Slashdot Mirror
Britons Unconvinced on Evolution
pryonic writes "The BBC is reporting that more than half of Britons do not believe in evolution, with a further 40% advocating that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in school science classes. I'm a Brit myself, and I thought most people over here thought these views were outdated and lacked substance. None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected. Maybe I've been blind to the views of the majority in this proudly secular country?"
On one hand, I'm happy to see that rampant idiocy isn't a uniquely American trait.
On the other hand, however, I'm seriously troubled by this. I guess I was kinda counting on the rest of the world to bitchslap America back to sanity sooner or later, but now it appears that we can't count on the global community saving the day for rationality.
Of particular concern is the statistics quoted:
In other words, 39% chose creationism, as there is no discernable difference between creationism and ID. Score another victory for ID, for once again successfully obfuscating the issue.
Even worse were the statistics regarding what to teach in schools:
Again, nice and confusing, especially when you consider that these statistics don't add up to 100%. I understand that some people would like to see more than one 'theory' taught (the old 'teach the controversy' BS), but displaying the results in this manner is misleading in the extreme. Equally confusing is the fact that the percentage of people who 'did not know' in the previous set of statistics isn't enumerated. One would assume it to be 13%, but in the light of the second set of statistics, who knows?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
*Humanity* is a pack of low grade morons, folks. No one country or society has any lock on the Stupid Prize.
This seems to happen everywhere. Mostly people think that a certain idea, that perhaps has little scientific basis, should be taught in school, when they support the idea.
I believe in a creator. Sure. But should creation be taught in a science class? No. Why?
Because I know that somehow my religious beliefs that I want to teach to my children will not be taught according to how I believe. Worse off would be if they were completely opposed, like someone teaching creation by that damn spaghetti monster.
Keep science to science. Start teaching classes that encourage people to look at other viewpoints and learn to see the downsides of their own arguments. Only then will a generation gain the wisdom to not think this is such a great idea.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
I don't understand why everyone feels it's necessary to misspell "atheist" by reversing the I and E.
Well-educated? Sure.
Believing in evolution is something of a vague concept. If I believe in the concept of natural selection (which is readily observable), do I have to believe that life came from a chance encounter of amino acids in some primordial soup a gazillion years ago? How much am I agreeing to?
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
You and your friends are well-educated Atheists, but I'm sure that most people aren't as educated, and even more aren't Atheists. You're less typical than you think.
Yes, because there are just not enough ignorant people in the world and we really must do all we can to make more.
Are you, yourself a product of the system you are proposing by any chance?
I do not understand how anyone can deny the truth of this. We see it in action time and time again. There are species that were introduced to Hawaii in modern times that have since evolved into new species. I saw one of the best arguments for evolution here on /. as a sig. It said "If you do not believe in evolution, why are you worried about the bird flu?"
Insert Generic Sig Here:
I'd like to see the questions they asked for the survey. It's all too easy to get the results you want with carefully worded questions. I can't think of anyone I know who believes in such nonsense, so I'm taking this with significantly large grain of salt.
I concur, if we can teach the three "R's" to a decent level, then we can consider doing other less useful things. It is difficult to train an illiterate and mathematically inept HS graduate to be able to do anything useful. I would like to believe that every student should have a well rounded education that includes music theory, the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), history, social sciencies, and civics courses, but that can only occur if they have a strong base. What is the point in a history course if you can't write an essay about an event, or about a science course if you can't solve basic problems or understand the text? And why do high schools teach 'diet' courses? Because the students are too stupid to be able to read a "... For Dummies" book on it.
C'mon... no matter what the arguement, when are people going to realize that there are a few million other people out there that may have a differing opinion than their own little group of friends?
I myself am a Pagan, and I believe in Intelligent Design and evolution. My beliefs are different that 95% (est.) of the rest of the U.S., but I at least give a little credence to the opinions of others...
... elipses...
There goes the theory that the U.S. has a monopoly of idiots.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I like how you crafted a well reasoned arguement, and supported your position with compelling, relevant facts.
The only thing your argument proves is that the education system failed YOU.
You sir, should demand your money back!
"None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected."
Wow, never thought I'd see a comment like that get posted in an article summarry on the front page. Thank you, Slashdot, for giving me a dose of religious bashing with my morning cup of coffee.
To the article submitter:
Funny how your "education" doesn't allow you to see the irony in your own viewpoint, let alone your mis-conceptions.
1. Education has nothing to do with faith. There are plenty of educated people (more so than you) who believe in God, and plenty who don't.
2. No amount of education will allow you to disprove (or prove) the existence of God or creationism. Saying your education allows this is blatantly wrong.
3. Creationism and ID are not the same thing.
"I'm against all public education systems. I don't believe they've worked."
I tend to think that whatever passed for "education" in the public school system that I was forced to attend did indeed "work", at least in some rudimentary way, as evidenced by my ability to respond to your statement in this fashion.
The problem with your idea is the same as the problem with just about any major change in public tax policy. Market forces cut both ways.
Many people suggest that if we cut taxes in way x, y, or z that suddenly the increase in take home income will change our society in way X, Y, or Z. What isn't being acknowledged is that companies are paying people just as much as they have to for the people to do their jobs.
If you cut out the public education system then yes, some people will use that extra money to stay home and teach their children. Many who are barely making it by right now will instead say "Hey, educating the kids is no longer mandatory and I finally have the money to really get by. The kids can get a job like delivering papers, I can keep working my job, and we'll finally be secure."
People don't do this because they're cruel Dickensian taskmasters bent on exploiting their children. They do this because economic hardship tends to focus attention on short-term goals.
Companies will notice that they're able to pay their employees slightly less because the employees are making more take-home income. In many jobs companies aren't competing to keep employees from moving to another company. They're competing to keep the employees from moving to a different field. Health care is a good example of this. Nurses are paid just enough to not quit and go into a job where they don't have to stick their fingers in peoples' bums.
No company will immediately *cut* wages on this basis but inflation is always there, ready to eat up the margin when wages are not raised as fast.
All these factors would mean that the switchover to home education would happen at rather less than full efficiency. We can't afford that, because even with public education most people end up pretty ignorant. If a significant portion of the population starts opting out, we're headed right back for the Victorian class system, where the poor genuinely have no chance to learn.
Keep in mind also that the parents can only teach at home what they already know. Does your local 7-11 clerk know enough to teach his son physics? Does he understand the value of physics well enough to pay for his son to learn it? Doubtful on both counts. No way for his son to get a better life in any field his father doesn't understand.
At the risk of offending the "highly intelligent and well educated athiests" out there...
:-)
I would say that it is unfair to lump faith into the "ignorant" category. Sure, intelligent design is a lame concept, but if any of you have taken Philosophy 101, you can't argue with the leap of faith. Sooner or later you have to believe in something--whether it's your own conclusions or a supreme being.
Unfortunately, the loudest of the Christians are the most ignorant so please don't assume that they are all Pat Robertsons. I'm not trying to convert anyone into believing in Creation or arguing that it should be taught as "science"--I'm just asking for some respect for the millions of Christians who don't force their belief system on you.
Save the bashing for the Scientologists
If evolution is scientifically sound, can't you present sufficient evidence in the classroom to prove it?
Yes. Any molecular biology textbook is full of factual proofs of evolution.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
The difference is in common ancestry and the ages of the earth & universe.
"Creationism" generally refers to Young Earth Creationism. And, sometimes, Old Earth Creationism, which has an old Earth but says that God made life directly.
ID is about saying that there are features of the life we see that point to design, generally by saying that the features are too complex. This can include Theistic Evolutionists, if they believe that God stepped in to tweak the evolutionary process in key places. ID says nothing about common ancestry or the ages of the earth & universe.
If so, then please explain to me how either one of these scenarios can be true:
A species (chimpanzees, our "closest" relatives, for example) with 21 pairs of chromosomes can EVOLVE into one with 22 pairs. Do the fossil records indicate critters with 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4.... pairs of choromosomes?
If not, then explain how a (presumably) mutant new example of an "evolved" chimpanzee with 22 pairs of chromosomes can find another exactly evolved 22-paired mutant -- at the same time -- in the same place -- recognize him or her -- and develop a brand new and unique mating ritual that works. All of these steps are recognized as being necessary to begin to form a new species.
That said, to deny Darwinism is to ignore the stages and features our own embryos develop and discard: gills, tail, front legs.
So, it appears to me that both Darwinism and ID leave a lot out of their little worlds.
Perhaps that's why they argue so much and so loudly: they're both overselling their cases.
I agree completely. Public schools have turned from teaching the basics (and it shows given literacy rates, etc). It all started with schools providing affordable 'nutritious' lunches. Now many school systems have expanded the lunch program, claiming that students are entitled to breakfast as well. There's also the daily milk snack programs. Then we have the whole scoliosis thing. Seriously...why do schools test for scoliosis? Sure, it's a horrible, cripling disease but why is it the function of the schools to test for it? Why not test for other diseases such as diabetes?
Now many schools systems are pushing for similar obeisity screening programs. What the hell does that have to do with a proper education?
Short and simple -- an overbearing government that feels it knows how to raise kids better than parents is using government schools to achieve it's agends with kids.
That being said, if we must have them, let's focus on pure education -- facts, repetition, useful classes: how to read, write and perform basic math. At most, some basic scientific theory might be OK.
Everything else -- health, PE, higher sciences, diet -- leave it to the family or to competitive higher education.
Isn't that completely backwards? Most people are able to learn their children basic skills, read, write, basic math, basic science. The point at this age isn't half as much teaching as it is social skills - to interact with others and form groups and meaningful social bonds. Most people who lack social antennas or think they're God's gift to mankind got screwed up in this period of their life. Kids need to spend time with other kids, which is what they do at school.
Very very few people are capable of giving children a higher education of any type, except perhaps their own profession. I don't mean to say anthing mean about them, most are hard-working honest people but they just aren't able to teach those sorts of things. Saying "family" and "competitive higher education" are alternatives which provide the same should tell you how wildly off base you are.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
- 22% chose creationism
- 17% opted for intelligent design
In other words, 39% chose creationism...
I'm not sure I agree. Creationism seems to be the "traditional" God creation myth from the Bible. I think "intelligent design" advocates could arguably be a bit more enlightened. Consider the following argument.
Alan Turing showed that any computing machine was equivalent in computing capability to a Turing machine, albeit with performance differences. Advocates of "strong AI" claim that human brains are also equivalent to Turing machines. Extending this, "strong AI" advocates would generally also claim that the entire universe is a Turing-equivalent computing machine. And going a step beyond this, one could imagine that this universe is a computing machine within a larger framework of computing machines. Or, put another way, there could be some intelligent programmer "outside" of our universe who created the computing machine that is our universe. Personally, I'm not compelled by such an argument, but it does involve "intelligent design" without being entirely outside the bounds of logical reasoning.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Think your theory is based on a false assumption.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Is anyone else sick of this kind of attitude in the "scientific" community? Referring specifically to matters of the origin of life and the idea of intraspecies evolution, neither theory is even close to establishing scientific proof of their ideas, yet the intellectually "elite" have no problem ridiculing those who don't believe in evolution wholesale.
The dogmatic way these people insult those who challenge their beliefs is reminiscent, frankly, of the religious fundamentalists that they despise so much. How else do you explain the venom that they spew at those who question what they consider sacred? Besides, isn't this kind of attitude contrary to scientific thought? If their theory has so much evidence behind it, you'd think they'd welcome the chance to convince the rest of us further...
"We are far too easily pleased." --C.S. Lewis
Ok, so you're happy with public education in Wisconsin. Don't you see it being a better system if it is funded locally instead of sharing funds between counties or states? Why would someone proud of being from your area want to waste money on people you can not hold accountable and you can't audit or review?
I believe that "public" education might have a chance if the funds are kept locally -- preferably voluntarily funded.
I am not against a group education system, I just see the waste in kowtowing to the teacher unions and the public worker unions.
I don't see a rise in literacy rates, and as an employer of youths, I see a terrible bifurcation in the intellect of the average teenagers -- a very small minority are REALLY bright, but the large majority are what I would consider "dumb."
To paraphrase Inspector Renault from Casablanca: "I'm shocked, shocked to find that ignorance is going on in here!". It doesn't matter that it's evolution they don't accept. It could be relativity or gravity or inertia. It's a symptom of the state of British science education. The problem with any belief system is that the believers are afraid that if some scientific theory is true their religion must be false. When in reality they just need to change their perception of their religious beliefs.
" Love thy neighbor" is a good maxim, but it's not dependent on a 6,000 year old Earth. They forgot God is a metaphor and do not understand the difference between denotation and connotation. Anyway, I think Douglas Adams put it best when he wrote: "Humans are not proud of their ape ancestry and never invite their cousins around for dinner."
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Sorry, I chose you as the victim for this, it's nothing personal I promise!
So, you feel that your greater "wisdom" gives you the right to label a majority of the rest of the world as idiots because they believe in ID or creationism. Note, how I use the word believe here because that's exactly all it is. I find the problem with scientists, mathematicians, engineers, etc. these days is that we seem to believe that everyone in this world "needs" to use the rather incomplete tools of absolute rationality and logic when facing life's deeper questions. I'm sorry but these tools are greatly at a loss for explaining much of what is required to explaining how people behave, how they think and how they should live. Science does not have the answers for any of these and unfortunately is not even close.
Also, the problem with people like you is that you think that everyone in the world needs to know that evolution makes more sense from a scientific perspective than ID/creationism. That's where you are wrong. How many people do you think really understand the idea of special relativity. Don't you think it'd be equally important for people to realize that the clocks they use to make daily life possible aren't really perfect for synchronization and time isn't really what we intuitively believe it is? Hell NO, why? because it won't make a damned difference to them and to life on this planet? are these people idiots?? No! They are you're average person... who can reasonably be go through life without knowledge of these things and should not be labelled idiots. The real fools are the ones who can't see this.
The Bible is not even close to being a pristine source of Gods words, but as of, say, 1990, the genetic code of everything on earth was--until we humans tampered with some microorganisms.
All this debate we are having is because we have left these questions to be pondered by lawyers (and theologians), but they should be done by geeks (and their religious counterpart, mystics). The method is simple: look to the source. Our software/and hardware source-code is our DNA, and it is responsible for creating everything from our nano-scale protein structure to the shape of our butts (the ultimate unfathomable macro-scale manifestation of a micro-feature viz.
Looking at the source code could tell us what life is, what coding tricks the original designer used, and if he left any comments or "easter eggs" or something which give us a clue as to his original intent behind any features.
The Sufis quote Muhammad in saying "he who knows himself knows his Lord." Well, literally then whoever comprehends the genetic code knows the genetic designer, if any. If there never was a designer, then that will become apparent when we look at the code.
Hasan
I could have modded you down, but didn't. I don't believe it's right to mod down people for presenting views that are on-topic that I disagree with. However, you're full of shit.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
hey, guess what, nobody's convinced on evolution because it doesn't have any real solid evidence.
neither does ID either, according to science.
but really, science is all theory. science is not solid enough to believe. science was wrong about the world being flat, wrong about the world being the center of the universe, and cannot be trusted anymore than the Bible can.
I truly dislike the summary of this article because it's basically saying "I'm an atheist, and I'm surprised that British people largely believe in ID. I thought they were smarter than that." It's just kind of annoying to me how atheists try to point out that they are more sophisticated and how everyone who believes in ID is simply ignorant. Who knows who's right, but everyone believes something different, and there's no reason to be surprised that a lot of people believe in ID.
Besides, if evolution really is true, why is there no other species that even comes close to human intelligence. You'd think that if evolution was close to the correct theory, that different species of monkeys/chimps/apes in different geological areas would evolve into different types of humanoid creatures. I would think if evolution was correct, there would be some sort of sub or super-human (as far as intelligence) that we could at least communicate with in some form, which would be distinctly human but have more or less intelligence, or other traits.
I think the greatest argument for intelligent design is that there is only one species of homosapien that is even close to the intelligence of humans. Even chimps are limited to monkey-see-monkey-do types of intelligence. Humans, on the other hand, are capable of gaining their own information and passing it down through generations, writing it down, expanding it, and improving technology, things like that. Humans are capable of learning without learning from other people. That's what makes them intelligent. Suddenly, because people started realizing that monkeys had similar hands, brains, and DNA strands to humans, they assume that we come from them. Maybe creatures on this earth are similar simply because the same God was making them all, not because of evolution.
If I remember right, the scientists invesigating evolution still haven't found any concrete evidence of an interim species that was between a monkey and a human.
It's interesting to see how many post are talking about religion being one of the reasons people don't believe in evolution. Someone else did the work for me, but the research from UK based Christian-Research.org says that very few Britons actually go to church. The research goes on to say a few things about the religious nature of the UK. I'm not saying that I agree with them, but maybe that many people just aren't convinced that evolution is the most accurate theory to explain how we got here. This study just may show the skeptical nature of people across the Atlantic.
Two comments brought to mind by this article...
One is an article (can't remember who by, sorry) that I read shortly after the 2004 election, taking Democrats to task for the re-election of George Bush. Essentially, the author was relating her conversation with a Democrat friend, who exclaimed something to the effect of, "I don't know HOW that man could have gotten re-elected, I don't know ANYBODY who voted for him!" The point of the article was that we all tend to assume that everybody thinks the same way we (and our small circle of friends) do, and it's often disconcerting to find that we're outside the mainstream, or that a very sizable portion of the general population disagrees with us.
I'm also tickled to see that, despite all of the characterizations of Americans as backwoods hillbillies due to the seeming popularity of ID & Creationism here, apparently idiocy knows no national boundaries. I'll be waiting to see the coverage of this in the newspapers & magazines like Time & Newsweek... I probably shouldn't hold my breath for it, because this thinking doesn't dovetail with the image of americans that the world has grown comfortable with, namely that we're overwhelmingly mouth-breathing troglodytes, while the rest of the world consists of polished, cosmopolitan, urbane, well-manicured people.
"Maybe I've been blind to the views of the majority in this proudly secular country."
It often seems those of the "educated atheist" bent are frequently entirely ignorant of the actual views held by the citizenry of which they are a part. In my opinion it's a matter of isolation. People in general, and young educated atheists are no exception, tend to congregate with others similar to them. It's natural, then, to make the mistake of mapping one's peers' views onto the populace as a whole.
As for Britain being a "proudly secular country", I don't think so. Norway maybe. Germany. France. Not the UK. Not yet, at least.
What I am interested in, is what do people who think that the Earth is less then 10,000 years old, think when they pick up a National Geographic magazine, or turn on The Discovery Channel? Is all this information a big lie to them? How about the Genographic Project? Even the "family-friendly" movie March of The Penguins begins with Morgan Freeman stating that penguins have made this journey for millions of years.
It appears that everywhere around us we are exposed to information about the Earth being millions/billions of years old, and yet half of America does not believe this to be true? I'm not taking a stand on the issue, I'm just really confused about why/how people belive these things.
The head of state, the Queen, is also the head of the Church of England. Nothin' secular about that, mate, unless you Brits have redefined "secular" and didn't clue the rest of us in on it.
Come on, how many parents know how to teach children - and I mean really know?
Today? Few -- because they give up that responsibility of parenthood to the State. I won't have a child until I can educate them in the system I choose with my own funding. I strongly believe that you shouldn't have children until you can accept the responsibility of them. If you do "by accident" there are churches, mosques, synagogues and pagan churches that are willing to help you fund their growth and education. Don't come asking me (a responsible human being) to pay for your error.
What about the child? The child is screwed anyway -- if the parents aren't ready to parent, the public education system will have a monster on their hands. I see public education as the new parent, and this is not what I want.
I'd rather see the bottom 10% of the poor having to get their education through the church or even work mentorship programs than see 90% of the kids be held back because of equality laws and mandates.
More like bad things the US has imported from your country. We asked for the seperation of Church and State for a reason your country being the prime example at the time.
(I was at 49% in highschool, I've been top 5% in college and I felt the first 2 years were nothing but review)
I was in the bottom 5% of my high school, but I was earning over teacher's pay by 16. I learned through work, and I believe others can as well.
Don't you feel terrible that your first 2 years of college -- a competitive system where YOU choose which school and how much you're willing to pay -- has to reteach everyone for 2 of the 4 years? Why is that?
I was ready for college by 13 (I started my first business at 13). I would have loved to take a few classes (say, 6 hours a week) for 8 years while working, receiving mentorship from entrepreneurs, and paying for it myself.
Yet I was practically mandated to go to high school. Freshman year they wanted to place me in an LD class (low attention span to my classes) but I received the highest ACT and SAT scores in my district 2 years later. I was also a D- student because I tried to force the issue of skipping high school and going straight into the work program.
50% of my friends and employees have gone to college. All of them gained 4-5 years of college and social debt and a piece of paper. None of them are smarter or better socially than those friends and employees of mine who never went to college. My best employee is a high school drop out and he is sharp as a whip -- and his parents are complete morons.
At 18 I recommend taking the money and time you'd spend on college and starting a business. I've helped many teenagers do this over the years, and almost 90% of them are still in business and well ahead of their peers.
College is now primarily to teach kids what they didn't learn in 12 years of public education. As the government starts funding almost 70% of college educations, the prices have gone up and the quality has gone down. I don't even look for degrees any more in any of my businesses. Today I am visiting a customer who has a US$100 million gross income in their field and I'll be helping them hire a few new thinkers. Of the top 10 candidates, only 5 have college degrees. The process I use to hire is to put them to work for an hour and see who comes out sweat free and confident. College doesn't seem to teach those skills.
The first thing you learn in Science is the story about water in a tub.
If you fill a tub full of water and then reduce the water coming out of the faucet to a drip, you can easily get a scientist to give you the wrong answer by bringing him in at this point and asking how long it took for the tub to fill up.
It would be ridiculous to argue against the current rates of mutation and natural selection. However, it's also ridiculous to just assume it's happened that same way for all of history.
It's perfectly fine to say "IF it has always happened this way" then this is how things played out. The problem arises when you flatly refuse to listen to, and try to belittle anyone who says that the tub was filled beforehand.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
Hey, what has secularism to do with what people believe? I am a secularist and a christian. so what? Can't that be? There is nothing wrong with running a state in a secular manner but believing in God on a personal basis. As long as evolution is taught as part of proper education, I don't have aproblem with that. I do have a problem with people telling me there is nothing else possible. That is indoctrination in a atheistic manner and has nothing to do with secularism. A secular society should not only be open to atheistic views of the world but also to theistic ones. Guy, /. is really biased on this topic.
Scientific proof? Science is about evidence and pragmatic proposals describing processes. Reminisce as you please. Science is about consistency with observations, and its conclusions are always provisional.
I am sick of such mischaracterization of science in the act of making terrible arguments that appeal to how much you dislike attitudes rather than actual observations.
If you fill a tub full of water and then reduce the water coming out of the faucet to a drip, you can easily get a scientist to give you the wrong answer by bringing him in at this point and asking how long it took for the tub to fill up.
Erm, in a word: no.
If all you told him was that the tub was full and the tap is dripping, then yes, you might get a scientist to give a wrong conclusion.
But if you let the scientist examine the tub and the faucet, more likely than not, you'd get the right answer.
That's the problem with ID. It is an attack on science, not a theory unto itself. Science may have it wrong, so god must have done it.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Hold your praise, because I don't particularly agree with that. Evolution is as close to established fact as any "theory" can be. Additionally, ID/Creationism isn't a "theory," rather "dogma," because it seeks to mold facts around its ideas rather than the other way around. Evolution has been shown very solidly to explain transitions between specific species. The fact that not every fossil of every creature has been found is not a weakness.
How else do you explain the venom that they spew at those who question what they consider sacred?
Because the religious nuts are trying to screw with public schools where the rest of us have to send our kids? No one cares if they miseducate their own kids in parochial schools. I agree that tolerance is called for - of the people. However, ID simply IS NOT SCIENCE, nor should be treated as such. It is not testable or disprovable. I will not even consider it until it yields a testable hypothesis. As Pauli would say, "That's not right. That's not even wrong!" The meaning there is that a theory isn't a theory unless it could potentially be tested and found to be flawed. Same with ID. You can't prove the existence of God, it's not worth the effort.
If their theory has so much evidence behind it, you'd think they'd welcome the chance to convince the rest of us further...
It's kind of like teaching a pig to sing...wastes your time and annoys the pig. If someone has chosen to generally reject the scientific method and accept religion, that's fine. But they're not doing it based on available evidence, and as such there's no real reason to believe that more evidence will convince them. I've realized the futility of this long ago. So I don't try to convince creationists. I just want them out of public office.
To summarize, ID is religion in sheep's clothing. The one thing I do agree with you about is this: science isn't religion, and shouldn't be treated as such - and vice versa.
To name a few:
Phlogiston
The Plum Pudding Model
The Four Humours (as a physiological model>
The Earth is Flat
The Geocentric model
I could list hundreds of other beliefs that seemed perfectly rational based upon the science of the time.
Of course, I can also predict the arguement that you will make was that these weren't based upon good science, but the fact of the matter is that they were based upon the science of the time the prospered in. We look back on them now with modern scientific methods and see them as being pretty bad explinations for things, but there is little to say that in another 200 years or another couple millenia that our descendents won't say the very same thing about a lot of out scientific beliefs.
Don't take this as me making an attack on evolution, frankly I believe it myself it does seem to make a certain amount of sense. I also happen to believe in God myself, and I don't find that to be on any level a contradiction.
What I do find ridiculous is making blanket attacks on someone who does take the time to understand any scientific theory and decides that because of the known problems with it that they don't believe it to be the right explanation. This isn't some fundamental failing of the person as it is having a basic skepticism that should be lauded as it is the very basis of science itself. We shouldn't absolutely believe anything we cannot prove.
On the contrary, it's people who try and make objective truth subjective and believe that feel-good solutions are more important than being right that're to blame for society's ills.
"Life's deeper questions" tell us what to do with our lives, and should not be used to describe the exact processes of life's creation. To do so *is* idiocy.
How is this comment NOT flamebait?
:^)
Are you seriously saying that only an idiot would believe that there might be a creator that made things, rather than believing that they just happened by chance and natural selection? You've closed the debate in your head, and assumed that anyone not agreeing with you is a moron.
"And you, sir, are worse than Hitler."
ut its also isolated to NYC - like a lot of problems NYC has.
Watch the 20/20 episode -- this problem is NOT isolated to NYC. My town (suburban, halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee) has 2 teachers that should have been fired years ago -- but the school administration can't. The union has threatened to walk if the teachers are canned. I am very involved with my school board (I constantly go to review why my stolen taxdollars are being wasted on useless programs).
However, you remain completely silent on the fact that many poor simply wouldn't get an education.
Since when is this a fact? The poor eat, right? The poor generally have televisions and cell phones also. Some of the poor in this country are indoctrinated poor people -- they're poor because it means less work.
Jacon Hornberger comments about how the poor would get educated in a free market education system. Voluntary donations by the wealthy. In fact, this has been happening for decades already.
The poor today already get the worst educations -- their schools are run over by gangs, drug dealers and unsafe environments. From what I've seen in my volunteer time with my church in very bad neighborhoods near my town, the poor are sent to school to keep them together. Kids with the desire to get away from their poverty have no chance -- the system won't allow it.
There are also places where it completely fails - particularly when there just isn't much market competition involved.
Yet McDonalds and Burger King can provide a meal for $3 (cheaper over time actually), but education has to increase its costs 10% every year? Wal*Mart can provide clothing at lower and lower prices every year, but we need to keep adding more topics for teachers to teach even though we're already paying way more than we should be?
Before we had public education, our poor had higher literacy rates. Current literacy rates do not actually test reading skill, they are based on how many years a student has studied English. Been in school for 6 years? You're literate, at least for statistical purposes.
To me, it seems that public education stifles 90% of the kids in order to try to help the 10% at the bottom. This is not how it should be. By trying to make everyone an average citizen, how can you expect some to excel and become the next wealthy generation? How can you expect some to have to settle in lower paying jobs to keep the economy driving strong?
I think the problem with not reacting to this ridiculous 'Theory off Intelligent design' lies in the propensity of stupid ideas to re-germinate in the lazy minded despite evidence to the contrary. (note that I did not say the stupid, I really wanted to.) Its far easier to have a few inane soundbites handed to you by your faith leader, to not do any actual study of the Theory of Evolution, to react at a viceral level (I ain't decended from no MONKEY!)and then to become a member of your local school board.
Once you have managed to get to that point, why its a short hop to restupidifying the youth of your community with this crap.
I thik it is far wiser to address idiocy when it springs up with withering facts and dessicating satire. if you ridicule an idiot long enough, they usually shut their moronic piehole.
Ulfaen
I'm an atheist, although I don't claim to be 'educated', merely well-read ;-D
:-)
Just as a point though, you are confusing the Big Bang with evolution. Evolution says nothing about anything that happened before the first life form appeared. Want to know how it appeared? Evolution does not have an answer. Want to know where the Universe came from? Ask a cosmologist, not an evolutionary biologist.
As such evolution makes no comments about anything even remotely resembling the beginning of time. Your dust particle idea, while interesting, says nothing about evolution whatsoever. I'd enjoy arguing the cosmology, but think I should stay on topic.
Anyway, back to your ideas about God being involved in the Big Bang, I'd have to agree with you whole-heartedly. There is most definately a possibility that He did kick off the whole shebang. Personally I don't believe that's what happened, but that's just my opinion. The idea is also not scientific, however that doesn't neccesarily make it false.
As for your "evolutionists" who pull out "dates and timelines" to argue with you, if they're using it to dispute the idea that God created the Universe with the Big Bang, then they're up the creek without a paddle. Carbon dating says nothing about the Big Bang, since when it happened there wasn't any carbon
If they're using it to dispute that God was involved in the process of evolution on Earth, they're similarly mistaken, since carbon dating will tell you nothing about how something happened, merely an approximate date when it did. We do have numerous other concepts to explain how things happened, such as mutation, natural selection and so forth, but none of them rule out a guiding God. They simply ignore the possibility, not because scientists are neccesarily atheists or anything, but simply because science doesn't deal in supernatural events, and limits itself to the natural.
Good luck with the studies.
Your reasoning is a good example of why a large number of scientists are athiests. I'll paraphrase what you said: Anything that can be verifed with my own eyes is allowed to be science, if anything cannot be verifed through my experience must be God.
If the going gets tough the tough goes to ID? Science isn't around to make you feel better when you wake up in the night and wonder what it's all about, science won't make you feel better about yourself or help you find your place: Science is a razor constantly cutting away at the meat, only trying to find the bone: not defining the bone or deciding the shape or characterstics of the bone.
Those aren't absolute reversals. So the Plumb Pudding Model was revised. Was it wrong about electrons? Was it wrong about atoms having a source of positive charge? No. It was wrong by not being specific enough about where exactly positive charge falls in an atom. Thus it is an example of idea evolution.
Take Phlogiston. Okay, it sounds a little silly from our modern perspective, but does that make it absolutely unmitigatingly wrong? Of course not. It simply attributed to a gas what should have been attributed to the absence of a gas. Once again, when the evidence came out against it the modification was made. In fact, Phlogiston theory aided the understanding of gasses. The Phlogiston model was remarkably accurate except for the problem of identifying which direction reactions actually occur in.
The same is true of the others. You especially should have realized that the flat-Earth notion is not a full reversal; many applications today assume a flat Earth as a reasonable approximation of terrain.
Evolution will be the same. There will be certain aspects that have to be modified. Perhaps new processes will be discovered that enhance our understanding. But it is not reasonable to suppose that the entire framework will be scrapped.
Then perhaps you might use your obviously superior logical skills to show us less fortunate individuals how you came to this conclusion ? I, for one, fail to see the connection. And while you're at it, you might also explain how conformance to your worldview shows critical thinking, and how lack of such conformance shows a lack of such thought.
Or were you just karma whoring ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I have a better education, as do all of the people I work with (we're all PhD's) and many of us (I will not say most or a few, as it would bias the point) are theists. So putting education as a qualifier for athiesm is nonsense. You should not try to give your view athority by saying many other educated people believe it too. And writing an article with such a statement is kind of insulting, is being a journalist no longer considered being a professional.?
I do not have a problem with evolution, it can easily exist within the theistic frame. But so many people automatically assume that evolution is an if and only if relationship with athiesm, which is not only nonsense, but also polarizing (both thiests and athiests do this in my experience). Perhaps if we all thought about the statement that an education takes an empty mind and opens it, then we would find it much harder to call ourselves educated without a little more effort.
Actually, it is, when ToE is referred as an alternative possibility to creationism. The logical possibilities for the beginning of the life are as follows:
Option number one is unlikely, since universe itself has not, according to current theories, always existed. Life that has been in existence for a limited amount of time must have had a beginning. So that only leaves the options of life being created by some supernatural entity, or the first seeds of life coming from unliving material on their own - spontaneously.
Of course it is also logically possible that life was created and then evolved, but that is a fundamentally creationist worldview - that is, will wall to the ID/creationism side of the current debate.
As for why creationism requires a supernatural creator, it is simply that any other kind of creator couldn't have existed before nature (universe) began, and thus we are faced with the same dilemma of beginning with it.
No. That statement would be true even if no evolution was possible; afte all, whenever I step on a bug, the percentage of that bug phenotype relative to all other bug phenotypes changes. Similarly, every time my immune system kills a bacteria trying to invade my body, the percentage of that bacteria relative to all bacteria changes. This is true even if every bug and bacteria is guaranteed to be a carbon copy of its parent(s) (which they aren't, of course). Your single-sentence summary of evolution is true in all imaginable worlds where organisms are born, die, or both, and there is more than one kind of organism, whether or not these organisms are capable of producing any variation in their offspring or not.
Besides, the article clearly stated that the survey was about origin of life, not just what has happened since then.
Of course, none of this makes ID falsifiable.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Actually, it is, when ToE is referred as an alternative possibility to creationism.
But the ToE is not an "alternative possibility to creationism." The ToE is simply a scientific explanation for the emergence of diverse species from common ancestry. It's not the fault of the theory of reality happens to contradict any number of religious myths.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
You just told us that you filled it up and then tried to pretend it was filled by a dripping faucet. Obviously you're talking bollocks.
That's the problem with ID. You make an argument based on bad facts or no facts at all, in fact a lot of it is out and out lies. You don't know that god created the earth (so your straw man is drowning in your tub), but you are prepared to belittle people who spend their entire lives finding out exactly how it did get formed. I know whose opinion I'd rather trust.
Feeling belittled yet ?
Short and simple -- an overbearing government that feels it knows how to raise kids better than parents is using government schools to achieve it's agends with kids.
The bureaucracy of public education is almost entirely local in nature, with the vast majority of the control being at county level or lower. You would be more correct, then, to say that communities have become overbearing in their attempt to raise each others kids. When book banning and arguments like ID come up, it's not some faceless government division a thousand miles away in Washington trying to control your life, it's your nosey neighbors and fellow PTA members doing the deeds.
It's just so much more comfortable to blame it all on "government" than to admit that you and your neighbors ARE the government in question and, ergo, it's not Big Brother's fault, it's yours.
Logic and critical thinking obviously haven't been part of your education since you decided insult someone and lump God(s) Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy based on a comment about the posters friends.
I'm sure the world would be much better off blindly following your anti-faith.
As has been said over and over and over again by quite a few people on /. in the many ID debates: Maintaining a belief is not incompatible with being well educated, logical and analytical.
Quoth Albert Einstein (again): "God does not play dice".
Disclaimer: I do not partake in any religion, and I'm not fond of how ID is being tried shoehorned into the school system. But neither am I an atheist; I'm agnostic. The concept of ID itself is, at best, a philosophical mindtwister. The problem as I see it is that the way ID is presented by the proponents is one-sided, and it appears as just another means to push the belief that "The One True God, Thy Lord" created this hole mess a few thousand years ago.
What about people believing that our souls are parts of the universe learning about itself? Or that The Flying Spaghetti Monster is here with his all-encompassing Noodly Appendage? Karma?
Or if I seriously believed that a giant rubber ducky created the universe by way of a purposeful squeak? And that we're all guided by His Quacks, they're just so loud we don't hear them? It's all valid ID beliefs, but they're just that - beliefs.
A good scientist will not let his beliefs get in the way of finding Truth. Should the newfound Truth disagree with what he believed, a true scientist would adjust those beliefs. Just as the religious majority was in time forced to acknowledge that the earth revolves around the sun.
PS: I know I shouldn't respond to trolls, but could not resist.
PPS: Who are these "Evolutionists"? You mean Scientists, yes...
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
The first thing we do is the calculation you refer to. We discuss how plausible the constancy of rate hypothesis is. (In this case, we note that the tap (faucet, to you) is capable of delivering more or less water.) Then we discuss how the inferred filling time relates to our other knowledge (does it imply the bath was half full before the house was built?) That is the first paper. It presents an interesting observation, and the most obvious interpretation, with suitable caveats.
In the second paper, we try to infer subtle effects of the constant-rate hypothesis (CR). We observe material deposited on the side of the bath at water level, and conclude that under CR, we should see these deposits uniformly continued at deeper levels. We start applying for grants to do a bath-dive expedition to observe them, but don't get funding.
In the third paper, different group calculates that, had the rate been much higher in the past, we should observe water droplets splashed on the wall. This being easily accessible, they have looked for them and found them.
The fourth through tenth papers are analyses of how fast the water flow needed to be to spash that high, how long it was high flow to explain the frequency, and how old the drops are. It takes a while before the theorists agree on the correct mathematical treatment. The question of whether the quantity of water added by dripping is significant is still within the margin of error.
Now there is sufficient interest, we finally get the grant to do the bath dive. We observe no deposits below the current level, and conclude the dripping phase has been at most a few days. The Fast Fill theory of the bath enters the textbooks.
10 years later, the principle authors of the first and third papers share the Nobel prize in Domestic Hydrology.
I am an evolutionary scientist. We don't follow your straw-man portrayal of how science works.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Religion is the wool pulled over our eyes. Some people find that comforting and I don't fault them their beliefs. But if you were to ask me if someone with wool over their eyes can see clearly I will say no they can't. There are many brilliant people who believe in god and an afterlife. People smarter than you or I. I would not consider them to be stupid or inferior. However I would consider their belief to be illogical and irrational given the breadth of scientific knowledge and enlightenment. Athiests look at creationists the same way as you would look at an adult who still believed in the easter bunny or believed that baby's come from storks. We usually feel a little sorry for them but we can be accomidating and let them believe what they want. However if they try to start teaching those absurd ideas in a classroom in a public school we draw issue with that. To me, trying to teach ID in a science classroom is not any different from trying to teach that babies come from storks in a health or parenting class. I'm an athiest and I think I would have been one sooner had I not been afraid. It's like turning the breaker off in your house and then sticking a key into an electrical socket. Yes you know the power is off, but what if? Your told that there is a god when your a kid and that you will go to hell if you don't follow him. You grow up and don't see any evidence of god in the world. You can use logic to understand that there can't be a god. But that nagging "what if" makes you hesitate to be blasphemous because if your wrong your going to hell. Some people never get past this point and they either swing back to full blown religion, or else they stay halfway and become agnostic. They don't believe in any particular religion but won't deny the existence of a supreme being "just in case". Initially being an athiest is scary. When you die your dead, no after life. There are no miracles. There is no order or meaning to the universe. When bad things happen its random and meaningless. You have nothingto fall back on. No crutch to shield your fragile person from the harsh realities of existence. But at the same time the enlightenment is completely worth it. It's like Socrates story of a man living in a cave being too afraid to go outside where there is no roof, only the empty blackness of the sky. The entire universe of wonder could be going on outside his cave and he would never know because he is too afraid to change his world. I find it hard to trust people under a relgious influence to make rational decisions because they sometimes do things that are irrational, but in the name of a god. Like Bush talking about his crusade or that god wanted him to go to Iraq. That scares the crap out of me. What if god told him that freedom was an illusion and that the only path to freedom lay in faith. What if he made non christians 2nd class citizens. It worries me that Texas has a constitution that says no godless person can hold political office. Religion does not give way to logic. It is an irrational and illogical device that is used to control people. So in some ways, people who are religious or believe in god, are for lack of a better word, stupid.
Something I see coming up over and over again whenever there's a discussion about evolution is silly semantic argument about the nature of the term "proof." People keep saying that scientists can never "prove" anything, only disprove things. I'm a scientist, and I would argue that this is simply a silly oversimplification without any significant value. The problem is that it implies that absolute proof is somehow attainable in the real world. It's not. The only place something can be proved is in mathematics, and as useful as math is, it's all made up. The inability of science to "prove" things is not a limitation of science, it's a demonstration of the fictitious nature of the concept of "proof" with respect to the real world.
More importantly, people make life-or-death decisions every day of their lives that are based on things they can't "prove." You can't "prove" that a twinkie isn't going to explode, but you eat it anyway. You can't prove that atoms exist, or that smoking causes cancer. By any reasonable standard, those things are considered proven, so one could argue that they're simply "proven beyond reasonable doubt." Likewise, evolution is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. To believe in atoms, but not in evolution, because it's "unproven" or "unprovable" is inconsistent.
You're a nutcase. Nowhere in that post did I say I hate Christians. Also the Intelligent Designers go to great pains to explain that ID has nothing to do with Christianity.
Oh, I get it, you're a troll. On the off chance that you're really just a nutcase, go back and read the bit where Einstein said he wasn't religious and didn't believe in the Christian God.
Getting back to the whole bathtub thing... I actually thought that your detailed description of how the scientific method plays out was rather clever. I maintain, however, that you wholly missed the mark. Your analysis of the tub scenario seems to imply that, with enough application of the scientific method -- which you expertly portrayed*, ID can be shown to be either valid or invalid. This, by definition, however, is impossible. Allow me to explain.
I'm tending to think you misunderstand analogies. If you give an analogy that appears to be a very good analogy, then "solve" the analogy, the answer will still be unrelated to the original problem. You appear to be assuming that the solution to the analogy is also an analogy to the original question. That is not how they work.
The analogy was originally given to "prove" that scientists make incorrect guesses. That is correct, but it left out that scientists also don't get into the dogma of presuming they are right, and all others are wrong, even in the face of evidence. The analogy was extended to show that the presumption about scientists was wrong. It was never about how the tub was or was not filled. The analogy was about how scientists would approach the problem. The analogy isn't that the tub is or is not Creation.
Learn to love Alaska