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Evolution Named Scientific Achievement of 2005
lazy_hp writes "The BBC reports that research into evolution's inner working has been named rtop science achievement of 2005 From the article: 'The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year. The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution. The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.'"
Common sense.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Nominated for 2006, GRAVITY!!!!
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Gravity to be named the top scientific achievment of 2006. Expect the contest for 2007 to be between the invention of Algebra and the discovery of atoms.
Not that I support Intelligent Design (I think it's hokum, personally), but I can't help thinking this decision is politically-motivated. Doesn't mean it's not deserved, but it sure is convenient, coming on the heels of the ID court decision.
Aw, what do I know?
Check out my world simulator thingy.
...if you don't get it, read this.
I thought the mail client Evolution was named "Scientific Achievement", until I got past the headline...
I would be inclined to agree with you. Science (the magazine) is making its stance known in the whole debacle (in case anyone didn't know already). To me the science article here wasn't that convincing. Most of it was genetics anyways - one could argue genetics was the big breakthrough. (personally I'm a fan of runner up #2...)
-everphilski-
How about you guys just keep to your beliefs and stop trying to change ours? We don't need or want your "message" - so keep it to yourself like most other religions do. If we are interested in Christianity we will ask you about it.
I am not trolling, but I really couldn't tell if you are being serious or sarcastic, especially about renaming the planets...
And, hello -- how about the HapMap?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
[To music]: Weeee're gonna make it after aaaalllllll!!!
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
More like the most politically-involved scientific achievement of the year. Maybe that's what the were aiming for, but it seems like they're trying to pass it off as if we just figured it out this year.
For example,"I think the planets should be renamed because they're named after fake gods."
Given that you Christians believe in one God (or is it three?), won't it get rather confusing if you name all the planets after him?
You won't be able to tell Uranus from Urelbow.
The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.
The court did not ban the teaching of the ID, it ruled that the teachers
cannot be forced to do that.
..cloning on the list!? =(
...if you don't get it, read this.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
FYI Charles Darwing wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"At some point in time an intelligent being had to be involved."
Seriously, when I read that, I honestly saw "At some point in time an intelligent being had to be evolved." Funny blunder on my part.
Anyway, I gave someone mod points earlier today for posting this short essay by Scott Adams. I recommend you read it.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
....but creationists? For some reason each and every single time a story about evolution, intelligent design or even the origins of life appears, it amasses enourmous amounts of comments in a short period of time. I predict the same for this story, with regret.
./'ers are simply venting here? This might be, but I've seen a lot of comments from Slashdoters in support for ID one way or the other. It's scary because the Slashdot readership to me is apparently amoung the most educated on the net. We are mostly geeks after all.
I'm wondering what the hell is going on? Is it just a political hot potato and
It would be scary to think that all the geeks around me actually believe in religion. When I was younger I just assummed that most people were completely secular like me, and didn't believe in religion at all; delegating it to the status of fictional works like comic books etc. It came as something of a shock to my world view that most people are not in fact secular but do hold religious beliefs. I haven't quite recovered from it.
Or maybe it's just trolling by the GNAA et al, with Slashdotters flaming back. I'd like to believe this.
May the Maths Be with you!
I agree Creation is debatable, but Intelligent Design seems to be logical to me.
The two are the same and have an untennable position. Without a shred of proof going for ID nee Creationism there's nothing to debate.
Trolling is a art,
...but nobody has explained to me where the big bang gases came from that created the universe.
Why does everything need to have a beginning and an end? Why can't this matter or energy have always existed and always will exist? I don't find that so hard to swallow.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
Don't you know that the school board of Kansas has decided that this will be done next year?
I personally would have put the Climate change data higher on the list. But some good biology/medical work was recognized as well.
Think Deeply.
'Bring as many to people to faith...' Hmm... this seems to imply that those who have faiths that are different than your own have no faith. It makes the fatal assumption that all other religions are somehow invalid or untrue. The thing is that of all the world's religions, only Christianity and Islam share the fundamental belief that 'for my faith to be right, everyone else's has to be wrong.' This is just plain wrong thinking and is not even close to what the actual teachings of Jesus were. (And before you dispute that, think about what it actually says in your Bible, as opposed to what your religious fanatic clergy have told you.) But what do I know about Chrisianity? I'm not even Christian, so you may as well ignore me.
My blog
The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
Where did the Intelligent being come from? The elements that comprise the being had to come from somewhere.
Whatever you reply to this "he always existed" or whatever, is the same reply I'll give you to you about where the elements came from. It's just as logical as yours.
I'm afraid I can't point you directly to any research, but the general idea is that we can predict with some accuracy how a species will adapt to a chance in its environment. It is also something we have witnessed on a limited scale in real-time. One example is moth coloration in response to air pollution. We have actually witnessed and documented phenomena such as this, which demonstrate evolution via natural selection happens on a pretty regular basis, even now. Here is a (very brief) link, with discussion of the moth phenomenon: http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm
Check out my world simulator thingy.
actually they aren't. One said we were created in 6 days by the Christian god. The other says that at some point in the time line an intelligent being had to be involved. Whether it was during a six day period or simply craeteing the gasses that started it all.
Why don't you do a little research before touting your FUD.
Well the constitution of the United States does not mention "Seperation of Church and State"....
There is the establishment clause that says that the government cannot endorse an official State religion, but the Church/State argument is not based on the constitution. Up until the Secular Humanist revelution, (the Enlightenment), the most used text book in the schools across the country was the Bible.
"I think the planets should be renamed because they're named after fake gods."
You are free to call the planets whatever you wish.
But clearly what you really want is the power (through government dictate) to force others to use names that are approved by your particular religion.
I hear a lot of Christians complain about how oppressed they are.
In the end the complaints turn out to be about wanting the power to control others.
They do? I have never had a Hindu or Muslim or Jew attempt to convert me. Neither has anyone else. Hindu's in particular believe that you are born Hindu. You cannot "become" Hindu. It is Christians which are converting Hindu's - not the other way around. Sorry.
God
God the Father
God the Son
The Holy Spirit
and um...
Steve?
There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
i wonder what came in rsecond and rthird.
Maybe that was a Good Thing, but should decisions like identifying the Best Scientific Achievement of a year and medical decisions of vast importance be something we leave open to the whims of politics? I realize that in this case there was no "buckling" from pressure but it apparently was intended to reflect political shifts of our time. Whatever the case, it just doesn't sit well with me.
Just because something is random, does not mean it is unpredictable. Suppose I toss a coin 10^6 times.
Then I can pretty confidently say that the fraction of heads is going to be between 49.9% and 50.1%.
Each toss is random but the result is reasonably predictable.
this sensationalist headline needs to die. intelligent design was not banned by the ruling, the previous board's policy of mandating its teaching (along with the wider scope of their attempt to actually remove science from the curriculum and replace it with religious studies) was found unconstitutional. teachers are still free to discuss it with their class if they wish under this ruling, though i'm sure they recognise that it could lead to action against themselves.
Similarly, the Bible has not been banned from classrooms, but can't be used as an authoritative history text...nor "The Three Little Pigs" used in animal husbandry courses, especially if you catch them at it.
"It took me 14 billion years and 3 x 10-30M g/cm3 of playdoh. And I got was this lousy achievement award!" - Mr. Universe
As a liberal Christian, I have a certain passionate hatred for creationism. I despise creationism because it makes Christians look like a bunch of narrow-minded idiots. For example, I was reading in a Christian newspaper an article about the ICR, which stated the earth was young, and cited four reasons for this. All four reasons [1] have been long-since refuted over at Talkorigins.org or the Evolution Wiki. I was able to refute three of the four points off of the top of my head.
I have seen creationist after creationist come to this Creation-Evolution debate board I lurk on, tell us the Earth must be young because of XXX and that we are all wrong. Once we present to them some scientific evidence that the Earth is old, they get real quiet real fast.
Basically, believing in an old Earth is only possible when a creationist is in a serious state of denial. Case in point: The only people who believe in a young Earth have a religious reason for doing so. Many Christians believe in an old Earth; not one atheist believes in a young Earth.
[1] The original offending article can be seen here. The refutations can be found here (just because you can come up with one case where we got different dates doesn't mean the 99+% of cases where we get the same age via different techniques is invalid) here, here, and here (the refutation is for creationist claims for c14 levels in coals, but the process in question can make diamonds have c14 atoms also).
actually they aren't. One said we were created in 6 days by the Christian god. The other says that at some point in the time line an intelligent being had to be involved. Whether it was during a six day period or simply craeteing the gasses that started it all.
Why is the number of days a relevant distinction? Both theories say that "God did it" with no supporting evidence.
The problem is really that most people don't really understand what ID is. When it comes to the issue of the origin of life, it is very difficult for people to remove their emotions from their rational process. Those that don't believe in God will look at intellegent design as something that they already know to be false and those that DO believe in God will look at Neo-Darwinism as something THEY know to be false. Thus it happens that neither can understand the other side's argument.
It is important to understand that ID and the theory of Evolution do not disagree per se. It is ID and Neo-Darwinism that disagree. There are two important issues to be looked at when attempting to discover the origin of life:
(1) the specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view, ie natural selection etc.
(2) The "big picture" of how the planet is full of human beings now where it was once only a molten planet.
When it comes to the first issue, ID does not disagree with Neo-Darwinism. Natural selection is not disputed. The fact that there are mutations that often result in new speicies is not disputed. These are the scientific phenomena that were the steps taken to get us to where we are now.
It is the second point where Neo-Dawinists and Intellegent Design proponents disagree. Neo-Darwinists think that the mainspring of evolution is natural selection acting on random genetic variation. In otherwords, it was an unplanned, unguided and random process.
Intellegent design simply states that the state of life on Earth is far to complex to be attributed to a random process. The fact that life has evolved to its current state and is flourishing is a statistical anomoly. Intellegent design states that the complexity of existence cannot be explained by simple chance, and that there must be a "prime mover" that is guiding the processes of evolution and natural selection.
The fact is, the second issue (which is the most commonly debated it seems here on slashdot) is more philisophical than scientific. For those that really want to understand the other side (I know that many cannot, for their bigotry overwhelms their intellectual hunger) I would suggest that you read this article. It is a treatise written by a prominent Christian thinker about the origin of life.
Many of you may have guessed by this point that I agree with ID. However, please do not mistake my intent. I am not trying to CONVINCE anyone of anything. I merely want people to be CLEAR on what ID really is. It is important when discussing such a charged topic as the origin of life for there to be clarity as to what each side REALLY believes.
No, we are not loved (by a deity) and our life has no intrinsic purpose. C'est la vie.
So what say we imbue our lives _with_ a purpose by loving each other and trying to make life better for one another.
Seeing as we'll save all that time we used to spend arguing about who's god was bigger and killing each other in holy wars we'll need to keep ourselves occupied with something.
Merry Enlightenedmass!
> ID could be science if we could show that some existing race put us here for their own purposes
Wouldn't it then simply be a "fact?"
What you say is chance (i.e. evolution) I think may actually be a comletely predictable series of events, which is just subject to such a complex order of variables and conditions that we can't wrap our minds around it.
Why do tree branches grow the way they do? Because God pointed his finger and made it so? I doubt it. Whether God exists remains to be seen, but I think the constant environmental conditioning (air movement, sunlight, water, pollutants, whether an ant crapped in that spot - quite literally everything that could happen in the growth of a tree) in addition to the genetic predisposition of the tree itself caused that branch to grow where it did. The same goes for anything else which is a living, dynamically adapting and growing organism. We call it chance because there is simply no way for us to understand the complete nature of why it happens the way it does -- but just because we can't understand it, does not make it random. A million things can affect where *one* branch grows, now extend that to all branches, of all trees, and you begin to understand the sheer scope of the problem; and we're just talking about trees, which stay in one place.
Two trees of the same seed, grown next to each other in an isolated tank, will still grow differently. Molecular differences in their environment will ensure that, no matter how carefully the enclosure is built. (Plus, my guess is there is a small genetic difference even between trees of the same type.) If we could control 100% of energy and matter down to the atom in this environment I surmise we'd be able to control "chance" reasonably well, but that isn't going to happen, so seemingly random changes will happen that we'll never be able to quantify or predict.
Humans have this quirky way of thinking that just because something isn't immediately obvious, or because the concept is just too massive to wrap their minds around, that it is controlled by random chance, or a mysterious supreme power. I won't debate the existence of God, but despite our advances in history our understanding of science and the whole of everything around us is neophytic at best. To even begin to think we have a grasp on the concept-at-large is hilarious.
"Scientifically proven" is an oxymoron. No scientific theory has ever been proved. Ever.
Um, you are aware, I trust, that aspects of contagious diseases are in fact explained very well by evolution. One can predict, for instance, a rough probability of the likelihood of an animal-based influenza virus getting a mutation that can allow it to spread to animals. Without evolutionary theory, how could we explain all manner of biological events? It is no exagerration to say that evolution is the grand unifying theory of biology.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
you'll find this out the hard way!!
faith is defined in the bible as the assured expectation of things hoped for. Hebrews 11:1. So no one can prove it to you, only you can.
P2P Anonymous Distributed Web Search: http://www.yacy.net/
Good point (I'd mod it up), but there is still no way to determine whether that change occured due to a random event or whether some ID decided to help the bugs survive in their new environment. Come up with an experiment to choose between those two hypothesis and you'll win multiple Nobel Prizes.
Conversely, even if ID advocates could find some structure that required a 1 in 10^9999999999999999999999999999 event to occur, the existance of that structure would still not prove there is an ID. Evolutionists could still argue that if that event hadn't occured, we wouldn't be here pondering it's unlikelyness.
In the end, there are limits of what "Science" can do and what it can't.
From your comment it seems like you dont have an understanding of the Big Bang theory; specifically where you say "...the big bang gases[sic] came from that created the universe" But since no one has explained it to you, here goes: First of all, the "Big Bang" refers to the creation of the universe as we know it, this is currently only described as a massive release of energy that resulted in the creation of a rapidly expanding universe with an incredibly large amount of energy. As it continued to expand, the fundamental forces of physics began to seperate out and exert their individual effects on the universe, which at this point had expanded enough that the temperature of the whole mess was low enough that matter in the form of protons, neutrons, and electrons began to form. Finally, after more expansion and cooling, this matter was of sufficiently low energy to be able to coalesce into atoms, mostly Hydrogen. As for what "gave" the gasses the properties they have, I would argue that nothing "gave" anything, their properties are a direct result of their makeup, which determines their characteristics, from electronegativity to boiling point to optical properties (or color for the lay man) That is a scientifc explanation for the creation of the universe, and guess what? There is room for god in there! Our understanding of physics breaks down at the moment of the big bang. No one knows or can say how this process happened or what caused it. If you like, you can say "this is the work of god." However, saying that god must have been responsible for something just because you personally don't understand something is entirely different from allowing the possibility that our current science cannot address because the laws of physics no longer apply.
"The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.'" http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/2 0/1656228&tid=99&tid=14
The actual ruling was that it could not be taught in a science class. It said nothing about theology or sociology. I find the anti religion sentiment that's been becoming more pervasive more than a little disturbing.
Isn't that why we have religion and philosophy, then? To explain what science can't? If so, why do some insist on using religion to re-explain what science already has?
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I'm not sure to which teachings of Jesus you are referring, but you have to remember that Jesus's earthly ministry, by his own admission, was to the Jews. As a Christian, I think that there are elements of truth in all other religions, but that Christianity is the only one that offers salvation by faith according to God's grace. Other religions have different teachings, some true and some false, but we Christians believe that we are saved through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If another religion doesn't adhere to the basic tenets of the Christian faith, I am comfortable calling it invalid, and I would invite its followers to talk to Christians about the differences between faiths. I have the kind of peace and contentment through my faith that people don't tend to get anywhere else, because the work of Christianity is already done, and all we have to do is believe. It's like accepting a gift. You don't have to accept it, but if you want it, it's there for you to have for free. Christianity is fundmentally different from other religions, which require works or ceremonies to be performed, or which rely on human abilities or ideas above God's strength.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
What does "excelled at spiritual aspects of life" actually mean? This is a serious question - I really do want to know what you mean by this. Also, are you implying that these "scientists and academics" are all somehow morally or spiritually crippled?
(FWIW, I apologize in advance for asking a serious question on /.)
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Evolution is only partly built from chance. Chance is the expansion of "attempts at a generation" which hit the wall. The predictive portion is the filtering by which only some of those chances live on the form a viable mutation. We predict what might live by studying the filters each generation hit.
Predictively, the common cold is a mutation on several strains of virus. They are shuffled, broken and pieced together a myriad of ways in each host. However, there is a limit to which mutations are viable because (for example) only a few of the exposed protein signatures can become infectious to that host type.
Also, quite a few other mutations form a non-working virus (replication, delivery mechanisms, etc are flawed).
By changing the filter to (say) kills all viruses of a certain DNA sequence (or, more aptly, protein signature), we allow only those which *do not match* to pass through. This is in addition to other filters already in place (replication, infection, etc).
If you take this to a grand scale, mutations in infectious viruses, filtered against all drugs, makes for a new strain, which is no longer affected by the drugs. Guess what's been predicted for a long time, and verified over and over? That the common cold you catch is a strain you've not built antibodies for yet, so it passes all your filters and sticks. Evolution in action, all year long and within every person alive. It's been studied, replicated, predicted and verified. Same for antibacterial concepts, animal food chains, traffic patterns, information represenation, and to some part, human behavior.
If you want to add ID somewhere in there, be my guest, but it's not necessary. There's nothing magic about it. In fact, the entire process is used every day in evolutionary programming models - nothing in the results is "so complex" as to think each evolutionary model is actually a little "god" intelligently shuffling things around. It's a system of replication, mutation and filtration.
The fact that this simple concept, which is used in so many places in science, is attacked for it's link to human development is a little sad. Understand first that the propaganda of religious fundmentalism seeks to cloud the issue. Evolution pertaining to human development is sacred to them. But to the rest of the world, it's evolution is just a tool of science, to explain (as in test/predict/replicate). This tool helped build the compression routines for phone lines, the highway/traffic layouts for your town, and many things inside the IT world (voice-recognition, spam filtering, etc). Claiming it's invalid is a bit ironic - it's proven results are unavoidable in the man-made or natural world.
To those that have any inclination to see ID kept around: Please remember that evolution is alive in well in many parts of the scientific world, and is used to make viable, existing products. Animal development through evolution may be complex in it's DNA content and effects, but the process is working elsewhere, so there's no reason to doubt it.
The density of stupidity in this post is truly impressive. Surely the dumbness power of this post could nullify any possible reply.
This comment has been sent a 'cease and desist' order. Please refrain from discussions regarding 'Intelligent Falling' as it is covered by our recently granted patent.
Gekido's Lair
> Everything in this universe has a beginning and end
Everything I have ever seen has been the colors red or blue, therefore there is no such thing as green.
Just because you've never encountered anything infinite, it does not mean that nothing infinite exists at all. Really, you'd have to have left the planet (not to mention, galaxy) to even begin rationally thinking something like that.
If you go back and look at my previous posts on this subject, you'll no I'm no fan of ID. Teach it to kids in Sunday school, but not in biology class. Now granted evolution and a lot of the bio-sciences have been on the run in the US over the past while, the only reason this award was granted was to bolster the bio-science community by the other scientists saying "Good on You!".
There is nothing wrong with that, in fact if you have a weak team in a sports league, the other teams in terms of PR will say good things about that team and try to get the fans out. ID got a boot from the courts this week, but I don't think anyone thinks that will kill the issue. The sides are still on the field and the thinking people have to say "go team!".
I, myself am hindu (and born as such) and what you've said isn't entirely true. *Some* Hindus believe you can't become a hindu, but the majority I know do not. Afterall what would the Hare Karishnas[1] do if people couldn't become hindu, on a more day to day level there are people who come to my local temple who definately wern't born hindu and seem to have converted, as they are members of the white indiginious population here in the UK.
[1]The Hare Krishnas are the only evangelical group of Hindus I know of. Most that I know (who actually take time to study the religion) respect and believe all faiths (including athesim & agnostisism) to be of equal value and as such believe evangelisism (is that even a word?) to be pointless.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
True, but then in the same since your theory of gasses just appearing is just as illogical as the theory of God always existing. Where is end of the universe? Is there a wall and a sign that say's the end somewhere deep into space? No and I don't think anyone believes that. So it is not any more irrational to believe in a God with no beginning and no end than it is for you to believe in an infinite universe that just happened.
n -Atheists_W0QQtgZinfoQQprZ2743256/
I am actually reading a very well written book called God doesn't believe in atheists by Ray Comfort... I highly recommend it. Ray Comfort has been a platform speaker at the National convention of American Atheists. I venture to say that as an atheist it would be near impossible to read this book and not have your "faith" shaken considerably. If you doubt my claim, I encourage you to grab a copy and read it.
http://product.half.ebay.com/God-Doesnt-Believe-i
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
...in the bible...
Perhaps you should step away from the assumption of the bible as a source of truth. Your appeal to that book as an authority doesn't work in my library.
"Intelligent Design" still maintains a god or gods made it all. If you ask the people pushing the silly idea you'll find that they aren't referring to Odin or Zeus as the creators, they're talking about their christian god.
They changed a few words in "Pandas and People" to drop the term Creationism and come up with Intelligent Design. They lied and laundered money to push their myth on unsuspecting children. Scum, the whole lot of 'em.
Trolling is a art,
As Frank Zappa points out, "if we are made in G-d's image, then G-d must be dumb all over, and a little ugly on the side, as well."
-a
You make the absurd assumption that "academics and scientists" are necessarily non-religious. You are deeply wrong. What is incredibly arrogant is that people who self-identify as non-scientist/non-academic are insisting that they know what is and should be considered scientific and/or academic, shoving it down their throats even though there is not a reciprocal attack happening from the scientific/academic corner trying to define what is and is not religious. It is simply insecurity on the part of those attacking science and academia that the results of those imply the absurdity of their closely-held faith-based beliefs.
In short, you're flailing at windmills.
My CAPTCHA for this post was "stoning." Maybe there is a god after all. At least he has a sense of humor.
Exactly. Science has its balliwack, religion and philosophy have theirs. Both sides have a tendency to overstep their bounds in this subject area.
Actually, I have met many religious people who do tend to rub it in my face that I'm going to hell. One claimed that after "Eschaton" Christians would be "kings and bishops over men." I can only provide anecdotal evidence, but then your assertion is also based on the anecdotal evidence of this story.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Merry Christmas, cheers!
You accuse Christians of trying to change you and you're obviously very upset by that. By the same arguement, you would be attempting to change them by saying that evolution is more valid than ID. In my opinion, this falls under the same social graces of the giving/receiving of 'holiday' greetings. Accept the fact that other people can differ from you with grace and the world is a better place.
I think the dismissive phrase "just meat" implies that there isn't much to it. In fact you can implement some incredibly cool things using "just meat". Intelligent life, for example.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Not to start this debate again, but nobody has explained to me where the big bang gases came from that created the universe.
I'll make a deal with you. When you can explain to me where the creator/intelligent designer came from, I'll explain to you why your use of "gases" is incorrect.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
I wonder how "Evolution" feels about the award - 4 billion years of hard work, and now it gets recognition.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Krishnas are a cult and therefore can be discounted from any discussion. I don't know of any real Hindu that believes that you can convert to Hinduism or seek to convert others.
Seriously, how can you deny that some intelligent being had a hand in the creation of the universe at some point in time? The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
The intelligent being had to come from somewhere too, until you explain that, you've explained nothing. ID is a fundamentally question begging answer.
If intelligence can "just exist" then why can't we "just exist" without a creator?
If an intelligence needs a creator, where did the first creator come from, or is it just turtles all the way down?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Since you put that in quotes, and from the general tone of your post, one cannot tell if you are serious, joking, or sarcastic. However, let's consider that one sentence. What's "fake" about the gods who are eponymous to the planets? They are the same gods who gave their names to the weekdays in several languages, including English, Spanish, Swedish, and others. Those gods are absolutely as true as Jehovah, or Jesus, or Allah, or Quetzalcoatl, or Ra, or any other god.
Until the day when one or more true gods come forward and claim their true existence, any and all gods on whom any person has faith, is absolutely as true as all the others. That's why religion should be separated from both politics and science, and why there must exist freedom to believe or not in any religion. There's no uncontrovertible evidence for the existence of any god at all.
Given that you Christians believe in one God (or is it three?), won't it get rather confusing if you name all the planets after him?
Why? You've got the Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit, Rex, Mittens, Nibbles, etc...
The Divine Mystery, One God, different persons. E Plurbis Unum, one big happy family, or something.
I don't think this is true or I did not understand your meaning. For example:
I would appreciate you expanding your thought here how ID would make the exact same predictions as evolution.
And religious nutjobs like Pat Robertson and James Dobson don't think they're better than everyone else? Puh-leeze.
I dont know what these americans are up to, but they are watering down science by announcing such things. Overreactions such as these are giving much more importance to ID and such beliefs, than they actually deserve.
You are blowing into the fire of religion and ignorance rather than letting it burn out and die slowly.
God created man in his own image, but somehow he evolved into a hairless monkey.
If so, why do some insist on using religion to re-explain what science already has?
Because science is slowly chipping away at their mythologies. They can't stop it so they've decided to insert their crap into science as a trojan horse so their fables seem to hold true. This document entitled The Wedge at Work isn't short but it's an excellent read.
Trolling is a art,
That's great, and all, and I agree with you. The problem is that the people pushing ID and creationism don't accept what the pope has to say. Most of them don't even believe Catholics are Christian.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
Dang!! hadn't thought about them....oh snap You're right!
Sorry, I'm an agnostic, not an atheist. And basic fabric of the univers/a-multiverse/something-wilder may just exist, and always have existed. In 'empty' space bits of matter and anti-matter may spontaneously pop up. It's thought that that happens and explains some of the radiation comeing from black holes. Our universe might just be some bubble that popped into existance like those particles do. Time may only exist in this universe, so there is no worry about thinking about a 'before'. I don't know. And neither do the 'believers' or 'non-believers'. We have absolutely no way of knowing since those things are entirely out of our scope of our physics/existance. Perhaps some day we will have the tools to probe more deeply into it, but we simply aren't equipped for it today. However, that said, the springing forth into existance of an all-knowing all-powereful sentient existance would seem much more unlikely than the springing forth of simple matter, the with complexity slowly added/evolving into the system.
Right on!
Mod this Up!
-- Fuck Beta
Another award was this: Complicated Earth. Comparisons of rocks from Earth and outer space forced scientists to scrap long-held views of how our planet formed. So we will not be surprised if some day, we will see the scientists "scrapping" long-held views on Evolution?
CAREFUL!! Your starting to think logically...this has no place in our evolved evolutionary society. Everything must be viewed through the glasses of evolution and long naturalistic timeframes its the way we do things here. Now be quiet and go away!
I agree with you. To be pedantic though, I think scientific objection to ID is Falsifiability. The ID pushers make few claims that we can observe. Fortunately, they do say that the earth is only ~6000 years old, something we can measure objectively.
The social problem with ID is that the people doing the pushing are religious bigots. Make no mistake about it. They're as open-minded as the taliban. They don't care whether it's scientific. They're not interested in a dialog or the truth. They have a message for you and their only interest in you depends on your acceptance of that message.
I can never tell if these types of posts are serious or just a good troll.
Evolution is true, and one day you'll find this out the hard way
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Just because someone holds to a belief and will not compromise it does not mean that they are fanatical lunatic as you imply. It is possible for intelligent people to disagree. Perhaps you should follow the Islamic principals and actually learn about those around you before you challenge them.
So it is not any more irrational to believe in a God with no beginning and no end than it is for you to believe in an infinite universe that just happened.
Look up "Occam's Razor", then reconsider these words.
I'm just curious now how other religions interact with the idea of evolution. What about India's Hindu population? What do they think?
Sort of off topic, I guess. But hey. Maybe someone here who's bilingual will know.
There is the establishment clause that says that the government cannot endorse an official State religion, but the Church/State argument is not based on the constitution.
You are so wrong. Read the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Establishment Clause says, and I quote, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
In other words, the "Church/State argument" is COMPLETELY based on the Constitution.
Where'd you go to school? Kansas? Up until the Secular Humanist revelution, (the Enlightenment), the most used text book in the schools across the country was the Bible.
Everything in this universe has a beginning and end.
Says who? You aren't the ID are you? If you are, I apologize.
Not to mention that theories which have been flat-out DISPROVEN (*cough* Newton's laws *cough*) are still taught and used because they are more than good enough 99.99% of the time.
The second choice is simpler.If you postulate that an "intelligence" got the ball rolling, you have to explain how that intelligence came to exist. We do know that things exist, because, as Descartes said, we do exist. We have lots of evidence to show that things didn't always exist as they do know, and we have evidence that the whole universe as we know it started its existence in an event that is known as the "big bang".
We do not have any evidence at all, beyond pure faith, that anything existed before the big bang. We do have evidence that many things in this universe are not governed by a benign, omnipotent entity (for instance, a child whose father I knew died at age 3 from a brain cancer).
Looking at events in our world, random chance is more likely than any sort of intelligence. Why do some lovely people die young, and some mean bastards live to 100 years old? And why do some excellent people die very old and some ruthless drug dealers die in their 20s?
No, belief in blind chance doesn't require any sort of faith. It requires only a careful and methodic observation of the events in our world, a.k.a. science.
I also see this as part of a political choice rather than a choice based on merits - just look at the breakthroughs mentioned:
sequencing of the chimpanzee genome
- What has this to do with evolution in it self? as stated in the article it may some day give a breakthrough, but as for now I can't see how this is proving/dis-proving anything...
recreation of the 1918 flu virus in a laboratory
- And this has what relation to evolution??? It was a mere reproduction - I fail to see how this relate to evolution
a study on European blackcap birds which demonstrated how two different populations can become two separate species
- Finally something that seems related to evolution! But is this enought to make the nomination as achivement of the year??
It seems political agendas moved in front of rationality, which unfortunately give science a bad name... Then again, Science may be just another pop-science magazine that don't represent scientific views but what might sell better; after all I believe this is what lots of scientists want to hear in light if ID even though most likely would be ashamed of the base of this award...
If ever there was a time I wish I had mod points, this is it.
I could not have said it better.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
You are an astoundingly misinformed jackass.
1) life never comes from non-life
Just because we have not observed this event does not mean it has never happened. Pick out the very simplest of monocellular organisms. Now allow the UNIVERSE infinite time. Eventually, something will happen to bring things into proper order.
2) explosions don't bring order
Um. Okay. Thanks for that, but please note that you're comparing a mass of some form of matter that is expanding quickly due to a simple chemical reaction to THE FUCKING BIG BANG.
3) Mutations occur but almost always bring harm and NEVER add new information to a genetic chain.
Oh boy, thats hard science. They almost always bring harm. And isn't a mutation new information.. kinda by default? There's a difference between a genetic shift and your methhead cousin whose baby was born with two noses.
4) Science itself was vastly vived by a creationist perspective.
Yeah. Scientists.
You forgot about GM crops, mutant rabbits, and evil grey goo that's trying to take over the world.
Santa's suicide mission go!
"Seperation of Church and State" is very different from "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Saying that no one can mention religion in public schools, or forcing people to exclude Jesus, Mohammed or any other religious figure from schools is WAY outside of the original intent of the First Amendment. You know it, and so do I.
I'm surprised at how selective peoples understanding of this is. The First Ammendment was meant to stop the creation of an "Official National Religion" or "Official State Religion". The language while archaic by today's standards isn't really all that hard to understand.
Technically this prohibition was meant for congress, and was specifically to prevent the creation of laws that favor one religion or another. Since I don't know of any laws that state that a Baptist preacher must give a prayer before city council meetings, or anything like that, such action, as long as it was not legislated by law would NOT violate the establishment clause.
Actually I went to school in NY.
Merry Christmas
Don't knock Kansas. The education authorities there have done us a great service. We now know which state to look at first when we need people who can flip burgers without asking questions.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
You're falling in to the same trap the fundies always do.
Evolution is not the 'big bang' theory. Evolution doesn't give two shits about cosmic expansion, collapse, black holes or matter/energy interactions. It doesn't care where Earth came from, how long it had been there, or what color the sky was when the Flying Spaghetti Monster first set the amino acids rolling.
Evolution is about the trends of change among individual organisms. That's IT. There are other theories about all the other events, but they are off-topic.
Actually, they are whacko. Believing so strongly in a myth that you are willing to lie and deceive to make your point makes you whacko. This has been my personal experience and the judge in the case made the point that the people with the deep religious convictions were liars. As a wise man once told me, jesus is just santa claus for grownups.
