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Putting Anti-Evolution Candidates On the Spot
hmccabe writes "YouTube is currently taking submissions for their next debate, in which the Republican candidates will answer questions. This seems like a good opportunity to challenge those candidates who say they do not believe in evolution. But since I am not an expert in the subject, I would be interested in how you all feel the question should be presented. For my own part, I think it is important to present the overwhelming body of evidence on the subject as incontrovertible fact, much the same way DNA evidence is presented during a criminal trial, and ask why the candidate feels they can pick and choose what facts they believe in. Moreover, I am wary of coming across like Christopher Hitchins, so vitriolic the candidate will defend themselves rather than answer the question. Perhaps the most important aspect of posing the question is to inform the viewers who watch the debate that this is really not a matter of opinion, but of science. So my question is: 'Hey geneticists, have you considered addressing evolution in the YouTube debates? Can you do it in 30 seconds?'"
discuss.
There's a lot of stuff on there that makes me question whether or not people are evolving.
Which candidate's are Anti-Evolution exactly?
What's the point of bringing it up in an election debate? Aside from educational funding, stance on evolution really isn't even on my radar for politicians.
If I was going to ask a question, I'd ask "How will you calm the media down from distracting issues like evolution and focus on real issues for which governmental action is appropriate?"
Now that is a question I want to hear politicians answer!
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Do you really care what the answer is or do you just want to know how best to ask a question to make the GOP candidates look bad? From the summary it sounds like the latter. Just curious ...
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Where I say it's a waste of time because modern believers in Intelligent Design already believe in every piece of concrete objective evidence that "evolution" has to offer. And there's no way to prove randomness to somebody who doesn't already believe in it.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Since when are any candidates anti-evolution? And on top of this why exactly do we care whether they are or aren't? If this can influence any decision they make in office please let me know because I can't think of any.
There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. --Arthur C. Clarke
It seems to me that a great many American's don't believe that evolution occurred. Confronting a candidate on this issue is more likely to boost support among these people than it is to erode support among people who already know that the target candidate is a throw-back to the 14th century. This might do more to energize the religious right if they get a bee in the bonnet over a perceived attack on their beliefs.
The pro-evolution camp might win the debate, by lose the election.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I honestly don't give two craps whether a person believes or doesn't believe that evolution is concrete fact. What matters to me is whether the belief or lack of belief results in a regressive, narrow minded, receptiveness to scientific research and inquiry.
Candidates which don't "believe in evolution" may be in the habit to reject other scientific evidence which conflicts with whatever goes on in their minds.
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In the current political environment, asking such a question accomplishes little, if anything at all. If such a question were to posed in a debate format, I don't think it's likely that any candidate would directly answer the question, but instead use it as a springboard for a tangent they are more comfortable discussing. At the end of the day, the worst that could happen is a candidate squirms for a few seconds, but even that is unlikely.
The fact is that people who believe in Creationism believe in it because it's an easy answer. Anything you say about it will be met with the response that "The Bible says creationism is true."
Also, I met a Mormon in college who wrote a book "Dinosaurs in the Bible"- his theory was that the Giants in the land of Magog were dinosaurs.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I believe that the theory of Evolution is incomplete. Of course, this could be said of all scientific theories. I will go further and say that it has some significant gaps, and that it will under go many more modifications before it is very accurate.
Does that mean I believe in it, or I don't believe in it?
I believe that mythology is a very dumb way to approach scientific and historical questions such as "how did life begin on this planet" and "by what means do biological systems maximize their ability to survive in changing environments?" I very strongly dis-believe in the notion that the creation story in the book of Genesis should be interpreted as a concrete history of life on earth.
Does that mean I must disbelieve in the theory of Intelligent Design?
Bah, I hate oversimplification.
I think it's actually a very bad idea to get into sound-byte debates with creationists, because that is exactly the kind of debate they want. You can't explain the science in 30 seconds, but they can certainly rattle off all their "evidence" in that amount of time. You also run the risk of legitimizing them by getting into a debate in the first place. You don't see geologists getting into debates with crazy people on the street who say the Earth is flat, because it's not something that sane people debate. This is a problem that needs to be attacked at the root (in schools while children are young) and in long-format discussions.
People in bamboo houses shouldn't throw pandas...Jesus said that! -Ninja
Romney- You once said you want to "double Guantanamo." Why do you condone, rather, endorse one of the darkest spots on America's record? Should we continue to deny them rights in the Geneva Convetnion?
Giuliani- Are you running as anything but the 9/11 candidate?
McCain- You've supported continuing the Iraq war voceriferously, when do we call it quits? After 1,000 troops are dead? 10,000? You joked about invading Iran, would you consider it?
Paul- You oppose abortion. Would you enact legislation to counteract (or severely restrict) Roe v. Wade?
There's a bunch more candidates, but why pick evolution? It is a fairly unimportant topic (considering the others at hand) and it is unlikely that a President will seriously impact what is taught in the tens of thousands of school districts across the nation (who pick their own cirriculum generally).
GUILTY: standard error of assuming that a scientific theory is a speculation, conjecture or guess.
A scientific theory is a logically consistent framework for testable hypotheses. Evolutionary theory is a FACT, just like gravitational theory is a FACT, just like germ theory of disease is a FACT.
A-Bomb
"... ask why the candidate feels they can pick and choose what facts they believe in."
It sounds like you're stereotyping all Republican candidates, that all of them pick and choose what they believe in; however, don't all candidates, Democrat or Republican, generally pick and choose what they believe in? Not all Republicans think evolution does not exist - in fact, I think the majority of Republicans believe that evolution played some part in developing species. Similarly, not all Democrats believe global warming is an immediate threat. It's stereotypical to think everyone of a certain group believes the same things, and it must be respectfully avoided.
Who does your argument benefit? Who benefits from them believing in something else? Is your motive altruism, or is really from the same vein as the arguments the those that would hit you on the head with a Bible, saying "Thou Shalt Believe!!"?
Is your motive to watch the tv debates and stand up when the question comes on, saying "That's what I'm talking about! Take that! You unbeliever!"
Or is your motive to persuade them to look at what you are bringing to the table? Are you trying to change their [potential leaders-however unlikely] hearts and minds, or are you grandstanding?
If you're going to try and correct people, get your own terminology correct before doing so.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Because (believe it or not) there are people who don't know the difference between "the universe", "the Galaxy", and "the Solar System", and there are fundies that actively exploit that ignorance.
It's easy to screen out the radical fundamentalists. They answer "6000 years" and are at least honest about their base.
But the dangerous ones are the ones who "teach the controversy", because "Them crazy scientists can't seem to agree on anything! Some of 'em say everything's 14 billion years old, and some of 'em the world's just 4.6! They can't both be right!"
Vote only for a politician who is smarter than a fifth-grader; that is, one who knows that "The Universe", is approximately 14 billion years old (I'll take any number between 10B and 15B) is much bigger and older than "The Solar System", which is 4.6 billion years old (hell, I'll take anything between 5 and 4.5).
Which climate-change deniers are those? The ones who deny that the climate is changing, the ones who deny that it has always been changing or the ones who deny that the current change is mostly caused by human activity?
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there's no such thing as scientific FACT. Darwin first started out with a HYPOTHESIS, which he then tested and provided a proof for which was then examined by his peers till it progressed to the stage of being an accepted theory. the theory itself is very sound, but as new evidence comes to light the theory can be adjusted to improve it's accuracy. this is a concept you people just aren't able to grasp it seems.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
How could you possibly make a cogent point about a scientific issue in thirty seconds?
I guess you could talk quickly. "Thereisalargebodyofevidencefrommanysourcessupport ingtheexistenceofevolutiontherealquestionishowtoex plainthatevidencedontyouagreethatDarwinsmodelprovi desa..."
!("Flamebait" && !"Troll") < !(!"Disagree" || "Insightful")
Uh, what?
Care to explain, exactly, how ID is a scientific theory? Nobody disputes that Evolution is a theory based on observable facts.
ID is a religious study or philosophy subject, but certainly not science.
Mr. Candidate, sir, given the overwhelming body of evidence from hundreds of different scientific fields ranging from archeology to physics to zoology, can you explain to us how you can seriously believe that the world was created 2,000 years after the Babylonians invented beer?
A-Bomb
Stop diverting attention on topics that are really trite and have little bearing to reality. So what, they don't believe in evolution. They're dumb, and I can accept that there are a lot of dumb people in this world. I really don't hold politicians to be the most intelligent people in this world anyway.
But really, does it really matter? Do you really expect them to push their agenda? That's like thinking a gay person automatically has an agenda of pushing gay issues, even when maybe they don't. Maybe they happen to be gay, but they wanted to be treated like a regular politican, just like everyone else, without the gay stigma. Just because someone believes something doesn't mean they will use their opportunity to push their agenda all the time.
Yes, Slashdot has publicized some instances where anti-evolution agenda was pushed, but really how many was that like, maybe 3 or 4 cases across the entire US? Come on, it's like accusing all of India of being guilty of "honor killings" when really it's only done in the most rural, primitive parts of India. In the same vein, yes, some politicians probably don't believe in evolution, but do you really think they care enough to push their agenda across all the school boards? My bet is that probably only an infinitesimal percentage would.
And plus, how much really is someone who doesn't believe in evolution more guilty that someone who is religious? Can you really stand their and feel contempt for someone who doesn't believe in evolution, yet thinks its okay if they are religious? It's probably equally as unscientific.
The real crime is focussing the talk about politics onto stupid, stupid issues like evolution, or flag burning. HOW ABOUT TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING CONCRETE? What about federal regulation into hedge funds?? What about making sure we have enough social security? What about things that actually AFFECT our lives?
You could ask the candidate:
What model of Dinosaur did your ancestors prefer driving?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The "Intelligent Design" people attempt to confuse the issue of whether something happened randomly or whether it happened because someone "designed" it to happen.
If you throw the dice and get a 7, was it because of luck or because the dice were weighted?
You cannot tell after the fact if you cannot examine the dice. And that's what they focus on. They accept everything that can be demonstrated, but they refuse to believe that it was random.
So don't argue that. Focus on whether it is "Science" or not.
Who cares what they want to believe in their churches? This is about what gets taught in the science classes of our country.
If it cannot be falsified it is not Science and does NOT belong in a science class. At all. Not even to "teach the controversy". Period. End of statement.
Now, do they accept that "Intelligent Design" does not belong in science class? Yes/No?
If "Yes", how would they falsify it do demonstrate that it IS scientific?
Nuclear decay is objective proof of randomness. So is quantum electrodynamics.
- If you say "How do you reconcile with your belief that the earth is only 6,000 years old?" they may say that they are not scientists so they're not qualified to comment on such a detailed question, or they may say that it could be more than 6,000 but God certainly created it, or they may just say "maybe the scientists are wrong about that".
- If you say "How can you seriously claim the earth is only 6,000 years old when every real scientist disagrees with you?" they will say that not all scientists agree with evolution, and often today's heresy turns into tomorrow's orthodoxy.
Either way they will then add that science works by the free and open exchange of ideas, and so they support the right of both sides in the debate to put forwards their views. They may also add something about the bible being right about so many other things, it seems odd that it should be wrong just about this.These debates may have been the place where ideas were put forwards once, but these days they are more like a boxing match in which each candidate tries to land knockout punches on the others, and a panel of pundits awards them points for style. Fact and logic don't stand a chance.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Ok, I'll bite: If it's a FACT, why is it called a THEORY? It may be a FACT that there is a THEORY of evolution, but that's hardly what you are arguing.
Creationism is not anti-evolution, the theories are not mutually exclusive!! Evolution says that complex life such as humans evolved from simpler forms, yet it does not say what created those simpler forms of life to begin with. One can believe that God created life on Earth and still believe in evolution.
What is the need to post yet another hit piece on the Republican Party? I must have missed the "Putting Pro-Socialism Democrat Candidates On the Spot" article just before the DNC debate...
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
no, it is a scientific theory - unlike "creation"
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
Works for all three.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
You don't understand what the word "theory" means. Many words have more than one meaning. "Present" has five or six distinct meanings. For example: at present, I present this present to you. Think 'theorem' instead. Maybe that will help you.
A-Bomb
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Why is the government on the *federal* level funding science? At most you could argue that it could find science that is directly impacts military standards and equipment for the Navy.
...but I just can't see the point of asking a question like this. If there is one thing I've learned from experiencing years of online and real life creation/ID vs. evolution debate, it is that people are rarely swayed even by facts. Even if someone thinks of a great gotcha question for evolution, it doesn't escape the fact that some ridiculous percentage of Americans are evanglical christian and, thus, will immediately cast the question off as blasphemous and praise any response that includes the words "Jesus" or "The Lord" regardless of their scientific irrelevance. We have already seen the Democratic meritocratic debate hosted by YouTube, and all we had to show for it afterwards was even more elegant political prancing around questions to give as neutral and ineffectual answers as possible. All I expect even from the best evolutionary question is more rhetoric. It would be better to save effort and breath and pose a question regarding the simulated and practical failures of a pluralist voting model, and if there will ever be action taken.
Primate Testing in the United States involved the "use" of 60,000 animals in 2004. Such testing is used to help ensure the safety of new drugs and vaccines. If you don't believe evolution is scientifically valid, how can one justify this? Why wouldn't we use flatworms? The FDA, in fact, requires primate testing for many new medical treatments. Should the FDA remove this requirement?
Seriously, this matters much, much more than what teenagers do or don't learn in hi skool biology class. If the Creationist and ID people are right, then we can save quite a bit of money and quite possibly quite a few human lives by forgoing such testing. Plus thousands of furry animals.
Can we mod parent "-1 doesn't understand science". Please!
A theory is a well supported scientific idea. A "fact" is a term for data. Yo use data to derive hypothesis/theories. A scientific fact is a non scientific or even technical term for "I hate science and wish it would go away."
The biggest problem is science is that we don't teach it well enough to ensure people like the parent realize their mistake.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I would argue that you are incorrect. Intelligent design is not a scientific theory or fact.
Evolution is scientific fact. Here, a theory is scientific fact. I believe what you are thinking of is the term "hypothesis." Evolution is not a hypothesis anymore.
Our body's blue print is DNA. This blueprint is copied from generation to generation. This results in errors which can either assist us or degrade us depending on the environment we have chosen to live in.
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Seriously, does it matter what a politician believes about a scientific theory? While I've personally yet to see the smoking gun case for the Theory of Evolution, what the politicians believe on a rather unimportant issue like evolution is a moot point. I'm much more concerned about how they understand important things like: technology and the internet, willingness to support important programs like NASA and DARPA, etc. When it comes down to it, what does a politicians belief on the theory of evolution affect? The only thing I can think of is what they believe should be taught to high schoolers. and lets face it, there is a hell of a lot more problems with the public school system than whether or not they are taught that we're all monkeys with oversized brains, or some sort of "intelligence" created us, or are taught nothing at all about where we come from (since, lets face it, no one knows for absolute sure)
(Note: for me, the smoking gun case would be something like the fossilized remains of a fish with legs, or something along those lines. Near as I have seen, they have yet to find any of the necessary missing links that will show that one species can literally turn into another over time. Personally, I believe in micro-evolution, aka adaptation, but macro-evolution, the changing of one species into another, is still up for serious critical debate, and I've yet to see any sort of proof)
I think Roy Zimmerman said it well (at 3:07):
All the candidates who don't believe in evolution (Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo) do not need the Bird Flu vaccine and should abstain from using it. After all, if there's no such thing as evolution, then the Bird Flu has been around for as long as we have and no human has ever caught it. And without evolution, it certainly couldn't mutate into something that would endanger us.
Jory
With all the troubles this country has that is the best thing you can come up with? Your a loser.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Sorry, but there will be no successful public argument made with logic on this topic in the next 20 years at least. By asking the question you set up the perfect opportunity for them to rally the troops behind the Word Of God. The candidates' ability to reject facts in favor of the bible will only boost the confidence of the fundamentalists. It will remind them how persecuted their beliefs are, and how they desperately need to keep someone in office who understands their point of view. Which is this: the bible trumps everything, end of story.
I'm not saying it's impossible to change people's minds -- it is. I used to be a fundamentalist anti-evolution person myself up until about age 18 or so. But it's not going to happen quickly with a pointed question in a debate.
Cheers.
he believes in a bible that was read out of a hat. nothing more to say.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I wouldn't ask whether creationism is "better" than evolution. I would go ahead and accept their idea of creationism. And then I'll ask why it should be the Christian god and not the Flying Spaghetti Monster that created life, the universe and all.
The achilles heel of creationism is, imo, the diversity of religions. If they really want to be serious about it, they would have to teach all the various stories of creation in the various religions. REad the constitution, it says right there that no religion should be prefered to any others, so if you teach one creation story, you have to teach all of them.
And if they go for that option, I predict that every kid in the US will know every creation story there is. But nothing else, because there's no time left for any other subject.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Umm, you are showing your own lack of knowledge by assuming a theory is not fact. You are using the common tv version of the term, as in "I have a theory..." this is incorrect. A theory is only a step behind a scientific law. It is supported by experiment, factual data and has not been disproven by experiment or factual data.
From wikipedia: "In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity."
Creationism is NOT a theory. If isn't even a conjecture or hypothesis. It is nonsense. There is no data whatsoever to back it up. There is no experiment that can show it to be true. There is nothing.
Evolution is a fact. It can be tested in a laboratory. Unless you don't believe in things like tuberculosis, drug resistant tuberculosis actually. We can evolve bacteria easily. There is solid evidence in the fossil record, in the linkage between DNA sets, in fucking DOG BREEDS.
It is not open for debate, it is not one of several competing theories, it is the ONLY theory there is for the existence of life and how it got to where we are today. There are no other theories. I am using the PROPER usage of the term here. Why this is something people have to argue about is beyond me. Why don't we argue about the existence of the moon while we're at it. It is just as stupid an argument.
- Global warming vs climate change
- The adequacy of our current lines of embryonic stem cells
- The effectiveness (or lack thereof) of abstinence only sex education
- Mercury emissions
- Baby Einstein
- Reproductive health issues
- the list goes on but these are off the top of my head...
My point is that Bush has a clear history of distorting science (the theory of evolution included) to fit his ideological views. That is the real problem.Have you ever gotten a flu shot?
Seriously, I thought the evolution / bush hating / global warming / etc. stuff belongs on Digg. But anyway, when it comes to evolution vs. creation, people already believe what they believe, and there's nothing you can do that will change their minds... so let's not waste time during the debate with this.
I'm all for using YouTube as a source of questions for presidential debates. This, however, is one question that I'm not sure you really want asked in that setting.
When you get down to it, debates are a serious of candidate sound bites strung together. On any expected question — and evolution is likely to be expected — they'll have their pat answer. In this case, I'd expect at least one to say something like this:
This is a nice sound bite. Given time — say, an hour-long one-on-one or two-on-two debate on the topic — this sound bite can probably be ripped to shreds. In the format of the classic presidential debate, though, this is all you'll get.
Now, candidates have different skill levels and comfort with this sort of thing. So, I can easily see a few candidates coming across as complete firebrands, scoring points with some evangelical Christians and (I'm guessing) losing points with the general populace. But there's going to be one or two who can nail a debate question on evolution, and it's exactly this sort of "policy by sound bite" that has us in our current evolution vs. intelligent design morass.
If you want to use YouTube to skewer a viewpoint, you need to phrase your question as a fait accompli, where there is no good answer, only bad and less-bad. For example, on a different topic, you could ask "how can you justify US-led and US-backed forces killing, torturing, and displacing hundreds of thousands of people, from guerrilla actions in Central America in the 1980's to today's Iraq, in the name of 'enhancing democracy'?". Here, they either admit the US is killing, torturing, and displacing people (while trying to defend 'enhancing democracy') or they try to deny that anything of the sort is happening (which I don't think the public would believe). I'm not sure how you would craft a YouTube question on evolution that gives you that same certainty of embarrassment.
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Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I'd be happy to have an intelligent discussion about the gaps in the evolutionary records, evidence that should be there but hasn't been found (yet!), and subtle implications of the ubiquitous genetic code, etc., if they would have an honest discussion that the Garden of Eden story didn't actually happen as written, but is a myth designed to set the philosophical stage that somehow nature is inferior to man, and thus our job is to correct nature, not worship it. (I don't agree, but that's the precept that found its way into Western belief). Then you can have a discussion.
The original poster wants to have an intelligent discussion, in sound bites, about complex topics, with people ill-equipped to do so. I'm not concerned about a candidates nuanced understanding of mitochondrial DNA sequence conservation, but instead want to understand that they have an open mind, know how to pick scientific advisors that do understand nuanced issues of evolution (and other timely areas of science), and can say they don't know but are willing to listen and consider. That's a good leader.
Science in our culture sits at a disadvantage because it is not understood well by many, and indeed is complex and not meant to be fully understood by the masses, at least not the really detailed stuff. Briniging it into debates designed for topics that can be summed up in 30second YouTube clips will always put it in a bad light. "I believe in evolution because there's a lot of data out there and smart people seem to agree on that," just doesn't come off as well as, "Middle class tax breaks are needed so the American family can prosper and protect our way of life from terrorists." Umm, there's really no arguing with the last statement, whereas the first statement seems somehow unfounded and nebulous (so is the last statement but you'd look evil for contradicting it). Just look at John Kerry. There was someone who actually could make a nuanced argument. "I voted for X in one case, and Y in another, and while that looks contractictory it's not because of some issues that aren't apparent to the public and here they are."
You want better politicians, raise the kids to step back and look at the bigger picture. "Are there riders on this gun control law that aren't good for America? Maybe we shouldn't vote for it until those are removed." Responding to situations with the 'obvious' answer is almost always wrong. --eor-- (end of rant)
This serves to illustrate a problem with attempting to put forward a scientific statement as part of a question in a debate - you're given only a tiny timeframe to specify the question, which almost certainly requires that there be some sort of ambiguity in your statement of any given scientific point. A candidate who wants to come off looking reasonably science-savvy can then pick on such a point to give the appearance of countering your argument, even if their argument is handily addressed by some other factor which you were simply unable to include in your question.
Evolution and Creation (or "Intelligent Design") are scientific theories
No. One is a scientific theory, one is wishful thinking.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yeah. Too bad you elected the guy who does just that.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Nuclear decay is objective proof of randomness. So is quantum electrodynamics.
Not to somebody who believes that the ENTIRE UNIVERSE was created with a purpose in mind. Nuclear decay can, theoretically, be traced back to the Big Bang if you had perfect knowledge, for instance- it's just a matter of radical electrons hitting nuclei after all, and if you had a time machine you could trace each one back until your time machine itself no longer worked. Same with quantum electrodynamics. Random events are completely indistinguishable from planned events under the rule that we're not allowed to know the plan.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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Evolution is based in a premise that is scientifically undeniable. That this planet is -old-, and that all species in all likelihood haven't been around since the dawn of time.
Dealing with a topic as subtle, and as observably ambiguous as evolution is not easy. Yes, of course there are going to be people arriving at incorrect conclusions, but when theories are thrown out, they are continually replaced by more likely theories using more accurate data that are ultimately pointing towards the same idea. That's called progress. That's a strengthened premise.
In the early days of flight, there were some completely crazy theories about aerodynamics. When these were thrown out and replaced by far more likely theories using far more accurate data, it was called progress, and the premise of human flight was strengthened.
There's nothing religious or inherently unscientific about observing something, and attempting to reach a sound scientific theory explaining it. In the case of evolution, the premise is scientifically undeniable. Hardly religious.
Calling Creationism/ID a scientific theory is incorrect. Since it cannot be proven or disproven by the scientific method, it is not science but faith. In the words of Wolfgang Pauli, it is "not even wrong."
note: Theory vs law. Laws are more terse and theories never graduate to laws. Laws are simple observed tautologies while theories are often more complex constructed models.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I remember hearing someone once say that if you think the earth is round because the soles of your feet are arched, and God would not give you arched feet to walk upon a flat earth, then you don't really know that the earth is round. I suspect that most people just don't know enough and/or aren't good enough at thinking to really evaluate the evidence, and that most people who accept evolution do not understand it based on an evaluation of the facts, but believe it because their parents or teachers told them that it was true.
The evidence spans multiple disciplines, evaluating it requires critical thinking skills, and I just don't think that it is possible to present the evidence in a compelling manner in 30 seconds. I think it requires hours to do so, and an audience that is willing and able to think about the evidence presented.
Of course, I would love to be proven wrong.
For an example inspired by another recent
Basically, we know these theories are flawed, but they still explain many things within certain limits and are consistantly reliable within those limits.
That does NOT mean the true and complete explanation of the fundamental forces of nature (what general relativity and quantum mechanics deal with) is in fact anything like quantum mechanics and general relativity.
When a theory crosses into fact territory is when that theory can be proven to be correct. When this happens, a theory becomes what we call a Law of Nature. The fact is there are still quite a few problems with Evolution which it has never adequately explained.
Throw in the fact that the Theory Evolution itself has never been shown to be observeable, measureable, or repeatable, and you have to question whether or not it should be called "science", in the strictest sense, at all.
Since, I've got to either believe some hokey theory that says I came from bacteria, or a fish, or whatever it is these days, or I can believe in some super ultra mega dude who built it all, I think the second option sounds cooler and that's what I pick.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Sure it can be.
If a dog ever conceives a cat, then evolution has been falsified. It's as easy as that.
Arguably the theory of evolution as regards macro evolution is NOT fact. Given currently available evidence it hasn't truly progressed beyond partially tested hypothesis. Micro-evolution, a.k.a. Natural Selection IS fact however. Fucking religiously inclined in all but appellation twits.
This was an amusing word salad. It indicates that you don't know what science is, you don't know what data is, you don't know what evidence is, and you don't know what scientific theories are.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Why not ask Democrats the same question? Why wait to ask the republicans? Last I checked, most of the democrats claimed to be christian as well. Why not ask them if they believe the earth is 6000 years old?
A lot of people, including a lot engineers (and some scientists), seem to have trouble with what the word "theory" actually means in science.
My question is:
When are YOU going to quit taking money from lobbyists and and Wall Street fat cats?? Will you give the people who want their constitution back? Or is that a done deal? And of course, What's up with Iraq? When is that beach going to be "safe to surf"? (heh wind surf maybe)
What?
This is incorrect. Your definition of a theory is fine, but a FACT is something directly observable or measurable. There is ALWAYS room for multiple theories -- multiple theories of evolution, multiple theories of gravity, etc.
None of the candidates with a chance of winning are anti-evolutionists. Even George W. Bush accepts evolution (see his remarks on H5N1).
Creationism != Anti-evolution.
I happen to believe in creation THROUGH evolution, myself.
