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Federal Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design
evil agent writes "CNN is reporting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III has ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be discussed in Dover, Pennsylvania biology classes. Dover Area School Board members had previously mandated that Intelligent Design be included in the biology curriculum. According to the judge, 'our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'" Update: 12/20 23:40 GMT by J : eSkeptic has a look back at the trial and what led to it. And the Discovery Institute has issued a press release.
The question is, can this be used as a legal precedent in other cases like this across the country?
Good deal on this judge. I only hope the Supreme Court upholds this if it reaches them. I honestly think they will since this is rather obvious, but you never know.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Except theology courses are not allowed in modern public schools, unlike previous eras. Growing up unchurched, I found upon graduating high school that I knew more about Greek mythology from my public schooling than Christianity, despite the fact that Judaism and Christianity have far stronger influences in modern culture than Greek mythology does (proximity in time has something to do with this, of course).
Note that I am no arguing for an ID class; I don't want one and there shouldn't be one. But I do think the essential elements of the Christian faith ought to be taught in western schools if nothing else than for the same reason one would teach the tenants of other ancient religions: to better understand modern culture and where it came from.
Raising children with so few social skills that they express their anti-religious bigotry on public fora at every opportunity is child abuse
Apparently the judge said a number of the school board had 'repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs'. Are any sites out there going into further details about what these particular lies were?
A first grade teacher [was,is] being sued because she told her class Santa Claus wasn't real... Proving once again that it IS meet, right, and salutary to tell kids about "imaginary" characters, as long as [he,she,it]'s the "correct" one.
PS -- Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicholas, a Turkish Christian Bishop.
Ummm ...
l l/21/14/3643/
...
There are many organisms that have light sensitive cells
that are not eyes, but may well evolve into them.
http://embojournal.npgjournals.com/cgi/content/fu
Sorry,
Your next starter for 10 is
Help! help!, the termites are eating my DRAM!!!
I find it much easier to believe in evolution than to believe that God went through this elaborate lie to trick us. I mean faking a fossil record is one thing but creating the universe with light already in transit so the stars would look like they're been there for billions of years?? Or creating the image of a supernova such that we would think that it exploded billions of years ago but didn't really?
Come on. Get a grip. I believe in God but I cant believe he's a coniving trickster that the fundamentalists seem to think he must be.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
It's a good thing that there are still judges around that have a clue.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
We both permit and support the education our children receive in our area's public school system. IMHO, they're doing a pretty fair job.
We both teach our children what we believe. Our children know that we're speaking about our beliefs, even when we speak of them as facts.
We made sure our kids were capable of critical thought, judgement and self-determination in the area of beliefs. They have their own (for the record, two have ended up Catholic, one agnostic, one athiest - the jury's still out on the youngest two, but they're leaning toward agnostic and Jewish).
If I believe a thing to be true, wouldn't not sharing that with my children be abuse?
Congratulations!
Views like yours would fuel a lot more _true_ faith, instead of the blind following of obscurantist dogma that these ID preachers try to impose.
To me, science is my faith: I cannot prove anything in science, I cannot say it is the absolute Truth, but it's my way of describing and understanding the world.
At least science has the humility of calling its teachings theory. Can you imagine this the other way around? Imposing that preachers spend 5 minutes after each sermon giving an 'alternate' darwinian view on evolution?
I'd love to see the debate then..
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
Physical property X can vary from Y to Z but it doesn't. Slightest variation in X would preclude life.
Ex: Boiling point of water, melting point of ice, enzymatic reactions, patterns of moulcules and crystals, etc....
2. Hypothesis
Possibly, some external stimulus is arranging the observed phenomena to ensure a suitable environment to enable life to exist.
3. Experiment
Like gravity, we are still looking for answers on how it works at the physical level and how to verify.
4. Results
...see 3.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I'm not familiar with ID but I can only assume that since christians are pushing for it, it must be something about God creating everything. Well, I say if they wanna present that, that we should also include Alien Seeding theories as well. For all we know we're just some huge f**king ant farm. :D
The desktop computer I have today has evolved over the last 30+ years.
You mean designed, right? Or did you really mean that some pdp-11s had sex and gave birth to a pdp-12?
What one might consider a computer 100 years ago most certainly bears no resembelence to what we have today.