:-) If by Behe you're referring to the 'irreducibly complex' crap, at least read this: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
If you want to be in the camp that seeks to push id, you're in for some very bad company.
Speaking of whackos, you've got some whackiness showing of your own. (Thanks for the google suggestion, I'd never have thought of that
As for your misappropriation of Crick, read http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/steve/. The Project Steve pages made me laugh a coupla times and the reference to Crick gets a Steve-o-meter rating of 9.
The the question of where god came from has a quick and easy answer, and it is "He's a heretic, burn him!".
I think that calling one of the planets "The Son" is just asking for confusion.
How about Pops, Junior, Spook (Rex, Mittens, Nibbles, etc...)
Gives God a nice family-friendly image, I think.
Have sex, or observe animals engaged in sexual reproduction. Notice how life mysteriously appears where it was not before.
Of course the typical IDer response is "It's the MIRACLE of life!!!". Sorry mac; it's just chemistry and physics. Get over it.
Infact, DNA which was discovered after the evolution theory is a huge slap in the face to evolution and a dramatic proof of intelligent design.
You are either ignorent, or simply outright lying. From the moment of its discovery, it was realised that DNA was instrumental in the process of evolution. To quote Watson and Crick's FIRST paper upon the discovery of the structure of DNA:
Care to retort?
These are just a few of the reasons why creationism is a more excellent science than the blind faith of an evoltuionary naturalist viewpoint.
I am unable to begin to articulate how completely laughable this statement is. Please. Read a book... other than the Bible.
May the Maths Be with you!
Most of the Slashdot discussion on this story I've read is about Intelligent Design and religion. Indeed, if you say "hostility to the implications of evolution," most people will assume you're thinking of religious-based opposition.
But some of the work acclaimed in the Science article is eventually going to horrify a large community of believers for a completely different reason.
You can read a well-written summary of the situation here.
It's religious chauvanism. If religion has helped someone, say, in finding meaning for their life, for getting through difficult times, or something else significant, then people feel compelled to defend everything that the religion pushes.
It's like this: say you love your parents, but, they sometimes do jerky things. You're still going to defend them, even when they're jerks. Eventually, you *may* grow out of it, and be an independent person, but, most people tend to stick up for their parents' imperfections.
I think religious people are doing the same thing: defending their authority figure from (what they see as) criticism.
Its funny how ID is being so shot down... i mean its so far reached that 1 miracle brought about everything rather than 1 trillion miracles by chance.
There's nothing miraculous about random mutation and natural selection. Do the math. It's not improbable that life evolved. It's practically inevitable. Your example was also a logical fallacy.
May the Maths Be with you!
Believing that an intelligence got the ball rolling requires divine faith; and believing that chance got the ball rolling -- that it happened because it happened, requires secular faith (whether you like it or not).
No it doesn't. It requires only the assumptions of the mathematical model that proves it can happen. Have you ever heard of genetic programming? Look it up. If you don't want to accept the axioms of mathematics, that's fine. But then please stop using your computer. Von Neumann's ghost would be very upset.
May the Maths Be with you!
I agree with the fact that you shouldn't seek to convert others, however what should I tell the white english woman whom freely chose to come and worship at my local temple? As A hindu I'm not particularly strict, for examplt I eat meat; she is far more observant of the religion, who am I to tell her she's not hindu? I certainly don't know of any scripture that prohibits anyone from becoming hindu.
It would be more accurate to say that hindus don't believe that anyone needs to be converted to hindism as we all follow the same god[1].
[1]Contrary to appearance, hindism is not polytheistic, we believe that there is only one god, however (s)he can manifest his\her self (or be viewed) in many ways. The usual way to explain this is to take the example of one man, to his sons he is a father, to his father he is a son, to his sister he is a brother, to his wife, he is a husband; if one man can be viewed in this many ways, then god can be viewed in infinatly more ways. You choose weather that be through Krishna, Jesus, Yahweh, Allah or none of the above.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
It's pretty amusing that you want to lecture us on science, when you start off with the idiotic notion that science "proves" anything. Proof is for math and liquor, my friend. Science is about evidence. Science is about formulating models that are testable and have predictive power. ID is neith testable nor predictive, and in fact so lacks in explanatory power that even its advocates admit that it is compatible with evolution. Evolution, on the other hand, is based upon evidence, is testable (and falsifiable) and does make predictions. ID is not science, save that it, like half the friggin' ten dollar shampoos you'll buy, uses scientific-sounding words.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What does science have to say about awareness? Anything? I mean, isn't awareness kind of a big deal? If we start with the simplest creatures—self-replicating proteins—and procede to bacteria, then insects, then, finally, the most complex creatures that we know of: ourselves—well, at what point does awareness begin? Are there degrees of awareness? Is awareness a function of life, or vice versa?
What I'm getting at is, you say God had to come from something else. I ask, is that consistant with our current understanding of awareness? I don't have any answers myself, but I wonder, how long can science continue to ignore consciousness before it finds its collective self against a brick wall?
Food for thought.
Actually they don't. One says the Christian god found in the bible, and the other said that some intelligent being. There is a VERY BIG distinction in that.
But it isn't a relevant distinction. I couldn't care less if this "intelligent being" is your Christian God or an Anonymous Coward God. It is obvious to anyone familiar with this debate on either side that this "intelligent being" crap is a sly reference to the Christian God anyway, since that is the deity to whom the role of "intelligent designer" is always attributed outside the bounds of the theory. At least creationism was an honest hypothesis.
If you aren't smart enough to see that distinction then he really shouldn't reply to your post.
I'm not so foolish as to see any distinction that is relevant here. Neither theory is falsifiable, and neither one has any predictive power. The differences between them are only religious in nature, as you're angrily pointing out yourself! They are not scientific theories.
I'll give ID a second thought once Christians start roasting monkeys for Christmas dinner. After all, it's not like we're eating a close genetic relative or anything.
I believe that the same comment has been made about "String Theory", and while I would admit that it isn't falsifiable in general (though there are specific tests...such as mathematical correctness), I would still maintain that it's a scientific hypothesis.
A more subtle definition appears to be needed. Falsifiability is needed for many purposes, but it doesn't seem (to me) to be the bedrock of what is scientific.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The same could be said about evolution, if not more so, because it's allowed to be taught in schools. Keep your biased theories to yourself. I wish my children in public school had a choice to learn it or not. What's worse is that evolution is being taught to my children as fact, not theory. If I'm not mistaken, theories have two viewpoints with neither one being forced upon us. With all this recent discussion on ID and evolution, I took the opportunity to review my 4th grade daughters science text book. It had an entire section devoted to evolution, and nowhere did it say that it was just a theory or offer a single opposing viewpoint. I also wonder why my child would get tested on evolution when it's only a theory. Just because a bunch of scientists (most of whom don't believe in ID) except the evidence doesn't make it any more than the theory it is.
"Because some people have been murdered in the name of religion, religion should be abolished? "
:-(
Well, it's rather interesting that when it's about high moral it's true Christian. But when it's about inkvisition, discrimination by Church that is just bad human behaviour.
You state that there's a God, well, show me! Prove it! I can take it - but not you. If you state that you're an alien observator disguised to a human being most people will laugh at you and probably you too. Or you state that you're owning 100 billions i Switzerland but you want me to believe it just by saying so.
Why do you expect me to accept that just the parts of Bible you want are valid, all the other parts talking about direct intervention by God are allegoric symbols?
The problem is that most people even today have not the slightest understanding of the universe. No humanity do not develope.
Stanislaw Lem a great SciFi writer wrote in Summae Technologiae that people think that humanity is just like a jung man in his 20-es he makes misstakes but will improve in time. Well humanity is just like an old alcholist who was saved to life again by doctors and he promises that tomorrow he will be sober and he will live a healthy life.
But already in the evenenig he's drunk again.
From shamanism to polytheism to monotheism was the way to defend from an overall existing concrete divine existens to a more subtle gallery of gods to an abstract, surrealistic god that by current definition could not be proven.
I'm sick of relatives who start halleluja when their dearest has been rescued thanks to the hard effort of rescue workers or hospital personal but they praise God instead thanking those people who did the job in many cases risking their own health.
They take medication but states that that was their fiath in God and prayers was resulted in God's intervention to save them. That is the most arrogant theism.
Of course not at all religious people are such jerks but all too many
Being atheist is not just another belief as you state but the realisation that God is just Santa Clause - an imagination of the humans brain.
The problem is today that Companies are ruling by lobbying and they never ever cared about humans and they use archievments in sciences to enrich the owners, nothing more.
This way destroying this planet big time in a never before experienced global way and religion is just another way to deny the problem and set faith inot god hoping that God will save humanity or at least His own believers in the Heaven at least.
About moral: I do not need an invisible supervisor with a carot in one hand and a whip in the other the be tolerant, listen to and try to help others. I have empaty by all myself alone.
You want me to accept your untestable doctrines in the name of tolerance but it do not work in the other way?
Gentry is a kook, and most Creationist organizations out there have distanced themselves from his nonsense. He has been thoroughly debunked. What's next? Chariots of the Gods and Dr. Dino?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Achievement of 2005? What are these people smoking?
Whats next, electricity?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If idea of ID had any merit what so ever,
Christians have destroyed any chance at having it taken seriously.
Western civilization isn't the center of the universe and neither is Christianity.
Christianity is not the only religion.
Christians cannot make people believe that their religion is the only truth.
Christians cannot make people suffer while they die.
Christians cannot make people have babies.
Christians cannot make people believe that Dinosaurs hung out with Adam and Eve.
We cannot afford to allow Christians to legislate their morality.
We cannot afford to replace a theory with a belief.
(We can hurl a satellite into space from our little rock through the gap in the rings of Saturn into perfect orbit around that planet. All based on a theory.)
Science and Christianity are not fundamentally opposed.
There are those who seek disparity where there is none only to help reaffirm their own personal beliefs.
Thank GOD for the separation between Church and State.
Some Christians need to understand that this very principal is the one thing that keeps their Tax Free Mega Churches, Christian Universities, and Christian law firms free from being subjugated to a lower state of societal acceptance not a higher one.
Its time to take the high road and stop the whole liberal vs. conservitive, Christians Vs. Everyone Else, BullShite.
String theory is a working hypothesis. A good many of the physicists out there will shuffle their feet if not outright proclaim it not yet a scientific theory. It isn't yet testable, but it does offer at least some potential means, though it's going to take a few generations of particle accelerators before we get to that point. But that is key to even a hypothesis, it must at least hold out the possibility that it can be tested and falsified. ID cannot even provide some hypothetical means by which one could falsify, it is compatible with all observations, and thus has no explanatory power.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Doesn't the popping up of matter and antimatter negate the first law of thermodynamics?
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
life never comes from non-life
explosions don't bring order
Mutations occur but almost always bring harm
Are these references to specific scientific theories or conclusions, or are you just reporting what you feel to be common sense? And how do some of these statements relate to the subject at hand? (e.g. what do explosions have to do with anything? and what precisely do you mean by "order"? exactly how often, statistically, is "almost never"?) Don't forget Stephen Jay Gould's twist on an old saying: "God is in the details." The sweeping arguments made by creationists using everyday language and analogies can often sound plausible enough at first hearing, but once you start drilling into the details, they begin to fall apart. Conversely, real scientific theories like those relating to evolution only get stronger the closer you look.
