Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
The little-known fact that he signed his name as "Chuck D."
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Oooh, good, I've been looking for some new fiction to read.
(Let the flamewar commence.)
That web site is the best argument against intelligent design I've ever seen...
New punctuation update "~" (no quotes) at the end of a line to indicate sarcasm. ~
vs.
English has a future tense for a reason. Please learn to use it.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
from tfa: This document has been accessed 87820 times since 09 October 2006
Gentle website, prepare to evolve or perish.
May I recommend the works of a guy named Issac Newton? He had a few amusing errors also.
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?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
So is this what they call Open Darwin? *DUCKS*
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?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Blah blah blah, religion.
Please respond with generic evolution flame.
thankyou.
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.
It'll be interesting to watch this site evolve
He's saying that nobody intelligent would have designed that website. Or something along those lines.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
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.
--
make install -not war
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
Trusted by cats.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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)
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.
Just watch out for paper cuts. If you thought getting them on your fingers hurt.... *YOW*
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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.
I'm not convinced about authorship. Has an expert actually authenticated this work?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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.
There are all sorts of made-up facts about Darwin to be had, if you're into that sort of thing.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
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.
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.
Meh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
maybe a little...
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.
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
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.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
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.
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.
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.
No data, no cry
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!"
"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)
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
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.
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?
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.
Come hear me sing!
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
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.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
I thought it was a new MMORPG.
can you please repeat with the "make sense" filter switched on.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
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.
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.
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.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
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.)
"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.
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.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"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. "
: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.
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."
"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.
"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.
video and text
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.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
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
Man Needs God Like Birds Need Helicopters
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:
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?
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.
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?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
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.
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?
Really? Ever heard of ring species.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
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.
Korvar the Fox!! www.korvar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
Charles Darwin's work available online? The copyright expired so soon?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
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
-- Anthony Staines
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...
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
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
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.
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).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Observables that are fundamentally statistical might interfere with the concept of a Free Will...
It's all a matter of lifecycle of religious sects- they're just still young enough to believe it's their turn.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Why would his thinking that the theory of evolution is wrong invalidate the theory?
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
No data, no cry
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....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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".
"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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"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.
If you're a Xian, you don't need to follow the OT laws.
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.
> 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:
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):
Got the point?
"Oh, I am sure you know better, young man."
:) 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.
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?
> 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. :-)
"You had repeated this to me twice, but yet no clear conception I heard from you."
:-) Isn't this an Evolution concept? Or now evolutionists believe into something else?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"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.
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).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"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.
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."
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"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.
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
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"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?
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"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!"
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.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
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
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
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
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
If you had faith why would you test and question?
:-). 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.
Because it's an article of faith, of course!
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 -
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot