peacock) to attract mates also be more attractive to predators and easier to catch and kill? I mean a peacock can't do shit. *I* can catch one and I'm fat lazy bastard. How come they survived? And how exactly and why did they develop the way they did?
And don't get me wrong. I don't think reading some 4,000 year old book did it. There is some other explanation for it, and I leave it up to the scientists to figure those things out. The theory of evolution is a start, but it IS flawed or in another sense incomplete.
i don't believe in atheists, especially ones that tell people they should grow up in order to stop believing in God, as if God is a childish concept. (now i kinda agree with billy graham being weird and other people too but to just renounce religion is just as sickening as renouncing science)
yes, i know im gonna get modded down to flame or troll or whatever, i don't care, im sick of this shit
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
The easy fix is to abolish the laws that give churches and religious groups tax exemption. Treat them as political groups.
Then it becomes a bit harder for these politicians to hide behind the Bible.
As someone raised Catholic, I find it a bit offensive that people manipulate the Bible for their political gains. None of these "Evangelicals" are really religious. Well, maybe 3% of them. The rest really have no grasp of Christianity. They just follow the political movement.
Here's a way to have fun with them:
Ask them to quote an explain the beatitudes (after they explain what it is first). Anyone who remotely follows Jesus would know what they are. They are considered to be the #1 teaching of his by Christians. It's funny to do. Just be aware most don't even know what they are, and it will get them extremely upset, and perhaps even violent since they get put on the spot. Especially if you do it in front of their church friends.
"Evangelicals" can quote only parts of the bible that relate to politics, but when you ask them something else.. they get very defensive.
I hate politics with a passion. To be totally honest, I don't even know who ran for govenor in my home state. I found out there was an election when they announced the winner. Why? Because I couldn't give a cr@p. Two corrupt people running for the same job. Who cares? Both steal money and take bribes from the same people. Makes no difference to me.
I just get pissed when people start pushing politics in the name of God.
You know who else uses this strategy to push religion? Bin Laden. Osama is nothing more than a Televangelist with iron balls. Both go after desperate people and push their sick political beliefs on them, and claim it's "in the name of [god]" ([god] being whatever term they use to refer to their superior power) . Both have a hatred of those who don't abide by their political beliefs. Difference is Osama is actually convinces people to give their lives for this BS. Televangelists just wants to walk away with their victims hard earned money, and rarely get people to give their lives for it (exceptions for the Eric Rudolphs of the world).
I hate these people. It really is criminal. Just a 200 or so years ago, most evangelicals would have been burnt alive for manipulating the Bible to meet their needs.
We find no bunnies among the dinosaurs or elephants among the trilobites, and thus we have the faunal succession. The genetic data clearly indicates that all organisms we have observed fit within a nested hieararchy, precisely as one would expect if all life we see today descended from a common ancestor.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Perhaps the problem is that the exhibit was not intelligently designed?
great joke, hahahaha!
Christians who no more represent the mainstream of Christianity than the Muslim suicide bombers (who they strongly resemble) represent the mainstream of Mohammedism.
You know how a lot of right-wingers like to attack Islam because (no matter what it does) it doesn't condemn "extremists" enough?
Yeah?
I want to know the same thing about mainstream Christianity. If these people really are completely out of whack with mainstream Christians, then *why* do said mainstream Christians not condemn them and distance themselves from them? If the pope isn't mainstream Christian, I'm not sure who is.
The pretty obvious take on Christianity is that it's a lot of bogus reasoning and emotional argument. *However* that doesn't mean that it's a social parasite -- it can have positive social benefits that outweigh the drawbacks of telling people silly things about the universe. Maybe if you don't tell people that there's a big scaly guy with a pitchfork ready to screw them over if they sin, they'll get along with people better.
Maybe Christianity is another way to fix public good problems in society. Public good problems are instances where rational individuals acting in their own individual best interests wind up having everyone worse off. Government solves the problem some of the time by simply altering the point values so that games are no longer public good problems. Nobody is going to build an interstate highway system, because it does them no good. I'm not even going to build thirty feet, because it does me no good. But *everyone* wins if we have a big road system that spans the whole US.
It looks like Christianity attacks the problem by simply making the agents act in a non-rational manner. Sure, maybe it's better in the short term to steal something, and if everyone stole, society wouldn't work very well and we'd lose out. But if you think that you're going to go to hell if you steal something, then a lot of social problems just go away.
The problem is that for Christianity to be nothing more than a social symbiote, it needs to *not cause problems for society*. One of those is standing in the way of science. Science produces phenomenal benefits for society -- in the past two hundred years alone, the industrialized world has seen huge standard of living improvements and lifespan increases. It's almost without exception a bad way to try to prevent science from moving ahead. The problem is that Christianity often seems hellbent on combatting science, and that's where I start having a real problem with Christianity.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
This just goes to show how religions conflict with sciences. Darwin brought to light evolution and that creatures evolve to their "niches". The galapagos islands have a completley different ecosystem to anywhere in the world, those creatures there have evolved to life on the galapagos over thousands and millions of years. No christian can change that because it is what it is, and no religion will change what darwin had discovered.
They fear the fundamentalists too much. The majority of Christians are fairly reasonable people who aren't going to boycott anything. This is one of those rare issues where companies are excessively defferential towards what they perceive to be a mainstream. Like the bank that stopped using a pig in its advertisement to avoid offending Muslims, I don't think American corporations need to fear fundamentalist Christians nearly as much as they do.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
So, then you can demonstrate evolution for me? When is it a good time for me to see that happen?
I can go to the science lab and I can SEE and WITNESS chemstry happen, and biology and physics.
Do you understand the difference?
Evolution is more of a search for truth than fact, just like any religion. And I don't think it should be taught in a school any more than the Bible should be.
in the stone age (or even the greeks etc.) people thought that any natural phenomena was a work of god(s), even things like lightning, rain, storm, seasons etc. the reason was simple, these people had nothing else but god(s) to explain everything around them.
science has shown us why and how all these phenomena occur, there still are unexplained things in the universe, but do you really want to get on to the same level as a caveman and seek the solution in a god?
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I hope that in a couple thousand years, if we haven't blown up the planet, civilizations will look back at the Christ story and the Biblical creation myths as exactly that, a mythology, one viewed in the same way that we look at the myths of the old Greek and Roman gods.
Second, the rotation of the Earth is slowing down, but not at the rate you think it is. If it had been slowing down at the current rate, then 4.6 billion years ago, a day would have lasted about 14 hours. That is not "spinning so fast it would have flown apart".
I apologize in advance for being a bit thick, but what does predictability have to do with this?
Also, it's true that God cannot be completely comprehended, but the fact that an ordered, non-capricious God created the universe, and He called it good - that fact tells us that the universe should be expected to be ordered and possible to be studied.
The fact that we are here as a result of an intelligent designer makes scientific study a possibility. If everything was random chance, no ideas would have structure or meaning!
Evolution is true - we do see variation within kind. It's measurable, reproduceable, concrete. Speciation through evolution is speculation based on evidence. Creationism is another theory based on philosophy and the same physical evidence. Scientists have a philosophical bias, too.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The problem is that for Christianity to be nothing more than a social symbiote,
..."
That *should* have read "...for Christianity to be a social symbiote instead of a social parasite,
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
You're doomed !!!
"Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." - Nietzsche
"Theory" is used to mean a body of related scientific work - typically work done "on paper" rather than experimental work. People make a distinction between doing "lab work", say, and "theory". When people say "Theory of relativity" there is no implication that this work is tentative and not "established fact". Admittedly, the word "theory" can also be used to mean a tentative hypothesis, and it is even used by physicists in this way, but most physicists are canny enough to distinguish between the two uses of the word "theory". Typically you can tell the difference in context. If a physicsts says "I have a theory that maybe...." then it carries the tentative hypothesis meaning. If the physicist says "I'm teaching the theory of relativity" this semester it carries the meaning of being a body of concepts and formulas that need explaining but that aren't considered tentative.
I know you might find it hard to understand all this but scientists usually don't even have to think to figure out which meaning is intended so I'm sure that with enough practice you can do the same.
It's worth pointing out also that supporters of Creationism make much of this issue and deliberately try to confuse the two meanings of the word. I have always found this bizarre because you can ask any biologist what is meant by the word "theory" in "theory of evolution" and have the issue cleared up in seconds.
Apparently not, it would seem that most of slashdot agrees with you. Kind of sad really.
The response of the slashdot community to these sorts of topics is so predictable. As always, a whole lot of complaining & moaning, a whole lot of courageous statements without a whole lot of backup. Let me respond to a bit of that here. First, many complain about Christians being a minority. Well, in reality that is not true. Now, on SLASHDOT, Christians may be a minority. However, in the United States, where this exhibit is being built, Christians are NOT the minority. Second, many here tote the EVIDENCE of evolution proven by micro-evolution, fruit flies & bacteria & the sort. While this may be true, nothing has been proven in relation to evolution on the macro-scale. IRL, macro-evolution has not been proven. Third, I seriously doubt that many here have done much study into the theories presented by Intelligent Design. There is much more to this theory then most around here would like to admit. Fourth, my suggestion on how to resolve this issue fairly. Get those corporate sponsors to shell out the big bucks for a multifacetted exhibit. Get the proponents of ID to do that exhibit, Evolution, etc. And have two specific parts of each exhibit - the first to define each theory, and the second to give counter-arguments. Anyhow, I am sure this will be modded down, bashed, critisized. But it was fun to speak up for the other side of the fence.
They realized that it when they're fucking chickenhawks who never fought in a war, its probably a bad idea to call a honest to fucking god war hero a coward.
Stupid Bush administration. At least Clinton had the good sense to not get us into wars without the backing of allies in places where we weren't wanted. Also Clinton had a much better excuse for not being in the war, better to be a draft dodger than a deserter.
Unfortunately, you're in the minority.
I don't think that there's actually been much of a shift in the country.
It's just that recently a lot of educated, wealthy city-dwellers left Kansas, deciding that they wanted to live in exciting urban areas.
The political effects of doing this are to simply hand over control of the state to rural residents, which tend to be less educated, more Christian, and more conservative.
Thus, New York City is the intelligent design advocate's best friend. If it was less appealing to move to already-liberal places, states wouldn't be getting increasingly conservative.
Bounce that around in your skull for a few minutes.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I always wonder why people seem to think that the Vatican speaks for all Christians. Don't they realize that Protestants outnumber Catholics in this country (the U.S.), and that more than a small number of Protestants think the Pope is the Antichrist? What the Vatican says about evolution does not hold any weight with me; if anything, it only bolsters my belief that the Roman Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon.
Well, my father is a biologist who taught evolution at a major university for almost 35 years. I tend to seem him quite a bit, so I'd say on average I have more contact with an evolutionist that the average person. I've seen a science lab or two in my lab (a degree in MechE helped with that) but I detest biology, mainly because of the smells, agar in particular.
And there's not this "rebellious son of a evolutionist" thing going on either. I'm no more of a Christian than a frog.
So, to ask a question that apparently can be backed up with facts: how did we develop color vision? Wouldn't we have to have simultaneous and almost instantaneous advancements in both our eyes AND our brains? What's the likelihood of that happening in one generation? Does one do good without the other? So why would one develop without the other?
Isn't evolution supposed to answer that for me? Why or why not?
So you support my point.
Everyone who read our exchange is laughing at this point. I punched holes in your first argument and now you claim I support you.
I say 100,00 years ago the first signs of human intellidence appear, you say over the course of 3.5 million years. How is it we survived? According to the theory of evolution and "survival of the fittest", we shouldn't be here. But we are. Why?
We survived because our intelligence, developed over the course of 3.5 million years, advanced faster than our predators in that same time frame.
Again, you should be getting this from an anthropology text.
Look at it another way: wouldn't certain animal species that use elaborate mechanisms (think peacock) to attract mates also be more attractive to predators and easier to catch and kill? I mean a peacock can't do shit. *I* can catch one and I'm fat lazy bastard. How come they survived? And how exactly and why did they develop the way they did?
Your statement assumes that peacocks of today existed as they did before humans began domesticating animals. If you are looking for an animal that can't protect itself from predators, look at cattle. They can barely give birth to a calf due to the fact that humans have protected them from predators for thousands of years.
Evolution in action.
And don't get me wrong. I don't think reading some 4,000 year old book did it. There is some other explanation for it, and I leave it up to the scientists to figure those things out. The theory of evolution is a start, but it IS flawed or in another sense incomplete.
I would suggest reading Origins of the Species first before claiming evolution doesn't exist. It can be found here.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
At one time everything was ammonia, water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. Then lightning struck and some of that turned into DNA fragments. After a few million years of floating randomly around in the ocean some of those DNA fragments came upon environments where they could catalyze ammonia, water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen to form similar DNA fragments. After a few million years of floating randomly around in the ocean some of those DNA fragments collected together and, after a few more lightning strikes, recruited some fatty carbon chains to encapsulate them. After a few million more years of floating randomly around...
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
As much as I would like to think that companies would stand up and do what they believe in; the fact of reality is .. they don't (well, most). They are concerned about profits, and anything that could potentially harm profits they shy away from.
Which is understandable. If you ran a company, why would you want to involve yourself in controversy? Irregardless if you personally think it's wrong or right. They are there to make money.
My point? They got their money elsewhere.
Good for them, so what's the issue here?
The beatings will continue until Morale Improves!
Why is it that, during an election, most major corporations donate money to both candidates, with no fear of either side being offended, but they can't do something similar here? Why can't they donate money both to the Darwin exhibit and to something of lasting religious significance, like a religious history exhibit for a museum or other public building? In this case, it can be explained as a fundamental respect for both the sciences, and for the diverse religious beliefs of americans.
As a side note, the supreme court has ruled that religious exhibits on federally owned property are perfectly legal as long as they don't discriminate or show favoratism, making this a perfectly legal "victory" brought to you by corporation xyz
I just remember: in Civilization and Civilization II, we have Darwin's Voyage as a Wonder of the World. In Civilization III we have The Theory of Evolution as a Wonder of the World. In Civilization IV (arguably the best Civ until now) we have zippo in this respect. Was Firaxis also afraid of this idiotic controversy?
I no of no theory of abiogenesis that even starts with DNA. The most modern view is early self-replicating molecules which then evolved into an RNA world phase leading to DNA. DNA is not necessary, as can be witnessed by RNA viruses, and RNA can function fulfill a number of roles making it the likely pre-DNA molecule, but itself not the first.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You assume too much.
/., so be it.
I'm not advocating either "side" in this debate of evolution versus creationism. I'm only taking a stance that evolution is a theory and that it's irresponsible of us (scientists in particular) to portray it as fact, because it is not. It is not any more fact than any occurance in the Bible.
If that puts me in the minority camp on
I have yet to meet an anti-evolution protestant who can read the Bible literally. There must be some...but anyone who can get through the first words of Bereshit is not likely to take it literally. A book that begins "In the beginning (plural form of a word for God) created..." (Bereshit bara elohim, in Slash),which starts with 3 different and inconsistent creation legends? Do me a favour. The English translations are mostly cleaned up a bit to make more narrative sense, but if you were to teach enough Intelligent Designers enough Hebrew, you might start to get some sense out of them. Since most of them can't tell their kethibh from their qu're, I doubt it will happen. Sorry about the rant, but the theological illiteracy of evangelicals annoys me even more than their scientific ignorance. At least the Catholics have a tradition of real scholarship- which is probably why, in the end, they have to come to terms with modern science, since it has its roots in the same traditional of earnest enquiry no matter where it may lead.
Pining for the fjords
They realized that it when they're fucking chickenhawks who never fought in a war, its probably a bad idea to call a honest to fucking god war hero a coward.
Did you hear the screams from both sides of the aisle when Jean Schmidt called Murtha a coward?
What a dumbass.
Stupid Bush administration. At least Clinton had the good sense to not get us into wars without the backing of allies in places where we weren't wanted. Also Clinton had a much better excuse for not being in the war, better to be a draft dodger than a deserter.
Well, I'm not sure there is much of a difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to intervention and justification for war. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is still a blot on the Democrats.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
He is just symptomatic of a larger disease in evangelicalism today. It is that we have largely sold out our faith to marketing and conservative politics and have lost sight of Jesus' death to save sinners and reconcile a sinful world to God. Maybe we need another fundamentalism in this country. Back to basics. None of this other stuff masquerading itself as Christianity. No Joel Osteen, no Joyce Meyer, no Pat Robertson, no decision theology, no dispensationalism, no purpose-driven church, no emerging new age church, no psychology gospel, no prosperity gospel, no word of faith, no charismatic neo-montanist garbage, no Benny Hinn, no Kenneth Copeland, none of this... Back to the Bible!
A lot of them also believe that God and Jesus are Americans
I don't know any Christians that think this.
(as it is our Promised Land),
um... no... Read the Bible sometime.
It is amazing to me also the religous fervor over the "Theory" of evolution. We are not allowed to say that a theory is just a theory in school anymore. And the fanatics on the other side, did God create Darwin so you can get your punching practice in? How about we make Darwin blowup dolls to send you to vent your frustrations on. Keep it to yourself please, or least quit giving me a head ache. Darwins theories though wrong have done some good, we must have a balanced view of life to really have life. We must be able to think and reason and make choices otherwise we actually mock our creator. Go home all you fanatics, get some sleep and use your god given brain for a change!
I've heard similar arguments before and they always boggle my mind. If it were true that the peacock's plumage would attract more predators, then there would be no peacocks now REGARDLESS of how they got that way, yes? The whole point is moot. As for the specific example, the birds are naturally skittish and surprisingly tough for their size and weight (read: metatarsal spurs).
Anyway, it's amazing to me how many people say "I have never heard a valid explanation for X, so the theory is wrong" when they clearly haven't done any research on the topic. No, unless you subscribe to the right journals, nobody has mailed you any theories on the evolution of intelligence. No, nobody mentioned it on the subway. You haven't overheard any good conversations on it in any bars. There are people doing a lot of research on the topic, though, even if you haven't been exposed to much of it as a lay person.
I could just as easily say that computer engineering is stupid because nobody took the time out to spoon feed me an explanation of how field effect transistors work. That would be stupid, though. I could just take some classes and read up on the physics and convince myself that these electrical engineers aren't a bunch of crackpots. I have no idea why people get away with lazy armchair criticism of biology when they'd get called on it for so many other topics.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
"Western society is getting so feminized"
Before I jump to conclusions, could you please further
elaborate on your meaning with this statement?
There was a great quote in today's New York Times science section, in an article about evolution in birds on islands:
In one lineage, the monarch flycatchers tripled their body size in less than a million years. "This stuff can happen really fast," Dr. Filardi said.
Yes, that's right. "Less than a million years" is "really fast" in evolutionary terms!
Have you read my blog lately?
Why is that sad? Because they don't all believe in the invisible man that lives in the sky? You should be happy about that!
Look how many people have been killed and the wars that have been fought in the name of religion. It totally dwarfs everything else. It's staggering. Now they're wanting to take away Science because it shines a very bright light into their little nooks.
Stem cell research? Nope, not on their watch. OMG! THAT WOMAN JUST SHOWED HER NAKED, FILTHY PILLOWS ON TV! FINE THEM! Want to teach science? Sorry, you have to include this totally made-up bullshit also and call it an alternative theory even though there is no way to test it.
So that's sad in your eyes? You really want to stand by that statement?
If I understand this correctly, Darwin started out quite religious, slowly came to reject Christianity and the thought of any god at all, then settled on being agnostic. Here's a couple paragraphs that I thought stood out:
Based on the entire chapter (not just the bit I've pasted here), it seems Darwin didn't really like Christianity when he wrote Origin of the Species. Of course, this just explains his beliefs, and doesn't really say how much these beliefs influenced his writing, so I guess it's not really proof of anything.
But whether or not you agree with him religiously, he seemed to put a great amount of thought into his beliefs, and I think he should be respected for that.
When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. --Anatole France
Perhaps you could point out where any biologist is saying that the eyes and the brain in fact developed simultaneous advancements in a single generation, because this smells a lot like a strawman to me. What does your father say?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Just to be clear, you're apologizing to the wrong guy. I didn't post what you replied to above. I was just replying to yours but have no connection with the other guy.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
The problem is that some people actually think this is evangelism. Evangelism is not trying to convince people rationally that there is a God. Evangelism is conveying the Gospel message of sinful humanity, the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, once and for all, that covers all sins, and that man can be reconciled to God by Jesus' perfect life and his death and resurrection. If they don't believe this, nothing else matters. They will still die and go to hell, whether they believe in evolution or ID.
Actually, Darwin did and didn't have anti-religious goals.
Evolution, at the time of Darwin's writing, was a well-understood and widely-recognized phenomenon: that of life being well-suited to the environment in which it lived. What was at issue was (and is) how it got to be so well suited to its conditions. Evolution was actually the best argument for creationism. William Paley wrote a biology textbook (and other things) explaining why evolution entailed a creator. His argument was that a rock, if cut in half and reattached on other faces, was still a rock, and could thus be created by random forces. A watch, on the other hand, could not be assembled any other way and still work, so we know it was the result of studied labor by intelligent laborers. Same applies to life with complex structures, like eyes.
Darwin's big discovery wasn't evolution, it was a materialistic theory of how evolution could occur, called the theory of natural selection. It is that theory, and not evolution itself, that the argument in the U.S. is about.
Now, did he go looking for such a theory with anti-religous intentions? Who knows? Some think yes, some do not, but his intention could have been to provide a lifetime supply of toilet paper to the science community (have you SEEN "On the Origin of Species"?); he produced what he produced, and it works pretty good.
Since he wrote it, advances in understanding geology (among other things) have COMPLETELY invalidated Darwin's original suppositions about how natural selection occurs.
In that light, are the various theories of intelligent design novel or valid? Well, definitely not novel. They could be seen as valid theories, but they are very poorly supported, since the only way to show that such things occur would be to have a lot of people witness an ex nihilio creation of a new form of life. Unlikely.
What distinguishes natural selection is not the "proof" for it, but its ability to roll with punches. Like I said, Darwin's geology was garbage, and his theory for how speciation occurs was tied to it. However, we've gone through three theories of how speciation occurs (off the top of my head) since then, with some butterflies working on providing a fourth. While this does mean that science "flip-flops", at least it's got a better argument than "You just have to have faith that this part happens..."
Right. Well, there's a senior seminar in Philosophy of Evolution in a nutshell...
"A plan's just a list of things that don't happen" -- Mr. Parker, "The Way of the Gun"
The debate of whether or not they were Ribonucleic or Deoxyribonucleic makes zero bit of difference. At the level of zapping a mixture of ammonia, carbon dioxide, water, and oxygen with a lightning bolt the statistical significance of the inclusion of an extra hydroxy is insignificant.
Pardon me. I'll be sure to subscribe to your theory next time. What if you're wrong?
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
I mean a peacock can't do shit.
Actually, they can: their feathers make it them look menacing to would-be predators. Now you may not find it very scary, but then again, you probably don't run around naked eating raw meat either.
The theory of evolution is a start, but it IS flawed or in another sense incomplete.
Why "IS" it flawed? Genetic science sure seems to provide a lot of emperical support for evolution having taken place and still taking place. Aren't you familiar with antibiotics?
see a Text Widget
This drives me nuts.
First off, scientifical theories are not reality. They are a model for someone to understand reality, measure it, predict how things are gonna behave, etc.
Reality is reality. It's there. People look at it, experience it, and have their own notions and explanations.
Someone may look at a book from one angle and say it's a flat rectangle, measuring some 6 by 8 inches with a picture of a panda. Another may be looking at the same book and say that's absurd, that it measures about a half inch by 8 inches and it's a solid color with writing. Yet another may say they are both mad and it's a stack of whitish lines making a 1/2 inch by 6 inch rectangle.
They are all right, and they are all wrong. Each may have a different perspective on the subject, and they are right in the sense that they report what they perceive to be reality but they are utterly limited by what perspective they can gain on the subject unless they are willing to move around. Even if you are able to shift your position or focus, the reality will be much more than what you can even describe.
I think it's worthy to try and look at all the angles and get a more complete feel for what reality actually is. I think science in general is more competent in this way, and is designed to try and understand more angles. Unfortunately, people often confuse the science of something with the actual reality of it. Two separate things. Also sometimes scientifical reports are manipulated to reach a predisposed solution, which is bad.
I also think it's stupid to try and force your interpretation on someone else, especially if that is not even interpretation you acquired directly but a mere repetition of someone else's interpretation. It gets even worse when that is interpretation based on reading scripture that was censored, edited and translated several times, and originally written by people who didn't even see events but heard it from third parties, many many years after the events took place... c'mon people.
In my experience people want so strongly to believe, to belong, to feel good and to have their decisions made for them that they will go through unbelievable routes to suspend disbelief and avoid critical thought. This is especially worse with more intelligent people, they have to work harder to suspend their disbelief and may end up nuttier.
Conceptually I don't even see any conflict between Intelligent Design and Creationism. Why wouldn't an all-powerful force set up natural laws to attain its objectives?
What I think is stupid is trying to twist the interpretation of the reality to fit words in a book that's been completely twisted by earthly interests just because it makes you happy to think that said book is the law of G'd and that's it. It's just crazy.
/* TAANSTAFL */
But whether or not you agree with him religiously, he seemed to put a great amount of thought into his beliefs, and I think he should be respected for that.
The point of the GP was that Origin of The Species is an anti-religious tract.
I've never read anything that supports the "anti-relgious" charge outside of the anti-evolution crowd. Owing to the fact that they make this shit up out of whole cloth, and never respond to anyone who asks for evidence that Darwin was even marginally anti-religious, I tend to dismiss it out of hand.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Overly religious people typically
- lack any form of humour and
- want to prevent progress in the widest sense of the word.
It is in the interest of most religions to keep people as dumb as possible. Religions typically thrive on non-educated people. Institutionalized religions are about power and control, science may take away their power and control. An example of an institutionalized religion is the christian church.
You can sue God out of schools.... :p
You can sue darwin into schools...
but you cant sue corporate donations into museums.... yet
With regards to holes. There's lots of articles written by detractors of evolutionary theory that talk about all sorts of holes and having read them, the holes *THEY* talk about are merely holes due to their own ignorance having not read up on the subject they're critisizing. I've read so many articles citing topics on which evolutionary theory has not given answers then picked up several books in my shelves and found answers to those topics. The main flaw seems to be in thinking natural selection IS evolutionary theory, but it's not. Sexual selection is a prime example of an area the detractors seem to have no knowledge of (i say this based on their arguments i've read on the web and in books). I've seen these same ignorances wildly quoted as holes again and again. Promoting the idea of Intelligent Design by playing on peoples ignorances just doesn't seem very christian to me.
Anyway, since when is a hole in one theory any proof of another. Most Intelligent Design arguments are based on this most simple of logical fallacy. A hole in evolutionary theory does not in any way make creationism any more likely!
And to compare evolutionary THEORY to Intelligent Design being a THEORY is equivocation and another obvious logical fallacy.
51percent? is that the same 51 percent that voted for bush i wonder? hmmm anyway what i suggest is that they should teach everyone in america genetics. i have done some genetics at university and when you understand that you realise how evolution actually works and it then becomes pretty much undeniable. A little too complex to teach kids though, maybe a simpler way to explain it would be quite useful.
I read a few other things that should be taught in schools right along with ID and they have just as much scientific backing as ID does to:
1. We live in the Matrix! That's right, you heard me. Giant robot octopi from the future are using you as a human battery while your brain flits about inside a large computer. Oh and Keanu Reeves is the messiah!
or if you prefer...
2. The Lord of The Rings is a historical religous text that tells the history of our world. Humans are descended from Hobbits and JRR Tolkien was the messiah!
Seriously you religous nuts, even the Roman Catholic church, the analest of the anal christian churches, has given evolution the green light! Only 2 current fundamentalist movements are on record as saying that Genesis needs to be read word for word and not abstractly. All the rest are on the side of real science on this one so why is this minority of twits getting it's way?
This is a side question but related to the universe as a whole...
What does the space for the Universe come from? The size is beyond comprehension. Okay maybe it is infinite. Well where did the space for it come from to begin with?
During the same time, our predators were getting faster and stronger and we were getting....smarter???
Sure, if you live in the modern world with the internet and taxi cabs and books and shit, that'd be a big deal. But if you're some ancestor of ours out in the wild, you'd be pretty low on the totem pole, so to speak, in terms of survivability. So how is it we did it? Before intelligence we had every disadvantage.
Which would you take in a fight: an unarmed man or a bear? a gorilla? a crocodile? a shark? a dog? I wouldn't want to face any of these alone in the wild. We were fundamentally physically unequipped to survive in the wild 3.5M years ago.
Domestication is not evolution. We have domesticated cattle, not caused a genetic mutation that makes them different from previous generations. Close and distant relatives of the domesticated cow continue to survive in the wild, human intervention or not. Buffalo roamed the plains of North America for millenia before humans with no problems.
Amen, Brother Beavis.
And I thought I was the only one.
I don't get why ID has to be taught in schools, or why it's such an important fight to draw a line on.
I don't see evolution as a big threat. Does it really make Man any lower than the doctrine of The Fall or Original Sin does? Does it necessarily deny the existence of a creator? Does that really take away any capacity to move from a fallen state and be Spiritually born of God, which is the important part of Christianity anyway? The only thing it really seems to threaten is some specific, literal readings of the Creation account in Genesis.
It just seems like a weird bone to pick.
Tweet, tweet.
Fundimentalists that insist on a literal interpretation should be called to task as Heretics. I will argue that a Fundimentalist that reject his intellect is rejecting one of God's greatest gifts.
Think global, act loco
Reptiles have been around a long time - if I remember my natural history correctly, dinosaurs evolved from them, not the other way around. But you have the general idea right - birds are the decendants of a particular group of "dinosaurs" - probably raptors.
And pigmentation in humans is due to relative exposure to sunlight. Remember that in northern and southern climes, overall daylight ranges from extremely little in winter to lots in summer. People in those locales took to caves, huts, etc. to protect themselves from extreme weather and sun. Since the weather was a bit more mild (and length of daylight less varied) in equatorial environs, people stayed in the sun a lot more. Natural selection there favored those who had the ability to produce more melanin - in northern climes, natural selection worked on other factors - melanin production was needed less and therefore wasn't selected against.
And, of course, anyone today arguing for natural selection to work against idiots is labeled a Eugenecist... Be careful with labels!
Forgive my ignorance, as I am not well versed in bible study as I do not follow any religions. From what I did learn at a younger age, though one could assume that Darwin's theories of evolution are not entirely that far from how the bible says life began. I see no reason why the two ideologies cannot coexist even if they are unable to support each other factually or otherwise. A belief in evolution in no way diminishes the idea of a higher power creating the seeds of life. I however do tend to lean toward life on our planet having evolved as there is direct evidence of evolution in many species. For me the thought of intelligent design is suggestive of a being who is perfect and able to predict the future of life and what every organism on the planet needs to ensure it's survival is a bit far fetched. The study of nature itself teaches us that there is nothing perfect in nature, no straight lines, no perfect circles, these are all man made. The earth is not perfectly round, with so many imperfections in the universe, I have to lean toward evolution.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I'm not suggesting that anyone has tried to sell me that bill of goods. But it is a worthy question: why would you have color receptors in your eyes if your brain couldn't make sense of the information? and why would you develop color stimulus in your brain if you had no data to interpret?
So that would generally lead down the path of a genetic mutation. But that's a lot of stuff happening at once or in a few generations.
As an evolutionist, he has no answer. As a geneticist/scientist, he says "we're working on that". That's the kind of answer I like.
There's a reason that there's no denying - because science does not generate facts. Via empiricism, it generates hypotheses which can contribute to theories that may eventually be so well supported that they're expressed as laws.
About the only fault that can be found there is Hume's observation that empiricism (it worked the same before, it should work the same again) is a circular argument in that we keep using empiricism because if empiricism worked before, empiricism should work again... But since every intellectual endeavor has similar logical weaknesses if you look closely enough (let me get this straight - the bush was on fire, and talking to you?), it's a choice as to which job you take - poet, philosopher, scientist, shaman, etc...
Science is the endeavor which seems to be best at making sure you know why the sky looks like that today and what will happen if you stand in front of a moving bus. It's useful. It can lead to awe. Not a bad day's work.
So there's a first problem with the creationsism and ID crowd - contending that evolution is not a fact. Science concedes that. Science is not about generating facts anymore than religion is. The too-literal scientist will be unpleasantly surprised when the outlier scenario occurs and the damn thing blows up. The too-literal cleric will have a heck of a time explaining how one set of parents had a set of kids who then populated the earth (the admitted incest of their kids has been labeled an OK thing just for them, just in that time - situation ethics at its best, sonething most fundamentalists abhor).
My problem is that if ID is what's at work, then you have big problems negating random genetic variation, radiocarbon dating, and natural selection. If the basis of radiocarbon dating (radioactivity and decay) is false then the sun doesn't fire and it's OK to picnic in the reactor core. If random genetic variation is false, then these two lone deciduous teeth in my jaw and the two-piece navicular bones in my feet are just cruel jokes played on me by an intelligent but way too detail-distracted designer. As far as natural selection, lots of those IDers have goofy looking dogs - their owners can trace their dog's heritage back to a few thousand years ago (way more recent than even the earliest of the young-earth ages). They got those goofy (and by goofy I mean not a wolf) dogs by unnaturally selecting mates and isolating these breeders from the rest of the population, thus accelerating the rate of change in successive generations. But somehow this process can't occur naturally?
I'm a scientists and a Catholic. I've never seen any true conflict between the two. When I want inspiration in the good that we can do and archetypical stories of the human condition, I read scriptures (as well as Shakespeare, Heinlein, Steinbeck, Helprin and even Charlotte's Web). When I want to make sure I don't get hit by a bus or drown, I read a textbook and check out experiments. It's a case of "Pray to God but row towards shore".
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Like I said, Darwin's geology was garbage,
Well, I'm not so sure it was his but more Lyell's geology.
In that light, are the various theories of intelligent design novel or valid? Well, definitely not novel. They could be seen as valid theories, but they are very poorly supported, since the only way to show that such things occur would be to have a lot of people witness an ex nihilio creation of a new form of life. Unlikely.
The scenario you posit is one of proving a negative, which is fundamentally 'unscientific'. As I mentioned in another post, what is necessary for ID to gain any credibility is at least two foundation elements:
1) a scientific definition of what constitutes 'irreducible complexity'
Irreducible complexity is the core of the ID argument. There is no way to construct a hypothesis that supports Intelligent Design without relying on the idea that there was intervention that circumvented radom processes to *create* the world as we see it. To date, the definition of irreducible complexity is about as workable as SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: "...I know it when I see it..". There is no way to create an experiment with such a loosely constructed nomenclature. Until we know what we are looking for, everyone can claim to have found evidence supporting ID.
2) identifying intelligent design components
This second part is the testable part of ID. When there is a working definition of what constitutes irreducible complexity, then the job of separating those elements of nature that were intelligently designed, as opposed to those which grew from random processess, can begin in ernest. Whether it is the binding force of the atom 10E-22 seconds after the Big Bang, or genetic coding that jumpstarted the development of an organism, an intelligently designed natural phenomenon (which I contend is an oxymoron) can be cataloged and an actual experiment is constructed from a hypothesis.
Ten years after Behe's book, there neither of these founding elements can be found in any of the thousands of pages published by the concept's proponents.
Nor do I believe they will they ever emerge.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I hadn't seen that quote from Galileo before, and it pretty much sums up my views on creationism.
Having a scientific type of mind, I have to acknowledge the possibility that yes, the world was created "as is" a few thousand years ago, fossils and all. Assuming the existence of an omnipotent Higher Being (God, FSM, Loki, your deity of choice), who is presumably capable of anything and hence can get all the little details just right to fool us, then there is *by definition* no way we could know the difference. In fact, with enough attention to detail, the whole lot could have been created yesterday, or five minutes ago, including everybody's memories of alleged events prior to the point of creation, and we would not be able to tell. Whether I believe it has no bearing on whether it is the truth.
Given that we by definition can't know which is the truth, what is one to believe?
Consider this exchange:
Student: "How did the Himalayas get there?"
Teacher: "God put them there."
Student: "Oh. Well, how can cheetahs run so fast?"
Teacher: "God made them like that."
Student: "Oh. Well, why are there so many diseases killing people?"
Teacher: "God makes them do it."
Student: "Oh. I'm going to go watch tv."
(this seems to be where America is at now.)
See where I'm coming from? Creationism, to any sort of inquiring mind, is *boring*! The answers are all the same!
Man's understanding of his world has been a continual movement from explaining phenomena in terms of gods (lightning? Thor!) to explaining it in terms of natural processes and forces ("clouds rubbing together" *cough* I hate pop science sites). I don't see any reason why this should not continue. I believe in trying to explain occurrences in terms of things that we understand. If we don't understand the causes for something, then hey, that's another opportunity to go learn something!
By all means teach ID. Teach FSM. Teach Buddhism. Teach whatever it is pygmies in the rainforests believe (I apologise for my ignorance). Teach Evolution. I don't much care whether you call it all science or religion, there seem to be enough people who can turn either one into the other, the key thing is to give the darling (*cough*) little mites _all_ the evidence and teach them to think for themselves and make their own decisions. Make sure they understand that there are _facts_ ("these are microbes and these are fish and there are these similarities in their DNA") and there are _theories_ ("God created them all" or "some microbes evolved into fish, some evolved into different things") and what the difference is between the two.
In the more than futile search of a way to get the religious fanatics that I unfortunately am often bombarded by to back off, I've formulated an alternative complimentary theory of intelligent design that takes their emotional attachment to faith in the highly scientific reverend they listen to as well as actual scientific theory. On both topics I am not an expert. I am however well versed in the arguments most often presented by both sides.
