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Kansas Adopts New Science Standards
porcupine8 writes "The Kansas State Board of Education has changed the state science standards once again, this time to take out language questioning evolution. This turnaround comes fast on the heels of the ouster given this past election to the ultra-conservative Board members who originally introduced the language. 'Science' has also been re-redefined as 'a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations' (the word 'natural' had been previously stricken from the definition). If you'd like to see the new standards, a version showing all additions and deletions is available from the KS DOE's website (PDF)."
I suspect that this probably wouldn't have happened in the first place if people in that area had bothered to participate in their local elections before being humiliated on an international scale.
Look at all the tornados.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Here we go round the Mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush
Here we go round the Mulberry bush on a cold and frosty morning
One year, the wind will change and Kansas will be stuck like that forever. I just hope it's the right way.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Apparently the line separating church & state is quite blurry these days...
Launch every sig.
From one of the links, quote in Nov 2005:
"This is a sad day. We're becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that," said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat.
Henceforth, all activity and research in the field of computer science must be explained by natural phenomenom. The term 'bug' will use the September 9th, 1945 definition and nothing else. Unnatural explanations such as missing semi-colon's and its ilk fall into the category of religion and a belief structure not cohesive with the true definition of science.
Does this mean we don't need our pirate supporting overlord anymore?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1 bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, pass it round... Oh, umm...
After watching that for five minutes, I can't tell if that guy's trying to be sincere or if the whole thing is satire. Scary stuff.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Regarding the so-called "ultra-conservative Board members":
Conservative belief does not necessarily intersect much with religion.
These were _ultra-religious_ board members.
Let's at least get that part right.
BWilde.
Quick... queue the "But science doesn't explain everything, there has to be a designer" kooks.
Trolling is a art,
I for one welcome our new flip flop masters.
For you see, it's getting harder to see if we really are in Kansas anymore...
End of Line.
I like his comment about if we come from monkeys, does that gives us the right to act like them?
Considering the way Creationists jump up and down and fling poo every time the word Evolution is used, I'd say his question has already been answered.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I think it's telling that every time the public finds out that a school board tried to undermine science education via an attack on mainstream scientific theories, the public votes them out immediately. It happened at Dover, and now in Kansas. The ID crowd only get the chance to promote their "alternative theory" when they keep quiet about what they intend to do, but as soon as they do it, the cat is out of the bag and they get voted out of office. Somehow they still think that they have grassroots support, but the movement only survives as long as they lie about it. People love talk about being more Godly and all that, but they don't want their state to be the laughingstock of the country.
I don't understand why such a large portion of the Church is opposed to science and evolution.
Science is the endeavor to explain what can be oberved. It does this by creating models which explain current observations and predict future results. It then tests these models by setting up scenarios in which the predictions can be determined to be accurate. In short, from a Christian perspective it's an attempt to understand the universe God created and how it works. I can imagine no greater subject of study than that of the works of God.
Evolution is a scientific model. It looks at the current state of life, fossil records, and historical accounts and establishes a model of life which fits all thse observations. Each new finding tests the model, and it has several times been refined by new discoveries. The system of evolution is almost undeniably correct; it is difficult to argue that evolution can occur in the way it is described. The evolutionary history of various organisms is debateable, as there is always a chance that new findings will change the current version. That's how science works.
So many of my fellow Christians seem to think that evolution is an attack on us and our beliefs. It's not. It is simply the result of rational consideration of the facts at hand. Science is not (well, should not be) malicious and has (should have) no interest in attacking religion, as the existence of diety is currently outside the reach of science.
They also make the mistake of lumping everything they disagree with under the name "evolution". I've heard the Big Bang mentioned in discussions of evolution, even though it's part of a completely different field of science.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Faith is great. It might well be the best of all human qualities. It has helped people survive the worst moments of life, and to go on when hope should have been lost.
But, faith itself can be twisted and misused. When faith is used as a tool to prevent people from using their god given gifts, then it's become a weapon. I have seen people use their faith to ignore what they have seen with their own eyes. I have seen faith used to prevent normal healthy inquiry. It is my opinion that this is the path to pure insanity.
If you except that God created man, and you also except that you were not consulted on God's plan and work habits, then you should be open to explanations as to the details of his creation. Was evolution part of God's plan? Most people admit that they do not know how God works, but some of those same people claim to know exactly how he does not work.
Scientist are only looking for the truth, and sometimes to be published. But I think they are truthful. I imagine that someone with a greater observance of what God has created and it's inner workings is much closer to God than someone who twists faith to blind themselves to God's wonders.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Maybe we should go back to calling ourselves "natural philosophers" rather than "scientists".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
This is the 198th birthday week of Charles Darwin. Happy Birthday Charles.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I freak out every time I hear someone talk about "ID".... it means a user is in a database again and my day just started down hill.
I've never gotten a satisfactory answer to the question of why God could not have created man to evolve. He clearly created bacteria and virii to evolve. That we can witness on a daily basis as illnesses adapt to the drugs we use to treat them and become resistant. There is evidence that species have come and gone from this world, and that some have morphed into others (trying to use evolve here as much as possible). Why is it so inconceivable that man would have been made to adapt to his surroundings in similar ways?
You don't like your neighbors democratically deciding what religion your children should have or what type of job you should take or what your living arrangements should be or determining what kind of medical procedures you have. Why do you want your neighbors democratically deciding what to teach your kids?
Don't like your child learning / not learning about sex ed / evolution / intelligent design / Islam / Christianity? Want or not want your kid to have a homosexual teacher? That's your business and by allowing you to choose what kind of school (a liberal one or a conservative one or a religious one or a .... ) or deciding to educate the child yourself, then it is completely removed as a matter of political debate.
My local schoolboard faced a similar reversal after the ultra-conservative members tried pushing I.D. into our classrooms. The public hearing on the matter was a hoot though. The district's science instructors, a few PhDs, and even some students all went on record as saying the whole thing was a dumb idea. Oh, and the fiscal conservatives were outraged to learn that the district spent $10,000+ on legal fees.
The next schoolboard election saw a higher voter turnout and the pro-ID board members were ousted, replaced by moderates.
All this in a county that votes 65% Republican. If only voters had paid attention during the first election hehe
Fundamentalists are, by definition, incapable of learning. They keep doing the same thing over and over again, no matter how many times it fails. Some other group of fundamentalists will fool the people of Kansas into electing them and, being utterly incapable getting it through their thick skulls that the people of Kansas don't want creationism in their public school science classes, they will try to get this crap pushed through again. And they will subsequently be utterly shocked when they are voted out of office in the following election, just like the last two groups of fundies were when they pulled the same thing.
Technoli
I saw it on Darwin's birthday five days ago. Its a Michael Moore kind of humor piece poking fun at the evolution debate making the rounds of science museums and film festival (Washington DC screening Thursday). The maker is former Harvard paleontologist turned full time film maker. The film claims the ID people are wrong and the scientists are terrible communicators.
If we evolved, then it was a matter of random chance.
Well, with such an incredibly incorrect first premise, I'm sure you can prove about anything.
Natural selection is not random.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
You're comparing people who have a religious belief in a concept to people who accept the more explained theory. It's apples and oranges, one is an agreement with a concept and the other is faith. Now, what are you using as your basis that people who agree with evolution do not have interest in the future of their children? If the majority of the country has accepted evolution, wouldn't that suggest the majority of those that participle on school boards agree with evolution?
Eviolution is wrong. We were all created as part of an experiment by aliens. The experiment has since been abandoned.
This argument is consistent with Intelligent Design. I wonder if the ID proponents would be happy about that being taught in schools.
Not that I am questioning the wisdom of the fine system/people/whatever that determines which tags for a story are put on the front page but I fail to see how "buttsexwithfishsquirrels" is really..um...relevant.
In closing
"WTF PEOPLE?!"
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
I'm sorry, I must've missed the meme-o on this one--what the hell does butt-sex with fish-squirrels have to do with evolution?
Actually I'm not happy with their definition of science. I'm sure there'll be crackpot around there to say that "God" is part of the "natural process that drives things" and therefor He's divine presence is needed to explain phenomenons.
I think it'll be more meaningful to describes sciences as a series of models that humans have inventend that are designed to describe the world around us in a way that can be measured/checked (numerically, for exemple, in the case of physics), that can be proved/disproved (what ever your own deity say you should believe about the shape of the earth, that doesn't stop the newtonian physic to be rather good at predicting phenomenons happening on it's surface : object falling and being thrown around), and that can be used to predict the behaviour of some object (all the science used in engineering can be used to invent new technology by knowing in advance how they're supposed to work once build).
These models aren't necessarily perfectly exact, they are just good enough inside their scope (newtonian physic isn't good enough for very masses and high speeds. Einstein's physic is better and more precise in those cases).
In that perspective, when encountering complex phenomenons like evolution, scientific believes like Darwin's theory are a good interesting model for interpreting the facts that you discover (lots and lots of slightly different animals in archeologic discoveries, and if you put them together in chronological order, they seem to slowly transform from one specie to another. The monkey->ape->human evolution is a nice example) and that can make interesting prediction (you can't directly make an experiment to prove/disprove it. At least not as long as crackpots repeat that micro and macro evolutions are different. BUT you can predict that as we dig up more and more fossils, we'll fill the holes and get more steps that details in a better way the evolution).
Whereas if one's intellectually lazy and prefer to say "goddidit", one just stuck with this single explanation. Nothing useful can be made of it. To the question "What happens next", the only possible answer is "depend's on god's mood today" and that isn't very useful.
I think that these notions :
- science is descriptive of phenomenon,
- science puts quantities and classes on them,
- science can be proven and disproven (and mostly be proven to be accurate enough for some scope), and
- science may be useful to predict outcome of experiment and behaviour of inventions
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You seem to have a solid grasp on science and rational thinking in general. How is it that you're still a Christian, given that religion is superstitious, irrational, and non-provable?
Because they are two different domains?
Science is about the naturalistic world, the world in which quarks dominate the very small, and gravity dominates the very large. It is about deep time, and deeper knowledge.
Religion explores the *why* of it all, the deeper meanings behind the quarks, and gravity, and the nature of thought and self-awareness. For some, it is the foundation of morality, which science has not fully addressed.
Science is about knowledge. Religion is about understanding.
(Note: I do not believe in God. There is much science does not answer, but human compassion and the desire to see the universe up close provides the only morality I need. But I understand where religion comes from. I just don't understand how folks turn religion into dogma.)
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I never completely understand why people argue "God says it". Even if people want to believe that god wrote the books of the bible, the christian bible was put together by humans. No one argues that the chapters put into the bible were selected by people. So god may have said lots of other things, but these people have chosen not to listen. Maybe another text which wasn't included describes evolution.
And if these people believe the bible was written by humans, then everything "god says" is hearsay and could be misquoted.
And let's not even get started on the fact that the bible Americans read has been translated. There are many phrases which can be translated multiple ways. Plus with the old testiment the English language can't properly represent the multiple meanings of Hebrew words, and so much is lost in translation.
Developers: We can use your help.
I guess this guy is going all out with his conservatism.
Welcome to 1859, Kansas. Hugs, mwah.
That's the problem with Creationism. You just can't tell which is satire and which is th real deal.
I did take the time to sit through the whole thing, and I find the ending conclusion most interesting. Is this guy claiming that Bush, a supposed evangelical Christian, is the anti-christ holding a position at the supposed center of all evil in the world? Normally these creationist try to show how scientists are evil, but this guy went right for the current whitehouse occupants. WTF? Makes me believe that it might be satire. But who knows.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I never understood why creationists are so anti-evolution. Is it so inconceivable that God had a hand in the evolution of humans? Sounds more realistic than 'poof' one man and one woman. All done.
I think evolution is a scientific fact and that it is just miraculous enough to possibly be god-inspired. Why do these fools have to fight about this? Oh yeah, because if you don't believe the bible was faxed to us word-for-word from heaven, then you're going straight to hell. *sigh*
The only good is knowledge, the only evil, ignorance.
Can you support this? Pretty heavy thing you just said and you didn't give much evidence.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
You have to accept it on faith alone!!
I can understand how people can believe in intelligent design. Deal with an omnipotent, omniscient, future-seeing being, and I'm sure he can rig a random game of chance like evolution (or the lotto; I'm looking at you big guy).
What I don't understand is how anyone could believe it's not a religious belief, or that somehow its incongrous(sp?) with strict creationism. After all, IIRC all strict creationism does is shrink the timeline, not alter the order of operations. And didn't some frizzy-haired guy explain that time is relative?
When I was in school (in America, in the 90's, and yes, in the south) we had time set aside during the day for private prayers. I'm fairly religious, but I really don't want my government to interfere with my religion, nor my religion in my government. Apparently, I have discovered some secular concept of 24 hours in a day and believe that, aside from the 8 sleeping, I spent less than 8 in school and thus had plenty of time to pursue my religion (not your Southern Baptistism Principal X.) outside of the few hours a day when I'm trying to learn things that will help me seem knowledgeable latter in life.
Of course, even when it wasn't prayer time, the teachers were horrible, so I suppose it is not that big a loss.
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For those unenlightened individuals wondering about the "buttsexwithfishsquirrels" tag, you may want to refer to the South Park episode dealing with evolution. You can watch the clip right here.
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
The part about this story that bothers me is that a theory is being advanced by subjecting opposing views to "international ridicule" and censoring away any mention of controversy. Evolution proponents should be careful using such tactics. The notion that the prevailing dogma is beyond question and that all who doubt it must be denounced for their heresy is a concept that scientists helped us move beyond in the Renaissance, but occasionally wander dangerously close to adopting themselves. By all means, teach science, but don't become what you claim to hate in the process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v43Sc3PkIpU
So you think those good conservatives in Dover ending up costing their school board a million bucks in their laughable attempt to get ID taught was an example of good management?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They also make the mistake of lumping everything they disagree with under the name "evolution".
...kinda the same way you're "lumping" the folks you disagree with together as "...the Church..." in the very first line of your post.
"The Church" is not a unified monolithic body that you made them out to be. Also keep in mind that some people of faith are capable of reasoning as well as rational people are capable of having faith.
Science and religion are not diametric opposites.
Don't question it! TORTURE UNTIL THE END OF TIME! Don't question it! Give us all your money, and also your daughter. Maybe your son too.
Yes, because we all know how well the current conservatives have managed the country. *eye roll*
The extremists have mod points, apparently.
You are still innocent until proven guilty. What's changed is what they do to innocent people. - notnAP, #26891325
Ignorance mixes with Kansas really well. The older generations in the state has been holding back science/creation in classrooms for years.
I'm sick of it. Thats why i've been trying to move away from this state for years. The Kansas Board of Education tried to get creationism taught in a science classroom. That's just striaght bullshit. They might as well teach how Santa, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy are real. Life is run off of facts. Evolution is considered a fact. The Bible leans towards fiction.
Its crazy that so many people follow a belief that lowers their IQ.
Fear=Ignorance
I'm a Christian; that doesn't mean I merely GO to church, but I've made contact with the larger intelligence, and we have a relationship. (In case the word "saved" curls your skin.)
I have no problem with the Big Bang. The singularity that marked the beginning with "let there be light", and the fact that the galaxies are moving away and accellerating only strenthens the argument there was a beginning, not an oscillation.
Humans are carbon-based, and animals are, too, so we'd have food. It doesn't work the other way. I have NO PROBLEM with evolution (the change-over-time) aspect, nor do I have an issue with mankind starting as an ape-like being which one day found it's soul.
What I *do* have a problem with, is preachers that still say mankind is only 6,000 years old, never had prototypes (apes) in his development, or that science and the Bible are at odds.
[Delay while a hush fills the room...]
Precisely because the Bible has room for all this stuff. It mentions giants and other creatures. It's not a play-by-play of the billion years before man. It's not a total list of all creatures ever made, though it *does* list the development of plant categories, and it matches the fossil record.
So can we deflate a bunch of the "Evolution is wrong" arguments, at the outset?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
"Faith without works is dead" - James 2:20
First, I applaud your understanding of how faith and science need not be mutually exclusive.
As for explaining the hostility towards evolution, or anything that contradicts a creationist viewpoint, try this: All of the attackers are stupid.
Think about it. They are proponents of a theology that equates blind faith and acceptance with freedom. In my book, mindless obedience hardly makes one free. Nonetheless, fundamentalist types actively discourage the questioning of one's environment and its causes, which is arguably the first characteristic of intelligence. And of course, anyone who disagrees is heretical.
It's just like Orwell's Oceania in "1984" [with my notes}:
"war [against the heathens] is peace [or ticket to heaven anyway], freedom is slavery [or perhaps, "slavery is freedom"], ignorance is strength [no explanation needed here]".
Nobody with a working brain believes that.
Do they?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Now the Flying Spaghetti Monster will be angry that he isn't getting taught in science class. The repercussions of this could be quite devastating.
You know, I could replace that statement with "Most people are stupid. The ones who aren't are intellectually dishonest, perfectly willing to believe contradictory statements and lie to themselves and their children." It would be just as true.
The Christians that make the news (as Christians) are usually the ones that are crazy psychotics trying to enforce their own morality on other people- The Jerry Fawells, Jack Thompsons, and Clinic bombers. The Christians who don't make idiotic statements, don't try to legislate morality, understand the history of their faith, are honest about the limitations of their knowledge, and continue being Christians have my respect. Yes, they are the minority of Christians- but intelligent people are in the minority of almost any group. Even on Slashdot they are hard to find.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Southpark reference.
Either this episode or this one.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Natural selection is not random, but the mutations that provide evolutionary advantage/disadvantage are. That said, if I ask you to pick a number from 1 to infinity and you pick 14. I can't then say that you didn't pick 14 just because the odds are infinitely small.
Finding other idiots on
There's nothing wrong with questioning evolution, or any scientific theory. There's something very wrong with trying to indoctrinate kids into your own brand of Biblical literalism, or trying to sneak your religion through the back door via the vapid, empty claims of Intelligent Design. In the Kansas case, they were attempting to redefine the concept of science itself. Do you think deceiving children is a good thing?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Thus, if you want to argue about what effect evolution has on the state of being human, you need to have a strong grounding in science, the scientific process, and the theory of evolution. Similarly, if you wish to argue about the relative strengths and weaknesses of different political systems, you need to have studied those systems, understand how they came into existence, and understand how they really work in practice (as opposed to propaganda).
This is also why it is so important to teach science (or, more importantly, the scientific method) in schools. The vast majority of people who stand up against "The Church of Science" do so because they do not understand it and conclude that if they do not understand it, it must be a matter of faith, ergo no different than any other matter of faith.
Education is everything.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Yep, and if you flip 100 coins, whatever sequence that appears from those flips is exactly as unlikely as 100 heads coming up. Astoundingly unlikely things happen all the time.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
am i the only one who thinks all the editing in the pdf amounts to legalistic parsing of words that has little to do with teaching on the ground ?
however, this legalistic parsing creates "standards" which can be used to make "objective" goals which can be used to make CHEAP standardized tests, which can be used to get good grades so as to get more money from the odious, near pedophiliac law known as every child left behind
What the Kansas case shows is in fact a tragedy - that the standard of education of some ministers of religion has gone backwards in the US till in some cases it is probably as poor as that of Islamic fundamentalists. As Jay Gould has observed, the Roman Catholic church is now relatively progressive compared to many Protestant churches in the US.
I suspect the situation is just as bad in the UK, but fortunately (except in Northern Ireland) the Prot fundies don't have nearly as much influence.
At least now the Archbishop of Canterbury has pulled back from the brink of supporting the African fundamentalists in the Anglican church.
A particular problem in the US is that anybody, just anybody, can set up as a minister of religion. You can't set up as an electrician or a psychiatrist without proper qualifications, but you can tell people what to believe and how to live their lives on very little knowledge indeed. That's what you get when you have separation of Chuch and State.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the Government keeps talking about training a generation of educated English speaking imams, which sounds like an excellent recipe for a long term solution to Islamic extremism.
Pining for the fjords
Honestly - what that shows is that five years of philosophy has not equipped you to recognize arguments that are empty.
The first statement is some kind of religious confusion. Evolution is not a process driven by "random chance", any more than your selection of a mate is "random chance." Evolution chooses results by an extremely powerful filtering process colloquially described as "survival of the fittest", with regard to which genes make it through various generations of interacting with the real world, as expressed in the organism of interest. The way it works is this: As genes for the eye change, the individuals with better vision do better in the world during their lives, and so those genes continue down the path of heredity. Poorer gene expressions fail to remain in the path for the obvious reasons (in humans: could not learn a craft or useful role, didn't see the bear coming, "Oh no, Martha, you don't want to marry the blind guy... he can't support himself!") This process continues until further improvement does not confer an advantage, or further improvement isn't possible because the expression of the gene is close to optimum and cannot make a radical change to an entirely new kind of vision because it is in a local minima that doesn't describe in any way, for instance, a multi-lensed system or one that can change to sense RF (which is a very good description of the eye, by the way.) But you can see myriad variations of how gene expression for the eye has changed simply by looking at the many types of eyes and their capabilities all across the set of organisms that (a) have eyes [many of them] and (b) use genes [all of them, so far.] Some animals do see in the ultraviolet, some use multiple lenses, some have more than binocular vision, some don't have a lot of use for vision, etc, ad infinitum. The process isn't random; Even reading Darwin, who had a very unhealthy respect for the supernatural not uncommon in his time, the process is obviously not random. The root cause of this inadequate line of thinking is probably the idea that the original DNA-based organism was a random product of the so-called primordial soup; whether that is true or not, once DNA was involved, the word "random" isn't anything you'd want to use to describe the process.
This doesn't even follow. Perhaps one might say that if you believe such a thing, then you presume that chemical reactions are complicit in your existence; slavery doesn't enter into it... there is no damage to the idea of free will in this simplistic statement.
Leaving the (already disproved) "slave" idea alone for a moment, regardless of the number, and nature, of systems that work together to implement the multi-system that allows us to think, the question of trusting our perceptions and subsequent thoughts is almost trivially answered by how well our model of the world allows us to interact with it both over time and with regard to challenges to our understanding. If your interaction is superficial and primarily depends on systems, social and technological, that others have set up for you, then you're not going to be able to make as good an evaluation of how accurate your model is. However, for those who actually understand science, this relatively simple method, by design, is excellent at exposing the error in both perception and presumption, and serves as an external, consensual check on just how well we understand the world around us, and hence, how well we can trust our thoughts and memories of that world, for the set of people who can understand these issues. It doesn't hinge upon wh
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
> were mostly not just Christians, they were ordained members of the Anglican church. Because in the 19th Century, when all this happened, you had to be in Holy Orders to hold down an academic job at Oxford or Cambridge.
Just because you were in holy orders didn't mean you were a Christian. I suspect a number of those that wanted to stay at the University might just have learnt the 39 articles to get tenure, it doesn't mean to say they actually believed them.
Doesn't this mean that this planet is completely set up now for the first alien with a little bag of God Tricks who arrives and proclaims himself ruler of everything?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all."
Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. [And there is nothing buried that will not be raised.]"
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And cursed is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human."
The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?" Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered only a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy."
He said, "Lord, there are many around the drinking trough, but there is nothing in the well."
Jesus said, "Images are visible to people, but the light within them is hidden in the image of the Father's light. He will be disclosed, but his image is hidden by his light."
Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before you and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will have to bear!"
Jesus said, "Seek and you will find. In the past, however, I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them."
--Gospel of Thomas
Christianity is not lacking in references supportive of an evolutionary metaphysics, even in its earliest documents. It's well-past time that the Old Earth Creationists understand the allegorical/poetic nature of Genesis, and grasp a deeper metaphysics which, for one, the Catholic Church embraces.
It's not trivially easy, but this conceptual integration can be done. And, it can be surprisingly rewarding in the insights doing so can provide.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Hey, don't rag on random!
While natural selection per se may not be entirely random, I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of scientists believe that we (as a species and as individuals) would not be around today except for an amazing string of coincidences.
You can't have it both ways: it is either physcial law plus random events, or God.
That Ghandi dude had it right.
"I like your Christ. I do not like your christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
I don't think Christ would like the way people are stiffling expression and imposing their will in his name, especially with the grief he went through when he was around. I mean, seriously... "Hey everyone, be nice to each other!"... "No, we're going to nail you to a tree instead. Natch!"
If good ole JC was around right now, I'm sure we wouldn't be having silly discussions like this...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
While I *almost* agree with your post, you forgot a few:
Faith, helps a POW survive his situation even though his body has "given out". Faith, gives hope to a poor person, who through education, believes they can work their way out of poverty. Faith helps anyone, in a dire situation, deal with it in a way that they can handle. It may be feeble compared to your way but for some, its the only way they can make it through that situation.
Faith is a tool. And like ANY tool, it can be used for good and bad.
Well, I don't know the full answer but a "half answer" is fairly obvious.
:)
If you believe evolution, then you have to take into account the Neanderthals as well as every other human or human-like species we know about. And some of those species are a lot less "human" than they are "monkey".
When you believe man is special (in the eyes of god), then its very difficult to bring those other species into the fold. I mean, my god man, they are *almost* animals!
I'm confused here. What definition of "evolution" are we talking about here?
/.) confuse evolution with "creation". They are NOT the same. When you say you disagree with evolution, do you disagree with adaptation of species? or that evolution is the correct explanation for "how we were created". Note the distinction.
Evolution, as I know it, merely means "adaptation of species". It, in no way shape or form, evaluates HOW they started (creation).
Lots and lots of ppl (even on
I ask this because I just had this conversation with a very smary friend of mine. He said he doesn't buy into evolution and I thought "whoa! are you kidding me?". Well, after discussing this with him a while, I realized he was substituting "evolution" for "creation". Once we agreed that evolution meant "adaptation of species and nothing more", he agreed that he DID buy into evolution. It struck me because it appears to me a lot of people fall into this trap. Most everyone agrees with adaptation of species. But views diverge when you start discussing how it all started.
So, be careful with definitions when you discuss evolution (I know I am not the only one discussing this subject in my free time).
b) My point is not that that's exactly what God did because it's what I would do. It's that the Bible not being a word-for-word account of exactly what happened during creation does not mean that it's all a lie, there are other alternatives. I presented one of them. Also, to show that if God did create the world and man through the processes currently identified by scientists, then maybe telling ancient man exactly what he did wouldn't have been the best route.
Of course, by what you say, those who claim to know that God created the world exactly word-for-word as it says in Genesis despite any evidence to the contrary are also not good Christians, which I would agree with.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Because frankly, there are a few holes, such as the entire fossil record... Where are the interevolutionary species fossils? Where is the fossil of the animal that was in between the sabertooth and the modern big felines such as lions? Or from mastadon to elephent, or ape to man even? there just really aren't a whole lot of those out there. And it isn't wrong to question evolution, it is science after all.
"Everything they've ever "known" has been proven to be wrong. A thousand years ago everybody knew as a fact, that the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they knew it was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you knew we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." Sorry Couldn't resist. Hahaha. But my point is that shouldn't students be challenged to question the propositions placed before them? I mean that is science anyways, I mean where do you think we would be if Niels Bohr decided that the atomic model was good enough? (rant over)
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me"
-1 not first post
If you want to know why, look no further than Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker - Popular science at its best.
...Warren Chisum, chair of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, doesn't believe the Earth orbits the sun!.
Wish I had some mod points to push this above the parent!
The one interesting thing I've read that I don't quite understand is how evolution doesn't seem to be a gradual process. Rather it comes in spurts which seems to imply that mutation isn't completely random.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
It's only a string of coincidences if you look at it from the "first flip" and try to predict where it will go. It is less astoundingly unlikely if you look at where you've been and what caused those specific things to happen. It may appear random, but it is not. I think this was the GP's point about natural selection not being at all random.
Mutations happen all the time. Most mutations in the genetic code do nothing, some are bad for the organism and it dies, some have an effect, but the effect has no evolutionary advantage, and finally some have an effect and under evolutionary pressure, provide an advantage to the creature. This is why it appears that mutations come in spurts, most just go unnoticed.
Finding other idiots on
So, as God, you lie to the people when they are too stupid, and then when they are supposedly 'smart' enough, you let them figure it out themselves.
I'm afraid that's an idiotic suggestion.
A man with a gun is called a citizen. A man without a gun is called a subject.
"Lying" and "using metaphors, analogies, and allegories" are also not synonymous.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
People who say "Natural selection is not random" have already lost to the creationists. Creationists set up a false dichotomy between random and 'intelligently' directed. It's a false dichotomy because random events can seem directed. A simple example is Boyle's law for the pressure of a gas: PV = k. It's as good a physical law as they come. But the motion of the individual molecules making up that gas is random. The same goes for evolution by natural selection. We can have countless random events taking place and yet still see emergent phenomena displaying order.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
You're saying the same thing as me. Natural selection is the "emergent phenomenon" you mention. But the real randomness in evolution lies in the mutation in the DNA and, of course, in the environmental conditions which may make one trait advantageous over another.
Finding other idiots on
I think it's your erroneous bleating about the "ultra-religious" running the Republican party. That's clearly not true as other repliers have noted. The Republican party does a remarkably poor job of addressing the concerns of the ultra-religious. But it makes sense when you realize that Republicans don't need to care about the ultra-religious in the US. They just need to appear to be a better choice for the ultra-religious than a Democrat. Easy to do. And failing to satisfy the ultra-religious actually works in the Republicans' favor since they then can stoke long term issues that will always draw out the vote of the ultra-religious.
No, that would be very unfair to say. Flipping heads fifty times in a row would be an amazing string of coincidences, but that's not what happens. Evolution flips a coin thousands of times and discards the tails. It would be amazing if it didn't get fifty heads that way.
Regards,
--
*Art
Its like driving a car. Being offered the choice for a ride from Paris to Madrid, and there is one scientist who believes his car needs fuel every 1000 kilometers, and there is this other believer that just knows his car is fueled by god on time, I will settle with the scientist, not bothering the existance of god for the time being. You can believe in god or not, but i will be on time in Madrid, It's also like a person, standing before a door, suddenly considering the existance of a higher force that might have simulated the door, so it could actually not being a door, but an evil trap into hell, well I thing evolution should have selected those out already :)
Sometimes there is a thin line between "faith" and mental illness.
...
It's well worth a read.
This sig all sigs devours
No less idiotic than failing to distinguish between lies and metaphors.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
>They hate the fact that evolution justifies everything they hate,
>from moral relativism to sexual promiscuity.
Glad to hear you admit the linkage between evolution and justifying such stuff.
Seriously, I appreciate it. As a creationist, I actually respect your position and honesty much more than the "no, really, there's no conflict!" position.
I don't know why I am wasting my bandwidth still downloading this crap, but what can I say, I like YouTube.
... couldn't ... resist ... researching on whales to find out that these "crazy evolutionists" didn't in fact claim that Whales evolved into Cows - rather that land mammals evolved into whales. Which is why the article he himself quotes states that leg bones are "retained as useless appendages".
:?
Don't you love some of this logic: "Adolf hitler once said "Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state"". THEREFORE, we have reason to believe this textbook is a lie.
Anyway while I hate to bring myself to the level of argument with a religious nutter, I just
Whoa, after the 5 minute mark his logic just goes insane. "Evolution is the opposite of the bible - they are diametrically opposed. In fact this is proof that the Bible is right, because evolution is the exact opposite of the bible".
To summarise this in a simple logical equation: A is not equal to B. Therefore A.
Again, I'm really sorry to even be arguing with this guy but it's just so stupid...
It wasn't bleating, and I never claimed the ran it. I said "In large part co-opted." Meaning, the fundamentalists have managed to insert their agenda into the party. No other poster claimed it's clearly untrue, either, they said it's open for debate.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Evolution flips a coin thousands of times and discards the tails.
Nice pun.
I only agree if by "natural selection" you're talking about large scale statistical trends rather than individual events. Gould makes a strong case for the contingency of natural selection in many of his books. An obvious example is a perfectly fit seeming species that's wiped out by a meteorite impact.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
In my original post, I was using "natural selection" to refer to the large scale trends, but as you point out there is still a lot of randomness involved in that. The parent of my original post is the one who makes the claim that natural selection is not random (and was modded +5 insightful for it).
You're right though, despite my Nick, I do occasionally agree with people. It's not as much fun as disagreeing though.
Finding other idiots on
So, you're a Republican? So, you're a Bush apologist? Never would have guessed it.
It seems pretty obvious that the agenda set by industry and religious leaders and delivered to Bush is running this country into the ground. The ultra-religous and ultra-conservatives are a cancer on the earth.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Somebody actually wasted a point to mod my stupid joke down?
I guess he must have been either a Soviet, a Kansan, or a monkey.
The road to hell is paved with Cat 5 cable.
ID is scientific. It is a theory, and it explains data.
The problem is that it explains any data. Not only the world we live in, but any other possible world, is just as likely. A theory with so many free parameters is extremely weak: it makes all predictions, so the probability of any one of them (ie. the world we actually live in) is negligible. A theory with fewer free parameters, that only predicts what we actually see and shows alternatives to be very unlikely, is far stronger.
So yes, ID is scientific. And provably useless.
For more, see Jeffreys and Berger, Sharpening Ockham's Razor on a Bayesian Strop.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
The one interesting thing I've read that I don't quite understand is how evolution doesn't seem to be a gradual process. Rather it comes in spurts which seems to imply that mutation isn't completely random.
A mutation either happens or it doesn't. It is by definition a stepwise process, not a gradual one.
What you find in the fossil record is not the stepwise occurance of mutations, though. It is the stepwise occurance of selective pressure. In a stable environment, the biosphere will diversify - whatever doesn't kill something will sooner or later develop and the maximum of complexity allowd bythe energy envelope of the niche will be achieved. THEN when a change in the environment occurs (some plain gets flooded or some such - yes, that includes asteroids and such) you will "suddenly" find a shift in the fossil record towards particular traits -- because those traits are the ones that allowed the survivors of the shift in selective pressure not to be selected against.
There's all kinds of hair colors out there. If something happens tomorrow that'll kill all people except those with red hair, you will find that "there was this sudden shift towards red-hairedness in the early 21st century". This will not mean that there's suddenly been a lot of mutations leading to red hair, though.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
Evolution means more than "adaptation of species and nothing more." It also explains the origin of new species, as explained in Darwin's original work Origin of Species.
You are correct that the origin of life itself, as in the origin of the first species ever from which all species evolved from, is a different subject. Evolution doesn't state how that occurred, just how all other life evolved from it. It's similar to how the "big bang" theory says nothing about the big bang itself, only how the universe evolved from a hot, dense state just after the big bang to its present cold, sparse one.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I'd argue that when those metaphors and allegories cause misunderstandings that lead to the slaughter of millions of people that it's just as bad as lying.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
When you "use metaphors, analogies and allegories" to justify the persecution of gays, the stoning on women, the crusades, flying planes into buildings, manipulating people, taking their money, etc, then THAT IS A HORRIBLE LIE.
You're just an apologist for a bunch of liars. You're just trying to perpetuate the lies. You can't nickle-and-dime the lies in the bible with apologies and half-baked self-contradictory made-up explanations.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Why on earth is religious tolerance seen as good? Religious people have disabled a part of the brain dedicated to analysing and evaluating ideas: some ideas are simply off limits, not subject to challenge.
I suppose I could draw a distinction between doctrine and philosophy: chunks of religions (especially Buddhism, but all of them to some extent) tend to be dedicated to helping people to live happily. That's worthwhile, and social and psychological research has only very recently started to provide statistical evidence and theories that can do any better.
But people who believe that some doctrine very important to them is true (or especially that some other doctrine is false) just because someone told them so and invoked an invisible friend as the authority should be mocked, denied power, and generally marginalised (or ideally, if we fix our school-and-pop-culture delivery system, educated) until they learn to turn on their brains.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Let me address a couple of points you raise:
1. the reason they hate abortion has nothing to do with fetuses and everything to do with hating young, promiscuous girls
Nope. Not even close. The issue for me, as a Bible-believing, "fundamentalist" Christian is that human life is sacred - that is - set apart and special according to God. Science teaches us that once the sperm penetrates the egg, all that is necessary for the birth of a human baby is food and shelter. All of the genetic information is present at conception, and there is no scientifically identifiable magic moment when a fetus "becomes" a person. Legally the standard is birth, but that's a legal distinction, not a scientific one. As far as I am concerned, there is no moral difference between ending the life of a fetus and me killing my six year old son. To be sure, there is a legal difference, but that does not make either morally right.
This view has *nothing* to do with the sexual activity of girls or anyone else.
2. Evolution complaints, near as I can tell, are about it undermining the authority of God and the Bible
Evolutionists and hard-core creationists have the same data. We differ as to the cause of the data, but we share the same facts. There are scientific challenges to the evolutionary position, and scientific challenges to the creationist position. In the end, neither the evolutionist nor the creationist was able to observe the mechanism of speciation, and so neither has a scientifically-verifiable or testable theory about speciation. You may not like my explanation, but frankly my non-testable theory is as valid as evolution's non-testable theory.
Standard disclaimer - of course variation and natural selection affect the characteristics of animals. This is observable - testable, and one would be a fool not to acknowledge that this is factual. Simple acknowledgment that this is a fact does not mean that speciation occurred according to the evolutionistic theory.
It's true that I reject evolution as a means of speciation on the basis of my philosophy, but there's more than pure religious reason to reject it as well. Just because many people unquestioningly accept speciation through time natural selection and genetic mutation does not make it true. I submit to you that it's my belief that people with an a priori commitment to philosophical naturalism hang on to evolution fundamentally because they don't want to believe that there's a supernatural explanation. Evolution is essentially a terrible means of speciation, but it's more palatable than admitting that we all may have emerged through supernatural means.
3. treat the creation story as metaphorical
There is a view called theistic evolution which essentially does this. It does not wash from a Christian perspective. It cannot work logically. Please bear with me while I explain.
Whether you agree with it or not, this is what Christians believe:
a) God created the earth, animals, and two people
b) God gave those people the opportunity to choose between obeying Him and pleasing themselves in the one area where He set a boundary for them.
c) Those two people chose their own way rather than God's, and lost their relationship with Him because of it.
d) God so loved the world (mankind) that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but will have everlasting life.
Whether or not you agree with it, the Bible is clear that mankind needed Jesus Christ to make a way to restore man's relationship with God. The relationship for all men was broken because of the sin of a literal person in a literal place. The Bible also says very clearly that death came to earth as a result of sin. The first recorded death biblically is when God killed animals to make a covering for the naked Adam and Eve. The Bible teaches that "without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin. Evolution teaches that death preceded mankind by centuries.
Also, if you make Eden a
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Doesn't sound like a distinction worth the effort of debating. But look at the other replies and tell me that some other phrase in your post drew those comments. That's why you got modded for good or ill as "flame bait".
If I hadn't just read the xkcd about God and lisp that Fixed Earth web site would have been the funniest thing I'd read all morning.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
If you "metaphore" is used to justify persecuting gays, teaching creationism in science classes in public schools, prosecute the crusades, and fly airplanes into buildings, then it's a bald faced LIE. Don't be such an apologist. You're just an enabler.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Always ask yourself HWCMM: How Would Christ Moderate Me?
I get the sense that you had something you wanted to say. But all that comes out is "George Bush". I need a little more than that to go on.
Certainly! Here's what the "bible experts" have to say: Copurnicus was wrong!
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
"Origin of Species" is ambiguous. It could mean the origin of individual species, or it could mean the origin of all species, ie. the origin of life. I believe Darwin intended the former meaning.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The theory of evolution is not faith. It is based on scientific evidence. There are fossils. There is DNA. We can see that DNA and fossils changed over time, at a rate which can be predicted by how quickly mutations occur in genes. We can tell how long ago two species diverged by measuring the differences in the DNA of the two species and the mutation rate. Evolution explains how species change and evolve, and makes testable predictions which are quite accurate.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
>Evolution flips a coin thousands of times and discards the tails. It would be amazing if it didn't get fifty heads that way.
Well, I'll clarify. The amazing coincidences that I speak of vary from the profound (the fine tuning problems that make physicists invoke the so-called anthropic principle) to the mundane (asteroid crashes into the earth and wipes out all life).
So the point is that for you to exist, today, an unbelievable number of things must have happened, all at the right time. If one of your ancestors had died before they reproduced you woulnd't be here. Heck, if a different sperm had done the business anywhere along the line, you wouldn't be here.
And please note (from my post) that I was referring specifically to homo sapiens in general, and to the crowd at slashdot in particular.
Regards, me
Those are all things that people did, not God. The previous post said that God would be lying if He used allegories etc. I would also argue that that still wouldn't make the metaphor or allegory itself a lie; a simple fact stated plainly can also be misinterpreted and used in evil ways.
Your arguments just keep getting less coherent.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
That may be true, but a plainly-stated fact can also be twisted for evil causes.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I can match one-for-one any abuse of religion with great works of charity, so let's not start down that road. If you look at it objectively, what currently passes for debate is nothing more than dogmatic shrieking on both sides; two camps convinced they have The Answer about unprovable assertions and that the other side is either a bunch of brainwashed, drooling cretins or a deliberate Satanic conspiracy to undermine the authority of God.
I am not an apologist for unscientific thinking. Neither am I an apologist for anti-religious hostility dressed up as intellectually superior atheism. I am an apologist for civil discourse, honest investigation, and recognizing the boundaries of both scientific theory and religious thought.
(Yeah, and sometimes I'm just a troll)
Funny, I don't recall this "enabler" thing being such a prominent theme before His Holiness Dawkins came out with his latest screed against religion. Some prior art on that is another citation I'd be interested in.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Let me just say on behalf of everyone here how honoured we are to have a member of the Bush Administration contribute to this forum.
No, people would never believe. They're only interested in believing in God as long as God is an abstract thing that only impacts their lives in ways that they allow. Once "God" asked them to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise, they'd get skeptical just like the rest of us.
*sigh* back to work...
There should be a corollary of Godwin's Law for the line pursued above, namely responding to theological or semantic debates on religious/scientific matters with a bash against religion based on the misbehavior of some of its practitioners. I wonder how SimHacker would respond if pointed to the body counts of the atheist regimes of the 20th century?
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Let's face it, when we human beings get all up in arms about something, we kill people.
Think about human history and silly things we've killed for: Sections of land small enough to walk around in a day, bad cartoons, insults, mythical WMD's. And that's just these past couple of years.
The list is nearly endless and mindless. The problem isn't the metaphor/allegory. The problem is us. We'll kill for things we believe in, whether we're right or wrong. It's not that it's a lie or the truth, it's because some of us don't bother to question it.
God could say "Hello" and half the world's population would try killing the other half because they weren't "worthy" to hear it. How's that God's fault?
Star Pirates
But I thought faith was a good thing?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
if abortion is wrong, then we have a terrible tragedy on our hands
Yes. That is my view.
fewer than 25% of zygotes become people
I'm not sure that I can agree with that number, because I think it's smaller than that (something like 30% die, not 75%)- but your point is valid - it's still death.
don't the zygotes die sinless, and therefore go to heaven
The bible teaches that we are all sinners as a result of Adam's sin, even in the womb. As far as heaven is concerned, it's an "in-house debate" in Christian circles. On that point, my view is that God is Just, and will not do anything unjust about anyone who dies.
Is your follow-on point that if they die and go to heaven it's no big deal, because they are in heaven?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I don't want to be pedantic or toy with semantics, but I disagree with you on your definition of supernatural.
Dictionary.com has the following first definition for "supernatural",
pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
You suggest that it means "unknowable" I disagree. I believe it means not explainable through natural phenomena. Let's say that all life on this planet was "planted" here by aliens. (Some believe that this is the case.) This would be an unnatural means of speciation and arrival of life. It would be "supernatural," undetectable, and unquantifiable save finding incontrovertible evidence of that intervention.
because everything knowable is natural
Really? Can you measure fear, respect, love, duty, honor, trust, or contentment? Have you ever known any of them? Are they quantifiable? NO! Can they explain irrational behavior? YES!
Not all that is knowable is quantifiable. "The heart has it's reasons which reason cannot know" Pascal, Pensees
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Intelligent Design doesn't say what the alleged Designer(s) are. It doesn't how the alleged Designer(s) did their alleged designing. It doesn't say anything about what the alleged Designer(s) actually did. It, in fact, says only one thing "Something somewhere somehow is wrong with evolution". It's a political ploy, meant to unite everyone from theistic evolutionists to Young Earth Creationists in opposition to evolutionary theory. To do that, it has to be absolutely content-free, lest the big tent collapse under the weight of vying claims. Why the hell do you think Michael Behe was slaughtered on the stand during the Dover trial, and earned Judge Jones' particular enmity in the final ruling?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I hope you aren't under the assumption that faith implies a lack of questioning.
Star Pirates
It's amazing the defenses of apathy seen here. The US is slipping in the sciences, and half the folks don't think there's a problem, and other half seem to think any problem will magically disappear. How about we teach Holocaust Denial in history, because after all, no one should have any problem acclimatizing to real history when it comes down to it. Let the teacher teach any bullshit they hold dear, it can't possibly hurt, right?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"The problem is that it explains any data."
Um: that's one of the basic characteristics for something not being science. To be science, it must make a specific claim that specifies and limits itself to a particular set of data that we can then check on. If ID is consistent with anything, then it is almost by definition not science.
Sadly evolution is not the only science they are after.
Take a look at:
http://www.gravitationalrelativity.com/
It appears that they want to turn the clock back because science has filled in too many gaps for religion to be taken seriously as an explanation of wonders of the world.
PPPoE is evil
Faith is the act of accepting something without evidence. How is that any different?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
That's exactly correct, as I explain above. Darwin's book did not discuss the origin of life itself, only the origin of individual species.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Faith is what happens when you don't have or don't accept the answers for those questions.
Faith doesn't contradict with questioning. We don't come to have faith in something because we are refusing to search for the answers. We come to have faith in something because we fancy the answer we've discover or created for ourselves.
Star Pirates
Science doesn't consider species as hard lines; they're a notational convenience, nothing more
And this is a distinction without a difference as far as I'm concerned.
My point about speciation is that there are LOTS of different types of animals out there - cats, dogs, whales, etc. I know that an evolutionary world view sees them all as roughly the same - because according to evolutionary theory they all came from the original single-celled creatures. This is simply not relevant to the discussion. Regardless of the terminology used to describe the different kinds of animals we see, we DO see different types.
I fundamentally disagree with the notion that all life emerged from soup to single-celled creatures to complex creatures. Those types emerged through some process. Conventional wisdom is that survival of the fittest traits through natural selection and mutation provided a mechanism for different expressions of animal life.
I reject conventional wisdom on this point. Conventional wisdom has been proven wrong in the past, and I strongly believe that 100 years from now, the idea of Darwinian Evolution as the mechanism for emergence of different types of creatures will be laughable.
How do we determine if someone is dead?
This is an excellent question, and one that is staunchly debated both in the scientific and philosophical camps these days. With the body's reaction to hypothermia, it's quite difficult to tell if someone is revivable or not.
There is what could be considered a magic moment when neurons start to form in the cerebrum.
Yes, but this is a slippery slope as well. Why just when the brain formation is sufficient to create or receive impulses? Why not defer until the fetus is able to feel pain or have emotions?
These are practically indescernable, whereas the completion of the requisite genetic information for life is a clear, hard line. Again, all it takes from that moment is shelter and food.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Not to mention that some of us have you marked as friend and set our preferences to "Friend +6" comment modifier, so we will always see your erudite comments, no matter how much they may be maligned by christofascist ignoramuses who have too much time and mod points on their hands.
Nathan's blog
So faith isn't about refusing to question something, it's about making shit up and then justifying your conclusion in the face of contradictory evidence.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Science is complicated and religion is simple. Science says that bad things happen to you when you die and religion says that good things happen when to you when you die (but only if you agree to adhere to that religion). Most people like things simple and live in fear of death, so religion will always have the upper hand.
You're either playing word games, or just hung up on the fact that I used the word "speciation."
My point is that science has NOT observed major evolutionary change - from a fish to a bird, or a dog to a cat or whatever the theory is these days. It has not been observed in the lab, we have not seen punctuated equilibrium, or any other major change. We have seen minor changes in the form of adaptation.
Whether you have a hard boundary, use the term species, or any other distinction, it's all irrelevant to the fact that there are major differences today in the creatures who exist.
Have you no knowledge of history? Prior to Darwin, yours was the conventional wisdom.
I am aware of that fact, and I believe that CW will return to that point of view after this flirtation with philosophic naturalism has ended.
Evidence for it (the DNA mechanism, fossil records and geology, etc.) has been increasing ever since.
Interesting that you would bring that claim forward. As I said in my initial posting, creationists and evolutionists share the facts and differ in theory about the cause of the observable facts.
DNA is phenomenally information-dense - more information-dense than anything else in the universe. This collection of ordered knowlege points to a designer as far as I'm concerned. In general we see things naturally move from order to disorder, and DNA seems opposite to what is naturally expected.
Irreducible complexity points to simultaneous emergence of interdependent traits which seems to indicate a designer. (Retina/rods/cones/optic nerve, brain capability to interpret these signals, etc)
The fossil record contains the cambrian explosion, which in my view is evidence for a large number of kinds/species/types/diverse life/etc which appear suddenly as if they were created simultaneously.
Recent geologic research indicates that perhaps our understanding and interpretation of the events and mechanics of geologic change are more complex, and also perhaps simpler than expected. Was the grand canyon created through gradual erosion? Take a look at the observed events surrounding the eruption of Mt. St. Helens and the canyon formed in days that is something like 1:20 scale of the Grand Canyon. Over the next few years we saw geologic layers laid down over months rather than years, and what happened to the trees in Spirit Lake helps explain fossils which cross geologic layers. This may indicate that earth's geologic layers were laid down in substantially less time than has been imagined previously.
The collected facts are increasing, but they don't necessarily fall in favor of evolution.
undo Galileo and Copernicus while we're at it.
With all due respect, I'm a proponent of GOOD science. Much of what we know today has been the product of unbiased research by men of science who were also men of faith. The official church has done bad things in the past, but Christianity is not incompatible with science. My issue is with those who demand to apply their philosophy to their scientific practice.
You do realize you'll have to convince the Catholics to revert, don't you?
No disrespect to Roman Catholics is intended here, but their view is irrelevant to me. If the official church position is wrong, that's their problem to solve, not mine.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Ok, if you like. But the Bayesian approach quantifies exactly how powerful (or "scientific") a theory is. You don't need to make the special-case argument you made, since we can show a continuum of how much of the data a theory can explain vs. how many free parameters it has. So here's a quantitative measure for the predictive power of ID is (how "scientific" it is, if you like), and a well-justified answer.
No theory I know of makes predictions that exactly explain all data with no free parameters. At what threshold does something become "not science"? Here, though, we can prove that ID is just about the most useless and improbable theory ever proposed. I think that's more useful than just tossing it out, philosophically claiming it's not science :)
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
The word "New" here is unnecessary. "Kansas Adopts Science Standards" is more concise and accurate.
In your metaphorical view, was Jesus a real person? I ask because this, along with His deity is a critical question to the teachings of Christianity.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
You don't have to be scientifically literate to unterstand evolution. Its happening all around you, it happens every day. All evolution is, is the fact that we pass on traits to our offspring. Denying evolution is like denying the sky is blue.
It is Gandhi, not Ghandi. Mahatma Gandhi on Wikipedia
Gandhi was asked - 'what do you think of western civilization?'
His reply - 'its a good idea'.
Tat Tvam Asi
Logically speaking, if you disprove proposition P, then you have proven the converse, ~P. "Proof" and "disproof" are symmetric opposites, and anything that constitutes a "disproof" will constitute a "proof" of something else, and vice versa. You can salvage your "science can only be disproven" (by which you presumably mean that scientific theories can only be disproven) if you limit "scientific theories" to a subset of all propositions, such that for every theory T, T is a proposition P, but ~P is not a theory. The trick is to find a reasonable way to categorise propositions like this -- and even then you have to question whether you're discerning science, or just shoehorning it into a preconceived idea that "science can only be disproven".
The philosophy of science is a tricky business, and is over-simplified with apalling frequency on Slashdot, particularly as how this is supposed to be a hive of science-buffs.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
You're basing your opinion on the lack of cave paintings? What about deterioration of the paintings which included them? Caves are notoriously wet.
What about the possibility that we have not found caves with the images?
The Bible mentions a "behemoth" like a dinosaur and "leviathan" perhaps a great monster of the sea - in Job 40 and 41. Many people feel that these are descriptions of dinosaurs. I'm not saying that I consider that to be strong evidence, but it is a possible occurrence of dinosaurs in biblical literature.
I have also heard of fossils found (I believe in Texas, but I'm digging deep in my memory now) with human footprints inside of dinosaur footprints.
Isn't it *possible* that man and dinosaurs were on the planet at the same time? Perhaps they were not in the same place much, and that's why literature seems to have little evidence?
I'm not saying that my evidence is convincing, just that your case is a bit weak.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The Bible contains many different literary styles - some passages are allegorical, some poetic, and some are narrative. The idea of the narrative passages being accurate is very important to me. The Bible tells the story about God and His relationship with mankind - the crown of His creation. It answers the questions:
1. Where did we come from?
2. What went wrong?, and
3. How do we fix it?
If the narrative passages are untrustworthy, then that's a major problem for me. The Bible says that Jesus lived and died for the purpose of reconciling sinful man to a perfect God. It's not about good stories or moral examples - it's about how I can personally be reconciled to my mortal enemy.
If Jesus didn't really live, or was not resurrected from the dead, then...
I Cor 15:16-17 "if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins."
The fact of Jesus' life, death and resurrection is fundamental to my faith.
It's a VERY big deal.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
In Soviet Slashdot, mods troll you?
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
My take on this is that it's merely an example of adaptation or "microevolution." We don't see these birds in transition to something radically different, merely to variants of the original kind - a specific kind of bird.
:)
As I said earlier, there's no debate about minor changes being observable. The point at which I break ranks is where people suggest that the minor changes "add up" to a completely different kind of creature. In order to do this, we'd have to rely on immense amounts of time and favorable mutation. Given the tendency of mutation to be extremely unfavorable, we have to add significantly more time to the process.
There are lots of problems with the "huge amounts of time" solution to the problem. One has to do with the amount of kinetic energy in the universe. If the universe is eternal, why hasn't in equilibrated long ago? Another issue is the lack of graves. If human populations have been around for 100,000 years or more, where are all of the graves? The number of dead people would have to be unbelievably large, given what we know about trends in population growth.
There are many many more unanswered questions like these as well.
Evolution is current conventional wisdom, but I don't buy it. Intellectually there's more to it for me than "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Although, if there's a God, and He did say it, wouldn't that be enough?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
That was whaat was though for a long time.
But today, we live in a time where we have the complete genome sequence humans and several animals, and when we could sequence genes from unknown genome without too much difficulty.
In these circumstances, you can build trees by counting the mutations and the "distance" between genoms in terms of DNA content change.
And then some strange things start to appear : we are much more closer to chimps than we though before. It looks like that the chimpazee was an almost direct ancestror of us. They happened to find a nice niche in which they stabilised, where we descent from overpopulation of the chimps. We don't look having as much descended from the tree as actually being kicked out of it because it was over crowded, and we mutate much more in order to adapt ourselves to the new environment...
Next time you refuse access to your peer due to overpopulation, think twice. You never know who they're going to come back in a few millions years.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Except for the ones who will prop up their "what's written in the Bible are facts" and "evolution is bad" rhetoric.
I mean no disrespect, but your argument is absurd. It's not a genetic recipe, it's the creation of a person - a unique person - as long as food and shelter are present, a BABY is born. To suggest otherwise is written smoke and mirrors. While you throw around scientific terms, the information above is inaccurate and misleading.
You basically imply that the equivalent of the holocaust is going on all around you, and yet all you do is complain about it?
Well, since you don't know me, you don't know if that's all I do.
FWIW, I put my money where my mouth is.
I advocate good parenting, foster care and adoption, even traveling internationally to teach on these topics. I provide financial support to women in "crisis pregnancy" and strongly encourage people to adopt unwanted children. I provide financial and emotional support to communities internationally where I am legally prevented from adopting orphans, but I can send money and send hope.
I have supported my family members as they have adopted children. There are over 100 million orphans worldwide, with many parents dying daily, and it's a crisis that people are not caring for these kids. In the future I plan to be a foster parent and may also adopt children. Presently I have five biological kids six and under, so my plate is a little full, but when my kids get bigger, there will be more I can do.
I financially support organizations that provide education about the horror of abortion, and counseling for the women and men who have made that choice.
You will note that I don't take any action against women who have abortions, nor do I intervene in so-called clinics which leave one dead and one wounded. At this time, this practice, while horrible, is legal in this country and the majority of Americans want it to continue to be legal. I can educate others and hope to win enough hearts to my way of thinking that this practice is changed, but there are limits to what one can legally do, even if there are millions of murders occurring around me.
So, before you go shooting off your mouth about topics on which you are ignorant, you might consider that there are people who are passionate on these topics *and* who take action. The kind of activism I engage in doesn't make the news like when kooks shoot doctors, but it does make a difference in the lives of women, men and children.
Just because some people talk and do nothing does not mean that people who disagree with you are thoughtless and lazy.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Correct.
That is because absolute truth is a ridiculous concept.
All anyone can do is to try to get as close to the truth as possible, by gradually eliminating all the nonsense.
Such as dogmatic religion.
Considering that "God", "Allah", "Buddha"... can not be proven or disproven, the contradictory evidence thing is not applicable. And considering that these ideals have been passed down from generation to generation wholey preserved, I wouldn't say "making shit up" either. Today's followers have little power to change the core beliefs of their religions.
Most people go into a religious faith for the purposes of finding an answer or explanation to some personal question in their life. It's really no different than any scientist's curiousity and search into the natural world with the soul exception of methodology. Scientist must make limits in their work methods so their conclusions are univerally applicable.
So... no, it's not about making shit up and justifying the conclusions. To make that comment suggests some gross presumptions of behavior.
Star Pirates