Charles Darwin Online

eldavojohn writes "The entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online. It includes scanned works that were owned by his family — many of which were signed by the author. The University of Cambridge hopes to have this completed by 2009 and is only estimated to be about half way done. If you have any love for books whatsoever, I suggest you take a look at how they present the user with each book. Take the very first edition of On the Origin of Species, for example, where they use frames to display the text on the left with the original image on the right. From the Reuters article: 'Other items in the free collection of 50,000 pages and 40,000 images are the first editions of the Journal of Researchers, written in 1839, The Descent of Man, The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, which includes his observations during his five-year trip to the Amazon, Patagonia and the Pacific, and the first five editions of the Origin of Species.'"

Comments

The biggest surprise?

[bunions]

The little-known fact that he signed his name as "Chuck D."

Re:The biggest surprise?

[Captain Splendid]

The little-known fact that he signed his name as "Chuck D."

Seems only fair, as he's often portrayed as Public Enemy Number One

frames

[Anonymous Coward]

Frames ????

Re:frames

[Doctor-Optimal]

That web site is the best argument against intelligent design I've ever seen...

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Are you saying evolved websites are ugly (which to me would seem to be caused by the environment given), or that you don't know the real theory of intelligent design?

Re:frames

[WilliamSChips]

He's saying that nobody intelligent would have designed that website. Or something along those lines.

Re:frames

[flosofl]

...or that you don't know the real theory of intelligent design?

There is no "theory of intelligent design" (for valid definitions of theory). There is a faith-based intellectual exercise called "intelligent design", however.

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

There is no "theory of intelligent design" (for valid definitions of theory). There is a faith-based intellectual exercise called "intelligent design", however.

You're incorrect on that one- the theory of intelligent design links cosmology to evolution, and is a direct refutation of a central hypothesis of quantum mechanics.

But far too many see only the surface, and fail to research.

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[gkhan1]

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory, in any way, shape or form. If you think that it is, Karl Popper will beat you, repeatadly, in the afterlife. It can be called a concept, a belief, a line of thought, a philosophy even, but it is NOT a theory. It never will be.

Show me an experiment or a prediction or anything really that would prove ID wrong. Go on, show me. You can't, can you? If you could, it might qualify as a hypothesis. But you can't.

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

Show me an experiment or a prediction or anything really that would prove ID wrong.

Oddly enough, it's the same thing that would prove Evolution itself (and just about every other scientific theory that has risen to the predictability of a law) wrong: ID is incompatible with a random universe. If you can show me a commonly accepted physical law changing at random, say the gravitational constant of the universe or agrivado's number, or some such thing; that would prove ID wrong because it would postulate *either* an irrational God or a universe that had lost any sembalance of guiding order or principle. In other words- if you can prove the non-existance of God OR the non-intelligence of God, without being anthromorphic in fallacy, you can prove ID wrong. Evolution would fall as well, and the entire study of physics and biology, but you will have proven ID wrong.

Re:frames

[gkhan1]

So in other words, this is what you are saying: "If we found out that the universe is made from tiny pixies that have pink hair, but they are so small we can't see them, then ID is wrong".

You obviously have no idea how the scientific method works (if you did, you'd know that it's called Avogadros number, no agrivados number). This is what you need: give me a "If you do X, and Y happens, ID is wrong" or "If we find X by observing Y, ID is wrong". Concrete examples, concrete and testable. For every other dicipline of science, that experiment exists. But it doesn't for ID.

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

"If we found out that the universe is made from tiny pixies that have pink hair, but they are so small we can't see them, then ID is wrong".

Among others, yes. But it need not be that dramatic; one "miracle" of the more modern (and less acurate) meaning of the word, one bit of real "magic" of any sort, and the whole thing becomes so unpredictable that *all* thories would become at best wrong models.

You obviously have no idea how the scientific method works (if you did, you'd know that it's called Avogadros number, no agrivados number).

What an arrogant remark- a misspelling based on phonics is linked to as "no idea how the scientific method works". And you're missing the point- that the real discussion is between an ordered vs a random universe in cosmology, not macro world evolution.

This is what you need: give me a "If you do X, and Y happens, ID is wrong"

Ok, if you write a dissertation and it causes a volcano, ID is wrong.

"If we find X by observing Y, ID is wrong".

Ok, if we find a hurricane by observing a butterfly, and that hurricane is in the same position as the butterfly, then ID is wrong. I think what you're failing is that you don't understand what the central portion of ID as a theory IS.

For every other dicipline of science, that experiment exists.

Can you prove that remark? I can't. It's an untestible statement.

But it doesn't for ID.

Also incorrect, as I just gave you two. There are *many* others. All you have to do is prove the central tenent of quantum mechanics- that the universe is random- for ID to be wrong. There are as many ways to prove that tenent as there are atoms in the universe. No, strike that. There are SIX TIMES as many ways to prove that tenent as there are atoms in the universe. All you have to do is find a single unpredictable phenomena. TRULY unpredictable, not "unpredictable because we currently don't have a way to measure cause X when we observe effect Y". Because the problem with ID has nothing to do with the existance of God or non-existance of God at all- it has to do with whether the cosmos is ordered and rational or disordered and irrational, at a quantum level. If the universe is ordered- if there is a plan and a purpose to the universe- regardless of whether or not that plan and purpose is discoverable, ID is indeed correct (and so is Evolution, and so is Physics, and so is the scientific method). If the universe is disordered- if there is no plan, no purpose- then all theories are equally invalid, for the Flying Spaghetti Monster could just be playing a trick on us all and have created the universe last Tuesday for his own purposes. ID is on the same side as science (which is a good joke on all the Young Earth Creationists) in this; Quantum Mechanics and Islamic Fundamentalism and Christian Fundamentalism are all on the other side, the side of irrationality, to some extent. Pope Benedict XVI recently presented an excellent sermon on this topic that so scared the fundamentalists that several nuns died for the sin of even suggesting it.

Historically, the philosophy behind the scientific method (without which the scientific method itself is completely meaningless) is a theological fight between those who believe God to be ordered, mindful, and intelligent vs those who don't believe God to be anything of the sort. Either God follows his own laws, or magic and miracles (in the modern form, as opposed to St. Augustine's form) exist. There can be no equivocation on that.

Re:frames

[plunge]

What you're saying has almost nothing to do with what the ID movement has argued, except slightly the cosmological portion. Whether the universe is random or ordered is basically irrelevant: it is what it is, and we have no capacity to draw conclusions from one example when we don't know what the alternatives are, how they are determined, or whether there even are any alternatives. You are also, of course, using terms like "ordered" and "disordered" in vague and bizarre ways. It's really sort of worthless to try and introduce woo like that into science.

ID is untestible because it doesn't explain the how of anything (not even anything you've been talking about) in anything other than an ad hoc manner. No matter what conditions or things we find in the world, we can ALWAYS invent some motive for why the ID wanted it that way. We aren't committed to _anything_, especially if we don't commit to a very specific ID (which most ID people won't do, because that would mean admitting that they think it's their particular God)

Evolution predicts very particular patterns that must hold up in the physical evidence about life on earth. ID offers none of this, for anything. Saying that ID "predicts" the universe that already exists is nonsense.

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What you're saying has almost nothing to do with what the ID movement has argued, except slightly the cosmological portion.

It is elsewhere than this country. In this country, the stupid creationists thought that the concept of ID could save them instead of making them look more stupid. In this country, the scientists reject ID, and with it, any real concept of a predictable model of the universe, making them ALSO look stupid. I find it highly amusing that NEITHER bothered to ask the Pope about rational religion.

Whether the universe is random or ordered is basically irrelevant: it is what it is, and we have no capacity to draw conclusions from one example when we don't know what the alternatives are, how they are determined, or whether there even are any alternatives.

Just because we have no capacity to do so now does not mean we will never have the capacity. Just because we can't measure something now doesn't make the measurement irrelevant to a more complete model.

You are also, of course, using terms like "ordered" and "disordered" in vague and bizarre ways. It's really sort of worthless to try and introduce woo like that into science.

I'm not the one who introduced it into science- Heisenberg was.

ID is untestible because it doesn't explain the how of anything (not even anything you've been talking about) in anything other than an ad hoc manner.

Neither does science, for that matter- by limiting evidence to only that which can be tested, the scientific method has a fatal flaw.

No matter what conditions or things we find in the world, we can ALWAYS invent some motive for why the ID wanted it that way.

We can, but that would be the irrational, anthromorphic way to look at it, placing our desires upon God. It should be the other way around.

We aren't committed to _anything_, especially if we don't commit to a very specific ID (which most ID people won't do, because that would mean admitting that they think it's their particular God)

Once again, you're looking at a small sample of irrational American Christians as if they are the whole- which is about as stupid as judging all of Islam based on the 10 million or so who subscribe to convert or die theologies. Your view of ID, and of religion in general, is strangely narrowminded. Are you sure you aren't a Biblical atheist fundamentalist, so poisoned by the ridiculous assertions of American Christianity that atheism seems to become the only sane option?

Evolution predicts very particular patterns that must hold up in the physical evidence about life on earth.

Yes it does, as does ID. In fact, those particular patterns are one and the same for theistic evolution- they have to be, because the physical evidence about life on earth is how we know more about God than our ancestors did.

ID offers none of this, for anything. Saying that ID "predicts" the universe that already exists is nonsense.

If evolution predicts the universe that already exists, so does ID- for the simple reason that ID is the search of the "scripture" written in our DNA (which is another reason why the Biblical Creationists won't find their God there- for they don't worship a God, but rather a book).

Re:frames

[plunge]

"Just because we have no capacity to do so now does not mean we will never have the capacity. Just because we can't measure something now doesn't make the measurement irrelevant to a more complete model."

You seem to have a hard time following the argument. This response doesn't really address what I said. What I said was that it is impossible to make judgements about things like chance and likihood about "the universe" given that we have no idea and no capability to have any idea, what "universes" in general are like or how characteristic of universes ours is, or even whether it is the only one.

"I'm not the one who introduced it into science- Heisenberg was."

Well, no, he wasn't, again you're confusing things, but when people like Heisenberg used those terms, they used them in a precise and well-defined manner. You are just throwing them all over the place willy nilly.

"Neither does science, for that matter"

Of course science can tell us the how. Indeed, that's been the triumph of science over and over and over.

"by limiting evidence to only that which can be tested, the scientific method has a fatal flaw."

No: it's a limitation that prevents its scope from shooting out into the mere speculation and fantasy.

"We can, but that would be the irrational, anthromorphic way to look at it, placing our desires upon God. It should be the other way around."

Again, this response seems to have missed the line of discussion it's jumping into. I'm not sure you're really understanding what we're talking about.

"Once again, you're looking at a small sample of irrational American Christians as if they are the whole- which is about as stupid as judging all of Islam based on the 10 million or so who subscribe to convert or die theologies. Your view of ID, and of religion in general, is strangely narrowminded. Are you sure you aren't a Biblical atheist fundamentalist, so poisoned by the ridiculous assertions of American Christianity that atheism seems to become the only sane option?"

Nope. But please, name me any ID theorist who has made a specific scientific prediction about physical evidence based on their claimed understanding of God.

"Yes it does, as does ID. In fact, those particular patterns are one and the same for theistic evolution- they have to be, because the physical evidence about life on earth is how we know more about God than our ancestors did."

No, ID does not. ID contributed nothing to ferreting out those patterns or pointing anyone in their direction.

"If evolution predicts the universe that already exists, so does ID- for the simple reason that ID is the search of the "scripture" written in our DNA (which is another reason why the Biblical Creationists won't find their God there- for they don't worship a God, but rather a book)."

Evolution predicts specific patterns in the evidence. ID does not predict anything in particular. All your claimed knowledge about ID is ad hoc: you are speculating about the motives of the ID after the fact. That's fine if you enjoy doing so, but it's not science.

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You seem to have a hard time following the argument. This response doesn't really address what I said. What I said was that it is impossible to make judgements about things like chance and likihood about "the universe" given that we have no idea and no capability to have any idea, what "universes" in general are like or how characteristic of universes ours is, or even whether it is the only one.

And you're missing my point that there's no need to get arrogant and dogmatic about it. Science has surpassed the impossible so many times that you'd think nobody would use that word anymore. Making presumptions about the universe in a dogmatic way is in and of itself irrational.

Well, no, he wasn't, again you're confusing things, but when people like Heisenberg used those terms, they used them in a precise and well-defined manner. You are just throwing them all over the place willy nilly.

Apparently neither precise enough or well defined enough; for what they said made no sense and makes a mockery of the very *idea* of a predictable universe.

Of course science can tell us the how. Indeed, that's been the triumph of science over and over and over.

It has according to me- but you seem to have the idea that science and religion are separate.

No: it's a limitation that prevents its scope from shooting out into the mere speculation and fantasy.

Without speculation and fantasy, theories and hypothesis and models would not exist. There is *only* speculation and fantasy here, no reality.

Nope. But please, name me any ID theorist who has made a specific scientific prediction about physical evidence based on their claimed understanding of God.

Pope Benedict XVI did quite recently- and the Islamics jumped all over him for it. Don't you pay any attention to the world around you?

No, ID does not. ID contributed nothing to ferreting out those patterns or pointing anyone in their direction.

Bullshit. Without ID, evolution makes no sense- for there cannot be patterns where there is only randomness. Your "patterns" are destroyed by the idea of random mutation.

Evolution predicts specific patterns in the evidence.

And without intelligence, those specific patterns could not exist, because there would be no physical laws to determine the pattern.

ID does not predict anything in particular.

Yes it does- it predicts that there will be patterns, that those patterns will be rational AND UNCHANGING. As opposed to random and unpredictable.

All your claimed knowledge about ID is ad hoc: you are speculating about the motives of the ID after the fact.

Nope, my involvement in ID predates the creationist involvement by a good number of decades.

That's fine if you enjoy doing so, but it's not science.

Neither is an irrational belief in random accidents.

Re:frames

[plunge]

"Science has surpassed the impossible so many times that you'd think nobody would use that word anymore. Making presumptions about the universe in a dogmatic way is in and of itself irrational."

Again, I'm not missing the point: you aren't making sense. You are the one making claims here about the universe. I'm not denying that science might not one day be able to address the question better, but as things stand now, your claims about probability, order and disorder and so forth, have no basis in anything. There's nothing to compare our universe to: there's no basis to conclude anything from it being the way it is.

"Apparently neither precise enough or well defined enough; for what they said made no sense and makes a mockery of the very *idea* of a predictable universe."

Nonsense. The universe, despite quantum weirdness, remains quite predictable. Even quantum weirdness is, itself, pretty reliably predictable, albiet in a different sense.

"It has according to me- but you seem to have the idea that science and religion are separate."

Science is a process for evaluating evidence. You can certainly be personally religious while you undertake that process, but religion is basically irrelevant to the process, and it isn't itself scientific in any way shape or form. Religion is neither a necessary nor a particularly relevant thing to science.

"Pope Benedict XVI did quite recently- and the Islamics jumped all over him for it. Don't you pay any attention to the world around you?"

You'll have to explain in what way he made any sort of useful scientific statement about anything, because I don't see any evidence that he did, and I pay pretty good attention. The Pope isn't a scientist and he isn't doing science. Which is perfectly okay: as long as it isn't claimed that he is.

"Bullshit. Without ID, evolution makes no sense- for there cannot be patterns where there is only randomness. Your "patterns" are destroyed by the idea of random mutation."

I just don't see your argument here. Random mutation is not the only element relevant to evolution. Pretending that it is is simply nonsense. Pretending, likewise, that a universe in which some order exists proves that there is an ID simply begs the question. There's barely even any argument there for me to refute!

"And without intelligence, those specific patterns could not exist, because there would be no physical laws to determine the pattern."

This is simply your personal opinion. It's first of all completely irrelevant to evolution, because evolution does not purport to explain physical laws or regularities, it simply works off what's there. It's second of all simply begging that universe question we discussed before. You cannot conclude that physical laws or fine tuning or anything else demand intelligence, because there is nothing to compare the universe too. For all we know, the universe we live in could be remarkable for it's degree of chaos and lack of order rather than remarkable for what little there is.

"Yes it does- it predicts that there will be patterns, that those patterns will be rational AND UNCHANGING. As opposed to random and unpredictable."

Again, as far as I can tell, you are talking about physical laws again. I've already dealt with most of this argument. The prediction angle is not a prediction: it's ad hoc. Worse, if it WERE different, nothing prevents you from simply ad hocing another reason why the ID would want changing patterns or occasional irrationality. In short, nothing about the "theory" is really committed to anything in a way that future evidence would impact its truth. If we suddenly discovered that the universe is really actually totally irrational and random after all, and our belief that it wasn't was an illusion, I have a feeling you'd still find some way to insist that the ID wanted it that way for whatever reason you can think up for it.

"Nope, my involvement in ID predates the creationist involvement by a good number of decades.

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Again, I'm not missing the point: you aren't making sense. You are the one making claims here about the universe. I'm not denying that science might not one day be able to address the question better, but as things stand now, your claims about probability, order and disorder and so forth, have no basis in anything. There's nothing to compare our universe to: there's no basis to conclude anything from it being the way it is.

Therefore, your form of science is useless to the question- being unable to answer it. There are plenty of ways we can compare the universe to alternates- every experiment in science does that, compares what is to a theoretical alternate. There is *NO* difference between this and theology at that stage, or at least, not good rational theology. It's irrational theology we need to be against, and irrational science.

Nonsense. The universe, despite quantum weirdness, remains quite predictable. Even quantum weirdness is, itself, pretty reliably predictable, albiet in a different sense.

If it's predictable, it's not probablistic and it's not random. If it is not predictable, then it's random and everything in both science and theology are meaningless. Either the universe is deterministic (despite our inability to measure accurately or at all at a quantum level) or it is nondeterministic. There is no third option, because a nondeterministic universe is essentially rule-free.

Science is a process for evaluating evidence. You can certainly be personally religious while you undertake that process, but religion is basically irrelevant to the process, and it isn't itself scientific in any way shape or form. Religion is neither a necessary nor a particularly relevant thing to science.

Obviously you know nothing about the reason why we undertake science. There is only one rational reason: to understand the universe in it's entirety, and determine what we can of the mind of God from that. This is the science of Einstien, of Copernicus, of Galileo, of Newton. I don't know what kind of science you imagine can be separated from the religious need to know. But something tells me it has far more to do with base materialism than anything else.

I just don't see your argument here. Random mutation is not the only element relevant to evolution. Pretending that it is is simply nonsense. Pretending, likewise, that a universe in which some order exists proves that there is an ID simply begs the question. There's barely even any argument there for me to refute!

It isn't even the central element, which is why I say ID and evolution are one and the same. But in a random universe- there isn't even that much.

This is simply your personal opinion. It's first of all completely irrelevant to evolution, because evolution does not purport to explain physical laws or regularities, it simply works off what's there.

I'm not even really talking about evolution- if you had been actually READING what I've been writing, my qualm is with quantum physics, and only tangentially impacts evolution, which I regard as an engineering method.

It's second of all simply begging that universe question we discussed before. You cannot conclude that physical laws or fine tuning or anything else demand intelligence, because there is nothing to compare the universe too.

We're comparing the universe to theories and models all the time, that's the meaning of the word experimentation. An intelligence free universe is a rule free universe- there'd be no models to discover if the universe was rule free.

If we suddenly discovered that the universe is really actually totally irrational and random after all, and our belief that it wasn't was an illusion, I have a feeling you'd still find some way to insist that the ID wanted it that way for whatever reason you can think up for it.

Nope- because ID would be worthless in that situation (as would electricity, computers, car engines, etc.). A to

Re:frames

[plunge]

"Therefore, your form of science is useless to the question- being unable to answer it."

Well yes: which is exactly why it's ridiculous for you to claim to know any better. You don't. You have no grounds to conclude anything about something external to the universe from the nature of the universe. You don't have any facts to work with.

"Obviously you know nothing about the reason why we undertake science. There is only one rational reason: to understand the universe in it's entirety, and determine what we can of the mind of God from that. This is the science of Einstien, of Copernicus, of Galileo, of Newton. I don't know what kind of science you imagine can be separated from the religious need to know. But something tells me it has far more to do with base materialism than anything else."

Simply put, there is nothing particularly religious about a need to know and a wonder about the world around us. I'm not religious, and I have it. Other people are religious, and their religion may well undergird their motivation for doing science. But that has nothing to do with science being a particularly religious endeavor. It's no more religious than taking the dog out for a walk because you don't want him to poop on your carpet.

"We're comparing the universe to theories and models all the time, that's the meaning of the word experimentation."

??? You're. Not. Making. Sense. Again: we only have the one universe here. We cannot generalize about this universe being special or tellingly one way or the other, because we only know about the one.

There is no "theistic science." Your form of ID does not predate the universe, sorry, making its "predictions" AD HOC.

Do you realize that your responses are barely at all consistent over time or with what they are responding to?

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Well yes: which is exactly why it's ridiculous for you to claim to know any better. You don't. You have no grounds to conclude anything about something external to the universe from the nature of the universe. You don't have any facts to work with.

Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet.

Simply put, there is nothing particularly religious about a need to know and a wonder about the world around us.

That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about.

I'm not religious, and I have it.

Incorrect- you're quite religious or you wouldn't be arguing your beliefs in such an evangelical manner.

Other people are religious, and their religion may well undergird their motivation for doing science.

And in fact, has for the past 600 years.

But that has nothing to do with science being a particularly religious endeavor. It's no more religious than taking the dog out for a walk because you don't want him to poop on your carpet.

On the contrary, the need for human beings to explain their environment is very religious- and in forms other than science, apparently goes back to other species than homo sapiens as well. It appears many hominids have this curious need to explain their universe and tell stories based on the facts they know as if they were the one and only truth.

??? You're. Not. Making. Sense. Again: we only have the one universe here.

We actually have at least 6.5 billion universes on this planet alone- one for each individual model of the universe that each individual human has come up with from the "facts" they know. None are complete, none are even close to the truth, but by comparing them to what is we can find the truth.

We cannot generalize about this universe being special or tellingly one way or the other, because we only know about the one.

But we don't just know about the one- we know about BILLIONS of them. The rest may not be truth, may not be factually based, may not even be possible, but that doesn't stop us from constructing them and modeling them and comparing them to reality.

There is no "theistic science."

Oh, there has been for generations now. ATHEISTIC science is rather new by comparison, and has yet to withstand the test of time.

Your form of ID does not predate the universe,

Why should it have to? Does your atheistic science predate the universe?

sorry, making its "predictions" AD HOC.

Just as ad hoc as any other form of science then, since Darwin and you don't predate the universe either, by that silly rule. Got any other silly rules to redefine words for me to shoot down?

Do you realize that your responses are barely at all consistent over time or with what they are responding to?

Actually, they're completely consistent over time and with what they are responding to. But when discussing such things with an irrational individual who doesn't even understand basic philosophy, some things may seem to be inconsistent at any given moment. But that's just the basic problem with the intersection of models that are inconsistent.

Re:frames

[plunge]

"Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet."

Look, you're not getting it. We have a universe. It looks a certain way. But given that we only have the one universe to look at, there's no way to generalize about whether our particular universe is likely, especially ordered, whatever. We have no idea, and no way to have any idea. The constants are meaningless in this endeavor: all we can do is measure them. We can't talk about exactly the "likihood" of them being that way, because have no idea what the process or constraints were.

In short, you basically doing the equivalent of insisting that we know the probability of a dice roll given that you know the value that came up after a single roll.... but without knowing anything else at all about the die. You dont' know how many other sides it has. You don't know how it is weighted. You don't even know what is on the other sides. So talking about "expecting" any sort of universe, or talking about the universe being surprisingly this or that... is all pure nonsense.

"That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about."

That may or may not be, but again, it's irrelevant. Religion is not the sole source of wonder, nor is it necessary to do good science. It isn't part of the scientific process.

"Incorrect- you're quite religious or you wouldn't be arguing your beliefs in such an evangelical manner."

Characterizing me in an attempt to cover up is simply lame. If "religious" means anything at all, then I'm not religious. If I'm religious, then "religion" merely means "having opinions on stuff" which basically takes all the air out of your argument.

"We actually have at least 6.5 billion universes on this planet alone- one for each individual model of the universe that each individual human has come up with from the "facts" they know. None are complete, none are even close to the truth, but by comparing them to what is we can find the truth."

Nope. Still only the one universe. People's guesses and imaginations and even models of the universe aren't "other universes." Even if they could be called that, this would still be a dodge of the topic: we are talking about whether or not it makes sense to draw any conclusions from any general state of the the discovered physical laws of the ACTUAL univese, not some universe you invent in your mind.

"The rest may not be truth, may not be factually based, may not even be possible, but that doesn't stop us from constructing them and modeling them and comparing them to reality."

Again, that's irrelevant. In the case of what we are talking about, only the characteristics of the true factual universe is relevant.

"Why should it have to? Does your atheistic science predate the universe?"

Regular science, you mean? Nope. But then, regular science doesn't claim to make vast conclusions about things external to the universe based on the universe, as you are doing.

"Just as ad hoc as any other form of science then, since Darwin and you don't predate the universe either, by that silly rule. Got any other silly rules to redefine words for me to shoot down?"

Lol. You haven't shot anything down. Darwin's predictions pre-date the discovery and knowledge of evidence that confirmed his theory. That's not the same thing as saying "hey, look at this universe that seems to have some reliable physical laws.... JUST AS ZEUS INTENDED BWAHAHAHAAHAA!"

Re:frames

[Apocalypse111]

Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet.

The Big Bang is a closed system (being that in it was the release of all matter and energy [dark or otherwise] that we know of), but our observations of the universe around us do not encompass the whole of existance, so we cannot assume that we have accounted for all energy in and out of every sub-system of the larger macro-system that is the universe. As such, this "reversal of entropy" as you describe it, only encompasses a certain area of the universe that we can observe, which we cannot claim to be a closed system. Our understanding is not complete, but that is no excuse to start saying an ID was in charge. That's not just bad science, that's NON-science.

That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about.

Actually, since the beginning of recorded history, religion has more been about controlling the masses through fear-mongering and hope of some kind of immortality (either of the physical or metaphysical self) "if you follow these rules". Basically, a spiritual carrot-and-stick approach. But disregarding that, science is in no way religious. Science is an attempt to explain observable phenomena through repeatable and falsifyable testing. As soon as you introduce the concept of an ID, however, you invalidate science, as you cannot test for an ID, and any evidence that you find can be invalidated "because the ID decided to plant that evidence there". Again, this is not just bad science, this is NON-science. If you wish to say that an intelligent designer exists, then the burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate your assertion, just as I would need to show proof if I said that there was an invisible pink elephant in my cubicle. And please, don't mistake a desire for the truth for a religious zeal - I'm merely trying to maintain the integrity of science from assertions and claims that, if we were to accept them as fact, would so dilute science so as to make it meaningless.

And yes, while many scientists in the past (and present, even) were attempting to figure out the physical world through a desire based in religion, the desire to learn and discover does not need a religious influence to exist. Faith is not a prerequisite of desire to obtain the truth - in fact, having proof denies faith, quid pro quo, the two are rather at odds. Faith sits unchaging, rather immovable, while science continues to expand, change, adapt, evolve, and generally perform in allignment with any number similar verbs. The rest of your arguements are based around the flawed idea that an intelligent designer necessarily has to exist, and since I have already shown that we cannot rely scientifically on an ID, and neither can we trust anything anymore if we do accept one as fact, there is no point in refuting the rest of your statements.

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Look, you're not getting it. We have a universe. It looks a certain way. But given that we only have the one universe to look at, there's no way to generalize about whether our particular universe is likely, especially ordered, whatever. We have no idea, and no way to have any idea. The constants are meaningless in this endeavor: all we can do is measure them. We can't talk about exactly the "likihood" of them being that way, because have no idea what the process or constraints were.

But what we do know is that there's a strange leap in the size of the universe at a certain point in time- and that the constants were *different* before that.

In short, you basically doing the equivalent of insisting that we know the probability of a dice roll given that you know the value that came up after a single roll.... but without knowing anything else at all about the die. You dont' know how many other sides it has. You don't know how it is weighted. You don't even know what is on the other sides. So talking about "expecting" any sort of universe, or talking about the universe being surprisingly this or that... is all pure nonsense.

Rather, what I'm talking about is knowing the probability of the dice roll based on knowing *all* the environmental conditions surrounding that dice roll. Randomization doesn't even enter into it.

That may or may not be, but again, it's irrelevant. Religion is not the sole source of wonder, nor is it necessary to do good science. It isn't part of the scientific process.

It was a part of the scientific process at one time- a significant part. I say abandoning it is in and of itself an application of religion to science.

Characterizing me in an attempt to cover up is simply lame.

Look above at your own words- you're trying to get me to believe in a single reality knowable by mankind, ignoring all the models that don't fit your own. That's evangelical behavior in the extreme.

If "religious" means anything at all, then I'm not religious. If I'm religious, then "religion" merely means "having opinions on stuff" which basically takes all the air out of your argument.

Religious means more than having opinions on stuff- it means being dogmatic about those opinions, considering them to be true in the face of evidence to the contrary. I've presented you with evidence that the world is a lot wierder- and a lot more rule based- than what your current model of the universe allows for, and you've chosen to try to convert me to your model of the universe instead of changing your model of the universe.

Nope. Still only the one universe. People's guesses and imaginations and even models of the universe aren't "other universes." Even if they could be called that, this would still be a dodge of the topic: we are talking about whether or not it makes sense to draw any conclusions from any general state of the the discovered physical laws of the ACTUAL univese, not some universe you invent in your mind.

All we actually have is the universe in our own mind- our own model. We as finite beings will never know the discovered physical laws with any degree of certainty, because we can't trust our own senses. The best we can do is compare models to that which our senses tell us, and to each other's models, to try to discover some purpose.

Again, that's irrelevant. In the case of what we are talking about, only the characteristics of the true factual universe is relevant.

In that case- you might as well give up now, because you can't handle the true factual universe. Your dogmatic belief in your model proves that.

Regular science, you mean? Nope. But then, regular science doesn't claim to make vast conclusions about things external to the universe based on the universe, as you are doing.

No, that's not regular science- that isn't the science that was practiced before 1920.

Lol. You haven't shot anything down. Darwin's predicti

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The Big Bang is a closed system (being that in it was the release of all matter and energy [dark or otherwise] that we know of), but our observations of the universe around us do not encompass the whole of existance, so we cannot assume that we have accounted for all energy in and out of every sub-system of the larger macro-system that is the universe. As such, this "reversal of entropy" as you describe it, only encompasses a certain area of the universe that we can observe, which we cannot claim to be a closed system. Our understanding is not complete, but that is no excuse to start saying an ID was in charge. That's not just bad science, that's NON-science.

Do you have any other situation where information is created without intelligence? And, let's be truthful here- there's a signature in the radiation that is indeed a picture of the entire universe at a point something greater than 19 billion years in our past.

Actually, since the beginning of recorded history, religion has more been about controlling the masses through fear-mongering and hope of some kind of immortality (either of the physical or metaphysical self) "if you follow these rules". Basically, a spiritual carrot-and-stick approach. But disregarding that, science is in no way religious. Science is an attempt to explain observable phenomena through repeatable and falsifyable testing.

Isn't it funny, though, that repeatable and falsifyable testing is in and of itself a religious tradition?

As soon as you introduce the concept of an ID, however, you invalidate science, as you cannot test for an ID, and any evidence that you find can be invalidated "because the ID decided to plant that evidence there".

That depends upon what the I in your ID stands for. If it stands for INTELIGENT- no, the ID can't just "decide to plant that evidence there", because that would be an unreasonable, non-intelligent act. Certain types of Gods, certain models for God, are not compatible with ID for that reason. Which is why I think the creationists are fooling themselves- their theological construct is an Insane Diety, not an Intelligent Design.

And please, don't mistake a desire for the truth for a religious zeal - I'm merely trying to maintain the integrity of science from assertions and claims that, if we were to accept them as fact, would so dilute science so as to make it meaningless.

As am I- except for I'm protecting Philosophy in general as well. I completely agree that an Insane Diety would dilute the science, and the philosophy, so far as to make it entirely meaningless; in fact, I think that's where atheism comes from (the reaction to making science and religion meaningless).

And yes, while many scientists in the past (and present, even) were attempting to figure out the physical world through a desire based in religion, the desire to learn and discover does not need a religious influence to exist. Faith is not a prerequisite of desire to obtain the truth - in fact, having proof denies faith, quid pro quo, the two are rather at odds.

For a fundamentalist, yes, that's true. For a rational theist, no, having proof is a requirement of faith; without it faith cannot exist. The difference between science and religion is objective vs subjective proof, not the abscence of proof.

Faith sits unchaging, rather immovable, while science continues to expand, change, adapt, evolve, and generally perform in allignment with any number similar verbs.

Check out the other thread in this same header for a dogmatic scientist who claims that science doesn't expand, change, adapt or evolve....and that Darwin's theory existed before the first fossils were found.

The rest of your arguements are based around the flawed idea that an intelligent designer necessarily has to exist,

Well, I know of no other way of achieving INFORMATION rather than mere FACTS, do you?

and since I have already shown that we cannot rely

Re:frames

[Apocalypse111]

Do you have any other situation where information is created without intelligence? And, let's be truthful here- there's a signature in the radiation that is indeed a picture of the entire universe at a point something greater than 19 billion years in our past.

Information, much like matter and energy, cannot be created or destroyed, it merely changes state or gets reordered (with the possible exception of black holes and Hawking radiation - but this is still a subject of debate, and is a rather unique case anyways). If we're going to make this a discussion on the laws of thermodynamics, then lets include all of them shall we? And a signature in the interstellar background information that gives us an idea of the state of the universe's distant past is not necessarily the whole picture, and neither is it impervious to the effects of entropy and degradation itself. Are you trying to infer that a 19 billion year old background impression can tell us everything about the state of the universe as it was back then (the whole, closed system universe), and that we can thusly take all our current, limited observations as generalizations that apply throughout the entirety of existance? That's a bit of a stretch, I think.

Isn't it funny, though, that repeatable and falsifyable testing is in and of itself a religious tradition?

Where do you get this idea? I was always given to believe that religion had nothing to do with testing and questioning, and more about faith in certain un-testable teachings. And even if this assertion is true, it still does not necessarily follow that the process of discovery and learning is a religious or spiritual endeavor.

That depends upon what the I in your ID stands for. If it stands for INTELIGENT- no, the ID can't just "decide to plant that evidence there", because that would be an unreasonable, non-intelligent act. Certain types of Gods, certain models for God, are not compatible with ID for that reason. Which is why I think the creationists are fooling themselves- their theological construct is an Insane Diety, not an Intelligent Design.

Who is defining intelligence here? Perhaps it made perfect rational sense for the ID to do so at the time, like maybe to hide his tracks and not let knowledge of himself interfere with the development in progress. Perhaps the depth of his intelligence is so vast that we cannot hope to fathom it with our finite minds. See, when you have a poorly-defined backing for your ideas, you can rationalize pretty much anything. Even without such grand concepts as omnipotence and omniscience, you can rationalize quite a bit by simply saying we don't know - but the intelligent designer must have had a reason for doing things that way. Sounds rather familiar to an old religious phrase about working in "mysterious ways". Not to pigeon-hole your percieved designer into the same category as any number of other deities, but when you start talking about someone or something that has the capacity to create all life as we know it, then how are we to know that he wouldn't do these things for other reasons? We can't, and again, we can't test for answers, so we cannot accept this concept as science.

As am I- except for I'm protecting Philosophy in general as well. I completely agree that an Insane Diety would dilute the science, and the philosophy, so far as to make it entirely meaningless; in fact, I think that's where atheism comes from (the reaction to making science and religion meaningless).

Well, you're welcome to that opinion.

For a fundamentalist, yes, that's true. For a rational theist, no, having proof is a requirement of faith; without it faith cannot exist. The difference between science and religion is objective vs subjective proof, not the abscence of proof.

"Subjective proof"? So basically you're shooting yourself in the foot right there, as such "proof" is not based on facts or evidence, but rather on opinion. Simply because you say or

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Where do you get this idea? I was always given to believe that religion had nothing to do with testing and questioning, and more about faith in certain un-testable teachings. And even if this assertion is true, it still does not necessarily follow that the process of discovery and learning is a religious or spiritual endeavor.

Mainly from the people who rediscovered it for Europe- the Augustinian Scholastics. It takes a good deal of faith to test and question- more than it takes to simply accept. The later is refered to as blind faith- untested faith, and it's fairly weak in comparison.

Who is defining intelligence here? Perhaps it made perfect rational sense for the ID to do so at the time, like maybe to hide his tracks and not let knowledge of himself interfere with the development in progress.

I'm using the Scholistic definition of intelligence, which insists on total rationality. Why invent a universe last week when you can set up the same conditions with a lot less work 19 billion years in the past?

Perhaps the depth of his intelligence is so vast that we cannot hope to fathom it with our finite minds.

Perhaps, but we're bound to learn something from trying, and that is worthwhile in and of itself.

See, when you have a poorly-defined backing for your ideas, you can rationalize pretty much anything. Even without such grand concepts as omnipotence and omniscience, you can rationalize quite a bit by simply saying we don't know - but the intelligent designer must have had a reason for doing things that way. Sounds rather familiar to an old religious phrase about working in "mysterious ways". Not to pigeon-hole your percieved designer into the same category as any number of other deities, but when you start talking about someone or something that has the capacity to create all life as we know it, then how are we to know that he wouldn't do these things for other reasons?

Because we can examine the rules and see that he didn't. What is mysterious to us is not neccessarily mysterious to somebody else.

Religions go through a life cycle- and it's a rather young religion that talks in mysteries.

"Subjective proof"? So basically you're shooting yourself in the foot right there, as such "proof" is not based on facts or evidence, but rather on opinion.

Well, strictly speaking, facts and evidence are unknowable to human beings, all we have is opinion. Some opinions are repeatable and can be shown to others, others aren't and cannot. But the second is no less "true" than the first to the person experiencing them. Expand your mind- and your definition of evidence- and you'll see quite a bit more.

Simply because you say or believe it is so does not make it so, and the truth is not a democracy.

That's funny- because that's exactly what the peer review system is, a democracy.

Go read up on the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Your subjective proof is as good as the science backing it up.

There is no science backing up a subjective proof. But science is not the only route to truth, just the best route. There is more to truth, and more to the universe, than is discoverable by science alone or for that matter, by faith alone.

I am not responsible for what other people say on the subject. Dogma is unchanging. Science is prepared to reject any currently accepted theories or models if one comes along that better explains the observed world while taking into account all other variables. For example, we have largely progressed beyond Darwin's theories in favor of Stephen J. Gould's refinement of it called Punctuated Equilibrium, which is in favor of long periods of little change, coupled with short periods of rapid change. This, coupled with evidence from the fossil record and our current understanding of various geological processes, better explains the processes by which we see evolution occurring. However, I'm not an evolutionary biologist, and so I do n

Re:frames

[Apocalypse111]

It takes a good deal of faith to test and question- more than it takes to simply accept. The later is refered to as blind faith- untested faith, and it's fairly weak in comparison.

If you had faith why would you test and question? It seems to me that if you were already confident of the results, then there would be no reason to attempt experiments yourself. Rather, testing and questioning requires a lack of faith to be performed objectively. This still does not show a search for truth to be a religious endeavor in any means. A puppy can seek answers about the world around itself without any idea about religion.

Well, strictly speaking, facts and evidence are unknowable to human beings, all we have is opinion. Some opinions are repeatable and can be shown to others, others aren't and cannot. But the second is no less "true" than the first to the person experiencing them. Expand your mind- and your definition of evidence- and you'll see quite a bit more.

I don't know what strange philosophical definition of the word fact you are operating under, but I'm using the scientific definition of an objective and verifyable observation. We know many facts. If something is not verifyable, then it is not repeatable, and thus we cannot ascertain whether or not it is true. Your opinion on whether or not something is true has no bearing on the actual truth of the matter, and your beliefs do not constitute evidence. For example, we could both vote on the gender of a randomly selected rabbit placed before us. What we believe about the rabbit, and how we vote, has no bearing on the rabbit's gender - it is what it is regardless of our beliefs. I'm not certain what "mind expanding" you have undertaken, or how that process was carried out, but I think I'll pass.

That's funny- because that's exactly what the peer review system is, a democracy.

The peer review system is not the truth, nor is it a democracy. It is a means of verification through objective analysis and repeatable testing - not a popularity contest.

Then why bother teaching science as eternal, unchanging fact?

Science is not and should not be taught that way. Science is not fact, it is merely a method of obtaining evidence from which we can draw conclusions. These conclusions can be wrong, which is why the scientific method requires that, in order for something to accepted as scientific, it must be repeatable and verifyable. The results, once verified, are taught as the best explanation we presently have, with certanty of the explanation dependant upon how well the explanation fits with other verified explanations and observations.

That's funny, because the whole theory of a logical fallacy is in and of itself a logical fallacy.

Not really, although your statement here is an amusing arguement from ignorance - a classical logical fallacy.

Such a tampering is not possible with a truly omniscient being, simply because it is unneccessary with an omniscient being. An omniscient being would not make a mistake to begin with to require such tampering- only a less than omniscient being would require tampering. Your view of omniscience is flawed.

In any case, the idea of an intelligent designer having omniscience requires a circular time contradiction: presupposing the existence of god or an ID, before knowledge existed, there was no knowledge at all, which means that the entity in question was unable to possess knowledge prior to its creation. Thus, we cannot have an omniscient ID, so if such an ID exists, he is necessarily less-than-omniscient, and thus, such tampering could have occurred, and we cannot trust any observations as truth.

Re:frames

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If you had faith why would you test and question?

Because it's an article of faith, of course! :-). In reality though, faith always comes with doubt- and without testing that faith, you never quite know if it is even real to you. In addition to that, dogmatic absolutism is a trap that needs to be avoided. A good example is the common American Christian question "Are you saved?" as if salvation in Christianity was a one-time deal. Roman Catholicism, a much more rational version of the religion, knows that "being saved" is just arrogance, arrogance that can lead back to NOT being saved. We can have moral assurance of going to heaven- but we can never have absolute assurance, because that would presume something that we are not.

It seems to me that if you were already confident of the results, then there would be no reason to attempt experiments yourself. Rather, testing and questioning requires a lack of faith to be performed objectively. This still does not show a search for truth to be a religious endeavor in any means. A puppy can seek answers about the world around itself without any idea about religion.

Who said that animals don't have religion? In fact, a few messages back, I think I specifically said that religion wasn't limited to homo sapiens. However, true religion is all about DOUBT. You can't have good without evil, and you can't have faith without doubt. Anybody who is confident of the results is exhibiting a lack of faith- they have knowledge, but they have no faith.

I don't know what strange philosophical definition of the word fact you are operating under, but I'm using the scientific definition of an objective and verifyable observation.

And since we can never actually be sure that our instruments inside our own bodies are operating correctly, we can never actually achieve objective and verifyable observation. The best we can actually say is that "When I do x I consistently get result y", which may or may not be true for any other human being on the planet. IF we can find that it is true for a majority of the human beings on the planet, we call it verifyable and objective- but this is a mythological meaning of the terms, not an absolute meaning.

We know many facts. If something is not verifyable, then it is not repeatable, and thus we cannot ascertain whether or not it is true.

Even if something IS verifyable and repeatable, we cannot actually ascertain whether or not it is true for all species everywhere- only for our own species, and only for the small, sometimes even statistically insignificant, sample that have done the experiment.

Your opinion on whether or not something is true has no bearing on the actual truth of the matter, and your beliefs do not constitute evidence.

Funny for a man who believes that "facts" exist to say that- since basically what you're saying is that your beliefs are somehow superior because you are certain of them. In my expereience, the more certain you are of something, the greater the likelyhood is that you are wrong about it.

For example, we could both vote on the gender of a randomly selected rabbit placed before us. What we believe about the rabbit, and how we vote, has no bearing on the rabbit's gender - it is what it is regardless of our beliefs.

A penguin would be better- most human beings can't tell the sex of a penguin without an autopsy and a genetic test. I can be reasonably certain about a rabbit's gender- until you change the meaning of the word gender, but I can't be absolutely certain EVER.

I'm not certain what "mind expanding" you have undertaken, or how that process was carried out, but I think I'll pass.

Too bad- because until you see the world around you for what it really is, you're locked into your faith.

The peer review system is not the truth, nor is it a democracy. It is a means of verification through objective analysis and repeatable testing -

Flame on!

[JeanPaulBob]

The entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online.

Oooh, good, I've been looking for some new fiction to read.

(Let the flamewar commence.)

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Better yet, maybe somebody will actually *read* the theory before attacking it (now if we could only get some theories of theistic evolution and atheistic evolution published online for comparison, since Darwin's version wasn't partial either way).

Re:Flame on!

[Scrameustache]

(Let the flamewar commence.)

Hey!? It's been half an hour, where are all the obcurantism proponents at?

Re:Flame on!

[meringuoid]

(now if we could only get some theories of theistic evolution and atheistic evolution published online for comparison, since Darwin's version wasn't partial either way)

Contrariwise: Darwin's theory made no mention whatever of God, as he felt it unnecessary to postulate the involvement of such an entity. What more do you ask of atheistic evolution? It's evolution happening without the involvement of a god. That's the whole point. If you're going to allow for evolution 'helped over the jumps', in Dawkins' phrase, by some magician, then why bother at all? Why not have the magician create the universe last Thursday? It's just as scientific.

As Darwin wrote in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell,

"If I were convinced that I needed such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish ... I would give nothing for the theory of natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."

(see Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p.249)

Re:Flame on!

[Scrameustache]

maybe somebody will actually *read* the theory before attacking it

Boulderdash, you know as well as I do that those who attack it don't think for themselves, they just flame with what they were told to say when they were in that big room with the guy up front telling them what to think.
Reading it would be a waste of time, they have a much more efficient system: One person does the thinking, and distributes it to a group.

Think smart, not hard, dummy!

Re:Flame on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, good, I've been looking for some new fiction to read.

Me too! The last fiction book I read was the Bible. Talk about preachy! Everyone's a sinner! Except for that one guy...

Don't even get me started on the plot holes.

Re:Flame on!

[meringuoid]

I've read parts of it and while microevolution has been proved, macro-evolution hasn't and that's where my problem comes in. Darwin said that eventually fossils would be found to back him up. It's been over 150 years and still no fossils showing a 'transitional' animal.

What do you mean by 'transitional'? If you mean, say, transitional between H. sapiens and H. habilis, I present to you H. erectus. Or on a larger scale, how about between dinosaurs and birds? I gather there's quite a lot been discovered in that lineage lately...

Or do you expect there to be somewhere a fossil that's half elephant and half jellyfish? If that's what you're after, I'd suggest you go back to the book and read all of it, because the theory of evolution predicts nothing of the sort.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Contrariwise: Darwin's theory made no mention whatever of God, as he felt it unnecessary to postulate the involvement of such an entity. What more do you ask of atheistic evolution?

Absolute proof that the base laws of the universe are random rather than intelligently ordered, of course.

It's evolution happening without the involvement of a god. That's the whole point. If you're going to allow for evolution 'helped over the jumps', in Dawkins' phrase, by some magician, then why bother at all?

Because it's a damned interesting engineering method; one that could prove highly useful in the sciences of Artificial Intelligence, biology, robotics, and maybe best of all, environmental cleanups.

An intellgently guided environment for mutations to live or die in is a highly powerful idea.

Why not have the magician create the universe last Thursday? It's just as scientific.

Oh, that's a different quetion. THAT is the difference between beliving in a rational, dependable God whose thought process can be discerned by science and who never breaks his own law, vs the God of the Christian Fundamentalists and Islamic Fascists who changes his mind at random and says "Thou shalt not kill" one day and "Blow up the Infidel" the next. A scientist can choose to believe in the first and disbelieve in quantum mechanics, it makes no difference to the science in the macro world. The second is merely a form of insanity. But I'd say the athiest falls into the same insanity by *not* believing in an ordered universe.

"If I were convinced that I needed such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish ... I would give nothing for the theory of natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."

The descent for a theistic evolutionist comes *after* the miraculous additions. Without the miraculous addition, there'd be no life because the Big Bang itself would have collapsed back in under it's own gravity and chaos. The descent Darwin wrote about happened at least 15 billion years later by what we now know- the physical laws that govern it were already in place by then, having been decided during that strange injection of information and energy during the Big Bang. When we figure that out (if we ever can) we will know the face of God that was the original reason for scientific research to begin with.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I've read parts of it and while microevolution has been proved, macro-evolution hasn't and that's where my problem comes in. Darwin said that eventually fossils would be found to back him up. It's been over 150 years and still no fossils showing a 'transitional' animal.

I know of at least three common fossils showing transitional animals- lizard/bird, mammal/aquatic mammal, and lizard/mammal. What are you talking about?

I don't even have a problem believing in macro-evolution if they ever come up with real evidence for it.

My problem is belief in random mutation. Specifically with the word RANDOM. I don't believe in a random universe- that's as silly as the random God of Islam to me.

Re:Flame on!

[abigor]

Actually, there have been many, many so-called transitional fossils discovered. So I guess now you can buy into all this macroevolution stuff, hey kid?

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

Re:Flame on!

[meringuoid]

Contrariwise: Darwin's theory made no mention whatever of God, as he felt it unnecessary to postulate the involvement of such an entity. What more do you ask of atheistic evolution?

Absolute proof that the base laws of the universe are random rather than intelligently ordered, of course.

But that would be atheistic cosmology. Evolution says nothing about the laws of the universe; that's physics, not biology, and Darwin wasn't involved in that end of things at all.

It's evolution happening without the involvement of a god. That's the whole point. If you're going to allow for evolution 'helped over the jumps', in Dawkins' phrase, by some magician, then why bother at all?

Because it's a damned interesting engineering method; one that could prove highly useful in the sciences of Artificial Intelligence, biology, robotics, and maybe best of all, environmental cleanups.

An intellgently guided environment for mutations to live or die in is a highly powerful idea.

True, we could learn to apply the theory. Let us say, we create by genetic engineering some species or strain and set it to work, and use our understanding of evolution to predict its effect on the ecology. But that doesn't make much difference to evolution as an explanation of our origins. If we're reduced to postulating miraculous interventions, we're not doing science.

...

The descent for a theistic evolutionist comes *after* the miraculous additions. Without the miraculous addition, there'd be no life because the Big Bang itself would have collapsed back in under it's own gravity and chaos. The descent Darwin wrote about happened at least 15 billion years later by what we now know- the physical laws that govern it were already in place by then, having been decided during that strange injection of information and energy during the Big Bang. When we figure that out (if we ever can) we will know the face of God that was the original reason for scientific research to begin with.

Ah, we've been at cross-purposes. What I understand by 'theistic evolution' is that evolution proceeds naturally, but that God intervenes from time to time to adjust its direction, like an alien with a Monolith, with some ultimate aim in mind. What you have there is something different, which I'd call 'deism': God rigs the universe at the outset, presses the detonator switch for the Big Bang, and then walks away. That's another issue entirely, all about the fine-tuning of universal constants and so forth, and I'd class it as part of cosmology, not evolution. It's something to take up with Einstein, not Darwin.

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

My problem is belief in random mutation. Specifically with the word RANDOM. I don't believe in a random universe- that's as silly as the random God of Islam to me.

So which particular atom will next decay in a pile of uranium isn't random?

How about telling me when a particular atom will decay?

Re:Flame on!

[abigor]

Really? So you don't accept the randomness of, say, radioactive decay because it contradicts your beliefs?

Re:Flame on!

[IdleTime]

You mean like:

Tetrapods:

Panderichthys, Sauripterus, Elginerpeton, Obruchevichthys, Hynerpeton, Densignathus rowei, Ichthyostega, Acanthostega and Pederpes finneyae, Tulerpeton, Elpistostege, Tiktaalik roseae.

Land to air: birds, perhaps?

Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis and Ichthyornis.

Re:Flame on!

[ndansmith]

Better yet, maybe somebody will actually *read* the theory before attacking it

Better yet, maybe somebody will actually *read* the theory before supporting it.

Let's be honest: there is dogmatism on all sides of this debate.

Re:Flame on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there is dogmatism on both sides. However, there is only any actual science on one. The mere fact that a point of view has dogmatic supporters does not make it incorrect.

Re:Flame on!

[JebusIsLord]

Quantum effects are inherently random (see: the uncertainty principle). Those happen on a small scale (the sort of scale where a single photon breaks appart a single strand of DNA causing a mutation, for example!)