That's right. 100 years ago, computer was a job title.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
ID should be covered VERY briefly (bare with me on this). We all know it's wrong but every view point really should be covered. Is it really going to hurt anyone if they do say 2 classes on ID showing it's negative sides and what ID supporters call evidence?
The BBC are currently doing a series on God within science. It's 99% science based, but at the same time it's trying to show that many Scientists don't think religion is the anti science. It's the religious people who quite often refuse to adknowledge science (instead of going OMG God did that!? That's cool!).
Why I don't support ID in any shape or form, it is a view point and one we should very briefly point out. The same way we should point out Neo Nazis today still support hitlers ideals. We may not like it, but if we go over it for 5-10 minutes then it's included and these nutjobs can no longer claim they're being left out in the cold. There's no need to "give in to them", but if they want ID taught why not teach it for 1-2 lessons where you point out how silly it is, but at the same time show that God can still fit the model if you want it to (many scientists against believe in deities and are good scientists).
NOTE : I'm not religious, I don't believe ID is correct, but I do feel you could reverse all this "pro ID" bullshit with a simple lesson or two on the truth. If we choose to ignore it then we'll be in a lot of trouble (note to museum going up..), but if we reveal that the people preaching it arn't the sharpest people in the world. We at least show the truth and let people judge if they wish to follow people trying to kill Science instead of embrace it.
I like muppets.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there."
- Pat Robertson, Nov. 9th broadcast of the 700 Club.
Any set of beliefs is "brainwashing"?
Here's my take on things. When you raise a child you must acclimate them to the expectations of the society in which they live. You need to give them a framework to work with. This is not brainwashing, it is normal child rearing.
Brainwashing is taking an adult who has already been given a framework and attempting to alter that framework. You are washing the brain so that you can establish whatever values and customs you want. Childern are not brainwashed, because there is no existing framework to erase.
As far as the merits of one framework over another, the only common theme I see among many of them is intolerance for other ideas.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
The opposite of "a religious person" is not "an atheist".
What makes someone religious is their blind acceptance of some dogma. Faith defines religion - belief without or even contrary to evidence or reason. Many Buddhists are atheists and yet still religious people because they follow the doctrine of their religion without question.
What makes someone atheist is not believing in God(s). As it happens this is the default position of someone who is not religious, as without observed evidence of logical proof, it is irrational to believe in God(s). I myself held this position for the majority of my life. But it's possible to be a non-religious theist, if you've got a sound argument for the existence of God.
Myself, I find that speaking of God makes perfect sense if you see it as speaking of the universe anthropomorphically. My beliefs are not fundamentally different from an atheist's, but suddenly I can understand theists statements about God in a way which not only means something, but quite often produces true statements on the theists parts. Seen in this way, a proof of God's existence is just a proof of the universe's existence, which is trivial as the universe is "all that which exists".
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The examples proffered by ID advocates are certainly interesting examples, but the problem is their lack of integrity in assuming they can "prove" natural selection did not cause them. That lack of integrity threatens science by letting all sorts of sloppy discourse into the pool of scientific ideas.
They set up some arbitrary criterion (like "irreducible complexity"), claim a particular example meets that criterion, then claim that supports their alternative theory.
The flaw is that "irreducible complexity" does not imply "could not have arised by natural selection", just "could not have arisen through some *straightforward* process of evolution."
Nature is big enough and has been around long enough that there is a good likelihood that some things will exist that have not left enough evidence behind to determine their natural origins. The fact that we don't have, for instance, hard evidence of the genealogy of the Japanese emperors does not mean we accept that they arose from the Sun god. We might be able to figure out that they came from Korea because of similar customs, or whatever, but we also might never figure it out.
In a similar way, we might NEVER figure out, for example, exactly how DNA became the genetic material of choice. That's not evidence in favor of ID or against evolution, its a lack of evidence for anything. We can HOPE to get enough indirect evidence to make a compelling case, but we might not get what we want.
You will note, however, that neither Einstein nor those mathematicians try to use god to explain their theories. Einstein was merely expressing his theory that the universe is NOT randomly chaotic and is in fact predictable once you have enough information. Mathematicians are always looking for that beautiful equastion that sometimes falls out of some horrible mess and simplifies a problem greatly.
Non-computability is never the foundation of any science. ID's fundimental flaw is that it is a formalized argument from ignorance, which is a logical fallacy. Besides, the whole point of science is to explain the nature of the universe, not presuppose some answer and stop looking.
Obviously ID and Creationism have plenty of mathematical funimentals to lean on... Saying that biologists have a lack of rigor is something you're going to have to back up with mountains of evidence. It's tantamount to calling them all cheats and liars. Also, saying that life is too cool for evolution made me do a double take. That's some A Class stuff there.
I read the internet for the articles.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Or, as I like to say, given enough dice and enough time, eventually you will roll a trillion 1's in a row.
That sounds correct.
One of the major factors that most of the simplistic "it happened this way because that's what I think" arguements on either side of this ID vs evolution debate fail to take into accout is scale.
Scale of time, and scale of the sheer number of organisms alive at any given time.
Here's an overly simplistic arguement to demonstrate this. Since someone above mentioned the evolution of eyes, let's just say there are roughly 10,000 steps involved in creating the modern eye. (for simplicity's sake, I'm just arguing 1 kind of modern eye)
Life has been around for a long time on this planet. Let's set an arbitrary starting point of 300 million years ago (well after the origins of life, but close enough).
Now lets say the organism we are evolving here reproduces once every 20 years (again, highly unrealistic, but close enough)
300,000,000 years
/ 20
= 15,000,000 generations
Okay, so we now have 15 million generations of the same genetic line to play with. Let's put a random eye mutation in every 100 generations.
15,000,000
/ 100
= 150,000 mutations
So, over the course of 300 million years, it is possible that 1 out of every 15 eye mutations is beneficial and carried on in one of the 10,000 steps to the modern eye.
And given the facts that most animals, humans included, rarely wait 20 years before reproducing, that life has been around more than a mere 300 million years, and that far more than a single genetic line has been carried forward since life started on this planet, I fail to see how "it's too complex" can be used in a valid arguement without being immediately followed by "...for me to understand in my short 72 year lifespan"
Most people who try to oversimplify the arguement forget one very important rule:
Never underestimate the power of entropy in large quantities.
I even fail to see why entropy/random chance, over the course of a couple billion years, would not be sufficient for even random chemicals on a dynamic planetary surface to comobine in the proper proportions to eventually find a way to reproduce itself and thus become life.
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!" -Rush
Not saying that I agree with ID or it being taught in our schools, but your argument doesn't hold water. Imposing this on preachers is not the same and here is why. You are not required by law in this country to go to church. However, my son is required by law to go to school. I am forced, due to not having the option of vouchers, to send him to a public school, since I can't afford to pay for both a public and private education. Therefore, I am forced to have my child learn evolution, whether I agree with it or not.
Stephen J. Gould isn't a real scientist? Reference
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Neither does believing in a big White guy with a beard sitting in the sky somewhere and being enormously concerned about some dead Jew on Earth. THAT is the larger issue, and I'm getting fucking tired of tip-toeing around it to avoid hurting people's feelings. This ID thing is getting way out of hand, and we sensible and logical people (with the background in science) have only let it happen by our damned tip-toeing. It's time to go on the offensive. We need to start demanding that the fundies either produce evidence for their beliefs, or to shut the fuck up since they are being irrational twits.
"Either produce evidence for this 'god' of yours, or shut the fuck up."
We don't tolerate people raving about being abducted by UFOs, so why tolerate people who rave about some "god"?
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
The ridiculous thing is that there is plenty of room for evolution in the Christian faith. God made the world and everything on it and the theory of evolution is part of how he did it. How about intelligent guidance, where the creator made the first creatures and guided them via evolution to where they are now? That is pretty much how the theory of evolution (and many other things) were explained to me in my religious education. God may have created the universe in 6 days but Genesis fails to mention how long one of God's days actually is? A good theologian (like my teachers) can fit scientific advancement into the faith, bad theologians take everything literally. And yes there is no place in the teaching of science for unproven speculations, since by definition that isn't science.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Also, you know that evolution is nothing but changes in allele frequency in a population over time, so at no point, with either modern scientists or Darwin himself, was anyone ever expecting to see a transitional form that wasn't itself a functioning, living species? Its not like the transitionals are going to be half-melted blobs melting from human into porcupines, like some frozen outtake from Species the movie.