Gov. Huckabee, our next President may need to make decisions involving controversial scientific areas including global warming, alternative energy sources, and stem cell research. Some Americans feel that your stand against evolution places you far outside the mainstream of currently accepted scientific thought. Would you say that the evolutionary theory for speciation as originally described by Charles Darwin is completely false, or could there be a way of reconciling that theory with your beliefs of intelligent design?
(I'll acknowledge defeat if this gets modded as funny)
The other way is to be able to predict what mutation will occur and when. Repeatedly.
Personally, I'd focus on the "random" part. People can complain all day long about how you haven't "falsified" it. But not being able to falsify something just means that there's more support for your position. Which is different than not being able to state a case where falsification would be possible.
Dude, you might as well have said: "Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves."
Can you please clarify for the class what the difference between the two might be? Is it like the difference between 'micro-walking' that gets you to the corner shop, and 'macro-walking' that gets you to the next town?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
He's exactly right. For all we know, "Intelligent Design" could be "correct," in the same way any particular religion could be "correct." But because it explicitly concerns itself with "proving a negative" (i.e., that evolution couldn't have happened randomly and thus required a "designer"), it cannot be evaluated scientifically. Because of that, it is not science, in the same way that poetry or religion or literature are not science. Maybe it deserves a place in school and maybe it doesn't, but if it does then it belongs next to discussions of Greek mythology or something, not in biology class!
ID cannot be falsified using the Scientific Method. Therefore, regardless of it's "truthfulness," it doesn't belong in science class. Period!
And, of course, all the above is giving the ID proponents a huge benefit of the doubt. In reality, ID is nothing more than a scheme by which theocrats attempt to subvert our secular educational system. But it's not likely advisable to point that out to them in a debate; instead, the best strategy is to just keep driving home the point that "science" depends on the Scientific Method, and "Intelligent Design" doesn't fit within that framework of thought.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Disclaimer: I'm a molecular biologist who studies bacterial evolution at a molecular level.
Disclaimer 2: I'm a lifelong democrat and don't care what the Republicans say at this point.
There are simply so many more important things that we could challenge the republicans on: Why are you all so fucking incompetent? Why are you even more crooked than the Democrats? Have you no shame? I could go on.
Funding for the sciences is something of an important question - and I'll acknowledge a link between acceptance of objective reality and support for scientific funding. But as a scientist I will happily say that federal support for my work is far lower on the list of priorities than clean and transparent government, sound economic and social policies, better/cleaner funding for general education, and a foreign policy based on something other than bellicosity and greed. If someone wants to challenge the republicans on their failure to deliver any of those things, I might listen.
But even so, these debates are sheer pablum - I'm sure all the Repubs favor clean government which is why they want no limitations on lobbyists. The odds of getting any of these people to seriously engage on real questions approach nil.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
At this point, I don't care what your beliefs on evolution/creation, gay marriage or climate change are. I want to know will you raise my taxes? Under what circumstances will you bring our military home from Iraq? How do you plan to slow the tide of legal and illegal immigration?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
"Evolution" is neither a theory or a fact. It is shorthand for a group of theories such a Darwinism and Neodarwinism, including sub-theories and modifications such as Punctuated Equalibrium, that describe attempt to offer theoretical models for the observed facts. Facts are things directly measured or observed, including observations of existent life forms, and the known fossil record. Everything that is an interpretation of these facts is a theory. These theories include good ones and bad ones. I think "young-earth" creationist science is completely comprised of bad theories, but they are still theories. And no theory can ever become a fact.
No, you are not using the proper usage. There ARE competing evolutionary theories, and there have been since Darwin. Furthermore, NO theory of evolution is a theory for the existence of life! Finally, if you're talking about something that is not open for debate, then you are NOT talking about science.
although i'm a scientist and a strong proevo person, and i think ID is hypocriticl nonsense, i wonder if the problem is with the pro evo side.
I wonder how well evolution is really explained, with data
I don't think it is very well explained at all
When a theory crosses into fact territory is when that theory can be proven to be correct
Wrong. Nothing can be proven with absolute certainty. Any scientist will tell you that. A scientific 'fact' is something for which there is overwhelming evidence from multiple, testable, repeatable sources. Typically, these are things that have stood the test of time and turned out to have very good predictive power. Evolution is about as good an example of scientific fact as you can find, as there is so much evidence for it and - so far - none against it.
the Theory Evolution itself has never been shown to be observeable, measureable, or repeatable
Absolute codswollop. You've apparently never actually read anything about evolution. Bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics, viruses mutating over time, moths changing colors based on pollution, human sickle-cell anemia, etc, etc, etc. Every domesticated animal is an example of evolution at work. Every siamese cat, every pekinese dog, every thoroughbred racehorse is an example of evolution in action. There are dozens of other, better examples - for good, understandable books on the subject for the lay audience you'll want to read anything by Richard Dawkins.
Since, I've got to either believe some hokey theory that says I came from bacteria, or a fish, or whatever it is these days, or I can believe in some super ultra mega dude who built it all, I think the second option sounds cooler and that's what I pick. :D
People who don't want to believe evolution, like you, have psychological reasons - fear of death, fear of insignificance, fear of social stigma or reprisal, etc. Regardless, it is only possible not to accept evolution if 1) you don't understand it (are stupid); or 2) Don't know anything about it (are ignorant).
There's nothing wrong with being ignorant or stupid, but, in general, a person should try to do something to correct those unfortunate qualities and in the meantime keep their mouth shut and their opinions to themselves.
A-Bomb
So, the fact that somebody may or may not be completely insane, and stupid on top of that, means nothing to you?
Someone who believes in creationism is not the same as someone who says they believe in creationism.
A perfectly intelligent candidate may claim to believe in creationism because there is no shortage of insane/stupid minds out there in heads on people who still get to vote like the rest of us.
The candidate may not be ETHICAL, but catering to the scientifically insane beliefs of a large part of the population that is particularly inclined to vote should hardly itself be characterized as insane. Devious maybe, but quite reasonable.
paintball
I think that you are correct insofar as your criticisms of creationism/intelligent design are concerned; however, fact is something objective, in an epistimological sense. I think even science forgets about its own philosophy. My main problem with saying that evolution is a scientific fact/law is that it is so often construed to imply an objective fact, which is not provable in the least sense. Microevolution is absolutely fact, but never, ever confuse it with macroevolution, which is what laymen usually mean by "evolution." Macroevolution, as far as I know, has not yielded scientific proof, nor does it make any testable claims. There is no control, so I fail to see where the the science is. What people might confuse with the field of evolution (in the popular sense) is likely genetics. Science lives and breathes on healthy debate, even of such things as gravitation (a continuing problem).
Social Security and Medicare, boondoggles or not, are sort of big promises to break. Funding basic science and medical research could well make them cheaper in the future. And so on.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I'm not trolling here, but I have to ask if maybe hmccabe is. For example, here are some of the issues that are important to me in the presidential election: the budget (getting it under control), the war (getting the Iraqis government/military to the point where it is largely self-sufficient as quickly as possible, including securing their borders and getting the insurgency under control), getting our own borders under control and doing something about the illegal alien problem, and being prepared to intervene (if necessary) if the housing credit crunch turns into a repeat of the S&L meltdown of the 1980s (gee, doesn't the banking business have a short memory?), patent reform, maybe even copyright reform, the e-voting problem, etc. In other words, issues that really matter.
An issue that is not of much importance to me in the election is whether a given candidate believes that the Genesis account is literal and meant to be taken literally, or if (?:s)?he believes that the Genesis account was God's way of getting across to people with little understanding of His creation, what it was that He did and how He did it, like "Let there be light" (Big Bang), wait a few billion years, form the earth, separate the land from the water, bring forth life, evolve it into people (making man from the dust of the earth), etc. Or, a candidate could even be (?:s)?he an atheist and think it was all just an accident for which science has yet to fully account but will in time completely explain. None of those viewpoints is terribly relevant to handling the important issues named in my first paragraph.
It may be because I have paid attention only to substantive issues such as those outlined in my first paragraph, but I actually don't know if any of the candidates are creationists, nor does the blurb name any names, so I am left wondering at this point if the whole thing is just an anti-Republican (I notice no other party was mentioned) troll. If there actually are creationist candidates, would someone be so kind as to post names, along with links containing supporting evidence (preferably the candidate's own words, and if possible, on the candidate's own website)? To reiterate, I don't believe whether a candidate is a creationist or not is important to the real issues, and in fact, trying to make that an issue is probably just someone's attempt at erecting a straw man to deflect attention from the real issues.
...what their opinions are on: the atomic theory of matter, special relativity, evolution, and the round-earth theory.
How do you falsify neodarwinism's assertion that genetic mutation is random?
See Dawkin's website: www.richarddawkins.net for some good information about the macro/micro evolution debate. Macro is, at its core, a reintroduction of 'group selection' with the added nuance of affecting what Dawkins calls the 'extended phenotype'. In a nutshell, Dakwins and others think it is a non-debate because things always reduce to the selection of the replicators themselves: the genes.
A-Bomb
How about starting off by realizing that Evolution and Creation (or "Intelligent Design") are scientific theories and not scientific fact. The biggest problem I see in science today is failing to properly delineate between fact and theory.
Calling creationism a scientific theory is in effect calling fundamentalist Christianity a scientific theory. Calling intelligent design a scientific theory is equivalent to calling magic a scientific theory. Since ID does not even pretend to explain how anything happened (or why, or with repeatable results), it is not a scientific theory. How is one supposed to test ID for truth or falsity? ID begs the question quite fallaciously. Anything humans do is obviously the result of intelligence, and everything natural is also the result of intelligence by ID's definition, so where could one obtain some non-intelligently-designed matter to begin experimenting with in order to disprove ID? Even if science demonstrates that the initial conditions of the universe are sufficient to explain life, ID people will say that some "intelligence" picked those initial conditions and the laws of physics.
Another problem I see specific to the theory of Evolution, is that of people calling it "Darwin's Theory of Evolution". At least here they get the "Theory" part right, but they get it wrong when they attribute it to Darwin. (His theory was that of Natural Selection, which there is a ton of evidence for, and which was used to derive Evolution.)
Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection gets us from the point of replicating molecules to where we are now. What more do you want?
What if DNA is sort of like... God's programming language (or whatever Higher Power "created" the world). Run with the idea for a minute, when you start a new project, how much of your code do you re-use? (or, a better question, how much would you re-use if you could re-use as much as possible)? The answer would probably not be 100%, otherwise all you would have is an identical program to the original, or an extension to the original. But it would hopefully be a significantly high number, at least on similar projects.
just an interesting thought...
Evolution, like gravity and germ theory, is something for which there is an overwhelming amount of directly observable and measurable evidence. That's the whole point of the example.
A-Bomb
If something as rigorously established as evolution is not a "scientific fact," then there is no such thing as a scientific fact.
If something as thoroughly disproved as creationism is a "scientific theory," then everything is a scientific theory.
Either assertion is a ridiculous over-broadening of terminology that intends only to devalue the terms in question.
Close, but not quite. Darwin's theory was of Natural Selection, which was used to explain evolution. The fact of evolution had long been observed; the changes in species from place to place and from time to time were known from comparative zoology and from palaeontology already. Natural selection provided the mechanism for this change and a theory underlying the observed facts.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Because they do a damn good job of it, that's why.
The NSF and NIH are far from perfect, and as taxpayers (I'm a scientist, as well) we are entitled to many critical improvements in transparency, but they are vastly more efficient than equivalent systems in Europe (I don't know so much about asia) which are riddled with hidebound cronyism, or than private systems in the US which are extremely wasteful and seldom private anyway (see next paragraph). I really shouldn't need to defend DARPA on slashdot - maybe computers are not your thing though.
Anyhoo, the reason we have computers, container shipping, automation, tele-operation, intelligent drug design and genetic engineering is because the US Federal government payed the R&D costs. Sometimes they provided outright subsidies, but they also provided an initial customer base without which many of these technologies couldn't have been developed to the point that became viable as consumer-oriented enterprises. Personally, I think that the general public is entitled to some of that money back, once technologies developed at public expense become profitable, but this is penny-pinching on my part: the return on the investment in computer technology, for example, has been absolutely fabulous.
Now, a lot of this was done through the military system - but what the military *buys* seldom really has much to do with what the military really needs. DARPA, in particular, is in the business of providing a military cover for technology that is in fact being developed for the supposedly-ancillary civilian purposes. They also do research which really does have a military motivation: it's about 50:50.
If you're some kind of fanatic who believes in the infinite grace of market forces:
1) You are about as connected to reality as a creationist.
and
2) You are proposing that we scrap the most powerful engine of technological and economic growth in human history because it doesn't groove with your ideological fantasy worldview. If you have a big bushy mustache, that's *two* things you have in common with Stalin.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I am a cosmologist. Based on my research, and that of others, I am convinced that the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old, started with the event we can call the Big Bang, and behaves according to physical laws. Futher, I am convinced that human life evolved on Earth from earlier forms over the past few billion years.
I am also a Christian. I believe that the Universe was created by the sovereign God described in the Bible, and behaves according to his will.
Do you feel that I am wrong in my science, in my religion, or both, or neither? Why?
And, finally, as an aside: You think the "a wizard did it" description is more impressive than the staggering complexity of processes and interactions and struggle that the theory of evolution suggests? That troubles me, a bit.
>>> "I think it is no coincidence that many of the evolution deniers are also global warming deniers."
... what's the source for your statistics on "evolution deniers [who] are also global warming deniers"? I'd be quite interested in this.
... suppose that's what you're getting at?
As one who is yet to be convinced about full darwinian evolution (eg compound eyes, rotor-stator development in bacterial flagella, gaps in fossil records, self-referential dating techniques, etc.) and yet nearly convinced about global warming (having studied physics, maths and ecological modelling at Uni and thus having a modicum of understanding about chaotic systems - I am convinced about global climate change however) I'd like to ask
I've never come across this correlation personally which is why it interests me.
Of course I'm sure you'll let us know if you're just making a blind assertion?!
Incidentally: am I an anti-intellectual? I'm nearly a skeptic in the epistemological sense. But in as much as intellectuals exist I think I probably am one. I guess I ultimately rely on my sense data for day-to-day living rather than pure reason
My main problem with saying that evolution is a scientific fact/law is that it is so often construed to imply an objective fact, which is not provable in the least sense. Microevolution is absolutely fact, but never, ever confuse it with macroevolution, which is what laymen usually mean by "evolution." Macroevolution, as far as I know, has not yielded scientific proof, nor does it make any testable claims. There is no control, so I fail to see where the the science is. What people might confuse with the field of evolution (in the popular sense) is likely genetics. Science lives and breathes on healthy debate, even of such things as gravitation (a continuing problem).
That particular split is not a universal scientifically accepted thing. Micro vs Macro is a mostly American construct. I went through 3 years of university genetics without it even being mentioned once (I'm in Canada). It's basically a redefinition/scarecrow fallacy inacted by critics of evolution when it evidence started to mount against them.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Actually, no it isn't. That's not considered a decay so much as a reaction. A nuclear decay is a wholly internal process, whose timing is wholly governed by quantum uncertainty. And at any rate there is no such thing as perfect knowledge; a perfect knowledge of the position of an incoming particle precludes any knowledge at all of its velocity, and so we cannot ever reliably predict the timing of any decay it may trigger.
Not that any of this affects a hypothetical god, mind; he can presumably do as he pleases, Heisenberg or no.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's a lot broader than that. If you have a lab that's partially funded by the federal government (obviously that includes all labs at all public universities) then you are not allowed to do any stem cell research there even if the funding for the lab time and materials does not come from the federal government. That's because they would be using some lab tools that were purchased for other purposes with federal funding.
In order to do stem cell research, the researchers can't be paid in any way by the federal government. The lab they use cannot have any equipment in it that was paid for by the federal government. The rent for the building cannot have been paid for by the federal government. A lab either needs to give up all federal money or it needs to set up an entirely separate lab with all new equipment.
If you have a lab with $100,000 of private equipment in it and you want to buy a single microscope with federal funds then that lab cannot be used to research stem cells.
That puts a severe crimp on stem cell research which goes far beyond it being a mere question of funding the research.
Cow Cube
Come on mods, pay attention. The above line alone should have got the parent post modded to +5 insightful by the very first five moderators that read it. You ARE reading the posts, aren't you?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I think you have to be careful what you mean by evolution.
At one extreme you have the idea that organisms adapt to their environment over the course of many generations. To disagree with this kind of evolution is to disagree with factual observation.
At the other extreme you have evolution as an explanation for the origin of life on the earth with the further inference that there is no god, life has no purpose and free will is an illusion. Even a great many serious scientists are hesitant to claim that life has no purpose and that free will is an illusion - despite the fact that an evolutionary origin of life makes that likely.
Now, I know that some people will say the the purpose of life is to be evolutionarily successful but that's like saying that the purpose of a ball is to fall under the influence of gravity. Evolution isn't a purpose, it's just something that happens.
Personally, I'd suggest going for more interesting questions:
"Would you live your life any differently if you knew for certain that there was no god?"
"What goals (if any) would you set for yourself if you knew for certain that life had no fundamental purpose?"
"What if it turns out that free will is an illusion? How would that change your views on concepts of heaven and hell?"
Creationism / Intelligent Design is NOT a scientific theory, it is an unsupported hypothesis. Theories are supported by empirical scientific research.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
A little trick programmers use all the time.. Code Reuse.
What about quantum bogodynamics?
The problem here is that Common Descent predicts a singular answer; that all life on this planet had a common ancestor, and that all life will show evidence of that ancestor (ie. a common set of coding molecules). On the other hand, stating God did it would be compatible with all possible observations. One coding mechanism, two, ten, a million, all can be answered equally well by "God did it". In short, stating "God did it" has no explanatory power.
Common descent could be falsified by demonstrating an organism whose genetic mechanisms were clearly unrelated to any other life on this planet. It's that simple. How could you falsify the claim "God uses DNA like his programming language"? Couldn't God use ten such languages?
Scientists and philosophers recognized the failing of your argument a few centuries ago. It's time you woke up and realized that the argument is not new, and while it's impossible to falsify, it's possible to demonstrate that it has no utility whatsoever. In short, it matters not at all whether it's true or not.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Adult cells are not affected by the moratorium.
Existing lines of embryonic cells are not affected.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Yes, there is overwhelming evidence for evolution but the truth is that the scientific evidence isn't the sort of thing we can present to the public, or even scientists in other areas. Sure, we can give some suggestive examples and talk about DNA similarities and the rest but this isn't really enough evidence on it's own to establish the validity of evolution. What makes the case for evolution so strong isn't any one result but a mass of small details all of which support evolution and refute intelligent design.
Yes, people should believe in evolution but we are lying if we tell them it's because they can see the evidence for themselves. Arguably no person has the time or expertise to evaluate the evidence in all the disparate disciplines which make the case for evolution so strong. The reason we should believe in evolution is because the experts in fields from geology, to genetics, to astrophysics all endorse theories in their fields supportive of evolution. In other words figuring out what sort of science we should accept is a lot like figuring out how to treat cancer. You don't go read the research papers and prescribe yourself a course of chemotherapy. Rather you use what you know about people and society to find a doctor you think knows this area better than you do. Only when you have specific reason to think that the medical profession as a whole is suffering from some bias does it make sense for a non-expert to look at the data themselves.
This might seem like a pedantic objection but the pretense that the public should decide scientific issues for themselves is a huge factor in the success of intelligent design as well as global warming skepticism. If you show people a few fossils, make some comments about DNA and tell them this should convince them of evolution you shouldn't be surprised when they believe someone else who shows them a few fossils, makes some comments about irreducible complexity The situation is even worse for global warming where any intelligent person can see the scientific arguments made in the mass media barely suggest much less establish anthropogenic global warming.
We should be honest with the public and tell them the reason they should believe in evolution as well as anthropogenic climate change is that the experts who have gone through all the details judge these theories to be strongly supported by the data. Anything else is setting ourselves up for a fall.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
When people ask "Do you believe in evolution?", what are they really asking? This could be equivalent to several different questions, and the answers that people give to each of them can be different. For example:
1) Do you believe that species can evolve over time? (This has been demonstrated in laboratory settings.)
2) Do you believe that species can fork and create new species over time?
3) Do you believe that random genetic mutations are the impetus behind evolution?
4) Do you believe that natural selection determines whether those random genetic mutations stick around?
5) Do you believe that humans evolved from monkeys?
6) Do you believe that humans and other primates evolved from a common ancestor?
7) Do you believe that all organisms evolved from common ancestors, if you go back far enough?
8) Do you believe that all this mutation and natural selection stuff occurred but with a "higher power" guiding it along the way?
9) Do you believe that God created the universe at the Big Bang and endowed it with physical laws that would have allowed all this stuff to have occurred through natural causes without any guiding?
10) Do you believe that God created the universe 6000 years ago, created Adam out of dirt, created eve from his rib, and planted carbon-datable dinosaur fossils to trick us?
Well, this would be a good start:s .htm
http://www.human-nature.com/darwin/origin/content
If you wish to ask questions, it would help to study the subject first, yourself.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
...Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
'Intelligent Design' is not because it does not make any scientifically provable assertions, it consists only of criticisms about Evolution motivated by a belief that religious scripture is sufficient explanation for the origin of human beings. You have every right to believe this, but why do you expect this to be taught as science in schools?"
Creation is recorded (supposedly revealed to man by God).
Evolution of mankind is inferred from evidence that we have uncovered.
The former is scientifically unfalsifiable and cannot be logically refuted by any means except to just dismiss it. There is no point in trying to put anti-creationists "on the spot" because their viewpoint isn't amenable to scientific scrutiny in the first place, and of course any viewpoint that cannot be scientifically scrutinized must invariably be mistaken, right?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I meant to say
"How do you reconcile with your belief that the earth is only 6,000 years old?"
But then I turned on HTML to get bullets, and of course that broke it.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Who cares?! They're politicians, not scientists.
But it does matter. Will this candidate ignore the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that says something is happening, and act against the data on their own belief, or political motivation, possibly even trying to stifle the scientific community and discredit their findings at every turn like our current administration has done on numerous occasions. You see, this does matter, when the President doesn't know well enough that he doesn't know enough about an issue and still doesn't take the advise of the people who DO know about the issue. It would be like the PR department of a car company overruling the engineering department and saying that the car doesn't need seat belts because they are uncomfortable to wear (while actually not wanting them to have seat belts because he can save his friends an extra million dollars a year on production costs as well as make his other friends in the medical business more money from treating more serious injuries with the added bonus making new friends of the undertakers and morgues more business from the increased amount of fatalities in auto accidents...). You starting to see my point?
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
You have the chance to earn 400 thousand dollars a year and gain "executive control" over the country. All you have to do is set "creationism" to 1 and "evolution" to 0. "Do you believe in creationism?" "Yes." "Do you believe in evolution?" "No." That's all it takes. Now, you tell me, would you have the balls to turn down 400 thousand dollars and root access to the USA? If you think you do, then answer me this again ... would you have the /SUBCONSCIOUS/ balls to turn it down. Uncertainty is a very easy thing to potentiate and embrace. And 400 thousand dollars is a lot more certain than "a theory everyone with clue agrees on". ;-)
This is all out of Machiavelli's The Prince, btw. I think these candidates are just playing the game with no scruples. While I agree this makes them inherently insane, politics and human nature is, shall we say, not enlightened and most of the people who vote for them are *knocks on wood* insane.
There are all sorts of principles in science that are called "theories." Some of them, like gravity, have mountains of evidence that reinforce the tendency of every reasonable scientific mind to believe that they are valid.
Evolution is pretty far up there on the scale of pretty solid theories. The problem with officials who are either so overwhelmed with their own religious dogma or so obtuse that they cannot understand this is that they make policy decisions based on ignorance of scientific evidence for antibiotic resistance, global warming, epidemiology, etc... and substitute their own "equally valid" belief that the rapture is imminent so none of this matters.
You're incorrect. The closest thing in science to a FACT would be an OBSERVATION. As in, all concentrations of mass thus far observed are mutually attracted to each other.
No result from science can be proven, incontrovertibly confirmed or mature into a fact. If you want absolutes, you need to turn to religion and get your faith muscles toned up.
That is not to say that because something is a theory it is unreliable. Some theories are very well tested. I don't believe the poster you replied to was implying that evolution is unreliable though, just that it is NOT a fact. The story poster apparently doesn't know much about science and adheres to evolution as others adhere to creationism. At least he knows he should leave the question asking to someone who knows more about the subject.
You could preface your question by explaining how the human eye was evolved! Then after winning the hearts and minds of cynics everywhere, you can then have your way with them. We once had a "brilliant" president, you may well be too young to remember, but 30 years after the fact they're still trying to rub some Armorall on his turd of a presidency. Gas lines, double-digit inflation, The Allman Brothers - and he helped make Iran what it is today. But I'm sure he can still hold a convincing conversation, when he's not flying around the world, undermining democracy and freedom. When it comes to shrill, strident and annoying, the Darwinists have the Creationist beat. Show me the fossil record, or put me on the horn to Jesus, and maybe then I'll take sides. Hegel, Marx and Hitler loved Darwin, Elvis loved Jesus - that's good enough for me.
The fundamental problem with all of this is that it does no good whatsoever to advancing mankind's understanding and ability. A scientific theory should act as an understandable analogue to the real world, useful for making predictions in the real world. For instance, many people say that things like light are a particle and a wave, whereas in actual fact light is light, and if we can find an inaccurate yet useful analogue to describe its behaviur in different situations then that is useful, we can make TV sets and computers and things. We understad more through the analogy, even though we know it is not the truth (if there is such a thing). Religion on the other hand claims to be truth but serves no practical purpose (other than being a handy excuse for pretty much anything).
This is the position I take whenever I am about to get drawn into a religious debate with one of my Muslim friends, since I am too good of a person to denounce their religion in front of them, and also I have better things to do than memorise comebacks and counter-arguments for any Quran-based evidence that might crop up. I just say that the Quran might or might not describe how an embryo develops in the womb, but when it was written there wasn't a major advancement in medical science and biology since such a message can only be found when looking with hindsight by someone who already knows, so as such it is not a useful basis for describing things. Similarly Newtonian physics isn't used as the one truth about the Universe, since it already known to be false, but it is still useful for the vast majority of ballistic calculations.
The FACT is that the genetic makeup of populations change over time. The theory is the explanations as to how that change takes place. Your committing (probably in ignorance) the etymological fallacy. A theory in science is something far different than "wild-ass claim". Oh, and Creationism isn't a scientific theory. Not unless your definition of science runs counter to how the word has been used for a couple of centuries now.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It is really railing against the educated. Their main competitiors are religeons with educated clergy and people well educated enough to point out the flaws in their aguments as they complain about the evils of black people (OK - a few years gone now), gays, women or whoever the current infidel is. Illiterate tent evangalism has it's place but it has spawned merchants in the temple that make some of us outside the USA look at these people and this debate with revulsion.
So if there are small changes between species then over time the changes should be multiply and eventually they have created a new species. See ring species for an example (http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/irwin.h tml)
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By "Evolution," I was referring to the theory that humans evolved from lower lifeforms. Genetic mutation and evolution is undeniable; it can be witnessed in colonies of bacteria, etc. The disputed part of evolution is whether or not humans originated as a result of it. If we were to find a human with the exact bone structure as a modern human but dated back, say, 100,000 years, then we would need to significantly change our theory of evolution. Thus, because evidence (although I doubt such evidence exists) can change the theory of evolution, it is falsifiable.
ID, on the other hand, will simply pass off any evidence as "part of God's plan" and not change its "theory" to accommodate -- making it unfalsifiable.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
I believe evolution is a part of God's creation.
You're not really. A theory is a theory, not a fact. As you say, the theory of evolution has been tested as well as we're capable of testing it and has come through nicely. Other theories, like gravity, relativity or the standard model have been tested (and confirmed) to excruciating precision. That DOESN'T make them facts though. The theory of evolution itself is under very active development.
It's a very non-scientific thing to do to take your explanation for something, no matter how likely it is that that explanation is correct, and call it a fact. That's what pseudo-science and religion do.
Also, theories do not mature into "scientific laws." "Scientific law" is a kind of careless term for certain famous mathematical relationships that are parts of various theories. After all, Newton's "laws" of motion aren't really correct -- they're very good approximations in most circumstances we're familiar with, but they have been superseded by relativity.
Do you believe that genetic change can happen in a population over time?
-CF
Some people have already brought this up, but I think that when someone says they believe in 'Creationism' there are two things implied:
1) If the Bible says it, it's true. Period. End of discussion.
2) If you disagree with what's in the Bible, you are wrong. Period. End of discussion.
This is the real question: Is the candidate open to new ideas & evidence, or do they stick to their beliefs? My experience with these people (and this is a generalization) is that they aren't even open to discussion. This is a bad trait in someone who is asking to represent us. I think it was Nietzsche that said beliefs that don't stand up to testing should be discarded (my paraphrasing).
OK, so let us re-frame the debate.
Hypothesis:
Natural selection is not the only factor in the mutational history of an organism.
The hypothesis is that when an organism is under stress it's genetic code is altered in small ways that may SEEM random but that in reality reflect basic information about the nature of the stress (not enough food, not enough water, harmful chemical in the environment) that information is stored in the huge portions of DNA that currently seem to serve very little purpose. Based on this information the organism will favor, or at least not as aggressively discourage, the mutation of certain areas of the genetic code that are influenced by that area of stress.
Now before all of you post-graduate geneticists start your flame throwers I am not proposing this hypothesis directly, it is a CRUDE and BAD example of something that could be postulated by someone far more informed on the subject than myself. The purpose is to show that it would be possible to construct a hypothesis that a basic intelligent system could increase the likelihood of mutations in certain areas of the genome. This would mean that the mutations involved in evolution are not purely random. Just by increasing the chances of a mutation in a certain area instead of relying on random mutations system wide would increase the chances of a beneficial mutation enormously. Such a system would address many of the criticisms of "non-theistic" intelligent design proponents. Is it entirely misguided (the concept, not my two minute hypothesis)? Would it cause a HUGE disruption in the the theory of evolution? Does it even remotely look like creationism?
By your definition, there are no scientific facts, there are only scientific observations supported by evidence. Irrespective of the terms used, the parent post basically said "evolution is a guess that no one is sure about," which is complete nonsense. Evolution is a scientific fact, as much as any thing in science can be factual: it is supported by a mountain of observable, measurable, testable, falsifiable, repeatable, coherent and self-consistent evidence.
A-Bomb
No one knows what happened. You would think that as many times that science has been wrong in the past ... 250 years there might be some humility -- like evolution is some sort of civil rights struggle. And you would think as many times that religion expressed itself in allegories, metaphors, and symbols that folks could stop and think.
I think it would be a good idea, for someone, (not me), to write a book on all the account of science being wrong. Just to put things in perspective. I wish i hadn't thrown away all of that carl sagen snake oil... no wait ... i think i can pull it out of my ....
How on Earth would this help anyone decide who to vote for (ya know, the *point* of this whole charade)?
We should be talking about IP, Government regulation, welfare, healthcare, immigration, the list goes on and on, towards the very bottom of which we *might* find evolution.
Hours? Do you give lectures? I want to come... those would be an awesome, action packed few hours!
You sound suspiciously like a creationist, since no one else could possibly seriously suggest that evolution in any ways suggests a bacterium parent could give birth to a mammal offspring. But I'll assume it's an honest question and just suggest that you check out talk.origins for many examples of evolution witnessed by scientists. For a more complete understanding of how evolution works in small incremental steps over enormous periods of time, you should read Richard Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable." I mean no offense here, but you really can't have a conversation about evolution without reading such a book because you won't have any understanding of it at all. It would be like trying to have a conversation about the fall of the Roman Empire with someone when the only thing you've ever seen or read about the Roman Empire was the movie Gladiator.
A-Bomb
I believe Thunderbird is much superior to Evolution, but I won't call myself anti-evolution, that is a bit too extreme...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Um, no. There are various theories and hypothesises as to how evolution works. All of which may be true, by the way. But evolution, unto itself, is a fact. It has been observed.
And, no, YEC have no theories in the scientific sense, only in the parlor talk sense. That was the GP(Ps?) point.
Your point about abiogenisis shows that you do not even understand what evolution is. It is the variance of life, not the origins.
The earth orbits around the sun. That is not open for debate and yet has plenty of science involved. Don't be an idiot.
propose hypotheses which, when disproved by evidence,
continue to stick to their hypotheses. Was it the
Piltdown man which was later shown to be an ape
skull with a human jaw (or was it the other way
around)? Recent changes to the 'hypothesis
of evolution' include the idea that evolution
was not a slow change but a rapid event (in
response to tough conditions) and that two
separate species of Homo co-existed for a time
until one died out. In order to be science,
a hypothesis must be disprovable -- but hypotheses
which morph frequently & subtly to match new
evidence don't stand still long enough,
in my opinion, to meet the criteria of
a disprovable scientific hypothesis.
Your concern is then is not about the basic concept of evolution, but some specifics about human evolution, and the techniques of some researchers. All true scientists would admit that the data available for constructing the history of human evolution is far from ideal (much more data would be greatly apprecitated by scientists). As such, it is possible that there are major mistakes in the current theories. But the basic concept of evolution (beyond just human evolution) is not only logical, but is supported by tons and tons of data.
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Let me first say: I believe in evolution. Now, onto my rant.
This entire discussion is just one big excuse for the evolutionists to trumpet their horn, degrade those who don't have the same beliefs, and make themselves feel better, all in one. Frankly, I'm sick of it. Just because people don't agree with you does NOT mean they're stupid - and I don't care WHAT kind of comparisons you can come up with to justify your point. Degrading others is never alright. A favorite topic of people today is tolerance, but it's funny how it gets applied to everyone except when it's convenient to not apply it to creationists. It's also amazing how most people here seem to think that believing in some sort of higher power makes you a crazy person. Some of America's most brilliant leaders believed in a higher power (the Christian God, most of them) and they were able to make excellent, well informed, and well-regarded decisions during their presidencies. So now, just because we have had a president for the last 7 years that most no one likes, and he happens to believe in God, it suddenly means that believing in God equals stupidity? Where's the logic in that? I'm sorry to inform you of this, but believing that there is *something* after this life does not automatically make you a nut, or incompetent for that matter.
If we, as evolutionists want people to take us seriously (e.g. those people who don't understand the overwhelming facts), then we have to first treat them with respect. They won't listen to us if we don't take this simply courtesy. To me, evolution is a fact. But another and more important fact, IMO, is that if you can't bother to treat our fellow man with respect, then you're not any better than racists, bigots, terrorists, and any other group that has no respect for others. Period.
That's not my definition, it's a definition that's been entrenched in modern science since the beginning. Read your Wikipedia article. It's not written very well in places but notice how it doesn't say that theories mature into laws or facts.
There are scientific theories, which are supported by observations. You may call observations facts if you insist, but it is wrong to call theories facts, no matter what evidence supports them. That distinction is one of the fundamental pillars of science. Theories can never be proven, only disproven. To me that fundamental humility is one of the most important and illustrative differences between science and religion.
Regarding scientific theories, even ones that have "mountains" of evidence supporting them, is very dangerous. It's misleading and hampers progress. When that mental laziness is taught to children it's as bad as teaching them creationism as truth. Not to mention it provides lots of avenues for anti-scientists to attack.
The original poster might well have been implying that evolution is unreliable because it's a theory. However, what he actually said is that both evolution and creationism/ID are scientific theories. He's half right. Evolution is a scientific theory. Creationism and ID are not, not because they have too much or too little evidence to support them but because they are not falsifiable. So he might well be twisting the word theory, but you're not helping by asserting that evolution is a fact.
As expected, Ron Paul will win, because he eats ninjas for breakfast!
Libertas in infinitum
Yes. But the "pattern" seen will not duplicate itself in other experiments. Other "patterns" will appear to appear.
An easy demonstration is with a colony of fruit flies. Split them into different sub-colonies and prevent inter-colony breeding. Eventually the colonies will not be able to breed with each other.
If the "pattern" was a real pattern, then it would occur in each colony.
If it were random, then each colony would vary. Which is what we observe.
No. That depends upon the process. Random mutation can be shown to be random in that it does not follow the same pattern in different colonies.
Again, no. It isn't whether something CAN be shown not to be falsifiable. It's whether an experiment COULD be designed that would show that it could be falsified.
If the average Slashdot reader had infinite power it would be all booze and hookers, right?
Yes, God may be a slob just like the rest of us (thanks St. Alanis), but thank God, He deigned to create us. Without that where would we be?
Q.E.D.
Sniff - why do I smell ozone? Did I just hear thunder?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You seem to be assuming that everyone who reads slashdot believes in evolution.
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I asked ESR about it, but he started shooting at me.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No. You have a very poor understanding of quantum physics. There is no way, even theoretically, that nuclear decay can be traced back to any external cause. It is true randomness, and to look for "cause" is not possible. Very likely, the whole question of causality is meaningless in such a case.
One might ask, "In a previous debate you said you didn't believe in the theory of evolution. How is your failure to believe in this scientifically well-substantiated theory different from "bearing false witness"?
If he explained how He created the universe, how everything from Einstein's theories to Newton's Laws works, none of you could be bothered to RTFM. So He created the Bible, something to give you the basic ideas of how things work. He even released errata once He figures we could get to that next level of understanding. Of course, the Bible does not explain everything. He has other public works that He does, and sometimes He privately speaks to people. Most of those conversations never get to print, but a humorous one from a gun nut I know went something like this: And Browning said "But God, I was thinking of being a botanist. I mean, I could stop world hung-" and God said "MAKE THE .50 BMG, JOHN."
"But.. well.. I guess you're the Lord, but that sounds quite exce-"
"MAKE THE .50 CAL, JOHN. DON'T MAKE ME ASK YOU AGAIN."
"I WANT TO SEE YOU BLOW A HOLE STRAIGHT THROUGH SOME IMPERIALIST GERMAN FUCKHEAD."
"...yes, Lord."
"I'M WATCHING YOU."
"EXPORT THE GUN TO EUROPE."
"But.. the War Department doesn't want the Kaiser getting his hand on i-"
"I'M GOD, I THINK I KNOW WHAT THEY SAID. EXPORT THE GUN TO EUROPE."
"Well.. I guess I could pay for shipping and send a few over..."
"RENT A BOAT."
"What?"
"RENT A BOAT."
"Well, whatever you think is best..."
Back on topic though, I really think that there is nothing far-fetched about God existing, and using evolution to make things the way they are today. In fact, many religious people I know believe in this same fashion.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
for the moment. Ask them if they think that the Earth is older than one billion years old.
I can't even remember the last time a Republican didn't fuck up the country when they were in office. That was, of course, said for humor with a stinging tinge of truth. While I'm certainly no fan of either party in its entirety, the evils of the Democrats never seem anywhere near as bad in the grand scheme of things.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
In a previous debate you stated that you did not believe in the Darwinian theory of natural selection, even though modern biological and medical science is based on the correctness of Darwin's well-tested theory of evolution. How does your lack of belief in this theory differ from bearing false witness?
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
This seems like a good opportunity to challenge those candidates who say they do not believe in evolution.
Most of the "problem candidates" say that "both sides should be taught in school", not that they "don't believe". "Teach both" is a good hedge for a politician in religious country. They don't have to make a claim either way.
I think it is important to present the overwhelming body of evidence on the subject as incontrovertible fact
"incontrovertible fact" is going too far. Evolution has never been fully and directly observed on a large scale (only incriments), and full observation should be required to be called a "fact". In fact, there is no solid meaning for "fact".
Table-ized A.I.
If it's not testable, it's just a conjecture. If you want to argue that just because no one hasn't found a test yet that doesn't mean it's not testable, then I'll be forced to argue that you might not even exist. I'd rather not go there. :)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
ID isn't even a hypothesis. Since it is essential to the idea that there be a supernatural force which is guiding things, it shouldn't even be considered a hypothesis.
That is not correct. ID as stated does NOT require a supernatural being. In fact, Monsanto is doing mild ID (lower case?) as we speak. And it may be possible to look for artifacts of manufacture in life-forms, such as math, messages, or photos encoded in DNA somewhat similar to what SETI does or would do with sky signals. Most supporters of ID don't look at it this way, but you must be careful about making such absolute statements. Being sloppy with terms and claims can be used against evolutionists in bias cases.
Table-ized A.I.
Lets ask all the candidates if they believe in Keynesian Economics, since most respect experts in the field of economics believe in it. It has more to do with showing if someone is fit for running a country then belief in evolution.
In God we trust, all others require data.
Judging from the random variability arising from the brainwaves of a few of the GOP presidential candidates, it is evident that the gods had a sense of humor.
That hyperbolic apologist crap gets no traction with me, sorry. Anyone who paints evolution with the brush of uncertainty simply doesn't understand it, and to say that anyone who teaches evolution without qualifying it as an 'unproven' 'theory' is as bad as teaching creationism is not just nonsensical, it is despicable. It's the 'teach the controversy' garbage that is now the center of creationist political strategy.
We are as lucky to discover that 1+1=3 or that petunias have IQs of 195 as discover that evolution is wrong. Are you saying there is mental laziness in not teaching children that arithmetic is 'just a theory' and 'unproven' and 'could be wrong'? That failing to 'teach the controversy' about arithmetic is as bad as teaching creationism? That is what you imply.
Nothing in science is absolutely certain - that goes without saying, even for something as ridiculous as talking petunias. But the likelihood of something being wrong is entirely relevant to whether or not we term it a 'scientific fact'. Ask the biological sciences community what the likelihood of evolution turning out to be false is: very, very close to zero.
This is very similar to the atheism debate about God and the examples of the invisible pink unicorn, fairies, and the Flying Spaghetti Monter : the fact that you can't disprove something (i.e. God or any scientific theory) says nothing whatsoever about the likelihood that it is true (God, fairies, Flying Spaghetti Monster) or false (evolutionary theory, germ theory of disease, etc). The evidence is was counts in determining the likelihood that an assertion is true or false. You qualified the word 'mountains'. I've got bad news for you. Those mountains are all that matter.
A-Bomb
so puree more babies. That makes sense.
If you're going to puree the babies anyhow (or dump 'em in an incinerator), why not salvage a few of the cells first and use them in research to save lives?
= = = =
By the way: The "babies" we're talking about here are typically blastocysts - unimplanted clusters of a few cells. These are the spare, cryonically-frozen, fertilized eggs that are left over when an in-vitro fertilization attempt succeeds and the new parents don't want to go through another dozen pregnancies and raise the resulting couple dozen children.
But even if it were a first-trimester abortion that was going to be done anyhow, or an in-vitro fertilization that was done specifically to create a cell line (and thus using eggs and sperm that otherwise would never have combined) what's your gripe?
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Evolutionists: Please locate proof, documented in an established scientific journal, of an observed case, in a controlled laboratory environment, of a population of a particular species of plant or animal producing offspring (in any number of successions) of a different species.
Creationists: Please provide two or more eyewitnesses to God's having created Man or any plant or animal species. These individuals must be living, and willing to testify to various government and news agencies. They also must be willing to undergo an extensive battery of psychological tests.
Thank you, I am awaiting your timely responses.
Instead, frame the question in a way that Americans as a whole can recognize far more clearly as incompetent interference in scientific research. Point out the recent backlash many scientists have had against this administration, particularly with people completely uneducated in a scientific field editing and influencing scientific reports (like the one from NASA about Global Warming), and ask the candidate how they can assure the American people scientific research won't be falsified or influenced by politics.
"But since I am not an expert in the subject, I would be interested in how you all feel the question should be presented."
Let me get this right, you are condemning some one else for having illogical opinions, yet you don't have the information to back up your own? That sounds a bit more like zealotry than informed opinion. If you would like to curb the illogical beliefs of others with "incontrovertible fact," perhaps you should begin by having knowing the facts rather than asserting a belief based on the that-smart-guy-over-there-told-me-so syndrome.
Now, I realize that this smells a bit like a flame, but I believe there's a real point to be had here. Until you are informed, are you really any better than they are? Until you are arguing with evidence, you're just blathering. Further, seeking the evidence to argue a point because you believe it is true, rather than arguing a point because you have found it to be true is hardly "scientific." Just a thought. People arguing without evidence leads to flame wars, which we have far too much of already on this particular issue.
One last thought, assuming the other guy is stupid is only likely to make a fool of you. Despite some of the assertions on this thread (this is more directed at certain commentors than the main poster) there are extremely intelligent people who hold the view that evolution is in some way flawed. I can't claim to know the particular intelligence of the candidates in question, but you can rest assured that they've heard the cookie cutter arguments before, they've seen the evidence, and they have made a conclusion that is not necessarily stupid (though, not necessarily right). If you would like to find some resolution in the evolution debate, I think the most important question anyone on either side can ask is more along the lines of: "what would cause that intelligent guy over there to make this conclusion that seems so wrong to me?" Until you actually understand their viewpoint you cannot intelligently counter it (I can hear the rebuttals already: "but religion, RELIGION." 1. Not all people who oppose evolution as a theory are religious. 2. What would cause an intelligent person to believe that religion might be worth maintaining, even against evidence?). Just calling the other guy "stupid" or "illogical" relegates us to elementary school squabbles.
To sum up, if you want a question to ask, try "Why do you oppose evolution?" And, (now I realize this may be a difficult thing to swallow) _listen_ to what he says. If his opinion is stupid, he should manage to make that obvious himself.
Perhaps we should ask them which theory of evolution they don't believe in
Darwinism
Neo Darwinism
Allopatric speciation
Baldwin effect
Essentialism
Facilitated variation
Gradualism
Group Selection
Lamarkian Inheritance
Orthogenesis
Pangenesis
Panspermia
Phenotypic platicity (journal of theoretical biology 172:225)
Punctuated Equilibrium
Synthetic theory
Saltation
Transmutationism
===begin quote from original poster:
:).
"For my own part, I think it is important to present the overwhelming body of evidence on the subject as incontrovertible fact, much the same way DNA evidence is presented during a criminal trial"
===end quote.
But there are many cases in which DNA evidence only can provide a probability between, say, 80 and 95 percent of a particular interpretation of the facts in the court-- and that's not including any potential doubt of how the biological evidence was collected.
Polemicists speak of incontrovertible facts in order to emphasize the deficits in other views, not to learn more about the facts themselves. Scientists, in contrast, prefer to investigate the existing facts and theories in the hope of learning more. The fact there are a few scientists speaking out as polemicists against things like intelligent design does not make claiming the infallability of current theory good science.
In fact, most actively productive biologists are likely to avoid wasting time dealing with religion in politics, the exceptions likely being those who take atheism as a personal point of faith and maybe, at least at budget time, also those who need grant money for evolutionary topics
A couple of things here need correction. For one, "fact" is not really a usable word because it has no Boolean test that does not involve a fair amount of subjectivity.
Creationism is NOT a theory. If isn't even a conjecture or hypothesis. It is nonsense. There is no data whatsoever to back it up.
The evidence often given is that things seem too complicated to have evolved naturally. That may not be strong evidence, but it is certainly evidence. And, the Cambrian Explosion appears to be a rather abrupt introduction to many phyla we know now. This appearent abruptness fits the hypothesis.
There is no experiment that can show it to be true.
Finding the message "Kilroy was here, and here is pi to 2000 decimal places: 3.141..." in pre-human DNA would certainly be evidence.
Evolution is a fact. It can be tested in a laboratory.
Only on a small scale. Most creationists don't dispute that evo can change color and size. They dispute that it can create complex stuff out of simple stuff, which has never been observed of organic materials in the lab.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm a molecular cell biologist studying neurodegenerative disease and cell death. In regard to evolution, well, I can't say I totally believe it. The "scientific fact" that we have acquired in the past 148 years is not enough to make me believe. Believe it or not, scientists are often wrong. You'd be amazed at the number of papers that make it through the peer review process in big journals like Science and Nature just to get retracted (not to mention the crappy papers published in lesser journals...). It's not that they're lying, it's that they misinterpret things.
Evolution can be proven in bacteria and by other micro-scale observations, but there is no definitive proof that it has occurred on a macro scale. Show me all the sequence alignments and identity percentages you want, it doesn't prove that they came from the same origin -- it just proves that specific things are needed to make (a) similar/different compared to (b). I mean, come on -- people say that dog breeds, finches or whatever else are proof of evolution. Breed some dogs or finches until you get a cat or an eagle, then I'll take macro a little more seriously.
Believe it or not, I'm not the only person in science who thinks this way. For me, rational thinking leads to inconclusion. Sometimes I think I should have chosen politics over biology -- I'd get paid a lot more to not make decisions...
By throwing an evolution related question at the candidate you're giving them a chance to avoid harder and less popular issues. You're giving them an easy out.
The candidates know most Americans are religious. They'll lose no points by siding against evolution, they won't even lose points with the atheists what with religion being so pervasive in American society. If you're trying to ensure they win over the fundies and evangelicals, go ahead and give them an opportunity. Everyone else will be indifferent.
If you want to give them a challenge, and learn something about the candidates, then give them something political. Politics, being legislated morality and ethics, is the window to a person's soul. There's no better way to learn about someone.
For example, a great question would be "are 30,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian deaths justified given our goals and what we've achieved so far?" If they say yes, then you know they believe certain ends justify any means, good or bad, and from this one small insight you can predict how they'll behave on a number of issues. You'll know they will do evil in the name of good. You'll also know they have little regard for certain groups of what they must perceive to be lesser people (i.e. probably non-Americans). Either that or a general disregard for humanity.
I doubt any candidates would pass such a test. They would all willingly go to war for frivolous and unjustified reasons, they would all approve of extraordinary rendition and the disappearing of people, they would all jail enemies of state indefinitely without charge, they would all tap your telephones, there is nothing immoral, illegal or wrong they wouldn't do in the name of whatever fucked up ends they have.
I understand the controversy about promoting creationism in schools. I agree with the side that says that, if anything, it should be in some class about various religions and nothing more.
However, why does their personal belief and exact knowledge have to be challenged on stage like that? If they put more faith in creationism over evolution, that doesn't bother me nearly as much as if they would try to force that belief into schools. Rather, I'd ask how they plan to separate their religious convictions from their government work. It's a little more broad, but covers other things like gay marriage and abortion- and, again, I don't care about their personal convictions on those as much as I do for how they might try to implement them in life. You could follow that up by asking just what their personal convictions are and why they choose to keep them separate (if at all).
And why didn't we propose this for the democrats at their debate? Even if you're trying to prove a point, you should be fair and ask both sides. Maybe some liberals don't "believe" in evolution and are just better at hiding it. Call me crazy, but have you asked them, or are you just assuming that because they're on "your side" they know the "right" answer? I wouldn't be surprised if the liberal candidates were all proponents of evolution (and used the opportunity to take pot shots at the conservatives), but I would be surprised if most of them could name exact time periods for the age of the universe or solar system. I don't care what side of the spectrum someone is on, they should all get the same damn questions, even if some of the answers can easily be guessed.
In short, this is the right idea- question them about their knowledge and how it could affect their job, but you're approaching it in the wrong way.
You have the chance to ask the Presidential candidates any question you want, and you're going to ask it about evolution?
I'm an atheist, so you pretty much can get which way I go on that question, but come on!
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
Politics isn't about intelligence, it's about representing the least intelligent among the populace(rep or dem). The question, no matter how great, will be shot down with a small blurb and you will be left unfulfilled.
Then again, perhaps you're just trolls.
Let me begin by saying that I believe evolution is a fact. I know life has evolved over millions of years, etc. I am also a libertarian and will be voting for Ron Paul (Check him out....) Just so you know where my biases lay. (or is it lie?...) My comment is that as technology/science people we tend to forget the world we live in. What percentage of this country is religious? What about the idea of fate? Not scientific, but how many people believe it? Or Karma? I know all kinds of people, including Christians that truly believe in Karma. How about all you men ask your wives or daughters if they believe in love at first sight? Does your wife think she is the only woman for you or you two were 'meant to be'? How about monogamy? Do you think it is the right way to live you life? Does your wife/husband? Attacking a candidate religious views may turn off a large portion of the country. If there are a great many things that a lot of people in our culture believe in that are not supported by science, should our president be representative of the country's people? You may want the president to fund scientific research that you think is important, but that may mean a large percentage of the people paying the bill(US tax payers) are forced to pay for something that goes against what they believe in. Would you want to be forced to pay for the government to study hidden messages in the Bible, or which tree Budda used to sleep under? I personally don't care what religion my president is, or what his/her personal beliefs are. Our President shouldn't be making policy that has to do with religious issues. Those two things should be seperate. Now, you might say that like it or not, that is the way it is, but I think that that is the problem. Instead of worrying about what god the president prays to, or what side of the inflationary/steady state debate he/she is on, I think we should worry more about finding a president who supports each persons right study and decide for themselves. Okay sorry for the rant....
since I am not an expert in the subject...
This seems rather obvious by the scientifically incorrect assertion, "I think it is important to present the overwhelming body of evidence on the subject as incontrovertible fact". Evolution is still technically a scientific theory. A theory (scientifically speaking) is only a theory, (despite how widely accepted it is) until it is *proven* as fact (i.e.: consistently reproducible). At that point it becomes a scientific law. The fact that evolution is so widely accepted, does not make it scientific law. It just means it's widely accepted. (It was once widely accepted that the world was flat.)
In the court of law in the United States, a person can be convicted if they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is what's known as "legal guilt" and differs from actual guilt. A mountain of circumstantial evidence can constitute guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But it doesn't mean the defendant's actually guilty. It simply means all 13 jurors (rationally) think they are.
The creationist vs. evolution debate will never end for one simple reason: just like you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, you also cannot prove or disprove that something occurred billions of years ago. You can only postulate that the aftermath we observe in the present was caused by XYZ. Until we can jump into a time machine to go back and observe, we have to... ahem... trust the men in white coats (sounds a lot like faith?).
One case in point is while genetic mutations, natural selection and the like (i.e.: microevolution) have been observed in the wild as fact, never has anyone ever observed speciation of one folk species into another. In other words, we have lots of varieties of dogs, cats and other animals, but no one has ever seen a dog give birth to a cat. The so-called "observations" of speciation reported in scientific journals typically use a less strict definition of species (like when apple maggot fly offspring eat something besides apples) or postulate on species observed on remote islands.
If a presidential candidate actually has the courage to stop following the herd and the intelligence to stand up against the theory of evolution, then, while he/she may not get my vote, they will certainly earn my respect.
So here's a quick question of my own -- do you really care if they care what the answer is, or are you basically trying a rhetorical trick designed to get GOP sympathetic readers in defense mode?
Reminds me an awful lot of Arnold's campaign. Remember during his campaign the rather disquieting and believable allegations of sexual harrasment that would have made Clinton blush? You know what I remember? GOP apologists standing up and saying "these allegations are poltically motivated." No care or attention, of course, about whether they were true -- it was all about whether it hurt or helped his campaign.
The time for letting that kind of bullshit pass is done.
It doesn't matter ONE BIT whether or not having to answer this kind of question will make a GOP leader look bad. If it does, so be it.
It won't be the question which incriminates, anyway. It'll be the answer. And that's the candidate's responsibility, no one else's.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Everytime the populace elects a purported believer they will either get an honest man or a person just pretending to be a believer. If they elect a purported non believer they are guaranteed of getting an honest man.
If a candidate is religious, should we then dismiss he/she because they believe in something un-scientific?
I believe in evolution, science and the scientific method, yet I still believe in God. So do I get tossed out as a fruit cake?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Beliefs
Umm, you are showing your own lack of knowledge by assuming a theory is not fact. [...] I am using the PROPER usage of the term here. Then please look it up before you make a fuss of correcting someone else; I would not have corrected you if you hadn't made such a point of it. I do not claim to be perfect; in fact, there may be several mistakes here. But I will not insult you for making a mistake that I, as a layman like the grandparent poster, was just as likely to have made.
What most of the people who support intelligent design don't realize is that this idea was already thought up, centuries ago.
In fact, it was a relatively important part of a book.
This book was called candide.
The character in question was, i believe, doctor pangloss. He made such wonderful observations such as, "We have legs so we can obviously wear pants." and "humans have noses so that they have a place to put their glasses".
While it's more of a satire of optimism, if you look at the basic argument, it's pretty much the same stuff, different millenium.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Ok. A FACT, eh? So we have genetic records going back how far showing change over time? I'd like a link if you've got one. I don't recall ever using the term "wild-ass claim" which you put in quotes as if I used it. I don't recall ever saying Creationism was a scientific theory. Its not. And finally, I believe in evolution, but there seem to be alot of people here who have no room in their brains for any doubt of its veracity. ie: If you don't believe in evolution you must be a knuckle dragger. Is that a scientific theory as well?
are the #1 issue in this and every election ever held. Seriously, after the mistakes made in the last two elections, people should be making *extra damn sure* they pick the right candidate for them, on every issue or at least as many issues as possible. A good President would not let his personal beliefs on evolution affect his judgement on what is best for the nation as a whole, and we should be spending our time working out which candidates would make good Presidents, not organizing a creationist witch-hunt based around the flawed concept that anyone who harbours a different idea than us about how the world came into being cannot possibly correct or intelligent in any other area.
Notice that Tony Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, have managed to drive us in the UK into spiralling youth crime, rising pensioner poverty and far-reaching general disaffection without so much of an inkling of creationism, and if you think that the #1 problem with Bush's presidency has been his particular set of religious beliefs you must have some very odd priorities, as I really wouldn't put spiralling trade deficit and an unending 4-year quagmire in Iraq down to anything to do with how old Dubya thinks the world is and whether or not he thinks Jesus fought with dinosaurs.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Not to mention physics...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
It seems to me that your comment is more of a flame than an actual question but being that I am on slashdot that should be expected. You can have science without having evolution. The real problems conservatives have with liberals is that you have a secret agenda and you try to push it as fact. The truth is that no one living today was around when the world was created. Here is the definition of the scientific method according to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning,[1] the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. [2]
The truth is that no one can actually observe the creation of the universe. All you can observe is the aftermath and make attempts to formulate how it became that way. It is like saying you have the number 4 and telling me that it came about definitively by adding 2 and 2 together. However, you can also get 4 by adding 1 and 3. Either way you still have 4. The same is true of the universe.
If the questions is how the universe came into existence, evolution is not valid as the only answer. No one truely knows. If the question is: "is evolution taking place", then you can say yes as an answer. The whole creation vs evolution debate answers the question of how it happened not what continues to happen. It is perfectly plausible to say God created the universe and used evolution as the means to do so. This is why the Roman Catholic church does not step into the debate. Both creation and evolution are simultaneously possible. The problem with the evolution debate as it stands in schools is that it pushes an atheistic belief system on to everyone under the guise of science. Then you have people saying that if you don't believe in evolution, you don't believe in science and you are a lunatic. This is not reasonable, rational or correct.
I don't really see anyone ever trying to refute Creationism. The approach seems to be I don't believe in God, therefore you are wrong and people stop there. However, that does not use the scientific method. It seems to be a double standard that you can try to apply the scientific method to show that evolution is possible while creation is not. There is a deeper issue at root and that is whether you even believe in God. I don't know anyone who believes in God and yet does not believe in Creation. This is really illogical. If people tell you they do, then something is not kosher. God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipowerful. He is infinite. Therefore there is no time period in which God does not exist. If God is outside the bounds of time, God would have been around when our universe was created. There is nothing else that is known to be infinite but God. Therefore, for something finite to be created it would have to come from something infinite. Otherwise, that too would also be a god. Evolution is a process, it is not a start. Something had to get the ball rolling. The only answer is some sort of creation. To a believer, there is historical fact in the Bible that Creation did occur. If one chooses not to believe, it does not make it any less true. If you don't believe in God, you are either athiest or agnostic. To the athiest, I ask you to prove to me the non-existence of God. I have never found anyone who can do this. If you are agnostic, you don't really know if God exists or not. Since you can prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt either way, it is quite possible that there is a God or there is not a god. Without proof, both methods of the birth of Universe are possible and thus both should be taught.
Flame me if you must but keep the attacks on the argument not the person as that is what you are asking the candidates to do.
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are." And he dismissed a literal interpretation of Genesis. This was in AD 408! I think every Church recognises his influence and ability as a theologian. Why do US politicians (who apparently know less biology than was known in St Augustine's time) want to second-guess him on theology?
I would probably have some algorithm like this in place for this question:
// say whatever we think the most voters would like to hear, so that we maximize our likelihood of winning the election
// use lol-speak so the average american under 20 also can understand us
if (my_belief_is_questioned)
{
echo "oh hai I thinks God created everyone lolz!";
}
Sam has one liberty, which he sacrifices for one security. Can you tell me what Sam has now?
OP says : " I am wary of coming across like Christopher Hitchins, so vitriolic the candidate
Whats wrong with sounding like Christopher Hitchens? If you came off like him, that would be a very good thing. This is a debate, and he's one of the best debaters in the world. You say that if you argue so strongly that your opponent will "defend themselves rather than answer the question". Do you really think thats what happens in Hitchens' debates? I've never seen him attack any of his opponents personally, except for Mr. Galloway, but in that case Galloway had attacked Hitchens' personally. Frankly I think we should get him in on this thing.
I would frame it in two parts.
1) Do you acknowledge evolution?
2) If no, which of the following do you not believe in?
a) Life forms physical makeup is defined by their genetic code.
b) Life forms get their genetic code from their parents.
c) Genes can be mutated by naturally occurring radiation and/or chemicals.
d) Life forms with genetic code makes them less fit for an environment are less likely to thrive and breed.
It really only takes not believing in one to not believe in evolution, and if you believe in all of them, you do believe in evolution whether you want to admit it or not.
There you go. For any philosophical or metaphysical question that arises there will be a machine that simply drops the god onto the stage to resolve any issues. Who build the machine you ask? Why, the Greeks of course! And who made the Greeks? More Greeks. Thus by induction we can conclude it was the Greeks.
Jokes aside I always wonder how creationists can defend ID but are usually reluctant to promote the geocentric model of the universe, which has just as much "prove" in the bible (and elsewhere) as ID does. Most of the arguments that work for ID would work (slightly modified) on the geocentric model as well.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
I for one welcome our non-existent overlords.
Table-ized A.I.
It's more like anything Anti-Anything-That-Is-Good-for-the-People. And it is too bad, it's not just so-called "repulicans"; both sides of government are pretty corrupt in this nation (USA), states included.
I do not know whether it is even worth to bother voting anymore. Both sides (the names we actually hear about) always get campaign money from big business and obviously will cater to those businesses when in office, so I do not see why a party makes a difference any more.
Until we have fair elections where everyone may participate, where everyone has a fair chance (perhaps the government should sponsor people? Yeah right, that would never happen), I cannot trust the government at all. The government right now is just a bunch of rich people (mostly lawyers) who know nothing about anything and only cater to big business. I know I do not have to pull out sources or examples to demonstrate this at all.
The Republican party is a classic example of de-evolution.
Republicans have de-evolved into the NeoCon party.
The first rule of being a NeoCon is to not admit you ARE a NeoCon.
The New "Conservative" (NeoCons) are for more federal oversight of states, larger federal government and spending, and starting wars with any non-Christian country.
Republicans used to be a real conservative party; against big brother watching you, big government spending and against foreign involvement.
With the majority of voters being more conservative than the batshit crazy NeoCon right wing, it is for good reason that no NeoCon admits they are really a NeoCon.
You will never hear Faux News admit the fact they are run by NeoCons, but they will claim any middle of the road (non-batshit) view point is a "left-wing" slant.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Of all the problems we face today, this is the dumbest.
At this point I am desperate enough to vote for a flat world believing President so long as he promises never to use nukes preemptively. Please, nukes as a deterrent, OK - the cat is out of the bag; nukes as a preemptive strike = genocide.
Get your priorities straight, please? Can we please stop killing people our leaders say must be killed?
Evolution is a theory that is constantly being revised, and I feel it and Intelligent Design should be openly and respectfully discussed by both sides. I favor intelligent design, but you are entitled to your thoughts on the subject, it is not my place to shoot you down, but I can tell you why I believe it, and you can tell me why you believe what you do. Seems fair to me, but neither side is willing to do it. Both are equally at fault. I for one kind of feel that the title of this article is slightly degrading as it gives the feeling that the anti-evolution guys (the intelligent design guys) are less than the evolution guys.
Also, as a former Libertarian, Paul believes that such an issue should not be legislated by the federal government, and that abortion laws should be left up to the states to decide for themselves individually, as should most issues. He would most likely view any legislation either for OR against abortion to be unconstitutional, and would reject it.
and despite not being a christian or believing in creationism..
There is one thing that i always find an interesting counterpoint. If one thinks in terms of Terry Pratchett's book Strata, a significantly advanced enough race may technically be able to build a world with an artificial fossil record, fossil fuels, etc. If one were able to convert matter to energy and energy to matter, why wouldnt one be able to create a substance that appears to have undergone a certain period of radioactive decay but was created in an instant? If one were significantly advanced enough geneticists, who would be to say one couldnt develop a form of precursor life as a program that would eventually decompress or process itself towards a specific set of complex organisms of ones design, especially if one understood the way the planet they were deployed upon would form and change over time?
Granted, a god is not necessary for any of these infinitely small, but non-zero possibilities; But it MIGHT be possible. If a candidate actually gave those responses I would be rather impressed despite finding them not at all likely. These scenarios would not even discount evolution at the same time, as evolution may just be our description of the process of life undergoing exposure predicted pressures. They would not be mutually exclusive.
This is a far cry from saying "The bible says it happens this way" in any event, which is just refusing to investigate ANY possibilities but the preset words.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Science has a funny way of taking what were ordinary words, and attaching new meanings to them. And then lettings those new meanings blur into existing ones.
It is a scientific fact that species evolve, in the present day. This can be replicated, tested, duplicated, and has been observed on numerous occasions.
There is scientific consensus that, given enough time, evolution of one species will lead to the creation of new species, which cannot interbreed with either the original species or other evolutions thereof.
There is a historical theory that speciziation has occurred in the past. We see what appears to be intermediate steps from one species to another to another in the fossil record, and a commonality between modern species supports a common ancestry.
There is interesting speculation if the first life on Earth began on Earth, or if it began elsewhere. Some even conject that our planet's life could have been created by some odd alien terraforming experiment.
Now, up to this point, you'll hardly have any argument. You might have some bickering over how certain we are about the three points above, and I'm sure at least one person reading this article will disagree with the words I chose. However...
A discussion as to the ultimate origin of life -- be it divine creation by the hand of a sentient being from beyond our existence of causality, or as spontaneous genesis caused by an unlikely event of random chemical reactions that, after a few billion tries, finally hit on life -- is fundamentally a religious one, and any scientific endeavor that purports to solve it one way or the other is labeled under false pretense. Science cannot disprove God, and God seems content to withhold scientific evidence of his existence.
Now, for what it's worth, the question that you really DO need to have the Republicans answer is "Regardless of your religious convictions as to the origin of life, Do you believe that life evolves, and that understanding of this process is scientifically important?"
Don't make it a coded "are you a Creationist" slur. Don't try and and make it red-vs-blue or religion-vs-science. For the love of sanity, DON'T try and make it "pick one: God or Science? The right answer is Science."
Aside from creationist mumbo-jumbo being taught in public schools, a candidate's religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is a non-issue. It distracts from all the real issues, like*:
If you want to ask a real question, ask "How do you fix this country, so that it returns to being a democracy of, for, and by the people?"
The machine thrives on nonsense like asking the candidates' religious views. It's a giant troll, stop feeding it.
* Not necessarily in order of importance
It seems that there is a rift in the space-time continuum somewhere, because I didn't mention proofs. I said testable, which is not the same thing.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Well, as I've said before, he is a gundamentalist - the kind that puts the "gun" before "da mental."
And he gave a pretty damned good answer. I think a lot of people will be confused about why some people (lots on Slashdot, apparently) can't get their heads around the idea that creationism and evolution aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Huckabee doesn't seem to be anti-evolution, just pro-creation.
If you discount a hypothesis because you haven't figured out how to test it yet, then you are the one being closed minded.
A statement only becomes a scientific hypothesis once there is a way to test it experimentally. Prior to that, it's speculation, fiction, a tautology, or often simply meaningless.
Secondly, science needs to be large enough to handle any concept that might be true. This includes things like living in "The Matrix", or being in a glass ball (called a universe) on someone's (God's) desk. Science is strong enough to show these things.
No, it is not. Those statements are just meaningless. For examples, at the scales of the universe, concepts like "glass ball" or "desk" don't make sense.
Rather than ask whether they believe in evolution, why not ask if they believe in the Scientific method? Maybe the right question to ask the candidates is something like:
We can all see how successful the methods of Science have been at discarding wrong ideas about Nature that were widely believed for thousands of years, and we depend upon the ability of scientists to discover and correct mistakes in their ideas in order to build our wondrous technologies. The same scientific methods that have led us to computers and airplanes have brought us modern medicine and biology. As a biological researcher, the framework of Darwinian Evolution is as essential to my work as a microscope or a centrifuge. Do you believe that I should teach anything in my Biology classes that hasn't survived the rigorous testing of the scientific method?
One is a matter of verifiable science, the likes of which the bounty of western civilization is laid upon.
The other is a matter of faith, and while a belief may or may not be individually enriching, any answer does nothing to advance the useful sciences.
Myself?
I believe that God created the earth and every creature upon it. However, God being God, I see no reason why He couldn't have set up the rules of the universe so that the results He desired came about from a complex interaction of natural and logical processes over countless eons.
Can I prove it? Hell no. Do I want to teach my personal theory in schools? No. Such questions about the origin of life and the universe are very, very important- to the individual. They contribute not one wit to the advancement of the useful arts and muddy the waters when it comes to the scientific process.
You could say I believe in Intelligent Design, but that isn't the whole story, because I know quite well that belief can produce no useful results outside of my life. I know that trying to prove such a belief is impossible, and trying to explain it in scientific terms would be silly.
I see so much beauty in this world that I simply cannot accept that it happened all by some cosmic accident.
I don't see how it could have happened without guidance and structure from above. Yes, I'm aware it's possible that life spontaneously formed and evolved by random chance. I'm aware there are enough stars in the sky that, going on raw statistics, it's probable it had to happen somewhere, and we could be the lucky ones. I just find the chance of that happening absurdly unlikely.
Seperating science from faith and realizing their seperate roles in our society is the key to settling this issue. Literal Biblical creationists are of course monumentally ignorant. Intelligent Designers need some education on the purpose and utility of science. And evolutionary anti-theists need to realize that, in all their smarmyness and superiority, that cold hard science with guesses to fill in the vast blanks doesn't answer the most compelling questions a person may have about their existence.
Compartmentalize, folks. These things can co-exist.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Your "interesting" idea has been repeated by Creationists for decades. It isn't new, and it isn't yours. But the basic idea behind it, that God is such a tidy answer, has been known to be worthless in gaining knowledge for centuries. In particular, the Judeao-Christian God is of infinite power, so it's even worse, because there is no reason for God to use a common set of coding molecules.
But, in more simplistic terms, when you can come up with a theory for Goddidit, we will talk. It's not only the ability to falsify the theory (which is impossible), but being able to come up with predictions. In either case, one cannot come up with an observational set that wouldn't be compatible with "God did it". It may even be the Truth, but it still wouldn't be science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
first post I have ever seen on slashdot that contains utter insanity...
Judging someone on hers or her beliefs on how life got started on earth is called discrimination.
Beliefs have nothing to do with how a candidate does his job while he is in office. Get off your high horse and stop expecting people to think like you. Everyone is entitled to there opinions...
I cant believe this story actually got accepted..
Terry Pratchett delves into the subject in "Science of Diskworld: Darwin's Watch". You might want to look in there for the right questions to ask. Anyway, it's fun to read too :-)
Lenne Flank of the Usenet group Talk Origins is VERY good at this sort of stuff.
The answer to that question can come in many forms, and allows a person to reveal themselves in much more detail than the more straightforward yes/no question. For example, you might answer that you accept all of the aspects of evolution except for common descent of man. This is a radically different position than answering that you don't understand the differences between these aspects, but are sure that your particular religious text got it right. Exactly. Which is why most Christian scientists, who believe that YES evolution does occur, would not dispute that evolution occurs. However, some, including me, would argue more about the ORIGIN of life (if you consider a creator creating everything as speculation, then abiogenesis IS ALSO speculation). Will you argue against ID by use of the common descent argument? Then, in reply, I can say- how can you distinguish between COMMON DESCENT and COMMON DESIGN? my 2 cents (yes I am a chemist)
But that split is not necessarily a wrong thing. To say that something is a mostly American construct usually is a scarecrow fallacy. Objective truth certainly should not be a function of geography/geometry. My point is that the usual interpretation of evolution (involving large timescales) seems to cross over the metaphysical line. Science's basic philosophical underpinnings reasonably restrict its domain to the empirically verifiable, to the physical. If it is used to prove or disprove some metaphysical argument, then any conclusions drawn from such a debate are questionable. For the same reasons why we (should) classify creationism as something other than scientific, some of the more popular conclusions of evolution should similarly be classified as non-scientific. The micro/macroevolution dichotomy may be an American construct, but it is (IMO) an important epistemological point. Certainly we should not fall into the trap of using science as a new faith. I feel that it is best achieved by understanding what science can and cannot prove, instead of drawing conclusions which can never technically (and therefore, scientifically) be supported by physical evidence.
It is testable in several ways.
First, it predicts what things we will discover in future digs. One of the complaints early on in the evolution/creationism debate was a lack of transitional fossils. These fossils hadn't been discovered yet. Evolution predicted that we would find them, and we did. Creationists then pointed out that there were new transitional fossils that hadn't been discovered (any time you fill a gap between one point and another, you're creating two new, smaller gaps). Evolution predicted that we would find those, and we did. Those were testable predictions. You're probably going to say it didn't predict anything because the fossils were already buried, waiting to be discovered. That same argument could be made for electrons before they were discovered. What it predicted was the result of future experiments (digs).
Secondly, and far less importantly, it predicts a useful technique — one that I use on a regular basis in computer science. Specifically, it led to evolutionary algorithms (of which genetic algorithms are one type).
If your point is that evolution is no more exact than F=ma, then I'll concede that point. I believe in evolution only to the same extent that I believe in quantum mechanics. It's an imperfect theory, but the best we've got.I believe in a lot of things, and science is definitely one of them. I believe in the scientific method as sure as I believe in myself.
Global warming is definitely based on several other theories, if that's what you're after. By your reckoning, it sounds like thermodynamics isn't a proper theory since it's based on statistical mechanics. The reason that global warming and thermodynamics are theories is that they make predictions, and these predictions have been verified.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Evolutionary theory has been repeated by Scientist for decades. It isn't new, and it isn't yours. But the basic idea behind it, that Science is such a tidy answer, has been known to be worthless in gaining wisdom for centuries. knoledge is a small part of a bigger equasion. In particular, the Evolutionary theory in its totality in explaining how life came about is weak a best, so it's even worse, because there is no reason for Evolution to use a common set of coding molecules.
But, in more simplistic terms, when you can come up with a better theory to that explains how evolution solves the "how we came about question", we will talk. It's not only the ability to falsify the theory (which happens all the time), but being able to come up with predictions. In either case, one cannot come up with an observational set that completely proves evolution captures the complete picture of life on earth. It may even be Science, but science doesn't explain everything, just a small portion of the truth about any one thing.
Hows that? sound pretty much like the same insanity you were just spewing?
Science isnt god when it comes to understanding life, get some balance, then come back and talk about evolution and god.
Well the second half of your post isn't half bad. The first is full of... for lack of a better word, strawmen.
I didn't say the theory of evolution is particularly uncertain, or that it should be taught in schools that there's a controversy surrounding it's likelihood. I said that teaching evolution, or any other scientific theory, as FACT is lazy, misleading and a disservice to the children (or adults) you're teaching. The strength of science is that nothing is a fact, everything should be questioned. By questioning our knowledge we either satisfy ourselves that it is reasonably sound, for now, or we prove that it is not correct and work to find a description that can survive the challenges we throw at it. And repeat.
Religions come up with nice stories to explain things and then call them facts, which you're not supposed to question. Science doesn't do that. In science you formulate theories and test them. Constantly. There is no point at which a theory becomes fact. You continue to test it. It is ALWAYS one observation away from being disproven. That's what makes science such a good way of finding things out about the world. A theory that's stood that kind of test is going to be a very good description of reality even if, by it's very nature, it can never be incontrovertible truth. Once you decide something is fact you stop testing it, you stop advancing it, and you encourage others not to question "the facts." Then you're a high priest. Unfortunately that does happen in science sometimes, and the only alternative is to wait for those people to die off or have such a mountain of evidence against them that they're discredited.
What exactly do you think the theory of evolution is, anyway? You imply that you understand it so well. Is it a nice package, maybe codified in a book somewhere? Evolution is a theory that attacks a particularly tricky problem. It has a lot of parts, and the whole thing kind of has fuzzy edges. It's only beginning to incorporate some mathematical techniques, in certain areas. It's CHANGING, being refined, as we speak. How can a fact change?
You seem to think that anyone who doesn't regard evolution as gospel truth (yes, that's right) is anti-evolution or something equally stupid. It's not true. Was it you who said that if you believe the world is round because your feet are arched you don't understand why the world is round? If you regard any scientific theory, including evolution, as a fact then you don't understand that theory, the process that created it, or why that bit of knowledge is more valuable than the alternatives.
To quickly address your comment about math, math is not a theory. It's a formal system, based on a set of basic axioms and rules that we created. Those axioms and rules were chosen such that math often bears a passing resemblance to the reality we find ourselves immersed in. Often, not always. You can think of this as bottom up -- pick the basic axioms so the structure has some similarity to what we observe.
Science, in some ways, works in the opposite direction. We don't get to pick the axioms the universe obeys, we have to discover them. Top down. We know the result, now we have to find the cause. We can never know truth, we can never have a theory that is fact, but we can find ones that work awfully well.
Stop preaching the gospel of evolution and understand it for what it is. It's better than that.
Sometimes I don't get the moderation.
How is this a troll? It's exactly the problem with these creationist dumbasses -- they think they know better than the entire body of scientific knowledge and method.
Ask 'em!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I sometimes ask homosexuals why evolution stops them dead in their tracks in one generation. Is that not "mother nature" telling them they are wrong? They don't like that argument.
Do you believe they coexisted with humans?
*show picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur* (it was on Conservapedia for a while)
Um, if you put forth a hypothesis, and it is falsified by evidence, and then you change it, then obviously it was falsifiable! Otherwise why did you change it?
When has ID ever changed it's so-called hypothesis? I'd argue "never" - it's always the same - "God did it."
I'd ask, "What are your feelings on theocracy - at home and abroad?"
It's truly ironic that in the US, we live in the most philosophically Darwinian society on Earth - while being the only industrialized country to have a substantial number of people who question the basic notion of evolution.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
There are too many comments for me to check through to see if anyone mentioned this already. Additionally, by the mere fact there are so many already makes it unlikely I will get noticed. Here it goes anyway.
Whatever happened to the real issues? Who cares if they believe in evolution or not? Last time I checked, the President for these united States is the executive, the person who enforces the laws. Sure, the President has a lot of influence, but it is mainly Congress that gets to decide a lot of things.
The real issues that need to be addressed are things like tax reform, health care, etc. Education is a simply issue to deal with: Leave it to the individual states to decide how to do it, but provide them no-strings-attatched type aid.
Counterexample:
Modern grass is much more efficient at converting sunlight to energy, whereas the grass that evolved first is very inefficient - reeds etc. There are tons of other examples where some process has become more efficient as evolution takes its toll.
