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'55 Science Paper Retracted to Thwart Creationists
i_like_spam writes "The New York Times has up a story about a paper published in 1955 by Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College. The paper, entitled 'Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life', speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in the Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, 'one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive.' Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, but today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want — from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention. So after 52 years, he has retracted the paper. 'Dr. Jacobson's retraction is in "the noblest tradition of science," Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobson's letter. His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction," and people who "cling to dogma."'"
This retraction is to be simultaneously celebrated and mourned. Celebrated in the sense that we have a true scientist who will hold up the scientific process and make every effort to prove himself and the community of scientists wrong in order to make the science stronger. When we have individuals that fail to attempt to prove their work as incorrect, we have to acknowledge that they are being driven by other motives and they are not to be trusted.
This noble effort is also to be mourned because of the manipulation and steering of science to fill political goals driven by lack of scientific understanding in the wider community.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
But in all serious, this is going to be a pretty futile effort. It's greatly appreciated but it's probably going to backfire. This could be spun as 'lawyers' forcing a scientist's views out of sight, a scientist that's just trying to tell the truth. The same lawyers that have orchestrated the dinosaur bones found across the world.
And the character assassination from the Creationists will most likely consist of 'waffler' and 'flip-flopper', two terms I have no idea why they even exist.
This is the sign of a man of the highest quality in my eyes. I only wish that everyone--especially the politicians--look to him for guidance in how to 1) take ownership of something when you're wrong and 2) fix it.
My work here is dung.
The creationist zealots will likely take this bit of news, and embrace it as evidence that the scientific community is trying to be deceitful by withdrawing a "clearly correct" paper, for political reasons.
The amount of confirmation bias that people can exhibit when their passions are challenged is incredible.
They'll just stick to their usual 2000 year old documents. "The older the better", they say.
he paper, entitled 'Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life', speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in the Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, 'one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive ... creationists cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention.
Wait, so is the earth billions of years old, or 6000 years old, as told in the bible?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
As though this is going to stop anyone. Reason has long since fled discourse on this topic and many others.
I'm fairly sure the reaction will be that "see? Science erred and it will err again, only The Book is infallible".
You can't discuss with religious zealots.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
isn't that a bad example, to scientific method as such? If he believe that what he said/published was true, should he worry about the repurcations, as a scientist? His job it to tell what he knows and what he can prove. I am not questioning his intention, but I don't think 'intelligent design' guys will need to go for the 'correct interpretation' of any theory.
So now as a creationist all I need to do is take my least favorite scientific postings, twist their words to say what I want them to and viola they get retracted and denounced! Wow, why didn't I think of this before?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
If you RTFA, you would see that he reread his paper and found many errors that no one else had found yet. He retracted the paper because of the errors. Of course he might have other motives but that is anybody's guess
The nature of the citations made him re-read it, and realize he'd made factual errors. Those errors were being used to support the arguments of the people citing the paper. So he retracted it to remove those errors from circulation.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
If he discovered clear errors and retracted it for that reason, that's fine, if somewhat tardy.
If he retracted it just because creationists quoted it, that's an example of the same dogma religious zealots are critisized for.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
When will creationists realize that you can't prove divine intervention any more than you can prove flying purple unicorns? Why can't they just stick to a doctrine of faith and belief?
For a man who's devoted his life to furthering knowledge about evolution and who's revered darwin for all that time, finding out that a paper which has legitimate errors in it is being misquoted can be disheartening. If Stephen Hawking were to find out that one of his papers were being quoted to "disprove" Relativity, or Richard Feynman were misquoted as saying that quantum physics is impossible and stupid, I'm sure they would have the same reaction.
What's the point of doing that? He could just say "I think what I stated there is true, and even then I don't think that proves anything creationist say."
Of course, now with the admission that Jacobson has since discovered errors in his original paper, creationists will call into question all scientific papers - after all, if errors such as those in his paper can get through, who knows how much false information is in the scientific literature!!!
they don't understand evolution. in fact its a lot like compound interest; start with a little and wait a long time and eventually you'll have something. the following statement, for example, amounts to precisely that in my eyes.
;-)
'one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive.'
thats all it takes. and yes, given enough time, they could turn into some sexually-reproductive organism, which, to use my earlier example, would be like getting monthly compounding
i frankly see no reason for this retraction. there is no 'ammunition' here in any sense.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
Sometimes I think the gods of /. get bored and try to find stories that will start flamewars.
From the article: Things grew worse when he reread his paper, he said, because he discovered errors. One related to what he called a "conjecture" about whether amino acids, the basic building blocks of protein and a crucial component of living things, could form naturally.
"Under the circumstances I mention, just a bunch of chemicals sitting together, no," he said. "Because it takes energy to go from the things that make glycine to glycine, glycine being the simplest amino acid."
There were potential sources of energy, he said. So to say that nothing much would happen in its absence "is totally beside the point." "And that is a point I did not make," he added".
Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, "It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it."
Best "String" Ever!
The really pathetic thing is that, if I read the article correctly, the creationists aren't even interpreting his findings correctly. He basically says that as the earth started to cool, chemical compounds could arise that would remain stable in the environment, and that it would take some source of energy to assemble them into something more complex. In contrast, one creationist web site mentioned by the article describes the paper as meaning that "within a few minutes, all the various parts of the living organism had to make themselves out of sloshing water." Nothing like a little creative misinterpretation to give your dogmatic nonsense the air of scientific legitimacy.
Where is your own opinion here coming from? Do you have the knowledge & understanding of the facts of the situation to know that such a slant would be wrong? Or does it just fit your own nice package of preconceived notions?
Well said. We all see religious zealotry, but it exists in almost all academic fields as well (mathematics excepted). We just turn a blind eye to it if said zeal matches our own point of view.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
in 1998 i made an inflammatory post on slashdot in a discussion thread about the merits or lack thereof of windows 98. people have used that post to claim that i am a troll. i am not a troll, i am in fact a lurker. by retracting that post i am able to assert that
thank you for your attention
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...he's retracting his paper?
Is his paper right, or wrong? If he's claiming the first and retracting it, science is harmed, not furthered. If it's wrong, retraction should happen anyway.
This is really irrational. I understand the motivation to find any position of anyone on the planet that decries "creationism" and post it, but do you really want to overtly demonstrate your complete dependence on it in that way, while committing some really obvious non-sequiturs along the way?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
If I gave you two books which contradict each other:
Book 1, I tell you was written 150 years ago and since it's publishing, has been generally accepted as fact by millions of people.
Book 2, I tell you was written 2000 years ago and since it's publishing has been generally accepted as fact by billions of people.
Which could be assumed to be true?
Book 1 is a "The Origin of Species".
Book 2 is the Christian Bible.
Either way, I have two books in front of me, neither of which _I_ personally can prove as fact, so I'm taking somebody's word for it that it's true. Who do I believe?
Science is a process of discovery, theory, test and adjustment of theory. It is absolutely and demonstrably independent. That's how it advances.
Belief is dogmatic. Independence of thought is not generally welcomed.
What middle ground? Neither thoughtful nor believer?
Loser.
Cheers to the good professor who is caring more about science as a whole than public embarrassment. Sadly I'm not sure how much this is going to do - zealots are notorious for quoting studies far after they're retracted (for instance the original study which claimed MDMA caused brain damage was retracted two months later after it was discovered that the chemical administered to lab animals was pure methamphetamine, and not MDMA - yet the study is still cited by watchdog groups and the DEA). Your average reader isn't going to bother checking citations either. Sad :(
In the 1960s, tectonic plate theory was poo-pooed as being bulshit. The PhDs of the day would ridicule tectonics and instead forwrd their own highly implausable theories. These same learned people later withdrew their claims as anti-tectonic claims became unsustainable..
Folks, science advances and so does knowledge. Material, particularly that based on opinion rather than experiment, is subject to change.
Anyone that relies on old theories may as well sign up as life members of the flat earth society.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It probably isn't considered "true" anymore. In fact, there could have been something in there that, when combined with some other little fact could be used to bolster the creationists point. Of course, for me to test that little hypothesis would require that I RTFA, and I'm not about to risk that!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Unfortunately, some Christians in their attempts to fight the world feel compelled to try to convince everyone that science is wrong. As Christians our job is to share our own testimonies and the gospel -- Christ died on the cross to reconcile us to God. The Holy Spirit is in charge of convincing us of God's existence. I don't spend my time trying to convince people that scientific theory is bunk. I think science is wonderful. The Bible tells us that all good things come from heaven above. Let's see scientists create life without matter. And, in fact, Jesus knows who will listen by faith and who won't. John 10:14, 15: "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me -- just as the Father knows me and I know the Father -- and I lay down my life for the sheep." But the Bible also warns us about placing our faith in the wisdom of any particular age: "Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile." (1 Corinthians 3:18) By saying "he should become a fool," the Apostle Paul is referring to faith in God. 1 Corinthians 1:25: "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom..."
The original retraction letter is inspiring. I am glad that Dr. Jacobson set the record straight, even though it would have been easier for him to ignore his earlier mistakes.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
He wasn't misquoted. His mistakes were quoted. There's a HUGE difference. Nobody was trying to slander Dr. Jacobson, or to make it look like he said something he didn't. There's nothing wrong with taking the research of others and coming to our own conclusions (we're required to do so in some instances, specifically in an educational setting.)
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
I skimmed the article, I didn't read every single sentence, so I now, er, retract my previous post.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
So are the Creationists now faced with having to argue that a "random error" in the science process resulted in a non-deleterious "trait" making it to publication? Whoa.
I tried to argue that if you had material half derived from the decayed original radioactive source and that the other remaining radioactive half has a half-life of 6000 years, then the original piece of material must be 12000 years old. Of course that argument fell on deaf ears, just like the other argument I proposed on the age of the sedimentary layering found in the Grand Canyon exposed from downcutting erosion by the Colorado River, which also took a certain rate to cut through ("with most of the downcutting occurring in the last two million years," according to the wikipedia entry). No matter what the rational argument was, no counter argument was offered or even justified.
Granted creationism is based on religious faith rather than evidence acquired through experiment and observation, it cannot be evaluated by the scientific method. The two "ideologies," if you will, are incompatible as the scientific discipline does not attempt to address issues of supernatural intervention in natural phenomena. Thus we are reduced to a scientific consensus rejecting any attempt to teach creationism as science and visa versa. The classic example of this ideology incompatibility is the creation-evolution belief/theory.
Ignorance is bliss sometimes indeed.
~ In Trust, We Trust ~
>>The idea that all scientific knowledge is provisional, able to be challenged and overturned, is one thing that separates matters of science from matters of faith. Not necessarily. Blanket statements like this are stupid. Sure, some people refuse to allow their faiths to be challenged, but most of my experience with people of faith has been the opposite. Faith is more like an axiom than blindness--it is believed because with it as a foundation, the rest of the world makes sense, even though there may not be a positive proof for it to stand on. All science is based on axioms as well, which aren't supported either, that's why they're called axioms. Both scientists and people of faith have a hard time when someone questions their axioms. But I see no evidence to show that people of faith are less likely to accept a challenge of their axioms: in fact, they are more likely to accept that challenge, and if truly presented with something that can prove it's falsity, I would say a person of faith is much more likely to overturn that belief than a mathematician would be to overturn one of Euler's axioms.
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: October 25, 2007
In January 1955, Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, published a paper called "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life" in American Scientist, the journal of Sigma Xi, the scientific honor society.