That said, How about the transition from Ape to Modern Humans? Transitional enough for you? Each one of the 20 main hominids is slightly different from its neighbor, but very different from a few neighbors down. No, the earliest ones could not be confused for modern humans, no matter how much you shaved and suited them up. (And for kicks, you still have some morphological leftover traits-- take a look at your teeth, and notice the giant roots for your tiny little canines. Note how earlier humans used to have much larger canines.)
Other transitions include dinosaurs to birds, or reptiles to mammals, or land mammal to whale. Or if you're talking about genetic missing links, that's really, really easy to find. For example, chimps and humans don't have the same number of chromosomes- we have one less- but funny how human chromosome 2 is almost identical to chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q. We even have broken bits of telemorase right in the middle of 2, exactly what you'd expect if 2p and 2q had fused together. All primates have to eat vitamin C, we can't produce it ourselves, unlike all other mammals except guinea pigs. One prediction scientists made (see '29 evidences' below) was that we'd eventually find that primates have a broken vitamin C gene. Funny how they recently found that exact gene, the identical broken bit shared by all primates (The gene also has further 'chips and scratches,' where the additional broken bits correlate highly with the type of primate. Guinea pigs also have a broken gene, but in a completely different place. The designer sure spent a lot of time on making broken genes correlate with morphological similarities. You'd think the designer could be a lot more creative in being a plagarist, no?)
Also, scientific theories are never "confirmed," just corroborated. In the 29 Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ you can find well-referenced (peer reviewed research) evidences, each with predictions and falsifiability criteria. We're still waiting for the '1 evidence for ID' that includes the same predictions and falsifiability.
Oh, and that "microevolution is distinct from macroevolution" idea? That's a fairly common creationist claim. One of a very long list of common creationist claims. Answers to claim CB902 are here. (For kicks, you can also check out the claims that even creationists say to stop using, and see how many of those get mentioned in this thread.)
There is the scientific theory of electro-magnatism. Do you dispute that electricity is a fact? Isn't it a fact that electricity powers light bulbs?
No - it is NOT a theory. A defining characteristic of a theory is that it must be falsifiable. ID is NOT falsifiable - so it can not be described as a "theory". It is, best described, perhaps, as a "crackpot theory". Or alternatively, we'd be kind, and say it is "conjecture", "speculation", or "a poor answer to a question which doesn't exist", or any other non-scientific concept.
I'm encouraged to see some sense coming out of a US court on this topic: there's hope for the USA yet!
Be nice if you could learn to spell. The word is "DEFINITELY"!
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
addendum:
The proof is in the pudding, so they say. The subject of the grandparent's post is "Question to the religious freaks". And as of now, it is modded 70% insightful and 30% troll. Try substituting "religious" with anything else. Try, female, chinese, black, old, crippled, fat, addicted... It's open season on the religious. Kind of like in ancient Rome. Only problem is, the Romans are gone, but the Christians are still here. It's a problem for some people, anyway.
I admit it, I'm off topic. This post isn't about ID and science class. ID isn't science, even I know that. I don't think it should be taught in science class. But the posts about this artical really show the true colors of this community. The judge said everything there is to say about the matter. Most of what has been posted is just hate. Slashdot is biggoted. I don't care about your answers to me, just answer to yourself, is this what you want?
It posits a God with a sense of aesthetics.
This God finds the idea of presto! creation cheap and unattractive.
Any child can fashion a man from mud and then breathe on it. Even though this is the medium he must work in, he does what he can to imply the possibility of something much more elegant. A creative process which starts with molecular seeds, an intricate plan, and a dream.
Perhaps this is that God's way of telling us he, too believes in God. A God who created him/her but remains hidden.
"If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."
Funny quote, but it's wrong. A better analogy is: if atheism is a religion, then mocking stamp collectors is a hobby. To state a belief in a God or to state a belief in a lack of God is a religious belief. Therefore such is religion. Agnosticism may be a religion, as it states an inability to for certain know if there is a God. Simply put, any sort of belief related to supernatural beings, for or against, is religious.
Now, whether you alone or with others discuss this belief or use it as a basis to mock/convert others would determine whether you're following a religious practice. In this part, one can say that one can be atheist or agnostic without religious practice, but a Christian cannot be without religious practice. To that end, the fundamental problem with the quote is that it attributes religion with activities one carries out, when it is the case that one can be religious without any activity at all.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Interesting, but the species are still mosquitos, they didn't become frogs or blu-jays, or grow gills or learn to spin webs, or change phylum. In the end, they're still mosquitos.
As a believer in Creationism, I will first admit, I'm firm to believe that species change and more or less, "adapt" to their environments, out of need for survival.
Think of a computer programmer. We create an object, and derive other objects from it, thus "inheriting" a certain behavior. Who's to say that God didn't create a common DNA for certain species, and derive more specific species from that base DNA, because it works so well? Why reinvent the wheel...? I've heard some point out some details about why certain design characteristics of humans are inefficient, but who's to say, if in 100 years, we actually learn that they are quite efficient for their purpose?
In any case, as I stated, the new mosquitos are still mosquitos and not some other creature.
Thanks,
Leabre
The judge slammed the school board for this. He concluded that this action violated both the Federal and Pennsylvania consitutions. They school board frequently did not follow its own procedures. Of those who voted for this, the majority did not actually know what ID meant. Several school board members who left the school board cited the aggressively religious tones of the other board members. The school board consulted no scientific expertise in establishing this new policy. The school system's science teachers refused to act on this policy, citing professional conduct. This all lead up to the Dover school board lining up the perfect test case for ID to be shot down like a dead duck on a string.
at the very least you believe in rationality which is principally the area of science. I do not therefor i consider evolution and ID equally valid. That said, it is quite clear that ID makes a half hearted attempt at being rational merely to cover its irrational foundation. One honestly claims to be science, the other in a weak attempt to subvert scientific thought. Frankly id have very little trouble with the subversion of science if it wasn't for the simultaneous assertion of religious belief. Unfortunately it is rather difficult to subvert both religion and science at the same time.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own"
Also, you must realize that 'big' changes take time. What you are essentially doing is analog to watching a movie about race cars in a million times slow-motion and then concluding that race cars don't move. I assume you are a US-ian ? For the last hundred years, people have become taller, this may be less noticable in the US (you guys are midgets) but go visit The Netherlands some time, our younger population is one of the tallest in the world. Our back is a really bad design for walking upright (but the very similar design of a monkey's back seems to work pretty well) especially if you're tall (the pressure on the lower vertebrae is too high, among other things). I have some quite tall friends (2 meters) who aren't too happy with this 'intelligently' designed back of theirs. This won't suddenly become 'quite efficient' in the next 100 or even 1000 years, people are getting taller, not shorter (this is caused by better nutricion and medical care while growing up), this will become a bigger problem in the future.
Another example is the 'design' of the eye, they are wired wrong (the nerves run on top of the light-sensitive cells) , resulting in the blind spot in a human's vision (they al 'poke' through the layer of light sensitive cells at the same location). There is no need for this, nor will there ever be, there are species with eyes which are wired the right way around (octopi IIRC) and they work very well.
Go look at creation, it's not intelligently designed at all. There is an alternative creationist-ish theory called 'malicious design' which seems a lot more likely than ID.
And I can't exactly "see" evolution's effect, but one thing I can "see" is the bacteria that have grown resistant to antibiotics.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
1. Observation:
2. Hypothesis:
3. Conclusion:
And therein lies the problem. In actual science, predictions based on the hypothesis are made and tested before any conclusion is drawn.
Besides, your meiosis/mitosis example is flawed in the "observation" stage. Lots of organisms have multiple phases in their life cycle, and it isn't unreasonable to think that sexual reproduction may have stemmed from a longer life cycle phase where a meiosis-produced cell had a significantly longer lifespan than the average egg or sperm, where the combination of two cells with half the chromosomes formed one cell. Sexual reproduction is so widely seen, among both plants and animals, that it most likely arose very early in evolutionary history, probably with few- or single-celled organisms.
Now, am I saying this is what happened? No. This is a hypothesis. The next step is to try to come up with predictions based on this hypothesis (predictions that I honestly lack the expertise to make, but I could see genetic comparisons among organisms as being a basis for at least some tests, especially if we know what genes control meiosis). Based on the results of such a test, we can conclude whether my hypothesis is possibly right or definitely wrong.
But what you're saying is this: given the observations of mitosis and meiosis, the hypothesis is that the evolution hypothesis is wrong. The prediction is that any test of evolution will bear out that the evolution hypothesis is wrong, ergo, intelligent design is right.
That's not science. It's sophistry. This is what people mean when they say ID can't be tested (perhaps it would be more accurate to say that ID proponents don't test ID) - every supposed test of ID is actually a test of evolution combined with the (flawed) assertion that ID and evolution are mutually exclusive.
This stems from a fundamental misunderstanding (on the part of the churchgoing masses who are told about ID as "scientific support" for creation) or misappropriation (on the part of ID's authors and primary proponents) of the scientific method. Tests of predictions rarely provide "positive proof" (meaning we can conclude that a hypothesis is right if the prediction is tested true) of a hypothesis, because it's usually a question that, if not impossible to answer, is orders of magnitude more difficult. Rather, the survival of a hypothesis through many, many tests of "negative disproof" (meaning, we can only conclude the hypothesis is not wrong if the prediction is tested true) is what leads to a hypothesis becoming accepted as a trustworthy basis for further science. But ID proponents turn this on its head, requiring evolution to pass some test of positive proof, rather than survive many tests of negative disproof (which it already has). They use the lack of such a positive proof test as evidence that evolution is wrong, and because of their assumption of mutual exclusivity, conclude that ID is right.
Instead, why don't the ID proponents let ID stand on its own merits, and come up with testable predictions that result from the ID hypothesis - predictions that, if they were to test false, would show that the ID hypothesis is wrong? This is what's necessary for ID to become true science, but instead of taking this necessary step, the ID proponents instead skip right to making conclusions, either because they cannot formulate such testable predictions or they fear the possibility of their predictions turning out false.
Of course, their other tactic is to skip scientific discussion altogether and leverage political arguments rather than scientific ones to ramrod ID into schools.
I don't even understand why Christians are pressing this issue. If one believes in the Christian God and all that he has done, why can't one wrap ones mind around the fact that He could create the Earth and make it appear the way that it is? I thought the whole idea of religion is that it is the faith that is important, not the physical evidence anyway. If it was readily evident that God had created the universe and He had left irrefutable evidence of this fact, we would know. There wouldn't be any requirement for belief and there wouldn't be any disbelief. In that environment, we would have no choice in our future or belief, inherently we would believe and inherently we would be saved. Our faith could never be tested in such a world and in fact we could then only argue over which religion is actually worshipping the correct God, which really couldn't ever be construed to be any sort of true faith as we know it.
I haven't even touched upon the strong case for evolution and the total lack of any scientifically-accepted, provable evidence in support of ID -- I'm referring to well-respected scientific journals here . Nor have I mentioned the fact that ID is provably based on creationism and that no one has the legal right to teach _my_ child religion in public school (not that I have any children, but still). It's not my problem, the scientific community's problem, or my government's problem that the scientific evidence doesn't support ones belief or religious interpretation of a religious text. Religions survived the discovery that Earth isn't the center of the universe, and it will survive the theory of evolution. Just because ones faith can't surmount scientific evidence doesn't give one the right to teach religion in school. This republic was based on liberty above all, including Christianity, something that apparently many would like to forget along with the scientific method.
Finally for those that think that I'm enforcing/choosing a religion, consider this: while I'm not a believer in any specific religion I support the theory of evolution. Evolution has no bearing upon my religious beliefs, it neither supports or detracts from my religious beliefs, much in the way that mathematics has no bearing upon my religion. I don't support ID, primarily because it doesn't follow the scientific method. If one's going argue this against evolution, let's start talking about physics. There is no law of gravity in regards to what exactly creates that force (for starters). So we can just say that God is just pushing us down (literally THE MAN is keeping us down!!). What is time? Ah, it's just something God made, it just is! Whoops, I mean "Intelligent Entity", not God [we can fix that with a search and replace, don't worry]! Can anyone help me expand this theory? Maybe we can tack it onto ID and we'll present it as the all-encompassing theory of existence? What possible barrier can withstand the answer "because the intelligent entity created it that way"? Seriously, if we can't agree that ID isn't science then let's just let this be settled in the scientific circle. That means it doesn't get into the public school system until it's proven itself in the scientific community, which at the very least means it's discussed and accepted in scientific journals. Every modern theory took that course before becoming mainstream and ID deserves no special treatment. If ID is to measure up to evolution, then it needs to be subjected to the same peer review process to which all other scientific theories are subjected. One can't railroad a theory into mainstream by teaching it in school, and one can't legislate a statement into a scientific theory simply because it is what one believes. It needs to adhere to the scientific method and it needs to withstand scientific testing, neither of which has been done from the data I have gathered.