Science itself was vastly vived [sic] by a creationist perspective
It is absolutely true that many of the great scientists of the past were Christians whose faith in general, and beliefs about the Creation in particular, inspired their lives' work.
... Explained and shown the spontaneous generation of eyes, and other sensory organs. Right?
Oh, they haven't? So it's still just a throery then. OK, then what's all the fuss?
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
So if something has not been observed, it cannot happen? Interesting philosophy. Stupid; but interesting nevertheless.
What have explosions got to do with anything?
Technically speaking, a defined sequence is information, even if it is random.
Except creationism doesn't match the criteria of a scientific theory, so it rather fails at the first hurdle, doesn't it?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/
Sorry, but the guy is a well known kook who is so far off the beaten path that most of his fellow Creationists have basically abandoned him. And if you buy into his nonsense, then your claim that you're a nuclear physicist is something, that to be blunt, I think is a load of bullshit.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ummm, not it's not, and decades of jurisprudence say so.
Saying that no one can mention religion in public schools, or forcing people to exclude Jesus, Mohammed or any other religious figure from schools is WAY outside of the original intent of the First Amendment. You know it, and so do I.
And that's not what's happening, although you'd believe otherwise if your only source of information is blowhards like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.
What the courts have consistently decided is that you cannot TEACH one religion's tenets and precepts in a public school. Public schools are government entities, and as such showing a preference for one religion over others is a small step on that slippery slope towards the establishment of a state religion. Nobody is saying that you cannot teach Catholicism in a private Catholic school. Nor is anyone saying that you cannot have a social studies/humanties class in comparative religion.
Christmas pageants and the like are usually allowed because to the "defenders of Christmas'" eternal chagrin, these events are essentially secular in nature.
To be sure, the idea that we're descended from apes plays into the notion that if we're just animals, then we should behave like animals, and somehow that moral systems can only arise by Divine fiat is a pretty common one, but I think there's a deeper problem. It's that these people are in fact Biblioloters, worshippers of the book itself, whose belief isn't so much a matter of faith, but of the absolute requirement that the Bible be true in every sense, or it's a complete fraud and their lives are somehow rendered meaningless. Into that come notions that those who do not share their religious beliefs are essentially enemies at war with them. There is a very deep layer of paranoia, a persecution complex, that makes them believe that every time a judge or a politician doesn't give their religious beliefs some pre-eminent and special place, that they are being picked upon. The idea of a pluralistic society that accomodates a wide-range of beliefs is alien to them, and while most are willing to suffer the idea that there will be people of different beliefs in their community, they do want the ability to maintain social control.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Just to let everyone know my bias upfront: I'm not a Bible thumper, so yes I do support science. It is amazing to read about this "debate" on the news. The fact that this ID nonsense has gone this long is really quite scary. There is a reason for putting the belief stuff in Sunday school and the secular stuff in public. Perhaps we should just stop wearing seat belts, as Angels will just protect us etc. Its mind-boggling.
Two things come to my mind in partiulcar.
If I.D. has to be taught, I say the Raelians point of view needs to be another sticker. Replace the phrase "desinger" with "Invisible Little green aliens from the Planet Mars" in all the I.D. literature. It would sound a little silly wouldn't it? The best part is that it is equally as "valid" a theory as ID itself. You can't actually disprove it now can you?
Also, let us assume for one moment that ID is put in all the schools and we now have to teach creationism. What is the next step? You don't think they'll stop there will you? I mean there are other problems like carbon dating which are not perfectly accurate. I mean how will you prove that the Earth is only 5000 years old (thats sarcasm people) with nuisances like Carbon Dating. What is the ultimate end victory for the reglion thumpers.
At the end of the day, if you want to believe in God or little green men, go for it. Just please let me choose my own beliefs thank you.
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Har rison/BlackHoleThermo/BlackHoleThermo.html
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/011125b.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/C007571/english/adva nce/core3.htm
well, as a member of a religion different to yours (I'm a hindu) I can say to you that your religion is 100% correct* when viewed through the lens of mine, as is Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddism, Paganisim or none of the above. Afterall we all just believe in different manifestations of the same one god. Yes contrary to appearances hinuism is actually monotheistic we just believe that god can be mainifest or viewed in many ways. Is my religion 'invalid'?
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Considering it would be okay to put a sticker reading "Evolution is a theory, not a fact" on books that inform about evolution ...
How would people feel if one were to go around slapping stickers on Bibles, reading "Creationism is a theory, not a fact"?
There's no uncontrovertible evidence for the existence of any god at all.
It's weird. I woke up this morning and I swear my boobs felt bigger. Do they look bigger to you?
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Feel free to take four minutes and eight seconds to learn precisely how the human eye probably evolved.
If you can handle the four minutes and eight seconds, perhaps you'd be willing to do some reading about how a bacterial flagellum could form without a designer.
I'm also sure you've heard the name Behe before. Did you know that in 2001 Michael Behe admitted that his work had a "defect" and does not actually address "the task facing natural selection." Futhermore, irreducible complexity is rejected by the majority of the scientific community. The main concerns with the concept are that it utilises an argument from ignorance, that Behe fails to provide a testable hypothesis, and that there is a lack of evidence in support of the concept. As such, irreducible complexity is seen by the supporters of evolutionary theory as an example of creationist pseudoscience and amounts to a "God of the Gaps" argument.
Can ID answer the following questions?
If you can't answer the last one at the very least, stop reading now. Go back to the link above, click on it, and spend the four minutes and eight seconds educating yourself.
The point to those questions is that NONE of them can be answered with ID. Can't be predicted with. Can't be tested with. None. Zero.
But do you know what can? Evolution, every one of them.
That said, while you accuse others of not understanding what ID actually is, I contend that you do not understand what evolution is.
First of all, the article this discussion is linked to references how scientists have learned new "specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view..."
Second, evolution has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with how life was created on what was once only a molten planet. Nothing. At all. Evolution is the transition -- of a population -- from one form of life to others forms of life over (usually long periods of) time.
Creation of life where there is no life is what is known as abiogenesis, not evolution. Now stop what you're doing! I can see you reaching for that reply button and Googling for references to the Miller-Urey experiments from the 1950s.
Stop it! You didn't even read that abiogenesis link, did you? I didn't think so. Nothing I can say can convince you to if your mind is already made up (read: clouded by mindless dogma). However I will leave you with one thing so that you can look it up yourself and do the research.
Abiogenesis experiments conducted by Dr. Sidney Fox. Don't even b
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
I hate to say this, but reading your last few posts, I think you are indeed lying about being a nuclear physicist. Take that as you will, but I call bullshit on your claim of competency.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The weird suggestion that the human eye is a perfect design and so establishes the existance of God is rather stupid and irrelevent - there are better eyes out there and evolution is a better answer than something stupid like God stuffed up or hates blind people.
The painting requires something quite complex - a painter. Evolution however relies on much simpler premises. Conway's game of life shows that you can have interesting behaviours from a very simple set of rules.
SImilarly the world has a number of simple rules about how atoms can compose themselves. These are the rules of the game for evolution, and they are much simpler than assuming a creator who can do anything.
There are prominent examples of *non-theists* who are proponents of ID (like Michael Behe and Francis Crick, for example
As far as I know, Crick never proposed that life was intelligently designed. He did suggest that a very primitive form of life might have originated elsewhere and arrived on earth from space, and subsequently evolved. And although Behe calls himself an advocate of intelligent design, his hypothesis is similar to Crick's, in that he imagines that a primitive form of life was intelligently designed, and subsequently evolved.
The key point is that neither Crick nor Behe have attempted to offer an alternative to evolution, but rather an alternate explanation for the origin of life (which is not properly a part of the theory of evolution). Whereas evolution is very well established, the initial origin of life is very much an open question among scientists, with multiple competing hypotheses and no generally accepted theory.
Nope- because God is no more complex than the concept of a random and indeterministic universe. The two concepts are equally complex.
This is true only if God acts completely randomly--in which case God is indistinguishable from a random universe. In a formal sense, complexity is defined by the number of bits of information required to describe how something behaves. Randomness requires the least amount of information to define--anything that is possible may happen. But if God preferentially takes some actions in preference to others, then some number of bits of information are needed to describe that preference. If God acts upon knowledge, the some number of bits of information are needed to define that knowledge. An omniscient God would require infinite number of bits of information, and hence would be considered infinitely complex.
"If there is a god, please grant me a new car right now"
waits. no car
Let try the other way.
"If there is no god, please don't grant me a new car right now"
waits. still no new car.
I've asked God for many things, still nothing.
So exactly how many failed tests do we do until it's proof?
Hypothesis:
There is no god.
Theory:
tested to see if there is a god.
predictions:
If I ask god for things to appear, I won't get them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That you can't evolve into a new species.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Religions don't kill people; religious people kill people!
This story is just another slashdot dupe, from 4 billion years ago.
If this theory really has anything to show for itself scientifically, why is it that its chief proponents are afraid to even submit a proposal for legitimate research into this supposedly scientific theory?
The same could be said about evolution, if not more so, because it's allowed to be taught in schools. Keep your biased theories to yourself.
Evolution is not "biased". (note: if you disagree, then explain the bias, do not merely assert it)
If I'm not mistaken, theories have two viewpoints with neither one being forced upon us.
You are mistaken. Theories are single collective explanations for an observed phenomenon. They are not "two viewpoints". Perhaps you should consider that your problems with evolution are with your own understanding of both it and of science in general and not an actual fault with the theory itself.
It had an entire section devoted to evolution, and nowhere did it say that it was just a theory or offer a single opposing viewpoint.
Please cite the textbook in question. Also, would you expect a physics textbook to explain that the mechanism behind gravity is "just a theory" or offerin a single opposing viewpoint, or are you singling out evolution as being deserving of special skepticism for completely nonscientific reasons?
I also wonder why my child would get tested on evolution when it's only a theory.
You say "only a theory" as if it could be anything more. Theories are the end-points of scientific inquiry. An explanation can never reach a higher level of confidence than "theory". For some reason I think that you've been told this before, yet you never explained any objections to this. I wonder why you repeat the same claims that have been exposed as false previously.
Then again, I've been told that creationists treat every discussion as tabula rasa; trotting out the same false claims and fundamental misunderstandings of both science itself and scientific terminology no matter how often they are corrected.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Einstien himself thought his calculations were just a mathematical curiosity. At the moment string theory is also a mathematical curisoity. Spacetime, the expanding universe and black holes to mention just a few were all "found" in mathematics long before there was any evidence they were real.
The reason people give string theory so much attention is that the Universe has been modeled extremely well through maths. There is a reasonable hope that the maths in string theory will lead to a better real world undrestanding. Nobody has come up with any physical evidence and it could be decades before we get an answer either way.
A more subtle definition appears to be needed.
No, all that is required is patience!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Or perhaps not... could be a paradox.
:S
I think a lot of Slashdotters could benefit from reading the parent's link, unless they completely misunderstand it and go apeshit and join the KKK or something like that *shudder*.
With all the ardent selfrighteous and monoconceptual elitism around here it might be just as well to let it all silently slip by... but if "we" do that then we're not much better than those we don't wish to be like.
I guess it's a toss-up
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Yeah right! Teach children theories that are assumed true with evidence that has only been gathered to support it. My kids aren't being taught that a butterfly has evolved due to toxic chemicals, deforestation or some other man-made end, they are being taught that they come from apes. Evolution is religion masquarading as science and being forced upon us.
Unless I'm mistaken, you seem to be under the impression that evolution is a static, dogmatic orthodoxy. That's an easy conclusion to come to if you only read about evolution on creationist/ID websites, books, etc. You really should read a few books from the other side. All the seemingly probing, vital questions posed by creationists have been answered. The "deafening silence" on the "holes in evolution" creationists tell you about isn't there. There is constant research that further refines understanding of evolutionary processes. Even speaking as a layman, it is a very exciting field to read about.
I would recommend that you read a little at talkorigins.org. Not the whole site (it's huge), but just enough to understand the scientific definition of "theory," which would make clear why scientific theories are treated as they are. Your kids are not being lied to by the teachers, rather creationists are playing on a misunderstanding of a few words to scare you.
Of course, if you're already a creationist who thinks that agreeing with the theory of evolution would drag your children into the pit of hell, then there isn't much anyone can do for you. Good luck.
ID is falsifiable, not a 100%, because there are always those who wiggle, and God can do anything, after all.
1. If ID is true and evolution is false, There ought to be spontaneous generation of new species. Clearly, some species that existed in the past don't exist now, and some species that exist now don't exist in the past. It seems very unlikely that spontaneous generation of entire organisms would be undetectable.
2. If ID is true and evolution is false, we should expect no correlation between unused mitochondrial DNA between species as relates to genetic similarity, unlike the correlation we see between related members of the same species.
So yes, ID is falsifiable, but unfortunately it's been pretty much falsified.
Play Command HQ online
The "Young earth hypothesis" is orthagonal to Intelligent Design. Not all proponents of one support the other. Most "Young earthers" are creationists but not all of them would back the exact tenents or even pseudologic of Intelligent Design. Many of them are more hard-core creationists who would see any attempt to gussy an act of "literal word" with any support however well intentioned as worthless or downright heretical. To some people the word is the word and it needs no support. Attempting to giove it an outside validation or a patina of science is as great a crime as disagreeing with it.
Similar some Intelligent Design proponents are willing to grant a much longer age for the earth. They just refuse to believe that we humans (at least) came about in any way except by the intervention of some higher power (remember it could be an alien!) which in turn makes us "special".
This is really the handle of both the old-earth creationists and the Intelligent Design people. They are perfectly willing to accept science until science brings up something they don't like then it must be stopped. It's kind of like being open to all religions until someone professes their faith, or accepting homosexuals so long as you never meet any.
Well not really considering I don't really believe in gods, dieties or other supreme beings, but if I were to believe in one, one that was the omnipotent, omniscient, being that so many religions do believe that their diety exhibits such qualities, that this entire debate would be mute. You see, being a being of such absolute knowledge and power, he could create the universe, from the big bang to the big collapse (ie the alpha and the omega for those of you not in the know), in all it's wonderful and magnificant mathematically precise beauty. In the end, at no point would this "designer" need to interceed it the function of that universe simply because it's design negates the need to interfere. All that was, is, and will be, in this universe, is known by the designer as he is all knowing and in his great wisdom, his universe works as He intended it to, with all it's stars, quarks, quasars, protons, planets, singularies, lions, tigers, vulcans, klingons, and even humans.
So you see, the problem isn't with gods, supreme beings, or intellegent designers, it's with unimaginative humans, who desperately want to belive that their own existance is of ultimate importance. It's rather selfish actually. They live within this wonderful universe, with it's near infinite wonders, yet they remain blinded to it, prefering fantasy to reality. It's unfortunate but true that most people would rather believe in magic then in the actual observable phenomenon. Those of us that know better are just going to have to learn to live with that observable fact and move on with out lives as best we can.
Thank you for pointing out the simple truth that no one seems to understand. Something being "proven" by science is impossible. We can prove that we have the most likely solution, given our current data and knowledge, but being proven is contrary to the scientific method.
Maybe, but the chance that those simple rules would align everything in such a way as to form a perfectly balanced, inter operating universe with universal governing laws is so slim it would be considered impossible; statistically speaking. Thus the simple aligning to create the infinitely complex is much more complicated than the existence of a creator.
Again, take all of the ingredients of a Rolex, a paper bag, and shake it for 200 million years. What are the chances that it will assemble itself into a working timepiece? Consider that the simplest bacterium has much more intricate and complex features than a Rolex.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
Thanks for the links... I'd probably have to have a degree in astrophyics to be able to make something out of all of that so I say we can just be thankful for the ability to reason and debate. :) Anybody else able to explain the Black Hole Thermodynamic Theory in summary form?
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
Evolution is not "biased". (note: if you disagree, then explain the bias, do not merely assert it) Yes it is biased. It's a theory that is assumed true with evidence being gathered to support it. Scientists don't want anything but their own arrogance to be proven true. Do you actually think they would try to find any evidence that goes against it? You are mistaken. Theories are single collective explanations for an observed phenomenon. They are not "two viewpoints". Perhaps you should consider that your problems with evolution are with your own understanding of both it and of science in general and not an actual fault with the theory itself. Your right they are single collective explanations, but those explanations only go to prove the theory and do not attempt to disprove it. When someone is trying to prove something the sure as heck don't include something that doesn't fit, and the stuff that doesn't fit is molded until it does or simply thrown out as unrelated. Scientists have one arrogant goal. Prove that mankind is in control and has an answer for everything. I have a brother-in-law who worked for a major scientific research laboratory near Chicago. He told me that the ultimate goal of the company was to prove the big-bang theory. He said that any research that could be used as evidence was accepted and there was no attempt to disprove or test against the evidence. This is not science, this is molding evidence to prove a theory that is already assumed to be true.
Forcing christian students to learn Evolution is a violation of United States Constitution under the First Amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Forcing christian students to learn evolution, which is a theory and not fact, prohibits the free exercise of their religion.
Enough Said.
\
Yes it is biased. It's a theory that is assumed true with evidence being gathered to support it.
If there were no "evidence" to support it then it would not be called a "theory". You DO know what a "theory" is with respect to science, correct?
Scientists don't want anything but their own arrogance to be proven true.
Absolutely nothing in science is ever "proven true". You are exposing only your abysmal ignorance of how science operates.
Do you actually think they would try to find any evidence that goes against it?
A scientist who thorougly disproves the theory of evolution would be a serious contender -- likely a shoo-in -- for a Nobel prize, not to mention all sorts of assorted fame and fortune. If you honestly think that evolution is not regularly put to tests that could potentially falsify it then you are woefully ignorant of the field of biology.
But then, you are a creationist, so I should expect as much.
Your right they are single collective explanations, but those explanations only go to prove the theory and do not attempt to disprove it.
THEORIES IN SCIENCE ARE NEVER PROVEN. Yes, the theory of evolution is made up of data points that support the theory. Why are there no data points included that disprove the theory? BECAUSE NO SUCH DATA POINTS EXIST. Despite the CONSTANT lies of creationists, the theory of evolution is actually one of the better supported and understood theories in all of science. It's far better supported and understood than the theory behind what makes gravity work, but I don't see religious fanatics clamouring to have warning labels slapped onto physics textbooks and have mention made of "intelligent falling" presented in physics calssrooms.
When someone is trying to prove something the sure as heck don't include something that doesn't fit,
So what "doesn't fit" with respect to evolution? Provide specific examples. Stop whining about information being excluded unless you can actually demonstrate the existence of such information. Complaining that the theory of evolution does not address data points that do not exist is idiotic.
and the stuff that doesn't fit is molded until it does
This is a lie. Theories are shaped to fit facts. Yes, there are some scientists who have altered data to fit predetermined conclusions. When they are caught out they are highly shamed and typically lose their jobs.
There have been data points that did not fully fit the theory of evolution. The theory was modified to account for these data points. That's how ALL theories work, and evolution is no different.
or simply thrown out as unrelated.
Well what do you do with information that is completely irrelevant? The distance between Earth and Alpha Centuri has no bearing on alelle frequency change over time, natural selection or genetic drift. How should that data point be addressed by the theory of evolution?
Scientists have one arrogant goal. Prove that mankind is in control and has an answer for everything.
Bullshit. This is nothing more than a paranoid delusion. Scientists can have their own individual goals. Some work because they enjoy the job and like the money, others genuinely enjoy increasing the knowledge of the natural universe in the world. This "scientists want to prove that men are gods" is a common idiotic creationist strawman with absolutely no basis in reality. It might sound like a good talking point to use an excuse for dismissing all of science, but to someone who isn't as delusional as you are it sounds like a dishonest cop-out.
I have a brother-in-law who worked for a major scientific research laboratory near Chicago. He told me that the ultimate goal of the company was to prove the big-bang theory.
Theories in science are never proven. There is no way to "prove" the big bang theory.
He said that any research that could be used as evidence was
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
*Reality* has long been forked, and it's science that maintains the stable branch.
The noble prizes have started to loose the prestige they once held and this journal is heading down the same road.
Really? When did that happen?
I know many of you don't see this as a liberal vs conservative thing, but I truly believe it is.
Well, those labels are pretty inadequate for any real discussion, but even so, this isn't really true. It's an extremist religious zealot versus anyone who believes in freedom or reason thing, certainly, but what that has to do with people who believe in fiscal responsibility is beyond me (see how inadequate those words are). And it is entirely driven by the extremist zealot side of the equation.
Not to start this debate again, but nobody has explained to me where the big bang gases came from that created the universe. What gave the gases the properties to react to one another? Or the elements game from and their properties that evolved into the fist cell.
Oh come on now. That one's transparantly obvious.
I don't know, you don't know, and nobody else in the entire world knows.
Anybody who says they do is lying. Anybody who tells you God did it has chosen to *believe* that's the case, but by claimint it *is* what happened, they are lying.
I agree Creation is debatable, but Intelligent Design seems to be logical to me.
Then you don't understand logic.
You just entirely contradicted yourself. Creationism == ID.
At some point in time an intelligent being had to be involved. Seriously, how can you deny that some intelligent being had a hand in the creation of the universe at some point in time?
Yep, no understanding of logic whatsoever.
"I don't know so it has to be magic".
Plus, all you do is add a turtle. By your "logic" another entirely separate designer is required to design your designer and so on and so on.....
The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
If it had to be true, prove it.
Are you beginning to realise why the whole ID thing is utter nonsense (in a scientific context)?
Rather than publishing BS political articles about the "scientific achievement of the year", perhaps Science should figure out how to avoid publishing so many fake papers. Unfortunately the prestige of journals like Science and Nature comes more from marketing efforts, than the quality of work published there. It is sad. But hey, they are good at the old backslapping, and awards game.
Thus the simple aligning to create the infinitely complex is much more complicated than the existence of a creator.
Which is complete and utter nonsense.
You are postulating that something *far* more complex than the universe had to have arisen in order to then create the far simpler universe.
Of course any creator *has* to be far more complex than the universe since he had the entire blueprint as part of him.
So, yes, your idea utterly fails Occam's razor. It also does nothing to address the infinite string of creators which are absolutely required for your idea to make any sense whatsoever.
The only reason this isn't obvious to you is that you have arbitrarily decided to believe that what you think is absolute truth so you necessarilly have to bend all the rest of reality to fit your predefined model.
Random chance is not an entity that designs. It may result in structures that initially appear designed, but it is hasty to infer a designer when our gut-level feeling of design-recognition is the only evidence. People have been spotting the face of Jesus, Elvis, the Virgin Mary, etc in everything from rust spots to tea leaves--that doesn't mean that the faces are there, just that a random arrangement can fool our eyes.
So positing an invisible, magical, undetectable-by-physical-means elf who orbits Pluto, and who decides all coin tosses and imposes his will on those coin tosses through a mystical, yet completely undetectable force, is no more complex than saying that the result of the coin tosses is random? Both positions are of equivalent complexity, and thus deserving of equivalent attention? Um, no, obviously not. Even aside from proving your assertion, it doesn't hold up to even a little logic. Saying "it was random luck that I was dealt a royal flush that night in Vegas" is manifestly not making an assertion "just as complex" as positing that the Invisible Pink Unicorn willed it so. The two mental models are not even in the same ballpark. Positing a "motivating layer" necessitates an assumption of motivation, which is an anthropomorphism. Random variation PLUS natural selection is no longer just random. With an environment allowing those with some characteristics to reproduce in higher surviving numbers than those with other characteristics, the genetic makeup of the population is pushed or pulled in one direction or another (metaphorically speaking). That doesn't preclude an overarching consciousness in the universe, but it does make one unnecessary for the purposes of explanation of genetic diversity.Either theory requires a creator. There had to have been something somewhere at some point in history that started it all. There being a creator, to me at least, is not what is the complex action. The complexity comes in the development of the rest of the universe. It requires no less faith to say that matter and antimatter just popped up out of nowhere to create the initial clouds of matter than it does to say there was a creator that popped up out of nowhere and created everything. There is no rational difference as they are both unexplainable.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
2+2=4 is mathematics and solely dependant on the chosen axioms (which is why mathematics and similar have a special place within science -- that is; they're incessantly debated as to whether they are actually science).
Let me give an example. If I change the axioms (and this is done for serious purposes for example in fussy logic) I can easily make the following true:
2+2=1
What axiom did I change? I'm no high-level matematician and as such I don't know the name but I can explain it: I changed whatever axiom that says the calculation has to happen linearily to saying that the calculation happens circularily with a circular division of 3.
So imagine an analog clock with three hours in total, start a pointer at 3/0 and move it to 2 then add 2 more "hours" and you'll see that 2+2=1 under that particular axiom.
All mathematics is built this way, all mathematics require/demand intelligence (you) to be perceived as they are logically selfcongruent tautologies (made by you or taught you by other intelligence like mathematicians). We are that intelligence that makes 2+2=4 (there might be others too (but we don't know that yet) and the debate as to whether mathematics would exist without us to think of it is a black hole of philosophy imho).
This does absolutely not mean that mathematics are bogus or irrelevant, quite the opposite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom#Mathematics
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Needs more 9s.
Because believing that---since you haven't seen evidence for it, nobody has seen evidence for it---is just as irrational?
Think of it in terms of Bayesian reasoning/probability theory. Suppose, for example, that a person had a cancer that is fatal most of the time, prayed hard for the cancer to go away, and the cancer indeed went away. Since, in the set of worlds where the prayed-to god exists as believed, remission of the cancer is more likely than in no-god worlds, the observation of the cancer going into remission is evidence in favour of the existence of the prayed-to god. Weak evidence, of course, but a rational agent should increase their estimated probability of said god existing based on that evidence.
Now, since evidence in favour of a god can exist, the only question is how much evidence---for and against---other people have seen. If you can't understand why an intelligent person would believe something other than what you do, I humbly suggest you think hard about two things:
1) Other people have lived different lives than you; hence, their experiences---and the beliefs they would rationally obtain from those experiences---will naturally be different from yours.
2) Intelligent people's beliefs may not be entirely rational; in particular, what evidence do you have that nobody has experienced evidence in favour of religion?
I hardly know where to begin.
First, there is rather a lot of evidence that most point mutations are neutral. This is because a the genetic code is redundant. For example both CCC and CCA code for the amino acid proline. Markedly beneficial mutations are rare but not so rare that they are not produced in the laboratory every day. How about a mutation that extends the life of mice? Second, speciation has frequently been observed in the wild. In fact one of the papers cited in the parent article in Science was on the speciation process in European blackcaps. Are you actually familiar with information theory? A lot of ID proponents seem to toss it around without actually understanding it. Let me offer you this quote from The Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver (Illini Books edition, 1963 pg 8)
What you are calling "new information" is from the point of view of communication theory a loss of information because it represents the failure of DNA replication to produce a perfect copy of the original message. Information theory offers no opinion whether this loss of information will bring good or ill to the organism.
Most of the important algorithms in bioinformatics and computational biology are implicitly based on evolutionary ideas. Some in fact use explicit models of DNA evolution. These are algorithms are being used with considerable success to find genes and regulatory elements in our genome. Why don't the ID advocates come up with their own algorithms and gene finding software. We'll pit them head to head and see who's better at finding genes.
You ignore one little point.
We assign logical meaning to our painting after it is finished.
It only means something because we are here to say it means something.
I compare creationism to saying that painting came into being completely finished.
I compare evolutionary theory to saying the painting was built up in stages of increasing complexity- the input of each being the outputs of the previous.
---
You know snowflakes and crystals are really complex. I suppose by your theory you must conclude that every single one is made by god.
---
A final comment. You say the other would require millions of years. We have had -BILLIONS- of years. Four thousand million years and more.
It only takes 10,000 years for a mouse to be bred into an elephant under the right pressures. I hope, that regarding what man has done to wolves (all breeds of dogs from great danes to chihuahua's), that you will concede we could do that.
Now, what is going to happen under even stronger pressure where 99% fail to reproduce* if they lack a certain trait. How quickly they will adapt to the new environment.
Please read the articles here... http://www.talkorigins.org/
*It's interesting to consider that modern industrial society seems to currently cut the birthrate below replacement- so I assume humans will adapt in some way- currently my bet is on the catholic and similar religions growing dominant).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
No.
Having a creator pop out of nothing is a LOT more complex than having a simple energy gradient.
It may have happened.
It may also be true that a non-intelligent creator that shits universes created our universe. Lots of things MIGHT have happened. Occam's razor says which is the simplest which could have happened. I'd say a simple uphill/downhill energy gradient would do the rest.
Evolution doesn't cover either ground. It covers what happened once life was moving- the first moment of life isn't covered. That is worked on in other fields.
---
With regard to your rolex in the other post...
Add one little constraint and it becomes pretty trivial.
Whenever two pieces randomly land correctly, they will stick together.
That's what atoms in the universe are more like.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
As the man said, "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."
Uh, and what exactly would looking at the pilgrims tell me about the structure of the united states? They lived in the same place a few hundred years earlier, and they were brutal religious zealots; what exactly is looking at them supposed to show me? Just a reminder of how glad I should be that such dogmatic savages had nothing to do with the forming of my nation?Are we really saying here that the fact that we somehow Evolved in 2005 was the achievement of the year? I'm all confused about what happened to our 2004 revolution...
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
The language is neither archaic, nor hard to understand. It is actually relatively recently that historical revisionists with a religious agenda have gone back and muddied the meaning by combining establishment meaning "established church" and establishment meaning "public or private institution." And then carrying that so far as to imply that it is okay to give a nod to one religion as long as there are many denominations of it.
Reading other works by the framers of the constitution and the bill of rights makes it abundantly clear that the intention was separation of church and state. But more importantly it should be obvious to any clear headed individual that when you mix church and state the results have been disasterous EVERY TIME.
One might also note that the biggest pundit of "the constitution only says we can't create a STATE religion" is Pat Robertson. This is the guy who publicly advocates assassination of foreign leaders and publicly implies that God's wrath should befall cities who remove school board officials which support his idealogy.
The results have been disasterous EVERY TIME.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
) life never comes from non-life
Error number 1. Life clearly had to come from non-life at some point, otherwise we wouldn't be here. Even if God Did It (tm), life still came from non-life.
2) explosions don't bring order
Error number 2. Nothing to do with evolution at all.
3) Mutations occur but almost always bring harm and NEVER add new information to a genetic chain. New information is required for one species to change or evolve into another and this does not occur in observable nature anywhere.
Errors 3 and 4. Mutations can and do add new information, but even if it didn't, that's OK because new information is not required for speciation. Also, speciation has been observed.
4) Science itself was vastly vived by a creationist perspective. The creation around us suggests a Creator that is why it is called creation.
Error 5. Meaningless statement.
Evolutionists can't take the heat which is why they get so angry at opposing views.
No, they get mad when people attempt to trumpet their religious beliefs as a valid scientific theory. Well, they're not.
Step back folks and think for yourselves, study both sides
Scientifically speaking, there is only one side.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Do you realize what the infinite complexity of a single cell is?
Do you realize the infinite complexity of a single ice crystal? I guess it never snows in your world, unless God makes each snowflake personally.
I once read about some german historican who claimed the whole "medival people believed the earth to be flat" was a myth.
I'm not an expert in that field, but considering, as other already stated, the curvature of earth's surface is quite obvious to a seafaring people, I think it's possible. He claims (IIRC) there was only one author who realy read the passages in the bible as stating the earth was flat and he was not even taken seriously in the church.
'Nuff said.
*Head explodes*
A more accurate statement would be: We can demonstrate that we have developed a model which is accurate within the constraints and data provided. However, the scientific method does not provide for absolute proof.
--
I know, I know. I am a pedantic, nitpicking bastard.
Not at all; note my use of the term 'a defined sequence'. Random noise is not defined when an analogue signal is processed, otherwise it would merely be a case of subtracting what you know to be the noise from the transmitted signal in order for you to perfectly retrieve the original message. Shannon talks of randomness as an undefined function that cannot be predicted, a barrier to the communications signal you wish to transmit.
On the other hand, DNA is a predefined sequence, and one cannot distinguish between noise and signal; genes that don't do anything one generation, may turn out to be beneficial several thousand generations down the line. So, if anything, the randomness in DNA adds to the information content. It's been a while since I've covered Information Theory, but couldn't one make the argument that the randomness that exists in DNA actually reduces the entropy? A perfectly random sequence of numbers cannot be compressed, by definition, so the greater the element of randomness in DNA, the less it can be compressed and thus the lower its overall entropy.
You write:
It's a very good question. Now, if you really believe in someone's intelligence, and you see that they are behaving in this way... that they are holding beliefs which you believe are irrational, and superstitious, and clearly wishful thinking in order to deny mortality... doesn't that make you, at least a little bit, wonder if your assumptions are really 100% valid? If your own reasoning, and the limited evidence you have about the world (because your beliefs are informed by what you have observed and been taught too), is really enough to validate your viewpoint about those people?
You write:
Yes, it is very hard to see. And yet, there are many smart people who hold such beliefs.Then you do not understand why smart people hold these beliefs. Good questions, these are. Well worth asking, in my opinion. Fruitful.
-- Jamie
I cannot believe that all those who have responded, evidently from multidisciplinary views have not seen the obvious.
The fact that pisses me off is that this post is the 570th or thereabouts and will probably not be read by anyone, but I will continue.
The theory of evolution has been challenged by another theory of Intelligent Design.
Almost all of you have NOT understood what intelligent design theory is and what evidence their proponents have that Evolutionists cannot explain!
That is the real question, and till it is answered, Intelligent Design still has life, gnawing at the roots of Evolutionary theory.
Don't confuse creationism with ID (although it is easy to do).
Don't bring God into it.
Don't interpret Intelligent Design nomenclature as a description of the evidence, but rather as an attempt to explain the evidence.
Try and answer the evidence as an evolutionist.
If you can do all of that, then you have something worthwhile to say.
Suck on that!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
True, but if we compare the beauty of the painting to the beauty of the universe then it is obvious what the subject it. It's an axiom. Logical meaning brings about the conclusion that there was indeed a painter. Only illogical people would say that there wasn't. The same can be said for creation. In fact, Louis Pasteur said, "A little science estranges a man from God; a little more brings him back." I would think as a scientist, he would know this firsthand.
Btw, he's not the only mainstream scientist to conclude from science that there must be a creator.
Sir Isaac Newton - "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
Albert Einstein - "Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in t he laws of the universe - a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."
Stephen Hawking - "It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."
Stephen Hawking - "Then we shall... be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."
Sir Fred Hoyle, professor of astronomy at Cambridge - "The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in the way (evolution) is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein. The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one out of 10 to the 40,000 power... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
I find nothing beautiful about the huge numbers of creatures eaten alive every day. Nothing wonderful about the huge number of people who starve, die of disease, or live short pointless lives ending in barbaric deaths-many of those due to religious reasons.
Those folks you quote are very smart- I'll grant you that, but that doesn't make them any less afraid of the dark at the end of the road. Without hope for a light, many would find life pretty pointless. It doesn't stop them from having been brainwashed before they could think rationally. Personally, I'd say mr. hoyle was talking out of his ass and that it was his personal opinion and not any kind of scientific argument he was advancing.
You may be engaging in a common misdirection used in these arguments. While each of them spoke of a creator, it is by no means clear they were talking about the christian god or the same god. Just as many of the american founding fathers were -deists- and not christians (some mocked it in their journals).
Finally, these fine gentlemen are not proposing any test or procedure that I can come to the same conclusion independently so you are basically arguing from authority figures which is not a valid way to advance an argument. Just accept that you cannot prove that god exists and all revelation is personal. You'll be happier if you do.
This universe is a terrible miserable place but it is great to be alive and among the the small percentage of people on this planet living comfortably.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Personally I hope we keep it.
I like christmas with all of it's drinking, partying and debauchery.
But then again, that's what MERRY is all about- being drunk.
That's why christmas WAS banned by puritans and why in the 1800's they said HAPPY christmas, not MERRY christmas.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
ID is potentially trueifiable but not falsifiable. However, other ideas of science also share this characteristic. For example, some predict that there are/were other universes or other dimensions. We can never prove that other universes or dimensions don't exist. Not detecting them is not proof they don't exist. Thus, being "falsifiable" is oversold.
Even evolution is not falsifiable. One may prove it didn't happen in a particular spot, but one cannot prove it never happened anywhere.
Table-ized A.I.
Where did the Intelligent being come from?
He traveled back in time and inserted himself. Next!
Table-ized A.I.
You can say "Back in my father's *day*" and mean it literally, using a figure of speech. You can say "In the *dawn* of time" and mean it literally, using a figure of speech, you can say "the *evening* of his life" and mean it literally using a figure of speech.
You're trying too hard to prove a point. There are plenty of people who see Gen as listing the order and general heppenings of creation, and that it allows for millenia to happen. The Bible even says that to God, 'a day is as a thousand years', or an extended period.
Job 26:7 says of God: 'He is hanging the earth upon nothing'. A fairly scientific observation for a time when many thought other entities supported the Earth.
According to http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.h tml, the Enlightment occured before the founding of the country. Considering the U.S. forefathers were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, I suspect they probably meant a separation of separation of church and state. You might want to see James Madison's view, http://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/main_pages/madis on_archives/constit_confed/rights/epilogue/epilogu e.htm, or, perhaps, the view of Thomas Jefforson on Church and State, http://www.unf.edu/~dschwam/danbury.htm.
The scientist that have studied long and hard and thought through the physics, biology, mathematics, geology etc. have very powerful reasons to doubt the evolution
That would be simliar to the number of scientists who reject the sun being powered by nuclear fusion, and who instead support the "Electric Universe" crap that oddly keeps appearing on Slashdot.
In otherwords the number is essentially zero.
Roughtly 99.9% of professional biologists accept evolution. There is no genuine scientific controversy over evolution. A negligable number of crackpots making arguments and claims that have been reviewed and invalidated by all the the rest of the experts in the field does not make a genuine scientific controversy
Go ahead, check out what fraction of professional biologists reject evolution.
1) life never comes from non-life
I thought we were talking about evolution?
That's like attacking the theory of chemistry because it doesn't explain the origin of elements. The theory of chemistry is perfectly valid science even if we DON'T yet have a strong well supported theory of nuclear fusion to explain the origin of elements.
Evolution explains the behaviour of life once it exists, just as chemistry explains the behaviour of elements once they exist.
The theory of "the origin of life from nonlife" is abiogenesis. Considering that it attempts to address a singular microscoping evend shrouded behind the mists of several billion years, and that it has left no direct trace, it is hardly supprising that it is a poorly developed and poorly supported area of science. And no one is disputing it is poorly developed and poorly supported. However it is a lot better developed and better supported that you realize. However I'm not going to even try to get into it with you. Lets simply agree that poorly developed and poorly supported science has little or no place on a highschool science curriculum. There IS NO FIGHT over the origins of life in or highschools. The all of the fighting is over evolution.
2) explosions don't bring order
ARG! that argument is a pet peeve of mine, and I really hate seeing it (and explaining it) over and over and over and over.
Basically the argument is that the second law of thermodynamics prooves evolution impossible. That is the statistical law that says entropy (disorder) increases. That law only says the average disorder must increase, and it does not apply at all when there is a system with energy flowing through it.
It is quite normal and common for structure and order and complexity and information to spontateously arise out of nature when you have a system with energy flowing through it. In particular the sun is pumping energy into and througha variety of systems on the earth. For example the sun evaporates disordered water molecules into even more disordered and chaotic water vapor, which can then cool and condense as highly ordered complex snowflakes.
Order and structure and complexity out of chaos. The sun metling ice and evaporating water *is* your metaphrical explosion blasting apart the water molecules into random bits of water vapor, and the final outcome of that explosion is an increase in complexity in the final snowflake.
3a) Mutations occur but almost always bring harm
Most mutations are neutral. A population builds up an increasing library of mutations, beneficial ones and neutral ones, and even mildly harmful ones. And in fact evolution would proceed with no trouble even if we assume there were NO beneficial mutations. Each generation mixes and suffles that library of neutral and mildly negative mutations looking for combinations that are valuable. A mutant gene producing a mild toxin on the blood is a negative mutation, and a mutation where the sweat glands leak blood protines onto the skin is negative, leaking out valuable blood protines. However if you combine those two negative mutations you wind up with a frog leaking and building u
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
For goodness sake, it's not so hard to get and read the judge's conclusion, even if you can't find time to read the fascinating bulk of the 139 pages. The quote in a bit more context:
_ Area_School_District_6:_curriculum%2C_conclusion#H ._Conclusion.
"With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
For pages 136 to 139 of the judgement, follow this link http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover
The Kitzmiller v Dover trial has just given the ID crew an open forum to display all this "missing evidence". What was found is that four years after announcing their amazing "theory" and the need for evidence, they still have no research programme and are doing no work in the field. Why not, if this evidence is so easily obtainable and is only unknown because it's being suppressed by mythical morons like you brother in law?
The judge made very clear that the intentions of people pushing for ID was to introduce creationism in the classroom by using another name.
It is a vulgar rebranding exercise and the judge saw it for what it is.
ID belong to religious indoctrination, not to ascience curriculum of any kind.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... you should know one can't prove a negative.
But lets that one slip away.
How life originated is indenpendent of our konlewdge of evolution by natural selection.
We have a good theory that pretty much explains how life changes. Once we have life evolution works its wonders.
The day we find how life originated (which most likely one day we will) your point will be moot.
There are many processes that can't be duped in the lab, the appeareance of anything recognizable as alive could have taken hundreds of millions of years via porcesses we may not even have imagined yet. To expect that such a thing will be reproducible is meybe too much to ask.
But we can may informed inferences, and so we will
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Considering that ID requires circular logic ...
"Like most others do"?! What are you talking about? Buddism, Islam, and Hinduism are other religions that are focused on evangelism... some even more than Christianity! Christianity is probably one of the more mild ones, especially when you look at how their god treats them in those other religions. Islam scares me the most, given its demands for complete obedience and dedication 24/7. I have quite a bit more freedoms than they do, and my God doesn't demand the crazy get-on-knees-and-pray-to-Mecca.
No other approach is anywhere near achieving space travel, nor has made any significant steps towards it.
An article on the front page demonstrates that we're both right in different ways: science is nearing faster-than-light drive in theory, if not in fact. Development of it will require a major rethink of the indeterministic nature of the universe and the linkage between the EM-spectrum and gravity; thus requiring a major philosophical rethink of science itself. But if the basic theory is sound- then you're correct that science will rethink itself and in so doing, invent the kind of space travel we'd need to escape a supernova (an engine that creates a VERY strong magnetic field, strong enough to warp space into a fake gravitational field. Up it several million times in strength, and you end up with a gravitational field that can't exist in our normal dimension of space time, that can only exist in the realm of tachyons- objects that cannot go slower than light. Headline? Mars in 3 hours....)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I think the indeterminism will still be there - the whole theory seems based in trying to get relativity to work within quantum mechanics, which has indeterminism coming out of its ears. But it will certainly mean a major restructuring of the basic assumptions, probably similar to the introduction of QM. I remain sceptical until I've seen the experimental results, but if the predictions for masses of fundamental particles are as good as they say, this is certainly very exciting. The best thing is they have a proposed experiment to test it, so we should be able to find out reasonably soon whether this is right.
I am trolling
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.