First of all, let me clarify that I am an atheist minister and missionary. I feel it is my personal responsibility to dispute anyone who feels their right about anything no matter how much proof is available. I believe in the only two certainties being death and taxes. I also will gladly present myself as an expert on a vast array of fields that I am not qualified to even say the names of. So now that the disclaimer is presented, I'll continue forward to ensure that my opinion will be preached and spread. (P.S. I don't believe this, but consider it a better alternative to intelligent design or creationism). Also for the sake of influencing the religious weirdos, I've chosed to ignore fact in favor of truth and also chose to pretend that politics had nothing to do with the evolution of any religion and lean towards the "God said so" idealism.
Intelligent design and the alternative beliefs including big bang and evolution do not necessarily need to be exclusive. This theory as I present it merges the classical beliefs of the theologian and the modern beliefs of the educated and unite them together as a single common belief. This theory obviously needs to "Throw a few punches" at the old beliefs in order to justify the need for a more intelligent design theory.
It is important for me to clearly state that intelligent design is not in fact a theory or even a valid belief as much as a buzzword that can be used to draw god into th educational system. Intelligent design is nothing more than an incomplete idea that is used to sound smarter without actually understanding the idea at all.
It is also important to clarify that truth is religious. Fact is scientific. Fact require that something is indisputable, for example, 2+2=4 is fact. Absence makes the heart grow fonder is truth.
So let us lay the bricks for the theory of intelligent design. I will attempt to use arguments that are no weaker than any other truth in religion. I will leave it to the smarter people to expand on my theories and make them at least as credible as Christianity.
Judeism was a religion that although believed to exist long before, was in fact formalized as a faith and belief during the times of King Ramses II in ancient egypt by the king's "adopted" grandson Moses. Before this, although monotheistic beliefs had been experimented (such as the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten's Atenism several generations earlier) with, the "civilized" world at the time was a society of polytheistic belief. Moses raised awareness of the monotheistic system (some say with the help of witches trying to cause the downfall of Ramses) within his people, the nomadic tribe of the Jews. Upon their grand Exodus, Moses spoke with God and wrote the first ten laws of the Jews, the Ten Commandments. By some beliefs (although I am not a yeshiva graduate) Moses himself transcribed the five books of Moses, others belief it was transcribed as dictated by God in later times. Also, certain rules were presented. For example, Kosher, the diet handed down from God to keep the Jews pure (an some would say at least alive in the desert while travelling 40 years). I can tell this story for hours or days, but we all know it, it has been around for a while. I'll makes notes of the interesting parts are required if needed.
As the Christian belief system came around (conveniently when most needed, around the time of the not quite sane Emporer Caligula Caesar) and already as forming a following in Rome, and King Herod Agrippa was lining himself up to be the prophesized son of God to the world, things began to change. Although
It seems reasonable enough that color receptors might simply be a neutral mutation. That is they do not require so much energy during developmental stages to necessarily be delerious to an organism that possesses them, but not the neural hardware to process the information. The talkorigins.org site has any interesting article on this very topic The Evolution of Color Vision which shows that, in fact, photoreceptivity is actually much more complex than you may even think.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What even makes you think we have to fight those predators to survive? Evolution is not guided by mano-a-mano cage matches between animals. If you have read any material on it and still believe that's how it works, you're obtuse or intellectually dishonest.
Bears and gorillas are omnivorous, and do not hunt for large prey. Crocodiles only live in swampy areas, and are easy to escape because they have a very poor turning radius. Sharks live in the friggin' ocean. A pack of dogs (I assume you mean some kind of non-domesticated canine like a wolf) usually only attacks individual prey, especially if the prey is as big (or bigger) as they are.
Humans are equipped with enormous endurance which allows them to run prey into exhaustion, though anthropologists believe nearly all of their diet came from fruits and vegetables anyway (something on the order of 90%). Even basic tools like sticks give a large advantage to their users. A human in excellent physical condition is not something to be trifled with... after a punch or kick to the face a wild dog will have something to think about.
As far as the evolution of cattle is concerned, I have no idea what your point is with that paragraph. What does the existence of buffalo have to do with cattle? With the selection pressures normally present in the wild removed, many animals that would not normally pass on their genes are able to. This changes the attributes of the domesticated population.
During the same time, our predators were getting faster and stronger and we were getting....smarter???
Who said our predators were getting faster and stronger?
You have evidence to support that assertion?
Sure, if you live in the modern world with the internet and taxi cabs and books and shit, that'd be a big deal. But if you're some ancestor of ours out in the wild, you'd be pretty low on the totem pole, so to speak, in terms of survivability. So how is it we did it? Before intelligence we had every disadvantage.
So do rabbits. We could climb trees and survived for several million years in trees before the jungle changed to savannah.
Which would you take in a fight: an unarmed man or a bear? a gorilla? a crocodile? a shark? a dog? I wouldn't want to face any of these alone in the wild.
You discount the advantange that prey have: rapid gestation and ovulation cycles.
Did you factor this in when you created your argument?
We were fundamentally physically unequipped to survive in the wild 3.5M years ago.
We didn't look anything like we do now 3.5 million years ago.
Domestication is not evolution.
Domestication is an evolutionary mechanism.
We have domesticated cattle, not caused a genetic mutation that makes them different from previous generations.
You have evidence to support your conclusions?
Close and distant relatives of the domesticated cow continue to survive in the wild, human intervention or not.
Really? Where?
Here in the US there is only the Longhorn and it shares few traits with the domesticated varieties we raise for beef.
Buffalo roamed the plains of North America for millenia before humans with no problems.
By sheer number.
How are they doing now?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
There's an all-out war to preclude any public religious speech in this country. Don't believe that? Why is the ACLU filing suit against Las Cruces NM for having Crosses in their logo? the town is known as "THE CROSSES!" It's revisionist history at best. It's persecution of the Christian worldview at most. It's troubling either way.
There's a movement of people hostile to the Christian worldview and this step is the next one in the removal of my freedom of speech and in the battle for the minds of American children. Perhaps you will perceive me as being alarmist or extremist, but I feel strongly that my civil rights are at risk.
The Evolution/ID debate is simply the latest front in the culture war between people who believe in absolute truth and those who do not. Evolutionary theory is a reflection of a worldview that is in stark contrast to the Christian worldview. Why is it that so-called scientists are troubled that there might be an alternate explantion which is different from the explanation acecpted by the crowd? The religion of scientists seems to be as scared of revolutionary ideas as the church at one time was of Galieo's theories.
I think that speciation through evolution is a terrible idea, and is simply untrue. It's not provable or falsifiable for that matter. Why should this be taught? Because the current conventional wisdom is that this is true? I submit to you that the concept of speciation through evoolution will be considered archaic bad science in 100 years.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
That is evolution. That is evolution happening in *one* generation.
This test is done every day in every large chemical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics company in the world, thousands of times. It is an industry standard. It is observable, repeatable, and proveable.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation sez that there have been roughly 10 trillion generations of bacteria in the history of life. If we can see bacteria go from starving to suddenly able to digest and live on lactose in just one generation, how much more could they do in 10 trillion generations? Develop eyes? Seems pretty low-caliber to me. Imagine how much more they could've done in that period if intelligently guided: we'd all be immortal, telepathic, and flying.
(here's a partial discussion of mutagenesis and restriction plating.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
We will be a more advanced society when we let our macho instincts run rampant.
So much sexism in so few words.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
During the same time, our predators were getting faster and stronger and we were getting....smarter???
Sure, if you live in the modern world with the internet and taxi cabs and books and shit, that'd be a big deal. But if you're some ancestor of ours out in the wild, you'd be pretty low on the totem pole, so to speak, in terms of survivability. So how is it we did it? Before intelligence we had every disadvantage.
We developed spears, atl atl, knives, all sorts of really high tech weapons. Plus we were really good at hiding, running away, scavenging and hunting in packs.
Which would you take in a fight: an unarmed man or a bear? a gorilla? a crocodile? a shark? a dog? I wouldn't want to face any of these alone in the wild. We were fundamentally physically unequipped to survive in the wild 3.5M years ago.
Instead of one unarmed man try twelve, set a trap for the bear, have bear steaks.
Domestication is not evolution. Yes it is. It's an example of artifcial selection.
It's time to shout down these religious fanatics. I propose that all advances made by scientists be made unavailable to these nutbags. No vaccines. No modern medicine. No gene therapy. No DNA testing allowed in court cases where they're the defendant.
I'm sick of our President and his advisors who pander to these nutbags.
Evolution may be God's intelligent design. And by "god" I mean whatever invisible, supernatural friend and corresponding infallible magic book that provide you with a sense of purpose and comfort.
By what mechanism is the "Designer" in Intelligent Design supposed to operate?
What processes are invoked in order to create the designed structures, and at what point do these processes occur?
What is the point of having creatures with the ability to adapt and spawn new species, if to create descendent creatures, the 'designer' must continually intervene?
Is there a way to test for the influence of this designer?
Finally, if a designer exists, how were they designed? If the structures needed to create intelligence are too complex to occur by any method other than design, where did the designer come from?
How is ID different from creationism? Creationism states that the universe was created by God using divine powers. Intelligent Design states that the life was influenced by a designer using undetectable powers. Both assert the necessity and power of a presence that cannot be tested for and is entirely unknowable.
The problem with your argument is that random events do exist. Random mutations happen daily on Earth- even President Bush is suggesting we stockpile antivirals in the event that bird flu mutates. Bacterium have become more resistant to manmade antibiotics, which have only been in use for sixty years. People get cancer- a chance mutation of cells within their bodies.
If there is some 'supra-random' force at work, that would be a fascinating field of study. In fact, I believe that statistical analysis and other research would be a great place to start with that.
The debate over ID isn't really about whether or not God exists. It's about whether or not logical processes, of the sort that we as humans (and especially as programmers) use daily can operate -without the influence of the supernatural-. Occam's razor suggests that looking at the system without the influence of some supernatural being makes the most sense.
As an aside, are you sure you dont' see the connection between ID and creationism? You don't see that the people supporting ID have a vested interest in getting their ideology into classrooms? What I find fascinating from IDers is the foregone conclusion that the Designer in question is God.
What happens if it isn't...?
It's not what you know, or even who you know- It's how many people recognize your damn
Remember Galileo?
Contraception?
Condoms?
And like those examples there are many. The problem fundamentslists have with science is that natural phenomena are shown not to need the will of a god to happen.
That is why they are scared shitless. Science is slowly but surely buring their fary tale world. And that of course feels them with fear.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
you lose
google china
Well, you know there are Christians outside of America. Quite a few of them actualy.
Moral can exist without religion.
I hope even you can appreciate that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
>> Most disturbing.....
>> and if we are not careful, we are going to lose our edge.
What I find disturbing is that there are postings saying that Christians are against science. That is completely wrong. Modem science as we know it today would not exist had it not been for most of the great scientists who where Christians. Here are just a few scientists who where Christians:
Agassiz, Babbage, Bacon, Boyle, Cuvier, Davy, Faraday, Fleming, Herschel, Joule, Kelvin, Kepler, Lister, Maury, Maxwell, Mendel, Morse, Newton, Newton, Pascal, Pasteur, Riemann, Stokes
The problem with evolution is that it is not science. It is metaphysical theology.
It makes for nice copy but just who did they ask for funding? If they asked the 700 club then it is not surprising. If they asked Monsanto then that would be. Without that key piece of iformation this is just another Eurotrash trashing the US story.
I just saw Santa Claus at the mall. So there!
By completely dismissing intelligent design, you're claiming that humans will never possibly be able to intelligently design computer simulations that accurately model our own universe and is complex enough to simulate life as complex as ourselves.
But if you do believe that humans will eventually be able to intelligently design computer simulations powerful enough to model our own universe and support life (consider the earth simulator project), then you cannot simply dismiss the idea that we ourselves might be part of a grand simulation created by an intelligent designer.
"When will you scientists and "scientists" eventually understand that ID advocates are usually not against science." When will you "ID proponents" and evangelists understand that ID advocates are very much against "science" because they refuse to play by scientific "rules" in thier attacks against what they see as flaws in Evolutionary theory. Evolutionary Theory (not Darwins Theory) has tons of evidence and over a hundred years of research and observation to back it up. ID has "We don't agree with the implications we percieve from the evidence and observations of evolutionary theory, so we want the whole structure thrown out to make room for our viewpoint"; meanwhile overlooking that the structure as a whole is based on the solid foundations of several other fields of science that are not being questioned along with evolutionary theory. But the real flaw in the arguement: "What the oposition says is that ID is currently of similar value as Darwin's theory and until any of them is actually proven, none has higher value and shouldn't be taught as fact. " ID offers no compelling evidence, experimental or thru observation, in support of its "theory". Plus it does nothing to explain any other conclusions (that still fit in the framework of known science) that address the existing body of evidence that has already been gathered thru other fields of science in support of evolution. "It is to call back to scientific virtues of proving rather than believing something..." ID's very foundation is rested on an unproven belief. And so far in the whole debate, ID has made NO scientifically valid attempt to offer any "proof" that contradicts evolution. Before you want to question the value of others beliefs, you need to have a few answers for your own.
Is science the only discipline that matters any more? Is there no room for theology, philosophy, ethics?
Is this a false dilemma I see before me?
Yep.
Thanks for admitting that you're raising children who will be ill-equipped to deal with modern society.
I suppose my reaction to my child coming home from school and asking me, "what's all this intelligent design stuff" would be similar but exactly opposite. Proof, you know, that the terrorists have truly won and the United States has become a theocracy.
"What happened to our Christian duty as parents to be responsible for our children's education? If they're teaching my son something in school I don't agree with, I can counsel him at home, or he can learn it in Sunday School. But I don't have to try to offer some watered-down godless alternative to present to the public."
The problem, of course, is that you wish to teach your children fairy-tale versions of reality. If you wish you raise your children in ignorance, don't blame the Evolutionists when your kids can't get into college (by that, I don't mean Oral Roberts University) or land a real job.
Now you may not find it very scary, but then again, you probably don't run around naked eating raw meat either. Not to mention that he, as a human, has the EVOLVED intelligence to know better. A woudl be predator isn't as intelligent as a human, and is intimidated by it, which is part of the peacock's survival skills.
... for medieval and primitive societies.
For technological, democratic, inidividualistic societies religion is probing to be a divisive obstacle to progress.
If religious types would keep their nonsense to themselves I would have no problem with religion. But the ones that are not trying to kill you, are trying to convert you, to control how you live or to judge your actions. They simply have no space in a modern, advanced society based in mutual respect.
The sooner we manage to convince people of the lack of any redeeming value of religion for modern, intelligent, rational people, the better.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What if I don't believe in hell?
Something, which I may add, evolved to be part of what the peacock is today, since it HELPs the survival of the species against predators.
I study evolution. I've watched it occur in populations of bacteria. I do not accept the whole of the theory without question, if I did I would not be a scientist. What I do accept is that species change over time, not because I've been told they do, but because I've watched it occur. With my own eyes. In front of me. Now, tell me why I should ever listen to your half-baked, crackpot theory, I'm intrigued as to how it could possibly advance my understanding of the natural world. Until you can tell me that, I will continue thinking that you're an idiot.
Of course, Jamestown also predated the Pilgrims' arrival, and Jamestown was much more like Roanoke than it was like Plymouth. Well, except for the whole surviving thing.
I hope these Atheist idiots cry out more and more because we're finally starting to see what these people really are. The more they bellow out, the more intelligent people will just shake their heads and move on with their lives. This will be the death-nell for Atheism and it's about time. It's time for these idiots to grow up and stop believing in Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny and for them to STAY THE F*** OUT OF MY LIFE. I was one for tolerance. For letting people do what they wish and believe in what they wish in the privacy of their own homes. But now this minority...yes they're in a minority...of Atheist a**holes is now effecting my life, and in a very negative way.
:P
See what ranting does for you.
You sound just as reasonable as a really conservative christian talking about ID. You have no respect for the other sides beliefs.
Murphy's law is recursive, washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
This is considered a troll post now adays? It didn't even make sense.
Also, TechnologyX seems to be trying to go for the most modded down person on Slashdot, yet he can't even do that right.
Weak.
You're not taking into account two key facts:
1. Predators generally don't kill more than they need for their survival. The fact that a predator is around who will always win in a 1 on 1 fight doesn't mean there will be 0% of prey left. There is an interdependency as predator needs prey for its own survival.
2. Conversely, the "prey" needs the predators to grow more resistant itself. Don't forget that predators aren't just lions and tigers.. it's also viruses.
We were fundamentally physically unequipped to survive in the wild 3.5M years ago.
And you really think that the folks 3.5M years ago were metrosexuals? The recurring flaw in your argument is that you're taking consuming-oriented modern-day humans and projecting their characteristics both on humans of then and the predators.
see a Text Widget
However, we can make predictions and in all cases evolution has suceeded that trial by fire.
Really, you want evolution to be a metaphysical truth like the soul, but it's as real as any other science. Intelligent Design is to Evolution as Chemistry is to Alchemy.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
The idea of the eye being like a camera and the brain just has a raw feed and does image processing neatly in one area is seriously flawed.
At the back of the eye the 'data lines' mesh into each other, and with data lines from the other eye. The meshing is like a neural network, and does huge amounts of image processing.
(People who have damaged one eye from a laser, like I stupidly did last week, find that it can affect vision in the other eye due to the meshing of neurons. Luckily I retained my vision, mostly.).
The brain recieves a highly filtered and analysed scene, well before it reaches the image analsis part of the brain. So you can see that if the eye developed color receptors, the neurons can make use of this information before the brain has to.
A frog's. for example, sees movement and circular and partly circular objects, just in the eye. That information comes just from the meshing of the neurons and is sent to the brain along with (some) of the raw info.
I have some mod points but I am not going to use them on this topic as there needs to be more appropriate options.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Yes Any great literary person is, by it's nature, anti-scientific.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
The oldest science I have direct experience with comes in the form of Qigong which is an ancient medicinal discipline dating back to at least 4000 years ago. Then again, the modern "scientific" medical community has laughed derisively and dismissed 4000 years of such "science" as nonsense. Things have begun to change recently largely do to the preponderance of anecdotal evidence citing dramatically improved health that correlates with Qigong. As a scientist, I am not saying it is causal; I am just saying there is enough of a correlation that people have stopped laughing.
So China has had a scientific tradition for 4000 years, in which case, they may win the prize for longest lasting scientific civilization, or if you are one of the derisive laughers they are just barely stepping into the scientific world and Europe with only a couple hundred years headstart which is nothing to a civilization that has spanned 4000 years. Then again, many different governments have come and gone in China in that time. Has the society survived that? I'd say that as a nation, the Chinese have had a continuous cultural identity that entire time so, yes.