The fact that there is no direct scientific evidence to backup the existence of a god is not a denunciation of all religions that depend upon the premise. That fact
The simple fact is, we don't know for sure that one creature became another.
This would be just plain wrong. We have seen creatures in the laboratory change into different species. It's easiest to see with microbes and certain insects because their lifespans are short enough we can feasibly observe hundreds or thousands of generations, but there's no fundamental reason anyone can explicate why the same thing shouldn't happen to larger creatures. So, do I assume that what I see happening has happened before, or do I assume that for some reason the rules changed somewhere in the past to go from prohibiting what I see now to allowing it? Simplicity says assume that the rules didn't suddenly and drastically change unless and until someone presents some sort of evidence to suggest such a change (surely something drastic enough to alter the way DNA itself works should leave some signs somewhere).
With evolution, we can subject organisms to varying environments given a known starting point. We can observe the changes in the DNA in the resulting populations. We can observe the genes being selected for in the resultant generations. We can observe the differences between each different controlled ecosystem's DNA. We can observe how DNA replicates and introduces random changes. This all supports the theory of evolution, and it can be done using the scientific method. We have observed, and hypothesized. Then we created an experiment to test our hypothesis and it supports our theory. Evolution has a lot of evidence supporting it and though it may have some holes, it is a strong theory.
ID was just recently introduced, has a very bad scientific reputation, uses questionable methods and is strongly linked to a creationist text. The judge made no statements saying that ID shouldn't be investigated by the scientific community. He said that it shouldn't be taught in schools as a secular theory (which under the constitution, it must be secular*), because based on the evidence provided during the trial it is a thinly disguised theory of creation. Typically theories are judged by the scientific community, and only after gaining support there are they taught as theory in our public schools.
1913 Webster
All forms of Buddhism still have a belief in a supernatural force of some kind; I do not agree that such concepts are not sufficiently well-defined. Further, to suggest that Buddhism is not a religion requires a very narrow definition of religion. It's not analogous to atheism.
It is therefore quite possible to be a religious atheist but not all those who are atheists are religious
Not by any useful definition. Ritual is not required for religion and religion is not required for ritual. They are orthogonal. Even the practice of some atheists to belong to an organization and meet regularly does not in any way suggest that any form of atheism is a religion. And the idea that state-worship is a religion is also not a useful (or used) definition.
In any case: no, atheism is not a religion. It's the atheists who get to decide if they're following a religion, and you will not find an informed atheist who considers his or her atheism a religion.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
For all we know, the universe is rather big. So indeed there is a huge if not infinite number of hands dealt. And they've been dealing hands for billions of years, and it still goes on.
So, even if chemistry was random, if space (or time) is infinite, each finitely improbable hand would certainly be dealt to someone. Infinitely many times, to be exact.
Now, most scientists assume that chemistry is not random, and most planets are so big that forming some molecules by luck isn't that improbable if you count the available surface area. If you get a molecule or a set of molecules that copies itself, you have life.
Actually, string theory makes predictions about the behavior of matter which are falsifiable. Perhaps not with today's technology but once we have some more powerful colliders some of the the predictions made by string theory can possibly be tested.
For the billionth time on slashdot, "Macroevolution" is a nonsense term made up by creationists, ID'ers, or whoever decides they want to disbelieve the theory of evolution.
It is a non-existent distinction, and every attempt to make such a distinction is a distortion, either deliberately or through ignorance, of what evolution means.
If you believe there is some way to classify evolutionary change between "micro" and "macro" evolution, you simply have no clue what you are talking about.