In it, Dr. Jacobson speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, "one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive."
Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, he said in a telephone interview from his home in Tarrytown, N.Y. But today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want -- from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention.
So after 52 years, he has retracted it.
The retraction came about when, on a whim, Dr. Jacobson ran a search for his name on Google. At age 84 and after 20 years of retirement, "I wanted to see, what have I done in all these many years?" he said. "It was vanity. What can I tell you?"
He found many entries relating to his work on compounds called polymers; on information theory, a branch of mathematics involving statistics and probability; and other subjects. But others were for creationist sites that have taken up his 1955 paper as scientific support for their views.
Darwinismrefuted.com, for example, says Dr. Jacobson's paper "undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident." Another creationist site, Evolution-facts.org, says his findings mean that "within a few minutes, all the various parts of the living organism had to make themselves out of sloshing water," an impossible feat without a supernatural hand.
"Ouch," Dr. Jacobson said. "It was hideous."
That is not because he objects to religion, he said. Though he was raised in a secular household, he said, "Religion is O.K. as long as you don't fly in the face of facts." After all, he said, no one can disprove the existence of God. But Dr. Jacobson said he was dismayed to think that people might use his work in what he called "malignant" denunciations of Darwin.
Things grew worse when he reread his paper, he said, because he discovered errors. One related to what he called a "conjecture" about whether amino acids, the basic building blocks of protein and a crucial component of living things, could form naturally.
"Under the circumstances I mention, just a bunch of chemicals sitting together, no," he said. "Because it takes energy to go from the things that make glycine to glycine, glycine being the simplest amino acid."
There were potential sources of energy, he said. So to say that nothing much would happen in its absence "is totally beside the point." "And that is a point I did not make," he added.
Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, "It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it."
Vance Ferrell, who said he put together the material posted on Evolution-facts.org, said if the paper had been retracted he would remove the reference to it. Mr. Ferrell said he had no way of knowing what motivated Dr. Jacobson, but said that if scientists "look like they are pro-creationist they can get into trouble."
"There is an embarrassment," Mr. Ferrell said.
Dr. Jacobson conceded that was the case. He wrote in his retraction letter, "I am deeply embarrassed to have been the originator of such misstatements."
It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong. The idea that all scientific knowledge is provisional, able to be challenged and overturned, is one thing that separates matters of science from matters of faith.
So Dr. Jacobson's retraction is in "the noblest tradition of science," Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist
"The creationist zealots will likely take this bit of news, and embrace it as evidence that the scientific community is trying to be deceitful by withdrawing a "clearly correct" paper, for political reasons."
Not quite. Though I am not a creationist zealot, I do believe God created the world. I also feel that there are multiple correct meanings to the creation story as told in the Bible (some would say two creation stories... I call it one with two plot lines). But though I am not a creationist, I can understand where creationists are coming from, and it doesn't upset me terribly. I guess I'm not quite the zealot you are.
But I rather take this that the scientific community is trying to be dogmatic, by retracting [not withdrawing] a referreed paper for the reason that the results of the paper conflict with a deeply held belief.
As I remember with the K-T iridium layer issue, it was said by one of the researchers that "scientists do not generally change their views. Rather, the accepted view changes as the older scientists die out." The point being, that scientists are terribly dogmatic, and the more irreligious they are, the more dogmatic they are about their beliefs.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Wait a minute. The purpose of science is to discover objective truth. For the most part, this is accomplished disproving existing theories, but the idea is that this will eventually lead to the real truth, or at least lead us much closer to it. Whether or not objective truth is ever discovered, it is the goal that scientists are working toward. Moreover, many scientists believe in the objective truth of the hypothesis they are testing, otherwise they would not be investigating it. If there is no such thing as objective truth, then the efforts of many scientists are totally misguided.
When the paper was published in 1955, it wasn't controversial, and there weren't creationists around to parade it as proof of their ideas. This whole giant clusterfuck "debate" where so many people make fools of themselves with this ID/creationism idea, is actually fairly new - let me be clear, what I mean is, the fury of the controversy is new. In 1955, a scientist could publish a paper about evolution and then go to church on Sunday. Science and religion weren't seen as either/or propositions as they are today. The generation that advanced science (arguably) more than any other, the generation that gave us computers and space travel, didn't get its panties in a bunch over evolution or religion.
What seems to have happened is that some creationists decided to make evolution their litmus test. They decided to make it a big controvery. They decided to tell people that "omfg we have to oppose this with every fiber of our being" and I really haven't a clue why they did that (other than being stupid).
This has happened before. There used to be people who believed in geocentrism for the exact same reason taht people reject evolution - because they just honestly WANT to believe the bible. But here's the deal, even creationist don't believe in geocentrism, yet creationist still believe the bible. So what happened? They just changed their interpretation of it. I can't figure out why they don't just do that again.
Hardly an impartial physisist. Some things he retracted, but he had quite a few blind spots (particularly wrt quantum physics) because his beliefs formed a barrier to his acceptance of what the theories said.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I'm sorry, I don't get it. Maybe I don't get it because I'm AC and not a mod, but please explain your heavily encrypted post. It looks encrypted, but it might contain a very insightful comment, so please - decrypt it for us!
But I rather take this that the scientific community is trying to be dogmatic, by retracting [not withdrawing] a referreed paper for the reason that the results of the paper conflict with a deeply held belief.
The only reason you could have that take on this situation is if your opinion is being led by your religious beliefs or if you didnt read the actual article (but that never happens on Slashdot).
First off, there was a part of the paper when he mentioned that it takes energy to make glycine. It was taken out of context by creationists to say that it couldnt be made on its own. But the author had left out the numerous types of energy that could do it by mistake.
From the article:
Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, "It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it."
Creationists have been using mistakes of his 50 years ago to make their beliefs seam scientific. That is why he retracted his paper.
His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction," and people who "cling to dogma."
By retracting his paper, he has shown himself as a true scientist who can admit to being wrong even though it may cause him embarrassment. He couldnt bring himself to let his incorrect research help others further their dogmatic beliefs, so he did the noble thing and admitted his mistakes.
He should be proud of himself.
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
No, it means he made ASSUMPTIVE errors. And the conclusion he reached wasn't according to Scientific Doctrine. So he changed his assumptions, the proper conclusion was reached and all is well in the Scientific Community, since doctrine is more important than anything else.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Hasn't this argument been beaten to death already? Maybe I'm wrong, and yes I'm over simplifying but basically it comes down to this: Science tries to explain *how* things happened, Faith tries to explain *why* things happened. At least in terms of planetary history. Personally, I'm interested in both how and why things happen the way they do. Most times, in my experience, science does a better job at explaining how things are happening and sometimes why they happen. I lost my faith in faith around the time I started asking questions and got back a lot of crappy answers. However, I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of *some* kind of creative force simply because we may not have the tools to demonstrate or understand it fully.
Back in 1955 with the available knowledge the paper was fine. Thats why it was published. In the light of newer evidence the paper clearly draws incorrect conclusions.
This happens all the time in science. You think if you go back and read chemistry journals from decades ago that you won't find papers that contain conclusions that have since been proven false? In the vast majority of situations though there is no need to retract the papers though - anyone serious about the subject will know to read more recent results anyway. However in this case a group of people were knowingly using out-of-date results to try to prop up their position. So the author took a relatively drastic step to stop their deliberate misrepresentation of current scientific understanding.
How do you create something out of nothing?
Does "Nothing" exsist as a something?
Does "Nothing" have any scientific properties?
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
Actually, in the article, the author states that he went back and found errors in the paper itself. He might have chosen to re-examine the paper because it was being used to support something he disagreed with, but once he started looking at it, the paper didn't hold up to scrutiny.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
read: http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/56234;jsessionid=aaah7j1zW7KfWl
The relevant portion:
I ask you to honor my request to retract two brief passages, as follows:
On page 121: "Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanisms translating instructions into growth--all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [of life's birth]."
On page 125: "From the probability standpoint, the ordering of the present environment into a single amino acid molecule would be utterly improbable in all the time and space available for the origin of terrestrial life."
That is all, he is not retracting his entire article. It is impossible to tell this from the headline link, however; said headline presents the story as the scientist retracting his entire paper. Which is wrong, unless my reading comprehension is absolutely nonexistent today, but I don't think that's the case.
Waste of time, effort, and intellect on all sides.
Let faith speak to faith and science speak to science. The two are unrelated.
Asses on both sides should shut the hell up.
He shouldn't have retracted the paper. If the paper contained errors, he should have corrected them and resubmitted it.
Because he retracted it, some other grad student in science could present the same hypothesis, and get well into his program before realizing his fault. If the paper had been corrected, rather than retracted, the aforementioned scenario would be less likely.
Society's collective memory of what doesn't work keeps us from repeating the same failed experiments over and over, and expedites the actual discovery process. Too bad the paper's author didn't realize that he's probably doing more harm than good by retracting the paper.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
0 = 0
-1 + 1 = 0
There. I just created *two* somethings, equal opposites of each other.
In physics, this happens quite a bit. Particles and their corresponding antiparticles pop in and out of existence.
The questions you ask are about as relevant as the old stumper, "Can God make a rock so heavy He cannot move it?"
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
There are fanatics on both side of the science and creationism debate. The gung ho scientists who rush to profess their adherence to the present "correct view" and assure their standing as a person of true science amongst their peers by out-of-hand dismissing creationsim. And the die hard fundamentalist ceationists who are prepared to prove that their simplistic view of religous text by attempting to bludgeon anyone with opposing views into submission before their "true" knowledge. Both viewpoints are the result of poor science. There is a meeting point for both views - and in fact a high degree of agreement. Science and spiritual views of creation are buddies when the the correct analysis is done and respective blind spots acknlwedged. I can applaud a scientist recanting an outmoded theory but I'm less impressed when it also parades as a gung ho attitude to creationsim.
The creationists are seeking disproof of evolution so they site a paper which uses the word "Imagine" in the relevant quote?? Are they high? Last time I checked imagining things isn't exactly scientific due diligence, and if it was the creationists really wouldn't have to worry about disproving evolution at all, their simple imagining of the magical process by which they came into being would be evidence enough, no?
What are you talking about? Science places it's "faith" in reason and evidence.
That "tradition and personal experience" is untrustworthy is evident from the vast number of contradictory traditions and personal experiences with no way to differentiate between them in terms of which one is true (or more truthful).
Of course science also has contradictory/alternate theories but we have the tools of reason and evidence with thich to continue improving our understanding.
As to which is "better" as you put it, I suppose it depends on a personal level whether ignorance is bliss for you or not.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
And here I thought my grandma was strange for putting plastic over the couch.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I don't know if you might have a better example, but if he wrote that it takes energy to make glycine, and neglected to write that that doesn't mean it couldn't happen spontaneously, that wasn't a mistake, and it's not his nor the paper's fault that some people took it to mean something it didn't say. That is not a good reason to retract the paper, IMO.
One day, all the Christians float bodily into the sky, leaving all the unbelievers left to muddle their way around on the Earth's surface, where things fall quickly into chaos. Magic works and some people even turn into vampires and demon-horn people.
The story flows, with people dealing with the sudden possibility that, "God is real and he doesn't love me! I got Left Behind(tm)"
Then at the end, it turns out that this quadrant of the galaxy went through a paradigm shift which altered the laws of physics and allowed the energies of the human race to express themselves directly. --Turns out that there is now a big ring of dead people around the planet. --The Christian belief of 'rising into the heavens' manifested literally and they all died from lack of oxygen and turned into space junk.
This might be closer to the truth than people realize, albeit in a metaphorical sense. But then my own belief system is abnormal by all counts, one aspect of which is that the whole religion scam is designed deliberately to keep people from believing in and using their own innate power.
Who needs a savior? Don't surrender your own growth and power waiting around for somebody else to take care of you. I suspect that was one of Christ's original and uncorrupted messages which got edited out by power-hungery guys in tall hats who needed lots of slave labor for their free meal ticket. --I bet Christ had the mind of a researcher; you can't evolve the spirit if you don't question and explore the limits of your being.
-FL
Evolution is science, creationism is belief.
Evolution is proven, it's done, there are no arguments against evolution that hold water any more. None.
It is no different then somebody saying gravity doesn't exist, it's just that God sucks.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Creationists (of which I'm not one) and anti-creationists (of which I'm also not one) are dogmatic. The fact that the beliefs come from a different world-view doesn't change the fact that it's dogma. Faith that there is a supreme being is not much different from the faith that there isn't -- the faith in science to explain the fundamentally unexplainable (how and why *anything* exists).
Don't bother. I've run the down syndrome decrypter, and it just turns out to be a damn troll anyway.
He apparently used "nerd bait".
So you put a few coins in the bank and now you're the richest man in the world?
No?
So you put a few chemicals together and created RNA?
No?
[ http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=245 , http://www.2ndlaw.com/obstructions.html ]
You can retract a paper in review, and I suppose you can back out of conference paper, like the first discovery of a pulsar planet where the dude figured he hadn't corrected for light-time effects of the Earth's orbit around the Sun completely. But once you have gotten something past peer review and published it, for crying out loud, the thing is published and if you are making a fool out of yourself to have published, freakin' boo-hoo -- published is part of the public record.
The 1955 paper represented the dude's best thoughts at the time about a speculative time in pre-history (i.e. 4 GA BCE), and it past muster with enough peer reviewers who though the same way at the time. If the dude thinks the 1955 paper is wrong, he should draft and submit another freakin' paper -- for peer review -- where he explains the errors in the 1955 paper and how more modern knowledge reverses certain points, and has to defend his new point of view against review criticism.
Where does someone get off thinking they can withdraw or remove an archival publication? And seriously, even if the thing is wrong, where does one get the idea that one can withdraw a "wrong" paper. Science is partly about truth, but it is more about process about how inferences about truth are arrived at, and if you start extirpating papers from the public record like this, it will be Stalin airbrushing out the political rivals he had executed or the fictional Winston Smith at the Ministry of Truth stuffing old propaganda down the Memory Hole to maintain cohesion of the Party Line.
The whole point of leaving wrong papers in the public record is so young guns can write new papers refuting the old papers so they can get tenure at research universities, and if the old coot wanted to refute his own paper, he needs to stand in line with the other supplicants for journal page space. Seriously though, leaving "wrong" papers in the public record is important -- who knows, maybe the current crop of papers will be proven wrong and the original papers will be demonstrated to be right all along once better techniques or proofs or evidence are developed.
"Withdrawing" a paper that has been on library shelves since 1955 is the most arrogant kind of vanity -- suck up having your stuff be proven wrong by later work like the rest of us.
The comment reads as follows:
Nigger Nigger Niggger!!!!!!!!!!
Try to stop us!!!!!
Nigger trolls will always be part of this site!!!
Mwaaaaahaaaaahaaaaahaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just trying to ruin your site, Malda, you homofag!!!!!!!!
Insightful indeed. You could argue that the last line contains a pun on site/sight, given the long stare necessary to read the post, but that's still not insight.
God loves you!
I for one welcome our new Lord overlord.
I want to be retired when I grow up.
I'm a Christian; not the "Earth can only by 6,000 years old" type (Young Earther) and I really have no problem with God, as he does with all living things, mutating a humanoid into Adam and Eve. I don't scream at Trick-or-Treaters, and I'm open to learning more about the Bible, and science.
I'm not the guy that goes along with the crowd to church, mindlessly accepting whatever pastor is within driving distance from my house; I've made contact with the actual being. And I know, that's like trying to prove sighting of a unicorn or something, but proof denies faith, and we all have to actually exert an effort to find Him.
What you're citing as 'Religion' is actually errant Christians. Putting Copurnicous on house arrest for his last 8 years of his life, because the Pope didn't like his idea....that was both malicious and stupid. But, a lot of things are like that in the Roman Catholic church.
Just like it's wrong for a Korean to suggest he's cloned a cat doesn't make science a useless endeavor, just because a sect of Christianity is in error doesn't make religion worthless, either.
It's taken me a long, long time and healthy skepticism, but I'm quickly reaching the point where I'm claiming the Bible has no contradictions. You won't get there sniping at Christians on Slashdot, but if you tune into Hank Hanegraff at http://equip.org/ and get his podcast, you'll see just how many of these have actual reasons.
It's not a document of fairy tales. It's not been translated over and over into error. Every translation comes from the original document. Perhaps a million people have studied this for many centuries...this is a document with more structure, more layers, and more detail than the entire works of Shakespeare. And every once in a while, despite all the claims, the Bible's right, anyway.
Like the Hittites; for centuries people claimed they were a figment of the auther's imagination. Then last century someone found the capital city. It was similarly correct when it talked about two leaders of Babylon, despite "known fact" suggested otherwise for a long time.
Now, there are a lot of true sealots out there; we've all met them. But they're the ones that get all the loudest press. (Much, I'm sure the way scientists feel about Frankenstein, Medela and other very-wrong scientists, real or imaginary).
Just don't write off the Book; don't just take your friend's feelings about it as your own decision, think for yourself. The worst think it could do for you is improve your life. Christ doesn't want mindless robots; he wants people who believe for good reason, aren't prone to branching off like the Davidians, (pardon the pun) or worse yet *killing* anyone in his name.
Just look for yourself; Hank is all about resolving issues of faith, not just from the non-believers, but of the church itself. Give'im a listen!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
ate your karma
What?
When will the paranoid religious fanatics come to the realisation that science / evolution e.t.c. do not and are not an attempt to disprove the existence of HIM/HER. They are merely methods to attempt to explain how things work. No scientific method disproves gods existence. Why cant they just look at it that the creationist stories in the bible are simplifications of the actual creation stories intended to help the minds of children absorb the information.
God did create the Universe, he just built it as a huge Rube Goldberg Machine that we as scientists / theorists are trying to unravel on our way back to him.
Oh and the 6000yrs old thing, Who said it was 6000yrs of earth time? it may have been whatever annual cycle of wherever 'God' lives.
change the science!
The best (paraphrased) quote from my highschool physics teacher:
:)
"You can choose any arbitrary point, including yourself, to be the center of the universe. The maths is just easier the way we have it."
So, having chosen myself as the center of the universe, my bias is of course the only one true view. The rest of you are obviously deluded...
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein
Personally I don't buy Darwin's theory because it clearly fails to account to the missing links. But that doesn't mean I believe in the genesis story given in the bible. To me the real and fascinating question is who created us? Just look at what we, humans, have achieved in genetics! Well then, can't we imagine beings more evolved than us who could have engineered humanity or at least played a role in its evolution? That would be a more plausible explanation for what we observe in many fields, including archeology and the study of ancient texts and artifacts.
Oh I see, I can already hear some people saying 'another lunatic believing in ETs'.
Well, I'm no more lunatic than these people who first considered the possibility of the earth being round and not flat. I don't really know the story of humanity's origin. But in making an educated guess about it I'm trying real hard not to be blinded by limiting beliefs and conditioning.
Have a look at these articles, it may help:
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/darwinism.1.html
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/darwinism.2.html
As an educated, rational person who has been marginalized by loud-mouthed, stupid ideologues, I would like to offer Homer Jacobson my most sincere thanks. By withdrawing his paper, he reminds us of how the scientific method is really supposed to work, and why it is the most powerful problem-solving tool yet created by man. It is this power that both tempts and terrifies religious zealots.
Dr. Jacobson also reminds us that science is more than the current crop of grant-whores chasing corporate bucks with the same intensity as a Congressman chases a teenaged page.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
How come I've never seen a single one of them posit that maybe... just maybe God could have designed the mechanisms behind evolution?
That would make it too easy. They'd rather "bear their crosses" and beat their chests (and bibles) over the literal translation. Idiots.
that wasn't a mistake, and it's not his nor the paper's fault that some people took it to mean something it didn't say. That is not a good reason to retract the paper, IMO.
It was a mistake that he left out different sources of energy that could help create them. And it is someone's fault if they find an obscure paper from 50 years ago and try to prove something with it without further research. Or without looking at more recent research on the topic that refutes the earlier paper.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
> So where in the evolutionary ladder do the talking snakes and rib-clone women fit?
Talking snakes would be right before the development of awareness of good and evil (moral). Early mankind, maybe 100000 years ago.
I'm not sure how to retrofit rib-clone women into a more contemporary creation myth. I'm sure it can be done, though, by someone more motivated.
All scientific explanations lie within the natural world. They don't "rule out" supernatural explanations, because you can no more rule out something supernatural than you can investigate or test it. Science just doesn't consider supernatural explanations because science only deals with things for which we can find evidence, i.e. things that lie within the natural world. So any explanation science finds for disease, planetary orbits, thunder, and, yes, the origin of life, is going to lie within the natural world.
If you want to believe that disease is caused by demonic possession, or that angels push the planets around in their orbits, then yes, you have a compelling interest in discrediting science by reversing the burden of proof and pretending that it is the scientists, not you, who are making the unverifiable claims.
"The maths is just easier the way we have it."
With increasing frequency, I have seen math referred to as 'maths'. At what point did its plurality come into question, come under the vote, and change to this odd beast? It's MATH. Math is plural.
"Do the math" not "do the maths."
If no one has proven his paper wrong, then retracting it is withholding information from the science community.
Creationists can say anything they want, and if they dump enough money behind it, it just may sway some people. However, they are never going to sway a significant margin of the population with strategies like this, they will just waste their own money, which is a good thing.
The creationists agenda just failed with the rejection of Intelligent Design and they won't have another chance for a decade or two.
It's well known comets and meteors bring organic life, why not just edit the paper to point that out. Wouldn't it be better to edit the paper anyway. So when creationists try to quote it, non-creationists can quote them back the corrections.
By pulling the paper you create mystery about it, by editing it you just emaarras the creationists. You just let them go ahead and spend tens or hundreds of thousnads of dollars going down that road and then you update the paper, invalidating most of their work and exemplifying their failure to the public.
Everytime creationism strikes out, that's one one less chance they have to rot peoples minds. It's too bad Hitler taught the modern world how to wield propaganda and we embraced it so readily.
Here they are:
--
From http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/06/01/reason-eight-radioactivity
However, to extrapolate into the unknown past requires three main unprovable assumptions.
1. Initial conditions--it is assumed that when the rock was formed only the parent element (e.g. Potassium, Uranium, etc.) was present, and there was no daughter element (e.g. Argon, Lead) present;
2. Closed system--it is assumed that within any given sample, no parent or daughter elements ever entered or left the sample;
3. Constant Rate--it is assumed that the rate of radioactive decay has remained constant.
--
From http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp
A canyon in six days!
--
This story is great news for people who worry about global warming, because however hot the earth gets, even if it gets hot enough to kill us all, when the earth eventually cools it seems that life 2.0 will spontaneously evolve.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I think sometimes we can become aware of our bias, example:
Many years ago i believed in some kind of super natural power if ever i was thinking of someone and in the following 5 minutes that person calle me.
But some years later i realized that it happened many times as well that I thought of someone and that person did not call me, but of course these events did not catch my attention as much as the first one.
So it think sometimes we can become aware of our bias,
my 2 cents
I believe it was something like this in the commentary section: it's maths because we here in the UK do more than one sum.
Even if that were the case?
You don't just go around retracting the words of infallible authors. You need to reinterpret them.
This is Slashdot so any occasion is good about making some of religion-bashing, by identifying religion with the silly doctrine of creationism (being raised as a Catholic I was only taught evolution in the science class), irrationality (narrowly identifying rationality with the scientific method, which discards most of the human knowledge), brain washing and so on and so on.
This serves a purpose. Make the nerd atheist readers of Slashdot feel they are superior beings because they are atheists and believers are some dumb morons that believe in irrational things . Most people want to believe they are superior (because pride is a powerful drug) and, when you can't get laid and your social skills are not spectacular, your intelligence is the only thing you have to achieve this.
So they identify intelligence and rationality with atheism. So Newton and Galileo were dumbs and morons (or irrational) because believed in God and some borderline atheist is very smart and rational because he is atheist. Give me a break.
Being a science teacher, having a Ph D, a master and speaking four languages (this doesn't make me more intelligent but I don't think I am a dumb person only because I believe in God), I don't find any conflict between Religion and Science. I was atheist some 20 years, but now the rationality of the Universe (which is a very surprising fact) makes me think a lot. So my intellectual quest have make me a believer again, but, if I discover something that is best explained by assuming there is no God, I will return to atheism. But I have read all the classics of atheism and the arguments have not conviced me (and the really simplistic Richard-Dawkins-like arguments make me yawn, because I have been refuted so much time ago).
If you want to know more, please read "Modern Physics and Ancient Faith". But it's always easier to repeat some used clichés, than try to learn.
doesn't mean it cannot be disproved.
If you found a ten-legged spider or a chordate that is trilaterally (as opposed to bilaterally like us, left and right) symmetric then there is no available precursor for this species. It could be the result of genetic manipulation but if not, then it was spontaneously created by a designer who decided that the old pattern was getting jaded.
Evolution (in that case) overturned.
We now know that evolution isn't the ONLY option. That doesn't stop it being true in places, but if there's a naturalistic reason for the change, we should be able to find out under what circumstances evolution will take place and which ones it won't.
You're not from around here, are you?
In some parts of North America, we say MAT, not Math.
Or if you prefer, MATS.
Grrr... some of you cunning linguists make me MAD!
- Pushtab. Pushing the tab since 1991.
So he retracts the need for simultaneity because he couldn't prove everything had to be there at once. I assume that's correct. He didn't show it. But the main problem in Origin of Life research is trying to figure out a reasonable step-by-step scenario that doesn't require simultaneity.
In other words, "I retract this and will rely on philosophical pre-commitments." My philosophy requires a step-by-step process. And, by-golly, even though we can't figure it out this many years later, let's just assume there was.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
But you probably pronounce it as "miths" or "meths", those being the only vowels you can pronounce.
You mean like Michael Behe, who is an ID-proponent? Or many theistic evolutionists?
There are plenty of people in the ID camp, for instance, who believe in evolution per se, but don't believe that blind, naturalistic causes can account for the things we see in nature. There must be intelligent planning, intervention, direction, etc.
Granted, you might be using "creationists" broadly or narrowly. I can't tell.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
There wasn't a concerted intellectual attack on key Darwinian concepts. So a scientist could raise obvious problems with evolutionary theory without fear of giving aid and comfort to the "enemy."
I think if the good doctor thinks simultaneity is necessary in biological systems to get off the ground, he should say so even if he isn't an ID proponent. If he is retracting this because it is embarrassing to him, that's a problem.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Shh... Don't let the evolutionist sanctum know I theorized anything against their precious theory. It looks like he retracted it with no other reason that it conflicted with evolution. What kind of science is that!!!!? This is rule by dogma, folks.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
Someone used "over analyse."
Critical hit! The thread (along with any possibility of ignoring the trolling) fainted.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
It seems like he's trying to help out the creationists by helping them to avoid making themselves look like retards. Quoting research from 50+ years ago that has since been shown to be in error is laughable. Let them continue.
... whose headline shows a bias against creationists. The article suggests that the paper's author is neither against religion nor those who believe in creation, but is simply concerned with facts and the truth.
While there are certainly creationists who will put aside facts in their quest for upholding their beliefs, the same is true for pretty much any group of people, including evolutionists. Both sides also have people who really do care about the truth and facts.
To denigrate either side is to show a base prejudice unworthy of humanity.
"This is rule by dogma, folks."
And for the Evolutionists, Dogma is apparently all the karma they need.
Whats obviously ridiculous is the smug superiority of those who "preach" evolution in a manner replete with zealotry that is no different than so called creationists they rally against and who like creationists, dont have the science in their corner 100%
But yet, they are the theory du jour
Evolutionists believe in a "show about nothing" when you really narrow it down. All of the purposefulness of design and function in the universe and they believe thats its all random nothing.
The reality is that neither side has the answer so no one should claim the truth and both theories should be regarded as scientific hypothesis until the evidence is in.
Can the search for a creator or designer be scientific, of course and if you disagree, then your half the scientist you should be, get out of the lab and join up with MoveOn.org or other secular liberal organization since they seem to have all the answers.
You mean Life 6.0, surely.
The University of York just this week published a report showing a close association between Earth climate and extinctions in a study that examined the relationship over the past 520 million years -- almost the entire fossil record available.
"Matching data sets of marine and terrestrial diversity against temperature estimates, evidence shows that global biodiversity is relatively low during warm 'greenhouse' phases and extinctions relatively high, while the reverse is true in cooler 'icehouse' phases.
Moreover, future predicted temperatures are within the range of the warmest greenhouse phases that are associated with mass extinction events identified in the fossil record."
Of the five mass extinction events, four -- including the one that eliminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago -- are associated with greenhouse phases. The largest mass extinction event of all, the end-Permian, occurred during one of the warmest ever climatic phases and saw the estimated extinction of 95 per cent of animal and plant species.
Not if it gets hot enough to possibly kill us all. When it gets hot enough to possibly kill us all.
Many still think the KT asteroid snuffed out the dinosaurs
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
That's their problem with science, though. It raises too many inconsistencies and too many questions to their faith, so in order for them to continue thinking that the Flood killed the dinosaurs and that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, like their religion tells them to, so they can keep feeling that joy and peace and whatnot, they have to go to some pretty crazy extremes.
I've enjoyed the give and take about the relative merits of science knowledge and faith knowledge. Some real thoughtful (and some not so much) comments and insights. One person's approach I've appreciated (especially since I have met him) is Charles Townes, the 1964 Nobel Prize winner in physics for work which led to the laser, and the 2005 Templeton Prize winner. You can read an article he wrote on "The Convergence of Science and Religion" here http://www.templetonprize.org/pdfs/THINK.pdf One of the key ideas to me is "As in science,our religious ideas cannot be expected to be completely correct; we must not be hesitant to try to advance our religious understanding and even somewhat change our outlook." A point missed by many who profess science and many who profess religion.
But I rather take this that the scientific community is trying to be dogmatic, by retracting [not withdrawing] a referreed paper for the reason that the results of the paper conflict with a deeply held belief.
> The only reason you could have that take on this situation is if your opinion is being led by
> your religious beliefs or if you didnt read the actual article (but that never happens on Slashdot).
Actually, I did skim the article, and I'm aware of what you are saying. You misunderstand me. The results of his paper are that it is being used by a group he does not approve of.
My point here is that a scientist should not care what directions seed theories go, out of what he had written himself. He should be dispassionate about the bad theories, because in the end the scientific process is supposed to be able to weed out the weeds, and leave the truth. If that is not correct, then the scientific process is flawed. But I'm inclined to think that it is correct, as long as the scientific process stays scientific, and does not get political.
Unfortunately, our government -- in choosing to control education -- also tries to control science, and in the end makes the science political. But that's just our government. If you really have confidence in science, then you will also be aware that our government will weed itself out of science, as well. Shoot -- the Arabs did it to themselves.
This is also not about him showing himself a true scientist who can admit to being wrong. He is trying to spare himself embarrassment (RTA; this is slashdot, for crying out loud. Stop being so stereotypical). This wasn't about his incorrect research. This is about him cringing from embarrassment, and trying to yell "enough! it wasn't me! or it shouldn't have been! How did that ever happen?!?" But it happened because he isn't a true scientist. Rather, he has in the passed published beliefs as science, and now he publishes his beliefs as science. It isn't science.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=340087&cid=21133443
Actually, on many issues (Immigration and Abortion immediately come to my mind), you can get about 15% on either side; and many times they're not the same people for each issue :). If you consider the number of issues, it's probably closer to 90% (or 100?) who can't think rationally about at least one issue. So, what's your issue ?
Whoops. The first line should be split:
"Actually, faith does not require belief without proof. That is not what your Bible says."
I said the first sentence, you replied with the second. Sorry.
The only reason it is being used by a group he doesnt agree with is because of mistakes he has found in his paper. Without the mistakes there is no problem with his research being used incorrectly.
He states two examples in the article of mistakes in his paper that are being used by creationists. It is those mistakes that have caused him to retract his paper. He probably would have let those mistakes slide if no one was using the paper for bad reasons, but that isnt the case.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Much better.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
God, in all his wisdom (note the word his, some people get worked out it this entity in not ascribed the masculine gender) decided to send his son (which his himself if you know what I mean) to deliver the most important news in the history of mankind when the fastest communication means was a crazy burro and the known world resembled today's maps of European holiday resorts.
Now, maybe God's IQ is in the low 80s, but would it not have been better, you know, be in a worldwide live broadcast announcing the drowning of an entire country (you chose the Gomorrah closest to your hard, we all have one I suppose) and showing it on live TV. I know I would fall on knees then and there in repentance for my wicked ways.
But, nope, lets make it fucking difficult to document the facts, let unreliable witnesses and historians put contradictory accounts together (because you do know that the 4 evangelists are the ones accepted by the churches, not the only ones that claim to know about the facts of those days, if God was guiding all those guys to write the truth then he needs to take some courses on leadership) and in general lets send the message in a way that anybody with a healthy dose of skepticism would feel obliged to exclaim: WTF?
Great proofs you have there, Great incontrovertibly ones...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
From the point of view of any religious person Einstein was for most practical purposes an atheist.
The single fact that he ascribed more importance to observation than to belief when trying to understand the universe is anathema to any person belonging to any organized religion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Every time I listen to men of faith all sounds to me like silly unadulterated nonsense referring to spirits, gods, creators, and all kind of entities for which there is not a shred of evidence but that somehow affect the physical universe in which we live.
Life is what we see, what we measure, what we model. We don't understand all but that does not make the unknown the territory of comforting fairy tales.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is religious people, amongst which there are some that can put 2 + 2 together in spite of everything, that keep mixing them both.
It was patently obvious that the mechanism described by Darwin did not require a god to work. It could churn along quite nicely without the intervention of any directing entity.
Science did not set up to destroy religion. Darwin was a pious, religious man actually. But he was a scientist, and science lead him to the irrefutable conclusions that he reached.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.