As far as intelligent design goes, these people are not saying that the scientific method is crap. Not as far as I can tell, and if some are, they are the minority idiots that no one needs to worry about because they are so incapable of rational thought they are not likely a threat to anyone other than themselves. The smart people that support intelligent design are just saying that they believe there are gaps too large in the evolutionary path to be accounted for by Darwinian evolution, as in: over time mutation and natural selection lead to species differentiation in harmony with the organisms habitat. They are not saying that science is crap. They are saying that they feel there are gaps in science that need to be accounted for and are not yet.
I think every scientist worth his or her salt would readily acknowledge that there are gaps all over the place in science. That is what drives us to further discovery. Our curiosity about that gaps. And the intelligent design people are right, if they are saying there are gaps in evolutionary theory. Damn right there are. Did Darwin figure out every evolutionary trick up Nature's sleeve in his lifetime? Have we filled in all the gaps in a couple hundred years, keeping in mind that Nature has been playing this game for hundreds of millions of years at least? No way.
If we some day find a periodic genetic record of a protozoan evolving into homo sapiens, then yes, we could certainly make a very conclusive argument. But I think anyone will agree that it is absurdly improbable that we can do that. Which means that scientists have to take a leap of faith just like any religious person. Every theory or law of physics is a leap of faith. "What if this is true," asks a scientist. Then they go devise real world experiments to show conclusively that the supposition is true. Intelligent design people are saying that Darwin's theory is not supported by enough real world experiments to show a protazoan evolving into you.
Can't really argue with them. Any scientist that discounts God because there is no experiment to conclusively demonstrate existance is as dumb as a person discounting science because it does not conclusively show that my Great^10^100 Grandfather was an amoeba.
This issue doesn't effect me because I am a devout "Frisbeeterian". We believe that when you die your soul gets stuck on the roof, it just lays there fading in the sun and no one can get it down.
I lost my sig...
Its a shame both sides are filled with rabid anti-reason ideologues. See here for a more reasonable opinion.
Reading the headlines it strikes me that we are talking about scientists and fundamentalists. Reading the comments on this article I wonder if there is any differenc ebetween these two. Okay, scholars tend to have a firm stand in their own theories and beliefs but this evolution/creation discussion goes a bit beyond that. Even if one or the other case became clear to be true no faction would ever admit being wrong. And that is the real drawback in this discussion, it's more than a scientific debate, it's actually about "Does God exist". Quoting the pope and some known christians who abandon the idea of intelligent design would not admit the non existence of God and so they don't really count as a pro-Evolution argument. After all, we are talking about theories, aren't we? As much as I know, there has been neither evidence for one or the other shown so far and maybe things are much better explained with a third theory?
I'm a non-practicing Catholic, but Catholic none the less.
And I always have to point out that the Catholic Church supports the idea of evolution.
It is only the biblical literalist/Evangelicals that have mounted an attack on scientific thought, ironically this was the Chatolic Church's bread and butter previously.
Oh how the tables have turned.
I'm really not sure how a thousands of years old, multiply-translated document with multiple authors across various time frames can be read literally...
"Women and men are different. I know that is not a popular opinion, but the boobies and the having kids thing kinda comes to mind."
That's a nice, provable biological difference.
"Maybe I'm just traditional or old fashioned, but I see women/females as being more nurturing, emotional, and less competitive and authoritarian than men."
Now, is that a product of biology, or a product of the surroundings in which a woman is raised? You don't know. No one does.
Women and men are equivalent in every sense that matters. To say that someone is aggresive because they have a penis is the same thing as saying someone is pleasant because they have a vagina. To say that someone is good with money because they are a jew, or that someone is less intelligent because they are black -- these are all features of a theory called essentialism. Essentialism says that someone is a certain way because of their biology, not their own free will, their experiences, or how they were raised.
I think we should take a serious look at how women are raised and how we expect them to behave (Google search for pleasant; note how the 2nd hit is for a doll maker called "American Girl"!), rather than use biological means to justify differences. Essentialism is a lie that people like Adolf Hitler used to justify terrible attrocities. For you to pipe up in support of essentialism is a mark of how little you have researched your own opinions.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"Yes, and it was founded by us "religious extremists"... Or, as we celebrate Thanksgiving Day this week, have you forgotten who the Pilgrims actually were?"
It wasn't. Read up more on Jefferson, Franklin, et al.
These folks were deists in that they believed in a overall creator. But they rejected the divinity of Christ, which meant they weren't christian. Further, they really didn't believe in the Jewish interpretations either.
They were Deists.
Read more. Learn more. Don't let Pat Robertson be your guide to history. Be your own guide.
Here's a couple posers for you...We celebrate Christmas in about a month... do you know why we celebrate in late December? Do you consider Christmas a particularly holy time of year? Why? Do you think christians have always considered Christmas a particularly important time?
If you read, you'll learn so much.
Here in Canada as well as Europe the objections to science are usually rational concerns about what science might be capable of doing if it goes wrong. These are usually founded on ignorance of the subject or distrust of explanations e.g. you can tell people that a nuclear fusion reactor is safe but they remember Chernobyl so they don't believe you and don't know enough physics to understand the huge difference between them.
This is understandable human behaviour. You can at least address the problem by education, admitting it when we do screw up and engaging people in an hoenst scientific debate. Their concerns might be (sometimes) founded on ignorance but, with some exceptions, it is a rational point of view.
In the US the situation is very different. There you get people who are fully aware of the science and choose to reject it. It is very hard to engage such people in a debate because they have a completely closed mind. They will disbelieve anything you tell them because it does not fit into their own view of the world. This is a completely irrational position which they try to defend by enshrouding it in scientific-sounding jiberish. No amount of rational debate or education will change their minds because they will just choose to disbelieve anything you say.
The theory of evolution is exactly what it says on the tin, i.e. a theory. Nobody said it's the absolute truth, but it's the best we have.
You and ID supporters hang tightly on this word, mistakenly believing that if it's only a "theory" it has as much truth as any other solution we could throw at the problem - for example divine intervention, intelligent design, magic.
However, while it's true that this is a "theory", it's pretty well - and scientifically - documented. The fact that it's imprecise and cannot explain everything doesn't make it any less scientific or true. Physics, for example, is somewhat in the same boat - it cannot explain everything. Classical mechanics (Newtonian physics) is still taught in schools - it's imprecise and has holes, but it doesn't make it less of a science.
If I let go a small object out of my hand it will fall to the floor. I can believe it's God Himself who moved that object, or I could believe in something called "gravity".
You can choose magic, or whatever else you want - don't get so upset when others believe in rational explanations.
Challenging the status quo has a lot of merit and can indeed produce original results, no doubt. However as soon as we replace reasoning with faith science no longer applies to the topic at hand.
It's scientists that theorize the beginnings of life without a deity versus scientists that theorize the beginnings of life with One. You think there aren't any Christians, Jews, or Muslims in med school?
At least be intellectually honest.
The important thing to remember is that just because a predator can kill another animal, doesn't mean that it will kill every animal until they're all dead. Doing so would be very much to the disadvantage of the predator because it needs prey in order to survive. It balances out.
see a Text Widget
I don't think anyone can deny evolution. No matter whom you talk to. But there is a fundamental difference in evolution. There is macro-evolution and micro-evolution. Micro evolution is the evolving on an animal to better adapt to its habitat. Albeit for a food source, or in the example of the snoe shoe hare turning white when winter comes, and back to its natural fur color for the summer. That's Micro-Evolution.
Macro is the thought of a monkey growing feathers, lighter bones, and now flying and being reclassified as a bird, or a new species. (not that stupid gliding monkey.. still a monkey.. see the difference?)
There is no example of animals do that, nor are there fossil records. That IS a big gap.
But that's not the outlying issue of creationism... Yeah yeah.. you get the whole adam, ever crap.. whatever.
The final though on creationism is: Who created all this? Or more so, how did it get here? It is regretfully a chicken or egg type of scenario though.
How was the universe created? Big bang... Ok... from what? Atoms? Ok.. where did they come from?
It will keep falling back to "where did they come from?" Rocks, particles, gas, atoms.. etc. Had to be formed somehow, and somewhere, and didn't just appear magically right? Or did they?
Creationism is bigger then some fool put a fish on this earth... It's putting a theory to (if you agree or not) how all this got here.
As a scientist, you keep going back on how it was all created... but eventually you will hit a point when you ask yourself "How did it get there, and where did it come from?" that you can no longer answer scientifically, or at least with what you and I can understand in our current patterns of thought.
One day we will be able to answer it... one day. But until then.....
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I'm really suprised that Apple isn't a sponsor of the Darwin exhibit, seeing as how Darwin is the basis of OS X and all ...
I've posted this before, in one of the threads a few weeks ago, but there was an article in American Scientist about Intelligent Design that looks at the larger picture. A key bit is this:
Evolution is just the beginning, folks. This is about replacing science with religion.VILLAGER: She's a witch! She turned me into a newt!
BEDEVERE (looks at the villager): A newt?
VILLAGER: Umm.. I got better?
I'd like to let them know that by "not taking sides", they've actually taken the side of the Creationists, by acknowledging that there is some validity to the debate.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Not trying to get in the whole debate, but I am tired of people acting like there is no such thing as a Christian who happens to believe in the fundamentals of the Bible and who also happens to be a scienties. They are not mutually exclusive.
In order to allow for the possibility that supernatural forces exist, why don't we just legislate that science teachers add the phrase "or God could have done it." to the end of every description of scientifically observed events?
For example:
"Approximately 25% of the resulting sprouts were phenotype a, so the genotypes of the parents were Aa and Aa, or God could have done it."
"When the laser hit the surface, energy was transferred and a burn mark appeared, or God could have done it."
"We found that half the population of monkeys died at a dosage of 0.5 milligrams of Substance A, or God could have done it."
"Rays of light seem to curve as they pass the Sun because of the star's intense gravitational field, or God could be doing it." Note that the phrase can be "mixed up" for flexibility
"The victim died from a three inch laceration that punctured the aerotal artery, causing massive hemorraging, or God could have done it."
If the problem is that scientists are prejudiced towards a belief that naturalistic explanations always exist, then this short, reasonable disclaimer will correct for that prejudice.
While the lawmakers have their pens in one hand and Bibles in the other, they might also consider the fact that only God is infinite, and yet so-called "irrational" numbers (e.g. "pie") can be expressed as an infinite decimal with no set of consecutive digits repeating itself indefinitely and that cannot be expressed as the quotient of two integers!
While Pilgrims are sometimes described as Calvinists, the Puritans are more likely what you're thinking of when you're describing radical Calvinists. The only thing most Calvinists have in common at their core is predestination.
Keep in mine that Presbyterianism is a form of Calvinism, and unlike modern Christian Fundmantalism, it is avidly concerned with social justice, including support of people and causes that most people would consider "leftist" (which ironically, is true of most "reformed" churches that have links to Calvinism).
I've heard that some fundamentalists don't consider Reformed churces to be "real" Christian because they aren't radically socially conservative, but that's hearsay.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
But, my favorite is the last line: As for myself, I trust the God in the bible much more than I'll trust any group of scientists alive today.
You believe the obscure ramblings of desert tribesmen, as transcribed through the Romans and various medieval zealots, over the sincere--if sometimes flawed--explorations of scientists? Really?
Well they got a few things right, notably electricity, computational machines, and the other dozen or so failures of science that allowed you to post such a flawed response in the first place.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Corporations know this for a fact, and the theory of evolution has grown boring in its never ending war with Intelligent Design and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Besides there is no real profit to be made backing either Evolution, Intelligent Design, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This is because all of them, as well as most scientific theories are full of big gaging holes, and the scientists who did the research fudged the reports so they could receive more funding and make more money.
The big money is to be made in The Theory of Change which is a true scientifc theory, and is even falsifiable if it can be proven that change does not exist and nothing ever changes ever. Since new evidence found changes the theory of change, it follows the theory of change that says it can change itself, because change is one of the major forces in the universe. What controled change and brought about the big bang and the creation of life itself? The theory of change says that in order for it to be a true scientifc theory and avoid psuedoscience by saying God, random chance, or some other entity or thing controls change, the theory of change says that it does not really say what controls change, but that it is a part of change management. Yet if new evidence is found the theory of change can be changed later on to reflect that evidence, as the theory of change predicts.
Evidence exists that lifeforms, since they first existed on the Earth, have gone through a series of changes. In fact, most parts of the universe go through series of changes according to the theory of change.
Don't believe or like the theory of change the way it is now? Just wait and maybe later it will change and then you will like it and support it.
The theory of change covers the big bang, gravity and other forces of the universe and unifies them, and replaces many well known popular scientific theories. I mean even Stephen Hawking was wrong about black holes, and cannot figure out the grand unification theory or even prove it, yet all the answers were in the theory of change all along and he never even knew it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The biggest difference? Science can be proven wrong. Science changes it mind when new data conflicts with old. Faith can't be proven wrong. Faith doesn't change. They're not the same. Shouldn't try to be. Faith is the assumption that a creative sentient force drives creation. Science describes that creation and the creative process. If you beleive in God, the science is a look inside God's toolbox. Creationism has to deny physical evidence to make its literal claim. Creationists put Christianity is a bad spot -- insisting it literally true while everything we see around us says it's not. Creationism isn't a "theory" -- there's no evidence to get to a creation theory. It's a belief.
The notion that the Catholic church shut down Galileo has been debunked long ago. Among many other places you can read about it in Nisbet's Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary (see here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067470066X/002-28 75384-3978402?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance/).
2 499.html
You can get an overview here http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg05
In short, Galileo's Aristotelean peers caused him far more trouble for challenging the scientific theories of the day, than the Church did. That's not to say that this is the case today, but the invocation of Galileo as a symbol of religious oppression of scientific inquiry shows that you put as much independent thought into this as those you deride.
I would like to preface this by saying I mean this in all seriousness and I ask that you seriously consider the points presented in the following site and the specified article. One can't merely discard ID as an explanation, not only from a Christian standpoint...but from a scientific one as well. Please read.
o n=view&ID=774
www.icr.org
A great place to start would be here:
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&acti
If you would like to comment or ask questions...do so to invalidmail@gmail.com (it's a real address...promise).
Killers and eaters-of-the-dead all.
This is why taking the bible literally is generally not a good thing to do. You need to remember that there is no way that someone who's idea of a Big Bang is when the village cow farts and who thinks that a quark is the sound made by a constipated duck is going to be able to describe the wonder and magnificence of the Big Bang model of creation with modern scientific accuracy. Which, of course, is sort of the whole point because if Genesis had started talking about quark-gluon plasmas, matter-antimatter asymmetry and baryon number violation do you really think it would have helped people understand?
As a christian and a scientist, to me the wonder of Genesis is that, for the most part, the order of events agrees with current scientific understanding: first thing created was light, creatures envolved in the water before land, humans were the last to arrive etc. It's almost as if the author had our modern scientific understanding explained to him which he then wrote down in a way that he, and his contemporaries, could understand.....which kind of makes you think since it was written thousands of year ago!
Last time I asked Johova Witness' at my door whether slavery was inherently wrong, one walked away pissed, and the other said "No".
It's posts like these that bring out the best of Slashdotters. Every time anything even slightly related to Darwin/Christianity/Religion is mentioned you can bet that there's going to be 700+ comments and yet they all remain reasonably intelligent and some good debates - and no comments like
|0053r n00b y0u kn0w n07h1n6 4b0u7 r3|1610n 0r 5c13nc3. 1 ru|3!!!!!
In relation to the topic at hand it seems to me that a large proportion of people study lots of theories/evidence for ID OR evolution and tend to concentrate on one side of the debate. I think most people would be hard pressed to remain impartial and not develop there own views and then, probably without realising it, begin to find more information which backs up the views which they are developing. It seems that what happens then is as people reinforce their own views they tend not to study the other side of the argument as much and try just ask the other party to prove what their saying all the time while putting across the evidence for their side of the argument.
Look through the replies to the post - a lot of them are based on "Prove evolution" and then "Evolution has been proved you prove ID" and then "ID is proved you prove evolution" and so on..
I think there is common ground between ID and evolution and they do not always contradict each other. I'm a Christian but I believe that natural selection has happened and is happening. As many people point out it's often the extremists, who are a minority, who give a bad name to both camps and make it seem like everyone in that camp holds their point of view...
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I think everyone is paying too much attention to some small amount of people who actually are the "dumb science-hating" fundamentalists the /. crowd characterize as mainstream right-wing christian americans.
Slashdot is completely non-representative of the United States as a whole. Go to, say, rural West Virginia and you realize that most people running around absolutely could not even begin to understand what's being argued on here.
The problem is that, to some extent, most people live a fairly insulated existence. If you're a right-wing fundamentalist living in a little town in Mississippi, all the authority figures around you and the people you trust keep telling you that there's a big invisible guy running around and you buy into it.
If you're a Slashdotter, on the other hand, you're probably relatively young (I suspect that there are only a few senior citizens on Slashdot). You are probably well-educated. You probably work in a field where logic is a Good Thing.
I remember high school, in (not that rural) West Virginia. (West Virginia, for those of you who aren't familiar with the US social breakdown, is one of the poorer and more Christian states, but interestingly tends toward the Democrat party because of all the union ties and blue collar labor in the state.) My science teacher confided that she was very glad that the curriculum didn't require her to teach evolution, because she'd have to take a stand if it did. The school board was in just about the same boat -- we had one particular notable member of the school board (a Baptist minister, Rex Bartholomew) who periodically wrote impassioned letters to the regional paper. He had a number of interesting theories that he frequently detailed, such as how the Asian stock market collapse was because the Asians deliberately collapsed their own stock markets in order to bring down the US. He's convinced that there is some sort of coalition between government and the universities to try to "eliminate the manger scene" from Western society.
I happen to have a clipping from a couple years back when I was in the area. Rex was still writing letters and preaching to his flock:
Holy Land events hold answer to our future
The greatest end time sign and the least emphasized is the return of the Jews to the Promised Land, now recognized as the nation of Israel. It appears that all major religions will soon be integrated into the One World Ecumenical Church (Revelation 17-18). They may worship their own god, but they will use different names for their deities. What will they do with Jesus? He will not be recognized as the Savior, Lord, and the only way to Heaven. True believers will not be a part of this deception. Isn't it amazing how some will believe in the Quatrains of Nostradamus, but not accept the Word of God (the Bible).
Look at what is taking place at this moment with the gaining momentum of the New World Order. The One World Religion, World Court, One Economy and a Cashless Society are coming into focus. The Universal Product Code (UPC) mark has been in existence for some time. Have you noticed that they are already talking about another national identification number?
Russia hasn't changed and will soon join with the Islamic Jihan Nations for the distruction of Israel, but all 1/6 of this invading Army will be destroyed. (Ezekiel 37 and 38). Then the United Roman Empire will lead the world religiously, politically and economically. It will promise Israel peace and safety, by signing a seven-year treaty, under the leadership of the false Messiah. For seven years, this world will be under such tribulation as never before seen in the history of the world.
Pastor Rex Bartholomew
The problem is that most people on here will just dismiss this guy as a whacko. After all, one of the programmers and sysadmins and mathematicians on here run into people like this at their work. The problem is that this guy has *clout* in his community --
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Explain why there are so many shared genes between species. In fact, the human genome is one big code sharing exercise
:-P
Explain why there are so many shared code snippets between the source files of the same programmer or group of programmers. In fact, the Linux kernel is one big code sharing exercise
Now, mod me down freely. My karma can't get any worse...
We cannot discard ID as an explanation, of course. Magic is always a possible explanation! But we can fully discard it as an explanation from a scientific point of view. It is so because it doesn't offer a shred of proof in its support. You pointed to a page where allegations are made against evolutionism. Even if evolutionism is not complete enough to explain everything, it doesn't make ID true.
I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how someone could honestly say they believe that Intelligent Design should be taught in a science classroom. It seems that, if Intelligent Design is taught as anything but sheer lunacy, the study of biology boils down to "God did it, and it's blasphemy to proclame otherwise!" I'm done. I'm done trying to figure it out. Anyone who believes in Intelligent Design doesn't have anything worthwile to contribute to any debate, so I will no longer debate them. They will receive only contempt.
The fact that there is currently no solid scientific evidence in favor of intelligent design means that any fraction of that will still be zero, so including the same fraction of evolution's evidence and ID's evidence means, in practice, ID is not present in the exhibit.
If people want to see ID included in exhibits of science, they should get evidence that supports it. Without that, there is no science in ID, so it will never show up in a reasonably-balanced scientific context.
How was it possible that WE survived all those years effectively at a huge disadvantage physically?
We didn't have a huge physical disadvantage. Compared to many animals we are very agile, very good at swimming, able to make tools.
That's a tough question that NO ONE has been able to answer definitively with facts.
Of course they have. Have a look at chimps. Our ancestors had a lot in common with them. A chimp with more intelligence and the ability to make weapons would be a very formidable creature.
Instead, what we get is "there was once this primordial soup in the oceans (what it was we couldn't tell ya but it was there! and we can't replicate it!) and then some shit went down and here we are."
Wow. I'm stunned by the brilliance of that.
We know a lot about that soup and what was in it. We know a lot about the various routes by which life could have formed from such a soup.
And you're right: gravity is based on theory, just like relativity, and most of the "hard" sciences. But there are smart people doing responsible tough science on those theories. And they don't just throw shit on the wall to see what sticks.
Smart people are doing tough science about evolution right now. Studies of RNA-based evolution in recent years have shown how even simple molecules can evolve and produce complex systems.
The theory of evolution is exactly what it says on the tin, i.e. a theory. Nobody said it's the absolute truth, but it's the best we have.
The voice of sanity... unfortunately there are so many (even on this forum) who call it *fact*, which is pretty close to calling it "the absolute truth", isn't it? I don't choose magic for explanation. I don't hang on the word "theory". I want true, scientific explanations. But my skeptical mind have problems accepting something as fact as long as it is not proven. That reminds me of many "facts" from the history and highly scientific discussions on "the mechanisms, which caused that the Sun at some point started to revolve around the Earth".
Now, mod me down freely. My karma can't get any worse...
I've got to admit I find this all a bit worrying and sad at the same time. There's quite a few devout christians in Europe where I live, and let me tell you something, most of them know that you shouldn't try to compare religion and science next to each other. Both have their own expertise. The religiously inclined over here know how science works and what the scientific method does. The vast majority knows that evolution is a valuable contribution to human knowledge and it is simply a reality thats has allowed us to make progress in a vast amount of scientific fields of study, it makes predictions that are falsifiable and allow us to achieve great things. There's simply no better explanation available that scientists can work with. Stop trying to debunk it in public forums and for crying out loud, if you're serious about it, publish a freakin' paper in a peer reviewed scientific publication to challenge evolution instead of coming up with misinformed or distorted excuses and oneliners.
Religion has a place in society for the people that want to spend their lives serving their god or gods and thats fine, all kinds of faiths have had a chance for over 100 years to come up with a usable scientific explanation and they never have, because they don't deal in science, they deal with religion.
Please, don't mix them up or try to bring your favorite religion into the picture to explain things that are perfectly handled by science. Not only are you hurting science for dragging it into a mud slinging contest that really no scientist is interested in. But you are hurting your fellow citizens, not everyone believes in your god, not in Europe, not in the US. To postulate that your god has had a definite hand in creation of this planet and the life on and using very poor science to back it up is insulting to your own religion but also to the people of other faiths. Leave science alone, and keep your religion in your churches and the walls of your own home and possibly your *private* schools.
Remember that people who aren't religious or have a different religion are supposed to have equal rights as the people practicing the most popular religion. That means for one thing, that trying to sneak creationism into science classes makes you very very unpopular and is rightfully so considered extremely insulting to people of different faiths, no faiths and scientists together.
It would look so much better on a lot of christians in the US if they would just sit back and try to see who's agenda they are pushing here and what they think they'll get out of it. I can assure you, if things like schoolboards sneaking in creationism during science class continues, the laughter from the rest of the world will get so loud you will be able to hear it in your prescious heartland pretty soon.
As a last tip for the people trying to "debunk" the scientific method, please read this alinea here: http://www.benben.com.com/. And just let it sink in, please.
As I understand it, there are observed facts ("things fall down"), and theories ("gravity pulls them down").
The scientific method as I was taught it is to find a bunch of related facts, and come up with a theory to explain them. Then as more facts come along, they will either fit with your theory or they won't. If they do, then they increase everybody's confidence in your theory. If they don't fit, then you have to modify or replace your theory. But even a theory which has been around for hundreds of years and which everybody knows is true (eg "the world is flat") is still only a theory because there might be some facts out there that we haven't discovered yet which contradict the theory (as they did, and not many people now believe in a flat earth, the theory has been fairly thoroughly discredited).
One of the main features of a good theory is that it can make predictions. If you make predictions and your predictions turn out to be true, then as above, people have more confidence in your theory. Many of the theories which form the basis of modern science have been so well tested by so many extremely smart people, without any of them finding any facts to contradict the theory, that the theories are universally accepted as correct. But, strictly speaking, they are still theories because there's still that small chance that something will come to light that proves them wrong. Or, at least, a little bit wrong - Newton's Theory of Gravity is wrong, but only by a very small amount and only in special circumstances; for all practical purposes in everyday life it's good enough, so we accept it.
The problem with the theory of evolution is that it hasn't been around for long enough for the predictions it makes to be observed, because visible evolution only happens over long time-scales. So there is nobody (other than microbiologists, who nobody seems to believe) who can say that they've actually seen evolution happening. Nobody has ever seen a microbe evolve into a fish. So evolution is a theory. What we have to decide for ourselves is whether we consider it to be a good theory. There are a lot of observable facts which appear to support it - fossil records, similarities in DNA between species, the list goes on. To me, this is enough evidence to make me believe that evolution is, as far as it goes, a good theory. There are a number of aspects which could do with some work, but that's because we don't completely understand it yet.
If you keep a properly open mind, however, it still has to be admitted that it is *possible* that the world was created a few thousand years ago. This is a perfectly legitimate theory. The thing to do is to see what observable facts there are to support it. If you take the existence of a higher being as a given, and also the "fact" that complicated things don't "just happen", then ID makes sense. To me, those seem very shaky foundations for a theory to start from, but that is only my belief, other people are free to believe what they will.
There are, of course, limits to how much you should insist on observing your own facts. If you insisted on seeing everything with your own personal pair of eyeballs, then you would not believe very much at all. This is a bit extreme. You have to decide whose observations to put your faith in. That might be your local minister, in which case ID might be a perfectly credible theory, because your local minister gets revelations from God.
Essentially it comes down to freedom of thought - people can believe what they want, and we have no right to harangue them for it.
The problem comes when people make up their minds and then impose their belief on the education system to the exclusion of the competing theories, thus denying future generations of much of the evidence and also the freedom to make up their own minds. It is just as bad to teach evolution and exclude ID as the other way around. The students have to be given the evidence, have the various theories explained to them, and be encouraged to make up their own minds. Whether you call it religion or science is sophistry.
During the same time, our predators were getting faster and stronger and we were getting....smarter???
Evolution doesn't make species faster, stronger, smarter etc. Evolution is about adapting to your environment. Evolution could also make a species become slower, less intelligent and weaker; anything that helps a species thrive in it's environment. It's not even implausible to imagine a species evolving back to single-celled organisms, though this would take a insanely long time, and would need the environment to gradually shift to favoring single-celled organisms.
Domestication is not evolution. We have domesticated cattle, not caused a genetic mutation that makes them different from previous generations. Close and distant relatives of the domesticated cow continue to survive in the wild, human intervention or not. Buffalo roamed the plains of North America for millenia before humans with no problems.
Breeding is a form of evolution, but much faster, because of active evolutionary pressure instead of passive (unwanted genetic variations are destroyed instead of just having a tougher time surviving). Not sure why you think buffaloes prove that domesticated cattle hasn't evolved, they're two separate species?
For me personally though, the best evidence of evolution is my cat from a decade back. It had a very short tail, and small tufts of hair at the tips of its ears. I'm guessing it had a normally dormant gene from an ancestor cats share with the Lynx.
"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin" Plants were designed to be eaten, and only after the fall were animals slain.
If it's spiritual death you with which you are concerned, then why was it not sufficient for Jesus to die "spiritually?" Thomas said "My Lord and my God" only after touching the physical wounds.
Why did the followers of Christ claim that Christ would rise bodily? Would it not have been MUCH simpler to argue that it was some spiritual or mystic resurrection rather than a physical one?
While not a Roman Catholic, I do agree that mankind - as the offspring of Adam - was separated from God even from before birth. A strong testimony to the concept of original sin and that "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked - who can understand it?" is to spend time around an infant or very young toddler. They live only for themselves and are filled with rage if they cannot have their way! I say this as the parent of four wonderful boys, for whom I am immensely grateful, and appreciate the opportunity to have the privilege of being their dad.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
So you take a divinely inspired text written by mortals and then translated by mortals (broken telephone, anyone?) literally?
Personally, I see that as the height of arrogance, to presume that we actually understand the literal acts of God. That the '6 days' written is our actual 144 hours. That we are on the same intellectual level as He, such that he didn't need to dumb things down and use metaphors so that our ancestors, some thousands of years ago, could understand. I mean, Jesus used allegories when preaching, but clearly the original mortal writers and translaters who didn't even know about germs understood God Himself and thus He simply gave them cold, hard, facts.
And this was going to be my point earlier; however, I wanted to get an explanation
of Hackstraw's statement before debating. It's a solid fact that gender roles are often
imposed by society. After all, it's easier and more "kind" for a family to have their
baby boy wearing blue than pink. It's easier and more "kind" to encourage their daughter
to engage in tasks that are passively home-based rather than actively political-based.
If parents encourage activities that are streamline, at least their son or daughter won't
have to suffer through humiliation growing up! I can't speak for every person that's
felt like an outcast because they broke away from socially "accepted" standards. I would
venture to say, though, that I'd rather have my parent's support of my "non-standard" gender
practices while growing up rather than being forced to fit social standard.
If one is a conservative and wishes to stick to old standard, I won't stop you. Until
people all over realize that the social definition of gender is truly blurred, they
will continue to enforce social standards, whether it's through the raising of their
children or by laughing at and/or beating up a male because he's wearing a skirt.
>>Someone who works as a scientist for a living.
.. and does not allow you to explore other methods of thought.
Exactly my point- who are you to decide what is data and what is not?
Would you prefer a baker make that determination?
The people best qualified to make a decision as to whether your data is adequate or not are the people who test your theory. If they feel the data is not adequate to test your assertion, then you have failed to define it properly or it doesn't exist.
You've already decided, by taking on that profession, to ignore data.
Oh, yes... Those dangerous scientists! (que the X Files themesong)
The saddest part of your whole exercise is that you haven't provided any *data* to ignore. You have merely waived your hand around and proclaimed that data exists.
Show me the data. Planck's equations (which you seem hold in some reverence) relied on a body of scientific evidence to produce his theories. He had intellectual discipline.
That's the danger of the scientific method- it traps you into a single method of thought,
No, that is the strength of the scientific method. It allows scientists to separate out meaningless drivel from fact.
Other methods of thought?
I thought we were discussing science, not science fiction.
To that end, thanks for proving what I've said all along-
You haven't *proven* anything because you don't have the courage to *define* what you are claiming to *defend*.
I even got you in the message above to deny that events are data,
You haven't *got* me on anything. You can't even define what you believe. So much for that gotcha.
and exploring the philosophical meaning behind the theories put forth.
You have a theory? Pity you have articulated it so poorly.
Have fun in your limited playground.
Wave your arms around all you like. Unlike you, the people who defined the laws you are citing as your *data* guided their arguments within the methods you now hold in such disregard. You are just like every other fundamentalist I've discussed this issue with. You criticise what you don't believe yet are unwilling to provide a positively articulated counter-argument. You attempt to use obscure definitions that have no testable components as the basis for your arguments thereby alleviating you of the tedious task of defending your position with something tangible.
And I am quite happy in my playground, thanks. My playground produces useful predictions.
Yours produces.... ?
What are your results?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
"Name any society that has survived more than 4000 years ever.
I assume what you mean by 'society' is not an ethnic group but a kind of recognisable contiguous social formation."
Chinese society, while not neccesarily having survived 4000 years (evidence of the Xia Dynasty is only present from Zhou era writings - physical evidence remains elusive), does have a solid foundation of ~3000 years. The Zhou dynasty from late 10th century BC heavily influences modern Chinese society, and is considered by many to be the defining character of China. The basis of much modern Chinese philosophy/thought began with the Confucian set of ethics written during the subsequent Warring States period. While the cycle of dynastic rise/fall and foreign invasions did have a great deal of impact on Chinese culture, the Chinese of today do not consider themselves a seperate people from those that lived in the Zhou, which is enough for me to consider it as one society. One example of this is the classic, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," which was writtenmuch later about the Warring States period (~5th century); the contents of the book continue to play heavily in modern Chinese diplomacy and thinking.
He's very, very right.
I'm not about to get into a deep debate, but I am firmly convinced that the harm done by religion far outweighs the good. Just thinking about the absolutely savage treatment of human beings throughout the Dark Ages makes me ashamed for my entire species. It's not over: Ayatolla Chomenei issued a Fatwa (order to kill) on Salman Rushdie, Ayatolla Robertson on President Chavez of Venezuela. A cult whose leaders propagate murder holds, to me, no redeeming value.
There are many good, decent Christians. I posit that these are people who would be just as good and decent without their religion. There are many loathsome scum that are Christians. I posit that many of these people are happy to use Christianity as an excuse.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Can you SEE and WITNESS continental drift?
Can you SEE and WITNESS the formation of fossil fuels? Diamonds?
Can you SEE and WITNESS the life cycle of a star?
Do you then reject those particular Theories regarding continental drift and the formation of fossil fuels or other similar substances? About stars?
Bird flu: Doesn't exist at the moment in a form that can be passed from human to human. The fear is the virus will mutate to gain this ability.
Poodles: Weren't around at the beginning of time, and now they are. Most other breeds of dogs we see on the street are the same. Many of the varieties of flowers in your garden likewise came into existance in recordable history, some within the past 50 years.
Can I reduce the argument against evolution to something as flippant as likening it to refuting the existance of poodles?
On ID theory, it seems like very little new ground is uncovered than was in William Paley's teleological Watchmaker analogy http://members.aol.com/plweiss1/paley.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy of 1802, and of William Derham's of 1696.
Seriously, I've read/heard such claims, probably from creationists with anti-evolution agendas. After all, Karl Marx was such an admirer that he offered to dedicate volume 2 of Das Kapital to Darwin. Carleton Coon's popular 1962 book The Origin of Races (I'm not making that title up) claimed five major human races evolved independently, with "black people" evolving last.
Interesting (IMO) related links:
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
You're assuming that the teeth demand that dogs and Adam and Eve ate meat.
I don't have all of the answers, but aren't you making an assuption that because these animals eat meat today they ate meat then? After all, is it possible for dogs to live on a vegetarian diet?
Gen 1:29-30 says:
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
> the assumption that God doesn't exist.
Not logically, it doesn't - "X does not exist" is an article of faith unless there is evidence to back it up. Saying "the existence of X is unknown" is the correct course of action. Consider the results in terms of Bayesian probability:
If the a priori probability of God existing is P(G), then the probability of God existing in light of new evidence we're examining is:
P(G|E) = P(E|G)*P(G)/P(E)
i.e., the relative probabilities of this evidence being observed in possible worlds where God does/does not exist. If we start with the assumption that God does not exist - i.e., P(G) = 0 - then:
P(G|E) = P(E|G)*0/P(E) = 0
i.e., no evidence can ever change our minds if we reason according to the laws of probability. In other words, starting with the assumption that God absolutely-for-sure does not exist is not rational---it means you have decided in advance that no evidence can ever change your mind.
Of course, that doesn't mean you have to start with the assumption that God does exist, either. I cases like these, "I don't know" is often an excellent starting point.
Not everbody is interessted in world peace.
Think about the business that make a profit with war. They are much too powerfull, they don't let world peace happen.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
There are several fossils linking small dinosaurs with birds. You won't ever find a monkey turning into a bird though - they've got the wrong bones. Maybe a tiny, light monkey could evolve first.
You want a monkey that'll fly? Not going to happen with the current crop. What about a monkey that learned to walk upright and made a complex civilisation? Got good records there, but still no perfect fossil line.
You could look at the evolution of whales from mammals not unlike dogs. Lots of fossils there too.
The problem with a perfect fossil record is that bones don't last so well. Only ones that are fossilised last more than a few thousand years, and there are few of those that are found.
As to the Big Bang theory - the theory is that time itself was produced from the event. Asking what happened before it isn't a real question, because there was no time for it to happen 'in.' It's hard to think about, but there's no reason why such complex issues should make sense to us without study.
After the event, matter coalesced out of the energy, as did the fundamental forces of the Universe. There are good theories describing how that occurred as well.
Creationism is more concerned with the "Why" than the "How", which is where Science comes in. The problem we have is when a Creationist states how things occurred, which inevitably conflicts with Science at some point.
And who said it would deny the existance of anything supernatural?
And since when do two wrongs make one good? This is the strategy of ID proponents because there is no way to delete one of the most successful scientific theories ever from the school books.
Scientists' "a priori commitment to naturalism", if it does exist, ist not the reason for ID getting ignored as a scientific theory. The simple reason is that ID needs explanations outside science to be coherent, which makes ID a non-science, religious thing. While Darwin can explain and predict many things with scientific means, ID cannot predict anything and neither can it explain anything without reverting to powers beyond science.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
The one on drug resistance is not too far off. The use and dossage of antibiotics and antiviral drugs is not just related to what it takes to kill the infection. They are also set to minimize potential risk of resistant mutation. If you use a low dose for a long period of time, then you increase the chance of a resistant mutation of a bacteria developing. However if you use a higher strength but only for a short time, then the opportunity for mutation is reduced. The princial is that having a long lasting environment with lower strength antibiotic would give greater chance of a mutation occuring that would be resistant. a short time span reduces the time window of opportunity and the stronger dose increases the lethality of the current environment. It really is a "survival of the fittest" pattern. I think that qualifies.
Are you Autistic? Tell me about it.
To quote you "a challenge to scientific understanding, and the scientific method".
How does the manufacture of all the fake apemen like Javaman, Piltdown man, Nebraska man, Lucy, etc. show scientific method? I wish someone could explain this to me. It is well known now that all these were faked. If evolution was so easy to prove then these would not have to be faked. But they were faked and backed by the scientific community for a long time, paraded in all the newspapers for years, and now everyone believes in evolution.
When they were discovered as fakes, there was not a whisper from the scientific community about their scientific method, and no retraction from the newspapers saying we were wrong.
If evolution is real then where are all the "in-between" animals? For instance show me a quarter-turtle, then a half-turtle, then a three-quarter turtle - anywhere? There are none. Point me to a URL where there is fossil pictures of partly evolved turtles.
No, I don't believe in evolution. There's no evidence.
There's no denying that gravity is far from established fact and is fundamentally a theory with PLENTY of holes and unanswered questions. To me I see those zealots who accept gravity as fact in the same light as how *they* perceive Christians and Christianity: mindless minions of bad logic and reasoning. It just seems like gravitionists want to skip a whole bunch of steps and not do the actual science required to figure out if the evidence supports their theory or not. That's the scientific method, folks. You never PROVE anything: you have evidence that either supports or doesn't support your theory.
Of course it's possible that I'm just incredibly IGNORANT of all of the scientific evidence conclusively supporting the Theory of Gravity.
Oh, and don't even get me started on the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. That's even worse than the Theory of Gravity, and in fact we know that the the current Theories of Gravity and Quantum Mechanics directly contradict each other. We know for a fact that at least one of them is wrong (and probably both of them!)
Damn atheist scientists trying to push their non-fact theories on everyone.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
What follows is a summary of what impact a $34 million reduction has on nuclear physics in the US. Anybody who doubts that there is a program behind this reduction may answer the question how much money is being spent per day in Iraq. Science is an all-time low in the US. Here we go...
---
FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
Number 168: November 22, 2005
Senators Express Concern Over Layoffs and Run Times at RHIC and
Jefferson Lab
Before the Senate passed the FY 2006 Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Bill last week, senators discussed the negative
impacts that a reduction in funding for the DOE Nuclear Physics
program will have on two key facilities. As it now stands, the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National
Laboratory and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
will have to reduce operating times, and, at least at RHIC, reduce
staffing.
When the Bush Administration sent its FY 2006 budget request to
Congress, it sought an 8.4% or $34.0 million reduction in the
Nuclear Physics program budget, from $404.8 million to $370.7
million. The Administration acknowledged this cut would result in a
29% reduction in run time at the Jefferson Accelerator Facility and
a 61% reduction in run time at RHIC.
Going into the conference to settle on the final version of the FY
2006 bill, it appeared that the Administration's suggested cut in
the Nuclear Physics program budget would be rejected. The House's
initial version of the bill had recommended FY 2006 funding a bit
higher than what was then the current level. The Senate bill came
in even higher, at almost $420 million. A DOE senior official
called the outlook "very encouraging" at a meeting of the DOE/NSF
Nuclear Science Advisory Committee in early September (see
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/128.html.)
Despite this promising outlook, the final appropriations bill funded
the Nuclear Physics program at the level requested by the
Administration, cutting the budget by 8.4% to $370.7 million (see
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/160.html.)
Laboratory officials are grappling with the projected impacts of the
reduced budget. RHIC's scheduled December 2006 run will be delayed
until late in FY 2006. It will be combined with the run for 2007 to
afford the longest possible time for experimentation. Brookhaven's
current hiring freeze will be extended, and officials estimate there
could be as many as 100 scientific and support position layoffs
between now and next October 1.
There is language in the FY 2006 Energy and Water Development
Appropriations bill allowing DOE to reprogram, or shift, money from
one program to another, as confirmed in the discussion that took
place on the Senate floor that appears below. Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton (D-NY) lead this November 14 discussion,
highlighting the severe impacts of the reduced funding levels. She
was joined by Senator John Warner (R-VA), who expressed concern
about the reduced funding level, stating, "At the Jefferson Lab we
need to invest in the 12GeV upgrade necessary to sustain the pace of
scientific discovery, not cut programs." Senator Charles Schumer
(D-NY) and Senator George Allen (R-VA), expressed similar concerns.
Their statements, and responses by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), the
chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations
Subcommittee and Senate Minority Leader (and appropriations
subcommittee ranking member) Harry Reid (D-NV), follow:
"MS. CLINTON: First, I want to compliment the chairman and ranking
member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee for their hard and
successful work in leading the development of the Energy and Water
bill that is before the body today. I know it is especially
difficult to fund all of th
haha, americans and their outdated evolution vs. creationism debate will always make me laugh. it's just so ridiculous. when i first heard about that debate, i thought it was evolution vs. natural selection or some other scientifical theory, but no, they are opposing a scientifical theory that's actually much more than a theory against a piece of mythology that's -correct me if i'm wrong- about 3,000 year old. And they dare labelling that a "theory"! USA is quite a funny country (no offense to all the americans out here)
You just got troll'd!
Darren, you fucking ROCK. Excellent post.
[ No Mod points for me today. ]
s'wut i sed.
If I recall correctly it was something like 51% of Americans, and as an Anonymous commented Americans make up a minority of Christians. It's only in the United States that there's any signifigant conflict over this.
The rest of the world is wondering why the heck we put up with this fundamentalist anti-science BS.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
yeah, and that whole fake mammoth they pretended to have excavated from Siberia ... lies, damned lies and ... more damned lies. If there was ever a 2-tusked mammoth, where are the fossils of half-tusked, one-tusked and one-and-a-half-tusked mammoths that must have preceded it?
/. user so I can be certain the parent post was not a fake of the /. conspiracy - or if it waas, point me to a URL with pictures of the said conspiracy. kthx
yeah, and I want an URL showing me pictures of this alleged 'benite'
the other fake apeman
In related news, according to this article, the University of Kansas will be offering a course on ID and teaching it the way it should be taught; as religion not science. Needless to say the ID proponents are none too happy.
We now can compare two belief systems.
c yclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et- ratio_en.html
System I
1. God created the world in 7 days.
2. Any evidence that contradicts this must not be true. Therefore, any evidence that contradicts point 1 can be explained away, whether by fossils planted as a test of faith, etc.
System II
1. There is no God.
2. Any evidence that indicates the existence of God must not be true. Therefore, any evidence that contradicts point 1 can be explained away, whether by a dream, a matrix like world, insanity, etc.
In light of the obvious similarities between your belief systems, I would recommend that you, GallopingGreen, refrain from criticizing any religious fundamentalists for their flawed thinking, at risk of serious hypocrisy. For that matter, please refrain from calling yourself a skeptic, until you are willing to critically examine all beliefs, instead of automatically rejecting any evidence against your preconceived notions.
Fortunately, I belong to a faith that believes that truth cannot contradict truth, and hence any truth in science cannot contradict truth in religion, and vice versa.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/en
Maybe it is time to return to the concept of theology, physics, biology, etc. all representing various aspects of a search for the Truth.
He told me that yesterday. We both had a good laugh, and He even snorted milkshake out of his left nostril (we were having bacon cheeseburgers).
Anyhow, you can't prove that's not the way it IS.
Addendum: Now it is on the Internet. It must be true.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
And actually, I'm thinking of Jimmy Carter here, not George W. Bush. Not all Christians are theocrats. Some of us think the moral changes have to be effected from the bottom-up, not from the top-down and give priority to things like feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless over enforcing morality by law. But I guess it's okay to generalize all Christians as being far-right Republican party-liners. It's amazing the kind of intolerance that proceeds from the mouths of the "tolerant."
And Einstein was smart enough to label his theories as "theories".
If you want to call Newton's theory of gravity a theory, and Einstein's theory of relativity a theory, and Darwin's theory a evolution a theory, fine.
And you can use absolutely any language you like when teaching them in highschool science class. Just don't try to single one of them out for special discrimination. If you want stupid-ass stickers in biology text books statign that evolution is Just A Theory, fine. But if you do then you damn well bette be placing the exact same stickers WARNING students that gravity is Just A Theory too. And you also better include a sticker warning students that chemistry's theory of atoms and theory of elements are Just Theories as well. And electricity and electrons are Just a Theories as well.
The Roman and Egyptian civilizations are theories too.
And the American Civil War is Just a Theory. Nobody alive actually saw it happen. It is just the best theory he have to explain the reality we currently observe.
The supporters of the theory of evolution just want to skip all that nasty business of work and evidence and got straight from theory to established fact practically overnight.
Why?
Evolution has been supported by staggering quantities of conclusive evidence for damn near ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FSCKING YEARS.
A one hundred and fifty year night. Yes, it was very very dark for a very very long time.
In fact in the last few decades with genetic analysis the evidence conculsively supporting evolution has turned into an unending flood.
It's those atheist relativity fanatics that are trying straight from theory to established fact practically overnight. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity has been around less than 90 years.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's really interesting to me that the NMH Darwin exhibit stresses Darwin's reluctance to publish his 1844 essay for over a decade because he a) wasn't sure he had enough evidence and b) was worried that the "public wasn't ready" for it. He worried about attacks that his theory would be seen as amoral, since if we weren't built in God's image, we had no a priori morals.
It also includes an exhibit that, if extrapolated, could be viewed as Darwin's answer to the second criticism- in a little display of photos Darwin had taken of various people, and one dog, showing emotions, Darwin is quoted as saying something like: the same emotions are shared by people all over the world (they are not culture-specific) and in fact, some are shared by animals like dogs and apes. Emotions, he goes on to say, are what connect us to the rest of the world.
Darwin, in finding emotions common between peoples and also some animals, is in my opinion closer to what religion is striving for than a lot of religious types! it explains why people of many cultures can have a very similar reaction to the same music, and why many different cultures have often arrived at "morals" that are not radically different from each other, even out of cultures that lack a western God.
The museum exhibit also has, near its end, a section titled "What is a Theory?" It makes the point that Darwin is not calling his conclusions "truth." He starts out with a vague theory (maybe inherited partly from his grandfather), or perhaps more accurately, with questions and several already vogue theories of explanation, and then after decades of classifying information, comes up with educated answers. Evolutionists should take this exhibit as a challenge. If someone ever comes up for as much evidence for God as the source of our appearance, survival, and moral makeup, I will be all ears!
No republic has lasted longer than 300 years. That's not to say a civilization like Rome didn't last that long, but they switched governments several times, as have many countries. But the republic as we know it has never gone on longer than that.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
I am sure they were worried about a boycott if they donated... why don't we boycott them now that they haven't? Don't buy American!
The phenomena of population biology will continue whether right wing fundamentalists agree or not, and whether big business funds their exposition or not.
Much as gravity will continue whether anyone in particular agrees with it or funds it or not.
Nature and reality are not greatly interested in your views or your money.
Sorry if you thought otherwise.
How was it possible that WE survived all those years effectively at a huge disadvantage physically?
That's a tough question that NO ONE has been able to answer definitively with facts.
I'm not quite sure what "problem" you imagine there is. We decended from a common ancetor that was pretty much half way between chimps and modern humans. Well how do chimps survive? How do modern primative human tribes survive? You gather food and you manage not to get wiped out.
We are/were omnivours and primarily survived on a diet of gathered fruits and the like. When available we dined on left over carcasas killed by other predators, and sometimes we hunted for ourselves. Humans are pack hunters and can be quite effective at catchign and killing prey by running it to shear exhaustion. A pack of humans can run prey until it literally collapses from overheating and muscle spasms.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I asked a legitimate question in non-confrontational language, and aired a legitimate grievance against the inane cognitive dissonance which is rapidly rendering Slashdot irrelevant to sensible discussions on a controversial issue.
God (er, I mean random natural processes occuring over very, very long periods of time) help us!
-SHP
If evolution were real, than those who didn't believe in it, would not exist... hmmm.... ;-)
What a redicuously loaded and biased sentence. As though there are no "real" scientists in the world who also happen to be Christians. Give me a break.
Awesome link. Thanks for posting this gem. I'd mod you up if I had mod points.
I haven't recovered fully from the others yet ;)
;-)
OT as always:
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment "
Really? How long do I have to wait at my present exalted level?
"It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment"
That's about as accurate as a poll. So how long do I have to wait?
Moo.
(Sorry for invoking the first rule of slashdot
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
> Can you cite a single theory that doesn't have holes?
Not to be trite, but I don't believe we have any cause to doubt Maxwell's equations.
Completely off-topic: I think I may have asked you this before MightyMartin, but I'm just curious: You've got phrases like "which is eye the biomass of this planet," the third word is eye spelled E-Y-E, where clearly you mean why spelled W-H-Y.
It seems practically impossible for that and other pseudo-homonyms in your writing to be typos. I suppose you're using speech-to-text software?
It struck me as peculiar. That is all.
Put as much effort into proving we where created as you put into proving this theory of evolution and see what comes out of that. That would be less of a waste of time and more scientific.
The greatest benefit to man from Darwin's theory as we put it is the sickening blow it gave to superstition. True, it remains quite rampant in many ways but superstition no longer has a tight grip on the human mind, for that I am thankful. Scientific thought and discipline has strong merits if kept in balance with human nature, and awe of the universe and an open mind. Logic would imply that given the immense order in the universe then if it was created, it was created by an orderly being.
But to be watching even the most noneducational "nature" show and have the narrator spew out this fanciful garbage of how we came about is mind numbing. It is as if these fanatics believe that repeating this theory over and over again like a chant will cause it to become so and cause the floodwaters of evidence in support to spill out. It is the lack of evidence that causes these believers to be so mind numbingly insistent.
Science is not the holy grail to mankind's future, or a hallowed way to understand our past. Science and progress held up so high and so stupidly is what has been, and still is, poisoning us through careless use of chemicals, wireless radiation and in many other ways. This exhibit though will likely as mind numbing as Darwin's fanatical cult following.
To science or not to science...
That is the question.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Genetic Engineering : What people find negative is that it is NOT indicated on the product if this was made using genetically engineered raw mateerial or not. They are not against science. They are against not being told as to let them make their own choice. Look, there is a lot of white paper around saying the same things : the study made by FIRMS which promote genetic engineerings of crop/soja are lacking in length and depth of impact. So, some consumer want to avoid those product out of ideology (I wanna eat only natural stuff) and other due to those white paper (my own reason and of that other people I know albeit of. Not the majority but a very good procent. We still remmember some major fuck up from private firm study). But the bottom line is that it is not indicated in product composition and this WHY there had been a big backlash.
Personally whether the reason was correct or only ideological or even dumb fear on our side, THE CHOICE should still be left with us whether we want to buy a product or not. But effectively firm did not want to leave us that choice by avoiding putting in the product composition the truth of the origin of their crops/soja... You know the adage. A free market exist only if the consumer is informed.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I read this entire thread with great interest.
Both sides presented good arguments. Of course, the replies in favor of evolution get modded high, while the replies questioning evolution get modded as troll, flamebait, etc. I say this is interesting because the person questioning evolution did not advocate ID or creationisim, he simply questioned evolution. Yet, he gets modded down and even ridiculed to an extent.
People, this shows two things:
1) slashdot's bias (who cares?), but more importantly
2) the fact that many people who push evolution can tolerate honest questioning no better then, say, a pastor could tolerate someone standing up and asking questions (like, if God has a plan for everything, why do we punish murderers, etc) in the middle of his sermon. Folks who think they are not religious and yet cannot stand to have someone even question their esteemed beliefs, well, I'd say that's religious zeal. Seriously, if people cannot even question evolutionary theory, then I'd say it's no longer good science; good science endures time and any battery of questions you can throw at it. What, you all are ruffled cause someone is asking questions?!? Gimme a break.
X does not exist is an arbitrary choice when you are given two choice without evidence. If i asked you whether I am 20 year old , 25 or 30, just reading from this short paragraph , any choice you would make is arbitrary since you have not proof toward a way or another. Just because we are speaking of God or Not God existence does not make it more "faith" based to make a choice toward NON-God existence in absolute logic. It makes it only arbitrary. The only choice which will be faith based is believing in God WITHOUT recognizing the arbitrary nature of that choice. Just like believing I am 25 year old from the choice above without recognizing this is an arbitrary choice.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Your statement assumes that peacocks of today existed as they did before humans began domesticating animals.
The grandparent's statement also assumes that "defenceless" animals come from regions with the kinds of predators that could kill them. A quick look at the birds of New Zealand is a good example of this not being true. Lost of bird species there are quite "defenceless" and they have only been hit very hard by introduced predators.
The peacock isn't a very good example of a defenceless bird anyway, they can eat small animals, can deliver a blow to predators with their spurs and they can fly away from danger. Hardly as defenceless as they look.
Uh ??
When they were discovered as fakes, there was not a whisper from the scientific community about their scientific method, and no retraction from the newspapers saying we were wrong.
When did this ever happen ??
Dead Wrong. Google wholphin for more. I think this even made Slashdot.
Even the famous example of a sterile hybrid the mule occasionally reproduces. Didn't you catch the meaning of 'almost always sterile'?
You can't understand how biologists can put so much credence into an 'obviously wrong theory' because you are ignorant.
You did get one thing right, if only by accident. "Yet, somehow evolutionists want us to believe that not only can one species mutate into another, but that they do this in male-female pairs!" They really don't want us to believe this, 'cause they know it is wrong. The part you got right is that this is pretty much impossible. It is not a matter of one big mutation. If you really want to understand how new species can arise, google "ring species"
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
"This is sometimes known as Dominion Theology. It is quite common among Presbyterians,"
Really? Dominion Theology has been rejected by virtually every mainline denomination in the US.
Unless you're talking PCA? I'm not familiar with those folks, I'm more familiar with PCUSA. Heck, PCUSA even condones blessings on gay unions, so its hard to say PCUSA is a conservative church.
The funny thing is that the Bible completely allows for this possibility, by saying in various ways that God is beyond our understanding. The Creationists are actually trivializing God and denying the Bible when they claim that Genesis is a literal description - they're arrogantly assuming that they understand how God created the universe, based on a description intended for people who live thousands of years ago which much less understanding of science. Of course, if God exists, She knows that the Creationists are just People of Little Brain, so probably isn't too pissed at them.
Look for the overseer because if there was a creator it would probably mean that we are some kind of slaves.
The Creationists are fully within their rights. If they don't approve something that a corporation gives money to, they do not spend their money with said corporation. They might only be 5% of the population, but a lot of times a buisness works on slim profit margin, so a small but dedicated group of people can get together and make a big difference.
I am an athiest, so I don't believe in Creationism, but I can say with all confidence that the creationists are smarter than a lot of the people whining about them. While the whiners are thinking up retarded "solutions" like "TAX THE CHURCHES!!!" (love of kleptocracy and hatred of religious freedom all in one!), or use it as a way to say "Europe is more progressive than the United States" (except for the places in Europe were abortion is illegal, or where public schools are required to have crucifixes on the walls, or it is illegal to say bad things about the pope, or where a former president and EU politician can say 'Europe should be Christian only!' without anyone getting upset, or where the "Christian Democrats" are a major political party, or where there are still royalty blessed with the "divine right of kings", Europe is a pretty progressive place!).
If these people who were "outraged" or "embarrased" simply organized themselves in an even halfway decent manner, they would kick the Creationists asses (I mean, you only outnumber them 10 to 1 in the U.S., and that doesn't include people outside the U.S. who ALSO purchase things from U.S. corporations or have their own corporations that do buisness in the U.S.).
And, as far as I see it, Creationism is hardly the most dangerous scientific mythology... sure, they may be against the theory of evolution, but it is not like evolution is a cornerstone of practicle technology or everyday life. Someone could go their whole life being a Creationist, and as long as they understood math, chemistry, electronics, etc., they could still be an extremly productive person in the field of science and technology. I consider other forms of scientific mythology far more dangerous (i.e. geneticly modified plants are somehow inherently dangerous, thereby stopping us from developing crops that are disease resistant, don't need harmful pesticides, contain uncommon nutrients, that could help us feed millions of starving people... or that nuclear power is somehow more dangerous than our current forms of energy production, thereby eliminating a potential power source that helps combat global warming... or that paying women for eggs to produce stem cells somehow "exploits women"... or that DDT shouldn't be used to fight malaria in places in Africa where malaria kills 1 in 4 children, because it will harm polar bears or give people cancer late in life).
And don't even get me started on Psychology (as opposed to Psychiatry or Neuroscience or people who are real doctors or scientists)... Most of Psychology is pseudoscience as silly as Intelligent Design, and a lot more dangerous since it is used to treat people with real mental illness. Id, Ego, Superego, what kind of crap is that? Jungian race memory? Come on! And what about "scientific theories" like "Dialectal Materialism", or "Critical Race Theory", or Feminist "science" that teaches "All men are rapists and mysoginists by nature" and therefore "innocent until proven guilty should not be a protection given in cases of rape or sexual assult, because all men are proven to be rapists and therefore guilty", or any of the other things taken for granted as being unquestionably true science in your typical U.S. university?
Please, save yourself all the self-rightous "we are so much better than them" posturing, and demand that the corporations you purchase products from give money to projects like this muesum exhibit, and the problem will be solved. Just think if all you dorks who buy the newest ipod every time it comes out were to refuse to purchase the next toy unless Apple helped promote science and evolution, and Apple would be tripping over themselves to prove the bible is a load of crap.
is one of the things we in the UK just don't get about a large proportion of the USA. For instance, the determining factors in your 2004 presidential election were abortion and gay marriage, not war in Iraq or the fscked-up state of the economy. In an age when we can send men to the moon and clone cats, why are people still disputing evolution FFS? If you want to believe in God, then believe he was clever and thought of evolution too. I mean, he didn't actually *design* wasps, did he?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/32902.html
There's an all-out war to preclude any public religious speech in this country. Don't believe that? Why is the ACLU filing suit against Las Cruces NM for having Crosses in their logo? the town is known as "THE CROSSES!" It's revisionist history at best. It's persecution of the Christian worldview at most. It's troubling either way.
Where did you hear this? Do you have a source? There is no mention of this suit on the ACLU website. There is no mention in this article: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/32902.html.
Either I'm under-informed, you're misinformed or you're just making shit up. Which is it?
Of course when the ACLU is fighting in court to allow Muslims to wear head scarfes or Christians to wear crucifixes then it's all swept under the rug (because you don't actually care about individual religious expression as guaranteed in the 1st, you only care about getting the State to sponsor your religious expression). It's obvious though that we have different understandings of the establishment clause. Fortunately, it's not for you or I to decide (I mean largely, it may not even be worth debate, since what we think it means matters not on whit). I guess we'll just have to keep relying on the SCOTUS as the Constitution intended.
I've spoken with persecuted Christians before. I just don't see it. I've said it before: the cult of victimization only belittles though who are actually victims of religious persecution (e.g., murdered Muslims in England, Jews in Poland, etc.).
Sorry for being so hotheaded. It's nothing personal. I'm just riled up from this debate.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
This is realy getting ridiculous...I can't believe it...
teaching creationism in schools
How is this different from islamic schools in afghanistan you tried so hard to bomb ?? Where the hell are you going ??
... and counting.
We hope you can get rid of your wannabee king, but the longest lasting democracy still lasts.
In a note of hope, Unesco noted that never, in human history, there has been so much democracies in the world and such a large portion of earth population (thanks to India) living under this government.
On a side note they also noticed that there has never been so few military conflicts and that they never made so few victims in average. Iraq war being an exception (*cough*)
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I wouldn't say so, Creation is as much possible as is evolution, the only difference is the assumption of a higher being. But what I was trying to get at is not that scientists would change their mind due to new evidence, that is exactly the difference in the ongoing creation/evolution discussion. Nobody, neither believer in evolution nor believer in creation would change his mind due to a change in evidence. Both would look in other directions to prove that his theory is still valid. My point is, in this discussion both sides are faith based or science based, I know lots of good scientists that do not believe in evolution, whatever reason for, and they are looking in other directions, taking everything just for a theory. With this as a firm base you can even look at creationism a try to find out whether it could be scientifically proven. What's wron with creation, would you refuse it even when it showed better evidence than evolution?
(e.g. look at Europe's wider social reaction to genetic modification). You're talking the European reaction to genetically modified foods. Given that there are many issues that have not been cleared in the whole genetically modifed food scenario, such as patents and the fact that some of the foods at least are showing issues adverse to the health of consumers, I think the European reaction is a good one.
I fear that when the US wrote down there contsitution and spoke of "Free choice of religion" they actualy meant "Free to choose beween beein Catholic or Protestant".
At that time other religions never featured in there mind. And not much changed in that respect.
They're not doing the hard science and answering the tough questions, like why, for instance, if intelligence in humans is SO important and crucial to our survival (we have no sharp teeth, claws, we can't run or climb or swim well compared to the rest of the animal kingdom), then why did it take so long for intelligence to develop in humans (say within the past 100,000 years)? How was it possible that WE survived all those years effectively at a huge disadvantage physically? Humans are amongst the few animals tha use sweating for cooling. As a consequence humans can run for longer periods of time than almost any other animal. Guess how this helped our ancestors survive.
Humans have two hands and two arms and can use tools, such as rocks to bash prey over the head or build other tools. Guess how this helped our anscestors survive.
I think creationists are just too frightened of life to open their eyes.
But Christianity is loosing support - how that heretics, pagans and other non-christians can now openly opose Christianity without fear of beeing burned on the stake.
And yes: Even the US with there so called "free choice of religion" in there constituition burned people on the stake for religious reasons.
So lets see how long Christianity will survive without bloodshed.
Martin
"It is well known now that all these were faked." Well... no. It isn't . But I happen to know the Piltdown story, it is a story of British nationalism and pride, but please, we're talking 1912. The Nebraska Man story, American nationalism in 1922 (hah!). Dawson and Osborn were just trying to proof that the "missing link" was British or American. And they made the same mistake as many paleontologists from that era made: there's no _one_ link between man and ape. There's no perfect half-turtle. I hope i don't have to explain why this is so...
Javaman and Lucy are *real*, as are thousands and thousands other fossils. And so are the millions of non human fossils found (i have a few here in my house).
"When they were discovered as fakes", no, you are just egoing popular memes from your circle. Of course, it is possible to find critics for anything in the scientific world, i knew a christian geologist why thought the earth was 4000 years old. But it just showed he was a bit strange in the head, not bravely opposing false dogma.
"show me a quarter-turtle, then a half-turtle, then a three-quarter turtle" Like i said, a quarter turtle did never excist, you just don't understand the theory you don't believe in!
But if you want to see precursors to todays turtles simply go Google Pictures and search for fossil and turtle. Or, go to a good bookstore and buy a nice picture book on fossils. Or, try to find some yourself, fossils are all over the place in the US. And remember, each and every fossil you find is in itself proof of the evolution theory.
VON
But it is a worthy question: why would you have color receptors in your eyes if your brain couldn't make sense of the information?
Consider the alternative: Why would you have photoreceptors perfectly tuned to a single wavelength of light?
Who ordered that?
How sure are we that businesses backed off "because of controversy"?
I see assertions in the articles, but no basis offered for the opinions expressed. I wonder if this isn't a case where corporations simply chose to direct the funds to other opportunities. Not "backing off in fear of the massive power of CREATIONISTS", but rather saying "Nah, I think we'd rather back this one..."
My own experience in fundraising suggests that the second is a fairly strong possibility.
I say that whoever wrote it doesn't understand entropy or thermodynamics in general.
You say "often" or "usually".. in other words, these are not normal occurrences. They are not sustainable. If they were, we would have packs of lion/tiger hybrids running around the jungles. As far as dogs and wolves are concerned, I know that dog/wolf hybrids are, in fact, quite common, but dogs and wolves are so similar anyway that it might mean just that they are incorrectly identified as different species rather than breeds of the same species.
Anyway, show me a fish/lizard hybrid or a lizard/bird hybrid and I'll be impressed. Not only hybrids, but fertile ones at that. After all, evolutionists believe that lizards evolved from fish and birds from lizards, don't they? Or what happened to all of the intermediate species that the fossil record is completely silent about? Where are the feathered lizards? Or the lizards with gills?
The problem with evolutionary theory is that they start with a premise: that there is no God and that higher species evolved from lower ones by only natural means. Then they look at all the different species over time, mostly based on fossils and radiation dating. Then they use their imaginations to fill in the rest of the details. You don't see anything problematic with this approach?
A real scientist might not start off with the premise that there is no God, look at the fossil evidence, be more reasonable about the accuracy of radiation dating, and see the lack of intermediate species, and take the other laws of nature, particularly involving sexual reproduction and speciation, and come to the conclusion that the only explanation that makes sense is that every species was created by the Creator. But most scientists are not this honest. They have a clear, atheistic agenda. They like to explain that life evolved from carbon and water, but can't duplicate carbon and water actually becoming alive. They like to posit about the genesis of the universe in the big bang, but can't explain where all the matter and energy that begat the big bang came from since matter can neither be created nor destroyed in the natural system. In other words, the very theories that scientists champion as truth, like evolution or the big bang, force them to violate other tenets of science. You are grasping for answers which you can't find in nature because they transcend nature. You will wander around in the dark blinded by your prejudice and never find the truth!
Also, let's just take a step back and go to the very first organism. How did it become alive? Can it be reproduced in the lab? Why doesn't spontaneous biogenesis occur today?
And yet, which would you take in a fight: a group of paleolithic hunters or a mammoth. I guess superior intelligence does mean something. Or, which would you take in a fight: a gazelle or a lion? And yet, gazelle's do excist.
I'm afraid your logic is faulty at best. And i warned you about cognitive dissonance young man!
VON
Isn't it possible that at one time all of the creatures who are currently carvnivores were plant eaters? Isn't it a possibility that they adapted to eat meat later?
The Bible says that God gave plants for food, then after the fall, the death and meat eating began. It does not say how long the period of plant eating lasted. Based on what I know of the corruption in the heart of all men, I speculate that the period between God's creation of man, and man's choosing to rebel against God was probably pretty short.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
It's a little of both, I'm afraid:
.ap/ /
According to this news article, it's some residents of the city that are suing. Admittedly I didn't find the source before posting. I basd the posting on my recollection of a conversation with a friend. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170468,00.html
HOWEVER, I believed it because of the ongoing assault on Christian's rights from the ACLU which I have seen again and again:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/11/01/desert.cross
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/27/ten.commandments
http://www.aclu.org//religion/tencomm/16298prs2000 1012.html
http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpag e=1&id=91429
The constitution says "congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion" When a county puts up ANY display, that's a county matter, not a federal one. Where are the rights of the states? GONE!
Why does the ACLU regularly file suit on issues like government properties allowing the display of Christian religious symbols AT CHRISTMAS when the VAST majority of people in this country celebrate that at LEAST as a secular holiday. Is it really oppressive? No way! This kind of thing makes me sick!
What does the Boy Scouts having their jamboree on federal property have to do with the establishment clause? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! The Boy Scouts having 'under God' in their oath is NOT the state establishing a national Christian religion.
Non-ACLU assaults
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/venrtura.htm
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/wtccross.a sp
Here's the point, these are NOT about getting the state to endorse my religion. What it IS about is that there are a majority of people (still) who agree with the vast majority of Christian belief and practices, and who are not negatively affected by the city, county, state or feds recognizing that these ideas are consistent with community standards and offer some value to the community at large. Also, the facts are that the 10 commandments have a unique relationship to the rule of law in our country and it's revisionist history to claim otherwise.
Let's be clear, persecution of Christians for their religious beliefs DOES occur. Predominantly this is at the hands of atheistic or Muslim governments. More than 150,000 Christians were killed last year for their Christian beliefs. (Source: Missionary to Indonesia speaking at my church - not available on the web. This number is consistent with other sources I have heard.) What's happening here is not persecution. What is happening here is that the culture is becoming more intolerant and hostile to my worldview. Others may disagree, but I have observed management in my company tell people that they cannot discuss religion at work. This is a violation of free speech rights regardless of religious views, but there's a fear and perception that recognition of religious belief at work is unacceptable. It's only going to get worse and worse.
Do you believe that when the school system rents a church facility to have graduation (because school facilities are not big enough to handle the event) that this is the state sponsoring religion? What if the "church" is a synagague, mosque or temple? Frankly I would absolutely NOT care if the school system rented and atheist-owned hall for graduation. If my kids' worldview was going to be damaged by one incident in one location one time, my world view would be pretty indefe
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
>>Would you prefer a baker make that determination?
I would prefer that no determination, no discrimination, be made at all.
Translation: no science.
After all, that it the function of science.
All information is useful to those who care to look at it;
Including Greek mythology?
Are you suggesting an expedition to Olympus in search of Zeus?
those who do not care to look at it will rail against it saying "no data has been presented"
The purpose of that exercise is to keep those who want to live in a world of fantasy from guiding public policy.
because what has been presented is not what they consider data.
So are you going to undergo surgery without "data"?
Your claims are getting wilder by the minute.
They will also claim to not understand perfectly normal english words like irreducible and complexity,
Context?
The proponents of Intelligent Design are the ones who claim to have a different meaning for irreducible complexity (the two words are joined by ID proponents, suggesting that complexity is not just a *common* meaning but an irreducible one - but you knew that and are just intellectually dishonest).
in an effort to preserve their orthodoxy.
Which orthodoxy would that be?
Again, you show an incredible lack of specificity. It is no wonder since you have presented nothing to support your argument other than attacks on the qualifications of anyone other than you to understand your *data*.
What is really sad is the man who thinks that there's only one truth
You should really quit speaking of yourself in third person. I doubt you are running for office, so name regonition is hardly something you need to work so hard to establish. All you end up doing in the absence of a run for public office is encourage others to believe you are a loon.
and he's got a hold of it. He will claim that other people are fundamentalists-
A fundamentalist demands that you accept his claims without evidence - purely on faith.
I have asked for quite the opposite.
Who is the fundamentalist again?
not realizing that he's holding to and defending fundamentals himself.
Explain again how the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics relates to Plancks time. That one was funny.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Explain why there are so many shared code snippets between the source files of the same programmer or group of programmers. In fact, the Linux kernel is one big code sharing exercise :-P
;)
Shut up, Daryl.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
What you end up seeing in nearly every clash is this: extremists. Two sides that are so vehemently dedicated to their cause and so single-minded in their pursuit, that anything contrary or questioning of their belief is absolute heresy. And rather than try to prove their own side, they attack the others weaknesses. To effectively debate a topic you must not only clearly state your position's strengths and weaknesses, but also acknowledge and cite the oppositions strengths and weaknesses.
I find several things very odd about the current controversy. Many (not all by any means,)evolutionists refuse to accept any aspects of the Christian bible as historically accurate, even those proven by archeology or tradition. Numerous other texts that would support biblical history are ignored (i.e. ancient Egyptian, Syrian, and Babylonian texts on the Flood.)
A large number of creationists refuse to acknowledge evolution on any scale. They maintain that the very concept ridicules their understanding of Divine creation. This adamacy is maintained in light of scientific proof that evolution occurs (i.e. bacteria and viruses)
Few evolutionists have read the bible in its entirety as well as all supporting texts. Few creationists have.
Few creationists have read all six editions of "The Origin of the Species," let alone the countless research papers on evolution. For that matter, neither have many evolutionists.
The bible states that those who do not believe will not understand it. From Psalms 82:5: Darwin has several chapters (4) dedicated to trying to explain the problems with evolution. From the introduction to Chapter 6 Difficulties of the Species: Both sides of the argument are not completely understood. There are many unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions. And rather than acknowledge this, both sides blindly attack the other. Neither side will accept the other, which is concerning since there is nothing in either side that indicates a disavowment of the other.
Both beliefs have an equal right to be taught as theories. Without complete and unequivocal proof, both are just theories. So where's the problem?
Since you're dropping off, I assume it's because you're not interested in further critical examination of your beliefs. I agree that slashdot is not a forum (in general) for rational discussion about high minded subjects but this discussion between us has been atypical of this forum.
With respect to your comment about bloodshed before the fall, in Gen 1:29, "And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so."
The first record of animal death was to provide for clothing for Adam and Eve after the fall. There's absolutely no evidence of death prior to this, so your point of view must be an assumption, no?
I have critically examined my views, and am open to more discussion on this topic, but I think that your view, while more convenient from an explanation perspective, leaves much to be desired. That's the trouble with making much of the scriptures an allegory or a type. Clearly both are components of parts of scripture, and it takes critical thinking skills to determine the appropriate interpretive filter.
If you take the literal fall away, then there's really only a need for an allegorical Christ as well. That's pretty empty theology by comparison.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
My post should have been under theStorminMormon, not this one. My bad.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Hello,
I think you are mistaken here. Read the first commandment again. Jehova nevers claims to be the only god in existence. He only demands that you (as a one of his followers) shall not follow any other gods at the same time.
There is nothing about burning you neighbor on the stake because he believes in dozend other Gods and Godesses.
Still Christans did just that! Never heard of Jews (same God, same 10 commandmends) doing that. Shure they went to war for other reasons - like getting more land.
The real problem is that Christans really have a funny way of interpreting there holy book and then forcing anybody else the believe in the same crap.
Martin
I assure you all, I'm not a monkey. My family was never monkeys... and my ancestors were not monkeys. Adam and Eve weren't monkeys either. :)
Well, we disagree on a couple of significant points, BUT
I agree that things should not be taught in the science classroom unless they are falsifiable or testable.
As far as I'm concerned, this includes all discussion/speculation/philosophy of origins.
However, as long as materialists or naturalists demand that their preferred philosophical viewpoint be taught in the science classroom, let's have a level playing field and allow other viewpoints taught there as well.
To sum up - I'll drop the affirmation of ID in science class when the idea of eternal materialism, or spontaneous generation of matter and energy with no root cause is dropped from the curriculum.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Hey, we're sig-mates! :)
The names of countries, nationalities, and specific languages should be capitalized. Thus, English and German
Like your general nouns, I believe?
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
Since I was not there and the only take on the story I have is what you have provided, I dare say it had nothing to do with the question at hand but with your motive and perhaps manner of speaking.
.... even slavery. Who knows? Again, is it wrong?
You make it sound like Jehovah's Witnesses support slavery, teach slavery or promote it. The fact of the matter is, they don't.
However, consider something. I will allow you to answer your own question by asking this: is working for a company wrong? Is working for a box factory for minimum wage wrong? Is working for a silk factory for $1 day wrong? Is working for food wrong?
So, do I support slavery if I say that there isn't anything wrong to be "owned" by someone in order to live? It is unfair, at the very least, but your employer owns 40 hours of your time a week, so that you could "survive". Again, is it wrong? You answer it.
In x number of years (perhaps decades, or centuries) someone will look at the menial tasks performed by MacDonald's employees for $7.25 and will call it inhumane, intolerable,
Java man and Lucy were not fakes. They're quite real and well substantiated. You have been misinformed. Why am I not surprised?
Nebraska Man was a mistake, not a fraud. The correction was published (gasp!) by scientists in both Nature and Science, not to mention headlines in the New York Times and The London Times. I'll assume that you are uncritically regurgitating propaganda and now knowingly lying here.
Piltdown man was indeed a fraud, but it was exposed by professional paleontologists. It's an example of bad people doing bad things, but it's also an example of the scientific community correcting itself--a behavior creationists claim never happens. Anyway, your accusations are mostly nonsense.
What do you expect a half turtle to look like? The front half? Back half? Top half? That's not what evolution predicts. What would you describe as "halfway" there?
Here's a better question: Let's ignore the possibility of common ancestry for the moment. The fossil timeline shows that there was a time when no turtles existed, but other organisms existed. Where did the turtles come from?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I think that big bang cosmology and biochemical abiogenesis are pie in the sky philosophy. They can not be tested or falsified. How can you propose that they are areas of scientific endeavor? You cannot employ the scientific method to study them.
In fact, based on what we know of biochemical interactions, the possibility of biochemical abiogenesis is so pathetically unlikely as to be statistically insignificant. It's so close to impossible that it might as well be impossible. It's so unlikely that the right materials, order and conditions would be present that statistically speaking it would take more time than has elapsed in the proposed age of the universe for it to occur. The fragility of such initial life forms is so great that the strong likelihood is that none would survive anyway.
The only reason to seriously pursue this area of study is if your world view demands that there be nothing "super" natural to kick start the life process.
I seriously doubt that either of us will convince the other, however.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I don't think that word means what you think it means. You see, as detrimental as it might be to that minimum wage employee, they can stand up and say "I quit". That is a very different thing than slavery. A slave is compelled by law and force to work for thier master. I have yet to even hear of a single case where bounty hunters were hired to drag a McDonalds employee back to the kitchen and whipped them into submission until they started making burgers again.
By trying to redefine the word "slave" and "own" you show that you don't really believe what you say.
As for my motives and manner of speaking...Yes, I specifically cornered them. While I would consider going to a church and harrasing people to be wrong, if you come to my door and ask to speak on a subject that you have good reason to believe I disagree with, you are fair game. I find being polite while I rip apart some poor slobs world view to be perticularly effective.
Do I believe that as a rule Johova Whitnesses support slavery? No. Do I believe that Johova Witnesses REALLY believe their bibles? No. What I did was point out the contents of what they were trying to convince me of, and asked them if they truly believed it. This left them with a few choices. Shut up and leave, deny faith in their bible, or condone slavery. One chose to shut up and leave. The other chose to condone slavery.
If in x number of years we decide that current working conditions are wrong, I will admit it. I will admit that I, as well as others that tolerated McDonalds, are human and falible. The key here is that (as far as I am aware of) every single Chistian proclaims their god to be infalible. That means that anything their god does is right. Since their own doctrine says that God condoned slavery, then they are left with the delema. Is thier doctrine wrong, or is slavery ok?
Now, are you going to try and convice us that promoting a book as well as promoting that it be used to define your livestyle, that condones slavery is not in itself teaching and promoting slavery?
> this short paragraph , any choice you would make is arbitrary since you
> have not proof toward a way or another.
Here is your error: evidence is not proof. You declaim a choice as arbitrary if it lacks "proof", yet it is hardly arbitrary for me to choose to believe that Natalie Portman is female, even though I have no proof and base my choice only on the fallible evidence of having seen her.
Only if I have zero evidence is my choice entirely arbitrary. Even the vaguest of observations---such as your vocabulary and sentence structure---is likely to have an effect on the conditional probabilities, making the choice (if I choose the option with maximum probability) no longer arbitrary.
Accordingly, neither the choice "God exists" nor the choice "God does not exist" is arbitrary---either will necessarily be made by a person who has experienced an incomprehensibly vast number of observations which could affect the logically-reasoned probability of God existing.
The question is much like you asking yourself "does Dire Bonobo own a skateboard?" While you have no direct evidence one way or the other, you can, if you are clever, use inference reasoning (young people are more likely to use the internet, and young people are more likely to own skateboards, hence...) to make an informed (although still possibly wrong) guess about the truth or falsity of this question. Neither "his skateboard exists" nor "his skateboard does not exist" is somehow "more arbitrary" than the other; the only way either is an arbitrary selection is if you entirely fail to use your reasoning faculties to take into account the available evidence.
"Arbitrary" is often not a property of the choice; instead, it's due to the ignorance of the chooser.
The reason there is a commandment about not worshiping other gods, is that they are FALSE gods, and not worth worshiping. No benefit to the worshiper at all, since pieces of wood, metal, or paper can't be there for you like a REAL God. And of course there are the unclean spirits, which can pretend to be gods, but really aren't either. They can put on a great show none the less.
Religious zealots who kill others because they are infidels are not Christians - they are Muslims.
Christians also do not FORCE their beliefs on anyone, they are sharing a way out of trouble with them. The weapons Christians use in religious activity are spiritual - fasting, prayer and supplication and even preaching. Natural weapons such as military force are used for national defense (pre-emptive, reactive, or otherwise). It is OK to fight. Turn the other cheek means let them hit you twice because you can take it, not cower in fear and give in ALL the time. Just make sure it wasn't an accident and your enemy knows what he is doing when he is doing it.
I agree that there are some who have misread the Bible and have been disobedient to God. That doesn't change the Truth, however.
I am sorry that other believers were ignorant and arrogant toward you. I apologize on their behalf.
I respect your point of view, although I consider it insufficient, it's still within the pale of orthodoxy. As Augustine said "in essentials unity in doubtful things liberty and in all things charity"
I think that it's likely that we agree on the essentials, I grant you liberty in this area that is not essential, and I apologize for a lack of love on the part of others. It is my hope that I have not been uncharitable in our exchange thus far. If I have, please let me know so that I can offer apologies and seek forgiveness on my behalf.
It is possible that my views are incorrect, but I have given this matter a great deal of study, thought and prayer to have arrived at this point of view. This position is one from which I may be swayed, but it will take more than what has yet been offered to overcome my objections to your point of view.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
but at least there's the potential for better understanding at the end of the road. ... you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is
The potential risk from being wrong in this wager far exceeds the cost of having believed.
Look, I certainly don't claim to have all of the answers, and feel strongly that I can't simply "check my brain at the door" of my faith. If there is a God, and He wants to interact with me, then I should be able to do just that.
What I *do* know is this: I have examined many world views which attempted to answer the questions
a) where did we come from?
b) what went wrong? and
c) how can we fix it?
Based on my study and life experience, the explanation that best fits the available facts is the one provided by the Christian world view. There are many many areas where I do have clear and legitimate answers to life's questions through my relationship with God. In the areas where I don't have clear anwers, I'm willing to "give God the benefit of the doubt." My expectation is that the areas that are unclear to me now will be known to me after death.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Your apology on behalf of others is graciously accepted, but I simply must leave the discussion at that.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
No, there are legitimate hypothesis, which are statements that try to explain observed phenonema. Theories are tested hypothesis that have made and succeded in their predictions. For example, one could look for changes in bacteria or look for bacteria that lives on new materials to look for evolution, say for example nylon. So, a material that didn't exist until the 1940s is now being eaten by a special kind of bacteria. Isn't this a good example of natural selection?
The concern I have with teaching Intelligent Design is that it breaks down the theory of Evolution by showing a 'competing' theory. Do we do the same thing in Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy? Do we teach every competing theory for each discipline? This seems like a difficult prospect more likely to confuse students than teach them.
Reading this entire thread--made up of engineers, students, geeks--shows just how many people are confused about Evolution. So, how can we expect busy teachers and bored students to be able to understand how Evolution works and why Intelligent Design is such a ridiculous theory.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Time does not permit a full discussion of this topic - at least not today..... (Got a bunch of family on the way and we're hosting Thanksgiving dinner.)
However, first I'd tend to disagree with the idea that the establishment clause suggests that federally owned land should not be used for sectarian purposes. The establishment clause was about defending the rights of Americans from the oppression of the state church. The idea that the government should be non-sectarian in allocation of federal resources is definitely supported by case law and is the standard in our country today. Nothing in the vast vast majority of cases the ACLU takes up has to do with the federal government mandating that the creation of a state religion.
With respect to the ACLU and their "non-assault" on Christians, let me say that I agree completely with the ideals you espouse above - that the TACLU (theoretical ACLU) would defend and protect the rights of all Americans against the abuses of the state. In practice, while the ACLU does not in fact go after Christians per se, the net effect of their behavior is that public expression of Christian values and behaviors are less and less acceptable.
If an organization does not attack me, but facilitates the public perception that the expression of my beliefs in the public square is unacceptable, that if I happen to be standing on government owned land when I do it I'm breaking the law and should be estopped by the courts, isn't the fact that they sued the city, county or state and not me directly a bit of a "distinction without a difference?"
It's not my media that feeds my "disinformation." It's the net effect of case after case where the ACLU takes a stand against things that I value.
Overall, religious liberty issues are thorny. As an example, my church recently purchased some land on which we intend to build a worship center. Some of the people in that community object to the size of the building we intend to build on a small portion of the 225 acres that we own. Since the area is zoned as "agricultural reserve" and there is no land specifically designated by the county zoning laws as space to religious institutions, it's a little unclear whether the county should allow us to build. If the county had zoned certain areas within the AG Reserve as property for "private institutional facilities," (newspeak for church/synagogue/mosque/temple/other meeting houses) there would be little question. However, if the county did that, might they be repressing religious expression here by limiting the rights of the people to worship? Perhaps. It's sometimes not cut and dried, although I agree that in general people should buy their own land if they want to control how the land is used.
I think that you and I agree on more than we disagree on, but I cannot stand the actions of the ACLU. What they are doing is in practice reducing the rights of people with ALL religious views to express those views publicly. The ACLU is not my defender or friend. Your assertion that it's not an issue unless federal dollard are involved does not seem to be the case. I hear again and again of cases against school systems WRT religious liberty and schools are almost entirely funded locally. I hear about city and counties being taken to court on 10 commandments issues. Those are not federal issues.
For what it's worth, I never said that anyone was persecuting me for my faith. The three women in prison today in Indonesia (found guilty of promoting Christianity during a Sunday school class for children whose parents were present during the class) sentenced to three years prison time, the village that was razed recently by armed Muslim militants, the woman who was disfigured from the terrorist bomber's church explosion, the man who was tortured and burned for being a Christian, those people experience persecution for their faith. (They and more like them suffer each day.) I'm saying that the culture in the US is less tolerant of Christian views, and that the ACLU is part of the problem.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Hi,
You are aware that you have just insulted my Gods and Goddesses? How dare you call my Gods FALSE! I on the other would never call your God false.
Christians have only stopped killing others because they are "infidels" for about 200 years.
I find it interesting that the Muslims are in there 16th century. When christianity where in there 16th century the Spanish inquisition was killing anyone with an own opinion and Germany was right in the protestant vs. catholic war. If Charles Darwin had been born in the 16th century he would have been burned on the stake right away.
Prehaps you should replace all "Christians" in your text with "modern Christians". And
But in one thing I agree with out: One has the right to defend oneself and I like your definition of "Turn the other cheek".
Martin
You are aware that you have just insulted my Gods and Goddesses? How dare you call my Gods FALSE! I on the other would never call your God false.
;-)
If I see them, I will explain my position to them.
Christians have only stopped killing others because they are "infidels" for about 200 years.
In my country, that is a REALLY long time!
I find it interesting that the Muslims are in there 16th century. When christianity where in there 16th century the Spanish inquisition was killing anyone with an own opinion and Germany was right in the protestant vs. catholic war. If Charles Darwin had been born in the 16th century he would have been burned on the stake right away.
They are considered disobedient, and have also repented (as a church or religious group) for their actions. My guess is that it will be a while before that happens with the Muslims.
It is true that the Universal Church (called the Body of Christ) is a work in progress and we have not yet come to the unity of the faith, so I can understand the issues you bring up - but I think the real point is that the are Christian groups that do actually stand up and condemn actions by fascist "christians" and such. I would like to see such condemnation by Muslim leaders who do not support terrorism. I am not hearing it.
Prehaps you should replace all "Christians" in your text with "modern Christians".
I did think of writing "True Christians," but thought that would be redundant, as I am not talking about the disobedient, weak, or immature Christians - or the pretend Christians that get on the news supporting "separation of Church and State." (You can't separate the Christianity from the Christian no matter how hard you try).
I don't know what else to tell you, and I hope you can understand what I am saying. It has been a pleasure discussing this with you. May God bless you!
Curt
Thanks, but even your decrepit source acknowledges:
.which has been discredited in its absolute form, although recognised as being partly accurate.
. .
The part recognized as accurate being the part I referred to: that phylogenetic patterns are identifiable within ontogenetic patterns; this is a forceful and immediate representation of the interpretive value of the theory of evolution. For an ID adherent, these extensive coincidences are prefectly fortuitous.
Thank you, and good night.
illegitimii non ingravare
What it really boils down to is do you put your trust in a God who made some really absurd claims in a book called the Bible or do you trust so-called scientists who so far haven't gotten anything right as evidenced by the state of science today versus 100 years ago?
OK. That's just stupid. 100 years ago, you did not have refrigeration, electricity, the ability to travel across continents and between continents in mere hours, indoor plumbing, etc.
Yet you're claiming that the bible contains all useful information. Should we live in caves? I don't believe the bible mentions how to build a house. Should we ignore modern medicine and simply pray to cure glaucoma and go blind as a result? I don't know what sort of a God you believe in, but I believe that any omnipotent, omniscient God would leave such morons to the wolves as an example to others. Do you think that God gave you a brain only to have you not use it at all? If you give a tremendous gift to someone, wouldn't it make you angry if they didn't use it?
Science is our tool to gain knowledge, to use our brains to enhance our existence. To suggest that God is somehow opposed to that and that any attempts to understand our world are futile... I'm glad I only have to put up with you on Slashdot. I suggest that you find a really good secluded cave and live off nuts and berries for a while.
We believe that there's one God (the father), so anyone else's concept of God would neccessarily be a variation on that. We believe people will be judged according to what they knew and what they intended. I.e. if you live in a culture sure that you have no chance to be exposed to the true gospel before you died, that will be taken into account.
:-D Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
Sweet. You guys are alright with me!
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
I forgot when speaking about the other Commandments cases that the SCOTUS upheld the Establishment Clause in this regard in similar cases.
c ourt=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=03-1693
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?
Still this ruling isn't "airtight" enough that other Commandmenteers won't try new variations (by, again doesn't it sound humorous, trying to remove the religous meaning from a religious symbol) and appeal them all the way up at everyone's time/expense.
Sigh. Snarkily,
David
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Glad to hear that your 13 hour car ride was a safe one!
To me it seems that America is more religious than ever (well more religious than any point in the last 60 years for certain).
Wow. Really? I have entirely the opposite opinion.
There are a couple of items on which I think we're ultimately going to disagree, but I think that there are a couple on which we can probably negotiate agreement:
Maybe as the U.S. becomes more and more Christian (just guessing that most babies are born to Christians and most immigrants are Christians)
Ok. Here's a point that I'd like to clarify. There's a distinction in my mind between people who are culturally Christians and those of us who are totally sold-out followers of Christ.
Many self-identify as Christians because:
they were not of some other belief, so as Americans they must be "Christian,"
people whose parents and grandparents were Christian,
they are Christian because they go to church on Sunday - or twice a year, or
are Roman Catholic because their parents were Roman Catholic, etc
The VAST VAST majority of those people are not likely to be Christians because most of them don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
From your point of view, this may be a distinction without a difference, but to me (and those like me) this is a HUGE distinction. The early church was easily distinguished from the surrounding culture because of their love for each other and because of their commitment to their worldview. In fact, in the book of Acts, it says that the believers held all things together. Do you see that in the "church" in America today?
Please don't misunderstand, I'm not an advocate of any sort of communism, but their desire to seek things in heaven rather than things on earth was so strong that they would willingly sacrifice their earthly posessions for the good of others. Would you say that the average "Christian" you know lives their life that way? Jesus called on us to love the unlovable, defend the defenseless, feed the hungry, care for the poor, live lives of geniune self-sacrifice. Do you see that in this predominately "Christian" culture? I certainly don't.
What I see is a group that gives a great deal of money to charity - but their gifts almost entirely come from abundance. According to recent stats, while we give $240B to charity, Starbucks - a luxury coffee chain, has a market cap of $24B, and gross sales of $6.37B. If we gave out of anything but abundance, wouldn't giving be greater than 2% of GDP? We have ~$1.7T in consumer debt and pay ~$50B in finance charges for the crap that we seem to think we cannot live without. If the culture was completely saturated with people who followed Christ seriously I submit to you that these numbers would be at least reversed.
So, why is this relevent? Because this says to me that most people in this country are not Christians. What I am seeing is that most of the people I know - even those who would self-identify as Christians live their lives with a world view which is not the same as mine. Most people I know live their lives as if there's no God, or as if there's no such thing as absolute truth.
And another thing. Are you familiar with the expression "not that there's anything wrong with that." popularized on Seinfeld? The reason that this gained such popularity was because of the strong cultural aversion we now have about declaring one worldview superior to another. We have become a culture where it's not acceptable to express radical worldviews, because we fear offending anyone. This newspeak is detrimental to the freedom of all people.
I think this is inspite of government, not because of it. When the government gets involved in religious affairs freedom of religion fades
I could not agree with you more. The absolute last thing that I want to see here is for the government, be it city, county, state, or federal endorsement of religion. That would *not* be a goal for me. I think
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Are you trying to imply that
Devolve does not mean the opposite of "evolve."
Yes, I know it's pedantic, but it's one of those things that bugs me like when documents at work come out saying that a product covers "the whole gambit" of possibilities.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.