Even if it wasn't quantum randomness, you certainly believe in a certain level of entropy, don't you? Chaos theory? You realize your PC has a fairly good "random number generator" and that people have a hard time predicting the weather.

But yeah, if you're supposing that some god is guiding the beems of light that gave my grandfather cancer, I suppose I can't argue with you.

Re:Flame on!

[St8kout]

There is considerable debate about any so-called transitional forms being found. It is by no means unanimous by all scientists.

Anyone know the name of the renowned lifelong evolutionist who some 8 months ago at the age of 76 declared the evolutionary theory to be worthless? He still didn't want to believe in God, but now says evolution is impossible because of the lastest advances in microbiology. He spent his whole life teaching and proclaiming evolution as the only way and wrote dozens of books. I wished I had bookmarked the newspaper article as I cannot find it. I had assumed much more would be said about him but that one article is the only thing I've seen.

Re:Flame on!

[piano-in-a-box]

Why is a lack of transitional fossils such a commonly repeated argument when a quick search reveals it's just not true? Here's one list with quite a number of fossils of major transitional stages in vertebrates.

Regarding the quote, abiogenesis is not the same topic as evolution. Evolution does not depend on how or even whether abiogenesis occured.

Re:Flame on!

[JeanPaulBob]

What I understand by 'theistic evolution' is that evolution proceeds naturally, but that God intervenes from time to time to adjust its direction, like an alien with a Monolith, with some ultimate aim in mind. What you have there is something different, which I'd call 'deism': God rigs the universe at the outset, presses the detonator switch for the Big Bang, and then walks away.

"Theistic evolutionist" means a theist who believes in common descent through evolution. It includes ID types who believe in common descent with God miraculously tweaking the process, but it also refers to people who believe God created life entirely through the secondary cause of natural laws. Yes, the latter sounds sort of like deism. But there's a major difference. IIRC, deists believe that God set up the universe and walked away, and does not interact with humanity in any kind of personal way--the deist God is entirely impersonal. (There may be exceptions to that. At the least, deists don't believe in miracles.) Theistic evolution only refers to the development of life. Christian theistic evolutionists still believe that God really did pick out Abraham and the Jews to bless all humanity (ultimately through Jesus), and some will believe that most of the Bible after Genesis 11 is true history.

Even young-earth creationists believe that God can (and does) act in that so-called "deistic" fashion. For instance, they believe that God knits us together in our mothers' wombs, makes the grass grow, and clothes the daisies in splendor. But that doesn't mean he interrupts natural law--he made and sustains the universe, including natural law. (The biggest problem creationists have with evolution is that it doesn't fit with a straight-forward reading of Genesis as a historical account.)

Re:Flame on!

[Shifty Jim]

Fossils! Fossils! Fossils!

I win.

(/Lewis Black)

Re:Flame on!

[Copid]

There is considerable debate about any so-called transitional forms being found. It is by no means unanimous by all scientists.

I suppose that depends on whether you ask a scientist who specializes in biology or a scientist who specializes in... well... things not relevant to evolutionary theory. If you pare it down to the people who actually study the bones rather than those who have looked at a few pictures on the Internet, you'll find the breakdown is strongly in favor of one side over the other.

Anyone know the name of the renowned lifelong evolutionist who some 8 months ago at the age of 76 declared the evolutionary theory to be worthless? He still didn't want to believe in God, but now says evolution is impossible because of the lastest advances in microbiology. He spent his whole life teaching and proclaiming evolution as the only way and wrote dozens of books. I wished I had bookmarked the newspaper article as I cannot find it. I had assumed much more would be said about him but that one article is the only thing I've seen.

Are you sure it was in a newspaper and not a creationist rumor mill site? The "X recanted his belief in evolution, so evolution isn't true!" is not only logically uninteresting, but I've found that it almost always turns out to be a fabrication for any significant value of X.

Re:Flame on!

[plunge]

Historically, that's note quite right. Darwin does mention a Creator here and there in his books as something possibly starting life. It wasn't really a part of his theory as much as it was just the parlance of his times, but I thought it was a nitpick worth noting.

Re:Flame on!

[rthille]

Spend a little time and effort and educate yourself. People who have done so are convinced that evolution is the correct explanation for all the forms of life on the earth. There are small questions about the rates of evolution at different points in history, and the question of how life got started is still open. Basically however, it's well understood that once DNA & RNA were around, all life could evolve from the earliest, simplest forms.
Dawkins has some good books. I liked 'Climbing Mount Improbable' and 'The Selfish Gene' best so far. I still have a few to go though, like 'The God Delusion', The Extended Phenotype' and 'River out of Eden'

Re:Flame on!

[Gromius]

Niggingly point, Chaos theory isnt random. Things falling under Chaos theory, like the weather, are completely deterministic, that is you for a give set of initial conditions, you can exactly predict the solution for all time.

The nub is that things falling under Chaos theory have extreme senstivity to initial conditions, that is the solution for two almost identical set of initial conditions will rapidly diverge as time goes on. Therefore, unless you exactly know what everything that can effect the weather system at is doing at a given point, the initial conditions you put into your weather predicting formula are slightly off and past a few days the solution has diverged so far from the solution of the true initial conditions that your predictions are worthless.

Anyway you might have known this but it wasnt clear in your post

Re:Flame on!

[davorg]

Yet I have yet to see somebody find any credible transitional animals

Show a creationist a transitional fossil and he'll just see two gaps instead of one.

Re:Flame on!

[dylan_-]

Boulderdash, you know as well as I do

Nitpick: that's "balderdash" actually...unless you were talking about the computer game...

Re:Flame on!

[Saint V Flux]

"Spend a little time and effort and educate yourself. People who have done so are convinced that evolution is the correct explanation for all the forms of life on the earth." I have educated myself. I spend almost every free minute reading anything I can get my hands on (text books, classic literature, philosophy, science, anything). This is exactly why I DON'T believe in the myth of macro-evolution because every time that people claim to have found "absolute proof" of some "missing link" it's been proven to be either 1) the "scientist" was an idiot or 2) it was a hoax. According to the theory there should've been countless unfit creatures that would've become extinct -- so how come no one's been able to find any of these fossils? I'll believe it once there is solid evidence to support it. I'm sure you'll claim I'm some "religious freak" for expecting FACTS proving one idea is superior than another before I change my mind, but that's not the case. I don't know how things came about and I honestly couldn't care. Religious groups say that God / Allah / The Giant Spaghetti Monster made everything -- yet they can't prove it. Pesudoscientist groups and their "I want to be trendy" / "I'll believe whatever I'm told to without trying to find the truth" followers say that everything happend to evolve from this one organism (which they have no logical explanation for how that first one came about) -- yet they can't find any evidence to support it, just hypothetical "Well I can't figure it out so here's my guess" situations that they claim to be facts. As soon as someone can provide solid evidence, then I'll believe that. Also, I love how anyone who actually forms their opinions based on facts and observations gets modded down on slashdot, while those who just blindly follow whatever the marxist establishment tells them to get modded insightful. It doesn't matter if it's Bill Gates, George Bush (who I despise), or anything else. If it's not Democratic National Comittee approved, it's flamebait and that's total bullshit -- just like those people at Columbia University recently acting like two year olds because someone disagreed with them.

Re:Flame on!

[Al Dimond]

Your post is completely ridiculous. Sure, many people that attack Darwin get their talking points from others that have read Darwin rather than from their own readings of Darwin. But how many people that support evolutionary ideas get their ideas directly from scientific research? Lots of people get their ideas from some secondary source that reads and interprets the research and distributes it. Even more people start arguments based on arguments they've heard from sources that have read these interpretations of the research and attached opinions to it.

But you're right about one thing: it really would be a waste of time for people, regardless of their opinions, to directly read research in a field they're not experts in.

Re:Flame on!

[Chemicalscum]

What I understand by 'theistic evolution' is that evolution proceeds naturally, but that God intervenes from time to time to adjust its direction, like an alien with a Monolith, with some ultimate aim in mind.

There is a more rigorous form of 'theistic evolution' which takes into account quantum mechanics. From quantum theory we know that the world we live in is one of many possible worlds and that there are many possible futures. There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that the universe if fundamentally stochastic and governed by chance this is essentially Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation. The second approach is that all possible universes are physically real which is the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The third approach is that God chooses which of the possible worlds is made manifest.

The third position is quite rational and consistent with modern science and does give rise to a 'theistic evolution'. It is quite different from intelligent design which is the last refuge of those that have a primitive and fundamentalist theology but who are sophisticated enough to try to pass it of as "science".

By the way there is a combination of the last two interpretations that leads to a modern form of Bishop Berkeley,s idealist philosophy and can be summed up in popular terms that we are living in God's matrix. The interesting question is are these different approaches mere metaphysics or do they ultimately lead to experimental tests. In which case an experiment to determine the existence of God would be possible.

Re:Flame on!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's Flying Spaghetti Monster, you heretical infidel!

Re:Flame on!

[cthellis]

That game rocks! Ah, brings me back... :-D

Re:Flame on!

[Chemicalscum]

Yet I have yet to see somebody find any credible transitional animals

Australopithecus afarensis, Homo erectus, and many of the increasingly rich finds of hominid fossils. Intelligent design is the blind leading the blind.

Re:Flame on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the bible.

Re:Flame on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is a lack of transitional fossils such a commonly repeated argument...

Why do people still argue that a bombadier beetle can't evolve without flaming up and dying when multiple potential paths to allow such evolution have been described?

Why do people still argue that a bumblebee can't fly when the physics of the process have long since been explained?

Why do people still insist that planetary evolution has any significant relationship to biological evolution?

Why do people still argue that macro-evolution can't happen, but they accept micro-evolution, when there's no actual difference between the two, save what part of the organism was altered?

Why do people argue that Charles Darwin invented the idea of evolution when the concept of evolution was actually devised decades, if not centuries, earlier by theolgians looking to explain how life on Earth had changed from the time God originally created it?

Why do people argue that a theory is an immutable statement of fact, when it's not?

Why do people never loudly declare that light bulbs, internal combustion engines, speakers, electronics, and telephones are a scientific scam or not to be "believed in" when the entire basis for their functionality is rooted firmly in theories?

Because some people aren't rational beings, that's why. Because some people were taught to believe certain things, and they have no interest in educating themselves on the subject they fear before they argue about it. Because some people just don't know or care what they're talking about.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But that would be atheistic cosmology.

All science is related to the mind of God if it is to be rational at all.

Evolution says nothing about the laws of the universe; that's physics, not biology, and Darwin wasn't involved in that end of things at all.

Exactly my point- the existance (or non existance) of God is a matter of physics, not biology, and only impacts evolution at three points:
1. How mutations happen.
2. Whether mutations are beneficial, harmfull, or neither.
3. The surrounding climate that dictates #2.

True, we could learn to apply the theory. Let us say, we create by genetic engineering some species or strain and set it to work, and use our understanding of evolution to predict its effect on the ecology. But that doesn't make much difference to evolution as an explanation of our origins. If we're reduced to postulating miraculous interventions, we're not doing science.

That depends on the meaning of the word miraculous- most athiests (and other fundamentalist Christians, for let's face facts, atheism in the United State would not exist if it were not for the outlandish and non-rational theologies of fundamentalist Christianity) are using it wrong. God doesn't break his own rules. His interferance in evolution is no more magical than our interferance in the creation of laboratory mice or hatchery fish.

Ah, we've been at cross-purposes. What I understand by 'theistic evolution' is that evolution proceeds naturally, but that God intervenes from time to time to adjust its direction, like an alien with a Monolith, with some ultimate aim in mind. What you have there is something different, which I'd call 'deism': God rigs the universe at the outset, presses the detonator switch for the Big Bang, and then walks away. That's another issue entirely, all about the fine-tuning of universal constants and so forth, and I'd class it as part of cosmology, not evolution. It's something to take up with Einstein, not Darwin.

And Einstein, with his infamous rejection of quantum mechanics, is on my side in that one. But the truth is, it's a mistake to silo scientific thought like that; the laws of physics *do* affect evolution, mutation, and the survival of species. It's all one big cosmological whole.

Oh, and BTW- you can't quite chain a being that exists outside of our space time continum to space and time either; another way to intervene would be to see a nonviable solution and adjust the constants to make the solution viable.

Re:Flame on!

[rthille]

Are you looking for a fossil for every creature which lived between bacteria and humans? You do understand that fossil creation is rare, right?
Anyway, I'd suggest "The Ancestor's Tale" by Dawkins. Sure it's dry and slow to read but it's a step by step journey back to the beginning of life from humans to the first forms of life. He also lays out a lot of the evidence.
As for the argument, "that people claim to have found 'absolute proof' of some 'missing link'" which turns out to be bogus...well the argument seems bogus. I've never heard of a 'real' scientist who claims absolute proof for anything. Hell, I can't prove absolutely that I exist as a brain in a body, I could just be software in some big computer. I can't prove that god didn't create me & the universe 20 seconds ago with this post half written and my memories already in place (a la Blade Runner). The thing is, I don't worry about such things, since non-disprovable assertions are useless.
Scientists don't typically claim that any theory is absolutely correct. Instead, they point out that it's the best fit for the evidence at hand, and that predictions it has made for events in the future have come to pass.

As for more evidence of speciation, you might want to look up "ring species", such as the salamanders of the Central Valley of California. And learn about the evidence in 'junk dna'.

Also, I love how anyone who actually forms their opinions based on facts and observations gets modded down on slashdot

Can you point me at a post (perhaps one of yours) where this has happened?

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So which particular atom will next decay in a pile of uranium isn't random?

No, just unpredictable using our current science. It's the atom that has been struck by a positron from the last atom that decayed. Our inability to track positrons doesn't make the decay random, it just makes us unable to predict the decay. Nothing truly random happens in the universe- it's all as ordered as a computer program.

How about telling me when a particular atom will decay?

I can't, but that's a limitation of my species, not a limitation of the universe- track the positron from a previous decay and you'll have the atom that will decay next. It's important not to confuse your own limitations with the limitations of the universe.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Really? So you don't accept the randomness of, say, radioactive decay because it contradicts your beliefs?

Actually, it's a bit less than that- I don't accept the randomness of radioactive decay because it's a misnomer that mixes up the limitations of the observer with the limitations of the universe. Just because YOU can't predict something due to limitations of your species does not mean either that it is random or unpredictable for somebody with sufficient knowledge and power.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Quantum effects are inherently random (see: the uncertainty principle). Those happen on a small scale (the sort of scale where a single photon breaks appart a single strand of DNA causing a mutation, for example!)

Thus the problem I have with quantum mechanics in general. These events aren't inherently random; limitations of our species prevents us from predicting their outcome. One shouldn't mix up the limitations of one's species and anthromorphisize those limitations onto the universe.

Even if it wasn't quantum randomness, you certainly believe in a certain level of entropy, don't you? Chaos theory? You realize your PC has a fairly good "random number generator" and that people have a hard time predicting the weather.

Once again, unpredictability and randomness are two different things, and the limitations of the human species are not neccessarily the limitations of the universe.

But yeah, if you're supposing that some god is guiding the beems of light that gave my grandfather cancer, I suppose I can't argue with you.

Likely it wasn't the beams of light at all anyway; we now know that cancer isn't directly caused by radiation, but rather that radiation destroys the self-repair functions of DNA and RNA. But no, I'm not saying that God guided that radiation, I'm saying that God set up the laws that determine how that radiation is created and behaves.

Re:Flame on!

[Scrameustache]

Your post is completely ridiculous.

Considering that I still see people argue "the human eye is perfect" to 'disprove' evolution, I think not.

Re:Flame on!

[Scrameustache]

Nitpick: that's "balderdash" actually.

I was wondering about that, and yet I was too lazy to crack open a dictionary :)

unless you were talking about the computer game...

Ah! I knew I'd seen it written like that somewhere! Thanks.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

By the way there is a combination of the last two interpretations that leads to a modern form of Bishop Berkeley,s idealist philosophy and can be summed up in popular terms that we are living in God's matrix. The interesting question is are these different approaches mere metaphysics or do they ultimately lead to experimental tests. In which case an experiment to determine the existence of God would be possible.

I personally think this will ultimately lead to an experimental test- one which attempts to reverse entropy and create a manmade matrix. Doing so won't be definate proof for God, but it will be definate proof against the non-existance of God. :-)

Re:Flame on!

[mfrank]

The human spine hasn't fully adapted to walking upright. The human brain hasn't fully adapted to rational thought.

Too bad the fundies are breeding faster than everyone else. Rational thought is not a survival characteristic.

Re:Flame on!

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit.. wtf is this: "According to the theory there should've been countless unfit creatures that would've become extinct -- so how come no one's been able to find any of these fossils?"

you are a fucking moron who clearly does not spend every free minute reading anything you can get your hands on. That is unless you are talking about books published by ICR or something.

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

OK, so you use the word random to mean something completely different than the rest of humanity. Makes communication hard, but to each his own and all.

Re:Flame on!

[Al Dimond]

My original parent-post (now my great grandpa) was ridiculing lay-creationists for not directly reading Darwin's work. That's a silly thing to criticize them for when the majority of lay-evolutionists don't directly read it either.

The behavior of scientists researching/advocating ID and that of scientists researching/advocating evolution has been quite different over time; often those members of the ID crowd have turned to misleading public grandstanding rather than advancing research in any way. But the amateurs sitting on the sidelines waiting to jump into Internet debates on the subject are mostly followers who've read and studied material a few layers removed from actual scientific research. They wouldn't have much of a chance to understand the real stuff directly.

Re:Flame on!

[JebusIsLord]

Quantum mechanics IS completely nondeterministic. That's the essence of theory, in fact. Its not that we just can't tell where an electron is going to be, its that the electron ISN'T in any of those places... its in all of them at once, within certain probabilities.

And yes, entropy != true randomness. That was my second point.

Some "god" may have decided how the radiation behaves, but this same "god" also created quantum effects, and as such the rays hitting a chromosome are completely nondeterministic (yeah, even "god" doesn't know when and where, and with what frequency that photon will hit. You need to understand that this is not anthropomorphising, or a failure of imagination... this is integral to how quantum physics work).

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Quantum mechanics IS completely nondeterministic. That's the essence of theory, in fact. Its not that we just can't tell where an electron is going to be, its that the electron ISN'T in any of those places... its in all of them at once, within certain probabilities.

But of course, there's no way to tell the difference between that and an equipment error. It's just a model used to avoid admitting that we can't measure everything.

And yes, entropy != true randomness. That was my second point.

Thus, entropy and quantum mechanics are at odds (actually, predictability and quantum mechanics are at odds; at a VERY basic level, thus my problem with it. It's very similar to my problem with Christian and Islamic fundamentalists- it all hangs together).

Some "god" may have decided how the radiation behaves, but this same "god" also created quantum effects, and as such the rays hitting a chromosome are completely nondeterministic (yeah, even "god" doesn't know when and where, and with what frequency that photon will hit. You need to understand that this is not anthropomorphising, or a failure of imagination... this is integral to how quantum physics work).

Quantum physics itself is anthromorphisizing a failure of imagination in and of itself. A lack of laws surrounding how radiation behaves is as silly as a God who changes his mind and breaks his own rules, it's just another bit of "irrational" philosophy that makes rational discussion impossible. The whole idea of a random, non-deterministic universe is basically ridiculous at a very low level.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

OK, so you use the word random to mean something completely different than the rest of humanity.

Not at all- I'm using the word random to mean that something is unpredictable and non-deterministic. This is the only meaning of the word random that I've ever heard. Something that might be determined if we had more variables that we can't currently measure is decidedly NOT random. Random causes creating non-random events is quite ridiculous as well. But both are required for an irrational belief in Quantum Mechanics.

Makes communication hard, but to each his own and all.

Yes, it's hard if you're irrational to become rational enough to converse on that level- that's why the Islamics have taken to blowing each other up instead.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The problem is that education is not a door to a destination, but a path leading forever into the sunset. There is always more to learn.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

According to the theory there should've been countless unfit creatures that would've become extinct -- so how come no one's been able to find any of these fossils?

In a small religious town called St. Benedict, OR, the monks have a really neat museum with many unfit creatures that went extinct, not just fossilized, but actual taxidermy.

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

The rest of (the English speaking subset of) humanity uses the word random as an English word not as a mathematical definition. It means happening without aim, reason, or pattern. "He picked up a random rock" means he picked up a rock without selecting it according to a goal - he just picked up one of the available rocks. Sure if you managed to analyse the complete state of small section of the universe he was in and the actual rules of physics you could determine which he would choose - but that's irrelevant to the word random.

Random mutation similarly means mutation happening with no aim, reason, or pattern. Mutations just happen, some of them result in the death of the being, some of them nothing and ride along on the rest of the fitness of the being, and some are benficial and give the being an advantage over the competition. Sure if you knoew the compete state of a small section of the universe and the rules of physics you could determine that some particular particle is going to interact with that particular atom/bond/whatever and cause a particular change that will result in a particular being's DNA encoding something that is better able to not die when exposed to some particular chemical that you know will appear in the environment next year. We still call that a random mutation.

The rest of use dictionaries to see what words probably mean.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The rest of (the English speaking subset of) humanity uses the word random as an English word not as a mathematical definition. It means happening without aim, reason, or pattern.

And what I'm saying is that nothing in the universe happens without aim, reason, or pattern. It ALL is governed by a set of physical laws, of which we don't currently have a complete picture, but such a definite set exists. That set may not even be finite, but it is reasonable- that is, discoverable through the powers of reason.

"He picked up a random rock" means he picked up a rock without selecting it according to a goal - he just picked up one of the available rocks. Sure if you managed to analyse the complete state of small section of the universe he was in and the actual rules of physics you could determine which he would choose - but that's irrelevant to the word random.

In fact, if he's human, he picked up a carefully, but unconsciously, chosen rock based on his strength, the weight of the rock, and distance from his starting point. To claim that to be random is at best incorrect, and at worst, a lie.

Random mutation similarly means mutation happening with no aim, reason, or pattern.

But in evolution and ID, mutation happens with reason and pattern, and survival of the fitest yeilds aim.

Mutations just happen, some of them result in the death of the being, some of them nothing and ride along on the rest of the fitness of the being, and some are benficial and give the being an advantage over the competition. Sure if you knoew the compete state of a small section of the universe and the rules of physics you could determine that some particular particle is going to interact with that particular atom/bond/whatever and cause a particular change that will result in a particular being's DNA encoding something that is better able to not die when exposed to some particular chemical that you know will appear in the environment next year. We still call that a random mutation.

In that case, you say a lie. An untruth you KNOW to be incorrect, and you teach it as truth. Do you understand why anybody who cares about TRUTH rather than SCIENCE would call you a liar for claiming this?

The rest of use dictionaries to see what words probably mean.

And gasp, my definition of random, dealing with finite predictability, is the #1 meaning when I look it up in a dictionary. I don't find any definition of random that fits your slapdash and incorrect usage, and certainly none that supports lying to schoolchildren.

Re:Flame on!

[JebusIsLord]

You don't sufficiently understand the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. It doesn't have anything to do with hubris among physicists. Many observations depend on the probabilistic nature of quantum theory, such as Einstein's "Spooky action at a distance".

Anyhow, either read up on it, or continue misunderstanding. But please don't misrepresent to others.

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You don't sufficiently understand the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. It doesn't have anything to do with hubris among physicists. Many observations depend on the probabilistic nature of quantum theory, such as Einstein's "Spooky action at a distance".

The problem with that idea is this: You can't get information from a lack of information. Spooky action at a distance just means a link you don't understand yet. Probabilities in quantum theory means you haven't found all the forces involved yet. That's ALL it means. To impart more meaning into it is indeed hubris.

Anyhow, either read up on it, or continue misunderstanding. But please don't misrepresent to others.

I have read up on it, I do understand it. And hubris is exactly what it is. Just because YOU experience time flowing only one direction at a certain speed doesn't mean that it does so under all conditions and from all points of view. Just because you think effect always follows it's cause doesn't mean that it always does. And just because something appears to be probabilistic and random to you does NOT mean that your model is correct.

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

And what I'm saying is that nothing in the universe happens without aim, reason, or pattern. It ALL is governed by a set of physical laws, of which we don't currently have a complete picture, but such a definite set exists. That set may not even be finite, but it is reasonable- that is, discoverable through the powers of reason.

So you're insane then. If the universe is deterministic, that doesn't mean there's an aim and a reason - it just means future states are purely dependant on the present state. There is no aim or reason as to which particular atom of oxygen bonds with which particular atoms of hydrogen when a match is applied to a baloon filled with hydrogen and oxygen - they bumped into each other due to what the rest of the world calls random chance. Even though we do actually know it's completely deterministic and given the data we could do the math and determine which atoms would bond based upon their current states (assuming quantum physics is bunk).

A governing set of laws does not make aim or reason. They make a pattern but that's not the pattern being referenced - which would be something beyond that forced by physics

In fact, if he's human, he picked up a carefully, but unconsciously, chosen rock based on his strength, the weight of the rock, and distance from his starting point. To claim that to be random is at best incorrect, and at worst, a lie.

No it's simply a way of ignoring the things that don't matter. Yes he won't pick up a rock he can't lift, he won't walk 20 miles to pick one up. He probably will be attracted to rocks that glint in the sun and so on - everyone else in the world managed to know those things and know they are irrelevant. So replace picking a rock with reaching into a bag of identical sized marbles which feel identically smooth and spherical to the level that the person can feel with his fingers, with identical mass (again to the level the person can distinguish by hand) but with different colours and taking one out with his eyes shut. The rest of humanity calls that a random selection, even though given enough data you could determine which he will pick.

But in evolution and ID, mutation happens with reason and pattern, and survival of the fitest yeilds aim.

According to evolution mutation happens randomly - not you're definition of random, the one the rest of us use. There is no reason or pattern. Something causes a copy of the DNA to not be exactly the same as the original. Survival of the fittest isn't the aim, the mutation doesn't give a stuff about survival of the species it's just a copy error.

In that case, you say a lie. An untruth you KNOW to be incorrect, and you teach it as truth. Do you understand why anybody who cares about TRUTH rather than SCIENCE would call you a liar for claiming this?

I don't in fact. Are you saying that radiation can not cause mutation? Or that it doesn't do so via interaction with an atom/bond/whatever? Or that the result isn't DNA encoding something different? Or that such a difference couldn't affect the organisms survivability in the presence of some chemical? Or that we can't know all the data required to know what's going to happen?