If you were going to do code reuse, wouldn't you have made everything equally as efficient?
Neither theory can be experimentally verified as this would require the creation of a new universe.
No it does not.
First of all, the theory of evolution does not say anything about the creation of the universe, but about how species develop and separate.
Now, there are two aspects to that: Does the mechanism work in general? That can be proven in labs, or it can be substantiated by making a wide range of predictions and see how they match the data. This could also be proven by the creation of a new universe. Secondly, is this the mechanism that has been used on earth? That can't be proven by the creation of a new universe - it requires we work with the available data.
The same applies to creationism, except it doesn't lend itself very well to a lab.
Unbiased scientific study requires the ability to admit that your pet theory may be wrong if none of the facts that you find are predicted by your theory.
Exactly. So what are the predictions made by creationism? Unless it makes unambiguous falsifiable predictions it's not a theory at all.
Evolution predicts that one species (ie a bird) will evolve from a species that is not a bird (ie a reptile). Yet any evolutionist worth his salt will have to admit (when pushed) that no transitional fossils have been found. See, this transition was a great attempt, though severely flawed. You try to go from stating one has to admit a theory is wrong if none of the facts are predicted by the theory to presenting an prediction, and one way of verifying that prediction that hasn't happened yet. But there are huge number of predictions that have been made based on evolution that have shown to be true. There have also been huge number of predictions that turned out to be false and that required adjustments to the theory. That's how science works, contrary to fairy tales like creationism that does not make falsifiable predictions and hence can't be tested.
That part of the predictions are still untested does not change that balance: We have huge amounts of data on evolution that supports it. We have no data that supports creationism because it makes no predictions.
Also Evolution requires that the earth as a system goes from a system containing only single celled organisms to what we have today. This means that a lot of information has to be added to the system (ie DNA) where even one mistake in that DNA could spell doom for the entire new species.
Another great try. Yes, one mistake in that DNA could spell doom for the entire new species of one individual. Much as we regularly see birth defects cause the death of newborn human children and animals alike, but what we don't see are the successful mutations, because any change is likely to be miniscule. We know of a huge number of tiny changes to DNA that are advantageous in some circumstances, and where we can document how they've spread as a result of natural selection (an example would be the gene making you a carrier of sickle cell anemia for example, makes you more resistant to Malaria, and so is widespread in sub-saharan Africa).
As for adding information to a system, yes you are, but by trying and failing. It is easy to show through computer simulations, or even show in nature, that natural selection leads to exactly rapid addition of useful information to a system that make it far outstrip a random exhaustive search, which kills the typical "oooh, but the odds are so bad" argument of creationists.
Therefore the new species has to be virtually born as is from parents that do not contain all the genetic information that the new born child has.
It can mean that, and mutation happens regularly. Most of them yields an unviable offspring. Some of them do not. It can also mean being born with a slightl
You're on the fringe. Polling continually shows that a very high percentage (70-95%) of the entire world believes in some higher power. Please recognize this.. and the fact that if some pissant has his question asked about evolution, which ever candidate gets it and professes his faith will only gain percentage points.
Thank God! that secular, humanist people are turning the tide everywhere in the world (even in e.g. muslim countries -- see turkey) and relegating religion to the place it belongs, the private life of individual people.
What you describe as the "humanist people" from Turkey, is probably in reference to the sweeping reforms undertaken by Ataturk following the emergence of the Turkish republic from the ashes of the old Ottoman empire. Turkey had emerged as a modern state - a secular state, where religion was delegated to ones private life.
Unfortunately, in Turkey there is an ongoing backlash against secularists. For example, the people who won the recent elections in Turkey (AK party) are essentially very analogous to the religious extremists and their power bases in many parts of the world, except that they are good at spinning themselves as being "modern", just as fundamentalist Christian counterparts in the US for example. Its support base is generally the poor and uneducated - people with a very anti-intellectual bent. The only difference is that they are Muslim.
As in many countries, the teaching of critical thinking skills in Turkey has slid backwards by decades on account of education policies focusing on strategies for university entrance examinations and the much higher numbers of students passing through schools which could be described as fundamentally religious.
One of the by-products of all this: many people, even those who are not of a practicing religious background, treat "creation science" and "Intelligent design" as being "proven" scientific theories, just as similar counterparts in the US and other countries do. Interestingly, many fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians have such almost identical viewpoints on this topic. When discussing the topic of evolution with a fundamentalist Muslim, I could well be speaking with the graduate of a 2nd rate Bible college in the US, had I not known better.
There is one scary thing I have observed when teaching at a university in Turkey. Students from fundamentalist Muslim backgrounds, and even secular ones, are referencing very famous creationist and "Intelligent design" sites located in the US for their written work to support their views in written topics such as those comparing people with animals. And this is at one of the better universities in the country I might add.
The anti-intellectualism of "Creation Science" and "Intelligent Design" is not just a problem in the US or in Christian countries...
Disclaimer: I am a foreigner who has lived and taught in Turkey for a few years now.
Really? Because I haven't seen anything that remotely supports creationism. In fact, funny that you should mention "see", because the human eye is a perfect thing to take a closer look at for anyone who believes in a "designer". You see, the human eye is outside in. It is extremely obvious if you look at it, and something no sane human designer would have been stupid enough to do, at least, though, because it's awfully inelegant and if creating an eye from scratch it would be trivial to get it right (after all, lots of other animals have almost the same eye structure except it's the right way around). In the human eye, you see, the optical nerve enters through the back of the eye, and the nerves spread out over the retina to connect to the cells. This is what creates our blind spot - we have a big fucking "wire" going straight through and taking up space where our sensors should be. Now, if I were a god, a flaw like that would embarrass the hell out of me, and I would've set it right. I mean, give the crowning glory of your creation, a being "made in my own image" an eye based on a design that even a child can see is flawed?
On the other hand, this fits in perfectly with evolution - an eye developing from scratch is well understood. Even a few slightly light sensitive cells is an evolutionary advantage, and each successive step to improve your vision would help to a point. Humans have reached that point - our other advantages means that slightly improved vision isn't a big deal. On the other hand, once you start moving down the path of a reversed eye, it would take a pretty large change (or many small ones) to get it the right way. You get stuck in a local maximum in the search space of evolutionary fitness where most changes towards correcting the error are highly likely to lead to reduced fitness in the short term. Hence mutations that would have moved human ancestors towards fixing the flaw got increasingly unlikely as the eye got more and more developed.
The human eye itself is one of my favorite examples of why a designer is unlikely. If you believe in a designer, you have to believe that he on purpose adds huge, obvious flaws to his design and never bothers correcting them, or you have to be blind enough to drag out the tired old "god moves in mysterious ways" crap which is intellectually equivalent to putting your fingers in your ears and shouting la-la-la-la, whereas it's natural for these things to happen as a result of evolution - in fact, it's predictable, as it's easy to create computer models that demonstrate that searching through a function space with mechanisms modeling natural selection will give you prolonged periods stuck in local maxima.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Incorrect. There are many things science does not scrutinize: philosophy, art, beauty, hope, love, faith. There is nothing "mistaken" about such things.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
You ignore the minor point of fact that Washington and Jefferson were dead when Darwin and Wallace proposed the theory of evolution, consequently they could not have an alternative to believing in creationism at that time.
Jefferson held the most advanced religious views of the time. He was a deist not a theist and was a unitarian. That is he did not believe in a personal god but rather a god that defined the initial laws of the universe and set it in motion. After that everything worked on the basis of god given physical law. Consequently Jefferson's religious belief would not have contradicted the theory of evolution.
If Jefferson had still been alive at the time Darwin first proposed the theory, I am sure he would have bee a supporter.
I once tried debating evolution with someone that had a very strict religious view. The debate was very short His first answer was:
"Any evidence of the existance of evolution has been put there by God to tempt the faithfull"
I had no more arguments after that.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Just out of curiosity, does anyone apart from the writers of the X-Men comics actually think evolution works that way?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&art
FTA:
Some of these might come in useful.
You are not going to win anybody over with facts.
... generosity.
The people who actually care about facts, are already on the side of evolution.
The people who do not believe in evolution, do so because the alternative appeal more to their feelings. They will not be swayed by facts.
Yes, you can probably make them look silly with their faith based opinions, but that will not win them over. It will only make the debate more dirty.
If you want to win them over, you have present evolution as an emotional alternative that can appeal to them.
Me, I think that's close to impossible, but more importantly, totally pointless.
I think that it would be more productive to make them understand the difference between belief and science, and get them to respect that other people may have other opinions on the matter. Make an emotional appeal to their sense of
TC - My Photos..
This seems like a good opportunity to challenge those candidates who say they do not believe in evolution.
It would be nice if people stopped saying "believing in evolution". I do not believe in evolution, because I do not believe in anything. I am however convinced, due to various solid evidences, that evolution is a perfectly valid theory.
Please, put it any way you want, but don't use that verb, we don't have faith in evolution, we are convinced that it's true because it's reasonable, and therefore, don't ask anyone if they believe in evolution, cause anyone in their right mind should tell you that they don't believe in evolution, no matter what their opinion is.
You just got troll'd!
In politics it doesn't make a damn if you believe in evolution or the Easter Bunny. ,misinterpreted or lost.
What makes a damn is putting someone in office that will support the Constitution,won't sell out the constituency to business interests and will add the least legislation during his term.
Screw all the sideshow/look a bird criteria like special movements environmental/religious/abortion/war.That crap comes and goes.With each bit of legislation the government makes itself stronger and your rights weaker.Wake UP! Cause du jour may make you seem caring,informed,at the edge or whatever adjective you seek for yourself,but it just doesn't matter when our freedoms that our founders enumerated are watered down
So screw both dems and reps,theyre all crooks and don't forget we have independent party crooks to pick from too.Just look for the most honest crook and forget your f**king slogans!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Those who wish, for lifestyle reasons, to be atheists? I don't wish to be an atheist: I wish to hell there WERE someone in charge to fix things. But I look at the problem of theodicy, and see that a just and omniscient and omnipotent creator could NOT allow some of the horrors that have been visited upon the innocents of this world - so either I have to believe that God doesn't exist, or God doesn't care. By your definition, a God who doesn't care isn't a God at all, so you would call me an atheist.
I can tell you that it won't make any real difference. In fact it is firstly a gift question and secondly a marvellous time-waster that helps avoid more apposite questions. The candidates answer should be "That's a very interesting question and I am glad you asked it." followed by something along the lines of "one of the great priviliges we have as democracy is our freedom of expression".
The great advantage to any candidate of such single issue questions is that they can appear to respect "either side of the debate" (and call it a debate too - introducing an element of uncertaintity) which is a characteristic of leadership and appear to be honest and committed to their beliefs - also a characteristic of leadership.
Single issue questions are always very easy for planners to deal with because they don't challenge the interviewee to respond in a way that will demonstrate decisiveness and leadership.
The political history of the West has always reinforced the generally observed scenario where the ruling political party loses power because they lose the support of a majority of the population. Usually as a direct result of something that directly impacts the voter socially, economically or both. It is therefore incumbent on those who support the party that stands to gain power to do everything they can to promote that positive message. Flogging a dead horse is not politically purposeful and no matter how much you may desire alternatives the very best form of revenge is success.
What voters want is a sense of stability in their lives, so that they can better plan their own individual futures. A better question might be "What direction will your career take when Hilary Clinton becomes the first woman to be President of the United States?
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
However you want to trivialize it by calling it a blastocyst, zygote, or even fetus, the 'it' is a human being.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
So, your faith in what is found, or not found in the "cracks" of human knowledge is superior and infallible? Do you really want to go with that answer?
In reality, agnosticism is the scientist's answer. Agnosticism is to state that we cannot prove the unprovable. Atheism is faith no less than Theism.
Dude, do you even realize what vast, billowing clouds of Smug are coming off your post?
You all disappoint me.
To Evolutionists: You have no sense of proportion. I don't vote someone in because he has amazing scientific knowledge. You all say that the good scientific evidence for evolution takes time and effort to present and understand (imagine teaching it to a tribal people somewhere). If a politician has had misinformation or just shoddy argumentation for evolution, is he really to blame for not becoming a scientist instead of a politician and discovering the TRUTH (TM) about the world? Besides, someone who believed that every single species was hand-designed by a loving creator might actually try to preserve the natural habitat they live in. I vote for someone to defend our country, enforce the laws, and try to work with the legislature who makes the laws in the first place. I know I'm being idealistic, but I really don't care if my candidate has some missing bits of knowledge. So what?
Plus, stop responding to the theory/hypothesis/science/philosophy semantics. Nobody cares about your terms but you. The creationists don't care what you call their ideas Your serious responses to an obvious red herring are embarrassing.
While we're at it, you do realize you will never learn from anyone you call delusional. Calling for a belief to be stamped out is a bit too much like a Salem witch trial for someone who supposedly has the truth on their side. You guys are proposing a scientific inquisition for the Republicans. Nobody likes being called a heretic. But the real lesson of the dark ages is that nobody benefits from calling other people heretics either.
To Creationists: Stop making this about evidence. You people have a lot to offer in clarifying the difference between history, science, religion, and philosophy - regardless of whether there is a God. You are one of the few groups that think that those four might offer competing narratives about the world, and even different values. Contribute better. That said, it is hard to have a debate while under attack.
What are you really asking? Do you want to frame the questions to control the answer or be fair? I haven't set foot in a church for over 20 years and I this whole debate always leaves me scratching my head. I just don't see the relevance, but then 30 years ago I thought typing class was a waste of my time! How much of this discussion is really about debunking Christianity? I can remember being in a Biology class in college where that was the way evolution was presented. That's philosophy not science. Ironically, I think you weaken your position by presenting evolution as incontrovertible facts. They aren't facts and never will be without the benefit of a "wayback" machine. It is a theory. If you try to wave a magic wand to make them facts, aren't you creating a hook for someone to attack the question rather than answer it? This discussion also makes me think that people should be careful what they ask for. If evolution becomes a fact, I can see this whole discussion becoming twisted. Won't one liberal argument will be used against another?
Creationists take things literally, so believe that the world is only 6,000 years old since they trace things back to Adam and Eve; they will usually not argue with anyone on scientific grounds, they take that as an indication that you are anti-Christian. I would propose a question like this...."Have you considered that the hand of God can be found in science and evolution?" This is tha approach rational Christians are taking, even the Catholics don't take creation LITerally.
It's only arguable because the rest of your sentence is meaningless. Nobody knows what "macro" evolution is other than Creationists, so it's pretty much impossible to prove or disprove. Everything significant in the scientific theories of evolution and natural selection has been proven multiple times -- at this point we're mostly dickering over the actual lineage of homo sapien, which is almost more of an archaeological issue than a biological one. But the notion that evolution in general is in some way not proven beyond all doubt to anyone who isn't already subscribed to a theological reinterpretation of measurable and quantifiable evidence, is simply wrong.
Either evolution is a fact and literal Creationism is wrong, or millions of people from completely separate societies around the world for the past several millennia have been falsifying data with an alarming degree of uniformity.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
it's a fact that you don't know what the word theory means in a scientific context. there are many dictionaries available online to help you with this problem.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Because you don't have to? Nothing in
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
But there are huge number of predictions that have been made based on evolution that have shown to be true. What predictions would those be? Probably in a single celled organism. I give you a challenge I bet you have no idea of the scientific evidence that does support the scientific theory of creationism. Go look at this evidence and rationally and objectively study the evidence. And Creationism is an evolving body of knowledge and one addition that was made to this body of knowledge is the white whole theory of creation. This theory, with accompanying mathematical explanation, explains how the earth could have been created in six days while the rest of the universe existed for millions of years as it is essentially the opposite of a black hole. But the hidden agenda behind this whole debate is that people do not want to believe in creation as this would mean they have to admit that we as humans are not the centre of the universe (or America isn't anyway :) ) and that there is a God. This is the major and real reason that people will not believe in creation.
And I do not believe that you can back up that claim of mounds of data supporting evolution. How do you as an evolutionist reconcile the theory of evolution with the second law of thermodynamics, that a system tends to disorder. Doesn't evolution require that the earth system become more ordered?
Another thing is that the decay in the earths magnetic field supports an age of about 6000 years and making the age of the earth larger than this leads to problems as it gets rather strong.
Along with this if you do a simple study of population growth you can also get today's population in the age of the earth predicted by creatonism.
Also I would like to know just how a closed system can add information to itself as you seem to be proposing that evolution does. Where does this information come from, does it just appear out of thin air, its one of the basic and fundamental principles of physics that energy is neither created nor destroyed but this is essentially what evolution proposes. As this would mean that the oil and coal we burn today for energy had its origin in well thin air as there was no energy added to the system, the plants that formed coal and oil essential appeared one day pulling themselves up by there boot straps violating the basic principles of physics.
Why bash candidates for not believing in evolution? I don't care if they believe in it or not. What I DO care about, on the other hand, is whether or not they try to push ID or other equally non-scientific "theories" in classrooms as part of the science curriculum.
Religion is about faith and if someone's faith tells them that evolution is simply a trick God is playing on man to test his faith or whatever, that's fine. That's up to individuals to decide for themselves. I wouldn't force my beliefs on Republicans any more than I want them to try to force their beliefs on me. Taking an approach like, "You must be an idiot if you don't believe in evolution," is just as bad as them trying to push ID on us.
In the words of Rodney King, "can't we all just get along?"
Science is a method of proving things through experimentation and evidence. Religion is accepting something that may or may not exist based on personal faith. As soon as you start having faith that parts of science is true instead of relying on evidence, you make it a religion, while on the flip side, if you go to the extreme of proving every part of just say the Bible, you take faith out of the equation and make it a science.
Science is how the world works, and while some parts can be wrong or right, faith cannot be wrong because if it is then you no longer have it. And by that I mean that as a Christian I accept that there is a great body of evidence for evolution to exist, but I chose to believe that God created the world instead. To an Atheist that may seem like ignorance and perhaps it is in a way, but it is my choice.
As human beings we always seem to jump on the opportunity to make people think the same way we do. We push our personal opinions on others hoping that they will understand and validate our own beliefs in the process. This I feel isn't the right approach in any situation. I think we need to create an atmosphere where people are allowed to chose on their own, without bias or opinion getting in the way. Religion has been guilty of forcing their beliefs on others for years and now it seems that science is picking up the slack.
Let people read the Bible, and study science so they can choose on their own.
The concept of Intelligent Design places limitations on describing of the rich detail of God's works, therefore Intelligent Design is blasphemous because it imposes mankinds limitations on the glory of God. Will you be supporting this blasphemy by imposing it on our schools?
I won't be asking the question, so feel free to use it. Personally I find I.D arrogant, because Darwin's theories can be adapted to better understanding through the scientific process that allows for revision and change. I.D throws up its hands when the complexity becomes difficult to explain.
I'm not into forcing religion down peoples throats, it defeats the purpose, and I.D also does this. Science already does a great job of gaining an understanding of creation, and Darwin lays a good foundation for describing the mechanisms of life I see no reason to undermine his work with Pseudo-Science like I.D. Spirituality is seperate from science, one should have no bearing on the other.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I don't understand why all this is a big issue anyway? Evolution should be a single chapter in a textbook just like magnetism and gravity. How does teaching evolution or intelligent design prepare our children for life in the 21st century? Would it not be better to simply teach kids science from a scientific perspective? Teach kids to make observations, develop theories and then test them? Give them all of the observable information, present the theories and let them work out conclusions. Why should science be presented so definitively? Wouldn't creating a generation of scientists that challenge established theories possibly make better scientists? Aren't the greatest minds in science those that think outside of the box and challenge the status quo?
Let's not teach our kids WHAT to think, but HOW to think. As humans, we have something within us that seeks to know things, that is one of the things that seems to make us unique among the life on our planet. Quit putting kids minds in shallow little boxes--both evolution and intelligent design are ways of looking at what is observable. If a mind is able to consider multiple perspectives on interpreting information and able to test and draw conclusions on its own, aren't we better off as a people? Why should we be locked into teaching only one thing when there are large groups of others that teach other things--even if they might be wrong? Sure, teach kids what is generally accepted, but let them know there are other theories... even if it includes spaceships and little green (or gray) men--which Intelligent Design is broad enough to encompass. You don't have to put it in the textbooks, just encourage teachers to present other theories as a general survey of "other thoughts on the subject."
There are many other things, like Critical Thinking, Math and Creativity that are so much more valuable to a young mind than something like Evolution and Intelligent Design. I don't care about where a politician stands on hot button topics like Evolution or Abortion... I want to know what they think are the critical changes we require in education that will make our children competitive in the world market during the 21st century.
Just my $0.02,
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
That such candidates as Brownback, Tancredo, and Huckabee, whose apparent science knowledge is not even at the third-grade level, can rise to such prominence in US politics leads me to ask a more general question:
"We live in a world that is ever more complex in the depth and breadth of technology. I realize that no politician, or any human for that matter, can be conversant in the nuts and bolts of every area of knowledge, but what can you say to convince me that you know enough about science and technology to be able to appoint legitimate experts to serve as your science advisers and agency chiefs?"
Ed Uthman, MD
Pathologist, Houston/Richmond, TX, USA
Believe it or not, there are other faiths in the world which have no problems in accepting science and God at the same time! Some discrepancies might exist, because our understanding of both of them is constantly evolving.
God could have been responsible for evolution in the first place. Smooth transfer of information, ensuring diversity and success of life for billions of years. Any process set by humans that even comes close to it? God set up the entire universe and the world around us right? So couldn't he be the mastermind of evolution also?
Car analogy, paragraph 2! I totally missed it.
WOOOOOOOOOOT!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Political debates are not for the benefit of people with critical thinking skills.
What matters is to damage the opponent and (in this case) pin them down as either favoring science or superstition.
Even if some of us loathe Karl Rove, he understands how to manipulate the proles and so should we. The masses of simple people can only be manipulated by ideology and pandering to their preferred vision of self.
"and an audience that is willing and able to think about the evidence presented."
If one's preferred group is to achieve influence, it is necessary to deal with people as they are. Winning in an academic debate is one thing. Selling ideas to some of the boobery is another, and (I know this is difficult for some people) it requires a certain contempt for the people you are trying to motivate.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The extent to which we accept something as a scientific fact is determined by the evidence. That's all there is to it. The fact that every scientific fact and theory is "one observation away from being disproven" is a self-evident tautology. 1+1=2 is "one observation away from being disproven." I refer you again to my last post: it is the evidence which determines the likelihood that a given proposition will turn out to be false. That's all that counts. The likelihood that evolutionary theory will be disproved by new observations is about as likely as 1+1=2 being disproved by new observations. That is not a gospel truth, it is a scientific fact. If you don't agree, you are either unaware of the facts (ignorant) or don't understand them (stupid). Take your pick.
A-Bomb
Option three: God doesn't care about everyone equally.
Option four: The actual outcome for a given person is of a scope wider than you perceive.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Have you ever thought about the evolution of god? There used to be many religions that believed in many gods, now they have almost entirely been replaced by the belief in a one all powerful god. Hmm, it is almost like 'my god is better than your gods'.
At this point I would say god is a hypothisys and evolution is an theory.
So my question would be, if not evolution then what do you believe and where is your proof of your beliefs?
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
No it is a wrong split as the mechanism is exactly the same. We even see huge phenotypic changes within species in human time scales (witness experiments with fruit flies or dog breeding). The split is entirely political/religious in nature and not scientific. If you think evolution was not the cause of the diversity in the world then you are free to offer your own scientific theory with appropriate support. Thus far no credible alternative exists and the split of evolution into micro/macro is entirely a political/religious construct.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
often, beliefs are based on emotions,
and when these are addressed with reason,
the debate don't click.
but what bothers me about such debates is how,
like many things it remains contrasted in such a dualistic way.
fundie creationists go against rabid rationalists,
and nobody hears the other side.
only a choice between A and B (which are already qualitatively
different) is given -- its got to be creation ex-nihlo or a big bang,
or something like that -- with no consideration for C -- synthesis.
i'm not a creationist nor an evolutionist; yet both. i'm still searching.
but at least i'm aware of an option C* -- and there must even be
other ways we can interpret the data science provides us.
but it is important to seperate the exact phenomenon
of the fossil record -- with our INTERPRETATION of it.
Because you obviously don't understand the meaning of the word theory. Gravity is as much a theory (Newton's Theory
of Universal Gravitation) as evolution. It's had a few hundred more years of testing, but both are on terra firma.
As for you non-specific question which shows a blatant misconception of the "theory." We have "the tube" because
we've evolved since we split off the family tree, just as we have proper feet instead of another pair of hands.
A few million years will do that to a large long-lived animal. Smaller, shorter-lived beasties will experience
drift on much shorter time scales. As for the mysterious lizards, what of it? Birds and butterflies have wings,
must one have evolved from the other? Nothing says that similar forms will not arise independently. Indeed,
evolution and *history* has taught us that similar problems will indeed result in similar solutions.
Were that I say, pancakes?
I've tried that. It doesn't work.
Screwed me up royal.
You have to start with some sort of belief, otherwise, you don't even dare experiment. If you can't experiment, you can't get evidence. If you can't get evidence, you are stuck with superstition.
Even believing an experiment will produce results requires belief. And who is going to perform an experiment (correctly) without some sort of belief in results?
Sorry about the non-linear here, but it's late at night where I am.
Atheism is lack of belief in a god or gods. The etymology is "a" (without) "theism" (belief in a god or gods.) It is not a a "belief system", any more than lack of belief in Santa Claus is. Which is to say, not at all.
I have no such desire. I desire to have religious symbols removed from government operations, not "public life." You want to put up a cross or a giant voodoo doll? Fine. Put it on your lawn; put it on your place of worship, face it to the street and have at it. What I don't want is government showing any favor whatsoever to any particular religion. As an example of the tensions this causes, imagine a Jew or a Muslim being asked to swear on the Christian bible in a US court. Imagine a patriotic atheist being asked to swear to god - to outright lie - to qualify for a military or political position. There is every reason to separate religion from government. That is not the same as separating it from the public, nor do I advocate any such thing.
The intent of the authors of the constitution is precisely known from the other papers they left as a legacy; that is why the concept of an absolute wall between church and state was established. It isn't there to put religion down; it is there to protect all practitioners of all religions equally. As soon as the government begins to favor people of one religion (as it has, that religion is Christianity) then it begins to marginalize and disadvantage people of other religions. This is best avoided. If you had any idea of how the constitution was crafted, you would have known this.
I hold no belief in a god or gods. This is not a belief system. There's no system involved. If I ever encounter any evidence at all for a god or gods, I'll take another look. Until then, I have no more reason to believe in one of these religions claims than I do in the claims for the Easter Bunny. This position is better for me. It may very well not be better for you, and I do not claim that it is. However, the government not pushing religion on people is better for everyone, and that includes you and me.
I'm not in the least interested in "enforcing" anything on any citizen. I'm just interested in seeing to it that the government doesn't either. Got it now? Or are these concepts too difficult for you?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If he isn't, then neither is Seven of Nine. I don't want a universe where hot cybernetics chicks in leotards don't want to assimilate me.
oh, and I guess one of the slashdot admins decided it was another good moment to cause another anti creation flame war. Good job, they're always fun.
Last time I logged in under a pseudonym and posted as a creationist (not my real opinion, but roleplay can amuse). It rocked, people were practically salivating with rage.
If you want to spit out micro-evolution where something adapts slightly to its environment, then sure I can see that. If you spit out macro-evolution and say that we evolved from apes or from the goo through the zoo to you; I gotta depart from you there. There is plenty of evidence of micro and NONE for macro.
If society is what keeps you honest, society is your God.
If you don't understand that, you still don't understand what you argue against when you argue against religion.
It's about 3:00 am here, I should be in bed, I probably am not lucid, but I'll try outlining things.
When we define a God, we define our God according to our priorities -- what is most important to us. Those priorities become attributes of the God we define. Your assertion that you don't believe in God is okay as an assertion that you don't believe in _my_ God (or in anyone else's defined God).
But when your assertion that you don't believe in God becomes an assertion that God can't exist, you essentially do violence to your own language.
The semantics of God being the base of definition of priorities is buried in every human language except perhaps the artificial ones that have not existed long enough.
If you want to define a base of priorities that transcends religion, you will need to start coining language. But you should note that thousands of religious philosophers (_religious_ philosophers, mind you) have been trying the same thing for millenia, and failing. Our priorities are based on our beliefs, our beliefs are a hodge-podge of stuff that is taught to us, stuff that is instinctual, and stuff that is derived from experiments.
You can't live without belief. People stripped of belief in _something_ just generally quit doing the things necessary to maintain life (like eating). If the probability of the sun rising in the morning cannot be said to be high, seriously, why bother wasting money on food to put in the fridge? Or, in the extreme, why bother keeping a spare dollar in the pocket for an egg McMuffin in the morning?
People have various reasons for wanting to fence off all religion as superstition, but it isn't that simple. If you do, you lose the ability to talk about the intangibles in any reasonable way.
That was a little meandering about the personal, individual aspects of belief in God. Shifting gears a little bit, and becoming even more random:
Why should God be referred to in the masculine pronoun? Well, using the neutral pronoun, "It", tends to make God sound more like a monster. Some religionists do believe God is a monster. But most who claim God is a monster claim not to believe in The Monster.
So, if you want to discuss God in a neutral (non-antagonistic) way, English has only the gendered pronouns, and the masculine pronoun has a long tradition of being used when gender cannot be otherwise specified. (Attempts to break this tradition, although somewhat successful in certain groups, don't seem to be getting much traction yet. Thus, you will find some computer science papers talking about the user in the feminine, but such usage is definitely still swimming against the current.)
Also, as the parent points out, using the feminine to refer to God indicates a specific belief that the nature of God is female in principle.
The argument that much of what was once considered supernatural is now understand as operations of nature cuts both ways. Those who believe in God will tend to believe that God Himself is supernatural from our point of view precisely because we don't (or can't) understand His nature.
You acknowledge that much of your argument against religion as a principle is actually a collection of disagreements with specific religions. In doing so, you acknowledge that part of your argument with the principle is actually a desire to (at minimum) defend yourself from specific religions you don't like. That weakens your attempt to argue the principle, because it acknowledges that you are asserting _your_ priorities (and thus your God) over the priorities (and Gods) of others.
It's good to assert the right of the individual to believe in God as he or she may.
It's also good to defend oneself against the tyranny of another person's religion, if that other person is trying to press his or her priorities on you via the expressi
These debates are a waste of time.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
no FSM conversation is cmplete without mentioning the heaven complete with a stripper factory and a beer volcano.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Wow, I came in too late for this discussion. tch...
k /.
Either way, I'd like to put in my opinion on the whole evolution debate, since I seemed to iron out a pretty decent solution over a Sunday breakfast about a week ago.
Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it has nothing to do with teaching the scientific method, or any of its applications. Evolution, on the other hand, was a theory supported by the scientific method, and has every right to be taught in science classes. High school biology labs prove the basic theories behind evolution - that and traits are transferred - using fruit flies. Anyone remember back that far? Intelligent Design cannot be proven or disproven through experimentation or research.
If people want Intelligent Design in the classroom, then they're going to have to put it into a philosophy class where it belongs. Hell that's where I learned it. Intelligent design was a product of pure intellectual deduction, just as everything else that is based upon faith and intuition. It was a solution that came by through pure logic. True, logic is a part of science, but it doesn't encompass the whole of science. But I honestly doubt any of the Intelligent Design supporters on the voting bloc care to put the necessary tax dollars into the educational system for such an expansion.
This should also quell anyone who has an issue with the word "belief". To be honest, the word "belief" has lost its meaning. The word "belief" has come to mean "something we consider true or accurate", as though these "beliefs" could change once the facts have been updated. The origins of the word "belief" come from words whose meaning is "to give one's heart to" or "to put their faith in". The difference is staggering, as shown by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kielowski in the first video of the mini-series "Decalogue". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decalogue Check the link to see what the first episode was all about, and a good google search can help you find the films, whether through actual purchase, YouTube, or BitTorrent (whichever you prefer).
Essentially, belief has its place, and absolute belief in science is wrong. Ultimately, there are a few things we can't quite grasp yet with science. There are always anomalies that cannot be explained. I dare not equate this towards evidence of the manifestation of God, however. If people need evidence to prove God is real, then they're already lost; it is because belief in God does not require facts nor research. It merely requires faith. That is what makes belief such a beautiful and powerful thing. Here's a link to an article that I enjoyed reading http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19811291/site/newswee
"Just because people don't agree with you does NOT mean they're stupid"
Not all the time. But most of the time, it actually does.
Yes, because saying "I don't believe God exists, because there is no reason to believe that" is just as arrogant as saying "I don't believe Santa exists, because there is no reason to believe that." Non-belief in Santa/elves/bigfoot is just as logically untenable in non-belief in God. But when you don't believe in those other things, people don't suddenly act as if you're claiming to be omniscient. When it comes to not believing in anything else (ESP, alien abductions, nessie, etc) we know that people just mean "I see no credible reason to believe in this, ergo I don't believe in this." Suddenly when the noun is "God," then everything changes and someone pretends that the speaker is claiming to know everything. They aren't, and it's obvious. You can't prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real, but you would't lament someone's arrogance for not believing in His Noodliness.
Isn't believing in evolution just as religious a position as any other belief? None of us were there to see what happened, so any position is a matter of faith really - right? If you believe in evolution, then you're trusting Charles Darwin and many scientists, and if you believe in creation, many are trusting in an ancient holy book like the Bible. But ultimately, neither scientists nor religious people can prove in a truly scientific way beyond a shadow of a doubt what happened a long time ago - doesn't it really come down to a matter of faith in who you are trusting to be right?
Why don't you quote Ron Paul's stance on evolution?
Also please quote where Ron Paul thinks that "The Constitution is an eternal suicide pact [or] that the Bible is the literal truth at every turn of the page"
Also, please show where Ron Paul is a "flip-flopper"
Are you also aware that Fred Thompson was a major lobbyist in Washington and is also a globalist?
Libertas in infinitum
of this line of reasoning. Stop using the internet, for god's sake, because the government funded its development. Don't use any road that isn't privately owned. Extrapolate that through the rest of your activities, and let me know how that works out for you.
As with many theories, it's partly a statistical thing. If you had more "exceptions" than "rules", then you'd have a strong argument. As it is, you don't, since almost everything we find fits into categories pre-defined by evolution. Let me ask you this: can you think of an alternative theory that would have predicted the discoveries that have been made since Darwin's version of evolution was first postulated?
That's an interesting argument, but I think you might have things backwards. Are you familiar with Lamarckian evolution? Lamarckian and Darwinian evolution made separate, testable predictions about how genes were transferred from parent to child. Darwinian evolution is a theory that modern genetic theory is partly based on. Yes, Mendel's experiments are a separate component. However, if you consider Lamarckian evolution, you'll realize that Mendel's experiments by themselves do not lead to a complete picture of modern genetic theory. I suggest that you let Webster/OED/etc. know that so they can update their dictionary. Thermodynamics does pretty much stand on its own as it actually predates statistical mechanics. However, would you argue that quantum chromodynamics isn't a proper theory because it is dependent on quantum mechanics Most theories in science are dependent on other theories. Sure, perhaps many of the more "lay-person theories" aren't, but that's probably why they are "lap-person theories" (those relatively easy to explain). Did you look at the link I gave you? Global warming does make predictions that can be measured by independent scientists. Would you say that most theories in astrophysics are not "real theories" because we can't use "control" stars to verify them? You have a fairly narrow view of science if you would say that.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
You kind of answered your own question, honestly. DNA.
"If you are elected President, you will be the head of the Executive Branch. If you do not believe in evolution, please explain why federal prosecutors should continue to submit DNA evidence in federal criminal courts. Either the science behind genetics and evolution are real, or they are not. So, why do you think that DNA should be trusted, but evolution as an explanation for speciation can not?"
Education is the silver bullet.
Not quite. Contrary to what some rethorically challenged people like to state, you can prove a negative. You can prove that a certain entity doesn't exist by proving that it has contradicting characteristics. In this universe, there are certain well-established limits to physics and biology. I don't think it's at all clear that leprechauns "could" exist. For example, if they have those tiny heads, do they have enough brain cells to make them behave the way stories claim they behave?
You can't prove that Santa Claus doesn't exist (in fact, if you work in retail or marketing, you know he's very real), but you can prove that a sledge pulled by reindeer couldn't reach the speeds and accelerations required to visit every home on Earth during that one night. So you have to either accept that Santa doesn't exist or change your definition of "Santa Claus" to something slightly different (or very different), that at least could (even if you can't prove that it does).
The trouble with "god" is that there is no universally accepted definition. So, until you define what "god" is, indeed you cannot prove it doesn't exist. "Proof" of something that is undefined is logically meanigless. For some definitions of "god", its existence can be proven in purely logical terms, but what do we gain by that?
You can take any simple system and add layers of useless, self-cancelling complexity to it, so it would be trivial to "weave god into reality". The real question is: are gods necessary to make sense of the universe? And the answer to that seems to be a pretty resounding "no". In fact, if anything, attributing phenomena to supernatural, unknowable entities is a way to limit our understanding of the universe. Ockham's razor and all that.
To quote Lewis Carroll, "Don't be in such a hurry to believe next time - I'll tell you why - If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won't be able to believe the simplest true things. Only last week a friend of mine set to work to believe Jack-the-giant-killer. He managed to do it, but he was so exhausted by it that when I told him it was raining (which was true) he couldn't believe it, and rushed out into the street without his hat or umbrella, the consequence of which was his hair got seriously damp, and one curl didn't recover its right shape for nearly two days."
And then there's the separate (but often associated) issue of religion, which is responsible for more irrationality, obscurantism, death and self-righteous cruelty than just about any other part of human culture.
He's a slashdotter. He cannot prove either.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Romans 1:16-32
16.For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17.For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH."
18.For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19.because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20.For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21.For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22.Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23.and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24.Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25.For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26.For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
27.and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28.And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
29.being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
30.slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31.without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
32.and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
I see a lot of people in here asserting that religion is just as valid as science, and I don't disagree. I have no problem with someone blending their religion with reality. The dangerous ones, in my opinion, are the ones who reject reality in favor of religion.
Education is the silver bullet.
FYI, I don't take the book of Genesis literally. The idea that God created the earth in six 24-hour periods our out of nothing isn't a conjecture to which I subscribe. So if you think I'm a "literalist", then you, my anonymous friend are delusional, and therefore have good reason not to put your name to the above post.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
Its always good tactic to simply insult those who question you. Nice job. Dictionary.com gives me this for "theory" relative to "fact": "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact." or "A theory in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena: the theory of relativity" or "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena" or "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory" or "a tentative insight into the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices" There are more from other dictionaries cited on dictionary.com that all follow along the same lines. So you're claiming that a theory of evolution is a fact because it has survived experimental testing? When did that happen? Or its a fact because its "more or less verifiable"? Which definition are you claiming states that theory = fact? And on a tangent, I'm even open to an assertion that there are no facts to know: After all, its all 'relative' ;)
Hey! An intelligent response. Thank you for that. Let me respond by clarifying a few things:
First, I never stated that I was anti-evolution. Actually, I acknowledged that evolution that crosses the species line has been well-documented. I accept that as fact. How does that make me anti-evolution, then?
Yes, I did make up the other terms. So? I'm still awaiting a satisfactory answer to the question, though.
Your average chicken does have a dinosaur as a ancestor. The fact that dinosaurs eventually grew wings and feathers is now well documented. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuvuuia_deserti or just the scaly reptilian feet that birds have. So thats some cross-class evolution.I read the article you mentioned. I have no reason to question any of the facts presented. I find the wording in the conclusion rather interesting: "These findings show that, though poorly preserved, Shuvuuia likely possessed a coat of feathers."
In other words, there's no positive proof this dinosaur had feathers--just a high probability. For the sake of argument, let's say that there is no other possible explanation and that this dinosaur definitely had feathers.
How would this be proof that the chicken descended from it? It appears that the argument is as follows: This dinosaur had feathers. Chickens have feathers. Because dinosaurs are older than chickens, and the Theory of Evolution says that Chickens must have evolved from dinosaurs, then that proves chickens evolved from dinosaurs.
Please pardon me if I mischaracterize the argument, but it appears to be no different than the circular argument that one hears from Christians who say the Bible is true because it says it is. To me, it would appear that parts of the Theory of Evolution suffer from the same circular logic. Correlation does not, after all, prove causation.
So am I anti-evolution? Not at all. It just appears to me that the whole of it has not been demonstrably proven to be fact. I'm not anti-science, or anti-evolution. As one who holds a B.S. in Mathematics, all I am asking for is to see the proof. Lacking that, I see much of what is covered by the Theory of Evolution to be as wildly speculative and unproven as that which comes from religious fundamentalists.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
Where was the insult? You clearly demonstrated by your misuse of the word "theory" that you were not familiar with it's meaning in the scientific sense, even though your comment was about a scientific theory. The definition is in the dictionary and you found it. Now you know that your original question was meaningless because it was based on ignorance of what the word theory means when talking about the "Theory of Evolution" or the "Theory of Gravity".
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I think your point is that both global warming and evolution are both essentially groups of theories rather than theories themselves. I.e., there are several models of global warming that each make slightly different predictions (AKA "conclusions"). Evolution (AKA Darwinian evolution) also refers to several slightly different theories, each of which make slightly different predictions. The simplest conception of evolution (possibly the one you're thinking of) is better stated as a law than a theory. Laws state what is happening, theories explain how (and what, of course). (Although most lay persons don't understand this, I'm assuming that you realize that theories are better than laws.)
If that is your gripe, you should realize that the same thing is true about general relativity and quantum mechanics. Each of these theories is really more a "group" of related theories. In general relativity, for example, do you want to use a Schwardzchild metric or one of my metrics (probably not)? (If you want to be exact, you would use some version of a Kerr-Newman metric, but that's a different story.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Every time I see a discussion or article (there are too many to count nowadays) with the words, god, religion, hypothesis, testable conjecture, evidence, science and other sundry scientific and religious words, it wonder why it so hard for people to understand that they are comparing apples and oranges.
The way I see it, you cannot possibly use science to prove or disprove the existence of God or use god to explain away real, hard-earned scientific evidence. One is a matter of knowledge and the other is a matter of belief. A more formal treatment of the differences between belief and knowledge if you are so inclined (after all this is slashdot..)
Its not that hard a concept to grasp, but admittedly it's quite hard to stfu when somebody who does not see it that way goes off, especially a hardcore fanatic or for that matter dawkins (just a wee bit though..).
I assure you, at no point in my adult life have I ever confused observable phenomena with theoretical frameworks. You are mincing words. If you care to descend into ontological bickering, all observations are themselves constrained by representations of reality: the resulting logic is circular. In practical terms, however, it is more sensible to use the term 'scientific fact' to describe both observable phenomena and theoretical frameworks for which there is an overwhelmingly large body of evidence. You will find that virtually all scientists, in practice, use the term in just such a fashion.
A-Bomb
Similarly evolution has been observed. For HIV patients its a fact of life; they rotate the drugs used as HIV in their body gains and loses resistance to the various drugs. And apparently you accept species evolution. So here's what we have:
So we deduce the diversity of life on Earth was caused by evolution. This was pretty much all the evidence that Darwin went on. And since then the fossil and genetic evidence is enormous. In the fossil record we can see the gradual evolution of hundreds of thousands of species. DNA and cell functions show how similar apparently quite different creatures are.
Of course compared to your pretend-world of deductive reasoning it might look like wild speculation. I'm a Computer Science major and I've dealt with anti-science math folks before.
In the last paragraph, "pretend-world of deductive reasoning it" should be "pretend world, deductive reasoning".
you shouldn't expect to convey any evidence in 30 seconds, nor should you try to. Don't try to draw the candidate into debating your point when you won't be given the opportunity to respond to his criticism due to the format of the debate. The point isn't to educate, or even argue, but ask a question that forces the candidate to say plainly where he stands on evolution.
The fact is, this is the worst sort of question you can ask a republican candidate on any subject. The republican party is a patchwork of alliances between various groups that don't all believe in the same thing, even if they vote the same way. It's kept together by focusing on things that everyone hates, and avoiding as much as possible the areas where the party is deeply divided on ideology.
Belief in evolution is divided along lines of education, and there are plenty of educated people in the republican party. There are also plenty of uneducated creationists in the party. Forcing the candidate to pick sides means forcing him to pick which group's support he wants to lose.
Some of the Bush apologists are insisting that Bush is, in fact, brilliant. He was just misled by ignorant and corrupt advisers.
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The Bible was not given to us to explain everything. It was given to us to tell us what we needed to know.
I think even if the argument is kept to what can be seen, evolution comes out first. There are plenty of resources for those willing. You don't even have to be willing.
Here's the problem for creationists. If someone wishes to believe in creationism, a god is the only "resort". (Deus ex machina, anyone?) So it seems to me that those who wish, for lifestyle reasons, to be creationist, that they are not unbiased about religion.
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One could easily translate option four as "the ends justify the means." If an innocent child starves to death, which entails a great deal of suffering, is that justified because the child then finds itself in heaven? Option three can be translated as "God plays favorites." Again, percievable outcomes are not correlated in a just manner.
lots of other animals have almost the same eye structure except it's the right way around
Actually, all vertebrates have this "outside-in" eye. And there's more to than it's just because the optic nerve gets in the way. Like I said, there are resources. For example: On the Design of the Vertebrate Retina.
The human eye itself is one of my favorite examples of why a designer is unlikely
And the human eye itself is one of my favorite examples of why a designer is likely. Thousands of engineers over the course of more than one hundred years have yet to make a camera that competes with the eye in its combination of resolution, sensitivity, exposure latitude, agility, and size.
Oh bollocks. Yes, he's putting pre-conditions on skepticism, but they're perfectly reasonable pre-conditions. Are you honestly saying that provenance makes no difference, and that a true skeptic listens to all sources of data equally carefully? Does that mean that you'll give equal weight to the thoughts of a paranoid schizophrenic in the diary they keep in their secure mental health insitution and the peer-reviewed conclusions of a Nobel Laureate reported in Nature?
I contend that you would have accepted the GP's pre-conditions if they had been suggested for any other realm of science (quantum mechanics; radiology; the behaviour of liquids under high pressure, to pick three random examples), and that the only reason you didn't accept them here was because you're all-too-aware that taking climate change science seriously could actually mean (horrors) that you suffer some personal discomfort. Well, time to take your head out of the sand (or your fat ass), because you WILL NOT avoid the discomfort. If it doesn't come now through the economic sacrifices of contraction and convergence, it will come later through the impact of substantially damaged ecosystems unable to support large human populations. It's happened to human civilisations before (eg Maya, Greenland Norse, Easter Islanders etc etc) and it's both pompous and idiotic to think that our problems may not be as severe as theirs.
Plainly, evolution does happen. Plainly, Man is an animal. On the issue of whether the genus homo evolved or was created in a moment, all the evidence to date points to evolution. But the story does not stop there.
I do not believe that the wonderful complexity of this Universe just happened by chance. From the laws that govern the planets, to the complexity of the smallest living creature, I see design at work. Others don't. I believe that the creative impulse that leads to a new creature, or even to a new level of living things, comes from God, then evolution takes over. I may be wrong. I will respect any view that is argued, and not merely put as "something that Christians should believe", or "something that scientists should believe." When scientists get really deeply into the heart of what they are studying, they often see the hand of a God at work. It is the men and women in the street who see a contradiction. So there is room in my belief system for creation and evolution to coexist.
I do not believe that the issue should be one that politicians have to take a stand on, but I am in a country where it isn't even an election issue. I doubt whether the question whether I will be admitted at the Pearly Gates depends on my stance, either. According to Jesus, it will depend solely on how I have treated my fellow human beings. People who argue these points usually ignore the Gospels. One is lucky to get them to look beyond Revelation.
Suddenly when the noun is "God," then everything changes and someone pretends that the speaker is claiming to know everything.
Well, yes it does change, since not believing in God as a creator being requires faith. Faith that the current schools of thought on evolution are not only correct, but the gaps such as what started the process off (that sea of amino acids that somehow just folded itself into useful proteins) will be answered with purely materialistic constructs. Faith that this is how we came to be, and that our meatspace is solely what defines us. Faith that your network of neurons and synapses is sufficient to define who you are and what you think and feel. Faith that when our meat fails us, 'we' cease to be.
This, my friend, is why atheism is a faith-based construct. Not a religion in the strict sense, since that suggests a spiritual component, but as much a faith-based system as, say our good friends the Scientologists.
By the way, Santa Claus did really exist. He just wasn't as you might have expected him to be.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I am wondering why, if you believe that evolution is a scientific subject, you would ask a political candidate to give a technical defense? But, this is a common tactic amongst evolutionists; attack laypeople with minutia, then claim they are dishonest for not being able to argue at the Ph.D. level. This isn't science or debate; it is virulent propaganda and mental harassment. Funny how it comes from people who often admit that science does not teach absolutes.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
So, sorry...the burden of proof (though it should be called the burden of evidence, not proof) still lies with those positing a supernatural being. We're just saying that the natural world exists, and trying to find explanations for things we see in that natural world. Positing something outside that natural world, whether it be magical leprechauns, genies, Star Trek's Q, God, or whatever, requires evidence to support that claim. You're asking people to stop developing explanations and just believe in something that doesn't really bring all that much to the debate.
Me being an atheist doesn't require faith in anything. It isn't that I think science can explain everything, but that science is the only tool by which we can understand the world around us. We have limited data, limited powers of perception, limited intelligence, and so on, so the process, being a human construct, is limited. But again, it's the only tool we have. If you're in the dark you can rely on the guy with the flashlight, even admitting the limitations of the flashlight, or you can stay in the dark with the other guy who tells you a) really nice comforting stories, and b) that the flashlight isn't all it's cracked up to be.
As the flashlight reveals that some of the story-teller's tales are false, the story-teller will get more and more upset and point out, accurately, that the flashlight can't show you everything. But the flashlight, however limited, is still the only alternative to the pretty stories. Science is that flashlight. Trust who you want, but I trust the guys who made medicine, airplanes, air conditioning, and so on. This isn't to say that the story-teller has no value whatsoever. People apparently need someone to tell them that they should be decent human beings because God wants them to be. And people evidently need hope that there is something else out there, that death isn't the end. But when it comes to the physical world, including how biodiversity came about, I'll defer to science every time. Evolutionary theory is critical to fields like antibiotic research, and we can't throw it out just because it doesn't fit well with your bible.
The idea of Evolution is much, much older that Darwin. Much older.
He was just one of the first to write a scientific paper on it.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
There are no lower forms of life. All life is extremely complex. All life contains cells, which in turn contain self reproducing DNA, RNA, etc. Evolution might be a passable theory for the origin of species, but it is a very poor theory for the origin of life, if that is what you are truly claiming.
A blue print? Like a plan, or even a design? That is pretty clever!
Lets explore this some more. So this DNA blue print it stores information right? How does this technology compare with our own, say for example hard drive storage? For example how much info is stored in DNA, and how much space does that storage require? What is the information density of this technology? How much power does it require to manage that information? etc.
That brings up another good point. If that is data we are talking about (and it is), we need something to read and write the data right? All life is composed of cells and all cells have this capability to read and write this DNA data.
But wait! There is more! Not only does a cell do all of this, but a cell is also a self-replicating machine! Wouldn't it be nice if we needed another computer we just typed a command and our computer duplicated itself. You have to admit this is pretty amazing technology. Clearly this is technology far beyond our own.
But wait! There is more! Not only can a cell replicate, but it can change from one type of a cell to another! Its like we asked our computer to make a TV and it does! Amazing things those cells.
Now I suppose this technology could have all happened on its own like a wind blowing through a junkyard and building a 747, but to this humble writer it does not seem like too much of a leap to think this all might be the work of a designer. In fact I would go so far as to say that anyone that has difficulty with the concept of a designer has personal issues with the concept of God.
So the question is why should we let their personal issues keep us from the truth?
The concern and the assumption here seems misplaced. First of all, evolution is nowhere near an established and testable "fact" such as DNA testing. DNA testing is not a comprehensive theory about the origins of life, it is merely a test. A theory is just a compendium of facts that point in a certain direction and even though evolution is an established and widely-accepted theory, it remains just a theory. Regardless of the many instances where it appears that evolution is scientifically correct there are many critical areas where hard proof for the theory is lacking. The scientific record shows that new species seem to erupt out of nowhere with very few, if any, true transitional fossils being found. What this suggests is that the theory of evolution has become a one-size fits all thought pattern for things that don't fit. Evolution accounts for some changes within species and possibly changes that lead to new species but the hard evidence for this has yet to be found. Name more than one or two transitional fossils (between species) that have been found. You probably can't do it because they haven't been found. Common sense would tell us that when science can actually duplicate life artificially (as in from scratch, not just by manipulating existing genomes) then the theory of evolution can be put to the test. Until then, it remains just a theory and creationism, while it has less evidence to support it, remains for some, a viable alternative. Why would it matter what a politician thought about the matter? I can only assume that for truly liberal thinkers, belief in evolution is a kind of litmus test for politically correct thinking, i.e., if a politician doesn't believe in evolution that would be a warning sign that he might believe in (oh the horror) a woman's right to choose by not having sex rather than choosing the obliteration of her offspring. Or, even worse, such a believer might not buy into the global warming propaganda that has been seized upon by the left with the savage and uncritical fervor hitherto only seen in medieval times regarding religious beliefs. There are far too many important issues facing humanity that require our immediate attention. Focusing on evolution as a political litmus test is about as silly as saying that a politician should not have any religious beliefs at all. As a final note, the amount of time spent by Democrats focusing on such goofy issues as gay marriage, evolution as fact and a woman's right to have sex with people she doesn't like (as Anne Coulter notes) wastes an inordinate amount of intellectual capital that might be better spent elsewhere in the forum of public ideas. Humanity's potential will not be unleashed by promoting unchecked vice; it will be released by that ancient exercise of the will known as virtue or excellence--thinking and acting according to right reason--not by embracing unchecked appetitive indulgence. The resurgence of both freedom and higher living standards for the Third World requires the embracing of philosophies that recognize that the management of bad appetites is mankind's primary moral task. Look around you. Do you not see the evidence plainly? Are any of the world's problems caused by people controlling and managing their appetites? Is it not the opposite, viz., that those who whole-heartedly and uncritically embrace their appetites cause numerous problems for both themselves and their neighbors? Our jails are filled with such people. Anyone interested in the management of bad appetites and the meaning behind the evolutionary impetus might want to read How to Manage Your Destructive Impulses with Cyber-Kinetics: Redirect Sexual Energy and Discover Your More Spiritually Enlightened, Evolved Self. http://redbrazil.com/search.php?qt=1&qs=how+to+man age+your+dick
Then you use reason, logic and observation to build from there.
Having said that, while atheism is the only rational position, it isn't a logical position. The logical position is that we don't and can't know if god exists. However this then opens you up to the additional irrational positions that you don't know if the tooth fairy exists, or the flying spaghetti monster or , or or.... and so on.
The agnostic position must acknowledge that any particular piece of made up nonsense spouted by anyone could be true. Logical, but not rational.
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The question to be put to Senators was not "Does god exist" but rather whether they choose to accept
a widely accepted and used scientific model (or set of laws and theories) about evolution, backed by observational and empirical evidence, or whether they opt to ignore facts and evidence when they conflict with the teachings of their chosen faith (creationism or otherwise).
Ultimately there are different questions that are answered by science and by faith. However there is often overlap as the guardians of faith (religious organizations, priests etc...) explain phenomena also explained by science and scientists. Often this occurs as the body of scientific knowledge expands through discovery and provides alternate explanations for things already explained in religion.
This has occurred many times in the past and will again occur in the future. Although it appears that science and faith are in opposition to each other, they seek to answer fundamentally different needs and questions.
Science exists as a method and tool for humans to understand their environment on the basis of experimentation and empirical (observable and repeatable) evidence. In many areas science fails to provide answers and explanations. By its nature it can only prove what can be observed and repeated in experiments, but cannot disprove other theories and explanations.
Faith and religion on the other hand exists to help people feel happy and secure by providing explanations to unanswerable open questions. As such since these types of questions cannot be answered based on empirical evidence, they are answered through philosophy and other answers that ask the questioner to have "faith" and chose to believe an explanation without supporting evidence. In doing so they eliminate the discomfort associated with the unknown, by providing an answer to an unanswerable question.
When faced with the unknown,
a scientist will answer: "I don't know, lets see what we can measure and observe and perhaps we can find an explanation."
However most humans want a better answer than "I don't know" especially when it comes to matters such as life, death the meaning of life, our purpose etc...
Science and faith both serve important functions in society and are both needed, what is important to understand where the boundaries between the two should lie.
Much of our modern society (and its technology) has been made possible through the application of science. As a result it is important to have leaders in power that understand that and have a sufficient understanding of the strengths and limits of science, and where science ends and faith begins.
Evolution is part of the core of scientific knowledge explaining how life developed. Given that this explanation overlaps with existing religious explanations and faith (about life and why we're here etc...) it is not surprising that there is conflict.
If I have faith and believe that I am "bullet proof" and I choose to ignore the physics of fast moving metal objects (ie. bullets) and simply argue my faith is correct, it will not protect me from being shot and killed if my faith is incorrectly placed.
If I am presented with evidence that bullets can in fact kill me, if I chose to except that my faith may have provided a wrong answer then my behaviour is rational. As things become "known" and answerable by science, I revise my faith to reflect this new reality (something that religious organizations have done before, they even forgave Galileo).
In the context of evolution and genetics there are many factors that can just as easily lead to death as the bullet can. For example if the evolutionary process can create new deadly bacteria (causing illness) resistant to certain antibiotics, and I choose to ignore this and argue the new bacteria are "an act of God" (or offer some other explanation) then I may overuse existing antibiotics, or ban research into the evolutionary factors creating these new deadly bacteria resulting in deaths that could
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
Sorry to follow you to this thread; renminbi, according to every *recent (last two years)* Chinese immigrant around me (a handful of them,) is what they natively call their own currency, but is not what they natively call their own currency when referring to specific amounts. They use the term "yuan" when referring to a unit amount. The renminbi is the name of the currency and when referring to the currency system itself that is precisely what they call it; however, when referring to a specific unit amount, they're all disagreeing with your prior post to me. You need a unitary amount and that's what the Yuan is.
They liken it to saying this, in English:
100 United Stated Currency.
100 what? Cents? Dollars? Quarters? Fifty-cent pieces?
They say, that to differentiate it from other "yuan" systems "renminbi" gets tacked on but you still need to call it the yuan.
Anyway that's what I meant. So you're right, but I'm pretty sure I am too. And I'm pretty sure well-travelled actual native Chinese people from Beijing and the outer provinces trump "guy who spent 5 years in China and speaks Mandarin." (I have triangulation going for me..)
Visit talk.origins for dozens of examples.
A-Bomb
You probably should have responded in the last thread, because this is all off-topic here. I never once said that yuan is not used, just that it is uncommon, except occasionally in writing, and sometimes when dealing with very large sums. If you'll recall, someone (you?) was saying that using renminbi in the context of the article summary was incorrect, and that yuan should be used; I countered by saying that there was nothing wrong with saying renminbi, and that yuan was ambiguous and anyway not particularly common when one is speaking Chinese.
You are correct that no Chinese person would say "3 renminbi" directly (san renminbi) when speaking Mandarin, but this has to do with Chinese grammar, and the usage does not carry over into English. Chinese has an extensive system of measure words. For example, in English we might say "3 sheets of paper" or "3 heads of cattle", but generally speaking, when counting objects it is acceptable in most cases to just prefix the noun with the number: "3 people", "3 US dollars", "1 chair", "3 desks", etc. Chinese, however, never allows one to directly prefix a number to a noun. Every noun has an associated measure word, which functions in a manner analogous to "sheets of" and "heads of" in the previous examples. With me so far?
Because English doesn't make much use of measure words, and when it does they are often optional, when translating a Chinese expression to English one generally simply omits the measure word. For example, 3 people in Chinese is "san ge ren", the middle "ge" being the measure word. But when we translate it into English, we drop the "ge", because there is no equivalent word in English, as it is not required by our grammar. We simply say 3 people.
Similarly, with currency, renminbi is the name of the currency, but as with all other objects in Chinese, you cannot simply prefix a number to the front of it and call it a day. This, however, is Chinese usage and not English usage. When we translate "san kuai renminbi" into English, we omit the "kuai" (which is a measure word for pieces) and just say "3 renminbi", or, if the context is clear, we might say "3 yuan".
So what about the word yuan in Chinese? It too is a measure word, specifically for money. Because it is specific to money, and because speakers of western languages are generally not particularly aware of the whole measure word thing, it has been imported into casual English as the name of the mainland's Chinese currency, when really it just means something like "units of" and is the grammatical glue that allows us to connect "3" and "renminbi" together.
Further confusion arises from the Chinese habit of omitting the noun and keeping the measure word if the noun is clear; in fact, this is required by the grammar. So for example, to extend it to an English example, this is like saying "3 sheets" and omitting "of paper". Except in English, if I asked you how many sheets of paper you needed, you could say "3" and omit sheets; not so in Chinese.
The thing is though -- and your Chinese friends will confirm this -- that while saying "3 yuan renminbi" is most certainly not incorrect, it is exceedingly uncommon in speech; Chinese speakers prefer to say "3 kuai renminbi", where kuai is the counter for pieces of a whole (and if you really do have friends from Beijing, you can confirm that Beijing speakers omit the erhuayin on the word kuai when talking about money specifically, and tend to put the erhuayin in other contexts as a means of disambiguation).
Furthermore, kuai/yuan is not the only counter used when dealing with money, it is only the one used when dealing with whole units of currency. "mao" is used when dealing with tenths of a unit, and "fen" when dealing with hundredths of a unit; so 3.50 RMB is "3 kuai 5 mao renminbi", or more colloquially, "3 kuai 5".
So, to recap, in the same way that we would not translate "3 ge ren" into English as "3 ge people", we don't generally translate "3 kuai renminbi" as "
Theories = facts... Not in my world, but if it does in yours, fine. You responded to nothing I said, so you win!
The views and opinions are sincere, she and I both believe in these with absolution. Because the view point is such a controversial one, it is often (more time than not) considered to be posted by posers, radicals, or misguided information. And this is often the reaction behind most 'turning points' in society.
The masses are starting to speak up with a new age of thinking, acting and living by the 'old school' as set forth thousands of years ago.
The irony that seems to stifle this movement is that the movement itself is being lead by women themselves and not by the male gender; this creates a disbelief in its validity - but the truth is that it IS starting and it IS being lead by women.
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Even more noticeable are some the women that are behind the movement. Donna Nordone Heaney, has been an advocate for abused women and children and domestic violence issues for over 10 years. Admits to and actively promotes The Submissive Wife.
I could list numerous female sources that all admit to the best marriage they could have ever imagined. My wife and I have been married a long time and to date do not argue. Our "God" given roles are evident and therefore by fulfilling those we are able to live a happy life.
Do not get this wrong. Being near 40 years old now and having these feelings since I was a teenager may not seem odd, though I have never read the Bible - not one single page, that is until a few months ago my wife (who taught Sunday School and was in the Chior for years) starting telling them a lot of the things that are in the bible sound similar to what I was saying. Therefore since I never read the bible, and have only been to church a handful of times in my life (less weddings, etc) there was no outside influence to cause me to conform to a book of true unknown origin. My wife started blogging about this herself, the roles of a woman and a man are no longer agreeing to stay by societies conformity, and are rearing up in its defense.
The point of this, is that the debate over God and Evolution is looked at in a side-ways aspect. Yes, we did evolve and yes, there is GOD. However we did not evolve from apes. An ape IS a different species. Thousands of years from now they may look are a blue jay and a cardinal in comparison, and yes they look similar, and are apart of the same 'family' but they are two different species in time.
God does NOT have to be the omnipresences that is depicted, but there is nothing to say that he does not exist. An alien life form (which nearly all geeks here believe have factual bearing), a higher being, different level of existence that simply cannot comprehend. 2000 years ago you could not explained nuclear physics, or even the concept and impact of the Internet. There were simply too many unknown factors, learning curves and different technology to being to fathom any of it.
The movie What the Bleep do You Know, has a good comparison to ships in the sea that no one could see even though they were right there in front of them. If you've sen something, you brain does not know how to process it, therefore it will process it the best it can. - Have you ever seen
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
Hmm... I guess Yahweh wants us to be ignorant of pretty much anything that doesn't revolve around worshipping him then.
One is unreal, superstition, etc.
The other is just that which we do not yet understand. (You've probably quoted the any sufficiently advanced technology meme yourself?)
It's good to reject superstition, of course, but do you really intend to assert that there is no science or technology enough beyond your understanding that it appears supernatural to you?
and if they always were, well, you'd be left with the unescapable conclusion that you were God, ...
which would get kind of boring after a while.
In science, Theories are as close as anything more complicated than weighing a rock gets to being a fact. They aren't synonymous, but they are as close as possible given that we can never be 100% certain that our senses can be trusted or that we aren't all simply a dream in the mind of a turtle on a beach somewhere. A scientific theory is not a guess or a hypothesis, and scientific theories that have been confirmed tens of thousands of times are.
The "theory" of evolution is a "fact" for any meaningful use of the word fact (though of course some of the mechanisms of HOW the overall process takes place are up in the air). Humans descended from more primitive primates, and they descended from more primitive mammals, and all the forms of life on earth that we've detected so far ultimately descended from a common ancestor. That is as much a provable fact as the Earth revolving around the Sun is, that gravity causes objects to be attracted to each other in proportion to their mass and every other "theory" we all risk our lives on every day with no doubt whatsoever that they are correct.
If you aren't holding on to your chair right now in abject terror that gravity will stop working as you read this, then you know at a gut level how much a "theory" can be a "fact". If you aren't shitting yourself in fear that the Sun will not rise in the East tomorrow morning, then you know that our questions about the mechanisms of gravity have not shaken your "faith" in gravity's presence.
I can guarantee that in the next 50 years the theory of how gravity functions and relates to other physical forces in the universe will be altered, but that does not make gravity itself any less of a fact.
If you want to disagree about how and why mutations occur, why some species go on to reproduce more successfully than others, how environment or other factors affect survival, knock yourself out, a lot of aspects of Natural Selection are still educated guesses. Nobody will question your sanity or intelligence in doubting a particular school of thought of natural selection.
But that evolution occurred on Earth, that we share common ancestors with other primates is a FACT -- as surely a fact as that tectonic plates have shifted and volcanoes have erupted and the Sun is a giant nuclear reactor and gravity will hold you down on the surface of the Earth. You don't have to believe it, the universe doesn't need your faith to make gravity work. But you'll be looked at might funny in educated company if you clutch at every tree and worry it will disappear.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Since my point WAS that evolution treats of the variance of life, not the origins; apparently neither of us know what evolution is.
By simply "evolution" most people are referring to Neodarwinism. If you're talking about micro-evolution, not even young earth creationists deny that that occurs. And no, not all evolutionary theories and hypotheses can be true. For example, Phyletic Gradualism and Punctuated Equilibrium cannot both be true.
The supernatural isn't "real", whether you call it superstition or things beyond my understanding? What exactly is the latter supposed to mean anyway?
It's really simple, you know. There is nothing outside this nature, nothing that we can't feel, see, hear, touch, count or reason about. And whether that happens through science, technology, philosophy, spirituality or some yet unknown culturual invention doesn't really matter. But religion and particularly any God figure is really poor at explaining reality, don't you agree. So why are rational people giving religion the benefit of doubt?
Free Manning, jail Obama.
The problem with this line of conversation is the use of the term "Christian" when what's actually being discussed is Roman Catholicism. Rome has certainly appropriated to itself the entire mantle of Christianity (witness Pope Benedict's recent pronouncements), but the practices of the Roman church have little to do with Christianity from a Biblical point of view. The notion that one man can excommunicate another from Christ's church is just one of Catholicism's deviations. The murder of tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people throughout history who disputed Roman Catholic authority is another.
Many (most?) people who think Christianity is evil think so because they allow the Roman Catholic church the position it claims for itself. That's extraordinarily sad. If the Roman church is indeed the "harlot church" of Revelations 17, it's part of Satan's plan to keep people from God. If that's true, the plan is working.
If one wishes to dispute Christianity and is willing to do so on the basis of an honest reading of Scripture, I can respect that. (I disagree of course, but I can do it respectfully.) If one wishes to dispute Christianity based on the actions of another who happens to call himself a Christian, that's just a strawman.
"Do you sirs believe that the Constitution of the United States of America is the most important and meaningful piece of literature on how this nation is to be governed? Do you sirs believe in our judicial system as written in the Constitution? Do you believe in the fairness of our judicial system, in its reliability to protect the innocents and uncover the guilty? Do you believe that we should determine the innocence or guilt of a person according to evidence presented in a court of law? Do you believe that the only evidence permissible to be considered is evidence treated appropriately according to the standard procedures and protocols put in place to ensure a fair trial?
Then why do you not believe in the scientific method, which serves as the method by which we as the jury gather and analyze evidence, and contains procedures and protocols to ensure fairness, and by which we have determined evolution to be the manner in which we come into existence as a species?
And if you do not believe that the presence of overwhelming evidence--evidence which is readily available online for anyone to examine and determine for themselves--is sufficient to determine the validity and viability of evolution, then are you implying that our judicial system shares the same flaw, and should no longer be based on evidence?"
The long sentences might start confusing the candidates and the audience though...
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I realize my other response was far too involved for you to probably understand how it was demonstrating your (continued) misunderstanding of the word "theory".
"Theory = fact" is not true, you're correct. But "theory =/= fact" is ALSO not true, which seems to be the misunderstanding you have about the meaning of scientific theory. Theory and fact are not mutually exclusive. My reply was essentially the long way of saying evolution is BOTH a theory AND a fact. That evolution occurred is a fact. That there are ALSO theories of how and why this occurred in no way changes the fact that it occurred.
Saying it is "just a theory, and therefore not a fact" is an incorrect use of the word theory in science.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I appreciate your concern over my inability to understand your previous lengthy (and nicely articulated) post. While I do believe there to be a certain beauty in the whole 'if no one is observing it, its not there' theory related to quantum uncertainty, I'm not so far gone as to live in that world just yet.
Although this is irrelevant (and not meant to be sarcastic), you speak of scientific theories being confirmed tens of thousands of times...? Isn't that a bit of a stretch? Perhaps I _am_ misunderstanding your nuance of the word theory. Maybe the difference is between a theory and a Theory? Are all theories actually tested and confirmed tens of thousands of times? And is there a magic number of confirmations for when a 'new' theory goes from being a mere hypothesis to a practical fact?
I'm just getting fed up with all the hostility when someone questions a 'theory'. A theory is just that: A theory.
It may the best theory and the only one that can be seen to fit the circumstances from where we are, but that does not make it true. Just (extremely) likely.
And to be totally fair, I must admit I have never personally read (or looked for) any studies testing and confirming the theory of evolution so I can't really comment on their veracity, and while I have a hard time imagining setting up a test to prove eons worth of mutations outside of a computer simulation (gigo), I am certainly aware that basically all scientists agree on it.
Not really -- think of how many undergraduate and graduate students there are out there doing experiments in biology every year. Zoologists, Biologists, Chemists, Geologists, Botanists, Astronomers, Physicists, Physicians -- every one of them is performing numerous experiments that have the potential in just a few minutes to prove that everything we know is wrong. It only takes one experimental result that contradicts a theory to shoot it down, or at the very least cause it to be changed significantly. That's the whole problem with gravity right now -- we thought we knew how it worked once Einstein was done with it, then we invented better equipment for other purposes and accidentally realized there were strange things happening with gravity at scales we'd never been able to examine before.
You don't have to set up a test or simulation proving eons worth of mutations to prove that evolution is a fact, that's one of the fallacies of the religious right ("if you can't see it with your own eyes, you can't REALLY KNOW it happened"). You have to look at the evidence in support of it, and then test it's predictive power millions and millions of times and if it's never wrong, then it's a pretty darn good theory. (how many DNA samples have been taken in the past 50 years? How many new species of plant and insect and microbe have been discovered? how many diseases have changed? how many generations of organisms have been bred in captivity and manipulated and observed? How many fossils have been discovered? Any one of those events could have disproved evolution! Yet not only did that NOT happen, discoveries in entirely new fields also happened to agree complete with the notion of evolution!)
Think of it this way -- I assume you're not a thousand years old. Neither am I. So neither of us could have witnessed Mount Vesuvius erupting and burying the city of Pompeii. Yet we take it for a fact that it happened. Geologists found a volcano and all sorts of corroborating evidence in the geological record that it erupted at a certain time. Archaeologists found a city buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash. Written records of the event from contemporary societies were discovered. Hundreds of different excavations and geological probes and forensic examinations were performed on the site and every one of them supported the notion that the volcano erupted suddenly and buried the city before the citizens even knew what was happening.
Now, I don't have a time machine to go back and watch the eruption. It's entirely possible that space aliens thought dumping ash on a city and planting all kinds of evidence of a volcanic eruption would be a fun practical joke. There's no way anyone can prove or disprove that alternate theory of events. But we treat the volcano theory as a fact because there's simply no evidence to support any other explanation of events, and the space alien theory does nothing to improve our knowledge of anything, it's as useful as saying it was magic.
The only difference between the theory of Pompeii and the theory of evolution is that there's a LOT more evidence of evolution, but there's no religion that finds the notion of Pompeii being buried by a volcano as contrary to their doctrine. If there was a major religion that felt threatened by gravity, you wouldn't be able to turn on the news without hearing about how some subatomic activity is contrary to Einstein's theory of general relativity, and so that PROVES the theory of gravity is a fraud and really God just holds everything down on Earth because he wants to and pushes the planets around the sun because it pleases him to do so.
Have you ever been to Brazil? how do you know it exists? Because others tell you it does, because you've met people who claim to be from there, because it's on every map, because theres a Brazilian consulate in your city? What if they were all
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
> The supernatural isn't "real",
... is ... to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, ...
I think we disagree. To you, nothing supernatural can be real, if I understand you right.
To me, I aknowledge two classes of things attributed to the supernatural:
One is real, but is beyond our (present) understanding.
The other is the artificial (meaning, not real) explanations of things we can't understand, or of things we haven't made the effort to understand.
> whether you call it superstition or things beyond my understanding?
> What exactly is the latter supposed to mean anyway?
Do you claim to have a correct understanding of everything? Even the things which you understand, is your understanding perfect?
Once upon a time, it was obvious that feathers and cannonballs fall at different rates. The false science -- superstition -- was that heavier things fell faster. Our science has cleared that one up, but we still have to operate on theories that are incomplete when we dig deep enough. Is there a gravity (exchange) particle? Is the graviton exists, does it have a pair, or anti-particle? Or is gravity simply the result of the "curvature" of the universe?
Incomplete theories are distinguishable from superstion by exactly one point: when we completely give up on extending our understanding, we tend to become dogmatic and/or compulsive. When that happens, our theory has become superstition to us.
>It's really simple, you know.
It's often even simpler than we think it is.
> There is nothing outside this nature, nothing that we can't feel, see, hear, touch, count or reason about.
Dark matter?
If it exists, it is beyond our present tools. Yes, those who think it might exist hope to soon be able to prove it either does or does not exist, and if they prove the positive, they will have brought it within the scope of nature which we can work with in some respect.
But if we become dogmatic about it's existence, whether affirming or denying, that would be superstition. It would be even more superstitious to start asserting properties after we have become dogmatic (as opposed to before we become dogmatic, when we are simply hypothesizing or maybe just speculating).
Strings?
Well, an odd thing about science is that sometimes we have to become dogmatic to properly test a theory. So, superstition really isn't just being dogmatic about something you don't know, it's refusing to give up the dogmatism when you are done with the tests.
> And whether that happens through science, technology, philosophy,
> spirituality or some yet unknown culturual invention doesn't really matter.
You acknowledge spirituality? Well, that's good. That indicates we might have more common ground than I thought, although I admit that I have no immediate guess as to what specific spirituality you are including in your list.
> But religion and particularly any God figure is really poor at explaining reality, don't you agree.
I can't agree with a sentence that parses against the semantics I use for the words in the sentence. Can't exactly disagree meaningfully, either.
I'm not sure what religion means to you.
My definition of religion includes the comment attributed to James (of the New Testament):
Pure religion
My definition of God excludes anything that I know or learn to be false.
One thing, perhaps, which you misunderstand about my use of religion -- I do not use religion as my explanation of anything. Nor do I think it is God's primary job to explain reality. Religion is my application of my understanding of the deeper realities to my life. (By deeper realities, I mean the things that are hard to touch, like love and like the reasons I think certain things are important to me.)
Religious philosophy, to me, is an amusing, and sometimes dangerous, diversion -- a game
yes, conclusions can often become cumbersome rather quickly. :-/
But, really, I don't mind when people draw their own conclusions. In fact, I prefer that they do so.
I do like to ask other people to consider things they might not yet have considered. I think it's a shame when people draw conclusions from incomplete basis. But, since they do not know everything I know (and I do not know everything they know), I assume their conclusions will still be at least somewhat different from mine. And that's okay.
This type of discussion always bring this short story to mind (which, in fact, I found out about through another of these little slashdot stories):
37 hands. Zed shook his head. The 84 candidates running for President were asked if they believed in Sixism, and only 37 raised their hands.
He couldn't believe this debate was still going on. For years they had assumed that the Manhattan Inflation Trial in 4838 had put the lid on the silly notion that the universe contained billions of galaxies. Billions! Zed looked out the window at the smooth black plane of the night sky. One-two-three-four-five-six. Six galaxies. There they were. It was so basic, so obvious. Any kid with a neutron telescope could make the observation for themselves!
The moderator turned to Governor Tembke of South Africa. "Madam, are you a Big Banger?" There were dampened giggles at the pejorative. Everyone knew what a 'banger" was.
Rev. Tembke sniffed. "I'm running for the office of president, not planning on writing a 5th-grade textbook on astrophysics."
"Aargh!" Zed threw his shoe at the screen, but it flew through the image of the Senator from Zimbabwe instead. He stood up and began to pace. He tried to breathe deeply, as if that would lower his blood pressure.
He used to be patient with relativists. He really did. But at a debate at ultra-conservative Harvard University, he'd made the mistake of asking one to explain how this galactic disappearing act occurred. The answer the nut had given him had been so ridiculous, he'd written it down:
"As the universe expanded, the force pushed the galaxies outward faster and faster. As they surpassed the speed of light, their light shifted to infinitely long wavelengths and dimmed. A similar "cloak of invisibility" befell the afterglow of the Big Bang, a faint bath of cosmic microwaves, whose wavelengths shifted so that they are now buried by the radio noise in our own galaxy. There was also an element called deuterium, but it is in deep space now. To be seen it needs to be backlit from distant quasars, and quasars, of course, have also disappeared."
Totally unqualified. Unprovable! Billions of galaxies-similar in size and shape to the six observable galaxies - simply sped up and - poof! - became invisible. "Yeah, that happened," Zed chuckled to himself, turning back to the debate.
Zed was particularly frustrated that the relativists were able to prop up their beliefs with... ancient texts! The silly belief was dying out until an archaeological dig in New Atlantis produced evidence of near universal belief in relativism by ancient world civilizations. Einstein, Hubble, Hawking... proto-scientists believed in an inflationary universe, so why shouldn't we?
"Science is based on observation," he grumbled, "not faith in theories about a Big Bang, cosmic radiation, and an expanding universe in which galaxies go missing." Why couldn't they just embrace the facts? Why did they insist on clinging to mythical beliefs? Were they just stupid?
Zed collapsed back into his recliner. Fortunately, time was on the side of science. Eventually, the old beliefs would finally fade away. After all, everyone knew the modern system would collapse if the rules could ever change.
-by Joe Carter/Kyle French
Actually, no it isn't. That's not considered a decay so much as a reaction. A nuclear decay is a wholly internal process, whose timing is wholly governed by quantum uncertainty.
Depends on whether you believe in uncaused causes. Which is a SUBJECTIVE belief, unprovable by science.
And at any rate there is no such thing as perfect knowledge; a perfect knowledge of the position of an incoming particle precludes any knowledge at all of its velocity, and so we cannot ever reliably predict the timing of any decay it may trigger.
For human beings, that's true. But it would be complete hubris to assume that it is true for anything inhuman and unknowable. Thus your randomization is limited to only the human species- once again subjective.
Not that any of this affects a hypothetical god, mind; he can presumably do as he pleases, Heisenberg or no.
Exactly. Thus, there is no objective difference between a divine plan and random action- and claiming that something is caused by random action is equally as subjective and mythological as belief in His Flying Noodleness.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
No. You have a very poor understanding of quantum physics. There is no way, even theoretically, that nuclear decay can be traced back to any external cause. It is true randomness, and to look for "cause" is not possible. Very likely, the whole question of causality is meaningless in such a case.
Only if you have a "religious" belief in uncaused events. There is no difference between "true randomness" and an appeal to deity.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Likewise, gravity is indistinguishable from angels, but there's reasonably broad consensus as to which model is more useful.
Useful how? And to whom? Under what constraints? That's the problem, you see- the word "useful" is completely subjective. Though you've got the wrong allegory- sin is equal to weight, not angels.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Science is a methodology. It isn't a god, any more than football or double-column accounting are gods. It attempts to explain natural phenomona. Evolutionary theory attempts to explain observations like the faunal succession, the change in the genetic makeup of populations over time, and the twin-nested hiararchies that we observe when looking at faunal succession and at the genetic relatedness of various organisms.
Common descent, in particular, predicts that all life will use a common set of coding molecules. If we observe organisms that use an entirely different set, then we are likely looking at the products of two abiogenesis events. Please note that none of this falsifies evolution. Whether there is one type of genetic coding or a hundred, imperfect replicators will evolve over time.
Me thinks you don't quite understand what Common Descent is.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The "theory" of evolution is a "fact" for any meaningful use of the word fact (though of course some of the mechanisms of HOW the overall process takes place are up in the air). Humans descended from more primitive primates, and they descended from more primitive mammals, and all the forms of life on earth that we've detected so far ultimately descended from a common ancestor.
References please. Show me the proof that all of these assertions are true and have been scientifically proven. You can't, because they have not. Where's the incontrovertible proof that any speceis has ever evolved into another species?
That is as much a provable fact as the Earth revolving around the Sun is, that gravity causes objects to be attracted to each other in proportion to their mass
Interesting how you believe this. Gravity does not cuase this, warped space causes this and gravity is something that we observe as a result of warped space.
But that evolution occurred on Earth, that we share common ancestors with other primates is a FACT -- as surely a fact as that tectonic plates have shifted and volcanoes have erupted and the Sun is a giant nuclear reactor and gravity will hold you down on the surface of the Earth. You don't have to believe it, the universe doesn't need your faith to make gravity work. But you'll be looked at might funny in educated company if you clutch at every tree and worry it will disappear.
Is this what is taught in schools these days? Wow, what a fallacy and misconception and how the scientific method and definition of a "theory" has been twisted since I went to school. There is no proof that we share ancestors with other primates (if you say there is, show me, provide links, something). Gravity dos not hold me down on the surface of the earth (again, gravity is a function of other forces).
PGA
Supposedly as much as 40% of the population of Iceland believes in elves (the small fairies, not Legolas). Plenty of people believe in ghosts and angels as well. I've had two (unrelated, non LSD-taking) people I trusted tell me they had personal encounters with ghost(s), and plenty of people believe in them without personal evidence.
The problem is that when you're dealing with an intelligent, secretive (God/god/demon/spirit/Alien spaceship/government agent/stalker), often the best you can say is "If they exist, they are pretty good at making it seem as if they don't."
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Absolute codswollop. You've apparently never actually read anything about evolution. Bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics, viruses mutating over time, moths changing colors based on pollution, human sickle-cell anemia, etc, etc, etc. Every domesticated animal is an example of evolution at work. Every siamese cat, every pekinese dog, every thoroughbred racehorse is an example of evolution in action. There are dozens of other, better examples - for good, understandable books on the subject for the lay audience you'll want to read anything by Richard Dawkins.
All of these examples are examples of mutations within a species. There is no evidence that supports the evolutionary theory that any species has mutated into another species. The basis of the Theory of Evolution is that species evolved through mutation and Natural Selection into other species, and in the case of "Human Evolution", eventually evolving into the current species known as homo sapien sapien.
Again, this can't be observed, measured, or repeated, even with genetic engineering and a lot of help by technology.
FWIW, I do not discount all the parts of Evolution, and I do discount some parts of Creation, based upon the scientific evidence we have at our disposal.
PGA
Um, no. General Relativity (a mere "theory" with less evidence than Evolution, yet you seem to treat it as a fact?) postulates that warped space is the cause of gravity (it is certainly an excellent visualization tool), but since we know there are places where general relativity fails, it is clearly NOT the complete answer.
And as long as we're being pedantic for the sole purpose of making it sound like the post we're responding to is hopelessly wrong for some obscure technical reason, you're confusing gravity with gravitation. Gravity is just as I described it, what you're arguing over (and yet still inexplicably wrong about) is gravitation.
As to the rest of your hopelessly cliched responses, I'm sorry I cannot provide you with a simple experiment to perform in you kitchen involving baking soda, rubber bands and an empty 2-liter bottle to prove evolution occurred. If you have access to a genetic testing laboratory and an open mind, though, spending a few months examining DNA from several thousand different contemporary and historical organisms is enough to convince anyone (who doesn't have a religious reason not to believe) that evolution has occurred. That's ignoring the approximate eleventy billion other pieces of evidence spread amongst the fields of genetics, medicine, zoology, geology, paleontology, archaeology, etc -- none of which single-handedly "proves" evolution, but when taken cumulatively provides a rather astonishingly ironclad level of proof that few scientific theories can claim. There have been plenty of new fields of science invented in the past century, AFTER the basics precepts of evolution were established, and for some inexplicable reason every one of them has only made discoveries that supported the notion of evolution, and not a single discovery has undermined it -- something that even Einstein's greatest theories of physics can not claim.
But nobody's religion depends on Einstein being wrong, so we accept that his theories were only 99.9% accurate and that we have more things to discover. That's how science works, there's no shame in admitting we don't know HOW or WHY changes occur and propagate in populations, all we know is that they do. And that over time such small changes cause a process we call evolution.
You can easily find many bibliographies to numerous research studies, experimental tests, etc, if you bothered to spend a few seconds with Google and were genuinely interested (or you could go down to your local campus bookstore and purchase any biology textbook written after 1970). Of course, we both know you have little genuine interest in the mountains of evidence that prove evolution has occurred, because you don't even know that speciation (a somewhat vague word without a strict scientific meaning, but Creationists seem to love using it) has been observed and documented numerous times. You just like throwing out silly challenges ("prove that evolution occurred in 12 seconds or less, or my pizza is free!") so that you can feel more confident in your ignorance.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
There's really no point in attacking their disbelief in evolution. I think they're backwards, a few think they're right, and the rest simply don't care to be that kind of critical about that kind of belief. That questions that need to be asked are the ones that go to the root of how their theocratic beliefs effect their political decisions. Do they believe that science should treated as a democratic entity. Do they constantly emphasize the things that we don't know, or the evidence that we have yet to uncover. Obviously you can't ask them how science works. Though, it would be interesting to here Rudy blather out his little tirade about what he thinks the scientific method is. To keep the question on the subject of evolution I would ask: What does your position on evolution say about the president you would be? Is this your position on this subject an important characteristic in the advisers your choose, and the friends abroad that we choose to build stronger allegiances with?
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
Look, I believe that natural selection explains speciation and evolution. I also know that just because you don't believe in gravity doesn't mean that you'll go flying off in to space, although I've tried. The fact is that there are perfectly reasonable and intelligent people that believe, as an article of faith, that the Bible is literally true, despite the fact that it's basically a Reader's Digest of jewish and christian writers that's been translated and transcribed and edited all to heck. There are people who believe all sorts of things as a matter of faith in the absence or even in the face of contrary evidence. That's ok.
I happen to be Christian, more or less. There are a lot of points where I differ from other Christians, but I go with the core beliefs. The purpose of faith, religion, what have you, is not to provide an explanation of why water boils or why cats cough balls of hair. For the religious or semireligious it gives a kind of moral guidance, a sense of being a part of some larger purpose, a sense of fellowship, things like that. It's an attempt to understand things that can't be understood with science or even with reason, things and concepts which extend beyond humanity. If that's not your bag, cool. I don't care if you're an atheist, an agnostic, or whatever. I don't presume to know a person based on the beliefs they subscribe to. You should extend that courtesy to those of us who do hold religious beliefs.
Now, are there zealots? Sure. There are people like Huckabee who believe that "Creationism" should be taught alongside evolutionary theory. Obviously that's dumb. The one has nothing to do with science, cannot be proven or disproven scientifically, and therefore has no place in a science curriculum. But zealotry exists outside of the religious sphere, as well. People who discredit and attack other people because they hold ANY religious belief are as bad as people who do so because they hold a DIFFERENT religious belief.
So if you want to go after a politician because of policies they favor or disfavor based on their own beliefs, go right ahead, but to lambaste someone because they happen to hold a particular belief is intolerance, not reason.This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Well, in brief, your opinion as to what constitutes "just" is subjective and meaningless. In my subjective opinion (yes, I'm the only one between us who could possibly claim to have an objective metric here, but we'll leave that aside), a person having life at all (something wholly unearned and beyond that person's capability) puts them well ahead on the "just" scale. Since I cannot evaluate the circumstances beyond that in their future, nor do I know the second-order, third-order, etc. possible benefit of the circumstance, or wider consequences for others were it otherwise, I'll avoid making an assertion that I know what I don't know--as you seem comfortable doing.
As for the other point, yes, God plays favorites. And so?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I accept evolution. I still think this is a waste of a question. Are the candidates going to vote on evolution? Will they repeal our ancestry? I am free to teach evolution at school. I don't have to teach the so-called alternatives.
Ask them why teachers are required to obtain more education for a job that pays less relative to that level of education. Ask them why the entire school year comes down to a three hour test. Ask if they would encourage their kids to become teachers.
Please don't give them the chance to grandstand on this non-issue. They would like nothing more than to get this question during a televised performance.
All I did was take the article, which stated "X renminbi" and showed it to my friends. One has two advanced degrees and is from Kunming and studied extensively in Beijing. He has a wife who's a recent immigrant. I also asked two others just to be sure. They all say that the English terminology used in the article is incorrect--that it should be "3 yuan". The problem that we have is only one of classification, since more than one country uses the word "yuan" as part of their currency systems, not one of semantics as you and I are arguing. However, as you'll shortly realise, this is not a problem at all.
.. and the last thread is archived already.
... and since yuan is a term like "dollar" which is used in more than one country, it would be more grammatically accurate to *in English* be consistent with how we describe other units of currency that share a common base, and therefore it would be more accurate to say:
... or:
It's not that I misunderstood them: they saw the article, said it was referring to the currency awkwardly and incorrectly. That part I relayed accurately and correctly. For whatever reason, and I freely admit I may have misinterpreted the reason *why*, they think the term is incorrect.
However, note that the article *head* said "in China." Therefore the origin of the currency is not in dispute, and therefore the more accurate and correct term is "1,521 yuan". The renminbi use is looking a lot like an Anglicisation that apparently awkwardly, needlessly, and redundantly specifies the currency's origin (since by context it's already obvious.)
So! In English it seems to me that it would be better to adopt the more English version of the currency's name, the same way that we differentiate the country's origin when using the generic term "dollar":
Canadian Dollars
United States Dollars
1,521 Chinese Yuan
700 Korean Yuan
The second mistake the article author makes is to assume that "renminbi" is something that will mean anything to English speakers. Anyone who knows of the Chinese currency will also know it is called the Yuan. I highly doubt that the number of people who even ever heard the term "renminbi" is more than a tiny fraction of the people who've heard the terms "Japanese Yen" and "Chinese Yuan".
And so falling back on the assumption of what should be correct is doubly incorrect based on your arguments: the author needs to consider his audience, and has not done so, the author is using an unfamiliar term in English which even native Chinese speakers think is wrong, and the author makes the mistake of ignoring context when choosing unnecessarily unfamiliar words to his audience.
Therefore it should either have been 1,521 Chinese Yuan, or just 1,521 yuan, and the point would have been better and more clearly made.
What I have a problem with what is sometimes referred to as "translator's hubris." Translator's hubris should be self-defining; however, to clarify: it is the ego of the translator which tries to redefine a common term "more correctly" based on the translator's knowledge of both languages without actually considering pre-existing knowledge of one audience or the other, and without considering the contextual damage that the attempt at specificity would do if the translation they are advocating were to be adopted by the translator's audience at large.
Just as business executives have lingo which is specific to their day-to-day activities but is not appropriate for general communication, money-market traders can't expect the populace at large to adopt their terminology either just because they think they know better. In reality, the populace is quite a bit more adept at communicating with itself than narrowly-trained individuals who seem to ignore commonly-accepted usage that pre-exists their newfound enlightenment.
Not only that, but I still think I'm right.. the Wikipedia article (admittedly lame, but still) and all the searches I do say: "The base unit of the renminbi is the yuan."
Therefore, using plain "renminbi" is still wrong, I think.
I think it's great that you have such well-educated Chinese friends. I'm at a loss, however, as to why you are asking them about proper English usage. True, no one would say "san renminbi" when speaking Mandarin, as I outlined (in some detail) in my previous post, because Chinese requires a measure word between the "san" and the "renminbi". That measure word, as I said before, could be "kuai", or "yuan", or even "jiao", "mao", or "fen", depending. Between "yuan" and "kuai", the latter is far, far, far more common in colloquial Chinese than "yuan", which is formal and mostly used in writing. But in English, as we lack measure words, we omit them in translation. I have no doubt that to a native Chinese person, "three renminbi" sounds strange, because it is an English word glued onto a Chinese word without a measure word in between. Thankfully, we don't care what they think.
Having established that yes, in Chinese, no one would say "3 renminbi", we can move on to the subject at hand: whether such a phrase is acceptable in English. I explained to you that those of us that work in Forex prefer to say renminbi, because it unambiguously refers to the mainland's currency. It also sounds a lot like RMB, which is the official acronym for the currency (I think you can guess what it stands for). "Yuan," on the other hand, while commonly used in other contexts, can refer to lots of currencies.
You seem to have accepted this, and are now arguing that there would have been nothing wrong with the author of the submission using the term "yuan" in place of "renminbi". This is what is known as a straw man fallacy -- creating an argument I never made and shooting it down instead of the one I did. To reiterate, what you said originally was that the author of the article was wrong and that "renminbi" should not be used, and that "yuan" should be used instead. To this I countered that there was nothing wrong with using "renminbi." I then elaborated, explaining that "renminbi" is actually preferable to "yuan" for a number of reasons. Now, if the thesis of your argument were: "It would have been ok to say 'yuan' instead of 'renminbi' in the context in question", I would agree with you, and that would be the end of it. People frequently say "yuan" when speaking English, especially when the context is clear, and lamentably even when it's not (although those people are likely to not be the sort that work with Asian currencies much). This, however, is not what you are claiming.
You are claiming that using "plain 'renminbi' is still wrong", to quote. In this, you are completely incorrect.
Perhaps I should put this another way: if you were asked by a foreign friend whether saying "30 USD" was incorrect, what would you tell them?
You'd probably say: "If you're in the US, it would be better to say '30 dollars', but if you're discussing the currency in an international setting, saying USD might be better, because there are lots of currencies that are denominated in dollars." You most certainly would not say "no, saying '30 USD' is incorrect" (if you did, you'd be doing your friend a grave disservice, and most everyone who works in international finance would have words with you on the matter).
This situation is analogous, as I have already said several times now. To extend the analogy, you might argue that in an article about the US, just saying "30 dollars" is acceptable, and that saying USD is redundant (which of course would not be the case if the article were written with an Australian, Canadian, or New Zealand audience in mind). But you would never say that saying USD is wrong. That would be ridiculous.
Similarly, in this situation, the article, which was authored by IDG News Service in Singapore, used the term "renminbi" instead of "yuan". It discussed China, certainly, so perhaps the context was clear -- then again, when speaking Chinese, as most of Singapore does, the Singaporean currency is also called "yuan" (in
Just an observation--no criticism implied. You don't have much of a math background, do you? If you did, you would know that many theorems are proven only via inductive reasoning. And the whole argument about the world continuing to revolve around the sun, you might find Bayes' Theorem of interest. You could use it to mathematically "prove" to a high enough degree of confidence that the earth will continue to revolve around the sun.
Perhaps my understanding of the Theory of Evolution is deficient. What I understand is the theory is as follows:
We believe all life originated from one organism, whose offspring, over billions of years, gradually became more diverse and complex, adapting to their surroundings, giving rise to new organisms. If this theory is correct, then we will be able to observe organisms adapting, changing, evolving today. Since we do in fact observe this phenomenon, and find fossil records of similar changes, then the supposition is correct.
Logically, this is a case of If A, then B. Since B is observed, A is true. Unfortunately, this only works on A, If and Only If B.
My problem, which still has yet to be addressed, is how does A follow B in this case? From where I sit, while A is not out of the question, I don't see A as a logical consequence of B.
Of course compared to your pretend-world of deductive reasoning it might look like wild speculation. I'm a Computer Science major and I've dealt with anti-science math folks before.Obviously, you don't know me. I'm the most skeptical person my friends and acquaintances know. I rarely take anyone's word for anything--especially when it comes to science. I believe nothing without some sort of evidence. Ask my wife. My skepticism frustrates her to no end. Anti-science? Ha! Anti faulty logic--whether it be deductive or inductive--is closer to the truth than your assertion ;-)
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
I explained to you that those of us that work in Forex prefer to say renminbi, because it unambiguously refers to the mainland's currency
Uh.. you're misapprehending my previous note. I accepted that completely unproveable statement, but that doesn't mean that I think it is correct. I think you guys are grammatically incorrect. I think your use of the term is a poor but possibly necessary abbreviation, so I admit that in your daily life it might be easier to use a single term that both denotes currency origin *and* unitary value amongst people who have agreed to make it so for the sake of brevity.
You claim that the symbol is RMB; however, the "official ISO 4217 abbreviation is CNY." Additionally, xe.com and every financial site I've visited so far use CNY as the abbreviation for the currency. Your claims are beginning to sound suspect for this reason and because you decry what you perceive as my logical fallacies while engaging in at least five of them in your retort.
You seem to have accepted this, and are now arguing that there would have been nothing wrong with the author of the submission using the term "yuan" in place of "renminbi". This is what is known as a straw man fallacy[...]
I am quite familiar with logical fallacies. What you are doing is, however, more of a logical fallacy that what I am doing. I am the one whose point we are now arguing, and therefore it is my argument in which this discussion exists. I am simply restating my original point in new words to try to convey meaning and to assist in defining a context within which we can have meaningful discourse.
What you are doing is additionally a tactic sometimes called reframing the argument. You're subtly altering context and then arguing within that as though the original argument had simply vapourised into thin air. That's simple rhetoric and way more of a straw man than I ever indulged in.
My original note was to point out that it would have been grammatically and effectively correct English to use the term "X yuan". Therefore, continuing to advocate that point is in fact not a logical fallacy at all. On the other hand, you are incorrect that I have not addressed your argument. I have. I have stated that within money-market traders renminbi may be a good shorthand. For effective communication with the populace at large, however, it is wholly inappropriate, grammatically incorrect (from either a Chinese or an English perspective) and more confusing to those of us who are not within your infinitesimally small money-trading group.
Since I, myself, speak and write natively in English, the best frame of reference to decide on correct terminology in my own language for that which I will use to communicate with the average English reader is to find people who natively write and speak Mandarin and then work together with them to find accurate terms to express Chinese concepts.
It is useless to argue that a money-market term is somehow more appropriate for the general public at large. This is incorrect. For you, differentiating currencies in as little space as possible may be important. For the article itself, which is what I was complaining about, the differentiation has already been made by the context, and therefore, effective communication is simply not happening. The fact that we're arguing about this is excellent evidence of that fact.
To reiterate, what you said originally was that the author of the article was wrong and that "renminbi" should not be used, and that "yuan" should be used instead. To this I countered that there was nothing wrong with using "renminbi." [...] Now, if the thesis of your argument were: "It would have been ok to say 'yuan' instead of 'renminbi' in the context in question", I would agree with you, and that would be the end of it. [...] This, however, is not what you are claiming.
Huh? Sounds like semantics to me. Let's see.. my original note said: "I'm pretty sure the currency
Are you being deliberately dense? You cannot say "san renminbi" in Chinese because the grammar does not allow it! How many times have I said this already? When I said "There's nothing wrong with saying renminbi", it should have been completely clear that use of the term, like the use of any term, is necessarily restricted by grammar. Look, would the following post make sense?
I mean, I'm at a loss. Is this really the argument you're trying to make?
You may feel like I'm being condescending because I talk like I know I'm right -- a crime you yourself are guilty of, incidentally, but not one I'm likely to take offense to -- but at least I've taken the time to actually read and respond to your posts.
Sometimes, it's not the least bit clear you actually bothered to read mine.
CNY is the ISO-4271 standard, no argument from me. You're simply taking one list as official while I'm taking another. The two are in common use, but CNY isn't very common in China, probably for political and linguistic reasons. We use RMB in my work, and most Chinese use RMB (not surprisingly, as it is shorthand for a Chinese term, their term, etc.) CNY is an English acronym, so its root is less clear to Chinese speakers. But I'm agnostic on which to use. They're both quite common, and everyone that works much with the currency is aware of both of them. But here's something for you to consider, as a side point: if a term like "RMB" is in such wide use, despite not being the official ISO standard, what does that say about the popularity of the term it stands for?
Anyway, let's be totally clear about this. Here's your original post, titled "I'm pretty sure the currency..":
Since you insist that we are just debating your point, let's restrict ourselves to that. Here are some facts to consider, which you can verify.
The conclusion to draw, here, is that the use of yuan, within the context of a Singaporean audience, could have been ambiguous. Your assertion that "the currency .. .. should in this case be referenced as yuan, not renminbi" is therefore incorrect.
As I've stated in my previous posts, I don't think there's ever a time that using "renminbi" is wrong, but I think it's pretty clear that you're not on the same page with me there, and that you're not going to budge on it. So for closure, I'd just like to point out, that in any case, your original point -- the one we are ostensibly debating, because conversations are apparently not allowed to evolve -- is far more trivially debunked than the much more widespread claim I "reframed" the argument into.
Here's something else for you to consider: why is it correct to say "250 RMB" but not "250 renminbi" in your mind, when the former is simply shorthand for the latter? Or do you dispute that "250 RMB" is correct? Since you're fond of google, consider the following data:
I am no longer willing to participate in this thread. I think your claims are wrong, your English comprehension is poor, your arguments are based far more on logical fallacy than mine are, and therefore this will be my last response. Feel free to get the last word in. I won't bother reading it. I suppose it would probably behoove you not to waste any more of your time. Agree that we disagree and let it be.
Fair enough. As an aside, your use of "straw man" and "red herring" don't seem to fit into my understanding of the terms. Perhaps you can explain? As I understand it, a straw man argument is when you say something which I wish to refute, but instead of refuting the thing you said, I refute another, usually related but inequivalent statement. As for "red herring", I always thought it was the introduction of extraneous information into an argument, often with the intent of distracting the person you're arguing with from your main point. Was I mistaken on either of these counts?
In particular, if I assert something that you agree with or have never disputed, it is not a straw man argument (at least as I understand it -- but as you've pointed out, logic is not my strong point.) So, for example, saying you never disagreed with me about the multiple uses of "yuan" does not make my assertion that yuan is used in multiple ways a straw man argument. It just means that we probably agree with each other on that point. Arguments are typically formulated first by finding out where we agree, and then by finding out where we disagree. If you disagreed with everything I say, how are we ever supposed to find common ground?
Also, you now claim to be taking issue with the article summary, rather than the article itself. That's fair enough, but before you get upset, please note that you never specified this -- the summary and the article used, as you noted, exactly the same wording. How am I supposed to know which you meant? Either way, though, this statement -- that the article was written for a Singaporean audience -- does not seem to be a straw man, either, because again, I am not misrepresenting your argument, I am simply saying something that is evidently true and which by itself refutes nothing. This seems to be simply a miscommunication. I assumed that when you said article, you meant article, not summary.
The comment about Singlish, again -- I'm not sure how this could be construed as a straw man argument. First, this statement by itself refutes no argument at all, so how can it be me refuting an argument you didn't make? That's what I understand a straw man to be -- you claim A and I refute A', which while perhaps similar to A is not logically equivalent to A and thus does not in fact constitute a proper refutation of your argument. You also suggest it could be a red herring, which means that you feel that this statement has no bearing on my argument -- in that case, perhaps you simply don't understand why I brought it up? Only to note that the average Singaporean frequently mixes Chinese and English, and therefore quite conceivably might say "yuan" instead of "dollar" to refer to their own currency. You may disagree with this statement, but it was fairly central to my argument, and so it cannot be a red herring, at least not as I understand it.
Also, for the record, I did not attempt to prove my point using Google. I included that information simply because you have at times said that your own web searches made you think that one should use "yuan" and that using "renminbi" was wrong; I just wanted to provide some context from the same source for you to consider. Consideration means, at least to me, that you think about it and draw your own conclusions, even if they're the same conclusions you started with. They do not constitute a refutation.
I am not a computer, or a philosopher, and I do on occasion make arguments that do not follow -- and I do not mind being called on it when it happens. I cannot guarantee that I have, over the course of our debate, kept my discourse entirely free of logical fallacies, but please let me assure you that despite what you may think, if I have failed in this regard it is due to oversight, not malice. Please do let me know if I make a mistake, but please make sure that the mistake you're pointing out is in fact the mistake you think it is.
For what it's worth, this appears to be the essence of our disagreement: