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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.
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?
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?
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?
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.
As Christians our job is to share our own testimonies and the gospel
Is that before or after being eaten by the lion?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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 ~
Disclaimer: Whilst I am a hindu, I'm not a literalist, and don't believe in "Intelligent Design", though if ID were ever "proved", the universe was obviously designed by committee and not a single designer. It's far too messy.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Hah! Except that he retracted it BECAUSE IT DID INDEED CONTAIN ERRORS! Also, religion does not exist in science by definition buddy, no matter how many times you or anyone else copy-pastes the BS that "lack of religion is faith" etc.
I like basketball!!1!
>>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
Great post. Thanks dude. :-)
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.
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
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.
This is a false dilemma. Sciences (excepting social sciences) attempt to describe the world and its interactions. The questions it answers are undoubtedly important and useful. However, questions such as "How should I live my life?" are the domain of philosophy, culture, belief and religion. Sure, social sciences can help you in some very specific and useful ways, but at the end of the day human lives are too complex to establish experimental controls over in every respect. Wisdom is recognizing where to apply which methodology.
Your other supposition that all beliefs are inherently and intractably dogmatic is so patently false that I do not care to refute it. Extremist fundamentalism does not stand for all belief.
If the lion eats you, then God has left you to die that way. You will be with Him, and His purpose is served in His way.
If the lion lies down and just looks at you, God had chosen to save you, as is His privilege.
It's His, not yours. Either way, if you accept Christ, you win. The lion is merely a tool. If that.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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!
Well written... It is not our task, as Christians, to understand and explain HOW God has created all this. It is enough to accept that He has. And He will permit or deny our knowledge as He sees fit. More than quibbling over how God created everything, we should be in awe that not only did He make such a magnificent universe, but that He has made in so that we can, indeed, explore it. A minor change here or there, so that our atmosphere were more opaque, and we might be fairly unaware that there was anything at all 'out there'. It has always caught me that, in Genesis 1:16, it is written 'He also made the stars'. that's all. The billions of stars merit five words. I have less concern for how, than I do for why. It does not profit me to challenge so much scientific evidence of how this was all made. I'm much more interested in the purpose.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
Hmm, and since "[t]he fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good" (Psalms 14:1) I guess that Paul is saying that I should shouldn't believe in god, that I should be corrupt, that I should do abominable works, and that I should do no good. Sweet, I'm on the right path!
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.
Well, as Ben Franklin famously quipped, God helps those who help themselves!
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.
If the lion lies down and just looks at you, God had chosen to save you
for the next act, where the Emperor orders his gladiators to chop off your head.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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
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".
I mean, at least the real nutjobs stand by their convictions, and don't let those horrible scientists pick at them. Soon you'll be picked away at and have nothing left, or what you are left with, you'll realize is too ridiculous to make sense.
So, I ask you to go ahead and think about the ramifications of the Bible, and if you start interpreting it, then you have to bring into question what should be interpreted and what shouldn't. And what then is the role of religion (as opposed to faith)? Isn't it to be the steady hand of interpretation? If you are going to interpret it yourself, then you don't need religion. So how about we ditch the whole concept of religion and stick with personal faith. I honestly think everyone could get along a lot better that way.
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 ]
us Kemetians laugh at your new comer religion! ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
God loves you!
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?
One belief comes straight from dogma, while the other developed from a philosophy that deliberately tries to avoid dogma. You don't gain moral superiority by sitting on the fence and saying "it's all the same thing" when they clearly aren't the same thing.
Faith that there is a supreme being is not much different from the faith that there isn't
Which has nothing at all to do with the debate. The development of life is clearly within the boundaries of science, and none of the current theories have anything say regarding the existence of God.
the faith in science to explain the fundamentally unexplainable (how and why *anything* exists).
Where did you get this from?
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
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.
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.
Since the bible is full of great wisdom, let me quote a couple of my favorites that they may not teach in Sunday school:
Mandatory Killing for the Gas Station Attendant Who Works Weekends in Exodus 35:2:
"For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death."
Slavery is OK, but only is the slaves are foreign from Leviticus 25:44:
"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have-- you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you."
Let's put it this way, darwinism is just a theory and we're still trying to *prove* it.
Theories in science are never proven. Theories are the endpoints of scientific inquiry. A scientific explanation does not attain the status of "theory" until it has been accepted with a high degree of confidence amongst a significant number of experts who study the relevant field.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
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."
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
The only dogma of scientists is the understanding that the scientific method is the only way to ever ascertain anything about the universe. It will always go head-to-head with any dogma that is not divised by the scientific method, creationism being one of them. You could write the scientific "dogma" on the back of a postage stamp, and even then, it's open to debate. Any rational scientist will throw it out if it's shown not to work. As we currently stand, it's working perfectly, and religion has taught us nothing in 4,000 years.
Darwinism explains everything we know about the animal kingdom. There are no "missing links", just animals missing from the fossil record (which doesn't contain all the animals that have ever existed, as creating a fossil requires a lot of luck in itself). We can see, just from our DNA, that we are related to the other apes - that we have common ancestors. We have observed evolution in laboratories. What are these evolutionary leaps you talk about that you claim disprove Darwinian evolution? I'd be very interested to hear :)
If you want more mainstream literature try this:
http://www.amazon.com/Billions-Missing-Links-Mysteries-Evolution/dp/0736917462
I did read some of the links you provided, but as it's argument is fatally-flawed from the very outset, reading any more would have been a waste of time.
Of course if you look at the fossil record, it makes no sense. The fossil record is not a record of every species that has ever existed. As I said earlier, to make a fossil takes a lot of luck. It doesn't disprove or even threaten evolution.
You don't just go around retracting the words of infallible authors. You need to reinterpret them.
You're not from around here, are you?
...but at the end of the day human lives are too complex to establish experimental controls over in every respect The secularists are going to be angry! "How dare he suggest that man is something more than merely a thinking animal!"Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
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.
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.
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.
Indeed you are right on path. Read Matthew 7:13-14
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 can't judge your heart. I can't even judge my own heart and its motives. So I'll give you God's answer in the hope that it may be a seed in your heart that the Holy Spirit can grow. You can get this answer in any one of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke or John or by reading the letters to the early churches -- the Epistles (letters written by Paul and other apostles that are contained in the New Testament). But I'm going to show it to you throughout the Bible. In Genesis, Adam and Eve sinned when they disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. God gave them free choice, just as He still gives us free choice to choose Him or sin. That was when sin crept into the world. God cannot be in concert with sin because He is holy -- that's a spiritual concept. So Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, a place where God communed with His creation. In the Bible, Isaiah 59:2 tells us that, "your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear." Now on to the blood and sacrifice: In Leviticus 17:11, the Bible tells us: "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life." Throughout the Old Testament, you'll see a common theme: people sin, a sacrifice and repentance is required, and then God is quick to forgive. Over and over again, you'll see that theme. The Jews sinned by turning from God and worshiping idols or commiting other acts against God. They then sacrificed, repented and God forgave them. God was teaching his chosen people (chosen because of Abraham's faith and to reveal God to the world) a lesson. Now in Romans 3:22-23 the Bible tells us, "There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." So we have all sinned. In fact, the Bible tells us that if we've broken one of God's laws, we've broken them all (James 2:10). Sacrificing animals was never intended to be a permanent way of atoning for sin, but it was instrumental in the understanding the purpose of the coming of the Messiah. Isaiah 53:5 reads: "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." So the death of Christ (God in a very human form on Earth) became the ultimate sacrifice, and his blood covered our sins once and for all just as God had been showing us through animal sacrifice. God had reconciled us back to Him because He loves us that much. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). So there you have it. It's really not complicated at all. I find many people miss the point of the Bible for two reasons: Pride: they don't fear God (which is the beginning of wisdom -- Proverbs 1:7); and they're mislead: they don't understand scripture in its context. They or someone else pulls a seemingly bombastic scripture out of context to show how absurd the Bible is. Or, another way of saying it is, they don't see the forest for the trees. In the end, God's really looking for your heart, not pretend good works or sacrifices. When humble yourself and sacrifice worldliness and sin in order to receive the free gift of Christ's sacrifice (the gospel or "good news"), you're really giving your heart to God, which is all he wants from his creation.
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
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
You're almost right. The dogma is that everything worth knowing can be ascertained through the scientific method.
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.