So tell me what the lie was? I was guessing with respect to mechanisms of mutation, but I didn't claim to be an expert and used the magical word "whataver" which I hoped covered any mistakes...

And gasp, my definition of random, dealing with finite predictability, is the #1 meaning when I look it up in a dictionary. I don't find any definition of random that fits your slapdash and incorrect usage, and certainly none that supports lying to schoolchildren.

Websters:
random
adjective
1 a : lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern b : made, done, or chosen at random
2 a : relating to, having, or being elements or events with definite pro

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So you're insane then. If the universe is deterministic, that doesn't mean there's an aim and a reason - it just means future states are purely dependant on the present state.

Ah, but without a reason, the future states would NOT be dependant on the present state. There would be no rules at all.

There is no aim or reason as to which particular atom of oxygen bonds with which particular atoms of hydrogen when a match is applied to a baloon filled with hydrogen and oxygen

The energy of the match is the reason- striking the match is the aim- this is accomplished through intelligent action. So you lie when you claim there is no aim or reason.

they bumped into each other due to what the rest of the world calls random chance.

Some random chance- a intelligent person struck a match and caused it to happen. If that is what the world calls random chance- well, I can only assume this is because more than half the world is functionally retarded (has an IQ below 110).

Even though we do actually know it's completely deterministic and given the data we could do the math and determine which atoms would bond based upon their current states (assuming quantum physics is bunk).

If you know that, then you know it's not "random chance"- then it rises from mere ignorance to lie.

A governing set of laws does not make aim or reason. They make a pattern but that's not the pattern being referenced - which would be something beyond that forced by physics.

Why would it be "something beyond that forced by physics"? Wouldn't that assume a God who can't follow his own rules?

According to evolution mutation happens randomly

Incorrect. According to quantum physics mutation happens randomly. According to evolution, mutation merely happens without referencing a reason for that mutation (it's outside the scope of the theory).

not you're definition of random, the one the rest of us use.

I refuse to accept another definition of random than what exists in the dictionary.

There is no reason or pattern.

There is plenty of both- and if you can discover them, you can use evolution as an engineering method. It doesn't even take a God to do it- human beings are CURRENTLY directing evolution.

Something causes a copy of the DNA to not be exactly the same as the original.

Yes, and every one of those somethings is governed by physical law, it's not "random" by ANY meaning of the word.

Survival of the fittest isn't the aim, the mutation doesn't give a stuff about survival of the species it's just a copy error.

Survival of the fitest isn't the aim- it yeilds the aim. It's the law that creates the aim.

I don't in fact. Are you saying that radiation can not cause mutation?

I'm saying radiation is not random.

Or that it doesn't do so via interaction with an atom/bond/whatever?

I'm saying that interaction isn't random.

Or that the result isn't DNA encoding something different?

I'm saying what the DNA now encodes is something specific that may be different, but that it isn't random.

Or that such a difference couldn't affect the organisms survivability in the presence of some chemical?

It might or might not- but the survivability isn't random.

Or that we can't know all the data required to know what's going to happen?

Just because we don't consciously know all the data doesn't mean that somebody else doesn't- or that the data doesn't exist.

So tell me what the lie was?

That the event was random.

I was guessing with respect to mechanisms of mutation, but I didn't claim to be an expert and used the magical word "whataver" which I hoped covered any mistakes...

Using magi

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

Ah, but without a reason, the future states would NOT be dependant on the present state. There would be no rules at all.

Everyone else understands that the reason referred to is in addition to the physical laws. The reason someone fell down the stairs is because of a gravitional force between them and earth, the reason someone fell down the stairs is because someone else pushed them, the reason someone fell down the stairs is because someone else hated them. Everyone else manages to understand the different usages of "reason" there.

The energy of the match is the reason- striking the match is the aim- this is accomplished through intelligent action. So you lie when you claim there is no aim or reason.

If you go out of your way to distort what was written, yes. There were some words in there that were important to the intended meaning, I don't know if you just skipped them because talking past people is fun, or if you have some other definition for them yet again.

Why would it be "something beyond that forced by physics"? Wouldn't that assume a God who can't follow his own rules?

When the balls are clustered at the bottom of a hill that pattern is usually considered just part of physics. When the balls are aligned in a chess board pattern of alternating colours that pattern is usually considered beyond that forced by physics.

I refuse to accept another definition of random than what exists in the dictionary.

That Websters dictionary I was looking at uses the following as an example usage of random: "a random selection of books". Which of course is impossible given your bizarre variant of english.

There is plenty of both- and if you can discover them, you can use evolution as an engineering method. It doesn't even take a God to do it- human beings are CURRENTLY directing evolution.

The pdf you references says "the memory population M of individuals represented as bit strings is randomly initialized, followed by the fitness evaluation" maybe you could point to something that doesn't call itself random to support your "it's not random" claim.

Of course the "fitness" component isn't random, it's what makes evolution not a random process - it builds on those mutations (you know random mutations, some make things better, some make things worse, some are neutral). Directing the results of a random process doesn't make the process not random.

I'm saying radiation is not random.

Oh OK, I'm lieing because I'm not using you're bizaroo restrictions on english words. When we say "random mutation" we mean the mutation is caused by a cosmic ray, or some other mechanism that distrupts the copying process resulting in an imperfect copy. As opposed to bein directed with some goal in mind - a scientist splicing in some genes is a mutation but it's not random. The rest of us need a term to distinguish the two things - we used "random" since it's an english word that (to everyone else) conveys that meaning. It doesn't matter if radiation is a deterministic process and with enough data you could know that the cosmic ray will interrupt that particular copy and produce that particular mutation. If what your actually arguing is that "Jesus caused the mutation because he wanted two tailed monkeys" then I guess yes nothing is random...

There is no such thing as a random event- only retards and idiots use that word.

OK then all half a billion uses of the world random that google found were written by retards and idiots

And you are the only non-retarded, non-idiot person on earth. Everyone except you is stupid. The rest of us would call you batshit insane of course, but that's OK what else would idiots who don't know what simple six letter words mean think of your genius?

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Everyone else understands that the reason referred to is in addition to the physical laws. The reason someone fell down the stairs is because of a gravitional force between them and earth, the reason someone fell down the stairs is because someone else pushed them, the reason someone fell down the stairs is because someone else hated them. Everyone else manages to understand the different usages of "reason" there.

Those are all the same usage of the word reason- cause and effect. A "random" cause would indicate a lack of reason.

If you go out of your way to distort what was written, yes. There were some words in there that were important to the intended meaning, I don't know if you just skipped them because talking past people is fun, or if you have some other definition for them yet again.

I'm trying to point out something very important- no uncaused effects. Yes, sometimes the cause and effect are backwards from our frame of reference, but there are no uncaused effects.

When the balls are clustered at the bottom of a hill that pattern is usually considered just part of physics. When the balls are aligned in a chess board pattern of alternating colours that pattern is usually considered beyond that forced by physics.

Where I see no real difference between the two- mankind is a part of nature, not in addition to it, and nature is a part of God, not in addition to Him. Why should there be such a thing as an event beyond the laws of physics, instead of realizing that there might be a law we haven't discovered yet?

That Websters dictionary I was looking at uses the following as an example usage of random: "a random selection of books". Which of course is impossible given your bizarre variant of english.

I know of nobody who can assemble a truly random collection of books, the subconscious is always involved.

The pdf you references says "the memory population M of individuals represented as bit strings is randomly initialized, followed by the fitness evaluation" maybe you could point to something that doesn't call itself random to support your "it's not random" claim.

Since we know that in software all randomizations are only pseudorandom based upon some algorithim and quirk of the hardware (well the better ones are) we know that randomization in computer science is *never* truly random (sometimes less random than others).

Of course the "fitness" component isn't random, it's what makes evolution not a random process - it builds on those mutations (you know random mutations, some make things better, some make things worse, some are neutral). Directing the results of a random process doesn't make the process not random.

It's the aim, correct, not the reason. However, I have great doubts that a truly random universe would allow such direction- after all, couldn't the "random mutation" just mutate again?

Oh OK, I'm lieing because I'm not using you're bizaroo restrictions on english words. When we say "random mutation" we mean the mutation is caused by a cosmic ray, or some other mechanism that distrupts the copying process resulting in an imperfect copy.

And since we know that cosmic rays (and other mechanisms that disrupt DNA) aren't random, then calling the mutation random is what exactly?

As opposed to bein directed with some goal in mind - a scientist splicing in some genes is a mutation but it's not random.

How do YOU know there isn't a goal in mind with the cosmic ray?

The rest of us need a term to distinguish the two things - we used "random" since it's an english word that (to everyone else) conveys that meaning. It doesn't matter if radiation is a deterministic process and with enough data you could know that the cosmic ray will interrupt that particular copy and produce that particular mutation. If what your actually arguing is that "Jesus caused the mutation because he wanted two tailed monkeys" then I guess yes n

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

I'm trying to point out something very important- no uncaused effects. Yes, sometimes the cause and effect are backwards from our frame of reference, but there are no uncaused effects.

Not only is it not important, it's irrelevant.

Where I see no real difference between the two- mankind is a part of nature, not in addition to it, and nature is a part of God, not in addition to Him. Why should there be such a thing as an event beyond the laws of physics, instead of realizing that there might be a law we haven't discovered yet?

Because we are yet to see such a thing happen, yes if we started seeing balls sponaneously arranging themselves into chess board patterns we would have some observations on which to build a theory and tweak our knowledge of physical laws. But so far they haven't, everytime such an arrangement has been seen it was constructed.

I know of nobody who can assemble a truly random collection of books, the subconscious is always involved.

Exactly my point, it's a perfectly ordinary usage that everyone understands. It's used by the dictionary to help define what random means. Yet you don't think the word random could ever apply in that case and hence must have some different definition of random than the rest of us.

Since we know that in software all randomizations are only pseudorandom based upon some algorithim and quirk of the hardware (well the better ones are) we know that randomization in computer science is *never* truly random (sometimes less random than others).

True, and yet that's close enough for the purposes of the report you cited to be labelled random. The argument isn't that "true randomness" is impossible as you keep trying to redefine it as. The argument is that "random mutation" and "random collection of books" are perfectly correct uses of random and that "random mutation" is one of the pillars of evolution.

It's the aim, correct, not the reason. However, I have great doubts that a truly random universe would allow such direction- after all, couldn't the "random mutation" just mutate again?

They do mutate again, otherwise we'd all be whatever the first mutation gave, something with at most one cell probably. They even mutate back to what they were, doesn't matter the selection pressure component of evolution causes the useful mutations to build up - thos beings that lose the benefits of a mutation due to a future mutation (that doesn't give some other benefit) are at a competitive disadvantage and hence less likely to out compete and replace those beings that kept the mutation. The reference you supplied was all about that - make some random changes (changes without any particular goal or requirements in mind if you hate that word so much) and discard the results which don't perform as well as the original and keep the ones that perform better. That selection drives the changes in a certain direction even though the changes themselves are random.

It's called the theory of evolution - that direction out of randomness is what made it such a giant step in science.

And since we know that cosmic rays (and other mechanisms that disrupt DNA) aren't random, then calling the mutation random is what exactly?

Calling them exactly what they are. The word random doesn't mean what you think it does. I've mentioned this a rather large number of time - so many I'm having trouble remembering who is trolling who.

Sort of. Rather it's more along the lines of: There's a specific purpose to all of this. We don't know what that purpose is. Evolution is a part of the plan. So is everything else we can see. We're not big enough to know the plan or purpose yet- but there's this process we've invented called science, and we can find the plan and the purpose if we go thataway. God left us the cluebats- science hi

Re:Flame on!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Not only is it not important, it's irrelevant.

It's highly relevant- beliving in a random universe or an irrational God- either side- requires beliving in uncaused events.

Because we are yet to see such a thing happen, yes if we started seeing balls sponaneously arranging themselves into chess board patterns we would have some observations on which to build a theory and tweak our knowledge of physical laws. But so far they haven't, everytime such an arrangement has been seen it was constructed.

And does that construction violate the laws of physics? Of course not. So therefore it's already in the laws of physics for that construction to take place- even if you didn't see the construction doesn't mean it didn't take place. And that's all I've been saying. Miracles and Magic don't exist.

Re:Flame on!

[sholden]

It's highly relevant- beliving in a random universe or an irrational God- either side- requires beliving in uncaused events.

For the umpteenth time random does not mean what you claim it does in the context of "random mutation". It does not mean uncaused mutation, or even unknown cause mutation. It means unguided mutations.

And does that construction violate the laws of physics? Of course not. So therefore it's already in the laws of physics for that construction to take place- even if you didn't see the construction doesn't mean it didn't take place. And that's all I've been saying. Miracles and Magic don't exist.

OK so you're back to being batshit insane again or just ignoring the obvious intent of the communication in order to babble some more.

That wasn't all you were saying. You were arguing that when we see the pyramids in egypt that rather than accepting the evidence that people built them because they wanted to we should search for some new physical law that made it so that they were built, probably by arrangin for a supernove billions of years ago so that later on the Earth ould form with the right composition for humans to evolve and build the things.

And of course that the word random means something other than what it actually means.

I like text and original images like they do

[Anonymous Coward]

I usually like to have a smaller picture with a click to magnify, though. Here's an example:

• Ashbory Bass letter from Alun Jones

The thumbnail gives you the basic idea and if you want to see more, there's a larger version available by clicking.

Tense Confusion?

[adavies42]

The entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online.

vs.

The University of Cambridge hopes to have this completed by 2009 and is only estimated to be about half way done.

English has a future tense for a reason. Please learn to use it.

Re:Tense Confusion?

[Angostura]

All of the published works are online. They are still working on the notebooks etc.

Re:Tense Confusion?

[flyingfsck]

Darwin is so old, the future tense would be an insult to both him and Origin of Species...

Re:Tense Confusion?

[Ctrl-Z]

What are you talking about? English has no future tense.

Re:Tense Confusion?

[tehcyder]

What are you talking about? English has no future tense.

As I had no idea what you meant, I followed the link: that Wikipedia article makes no sense.

Just because English indicates tense by using auxiliary words like "will" or "would" instead of modifying the verb stem is a meaningless distinction.

"He will run tomorrow" in English translates to "il courra demain" in French. Gosh, it uses an extra word! It means the same thing, so the Wikipedia is just playing with words.

Re:Tense Confusion?

[adavies42]

In a very technical sense, he's right (as is Wikipedia). To a linguist, a tense is a "marked form", i.e. something produced by conjugation, not by adding auxiliary words. French, e.g., has "je parlai"/"je parlais"/"je parlerai" for "I spoke"/"I speak"/"I will speak"--"parlerai" is a true future-tense form of "parler" ("to speak"). To the average person though, the distinction is irrelevant.

Never argue semantics with a pedant; it wastes your time and annoys the pedant.

Counters lol

[bugnuts]

from tfa: This document has been accessed 87820 times since 09 October 2006

Gentle website, prepare to evolve or perish.

Re:Counters lol

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I support these kinds of historical documents being made available through BitTorrent.

The formatting might be lovely, but someday the people running "darwin-online.org.uk" are going to stop doing it and many of us (those who don't take full copies) will be disadvantaged - unless some other copy is placed online.

If they really love Darwin's works, they will make full copies easily downloadable.

my favorite book is magazine

[User 956]

If you have any love for books whatsoever, I suggest you take a look at how they present the user with each book.

I love books so much the pages usually end up stuck together.

Wait, those are magazines. Nevermind.

Re:my favorite book is magazine

[nizo]

Just watch out for paper cuts. If you thought getting them on your fingers hurt.... *YOW*

New fiction to read

[Harmonious Botch]

May I recommend the works of a guy named Issac Newton? He had a few amusing errors also.

Dust bowl connectivity issues

[BeeBeard]

I can't seem to access the site, and I live in Kansas. Maybe it's just a technical problem. Please, could somebody pray to Our Lord and have Him fix my innerweb, in His mercy?

Re:Dust bowl connectivity issues

[Scrameustache]

innerweb

:D

*golf clap*

Re:Dust bowl connectivity issues

[rthille]

I want to mod the parent 'sad but true' , but I'm not sure whether it'd be +1 or -1 :-)

I wonder though with the whole praying thing, is got so clueless that he doesn't realize there's a problem? :-O

Re:Dust bowl connectivity issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if god were a plumber, I doubt she would have time to unclog your tubes.

Your post is too clean.

[RingDev]

Thus the reason for the Troll modding. You should have posted something more like:

Editors for teh win!

"The entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online. The University of Cambridge ... is only estimated to be about half way done."

WTF Tense? Learn english!

-Rick

Open Darwin?

[nekokoneko]

So is this what they call Open Darwin? *DUCKS*

Re:Open Darwin?

[pestario]

You should beagle instead... *BEAGLES*

Generic creationism troll

[91degrees]

Blah blah blah, religion.

Please respond with generic evolution flame.

thankyou.

Re:Generic creationism troll

[meringuoid]

Blah blah blah, religion.

Please respond with generic evolution flame.

Blah blah blah, talkorigins.org.

Wow. Glad we've got that out of the way. We've spared this thread a good thousand posts now :-)

Re:Generic creationism troll

[ettlz]

Blah, blah, blah, evolution.

Blah, blah, blah, Richard Dawkins.

Blah, blah, blah, Burgess Shale.

Blah, blah, blah, Steven Jay Gould.

You're welcome.

Re:Generic creationism troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Please respond with generic evolution flame.

thankyou.

If Mr. Darwin was so smart about biology, then why'd he get married to his first cousin?

Flame on!-Water deployed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm happy to announce that the entire works of God is on display...outside! Enjoy.

Re:Flame on!-Water deployed!

[sxtxixtxcxh]

what is this "outside" whereof you speak?

Re:Flame on!-Water deployed!

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I'm not convinced about authorship. Has an expert actually authenticated this work?

A great tribute!

[lkypnk]

Charles Darwin, should, regardless of your personal belief of the veracity of evolutionary theory, be regarded as on of the greatest men to have ever lived. He, in the face of tremendous religious and scientific adversity, put forth an astounding scientific theory worked out through great diligence.

In the Origin of Species, with relentless precision he works his way through the variation of domesticated and wild animals and plants, and eventually culminates in a very strongly supported theory which is almost elegant in its simplicity. He even anticipates many challenges to his theory, in the aptly named chapter, Difficulties on theory. Darwin's accomplishment is perhaps even more impressive when you take into account that he had no knowledge of genetics or the mechanism of inheritance, and was most certainly not aware of anything such as DNA. His writing is precise and lively; even today, 150 years later, the Origin of Species is easily followed by a layman.

This site is an honour to Darwin's efforts and I hope it will inspire some people to read his works.

Re:A great tribute!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Too bad his greatest discovery goes largely unnoticed and underused.

Re:A great tribute!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a strong and solid argumentative comeback.

Re:A great tribute!

[Scrameustache]

Charles Darwin, should, regardless of your personal belief of the veracity of evolutionary theory, be regarded as on of the greatest men to have ever lived. He, in the face of tremendous religious and scientific adversity

Those who's "personnal" belief go contrary to his theory happen to view his religious adversity as a reason to villify, not celebrate him.

Re:A great tribute!

[abigor]

What? You have no idea what you're talking about. Do you know anything at all about genetics? Genetics immeasurably supports evolution. It does not roadblock it in any way. Read this: http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.h tml

Re:A great tribute!

[PakProtector]

Too bad his greatest discovery goes largely unnoticed and underused.

Indeed. Just as Darwin himself, I, too, consider Darwin's work on Earthworms to be his greatest contribution to the annals of science!

Re:A great tribute!

[Eternauta3k]

he had no knowledge of genetics or the mechanism of inheritance

Gregr Mendel studied inheritance, was contemporary with darwin.

Re:A great tribute!

[FrostedChaos]

Yes, but Mendel's work was almost completely ignored by the scientific community until around 1900-- by which time both men had passed away.

Re:A great tribute!

[Plutonite]

He, in the face of tremendous religious and scientific adversity, put forth an astounding scientific theory worked out through great diligence.

I would actually contest that. The theory he put forth was overly simple and lacked the microbiological understanding of genetics we have today, which is infinitely more interesting. His reliance on "selection" - which is almost intuitive - as opposed to the actual induction of genetic features is a good example. Just because he had the balls to say something like:"humans could have come from monkeys" does not mean he is one of the greatest people who have ever lived.

I believe that given time, scientific advance would have made it necessary to make such postulations whether or not they are well recieved, since science took a very secular approach in the West due to the Galileo ordeal & others.

The guys who gave us DNA are far more important in my opinion.

Re:A great tribute!

[CrankyOldBastard]

But diden't publish. His work was "rediscovered" 30 years later, when someone found and understood his notes. So unless Darwin used Astral Travelling, he wouldn't have known about Mendel's work on inheritance.

Re:A great tribute!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzzt. Yes, he did publish.

Re:A great tribute!

[Copid]

he had no knowledge of genetics or the mechanism of inheritance, and was most certainly not aware of anything such as DNA. ----- Which is why he couldn't have foreseen the fact that evolution in single steps can not happen on a cellular level--- one of the theory's largest roadblocks. But whatever :-P

Personally, I'd be really interested in knowing exactly what it is about DNA that prevents "single steps on the cellular level" from happening. I'd also be interested in a definition for "single steps on the cellular level." The Nobel committe might be interested the next time around as well.

Re:A great tribute!

[plunge]

You shut up, his work on barnacles is the best!

Re:A great tribute!

[plunge]

Actually, ironically, there is some evidence that Darwin actually had a copy of Mendel's work, but never got around to reading it in his lifetime.

Re:A great tribute!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't hold your breath for a reply; you're asking someone who, by definition, isn't interested.

Re:A great tribute!

[khallow]

I would actually contest that. The theory he put forth was overly simple and lacked the microbiological understanding of genetics we have today, which is infinitely more interesting. His reliance on "selection" - which is almost intuitive - as opposed to the actual induction of genetic features is a good example. Just because he had the balls to say something like:"humans could have come from monkeys" does not mean he is one of the greatest people who have ever lived.

Picky, picky. It's just my humble opinion, but I think Darwin put forth one of the best scientific arguments ever for a theory, combining not just years of his own significant observations, but also tying together the work of contemporary science. Further, this theory has turned out to be quite significant, shaping not just many areas of science, but also society. And the only real difference between our science today and back then, is that we understand fairly well the mechanism for carrying information from one generation to the next, and have some crude tools for manipulating that information. That means we can now in theory make biological changes to organisms that literally could not occur by any natural means. The rest is just details of how the machine works. Darwin figured out the dynamics. The details of how that is carried isn't that significant.

Re:A great tribute!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, I was talking about his work in engineering- but it usually takes a theist to see it.

Re:A great tribute!

[Plutonite]

On the contrary, I think we now know a lot more than the "carrying mechanism" with respect to Darwin's time and theories. Our understanding of how the "little changes" (that are ultimately responsible for development) across species are possible is what gives meaning to the notion of evolutionary change. The mutative effects of EM radiation and chemical mutagens happen to be the most powerful driving force in what is held to be evolutionary theory by contemporary secular science.

Darwin on the other hand, suffered great criticism due to his inability to come up with reasons why the development occurs in the first place, as opposed to how nature filters down the results based on the survival capability of the specimens. These he considered (as you do) to be details. I don't really think anybody had problems "believing" that the fittest survive/pass on some form of genetic information. It is in the generation of this highly detailed, naturally engineered information that Darwin failed to justify himself fully.

What people continue to have problems with to this day, is the chaining together of mathematical->physical->chemical->micorbiological concepts to formulate something that produces the wonders of nature as it is today. The truth is that everything, literally everything, has come to be because of arbitrary molecular reactions. The point of difference between educated monothiests and athiests will always be whether these effects can truly be spontaneous, yet produce these fabulous results.

And that is why I value our genetics pioneers and experts way more than this overrated - albeit very brave - individual.

Re:A great tribute!

[khallow]

And that is why I value our genetics pioneers and experts way more than this overrated - albeit very brave - individual.

I don't think Darwin is overrated. As I pointed out, he made one of the best scientific arguments ever. Even if evolution would have developed anyway, would it have entered the human conciousness as it did? Evolution and related subjects more than any other scientific endeavor has been subject to all sorts of anti-scientific assaults whether it be religious Creationism, the "ubermensch" ideology of German National Socialism, Social Darwinism, the eugenics movement, or Lysenkoism. We need to consider whether it would have persevered as it did? Who would carry it forward rather than towards many of the self-serving traps we've already seen?

Noting that Darwin didn't have access to our current knowledge demeans his achievements too. After all, we presumably won't know as much as future generations. Does that mean our science isn't worthy of note? That it isn't interesting?

Keep an eye on this site

[SniperClops]

It'll be interesting to watch this site evolve

Generic slashdot reply

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah neocon Bush worshipper

The Complete Works?

[Myopic]

"The entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online. ... The University of Cambridge hopes to have this completed by 2009 and is only estimated to be about half way done."

Whoever wrote that paragraph either doesn't understand verb tenses, doesn't understand the concept of completeness, or doesn't care to compose himself clearly. I proffer changing the verb phrase to will be made available or is being made availble.

Re:The Complete Works?

[topham]

I normally get annoyed with the grammar trolls, I often post a message without reading it first and therefor make the odd mistake here and there.

(or maybe more than a few:)

So, normally I decline to comment on grammar issues and just let things slide. This time however I have to agree, it was an egregious mistake and conceptually distracting.

Re:The Complete Works?

[Myopic]

Heh. Yeah, I am absolutely the egregious grammar nazi you hate. I'm not exactly proud of it, I just can't help it. I give wide allowance for creative intelligent use of grammar, punctuation, and even spelling, but I think I can tell the difference between creativity and carelessness or idiocy, and the latter bothers me a lot.

Don't get me started on the difference between "less" and "fewer", or "as" and "so".

Open Books

[Doc Ruby]

I'd prefer famous influential books to be presented as images of the original, left/right pages as in the original, with controls to swap the images in place with digital text. That would let me recreate the experience of contemporary readers with the layout of the original volume. Some subtle info is contained in the pageturning, especially in books with images, sidebars, or other layout features influenced by the surrounding context.

Of course, selectable revisions/annotations, and hyperlinking the original/digital text to internal references, commentary, reader discussions and searches are great features. As are new pagination, including personal bookmarks and compilations, different file formats, etc. But they don't need to discard the original layouts, with the original info they contain.

Re:Open Books

[aoeusnth]

What would be also great, for those people with more than one monitor -- say, three -- is to have the option of displaying several vertical panels, one with the original images as described, one with the digital text, and one with stuff of your choice, all squished into one browser window. Then you could pull the browser window across your screens and wallah! All the information you could want in 90-degrees of neck-turning.

For those interested in a modern intro to the man

[rwebb]

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin (ISBN 0393059812) is a great recent (and concise) biography that picks up on his return from the Beagle adventure and takes the reader on an interesting journey past dangling duck's feet, barnacle gonads, and earthworm poop. And the publications, of course.

Sadly, since estimates of the opinions/beliefs of the US population usually hit around 40% "young earthers" and 45% "guided by the great spirit in the sky," this may be of interest to only a relatively small segment of the population ...

I want the last edition.

[Anonymous Coward]

The later editions are probably much more interesting, due to Darwin's need to confront the response from the scientific community.

Darwin's problem: he needed millions/billions of years to account for speciation. During his lifetime, all evidence from other physical sciences indicated that the Sun could not have existed more than a few thousand years (this fit quite well with Biblical theology, btw).

Remember that he died in 1882, BEFORE radiation was being observed. Radiation plays a key factor in calculating star life-times. For example: Kelvin's opinion on the subject (search of "heat death").

Re:I want the last edition.

[meringuoid]

Darwin's problem: he needed millions/billions of years to account for speciation. During his lifetime, all evidence from other physical sciences indicated that the Sun could not have existed more than a few thousand years (this fit quite well with Biblical theology, btw).

Lord Kelvin's estimate was a few thousand years by chemical burning - which certainly fit with the traditional 4004 BC model - but it was already clear from geology that the Earth is far older than that. Kelvin was able to derive a solar lifetime in the millions of years, supplied by gravitational collapse. But it takes nuclear fusion to sustain a star into the billions of years, and as you say, nobody knew about nuclear physics at the time.

Kelvin's estimates

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Sadly, since estimates of the opinions/beliefs of the US population usually hit around 40% "young earthers" and 45% "guided by the great spirit in the sky," this may be of interest to only a relatively small segment of the population ...

Are you sure about those figures? I would have thought more like 25% "Young Earthers", 50% "guided by the great spirit in the sky", and 25% "I only believe in what I can touch and see". These works would be of interest to anybody in the second two groups- since Darwin's original theory said *NOTHING* about God and except for a very small percentage of Christians in this world, the Bible says nothing factual about the origin of the species.

Tense Confusion?-Strain Gauge

[Anonymous Coward]

"English has a future tense for a reason. Please learn to use it."

Well if english didn't have so many grammer trolls. It's future wouldn't be so tense.

5 years?!

[Godji]

...during his five-year trip to the Amazon...

Ouch, they must have had really slow Internet at the time. I mean now I can get to Amazon and back in like 30 ms!

Re:5 years?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm, it seems some moderators have a problem with jokes.

Hey, here's something

[cy_a253]

Ah! You scientists and your fancy "research" and "proof" and "peer-review" are all obvious wasting your time with this "theory of Evolution".

Behold!

Proof of the existence of God by the Banana Argument.

(and here's the entire episode if this sort of TV evangelism tickles your fancy)

Re:Hey, here's something

[kiracatgirl]

Made for humans? Bah! Bananas were obviously made for monkeys!

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, we can certainly see the 60% common genome with bananas in your case. Why would God need to give you 60% the same genes as bananas? Answer: he wouldn't. The only sensible explanation is that the tree of life has evolved into bananas, monkeys, humans from a common starting organism over billions of years. You know, billions of years, like the stars are billions of years old; we can see them with telescopes. Not last wednesday, billions of years. Sheesh.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

Why would God need to give you 60% the same genes as bananas?

Possible answers:
Designed to live in the same basic environment (water, carbon, oxygen etc) so they require substantial similarity.
Symbiotic species (eg: bananas intake CO2, output O2, humans vice versa) could be expected to have some similarity to enable this.
Efficiency of design effort.

If you go down to small enough particles, everything is protons, neutrons and electrons. %100 identical components. I do not find this to be a convincing arguement for or against evolution.

Re:Hey, here's something

[Yunzil]

There is only one basis to believe God exists, or to disbelieve evolution:

You don't have to disbelive in God to accept the overwhelming evidence for evolution.

GOD SAID SO.

Prove it.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The thing is, for some genes you can make small differences to the genes, and they make no difference to the proteins that they code for. And you often find these differences in the genomes between different creatures. But these differences to the common genes are attributable to random drift, so you can predict how many of these irrelevant differences there would be, based on when two creatures separated their lineage. A God that deliberately makes pointless, random changes to genes whilst designing animals makes no sense at all. That's decisive for evolution. So as we read the true book, not a book of man, but the book of life, the genome, we see the absence of God.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Ok, I'll bite. If God has no limits, why has he never healed a severed limb? That's never been recorded. Many people have prayed, none have been given back their limbs. According to you he's omnipotent. How come?

Re:Hey, here's something

[CosmeticLobotamy]

None of your stuff is particularly convincing. But that's okay, I don't think you're trying to convince me. Good for you for having faith. (That wasn't sarcastic, if it reads that way. Really, good for you. It must be nice.) But I'm going to have to say this:

I'll also mention one other curiousity -- ever wonder why we have 7 day weeks? If Creation didn't happen, where did that come from?

Seriously? That's part of your proof of God? 7-day weeks? The week is entirely an artificial construct. We have 7-day weeks because of the Bible (or its precursor, anyway), yes, but in the same way it's 2006 right now is because of the Bible. We decided it should be because a lot of people believe it. People needed to keep track of the sabbath because they believed it was important, so they counted 7 days. Real Creation or no, we'd have 7-day weeks.

Re:Hey, here's something

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'll also mention one other curiousity -- ever wonder why we have 7 day weeks? If Creation didn't happen, where did that come from?

You really aren't aware that there are other cultures whose calendars have weeks that aren't 7 days long?

Please tell me this kind of ignorance isn't typical among those in your church.

Re:Hey, here's something

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple: he is evil. Doing little miracles here and there to give hope, then crush it.

Re:Hey, here's something

[plunge]

Funny story on that is some skeptic who went to Lourdes or one of those other of those "miracle" sites where everyone is supposed to get healed. Characteristic of the site are lots of crutches thrown away by lame people who supposedly were cured and could walk without the crutches (who no doubt collapsed again from the special exertion an hour later)

Anyway, on being told that the site was one of healing and miracles and shown all the crutches as proof, the skeptic remarked "what, no wooden legs?"

Re:Hey, here's something

[rthille]

Perhaps because this site is correct?
If you visit the site, don't miss the picture of just a small part of the result of "god's" actions....

Re:Hey, here's something

[rthille]

What's the point of postulating a god which created everything in the manner you suggest? What problem would such an explanation solve? Would it help you predict that giving certain drugs might cure polio? Also, if god is the creator of all, how did god come into existence? If god existed forever, being out of time, why not the universe? The problem with an explanation that can never be tested ("the faries on the hill did it") is that it's USELESS. If it doesn't predict anything, if there's no way to ever prove it false, then there's no difference between that and any other similar explanation ("it's the faries on the hill again").

Re:Hey, here's something

[rthille]

So you hold that the bible is the literal word of god? Which version? King James or otherwise?
You believe that you cannot rightly discard parts of the bible? What about Deuteronomy 13:12-16?
Do you defy god's command that you put non-believers to the sword and burn all their loot? I imagine that doing that these days could keep you pretty busy...

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

The thing is, for some genes you can make small differences to the genes, and they make no difference to the proteins that they code for. And you often find these differences in the genomes between different creatures.

All (modern day) creationists that I'm aware of acknowledge that natural selection exists, but say it causes differentiation within a "biblical kind". The existence of these differences in genes do not require creationism to be not true.

But these differences to the common genes are attributable to random drift, so you can predict how many of these irrelevant differences there would be, based on when two creatures separated their lineage.

This is more interesting. My field is not biology. I wasn't aware that we know closely enough when any species separated their lineage to make such a prediction, do you have a reference? In any case they are attributable to random drift, but this is still feasible under a creationist model that allows for natural selection.

A God that deliberately makes pointless, random changes to genes whilst designing animals makes no sense at all.

You haven't demonstrated that they are pointless, random changes though. Merely that we haven't discerned a purpose for them, which is quite different. You also seem to have missed a rather major theme in the bible, namely that humans are far below god in their capabilities and mental capacity and as a result, god's way of doing things is usually very different from ours. The fact that you would find something nonsensical is not at all a refutation of creationism, certainly not decisive for evolution.

So as we read the true book, not a book of man, but the book of life, the genome, we see the absence of God.

Francis_Collins may possibly disagree with you there. Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, believes in god. Not creationism, he'd probably agree with some things you've said, but to say the genome reveals an absence on god doesn't seem to be his view and I think he has some credibility.

Re:Hey, here's something

[asuffield]

I haven't bothered to watch the video... but is that the argument where some idiot points out that this banana would not have developed naturally in the wild, while forgetting that it was deliberately engineered by human gardeners? (Natural bananas are edible, but have seeds - the Cavendish cultivar that you buy in supermarkets was created through selective breeding to have no seeds, and only reproduces through human intervention, by taking cuttings, so it could not exist without our continual attention).

Re:Hey, here's something

[Hillgiant]

Therefore humans descended from monkeys.

Q.E.D.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

You haven't demonstrated that they are pointless, random changes though. Merely that we haven't discerned a purpose for them, which is quite different.

We've shown they code for the self same proteins, therefore the changes are pointless.

Francis_Collins may possibly disagree with you there. Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, believes in god. Not creationism, he'd probably agree with some things you've said, but to say the genome reveals an absence on god doesn't seem to be his view and I think he has some credibility.

Nobody has found any evidence for God whatsoever in the genomes that have been examined, and what has been found is consistent with evolution. Collins believes in evolution and has hypothesised that moral values are derived from God. And I disagree with that- recent research seems to indicate that Chimpanzees have some degree of moral values also, so humans are not special in that regard, and moral values to the extent that they help with the survival of individuals or social groups are clearly consistent with evolutionary theory.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

We've shown they code for the self same proteins, therefore the changes are pointless.

No, all you've shown is that you don't know any reason for the changes. There is a vast difference between you not knowing a reason for something, and there actually being no reason. In any case, as I have stated, these changes do not require evolution (in a "all living creatures are descended from single celled creatures" sense).

Nobody has found any evidence for God whatsoever in the genomes that have been examined...Collins believes in evolution and has hypothesised that moral values are derived from God.

Perhaps you might like to read his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief before you make any more statements like that. As I said, he probably agrees with you on some points, but he has also said "And therefore, science is completely unable, on purely logical grounds, to exclude the possibility of God. One who makes that particular stance has just made the ultimate logical error."

You've presented facts consistent with evolution, nobody is denying that. All I've been saying is that none of what you've said is decisive for evolution. The things you've said are consistent with evolution, but not only consistent with evolution. You seemed to be originally intending to refute creationism, I'm just pointing out that you haven't done so with your examples.

If the head of the Human Genome Project thinks that what you're saying is the ultimate logical error, do you think it might be worth re-examining your thinking? You might benefit from reading Mere Cristianity by C. S. Lewis.

Also, your earlier statement "So as we read the true book, not a book of man, but the book of life, the genome, we see the absence of God." is quite different to your current post "Nobody has found any evidence for God whatsoever in the genomes" as well as seeming to be contraditory to the views of Dr. Collins.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

You seem to have missed my point. The fact that the genes code for the same proteins make the changes irrelevant. That also is evidence against the changes being made by an intelligence; since an intelligence wouldn't need to do this. And these random changes are a very common theme throughout the genome- it is diagnostic of random mutations.

Also, your earlier statement "So as we read the true book, not a book of man, but the book of life, the genome, we see the absence of God." is quite different to your current post "Nobody has found any evidence for God whatsoever in the genomes"

No.

as well as seeming to be contraditory to the views of Dr. Collins.

He is not claiming that there is any evidence for God in the genome.

All I've been saying is that none of what you've said is decisive for evolution. The things you've said are consistent with evolution, but not only consistent with evolution.

It is said that Bible is a consistent with religion, but it is not only consistent with religion.

Who do you believe, a book written by a bunch of highly biased guys, who say that there was a global flood where almost all the land creatures were wiped out, or nature acting on living organisms which said that they weren't?

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

You actually seem to have missed my point. You don't know whether those gene changes have a purpose or not. All you know is that with your current knowledge, you don't know of any significance to them. You are also ignoring that if biblical creation did take place, it would not prevent these changes happening anyway, so it is irrelevant if they are pointless or not.

Also, your earlier statement "So as we read the true book, not a book of man, but the book of life, the genome, we see the absence of God." is quite different to your current post "Nobody has found any evidence for God whatsoever in the genomes"

No.

You need to brush up on your logic. No evidence != see the absence.
I see no evidence that my wife just walked through the kitchen. This doesn't mean I have evidence my wife has not walked through the kitchen. I do not see an absence of my wife having been there, although I see no evidence of her having been there.

I notice you have conveniently decided not to deal with the fact that Dr. Collins calls your stance the ultimate logical error. You seem to be either unable or unwilling to apply logical analysis to your own arguements. It is therefore of no use to continue this discussion further.

It is said that Bible is a consistent with religion, but it is not only consistent with religion.

Who do you believe, a book written by a bunch of highly biased guys,

I have not been saying that creationism is correct or that a particular religious text is true, just that your points do not disprove it in any way. It would be possible to agree with everything I've said and believe in evolution as an atheist. I gave some possible answers a creationist might give to your points, which you could find on any creationist website. I haven't argued for creationism. Why you seem determined to hold fast to logically false arguements is beyond me. I would have thought you would prefer a strong arguement to one that can be easily refuted.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I see no evidence that my wife just walked through the kitchen. This doesn't mean I have evidence my wife has not walked through the kitchen.

Careful here. It does if you were in the kitchen and looking for her.

I do not see an absence of my wife having been there, although I see no evidence of her having been there.

I don't know whether the cup in front of me has coffee in it. I try to taste, it, but I cannot. I look inside. I see no evidence of coffee. I put my finger in the cup; it does not get wet. I invert it over my head, my hair is still dry. I have found no evidence of coffee being there. By your 'logic', I have shown no absence of coffee in my cup. I do not believe your theory. Now perhaps, it's invisible, intangible, antigravity coffee. But that's OK, I don't consider that to be coffee.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

I don't know whether the cup in front of me has coffee in it. I try to taste, it, but I cannot. I look inside. I see no evidence of coffee. I put my finger in the cup; it does not get wet. I invert it over my head, my hair is still dry. I have found no evidence of coffee being there. By your 'logic', I have shown no absence of coffee in my cup.

No, you are observing that coffee is actually not in the cup. That was not my line of reasoning at all. If you said, I see no evidence of coffee, so no coffee has been in the cup would be more akin to my point. What do you really think evidence of god would be? "Jehovah was here" written into the genome? Look with a powerful enough microscope and find a little bearded dude sitting on a throne in the genome pulling levers?

Wouldn't you think that if the genome showed some evidence that god wasn't real, that it might have come to the attention of the head of the human genome project? Do you think it's possible he might have considered it carefully before making the statement "And therefore, science is completely unable, on purely logical grounds, to exclude the possibility of God. One who makes that particular stance has just made the ultimate logical error." Your insistence on clinging to the "ultimate logical error" that science displays evidence that there is no god shows nothing about science, nothing about god, but quite a bit about you.

Anyway, you say the genome provides evidence that there is no god, the head of the human genome project says it doesn't. No offense, but I'm going to have to give more weight of credibility to Dr. Collins on this one.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The genome coffee cup contains no coffee that anyone has found yet and there is much evidence that it is dry. Dr. Collins speculates wildly there *might* be some traces of coffee relating to the 0.6% difference between chimpanzees and humans, but absolutely no evidence of that has been found.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

The genome coffee cup contains no coffee that anyone has found yet and there is much evidence that it is dry. Dr. Collins speculates wildly there *might* be some traces of coffee relating to the 0.6% difference between chimpanzees and humans, but absolutely no evidence of that has been found.

hahaha, random slashdot user says the guy in charge of the project that decoded the human genome "speculates wildly" about his work, and claims to know more about what evidence is in the genome!

Thanks for that!

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I read up on him, Dr. Collins is not referring to any specific features of the genome in his comments, he is indeed speculating that some aspects of the speciation event that created mankind might be divine intervention.

So, let's turn this right around. Random religious slashdot guy says that guy in charge of the human genome project has found evidence of religion in the human genome! More News at 10.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

So, let's turn this right around. Random religious slashdot guy says that guy in charge of the human genome project has found evidence of religion in the human genome! More News at 10.

Wow, you'd really have me there, if I'd ever said that. That would be a really telling point. If only I'd said it.

But I didn't. In any post.

Can you see the difference between me saying the genome is not evidence against god (in agreement with Dr. Collins), and saying it contains evidence for god (Which I have not said at all)?

You might remember I quoted Dr. Collins: "And therefore, science is completely unable, on purely logical grounds, to exclude the possibility of God. One who makes that particular stance has just made the ultimate logical error."

What part of ultimate logical error don't you understand. I challenge you to link to a post where I claim the genome contains evidence of god. I have not even said there exists no compelling evidence against creationism. I just said that you haven't given any.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The lack of evidence for God in the human genome is evidence against creationism and many other forms of religion.

It's not, in and of itself, proof, but nevertherless it is evidence; strong evidence, and it disagrees in many places with the Bible.

I've looked at most of the Christian supposed evidence for the existence of God, and quite frankly, there isn't any that would past muster in any truly unbiased court of law.

Creating religions is easy; they're a dime-a-dozen in the world. Writing bibles is easy. Some of the religions cause less difficulties than others for people, but they all are sources of pain and conflict.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

The lack of evidence for God in the human genome is evidence against creationism and many other forms of religion.

So, your evidence against there being an invisible god is ... *drum roll* you can't see him. Uh huh. I haven't read his work, but I suspect that this is where Dr. Collins thinks the ultimate logical error is kicking in.

It's not, in and of itself, proof, but nevertherless it is evidence;

Oh, and I was so sure you said "That's decisive for evolution." My apologies, I must have been thinking about a different WolfWithoutAClause.

I've looked at most of the Christian supposed evidence for the existence of God, and quite frankly, there isn't any that would past muster in any truly unbiased court of law.

Which has nothing at all to do with whether or not the similarities in the genome of bananas and humans is an effective refutation of creationism. You are, once again, arguing against points I haven't made.

Re:Hey, here's something

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Why don't you go away and pray to an invisible person? You know you want to. I'm not sure how you'll know you've successfully done it, but that's your problem. I'd recommend the IPU personally, in your heart you know she's pink.

Re:Hey, here's something

[rohan972]

Why don't you go away and pray to an invisible person? You know you want to. I'm not sure how you'll know you've successfully done it, but that's your problem.

By the results would seem the obvious answer. I left the religion I was brought up in because they didn't get what they prayed for, indicating that either (a) prayer, properly done, does not yield the desired results (for whatever reason) and was therefore not a worthwhile activity, or (b) they didn't know how to do it properly.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Grishnakh]

From what I see around me in the US these days, I thought your estimate of the Young Earthers is far too low. The OP's 40% is probably closer.

The "guided by the great spirit in the sky" camp isn't much of a problem; I believe that's the Catholic Church's position as well, that there's nothing saying the G/god didn't have some part in guiding the process, or setting it in motion. Darwin's theory doesn't concern these anyway, it just describes the evidence and makes predictions.

Luckily, you're right about them being a small percentage of Christians in the world. However, they're also in the most economically powerful (for now) and influential country, and have great support with the political administration currently in power. Bush himself probably believes in Creationism.

Also, I mentioned Catholics and you call them a small percentage of Christians, but I'd just like to point out to people not aware of this that here in America, Catholics are not considered Christians because they worship statues and believe that good works will get you into heaven. Don't argue with me about the worshipping statues bit either; argue with all the fundamentalists, since that's their position.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Also, I mentioned Catholics and you call them a small percentage of Christians, but I'd just like to point out to people not aware of this that here in America, Catholics are not considered Christians because they worship statues and believe that good works will get you into heaven. Don't argue with me about the worshipping statues bit either; argue with all the fundamentalists, since that's their position.

I avoid using the word Christian to describe my beliefs for exactly that reason. I've always wondered why the Fundamentalists avoid the Epistle of James and a traditional reading of the Epistles of Peter.....where both good works getting you into heaven (James) and the "cloud of witnesses" those statues represent (Peter) are literally mentioned.

Still, there's a billion Roman Catholics out there, 400 million lesser Catholics, 500 million liturgical Protestants, and only about a hundred million Evangelical Fundamentalists in comparison- and thanks to their reading of Sola Scriptura, they don't hold to a single interpretation of scripture anyway. Very few of them know more than about 30 verses from the Bible, I've found. All the rest of us have no problem with evolution. What we have a slight problem with is Quantum Mechanics- very slight, but it's enough to make atheistic evolution stick in our craw sometimes.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

only about a hundred million Evangelical Fundamentalists in comparison

You don't count evangelicals by how many people they have, you count them by how many nuclear weapons they have access to. After all, when it comes to the crunch, that's all that matters.

The Christian God

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh, that's a different quetion. THAT is the difference between beliving in a rational, dependable God whose thought process can be discerned by science and who never breaks his own law, vs the God of the Christian Fundamentalists and Islamic Fascists who changes his mind at random and says "Thou shalt not kill" one day and "Blow up the Infidel" the next. A scientist can choose to believe in the first and disbelieve in quantum mechanics, it makes no difference to the science in the macro world. The second is merely a form of insanity. But I'd say the athiest falls into the same insanity by *not* believing in an ordered universe."

you ought to notice the difference between the Koran and the Bible, first of all. Secondly, you should reread the 10 commandments: "Do not murder." The Christian God, THE God, is unchanging. Forgive me for going off topic a bit in this, but God is perfect, and doesn't waver from His own laws (hence the need for Christ as atonement). People who follow God, however, aren't perfect themselves, hence the commencement of evil things in the name of God. I will happily debate this with anyone.

Re:The Christian God

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean God, who made a created perfect people but didn't foresee they were prone to temptation, and was surprised (according to Genesis) when they sinned against him, then banished them, then decided to wipe out all of them and their descendants, except for one family which was righteous, but the father of that family later turned out to be a drunkard and not so righteous after all?

The God who laid down the law for the Hebrews, telling them the wages of sin were death, then later coming to earth as a man and saying the old law doesn't apply anymore, that there's a new covenant where you don't have to die, but instead can have eternal life?

The God who smote Sodom and Gomorrah, but allowed Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam, et al to do their nasty deeds until some HUMANS decided to put a stop to it?

Is that the unchanging God you're talking about?

Re:The Christian God

[Dark_Lord_Prime]

May I direct your attention here: "*Which* Ten Commandments?"

The Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew versions all say "Thou shalt not kill."

But, that's not nearly as interesting as the fact that the original tablets ("which moses did break," Exodus 20) are entirely different from the second set ("the words that were on the first," Exodus 34).

Nevermind that the Protestant and Hebrew versions are different (some subtley, some majorly) from the Catholic version.

But, you go ahead and believe whatever you need to, to be able to sleep at night. :)

Re:The Christian God

[Marxist Hacker 42]

you ought to notice the difference between the Koran and the Bible, first of all. Secondly, you should reread the 10 commandments: "Do not murder." The Christian God, THE God, is unchanging. Forgive me for going off topic a bit in this, but God is perfect, and doesn't waver from His own laws (hence the need for Christ as atonement). People who follow God, however, aren't perfect themselves, hence the commencement of evil things in the name of God. I will happily debate this with anyone.

For anybody cherry picking their proof texts, there is no difference between the Koran, the Bible, or War and Peace- they're all works sufficiently long enough to find proof texts to prove any point of view if you pull them out of context and ignore the rest.

Thus, I agree, and there's no need for debate. There are many people who follow God or Allah or even Science who pick the data to support their own conclusions, and you can hardly fault God, Allah, or Science for that fallacy.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Anonymous Coward]

Cathoics are not merely "considered" Christians in America, they are Christians, the bizarre beliefs of fundamentalist cultists, notwithstanding.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Grishnakh]

I avoid using the word Christian to describe my beliefs for exactly that reason. I've always wondered why the Fundamentalists avoid the Epistle of James and a traditional reading of the Epistles of Peter.....where both good works getting you into heaven (James) and the "cloud of witnesses" those statues represent (Peter) are literally mentioned.

Here in the US, I've found that many people call themselves "Christian" rather than any denomination, as they they're the "real" Christians or something. It's very confusing.

Where exactly is this bit in Peter about good works? I'll have to remember that next time I talk to a Christian.

The statues bit comes from what I've heard many Protestants say about Catholics. They seem to think that Catholics actually worship the statues they have in churches, rather than them being just statues to look at and remind you of certain people like the rest of the sane world.

All the rest of us have no problem with evolution. What we have a slight problem with is Quantum Mechanics- very slight, but it's enough to make atheistic evolution stick in our craw sometimes.

What's wrong with Quantum Mechanics? It's a little weird, but it has accurately predicted many things and hasn't been superceded by anything else yet. Of course, it breaks down for many cases, just as Einstein's and Newton's theories break down for some cases which is why Physicists have been looking for the "holy grail" of unification theories for quite some time.

If you'll allow me to plug for a moment...

[KillerDeathRobot]

There are all sorts of made-up facts about Darwin to be had, if you're into that sort of thing.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Grishnakh]

No, sorry, this is wrong.

In the Rest Of The World, yes, Catholics are definitely Christians.

However, here in wacky America which is moving more and more towards fundamentalism, Catholics are not considered Christians by many Protestants for the reasons I listed and several more. Fundamentalist Christians may be bizarre, but so are Fundamentalist Muslims, and both of them are majorities (or close) in several countries, so you can't just dismiss them out-of-hand as you can some small fringe group.

Perhaps you live in a Blue state and your perception is a little clouded.

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Re:frames or why I luv Flying Spaghetti Monster

[WillAffleckUW]

Are you saying evolved websites are ugly (which to me would seem to be caused by the environment given), or that you don't know the real theory of intelligent design?

No, he's saying that Intelligent Design isn't a theory, it's a belief pretending to be a theory.

That given, most GUI websites aren't designed very intelligently and use Graphically Ugly Interfaces.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Gracenotes]

Social Darwinism and ethnic cleansing is something that I can't forgive. It's like someone to whom authority was arbitrarily given referencing his or her superiority upon completing an action, and attributing it to genius. Although rationality does run the world (read Atlas Shrugged, that kind of ego (incidentally, not as Ayn Rand meant it) is stupid.

On the other hand, Social Darwinism may or may not be what these banana guys are doing ideologically. I hate to think about what would happen if the guys got a hold of numerology. *shudder* They probably already have, stooping down to add digits of numbers in an arbitrary base-10 system. "See, if you add up the ASCII numbers of the word 'Evolution' in this obscure language, you get 666."

I support creationism, but not as a crutch. So Darwin's works on microevolution, I agree with entirely. Macroevolution, on the other hand, is somewhat believable, but I choose the alternative b/c of personal conviction (Christianity) and logic, to a certain exist. See The Language of God, although I do not entirely agree with theistic evolution.

On the other hand, I like the superstring theory and its possible snug fit into God's existence. I suppose I'm volatile. I may be wrong.

Agnostic reply

[geekoid]

Meh.

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some fun

[cogno64]

maybe a little...

Burden of proof...

[darekana]

You seem to be missing the point that:
In-order to invalidate the "theory of evolution", the burden is on YOU to come up with a better theory.

Your new theory must also have falsifiable or testable predictions about things not yet observed.

I look forward to reading your paper.

Re:Burden of proof...

[mdwh2]

Well, if you think about it, there are only two choices: Creation or Evolution. There is no third possibility.

Oh come on - if we are conjecturing about things like creationism, I can think of all sorts of possibilities. "It was done by magic" or "The laws of nature were different back then, such that living things could grow out of mud". These are just as unfalsifiable and useless (in terms of having no predictive power, and not actually explaining anything) as creationism.

Only one of all these possibilities is a theory supported by evidence.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[FrostedChaos]

It is the worst kind of sophistry to argue that Darwinism can't be true because it makes you feel bad. Boo hoo! I was pretty upset when I found out that earth was not the center of the universe. But then I got over it-- in grade school.

Darwin did not "degrade life to an accidental tissue mass." He only made some observations about nature, and formed some theories based on those. As it turns out, these theories do a pretty good job of explaining how species change over time, and how new species are formed-- in fact, they've pretty much become the backbone of evolutionary biology.

Darwin himself was not a fascist or a rightist as you allege. In fact, he was a Christian, and he was as much troubled by questions of how to reconcile faith and reason as others. Hitler came to power almost a century later, and was influenced as much by nationalism and mysticism as by science. Stalin never accepted Darwinism-- in fact, he strictly prohibited it from being taught in Russia while he was in power. Instead, he favored the pseudo-scientist Lysenko. Try reading something about history before you spout this kind of nonsense. Assuming that history doesn't hurt your feelings too much!

Finally-- there is a lot of good evidence that man has transcended biological evolution. The whole point of having a big brain and a complex social structure is so that you don't have to make up a new gene each time you learn a new trick. And of course, in the future, genetic engineering will allow us to have whatever genes we desire.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually read Mein Kampf (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt), you will find that Hitler was a creationist. Disbelief in common descent and speciation, belief in "kinds", "God's image" in humans, it's all there. "Friends they keep" and all that.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's just because non-Catholics are mostly idolators of the Bible, whereas the Catholic church recognises that it is the work of the community. i.e. the Church made the Bible, not the other way around.

Stupidity meter went off the dial

[rumblin'rabbit]

Okay, so let me get this straight - you're blaming Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the destruction of the environment on Darwin?

While you're at it, make sure to blame Newton for the improvements in artillery that ensued due to a better understanding of kinetics. Or blame Mendeleev for devising the periodic table, since improvements in chemistry led to mustard gas.

"Social Darwinism" was never part of Darwin's work. It's a fraudulent extension of it, and to blame Darwin for that is ludicrous.

And Darwin never said that any species, race, or specimen "deserved to die". He only described why some did and why some didn't. Almost every trained biologist buys into Darwin's theory of natural selection, and they all abhor the destruction of the environment.

I blame Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the destruction of the environment on ignorance, the kind that Darwin fought so effectively against, the kind you are propogating right now.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[rumblin'rabbit]

I understand now. Here's a comment from your original post:

Before everyone wants to shout this down as "religion" consider that no "religion" or "religious belief" has been forwarded here.

And here's a quote from the above post:

His theory was the direct product of sin, and the belief in his theory is also the direct product of sin, because ultimately, sin is the opposition to God, be it in thought or deed.

Might I suggest that your original claim that your argument was not a religious one was a tad ... insincere?

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[Yunzil]

Think through the consequences of the belief system to their logical conclusion. In a Darwinian world, what right does anyone have to make and enforce laws? Where does the authority to say what is right and wrong come from?

What does any of that have to do with the theory of biological evolution?

If you say the masses, then what about when the masses (such as in other countries) promote strapping a bomb to their chest and blowing up innocent people? What about when the masses promote cannibalism? Or theft?

What about it? It's bad. And has nothing at all to do with Darwin, evolution, or the price of tea in China.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[Copid]

As a means to clarify the continuation of dialog, are you going to start word-parsing, or are you going to respond to the substance of my previous post, which was on the basis for right and wrong in a Darwinian world? I'm really interested in your thoughts on that. It seems pretty common that people really start to shy away from the dialog at this point, or start throwing stones, because the ramifications of such a foundation (or lack thereof) of right and wrong aren't pretty or pleasant.

I'll bite. The ramifications are no different from those felt by a person who opts to believe in Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetic theory, or that the speed of light is a constant. That is, there's nothing about an understanding of the physical world that confers or destroys any morality. The question you're probably driving at is, where does morality come from, if not from divine fiat? That one is more interesting.

Personally, I don't see a reason why there has to be absolute right and wrong, but even if there is, I don't particularly see a reason why it has to be divinely inspired. For instance, I don't murder my fellow human beings because I feel a sense of empathy toward them and I would not want to be murdered myself. It's all good and fine if one has a diety spelling that out clearly, but my experience is that the obvious and sensible rules that dieties lay out often come attached to bizarre and illogical ones like what we should eat and what we should do on particular days of the week. Anyway, I would turn the question in the opposite direction and ask, is the only reason a religious person doesn't murder me and take my stuff fear of divine punishment or desire for divine reward? If so, is that really a moral system to be crowing about?

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[Anonymous Coward]

In polite society it is common to avoid discussions of religion and politics and to respect others beliefs.

Fortunately this isn't polite society so get stuffed.

-Man is the measure of all things.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[lonecrow]

In a relativistic world, what right does anyone have to claim anything is right or wrong?

I think most people use their conscience. But if yours is broken or you just don't trust it, then I suppose out sourcing to a sky daddy might get you through.

With the church your not allowed to engage in moral relativism which I think accounts for all the hypocrisy.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[lonecrow]

Thank you Copid. It annoys me to no end that Christians figure that if there is no divine declaration about right/wrong or good/evil that the sky will fall and our heads will explode and we will all turn into cannibals.

because the ramifications of such a foundation (or lack thereof) of right and wrong aren't pretty or pleasant. I profoundly disagree.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[plunge]

"Evolution is founded upon a preconceived world view. Forget the scientific pontificating for a moment. Science is not the foundation of the theory. In order to believe evolution, you first have to start with an article of fatih. IN THE BEGINNING, __________. Even evolution must have that."

Sometimes you get the sense that a person is so wrapped up in their own worldview that they have no capacity to even imagine anything outside of that.

Yes, science is the basic method used to develop a theory of evolution. No, there isn't an "IN THE BEGINNING." Science is not an ultimate ontology.

"Ah...but there you are. It *isn't* bad. And it *isn't* good. And it has everything to do with evolution, because in an evolutionary world, there is no basis for right and wrong. If someone deems murder right, then its no more right or wrong than charity, kindness, or cruelty."

Simply put, you've played a dishonest game here. You've set evolution in constrast to YOUR very particular religious beliefs. But then you go and try to make an argument that evolution contradicts ALL religious beliefs. There are countless religious believers who have no problem with evolution or a religious view on morality. You can run around and claim that these people aren't the true believers, but whatever, they can say the same about you. Meanwhile, their very existence exposes the false dichotomy you created between evolution and religious belief and evolution and religious morality.

"All along my point has been the consequences of a particular belief system. Someone who believes something, like evolution, ought to be honest about what the ramifications of accepting that belief system are."

Okay. But I'll pick someone else to conduct that honest appraisal, because I don't think you are qualified either intellectually or in honesty.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[rthille]

brado77 needs to have all his posts moderated "-5 willfully ignorant and intellectual dishonest"

Either he's a moron, or a pretty smart troll. I'm guessing moron myself.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[misanthrope101]

Darwin shares the common thread with these dictators a self-defined system of right and wrong.

Find me an evolutionary biologist who advocates an amoral worldview. And since Hitler and Stalin both banned Darwin's books, it's a bit difficult to make the connection, unless of course you just don't mention that they banned his books. Did you just not know that Stalin and Hitler both banned Darwin's books, or did you not mention it because it would flat-out 100% refute every single point you're trying to make? Let me say that again--the facts, which are easily looked up, refute what you're saying. Not my opinion or my way of looking at things or my "worldly" values, but the objective fact that Stalin and Hitler both banned Darwin's books because they found his ideas so objectionable..

What's more, the only people who think that Darwinism leads to immorality (other than Stalin and Hitler, who are dead) are fundamentalist, biblical literalists. No one else believes that, and from the fact that people who believe in evolution don't act any less morally than people who don't, it's pretty obvious that you're wrong. I know you'd like to be right, but pointing to a few dictators that you consider Darwinists, even though they banned Darwin's books and their motivating philosophies had nothing to do with the topics he touched on, doesn't convince anyone who isn't in your church. I mean, look at the scientific community--is that community marked by a high percentage of pedophiles or murderers? Does any data at all bear out what you're saying?

I know that you think that his ideas devalue life, but I don't find my life devalued, nor do I find morality any less compelling. Maybe your ideas say more about what kind of person you are than about what kind of person Darwin was. I don't need to believe that God created me and that there's a hell waiting for the wicked to be moral--I can be moral because that's the kind of world I want to live in. I'm getting the idea that what you're saying is that you would be a bad person if you didn't believe that God created you. Would you?

I believe in Darwinian evolution (and relativity, and atoms, and the germ theory, and plate tectonics, etc) and I believe, for example that torture is wrong and that the President can't justly re-define it now that our government is doing it. Do you think torture is wrong? It's gut-check time. Is it wrong? I'm calling you out. I believe that it's absolutely wrong. What do you think?

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[rumblin'rabbit]

My original post made no religious assertion, just as I said.

Perhaps not, but you could not defend your position without resorting to religious arguments, suggesting that that was indeed what it was.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[Darby]

t is impossible to discuss Darwin, evolution, and for that matter any world view without introducing religion, because by definition, ANY world view IS religion. Christianity is religion. Evolution is religion. Forget the endless circular claims about scientific this or that, because by definition, science cannot make any statement on the supernatural, and therefore, because the element of the infinnite and supernatural is in play in ANY belief about origins, science by definition can make no statement on origins. Evolution may consist of a mile high-stack of research, but at the bottom of the pile is an article of faith. IN THE BEGINNING __________ . Whatever you fill in that blank is your article of faith.

That right there is where you went completely off the rails and demonstrated your deep lack of understanding of the topic you're attempting to discuss.
Evolution doesn't address the origin of the universe. IN THE BEGINNING _______ isn't a question that is even relevant.

The theory of evolution addresses the hows and whys of the changes in lifeforms over billions of years. The origin of life is a completely different subject as you would have figured out by now if you actually had an honest interest in understanding the subject. Given the number of times that same fallacy is put forward and shot down, you must have tried harder to maintain your ignorance of such a simple basic fact than you would have had to try to understand it.

Heck, you even contradicted yourself:

science by definition can make no statement on origins.

I'll buy that. You then continue claiming that it does (which it clearly and explicitly doesn't) and then use that ragged strawman to go on with trying to project the religious nature of *your* beliefs onto people who might or might not have any religious beliefs of their own. The fact that plenty of religious and non-religious people accept evolution as a valid scientific theory should be a big hint that your extremist position isn't at all as clear and certain as you're pretending it is.

But the irony is I haven't pointed out anything that isn't already inherently present in the belief system. The only thing I've encouraged is a progression of thought to its logical consequences.

Except you haven't done that at all. You need to actually understand the subject you're discussing to be able to reach logical consequences and you're proven that you do not understand it at all.

Of course, that doesn't even address the fact that religious based morality is in no way absolute either as it depends on which god you arbitrarily decide to start believing in and further as shown by the histories of most major religions on how you personally choose to interpret the words of that god and even which particular writings that you arbitrarily choose to attribute to him.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial

[Jarn_Firebrand]

what one person defines as right and wrong is no more justified than what someone else who believes differently says is right and wrong.

Please tell me you see the irony in this! You say that what one person defines as right and wrong is no more justified than others, and yet, earlier on, you claim that Catholics are not Christians because they don't believe the same thing you do and that Catholics are wrong. I hereby nominate you for the Hypocrite of the Year award!

Exactly the point...

[rmdyer]

This is exactly the defining line between science and religion. Science can never include any religious concepts, like magic, miracles, etc. And what of this word "god"? People keep bandying the word around like they know exactly what it means. As if you can believe, disbelieve, or be agnostic about it. Not one person on this planet is sure what they mean when they say the word "god". I mean the word is "defined" in the dictionary as if it actually makes sense, but the longer you dwell on this "god" concept, it loses more and more of an idea that has a solid foundation. If the word turns out to be meaningless, or better yet "illogical" as Spock would say, then there's no justification in using it in any spoken or written context, except where you need to define an irrational "thing". The only concept for the word "god" to be accurately defined would be the universe itself, or "god" is the universe.

Basic misunderstandings with "god"...

* A "god" has "feelings" of any kind. No infinitely _____ful "being"? would need feelings, these are human frailties.
* A "god" thinks. No infinitely _____ful "being"? needs to think, everything is already known and there is no outcome to "think" about.
* A "god" needs, or requires worship. No infinitely ____ful "being"? needs acceptance of any kind, the act of doing so is simply superfluous. This also goes for a "god" having any "needs" whatsoever.
* A "god" performs any actions at all. Why? All outcomes are already known, there is simply nothing to alter.
* A "god" cares about us. Again, caring is an emotion, a human trait which no all ______ful "being" would do.
* A "god" planned all this. What good is planning when everything there is to do is already been done, is known, and would be pointless anyway?

There are a few things we as humans in the 21st century should know...

* The universe exists.
* The universe exists forever (it just exists in different forms).
* We exist as a part of the universe.
* Our past, present, and future are already "set".
* We will never be able to "predict" the future (to any great extent) so for all practical purposes we have "free will".
* We exist now, we existed before, and we will exist again.
* "You" are not the body (or memories) in which you inhabit. "You" are the second level meta-recognition of "being", simply recognizing existance. Most human minds recognize their existance in and a part from the universe. This "recognizer" is you, simply to say "I" exist. Your "I", is no different than my "I". We are conscious, we are the same. Only our memories, bodies, and environmental living conditions make us different.
* There is no possible way to exist forever, since this would require an infinite medium. The only medium we know to exist is the universe itself. (memories require a medium for storage)
* The universe itself may in fact be finite (we don't currently know for certain).
* There may be "other" universes besides our own.
* The depth of either heirarchy must be infinite. (A single universe in an infinite volume would represent an illogical anomaly.)

So again, what is this "god" thing for which I'm supposed to believe, disbelieve, or be agnostic about, and why should I care?

Mostly rambling at this point. ;)

Re:Exactly the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know what a "god" needs, has, or does? How do you know what we will never be able to know or do?

"Rambling" is right.

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Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[CrankyOldBastard]

In fact Darwin's Origin said nothing about the origins of life - only of species. Later in his life he did publish some papers about a hypothesis of panspermia, but he also wrote that he was very uncomfortable with the fact that he had, for the first time, published an idea without any experimental observations to support it. His panspermia work was published in response to the religous right of the day, who were confusing the idea of speciation with the origin of life. Some things haven't moved on much.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Laser Lou]

I suppose I'm volatile. I may be wrong.

I like volatility. It is is a good thing when one is thinking things through.

  I support creationism, but not as a crutch.
Surprisingly, I found that moving away from creationism, understanding and accepting Darwinian evolution (macro- and micro-) actually strengthened my belief that God is the creator; I see creation in more of a theological light now, rather than a physical/scientific light. Creation has more to do with love than physical assembly.

Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[hotfireball]

I will believe Darwin's theory of evolution, if an absence of discrete species was proven with clear evidence of continuous intermediary forms all around the world instead. Yet his theory suffers hard due to obvious opposite facts.

P.S. Well, Slashdot is maybe an exception... :-)

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[jeremyp]

Really? Ever heard of ring species.

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[hotfireball]

Oh really. So you want to wow me by the fact you're frequently eating chicken with clear differences in color and mass? Better show me a creature which is half crocodile, half human, half monkey, half pig and half an idiot. Well, reading /. I can though...

Ever heard something about amino acids, proteins? It is such a chemical stuff, you know... If you are so great in mind (if not, online Darwin will probably assist you), show to the World how you reproduce homochilarity by random process with L-molecules-only in proteins and billions R-molecules-only in DNA in your chemical lab and you will get a Nobel Prize (or maybe even two, due to inflation)...

And you probably never heard about repair mechanism of DNA, where enzyme removes wrong nucleotides from DNA structure. If no such mechanism, any DNA will disintegrate into foam yet only one opposite nucleotide were found, since DNA spiral will be no longer valid. Yet there is no problem how such a mechanism works -- everything is quite "trivial" and "understandable". Well, the real problem is how the very World First DNA, (made by random explosion of random chemical reaction of random... blah-blah-blah) suddenly "knew" of such mechanism is actually required.

BTW, ever hear about how entropy and thermodinamics works? -- (well, if not yet, try some wget + grep on some .edu instead) -- will helps a lot, unless you make your brain offline...

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[plunge]

"So you want to wow me by the fact you're frequently eating chicken with clear differences in color and mass? Better show me a creature which is half crocodile, half human, half monkey, half pig and half an idiot."

I don't think you understand how evolution works. It doesn't require, predict, or imply half-anythings.

"Ever heard something about amino acids, proteins? It is such a chemical stuff, you know... If you are so great in mind (if not, online Darwin will probably assist you), show to the World how you reproduce homochilarity by random process with L-molecules-only in proteins and billions R-molecules-only in DNA in your chemical lab and you will get a Nobel Prize"

There are any number of reasons for homochilarity: the difficulty is in figuring out which among many possibilities, not that it happened at all.

"Well, the real problem is how the very World First DNA, (made by random explosion of random chemical reaction of random... blah-blah-blah) suddenly "knew" of such mechanism is actually required."

Your problem is that you concieve of a modern, highly complex thing and imagine taking huge chunks away from that existing system. Evolution doesn't work like that. Depedancy of two different things can evolve over time, with one becoming steadily more depedent on the other.

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[hotfireball]

> I don't think you understand how evolution works.
> It doesn't require, predict, or imply half-anythings.

Oh, I am sure you know better, young man. But let me know how you became a Homosapiens, being a crocodile->monkey->IT-programmer "millions of years" ago? You know, even when dried bacteria delivered to the Earth constituted a full explanation for the origin of all life on Earth, the origin of those bacteria is still not solved...

> Your problem is that you concieve of a modern,
> highly complex thing and imagine taking huge chunks
> away from that existing system.

Ah well, you push me to forget physics, spit on all science laws and starting to believe that chaos can produce order or any ultra-primitive thing can produce complex, well-designed systems?.. (For God sake, don't start speak about nano-systems unless you know the topic really).

Remember Fred Hoyle's Boeing story? -- a great argument that uses logic and probability:

A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing-747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there?

Simply buy a LEGO constructor for kids, put it into a plastic bag an shake. Only once you get a fully featured toy assembled, please reply here again. But you know what? You will have a complete fiasco due to lack of knowledge of termodinamics: LEGO details will be destroyed instead to connect into something useful. Now consider billions molecules connects into a well-designed system just by that random way...

Finally, I will tell you some more about random things you truly believe (just in case, maybe it will help you-and-other-people to think actually):

On Sunday 8 January 1989 a brand-new Boeing 737-400 crashed, killing 47 of the 126 people on board. The ultimate cause was a design flaw in the CFM56 engine. It was an upgraded version of a previous model but was only tested on the ground, not in flight. That flaw caused damage of the left motor at high altitude. Subsequent fatal decisions were caused by the design of the human-machine interface and the unfamiliarity of the pilots with the improved display of instruments. The captain shutdown the right-hand motor while the left motor was on fire. They completely depended on the display of their instruments and simply could not see from the cockpit which motor was on fire. Some passengers could see fire in the engine with their own eyes, but trusted that the pilots knew what they were doing. Tragically, despite the state of the art technology in the cockpit, some passengers in the plane knew more than the captain. Knowledge on which their lives depended. So, the direct cause of the crash was shutting down a well-functioning motor and later, after a second explosion, the malfunctioning motor, which left the plane with no upward power. Although there was apparently still some power on board to power the instruments, the machine was going down before they could reach a save place for an emergency landing and the pilots thought they could not do anything about it. They tried but failed to restart the intact motor.

Got the point?

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[plunge]

"Oh, I am sure you know better, young man."

Well, I don't think evolution predicts "half-chickens" which certainly makes me better informed than yourself.

"But let me know how you became a Homosapiens, being a crocodile->monkey->IT-programmer "millions of years" ago?"

It's called descent with modification: sub groups within groups. Your conception: of one thing turning into another, is generally a mistaken way to think of it, which is perhaps why you find the idea so confusing.

"You know, even when dried bacteria delivered to the Earth constituted a full explanation for the origin of all life on Earth, the origin of those bacteria is still not solved..."

Perhaps. But that's not really the concern of evolution as a scientific theory. I'm not really sure what you are talking about here other than that.

"Ah well, you push me to forget physics, spit on all science laws and starting to believe that chaos can produce order or any ultra-primitive thing can produce complex, well-designed systems?"

I haven't suggested anything of the sort. There are no "physics laws" that preclude evolution, nor order from chaos. Calling things designed sort of begs the question, doesn't it?

"Remember Fred Hoyle's Boeing story? -- a great argument that uses logic and probability: A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing-747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there?"

It may use logic, and it may well make sense on its own terms, but it doesn't describe a situation relevant to the evolutionary process. Evolution is not simply random assemblage. It's a ratchet algorithm, not a whirlwind in anything. The analogy simply fails.

"Simply buy a LEGO constructor for kids, put it into a plastic bag an shake. Only once you get a fully featured toy assembled, please reply here again."

Actually, I have a screensaver on my computer that is somewhat like this situation except for one crucial difference: it actually models all the aspects of evolution instead of JUST random events, which is all your example describes. My screensaver essentially performs random variations on geometrical shapes joined by moving joints, again, all random. It then selects and descends those variations which end up physically moving the farthest in a coordinate plane. For most of the first series of generations, these little machines were lucky to thrash their way even one unit away from their starting point. But now, after roughly a thousand generations, they are nearly maxing out the distance they can travel in the time they are given: 60 units. Instead of random assemblages, they look like complex almost scorpion-like tripods that "walk" pretty convincingly. None of this "walking" was built into the program: all the program did was establish heredity with minor mutation and then select for distance. If I hadn't told you about how these walking machines came to be, you'd insist that they were designed. But they weren't. They were evolved.

That's what's known as a genetic algorithm program, and it is a simple demonstration of why your intuitions about design are incorrect.

"But you know what? You will have a complete fiasco due to lack of knowledge of termodinamics"

termodinamics? Does that involve termites of some sort? :) Seriously though, thermodynamics does not preclude evolution in the slightest. Chances are, you probably misunderstand it just as you misundertand evolution. I would suggest reading up on the concept in a reliable scientific resource or encyclopedia instead of just trusting what some babbling creationist claims about it.

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[hotfireball]

> It's called descent with modification: sub groups within groups. Your conception: of one thing turning into another, is generally a mistaken way to think of it, which is perhaps why you find the idea so confusing.

You had repeated this to me twice, but yet no clear conception I heard from you. We all "know" that life on Earth started from an Explosion, which produced random movenet of atoms, which randomly created molecules, then bacteria, then Infuzoria, then monkey, and finally Slashdot. :-) Isn't this an Evolution concept? Or now evolutionists believe into something else? If so, then what is it?..

> Evolution is not simply random assemblage. It's a ratchet algorithm, not a whirlwind in anything

Absolutely agree. Evolution is a theory (yet not proven though) about an algorithm, based on a thought that "primitive produces complex". IOW, more stupid produce more smart. Well, maybe for you it sounds convincing, but for me -- yet ridiculous. Though you still didn't explained me where is a start point of Evolution: where is the beginning and who or what gave it a kick to evolute? IOW, who made that "ratchet algoritm"? If you at least know how to write "Hello World!" program in any program language, you must understand, that any algoritm is previously designed stuff, which supposed to do something in a future. Therefore even your Evolution you believe -- might be a product of somebody, who well designed stuff around, where each element may evolute.

> Actually, I have a screensaver on my computer

It proves nothing, since code is supposed do make a shapes. Point is at another place: make a random loop which will produce a computer program. Though if you are Perl programmer, then maybe it will work for you. :-)

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[plunge]

"You had repeated this to me twice, but yet no clear conception I heard from you."

Buddy, I ain't the one for whom English is a second language. Complaining about no clear conceptions is pretty lame coming from you.

"We all "know" that life on Earth started from an Explosion, which produced random movenet of atoms"

See, you don't get it. The formation of Earth from interstallar dust was not something that happened because of random movement of atoms. What occured on the surface of earth was not simply random movement either. If you are conceptualizing things that way, then of course you are confused, because your imagination makes no sense.

"which randomly created molecules, then bacteria, then Infuzoria, then monkey, and finally Slashdot. :-) Isn't this an Evolution concept? Or now evolutionists believe into something else?"

Evolution has ALWAYS meant descent with modification, from Darwin on.

Of course, you seem to think that evolution includes things prior to life, which is yet again, you being wrong.

"Absolutely agree. Evolution is a theory (yet not proven though) about an algorithm, based on a thought that "primitive produces complex"."

No, not really. It can, and sometimes does, but that sort of directionality is irrelevant.

"IOW, more stupid produce more smart."

Er, no. What does that even mean?

"Though you still didn't explained me where is a start point of Evolution: where is the beginning and who or what gave it a kick to evolute?"

What? That doesn't even make sense.

"IOW, who made that "ratchet algoritm"? If you at least know how to write "Hello World!" program in any program language, you must understand, that any algoritm is previously designed stuff, which supposed to do something in a future. Therefore even your Evolution you believe -- might be a product of somebody, who well designed stuff around, where each element may evolute."

No, and evolute isn't a word. You are taking algoritmn too literally. It isn't lines of code, but rather simply the natural laws. If you want to believe that god created those natural laws, nothing internal to evolution contradicts you: that's outside of the scope of the theory.

"It proves nothing, since code is supposed do make a shapes."

Nice try, but no. The code simply sets up the situation in which the genetic algorithm plays out, thus refuting your claim that design is necessary. That the program was designed is completely irrelevant.

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The formation of Earth from interstallar dust was not something that happened because of random movement of atoms.
> What occured on the surface of earth was not simply random movement either.

> Evolution has ALWAYS meant descent with modification, from Darwin on.

This confusion is typical of those who think "evolutionary theory" encompasses all types of evolution. You're right, it's really about biological evolution, but there are other scientific uses of the term such as stellar evolution and molecular evolution.

Of course, in these other contexts, you're not talking about Darwin anymore.

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[plunge]

Exactly. We start talking about Darwin, and somehow people come up with spinning atoms and computer programs writing themselves. It's a complete dodge: changing the whole scope of the discussion to avoid having to concede that, within it's specifically defined scope, biological evolution both works and makes sense.

Re:Absence of Discrete Species Proven?

[Copid]

I don't recall who posted it, but I think that the best reponse I've seen to garbage like that is [paraphrasing]: "Oh! I see where the confusion is coming from! You seem to be referring to Darwin's lesser known work, The Origin of Spacetime."

Charles Darwin Online

[SeaFox]

Wow he really has evolved if he's now an online sentient being! Just like the AI's in Neromancer. I imagine his expectations for the rest of humanity will go something like "More cyborg technology study or die!"

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Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot reject the Bible, or any portion of it, and claim to be Christian.

On what authority do you know which writings make up the Bible, and which do not?

facts

[Anonymous Coward]

bleugh, you can prove anything with facts.

"Creation" is not a theory...

[darekana]

"Well, if you think about it, there are only two choices: Creation or Evolution. There is no third possibility. "

"Creation" is not even a "theory", as it makes no falsifiable or testable predictions about things not yet observed.

If you have a reproducable test where you get "God" to create new life forms I think you should publish a paper.
As it stands, in the context of science, you have failed to provide a new "theory" of our origins.

(please try to avoid logical fallacies)

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Ginger Unicorn]

"Well, if you think about it, there are only two choices: Creation or Evolution. There is no third possibility. "

don't forget the false dilemma fallacy. just because all the evidence we've seen so far points to evolution as the creator of mankind, doesnt mean that further evidence wont show up that suggests a different as yet unimagined mechanism.

you cant try to rubbish evolution to prove creationism. even if it turns out evolutionary theory is one giant mistake, that wont prove creationism is true.

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[LordEd]

Well, if you really think about it, it could be both. God created a set of creatures a long time ago, and then they started to evolve into other creatures.

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Ginger Unicorn]

that's what the catholic church believes. that idea cant be a scientific theory though, as its not falsifiable, so it falls into religious beliefs. taking it to it's logical extreme, you could argue that god set up the big bang, and all natural phenomena that occured since occured on their own, but the physical laws were divised by god to eventually produce the world as it is today. christian fundamentalists won't generally accept explanations like that, because if you read the bible literally, everything happened in 6 days 6000 years ago. perhaps you could argue that the "days" arent literal days, but epochs marked by god intervening to shape a particular aspect of our world, but that again would be untestable conjecture, and as such is not a scientific theory.

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Creation" is not even a "theory"

Maybe not in science, but it is in English:

1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid =Mozilla-search&va=theory

When a Creationist/Biblethumper speaks of a "theory", he is typically not speaking of scientific theory. In their common English terms, Creation IS a theory.

But Creationism is NOT science.

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If you have a reproducable test where you get "God" to create new life forms I think you should publish a paper.

I've seen the beginings of one (in that I've seen a theory that is untestable with our current technolgy but has been used in science fiction) but it needs a black hole for an output device for the computerized matrix.

In other words, from a strictly objective point of view, until humanity *becomes* God there will always be skeptics who think God doesn't exist.

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

christian fundamentalists won't generally accept explanations like that, because if you read the bible literally, everything happened in 6 days 6000 years ago. perhaps you could argue that the "days" arent literal days, but epochs marked by god intervening to shape a particular aspect of our world, but that again would be untestable conjecture, and as such is not a scientific theory.

However, if you take both together, they point to a very interesting an highly useful form of engineering.

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Ginger Unicorn]

both of which things?

Re:"Creation" is not a theory...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Epochs and evolution. It mirrors software engineering quite nicely.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Yunzil]

Darwin was not a Christian.

Darwin was on the verge of becoming a minister in the Church of England before we went on the Beagle.

You cannot reject the Bible, or any portion of it, and claim to be Christian.

Sure you can. All you have to do, like many sensible Christians have already done, is realize the Bible is not meant to be taken word-for-word literally. Even the Pope admitted that evolution happens, unless you want to say the Pope isn't Christian?

it was to point out the *consequences* of that belief.

Evolution is not a belief.

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Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally-- there is a lot of good evidence that man has transcended biological evolution.

What a shame - you were doing so well until this point. Care to mention any of this evidence you have? Evolution: the inheritence of genes based on differential reproductive success. I say that it is happening, and it will always happen. Simple as that.

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Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Woldry]

Also, I mentioned Catholics and you call them a small percentage of Christians, but I'd just like to point out to people not aware of this that here in America, Catholics are not considered Christians because they worship statues and believe that good works will get you into heaven. Don't argue with me about the worshipping statues bit either; argue with all the fundamentalists, since that's their position.

Actually, according to Sister Ann Marie when I was in fourth grade here in America, only Catholics are considered Christians, because only Catholics truly worship God and do His will.

Don't argue with me, argue with Sister Ann Marie. (Best science teacher I ever had, by the way!)

Like so many (or should that read "all"?) classification systems, it all depends on your perspective.

When I looked at the title, ...

[mldqj]

I thought it was a new MMORPG.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Xybot]

can you please repeat with the "make sense" filter switched on.

Re:Stupidity meter went off the dial!

[truckaxle]

If you say the masses, then what about when the masses (such as in other countries) promote strapping a bomb to their chest and blowing up innocent people? What about when the masses promote cannibalism? Or theft? In a relativistic world, what right does anyone have to claim anything is right or wrong?

Your writing style is might bit hard to follow.

However, you do know that the people strapping on bombs and blowing people up are doing so for strictly religious reasons. If you chatted with these people you would find that you have a lot in common with them.

This reminds me of a quote by Stephen Weinberg "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things--that takes religion." And you want a good account of that read the old testament.

Evolution in action...

[gwoodrow]

So the entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online? By "have been" I assume you mean it's already done or is at least incredibly close, right? Buuuuuuuuuuut it's only halfway done? Should be completed by 2009? Just checking. Carry on.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Copid]

As for the rest of your post, I agree with your point that "feelings" aren't a reason for anything. In fact, I wasn't arguing truth or untruth of Darwinism at all, either based on feelings or otherwise. I was saying that for those who have already accepted Darwinism, then they ought to examine the consequences of those beliefs and their contemporaries, and that is that regardless of their perceived (or hoped for) differences, Darwinianism puts them in the same philosophical category as those who committed those atrocities.

Exactly how is it that evolutionary theory is required to carry morality with it any more than the germ theory of disease or the theory of relativity? Isn't it possible that a basic statement of fact about the world doesn't necessarily have any bearing on morality and how we should treat one another?

My purpose wasn't a historical account of Hitler and Stalin's professed statements on the matter -- if that was my concern, I'd start with Darwin's own doubts and skepticism of the possibility that the theory of evolution had any merit, and his own confession of motives of his theories were to escape responsibility to a God.

It's a good thing you didn't, because you make reference to intellectual honesty later in your post. Can you point us to some evidence that Darwin's goal was to escape responsibility to a God? I've never seen any such statements in his work. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you heard this from an unreliable source rather than just making it up. Of course, I could be totally wrong, but I definitely won't believe it without a solid reference.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[plunge]

Bite your tongue:

"As for Armageddon, I just note with interest that's what the Bible says. That it's on the Plains of Megiddo. Right there in Israel. And it makes you wonder where this conflict's all going to ultimately lead. And I happen to believe it will ultimately lead to what the Bible says." -John Doolittle, Deputy Majority Whip, Secretary of the House Republican Conference

In other words: he is excited by the prospect that the Iraq war may lead to the end of the world. That's definately the sort of guy we need keeping us safe! What great motives he has!

(this is the same guy who is under Abramoff scandal investigation, thinks all gay people should be barred from being around children, etc.)

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[plunge]

"That's just the logical ramification of subscribing to the "Preservation of Favored Races" which is basically a racist view of the living."

Lol. It's obvious you haven't actually read it, because the word "races" has nothing to do with human races. Origin only even mentions human beings in passing at the end.

"Those murderous dictators were perfect Darwinians. Its also perfect justification for the destruction of the environment, endangered species, and various ecosystems, which apparently deserve to be destroyed if natural selection dictates that they do not maintain the ability to preserve themselves in their present state. "

lol again. Evolution is descriptive, not normative. None of the views you refer to are necessary or even logical outgrowths of evolution. By your logic, since Hitler used Christianity to rationalize what he did, Christianity is evil. But that argument is just as dumb as the one you used.

Voltaire on superstition

[flyingfsck]

Consider that this was written about 300 years ago, some 200 years before Darwin: THE superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant. Further, the superstitious man is governed by the fanatic and becomes fanatic. Superstition born in Paganism, adopted by Judaism, infested the Christian Church from the earliest times. All the fathers of the Church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. The Church always condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were really in communication with the devil. To-day one half of Europe thinks that the other half has long been and still is superstitious. The Protestants regard the relics, the indulgences, the mortifications, the prayers for the dead, the holy water, and almost all the rites of the Roman Church, as a superstitious dementia. Superstition, according to them, consists in taking useless practices for necessary practices. Among the Roman Catholics there are some more enlightened than their ancestors, who have renounced many of these usages formerly considered sacred; and they defend themselves against the others who have retained them, by saying: " They are indifferent, and what is merely indifferent cannot be an evil." It is difficult to mark the limits of superstition. A Frenchman travelling in Italy finds almost everything superstitious, and is hardly mistaken. The Archbishop of Canterbury maintains that the Archbishop of Paris is superstitious; the Presbyterians make the same reproach against His Grace of Canterbury, and are in their turn treated as superstitious by the Quakers, who are the most superstitious of all in the eyes of other Christians. In Christian societies, therefore, no one agrees as to what superstition is. The sect which seems to be the least attacked by this malady of the intelligence is that which has the fewest rites. But if with few ceremonies it is still strongly attached to an absurd belief, this absurd belief is equivalent alone to all the superstitious practices observed from the time of Simon the magician to that of Father Gauffridi. It is therefore clear that it is the fundamentals of the religion of one sect which is considered as superstition by another sect. The Moslems accuse all Christian societies of it, and are themselves accused. Who will judge this great matter? Will it be reason? But each sect claims to have reason on its side. It will therefore be force which will judge, while awaiting the time when reason will penetrate a sufficient number of heads to disarm force. Up to what point does statecraft permit superstition to be destroyed? This is a very thorny question; it is like asking up to what point one should make an incision in a dropsical person, who may die under the operation. It is a matter for the doctor's discretion. Can there exist a people free from all superstitious prejudices? That is to ask-Can there exist a nation of philosophers? It is said that there is no superstition in the magistrature of China. It is probable that none will remain in the magistrature of a few towns of Europe. Then the magistrates will stop the superstition of the people from being dangerous. These magistrates' example will not enlighten the mob, but the principal persons of the middle-classes will hold the mob in check. There is not perhaps a single riot, a single religious outrage in which the middle-classes were not formerly imbrued, because these middle-classes were then the mob; but reason and time will have changed them. Their softened manners will soften those of the lowest and most savage populace; it is a thing of which we have striking examples in more than one country. In a word, less superstition, less fanaticism; and less fanaticism, less misery.

Re:Voltaire on superstition

[tehcyder]

My God! It's empty of paragraph breaks!

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[plunge]

"Darwin was not a Christian. That claim demonstrates a lack of understanding of what a Christian is. Now I understand the reasons why someone might think that, as people generally broadly classify anyone associated with a Church that involves the Bible as being Christian, which isn't so. Society doesn't define what "Christian" is. Christ defined what Christian is. And one cannot reject the Word of God, and claim to be Christian. While it may seem uninstinctive or untraditional to do so, instinct and tradition don't define truth. According to the Bible, Catholocism isn't Christian either. You cannot reject the Bible, or any portion of it, and claim to be Christian. That isn't my opinion or religious belief -- its merely an accounting of the definition of what Christianity is and what it is not. "

Did you think this through at all? The Bible didn't EXIST during the time of Christ: how could Christ have endorsed a full literal reading of the Bible, including the NT, when it didn't even exist yet? How can Catholicism not be Christian according to the Bible when it was Catholicism that compiled the Bible in the first place? Good grief. Most of the traditions that Catholics hold that are extra-Biblical existed even before the Bible existed.

The view of of the Bible you are pushing didn't even emerge until just a few hundred years ago, and you want to pretend that it's the Original Gangsta Christian view? Come on: that's ridiculous.

Of course that's your opinion and religious belief. You don't get to personally define what Christianity is.

"I was saying that for those who have already accepted Darwinism, then they ought to examine the consequences of those beliefs and their contemporaries, and that is that regardless of their perceived (or hoped for) differences, Darwinianism puts them in the same philosophical category as those who committed those atrocities." :rolleyes: Again, you could apply the same to Martin Luther and Hitler and Christianity. Ever heard of "On the Jews and their Lies"? It's virtually the blueprint for the holocaust... and the final major work of the founder of the school of Biblical exegesis that you hold to.

"It is unimportant whether Hitler and Stalin professed Darwiniianism, as their actions were consistent with the consequential philosophy, which is "whatever goes"."

Look, I really hope this gets through to you somehow: evolution is not a philosophy of "Darwinism." By and large, the only people who ever talk about Darwinism are creationists trying to make evolution sound big and bad. But evolution is NOT A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. It's a scientific description of how life developed on this planet.

"My interest is in intellectual honesty"

Well, you aren't doing a very good job of it, I'm afraid.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[plunge]

"Even the Pope admitted that evolution happens, unless you want to say the Pope isn't Christian?"

Dude, you've read this guy's posts. Of COURSE he's going to say that only those who narrowly views Christianity in exactly the way he does is a Christian.

As long as it wasn't Chuck N.

[kezze]

video and text

Bias!

[Anonymous Coward]

I demand equal time for the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[rthille]

The "races" aren't "favored", certain individuals, possessing certain heritable traits, are better at surviving and reproducing in a given environment. That says nothing about whether the survivors are more 'desirable'.

As for what Hitler, Stalin, etc. used to justify their bad actions, they had numerous reasons, both religious and secular. There's certainly a _long_ history of people using religion to justify their actions: The inquisition, the Salem Witch Hunts, and more.

You might also look into the evolutionary theory for altruism and consider that destroying the environment isn't usually in any organism's best interest.

As for my friends, I prefer people who can think rationally.

America

[dannywalk]

Mention Charles Darwin, or the irrefutable fact of evolution by natural selection, and religious nuts start spouting. I guess the same thing might happen in Iran. You guys need to get yourselves out of the dark ages. There's no gods! Didn't you get the memo? -=dan

Re:America

[Korvar]

It's almost as bad as Wikipedia or World of Warcraft...

Re:America

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no gods! Didn't you get the memo?

That's right. The memo reads: "The is only ONE God"

how do you get to be wrong on EVERYTHING?

[misanthrope101]

The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life

Don't act like the title is a hush-hush secret, because that title is printed in the Penguin edition I bought from Amazon a month ago. And by "races," he meant what we call species. This is obvious to anyone who reads the first few pages of the book, which tells me you didn't read the book. Let me be more clear by quoting from the book you denigrate, but never read:

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil... The Origin of Species, Chapter 1

Oh my, Darwin was a cabbage racist! Stop the presses! Oh wait, that's stupid. You saw the word "races," thought "aha, ammunition" and went running. Here's a hint--don't trust creationist web-pages, because they'll give you a misleading, caricatured idea of what Darwinism means. They'll make you look like an idiot because you'll run around calling him a racist, when anyone who even reads chapter 1 of the book knows he was talking about varieties, or species, not races like the KKK gets hung up on.

I'm not clear why I would credit Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot et al to Darwin since all of these dictators were motivated by a lust for power, not because they were convinced of common descent. Are you calling everyone who believes in common descent a Nazi? "Those murderous dictators" weren't perfect Darwinists, because nothing they did was "Darwinian." Darwinism is based on variation in the gene pool, acted upon by a selective force, leading to diversity. Oppose that to Hitler, whose philosophy was based on the idea of a "pure race." It's obvious that Hitler's views were not based on Darwin's ideas. In fact, both Stalin and Hitler actually banned Darwin's works. Stalin banned the teaching of Darwinian evolution. So by what stretch of the imagination were they "perfect Darwinists"? If a political leader banned the bible, would you infer from that that he was a perfect Christian?

"a person is known by the friends they keep."

Since Darwin died long before Hitler or Stalin came to power, how could he keep their company? Even if they based their policies on his ideas, which they clearly didn't since they banned his works, what control does a naturalist have over a wacko who kills people 70 years later?

I don't ask that you suddenly change your mind. I do ask, however, that you stop being an idiot, and make an effort to think your arguments through. It takes one Google search and 30 seconds of reading to refute every single point you made. It's not that I think I'm smart, only that your arguments are so embarrassingly bad that people will inevitably conclude that you're stupid. If you aren't stupid, then stop being intellectually lazy.

Re:The Christian God and the Asean tsunami

[Anonymous Coward]

and the God who created natural laws which put 300,000 people to a misearable (not even peaceful) death in the Asean tsunami.. and the God who created dreadful genetic deseases like haemophilia, muscular dystrophy (are some people sinners at birth ?)

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[rthille]

Are you a christian? Do you then take god's command in Deuteronomy 13:12-16 to heart and kill people 'who have led their fellow-citizens astray, saying 'Let us go and server other gods'"? And when there are others who believe as you do, but are too squeamish to take part in such a religious killing, do you kill them as well, as commanded in Deuteronomy 17:12-13?

Or are you just a New Testament believer? If so, what about Jesus's demand that we fulfill every "jot" and "tittle" of the Old Testament law? (Matt 5:18), or do you burn them as Jesus suggests in John 15:6?

Check out the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online

[tigre]

The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale has just launched the public beta of The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online. It has about 25,000 pages worth of material now, much of it never previously published, and another 35,000 coming soon. The content may not be as appealing to the /. crowd, but having been a part of putting this together over the past couple years, I must say both the technology and the design are impressive. Instead of images of manuscripts, we have diplomatic transcriptions (i.e. text laid out in a fashion reflecting the layout of the manuscript, including strikeouts, spaces, and sometimes even drawings), rendered from XML. Where no edited version of the manuscript is available, we tranform the XML differently to produce a more readable version, and you can switch back and forth between the two. I could go on and on about it, but you'd be better of seeing for yourself.

Re:Check out the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online

[cascadingstylesheet]

>The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale has just launched the public
>beta of The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online.

Dude, I was literally just coming in to post this! (OK, with just a bit of unrighteous desire to tweak Darwin fans ;) )

This is excellent, especially as most publications of his work of any size are *extremely* pricey. Thanks!

Speaking of reading it....

[N Monkey]

Reading it would be a waste of time

Speaking of reading it, I found with Firefox the text kept disappearing after a couple of seconds. I ended up (eughh!) having to use the "open page in IE" extension.

Has anyone else had this problem or is it just me? :-(

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Korvar]

Claiming Darwin somehow caused Hitler is like claiming Newton caused V2 rockets. So Newton is also a Nazi! Or something. And let's not get started on that Jesus bloke, and all the stuff done in His name.

I can't believe everyone missed this

[A beautiful mind]

Charles Darwin's work available online? The copyright expired so soon?

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[smoker2]

Creation has more to do with love than physical assembly.

If that's so, why do so many religious factions seem hell bent on destruction ?

Darwin, Copyright held by Cambridge!

[astaines]

The works published are all long out of UK copyright, but Cambridge University asserts :-

" Permission is hereby granted, without agreement and without licence or royalty fees, to use and to download and print a single copy of the Materials for private study and research, provided that such usage and copying is for non-commercial purposes only and not for any commercial advantage and that any copyright notice within the Materials and these Terms of Use appear in any copy of the Materials.

Except as permitted above and use or copying under statutory allowances as permitted in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 as amended, the User undertakes not to copy, reproduce, publish, store in any medium (including extraction into any other website, database, compilation, or computer programme), generate collections, distribute, transmit, retransmit, modify, manipulate, alter, rent, lease or lend, or broadcast or show any part of the Website without the prior written permission of the University.

To use and copy the Materials otherwise requires specific written permission from the University and the original copyright holder(s) as identified and the User undertakes to contact the University and the copyright holder(s) to obtain permission to do so.

Any further use may infringe copyright and moral rights and may attract civil remedies and criminal penalties. The University regularly monitors access to the Website, other websites and publications in all media and utilizes digital watermarking to assist in the tracing of illegal use and will take action for infringement of copyright and breach of these Terms of Use.

The User warrants to the University that the User will not infringe the University's intellectual property rights herein nor will the User breach the intellectual property rights of any third party herein."

This is their legal right, but it means, for example, that if Project Gutenberg wanted to mount these works, they would need to scan them proofread them and do all the work again. This seems to miss the point.

Anthony Staines

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Anonymous Coward]

> Christ defined what Christian is. And one cannot reject the Word of God, and claim to be Christian.

Fine, if I was at all convinced the Bible is the Word of God, but that's certainly not been proven.

All I have is YOUR word that it's God's word... and all you have is someone ELSE's word that it's God's word, and all THEY had was someone else's word, etc. etc.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Deadstick]

Interesting to note the difference in public esteem between him and Newton at the times of their deaths...if you visit Westminster Abbey and see the elaborately sculpted tomb of Newton, and step a little to your left, you're standing on Darwin.

rj

Flame thrower !!!

[DrYak]

My problem is belief in random mutation. Specifically with the word RANDOM. I don't believe in a random universe-

In fact evolution is not completly random. The mecanisms of evolution themselves are as important for the fitness of a specific individual as the characteristic of the spiecie into whith the individual has elvolved. Thus evolving into a specie which is more efficient at evolution is also something that is positivly selected by evolution.
What I'm trying to say is that we've evolved into creature that are better in the way they use to evolve. (And that doesn't only includes the 'science' that we homo sapiens were able to discover).
Thus modern living organism have different means of regulating the mutation rate based on stress from environment (some bacteria can change their mutation rate if they're unfit to their environment, say like when they're exposed to new antibiotics).
Almost any modern living organism have methods of cutting/pasting/copying DNA to speed up the building of new genes out of functionnal parts instead of waiting for new genes to appears slowly one single base-pair mutation at a time (For exemple, bacteria have plasmids among other methods. Eucaryotes have transposons, among other, and in facts that's how antibodies are made).
Backup copies exists to give more freedom (we're diploids). Errors are eleminated quickly (in human, most bad mutation die very very early in pregnancie. Sometimes even before the mother really notice she's pregnant. Genetic aberrations like trisomie are the exception rather than the norm).

Yes, evolution is much more efficient than it would if it depended on waiting for random single DNA base pairs mutation. But that increased efficiency doesn't absolutly need any deity to explain it. Evolution brought mean to evolve more efficiently rather than wait for randomness to strike.

Also, as pointed by other /.ers, there ARE a lot of RANDOM natural events : decay of radioactive elements, almost anything that deals with quantum mechanics, etc. all those phenomenons cannot be predicted exactly, even if that scares mister Albert "God doesn't play with dices" Einstein.

Also, don't forget the chaos theory were some seemingly small and simple events may chain and produce after a lot of generation rather unbelievible events.

that's as silly as the random God of Islam to me.

One flame war in this thread is enough. Don't use the specificity of this field (evolution and the sicence behind it) to excuse complete ignorance in other fields (history of religion and culture) to flame about theologic topics.

(Note: I'm not muslim. I don't have extensive knowledge about Islam, but at least I refrain from trying to make smart comments on a religion that I don't know deeply).

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Also, as pointed by other /.ers, there ARE a lot of RANDOM natural events : decay of radioactive elements, almost anything that deals with quantum mechanics, etc. all those phenomenons cannot be predicted exactly, even if that scares mister Albert "God doesn't play with dices" Einstein.

An inability to predict is not randomness- it's a limitation of our species at present time. To say otherwise is just arrogance.

Also, don't forget the chaos theory were some seemingly small and simple events may chain and produce after a lot of generation rather unbelievible events.

I see chaos theory as arrogance also; it's just a mathematical model to adjust for what is really merely a limitation of our species.

One flame war in this thread is enough. Don't use the specificity of this field (evolution and the sicence behind it) to excuse complete ignorance in other fields (history of religion and culture) to flame about theologic topics.

(Note: I'm not muslim. I don't have extensive knowledge about Islam, but at least I refrain from trying to make smart comments on a religion that I don't know deeply).

It's all tied together, and is in fact the real central debate of the time. This is a cosmological/theological debate that only touches on evolution in three areas that aren't really central to the theory of evolution at all- the theory of evolution is compatible with two out of three sides, for the reasons you posted above. Luckily, that third side is a very small minority of believers in religions. Unluckily, at present time, that small minority controls suicide bombers in Islam and nuclear weapons in Christianity.

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[bogado]

An inability to predict is not randomness- it's a limitation of our species at present time. To say otherwise is just arrogance.

There have been some debate on the field of quantic theory about this. The problem is that quantum mechanics works with the use of probabilities, instead of saying that a particle is at the position (x,y,z) a quantum scientist will say that the point, or some region around this point, is the most probable place to this particle to be.

But where does this probability comes from? Is it a dice thrown or more scientifically speaking random? Or does it come from hidden variables that we are not capable of watching? There was some theory and some discussion about this and a lot of tests, but according to a dear friend of mine that studies and research this for a living and also according to some wikipedia articles (1, 2, 3 and 4) that does not happen and in fact the quantum theory states that the universe is indeed a random place.

Many people is not comfortable with that, including scientists that are still looking for those hidden variables, witch would be able to predict the results, and they may even be correct, but for all we know now the universe is random. And this is what science is all about, testing and accepting your ignorance. If there is anyone being arrogant and saying that this or that scientific theory (witch ID is not) is the absolute truth then this person is probably not a scientist or at least is not a very good one.

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Many people is not comfortable with that, including scientists that are still looking for those hidden variables, witch would be able to predict the results, and they may even be correct, but for all we know now the universe is random. And this is what science is all about, testing and accepting your ignorance. If there is anyone being arrogant and saying that this or that scientific theory (witch ID is not) is the absolute truth then this person is probably not a scientist or at least is not a very good one.

If the universe is random, then most likely not only do the gods exist, but every god ever imagined exists, and continues to exist despite our not beliving in them anymore....er...sorry, was channeling Douglas Adams there for a second.

The *only* problem true IDers have with evolution is the idea of a nondeterministic and purposeless universe. EVERYTHING in evolution makes more sense than the taken-out-of-context verse picking that the creationists do; in fact, evolution can tell you WHY God would have had to make fishes before birds, and such.

There are plenty of atheists who base their whole way of life on the idea of a random and purposeless universe, and I'd agree- they're not very good scientists either.

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[bogado]

I don't see in what manner a non-deterministic chaotic and random universe implies in a purposeless universe. In fact this could be a major point to insert your favorite 'god' into scheme, where scientist see chaos and random events the believers could see divine intervention. The fact that there is a completely random, that do not depend on no measurable variable could be a very good way for a higher being introduce his will into our reality.

I, myself, am an agnostic, I do not know if there is a god or not. I choose to live my life as if there isn't since most of what I see and learn points to a direction that even if there exists a god then the probability I have to choose the exact correct religion to follow is so low that most of the people world will end up in hell anyway, so I might just live my life by my standards anyway, witch in my point of view is better and more tolerant then most of the official POVs of most of the religions around the world.

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I don't see in what manner a non-deterministic chaotic and random universe implies in a purposeless universe. In fact this could be a major point to insert your favorite 'god' into scheme, where scientist see chaos and random events the believers could see divine intervention.

Do you know anything about the history of science? Science is NOT atheistic- atheists have co-opted science yes, but it simply isn't. It is in fact a very theistic pursuit- the idea that by looking at divine revelation only, we're missing a large part of the story. If God is a creator- an artist- then he left a lot of himself in his creation, and by studying his creation we can learn things we can't learn from scripture alone. It's the ultimate retort to the Sola Scriptura folks, the ones who I blame for creating atheists and agnostics by insisting on an anthromorphic, and very irrational, God.

The fact that there is a completely random, that do not depend on no measurable variable could be a very good way for a higher being introduce his will into our reality.

Only for a fundamentalist. No rational God would behave that way. Rational Gods follow their own rules- fundamentalist idols are as capricious as Zeus and as insane as Allah.

I, myself, am an agnostic, I do not know if there is a god or not. I choose to live my life as if there isn't since most of what I see and learn points to a direction that even if there exists a god then the probability I have to choose the exact correct religion to follow is so low that most of the people world will end up in hell anyway, so I might just live my life by my standards anyway, witch in my point of view is better and more tolerant then most of the official POVs of most of the religions around the world.

Interesting thought- but how do you objectively know that your standards are correct? From my point of view, that's almost as irrational as saying a scripture written during the reign of King David (within recorded history) has anything factual to say about the beginings of life on this planet.

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[bogado]

Do you know anything about the history of science? Science is NOT atheistic- atheists have co-opted science yes, but it simply isn't. It is in fact a very theistic pursuit- the idea that by looking at divine revelation only, we're missing a large part of the story. If God is a creator- an artist- then he left a lot of himself in his creation, and by studying his creation we can learn things we can't learn from scripture alone. It's the ultimate retort to the Sola Scriptura folks, the ones who I blame for creating atheists and agnostics by insisting on an anthromorphic, and very irrational, God.

Just because something started in a way, it doesn't mean it stays this way. Astronomy began as astrology, and today you probably going to make an astronomer mad if you confuse the two. Both science and religion have the same base, the nature of question why are we here and where did it all came from? Science grew into a mindset that requires verification and solid facts that can be separated from pure faith. If a theory don't predict something and or be tested it is not scientific.

Science, scriptures and faith do mix well today, I believe that they are not incompatible as some believe, but when you're making science you have to put your faith to the side. It is a difficult thing to do, and many scientist get to a wrong conclusion due to some faith. This was the case of Johannes Kepler, you may have seen this story on the series 'cosmos' by Carl Sagan, but in the case you haven't he followed all his life a dream of a perfect cosmos based in the 5 perfect polyhedral solids, his search was futile and when he finally had access to a more precise measurements he abandoned his faith and created a new theory that stayed current till the times of Einstein.

So science, western science at least, may have spent it's youth locked in monasteries and being practiced solely by monks, but it has grown out of this. In fact the followers of the "insane allah" did have the most advanced science during the middle ages, and that made them expand and conquer a great empire that invaded and conquered the Spanish. This was obtained by a forward thinking of educating the people and not to lock the knowledge in the hands of the clergy.

The fact that there is a completely random, that do not depend on no measurable variable could be a very good way for a higher being introduce his will into our reality.

Only for a fundamentalist. No rational God would behave that way. Rational Gods follow their own rules- fundamentalist idols are as capricious as Zeus and as insane as Allah.

If there is a "god" that must follow "his rules" to the letter and it cannot show his will in no way whatsoever then why do you need a god? A god that has no influence is as good as no god at all. That is why many scientist are not comfortable with the notion of a black matter, that is predicted by some accepted equations, that has no influence in normal matter apart from the gravitational one, witch is very weak. It seem that it could be simpler to review the equations that shows that there is such need and not to depend on this ghost like matter that has almost no influence in the world we see.

Interesting thought- but how do you objectively know that your standards are correct? From my point of view, that's almost as irrational as saying a scripture written during the reign of King David (within recorded history) has anything factual to say about the beginings of life on this planet.

Correct? According to what rules? What is okay for me to do here, in Brazil, might be immoral or inappropriate in the US, and vice versa. As I said, there as many point of views of what is the correct way to live as there is cultures or even people in the world. Most people, in the west at least, have a large intersection in what they believe is good or bad, but

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If there is a "god" that must follow "his rules" to the letter and it cannot show his will in no way whatsoever then why do you need a god?

To have somebody to create the rules in the first place. Entropy insists that information will, in the long run, be destroyed. Our observations of Big Bang radiation give us a solid example of one point in universal history when information was *created*. Not only that, but our current models of physics say this is a chaos math situation- the Big Bang is back far enough in history that a .000001% difference in the constants we know about could well have resulted in a lifeless universe. If that's not an argument *for* a "god" and *for* an intelligent, rational, and reasonable god at that, I don't know what is.

A god that has no influence is as good as no god at all.

Not no influence- rather quite a singular bit of influence. A bit knowable by science.

That is why many scientist are not comfortable with the notion of a black matter, that is predicted by some accepted equations, that has no influence in normal matter apart from the gravitational one, witch is very weak. It seem that it could be simpler to review the equations that shows that there is such need and not to depend on this ghost like matter that has almost no influence in the world we see.

True, and I say the same thing about Quantum Physics, which in an almost pathological attempt to remove any idea of God from the equations, creates a new God called "random probability".

I'm pretty sure this new God is just instrument error in the long run.

Correct? According to what rules?

Which set of rules doesn't really matter, though it should be a set that fits you. The only rule that I see as important with morality is that the standard comes from *outside yourself*, that is, that you have an objective standard. Otherwise you're just fooling yourself into not feeling guilty about your favorite sins. It's interesting that you bring up Brazil- I find South American cultures to often be very schizophrenic. They've got a deep history of Roman Catholicism going back before the Spanish rule and Simon Boliviar; but they've also got a deep history of REJECTING what the rest of the world would consider anything related to sexual or functional morality. I suspect this is much like the American Evangelical Christian Preacher- who tries very hard to avoid ever preaching on his own favorite sins.

Re:Flame thrower !!!

[bogado]

Which set of rules doesn't really matter, though it should be a set that fits you. The only rule that I see as important with morality is that the standard comes from *outside yourself*, that is, that you have an objective standard. Otherwise you're just fooling yourself into not feeling guilty about your favorite sins. It's interesting that you bring up Brazil- I find South American cultures to often be very schizophrenic. They've got a deep history of Roman Catholicism going back before the Spanish rule and Simon Boliviar; but they've also got a deep history of REJECTING what the rest of the world would consider anything related to sexual or functional morality. I suspect this is much like the American Evangelical Christian Preacher- who tries very hard to avoid ever preaching on his own favorite sins.

There is aways a set of standards that come from "outside", the norms and rules of your local culture and this has little connection to the religion people believe in. This is apparent in the exact fact that you shown in your comment, we tend to reject some forms of sexual morality that other places put a high value. That is also true to the Americans, you tend to make no notice to the sin of greed or gluttony for instance.

The problem is not that that we reject something, is simply that we define this in a different way, we deal with sexuality in a more natural way, but we do have our sexual taboos, the point is that they are different. If you go to a beach around here, you will probably think that all the people is "nude" or near it, but for us there is no nudity there. While some times all of those people would be more self conscious of appearing in their underwear, even though they may "show less skin" than the bath suits.

People here are not afraid of being touched or kissed, but no one expects that some one would slap some friend asses like we see in many movies.

The point is the norms are quite different from what you are used too and it may seem wrong for you, but many of the things we hear from you seem wrong to us. We don't think it is horrible to show a mother breast feeding it's baby in a cover of a magazine, for instance.

And by the way, Brasil was never under a Spanish ruler, we were colonized by the Portuguese. Also each South American country has a different way, and Brazil specially, due to it's size, has many different ways and the way people follow the religion varies wildly from region to region and even inside the cities depending on witch social group you belong.

This will certainly appeal to the /. crowd

[sigzero]

Let the bashing begin...oh wait it already has.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[torako]

I think the problem with Quantum Mechanics might be the fundamentally statistical nature of it. Think of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, for example, p and x can't both be measured accurately at the same time. And that is not just because our instruments are interfering, but that's a fundamental feature of small scale physics in general.

Observables that are fundamentally statistical might interfere with the concept of a Free Will...

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It's all a matter of lifecycle of religious sects- they're just still young enough to believe it's their turn.

Re:Does it include his change of view?

[msuarezalvarez]

Why would his thinking that the theory of evolution is wrong invalidate the theory?

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Here in the US, I've found that many people call themselves "Christian" rather than any denomination, as they they're the "real" Christians or something. It's very confusing.

Yes, indeed it is- which is why I avoid calling myself a Christian.

Where exactly is this bit in Peter about good works? I'll have to remember that next time I talk to a Christian.

Actuall, Peter was the "Cloud of Witnesses", the Saints. James is the one who said "Not by faith alone are we saved, but by every good work"- a direct refutation of the common Evangelical Protestant doctrine of Sola Fides/Sola Gracias- by faith and grace alone are we saved. I never remember the verse number (I'm about the furtherest thing you can get from a Bible thumper) but a search of any online English bible for the words "Faith Alone" will turn it up.

The statues bit comes from what I've heard many Protestants say about Catholics. They seem to think that Catholics actually worship the statues they have in churches, rather than them being just statues to look at and remind you of certain people like the rest of the sane world.

Part of the problem there is that Catholics have a different meaning of the word "Pray" than other Christians do- we use it in the Old English form of a petition, or even just talking to a beloved but dead family member. It has nothing to do with worship for us.

What's wrong with Quantum Mechanics? It's a little weird, but it has accurately predicted many things and hasn't been superceded by anything else yet. Of course, it breaks down for many cases, just as Einstein's and Newton's theories break down for some cases which is why Physicists have been looking for the "holy grail" of unification theories for quite some time.

The theological problem with Quantum Mechanics is the same problem we have with Islamic Fundamentalists right now- an unpredictable universe. A random event just isn't rational from our understanding of God and the Universe; but there's a way out theologically, simply by redefining the word random to that which human beings cannot predict. A fine line, but the more the philosophy behind science progresses, the closer we get to knowing the mind of God, the more miraculous His creation seems, and the smaller his actual act of creation is.

Re:frames or why I luv Flying Spaghetti Monster

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No, he's saying that Intelligent Design isn't a theory, it's a belief pretending to be a theory.

Then so is evolution, since the theoretical aspects of ID and atheistic evolution are identical and inseparable.

That given, most GUI websites aren't designed very intelligently and use Graphically Ugly Interfaces.

That's because they failed to learn the Darwin school of engineering.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I think the problem with Quantum Mechanics might be the fundamentally statistical nature of it. Think of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, for example, p and x can't both be measured accurately at the same time. And that is not just because our instruments are interfering, but that's a fundamental feature of small scale physics in general.

Actually, it's smaller than that. It's the last phrase in specific- the idea that on a very fundamental level there is statistically unpredictable behavior that will *never* be known, even to God.

Observables that are fundamentally statistical might interfere with the concept of a Free Will...

Oddly enough, it interferes equally well with Predestination AND the concept of a Free Will. It intereferes with the concept of a Free Will because there is no solid rock to stand on, only shifting sands that we will never be able to control. It interferes with the concept of Predestination because it postulates, in effect, a mindless and insane god that is *always* interfereing in the universe on a micro scale.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Laser Lou]

If that's so, why do so many religious factions seem hell bent on destruction ?

By destroying stuff, they think that they're helping God in creation by removing "evil" things and people that they believe God does not love.

Re:For those interested in a modern intro to the m

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Don't argue with me, argue with Sister Ann Marie. (Best science teacher I ever had, by the way!)

I would, but I'd ask her to clarify first. For instance, I agree that quite often, Evangelical Protestants are worshiping a Dead Book instead of a Living God....

Rationality is core

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Because some people aren't rational beings, that's why. Because some people were taught to believe certain things, and they have no interest in educating themselves on the subject they fear before they argue about it. Because some people just don't know or care what they're talking about.

EXACTLY RIGHT. Rationality is core- you can't argue with irrational individuals, and they exist on both sides of every debate.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[ShakaUVM]

If you're a Xian, you don't need to follow the OT laws.

Social Darwinism

[ShakaUVM]

Look, I really hope this gets through to you somehow: evolution is not a philosophy of "Darwinism." By and large, the only people who ever talk about Darwinism are creationists trying to make evolution sound big and bad. But evolution is NOT A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. It's a scientific description of how life developed on this planet.

Funny story. A bunch of people used the TOE to go from a description of how the world is, to how the world should be. This isn't uncommon. When you reject all metaphysics and allow only science and math as "meaningful" (which is the central thesis of positive materialism, the dominant philosophy of the 20th Century), then when making normative statements they can't allow God, or any metaphysical ethics, so they often turn to science. For example, "The human colon length ratio is in between that of carnivores and vegitarian animals, therefore we *should* be omnivores." Or (staying on topic) "Animals prey on weaker animals, therefore it is *right* for humans to prey on weaker humans, and for the weaker humans to die off to strengten the herd."

This is one of the fundamental problems with a positive materialist outlook. When you deny everything else, only science can provide normative values, and science is horrendous at providing normative values.

To stay on target, it's pretty much indisputable the line of thought went:
Darwin -> TOE -> Social Darwinism (which Darwin was sort of a supporter of) -> Eugenics -> Nazi-Eugenics.

So it's wrong to say that Darwin would have supported the gas chambers, but he's a definite influence in the lineage of thought.

Re:Social Darwinism

[plunge]

"Funny story. A bunch of people used the TOE to go from a description of how the world is, to how the world should be."

One can say the same for any knowledge about the world. However, that doesn't make the connection legitimate, inevitable, nor the fault of the fact.

"This isn't uncommon. When you reject all metaphysics and allow only science and math as "meaningful" (which is the central thesis of positive materialism, the dominant philosophy of the 20th Century), then when making normative statements they can't allow God, or any metaphysical ethics, so they often turn to science."

As you keep failing to understand, being a scientist doesn't preclude being religious. It might preclude your brand of fanaticism, but it certainly hasn't prevented the majority of scientists from believing in God. Your grasp of the 20th century and its dominant philosophy is just as silly as your claims about evolution.

"For example, "The human colon length ratio is in between that of carnivores and vegitarian animals, therefore we *should* be omnivores." Or (staying on topic) "Animals prey on weaker animals, therefore it is *right* for humans to prey on weaker humans, and for the weaker humans to die off to strengten the herd.""

Ok... so? These inferences are all leaps of illogic. The fact that one can make such leaps does not demonstrate anything.

"This is one of the fundamental problems with a positive materialist outlook. When you deny everything else, only science can provide normative values, and science is horrendous at providing normative values."

Science doesn't try to provide normative values in the first place. People have normative values. Science merely tells them what the situations they are in are like. It's up to people to decide and judge what's right and wrong. You can blather on about the 20th century, but the fact is that 20th century normative values are by far superior to those of any century before. 20th century values for the first time in human history consider racism, sexism, and other such things to be unjustified (in no small part to science, and biology in specific, demonstrating that they are false). We put real value in fairness and justice in our systems of due process. We don't consider some people lords and other serfs. And so on. Face it: the liberal enlightenment is progress that even the most 20th century-hating fundamentalist would never want to go back on.

"To stay on target, it's pretty much indisputable the line of thought went:
Darwin -> TOE -> Social Darwinism (which Darwin was sort of a supporter of) -> Eugenics -> Nazi-Eugenics."

Darwin wasn't much of a supporter of social darwinism: he was one of the most progressive people of his age in terms of racial treatment. I could draw a similar link from Christ to Hitler's anti-semetic holocaust. It's no more and no less accurate than your silly "line of thought." In fact, Hitler far far more often referenced Christ and Martin Luther than he ever made mention of Darwin. I have a feeling that both you and Hitler had an about equal amount of knowledge about Darwin and the theory of evolution in general, which is to say, not very much.

"So it's wrong to say that Darwin would have supported the gas chambers, but he's a definite influence in the lineage of thought."

He's also a definate influence in the lineage of thought that finally put an end to racism as an acceptable belief about human beings by demonstrating that they all came from a very recent common ancestor and are so genetically intermingled as to no matter.

Re:Social Darwinism

[ShakaUVM]

"As you keep failing to understand..."

"It might preclude your brand of fanaticism"

"I have a feeling that both you and Hitler had an about equal amount of knowledge"

I have the feeling you think that I'm the other poster you've been talking with.

Before insulting someone you should probably, I dunno, check the username of the person you're responding to, so you don't stick your foot quite so far into your mouth.

If you want to argue with me, and not the other guy, please point out which step of logic you disagree with:
1) Darwin developed the TOE.
2) The TOE inspired Social Darwinism
3) Social Darwinism inspired Eugenics
4) Eugenics inspired the actions of the Nazis.

And then please write a paper about it, because it will be quite revolutionary.

The Nazis were occultist syncretists, and used a wide variety of things in developing their "philosophy". Eugenics was just one of their influences, but certainly an important one.

Re:Social Darwinism

[plunge]

Ah, you aren't. But then, you are making the exact same stupid argument, so it really comes to no matter.

"If you want to argue with me, and not the other guy, please point out which step of logic you disagree with:
1) Darwin developed the TOE.
2) The TOE inspired Social Darwinism
3) Social Darwinism inspired Eugenics
4) Eugenics inspired the actions of the Nazis."

For me to point out an error in logic, you need to first supply some logic. All you've supplied is a chain of events, and not a particularly direct or sensible one either. Yes, some people played a game of telephone with Darwin

"The Nazis were occultist syncretists, and used a wide variety of things in developing their "philosophy". Eugenics was just one of their influences, but certainly an important one."

Sure, so... what happened to your point? What happened to all the other things you claimed? Have you really retreated down to: "well, the Nazis developed a warped philosophy based in part on their poor understanding of evolution and their eugenic beliefs." What exactly is the point of that again? They did the same, arguably with a lot more emphasis and cultural resonance, with Christianity. So?

If Darwin's ideas were so toxic, how come the British didn't join up with the Nazis, given that Darwin was English and his theories had war wider berth there?

And regardless, what does any of this, this entire discussion, have to do with whether or not Darwin's actual theories, his actual work, was on point or not?

Re:Social Darwinism

[ShakaUVM]

>>For me to point out an error in logic, you need to first supply some logic. All you've supplied is a chain of events...

Welcome to the field of history.

>>If Darwin's ideas were so toxic

I didn't claim his ideas were toxic, simply they, through a chain of events, resulted in some degree of influence over the Holocaust.

>>Sure, so... what happened to your point? What happened to all the other things you claimed?

Sigh... are you still confusing me with the other guy?

Re:Social Darwinism

[plunge]

"Welcome to the field of history."

History is rarely so scatterbrained.

"I didn't claim his ideas were toxic, simply they, through a chain of events, resulted in some degree of influence over the Holocaust."

And a much stronger chain connects Christ to the Holocaust. So?

"Sigh... are you still confusing me with the other guy?"

It doesn't matter who you are: where is your point? I can connect the works of Shakespeare, through a chain of events, to result in some influence over Charles Manson. So?

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be wrong.

There is hope for you yet.

(And I'm not talking about returning to the fold of true belief.)

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Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[plunge]

I'm sorry that people have modded you down or spoken rudely to you. Unfortunately, such treatment has little bearing on whether your arguments make sense or not.

"But while I may state my own views, my general purpose in these posts hasn't been to persuade, but to merely discuss the logical consequences of any belief or opinion someone holds. "

The problem is that you haven't demonstrated logical consequences: there are gaping holes in the connections you are drawing: often SEVERAL leaps of flawed logic. Things you assert are facts are 180 wrong or misrepresentations, and so on.

Your account of science, for instance, bears little relation to actual science or the philosophy of empiricism that undergirds it. The origin of life is 100% within the realm of science: you seem to be confusing several different senses of the word "origin." The only things that are not are those which are beyond the realm of physical evidence to point one way or the other: the origin of the universe may be one such thing, since there appears to be no way to get any data prior a certain point in time. What science requires is not faith, but an appreciation of the natural principles that appear to operate in our universe, making it explorable by logic and evidence. This principle is not taken on faith, but rather because the alternative is not God, but rather simple incoherency: the inability to say anything about anything.

You've also failed completely to demonstrate that evolution is a worldview that has any of the implications you claim. You've tried unsuccessfully to change the subject when its pointed out that the majority of people who consider evolution to be sound science are religious believers. You've tried instead to claim that they are not what you specifically define as Christian. But even if that definition weren't so strained, it wouldn't matter: that's irrelevant. You claimed that evolution is a worldview that denies one the ability to have a moral system based onGod's commands, and that claim is clearly false even if you think people pray to the wrong God (and they can say the same about you anyway: so what even on that?)

In science, there is no belief in "eternal matter" as you claim. Again: science is not a grand philosophy of everything but rather a pragmatic tool for understanding based on the only common element to all people: physical evidence. Science is not the be all and end all of Truth, capital T, but it is the one domain we know of in which we focus on what we could objectively know, as opposed to merely warring with our subjective beliefs without any hope of reconciliation.

"Without this, evolutionary theory cannot even begin to be considered as an option. This is not subject to opinion -- its a fact."

No, it isn't. Science doesn't start from saying anything about the Biblical story: you are simply so obsessed with it that you cannot imagine anything as being either decidedly for it or against it from the start. But science does have any interest in it or any other body of claims at all: that's not how science works. Science, instead, starts with natural regularities and knowledge about the world around us and applies these to the world to learn more about it. Again, just because you are so wrapped up in the idea of faith over everything does not mean that everything else is as well. That's simply not how science works. Even the basic axioms of rational existence need not be believed as aspects of faith: it's perfectly reasonable to treat them as provisional.

Your grasp of morality is similarly flawed. The existence or directions of God are, as we've known since Plato pointed it out, irrelevant to the question of what is moral. Either rape is wrong or it isn't: it can't be wrong only if a God exists and says so, because that would make the morality of rape depedent rather than necessary, which removes all force from it. If the definition of "right" is simply "what God commands" then the concept of right has no indepedent meaning from "somethi

One last thing

[plunge]

"Also, those whose blood pressure boiled off the charts also demonstrated a conflict with their own beliefs, as in their evolutionary world, such stupidity, as you seem to view me having, shouldn't be offensive at all. I should rather be viewed as a weaker organism, less able to survive, which the powers of time and chance will relegate to extinction; I have a sense though, that deep down not even you believe that."

Of course none of us believe that, because, again, you are claiming that we hold evolution as a normative worldview, and you're simply wrong, we don't. Nothing about evolution as a physical fact of biological life insists that anyone care, anymore than the germ theory of disease implies that we should just let all diseases run their course.

There is no conflict with their beliefs, because you are the only one claiming that anyone believes that.

Re:The Christian God and the Asean tsunami

[Marxist Hacker 42]

and the God who created natural laws which put 300,000 people to a misearable (not even peaceful) death in the Asean tsunami..

Considering how overpopulated that coastline was getting, some would consider that a GOOD thing. Not to mention the fact that anybody who subscribed to traditional teachings knew that when the sea goes out it's time to head for the hills. Only really *stupid* modern people were caught by that tsunami.

and the God who created dreadful genetic deseases like haemophilia, muscular dystrophy (are some people sinners at birth ?)

Yes, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that for some to be saved, others must suffer- that there is no good without evil.

Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately

[FrostedChaos]

What a shame - you were doing so well until this point. Care to mention any of this evidence you have? Evolution: the inheritence of genes based on differential reproductive success. I say that it is happening, and it will always happen. Simple as that.

Well, genetic engineering is advancing by leaps and bounds. We're learning how to map genes to diseases and other characteristics. Combine that with birth control and artificial insemination, and you can have kids with any of your genes that you want. And this is only using the stuff that I can think of off of the top of my head-- actual biologists are working on things like viruses that can alter your DNA after you're born (to do things like cure diabetes), etc.

So yes, I think it's fair to say that man has transcended biological evolution. It's kind of scary in a way, but it's also kind of reassuring in a way, because it means that we don't have to listen to the eugenics folks.