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12 Florida Schools Pass Anti-Evolution Resolutions
Several sources are reporting that twelve school districts in Florida have passed resolutions against the teaching of evolution. Out of all the arguments, however, one administrator seems to have gotten it right: "Then, the final speaker, Lisa Dizengoff, director of science curriculum at Pembroke Pines Charter School's east campus, angrily reminded the crowd that after all the carping over evolution, no one had gotten around to addressing the state's lackadaisical, last-century approach to science education. 'All I heard was this argument about evolution,' she said, disgusted that so many other problems had been preempted by a single controversy. 'The kids lost out again.''"
there was a rumor going around florida might lose their fark tag.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The 21st Century... The new Dark Ages, when religion is high and education is low.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
When do we start bombing the religious zealots in this country for oppressing their people?
No sig for you!!
This is going to going over as well as a fart in church...
In the end the kids always lose out when adults do things "in their best interests"
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
The comment that struck me is one board member stating that they were "Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact."
I suppose he should also be against teaching gravity or biology or even simple arithmetic...
All the above are based on theories that have been shown to be consistant but none are trully "facts."
When will we see an article talking about teaching alternate theories of Math?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I think I'm going to have to head down to that next meeting with a clue-by-four and lay down some science on their asses.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Evolution. I has it.
1. Brace self for usual massive troll reaction to this, 2. Go outside, and do something else.
pi = 3. It's in the bible, it's the law. I for one do not welcome our divine overlords.
The kids are getting screwed by America's wang.
And now we see the continued dumbing down of the school system. What will they be teaching in place of evolution? ID? Is there empirical evidence behind ID that i'm not aware of? I dont see how they can justify this. If they're not teaching evolution they shouldn't be allowed to teach anything on the origin of species, because neither popular argument (ID/evolution) is proven (although evolution makes FAR more sense, dont you think?)
The kids are getting screwed by America's wang...
that has always been my favorite fallback argument when someone explains to me that they don't believe in evolution. i ask them if they believe in gravity. after all, it's "only" a theory. sadly, this article points out evolution in progress. i have long held that intelligence is no longer a trait that the modern world is selecting for. the evidence is piling up all around us.
As a Florida resident, I am now alarmed. Any idea what the other 11 ones are?
I may have to head down to that next meeting with a clue-by-four and lay down some science on their asses.
If people weren't forced into a single public school system, competing schools could emerge and fill the need for a competent education system. However, as it is, everyone is forced to pay into the failing public system. With vouchers, at least, they could take those education dollars and go elsewhere. And yes, I realize that this is not an easy step to take -- emerging competing schools would require lots of investment. But the point of a free market for just about anything is that people with different needs can find (or create!) different solutions.
Schools aren't like sewers -- there are no physical requirements that there be only one system.
--
Our microcontroller kit. Your code. Learn digital electronics today.
"I understand there are people who believe (evolution), but I would be happier to see them at least present both sides and teach it as theory, as opposed to a fact," Stilson said. "It is just as scientific to believe in intelligent design as it is to believe in evolution."
Listen, and understand! Those creationists are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!
I do not think it means what I think he thinks it means.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
I don't either. And I'm not posting anonymously. This is bullshit, and deserves to be treated as such. If you'll pardon the metaphor, to hell with this "theory" bullshit. It's an observable phenomenon. The only 'Theory' part of it is whether or not the currently observable laws of nature also were holding true during the time that life as we can see it came about or not. It's like saying, 'Sure that gravity pulls books down to the ground NOW, but did it still do that 10,000 years ago? Until you can answer that positively then you only have a theory!!'
Speak for yourself.
... seems to be the sum total of evidence against evolution.
http://xkcd.com/54/ is appropriate right now.
It might still be an incredibly small step up from our current curriculum (IIRC, this is the first change to it since I finished school) which doesn't even mention the word evolution, instead using the term changes over time .
Just being Floridian makes you the butt of a near-endless supply of jokes (the 2000 election, old people, our pathetic intolerance for temperatures below 50 F... ok, that one has some basis in fact) I guess some of us just like it.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
What makes me so mad about things like this are, these parents seem to be concerned about their kids education when it's convenient. Our education system here is in shambles and this is what they bicker about? How about being concerned about failing schools THEN robble about silly shit. Hypocrites...
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I have studied theology in some depth. I am familiar with apologetics and all the classical defenses put forth to support the integrity of specific, popular, religious beliefs.
For all the philosophical rambling, none of them, absolutely none of them, escape this simple indisputable fact:
All religious teachings are provided to us by humans.
If God Himself appeared next to me and handed me a copy of the Bible, that would be one thing. But instead, a human handed to me. And, in fact, a human wrote every word that is in it. This notion of "divine inspiration" (which is supposed to remove the element of human fallibility from the Bible) was communicated to me by...wait for it....A HUMAN.
I can agree in principle with the presumption that faith in God is well-founded, and faith in human reason (i.e. the theory of evolution) is not so well-founded. However, to put faith in the teachings (or books) of any religion is to put faith in human reason.
There is no denial, only rationalization.
I'm inviting a flame war here, but isn't math - at least in the sense that we teach it - an artificial construct that we invented to describe our observations? Math can contain theories, but I don't think it could ever be classified as one because we actually know what it is.
Isn't gravity demonstrable? If I understand correctly, there's still a lot of uncertainty in the scientific community about how gravity works exactly, but it's clearly an observable and demonstrable fact that it does.
Isn't biology something we can study that's in front of our faces? We can actually watch plants growing, babies forming in a womb, organs working, cells replicating etc...
Maybe I'm living under a rock here, but I've never really seen evolution demonstrated. I've heard plenty of explanations and leaps of logic attached to it, but I've never actually seen anything evolve. And even if I did, that still wouldn't demonstrate that evolution is the origin of life. That's why it's a theory, because we can only infer, we can't demonstrate, and unfortunately no one actually witnessed it.
This boils down to people arguing about things that they didn't observe, and can't really know. Creationism (at least the Christian kind) requires faith that something written thousands of years ago by people who also didn't witness the events is true. "Evolutionism" requires faith in the work of hundreds of scientists interpreting the present and making educated guesses about the past. No one saw man created out of dirt and breathed to life by God, but by the same token, no one saw a single-celled organism spring to life in the primordial soup and continue re-writing itself until it became a human.
Neither group actually "knows" how these things came to be, they've just adopted a view of it that they are comfortable with. What I don't understand is how the evolutionists, who are supposed to be the more objective and open minded of the two groups, can be so "holier than thou" as to suggest that the creationists' theory doesn't even deserve a place.
It's no wonder that creationists lash back with ill-conceived regulations prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution - this is really just balance when you look at how much flack the "intelligent design" group has been getting recently.
Science shouldn't worry so damn much about what people think, it should be about the truth, finding it and offering it, not making people believe it. Same goes for religion. The rest is just name calling and childishness.
When I was in school we did learn that they where other theories about how life started on earth. We learned that some people believed in spontaneous generation like that maggots came from rotting meat. We learned how these where shown to be incorrect or lacking in any evidence.
I would have no problem with them teaching intelligent design if they just followed the rules of science when teaching it.
Simply that some people think this is how life got started but there is no proof or experiments that prove it out and many of their claims have been disproven or at least had a lot of doubt about them.
Science should be open to different ideas even if they are wrong. They must all be looked at using the scientific method. I doubt many creationist would like the way it was being taught but that is just too bad. If they can get some good science to back them up then let's see it.
All that I have seen was really bad.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Maybe Southerners will stop burning down churches and switch to burning down schools that teach evolution instead?
This isn't about education at all. It is about power. And the worst power mongers are people are these low-level politicians on school boards and local councils who have more direct control over the people immediately around them.
They are no doubt congratulating themselves about bringing 17th century thinking to the 21st century.
Sad. I doubt most people in Florida, or even these schools agree with this result. Hopefully, like in Kansas, it will be overturned.
Yes, in the short term it's not a good thing for the kids affected -- but the quality of their education is already a crying shame.
For the longer term, I think it's a good thing to have these issues blow up. Let them get global press. Let well-known people all over the world make snide comments about Florida and America. Let them think most Americans are frothing Bible wavers. Won't it start to sting after a while?
Maybe Americans will eventually be forced to re-evaluate their silly notions, either:
1) there's anything remotely "factual" in a literal interpretation of the Bible, or
2) that the people who currently believe (1) are going to keep to themselves and not screw things up for the rest of Americans and their children.
The US govt is pouring money into the "terrorist threat" -- the Congressional Budget Offices estimates the Afghanistan & Iraq wars will cost a total of $2.4 trillion (approx. the US population x 8,000) -- just imagine if they used friggin *any* of that for something that actually affected US residents, like, uh, education.
I'm hoping that enough slaps in the face like this and people will start to wake up.
So, yeah -- all you anti-evolutionists out there, make some noise! May your impassioned shouts echo grandly in the empty void of space.
Although Darwinism is just a theory, there is a large amount of evidence to support Darwinism. I accept Darwinism as an explanation for how we evolved. I though the federal government is flawed, now it's spreading to even the smallest so called Democratic system, schools. Look at all the principals acting like politicians. Making pointless and stupid laws in their dictatorship to carry out their own agenda, which hurts the students more than anything. Take the middle school my sister goes to. The principal just banned any form of hugging. In many Spanish and Hispanic cultures, hugging is the proper way of greeting each other. My high school principal recently gave everyone a speech about the expulsion process. He said, and I quote "Another thing I need to tell you about is suspicion of action. If I suspect you are about to do something to harm anyone, I am authorized, and will use the authorization, to conduct a search of a student's personal belongings, without a warrant." I actually got in trouble because I asked him about how my best friend was _almost_ expelled from school for having a simple money clipper on it, which the school decided was a weapon because it had a 2.4cm dull blade on it. Why did he search this excellent, positive, and all advanced placement classes honer student? Because his brother, whose in my class, expressed a political statement that the school though was a threat to blow up London! WTF??? He was escorted out of school in HANDCUFFS like a criminal, booked, and healed in a holding cell for 4 hours. Now he might not be able to get into MIT or Harvard, because, despite having perfect grades, has a suspension on his record. The good news though is he got the ACLU to sue the school and demand anything about the incident removed from all public and private records. The case is pending. I never thought this would happen in _MY_ high school. Sure, I've read the headlines screaming "Hundreds of kindergarten suspended this year for sexual harassment", "Gifted boy scout expelled for accidentally bringing his Boy Scouts pocketknife to school", the list goes on and on. Education these days is just like the government: Principals have all the power, and will use that power as a dictatorship. In my friends case, he is yet another victim of the system. Just like many people in the United States. These idiots who have power think they can do whatever they want, and think it will "make the world a better place". What does taking away habius corpus do for the legal system? What does illegal wiretapping on EVERY American in the country do? The government, like the schools, want a faults sense of security.
This not surprising considering the number of studies that have shown that people in the U.S. are not as accepting of evolution as in other Western countries. Check out this article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html.
From the article (the second paragraph pretty much explains it):
"People in the United States are much less likely to accept Darwin's idea that humans and apes share a common ancestor than adults in other Western nations, a number of surveys show. A new study of those surveys suggests that the main reason for this lies in a unique confluence of religion, politics, and the public understanding of biological science in the United States."
This type of thing will continue in the U.S. as long as parents have this type of power over public education.
The "it's only a theory" comment is a pretty classic example of an etymological fallacy; invoking an older or more looser usage of a word in an attempt to undermine a more narrow or professional usage. In this case, they attempt to equate the definition of theory as a "claim" or "guess" with the very narrow and strict definition of the word as it is applied by scientists. It's simply another variant of the older sticker trick that was tried, and every time it comes up, a court sees through the bullshit and lies (it's ironic how deceitful and immoral all these good Christian folks become) and rule that the Creationists/IDers have distinctly religious motives.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
All the above are based on theories that have been shown to be consistant but none are trully "facts."
In fact taking that line of thinking one step further: why teach anything at all? It could be argued that anything we take as fact is in fact an intepretation of a given view and experience.
When I was at school a learned both evolution and religious studies. Science has its point of view of how we came about and it is valid in that context. In religious studies we looked at all religions, and learned about what they had to say and their origins. I believe both have their place, since it helps give people different view points to consider. Without exposure to either view point you can't even start debate or decide for yourself.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but is this really so bad? In each field of science there is so much that can be covered, that evolution never need come up. Geology, chemistry and even biology has so much depth that can be covered empirically that theoretical science could be left out entirely from primary education, and the kids would never be at a loss. Evolution is a controversial subject and could be covered much more in depth and less interference at a university level, and with the massive amount of science material that can be covered in the primary system, I don't understand why administrators and educators keep feeling the need to fuel the controversy.
"Mommy, teacher says we came from fish."
"Well honey, we don't believe that, tell me have they ever taught you about mitosis, or the golgi aparatus?"
"No"
"What about covalent bonds and valence electrons?"
"No"
Mendelian Tables?"
"No"
"So what class is this teacher teaching?"
"Science"
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
There are rednecks in Florida...
When I see these evolution versus creation debates, I'm like "Dude, it's not a coin toss!"
People who think that there are only two possible outcomes really just don't understand science (or religion, for that matter).
Science is like a huge puzzle. With monumental effort, the scientific community has managed to put together a bit of the puzzle here and a bit of the puzzle there - but there are still huge gaps and it's really not clear how it all fits together (e.g. how to reconcile the general relativity view of gravity with the quantum field theory view of fundamental forces). Just as there are things that are true in mathematics that can't be proved to be true, it is likely that there are questions in science that will be impossible to answer (e.g. whether "we" are inside of a virtual reality simulation).
With this in mind, the job of a science teacher is not to provide the ultimate answers to the ultimate questions. The job of a science teacher is to help the students understand those regions of the puzzle that scientists have been able to assemble. Now, having said that, one of the regions of the puzzle that scientists have started to assemble is the question of how a population of organisms changes as they make copies of themselves (i.e. evolution). There's a lot that's known about evolution and there is a lot that isn't. There are also a lot of factual observations that are consistent with a particular history of life on the planet - but there are a lot of gaps in the history, as well.
At some level, science can't be wrong because science hasn't yet answered the question - but, by the same argument, science can't yet be right either.
So what about religion? Could "creation" be correct? Well, that's kind of a moving target. Given that we humans exist in the universe and are self-aware it's certainly plausible that there's other stuff out there (in our universe or in other universes) that's self-aware. It's not even out of the question that some self-aware entity or other at some point or another did something that affected life on planet earth. If that were the case, would "creation" then be correct? You'd have to talk to the creationists because I really don't know what those dudes believe.
Bottom line, this whole evolution versus creation thing fails to understand the basic nature of science. As far as what to teach where, if it deals with patterns in factual observation then teach it in science class and if it deals with religion then teach it in religion class. Note that there may be some overlap - for example, some forms of prayer are observable and some things that people pray for are observable so, in a limited sense, science could address the question of whether praying for something makes it more likely to occur.
You're right, I should have more clearly stated that I've never seen a living organism evolve.
And why is that funny? Have you?
I mean, this argument over evolution has religious roots, but I can't help but stare in disbelief at believers who waste their energy over this argument. What difference does it make if every school in the country teaches God created the earth when you look at most religious people and the only way you can tell they have religion is their loud harping on evolution and abortion and hatred of homosexuals, atheists, and people who don't share their faith? There's no compassion or any of the other virtues you occasionally hear touted as being part of religion coming from the people behind these movements. No love of truth. No love of others as they love themselves. Just know it all venom and a desperate need to defend dogmas no matter how silly they sound defending them or what new lows of deception they have to sink to in their defense.
I have to ask those believers, is this what Jesus would do and be about? I'm working my ass off to make sure my kids can go to the finest private non-religious schools available. They can raise their kids in 3rd world ignorance, but I can make sure my kids aren't.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
Isn't biology something we can study that's in front of our faces? We can actually watch plants growing, babies forming in a womb, organs working, cells replicating etc...
Maybe I'm living under a rock here, but I've never really seen evolution demonstrated.
i don't know how long it's been since you've been in biology, but yes, you are sort of out of it. just like gravity, evolution is just a name we give to the system of observable facts that demonstrate how there are more than one kind of living thing. it can be demonstrated to be true, again and again, just like gravity. it is NOT a hypothesis, which is the word that most people mean when they say theory.
for the most part, i think that people simply do not know what the tenets of evolution are. in most basic terms, the theory of evolution states that over time, the genetic composition of a species as a whole will shift due to the environmental pressures placed on that species.
evolution goes on to explain the ways in which a species can change, be it through selective breeding (girl dogs think short tailed boy dogs are ugly... short tail dogs get less nookie...next generation contains fewer short tailed dogs), selective predation (white bunnies are easier to see in the woods than brown bunnies... white bunnies get eaten more...next generation there are less white bunnies), environmental adaptations (goats with larger lungs can get to good food way up on the mountain...big-lung goats eat better... next generation there are more big-lung goats).
it isn't magic. it's very simple math. so simple that when it is explained, it is so self-evident that the most fundamental crazy can't honestly refute it, in my experience. but we have this growing population of people who are so intolerant to changing their minds that they refuse to learn. anything. and they refuse to risk allowing their children to learn. and they vote. WTF.
Actually, you have seen evolution in action. You've seen evidence of it every time you hear a news story about bacteria developing resistance to new antibiotics, every time you hear about somebody who has cancer. You can go to a museum and see how living things have changed over time, or notice the fact that whales have arm bone structure that's not all that different from land-dwelling mammals.
In short, there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place. The modern synthesis of evolutionary theory says that it happens because mutations provide a source of variation which natural forces can select for or against. This is observable as well: if you consider the gene for sickle cell anemia (which provides protection against malaria), it tends to be much more common in regions of the world that are rife with malaria, because those are the places where that gene can convey some benefit. This is pretty much as close as you get to bulletproof science. Now, admittedly, there are some areas of the theory which aren't as certain as others, but on the whole, you're talking about a very damn solid theory that's supported by interlocking scientific evidence from dozens of disciplines. Some of the best minds in science have been poking and prodding at this theory for over 150 years and it's still going strong--hell, Darwin's theory predicted some things that we've only recently found with molecular biology. How much better does a theory get?
Personally, I'd be happy to let the religious folks gather round their altars and sing Hosannahs to their invisbile sky daddy, but unfortunately, that's not enough for them. They need to inflict their beliefs, whether on abortion, or stem cell research, or contraception use, or whatever, on all of us. Why should I trust somebody who closes their eyes to basic scientific fact to make decisions rooted in science that might affect me?
The world will be a better place when we grow up enough, as a species, to put away childish things like religion.
First of all, your arguing against inference. Have you ever seen an electron? Did you ever see your great-great-great-great-grandparents? Did you ever meet anybody that spoke Proto-Indo-European? No, but you can infer these things from the evidence.
As to evolution, of course you can observe it. We have nylon-digesting bacteria now when nylon didn't even exist before the 1930s. I was just reading about pupfish in Death Valley who have gone through a radical process of speciation since the valley dried up after 20,000 years ago.
If you wish to dip into some sort of solipsism or epistemological nihilism, be my guest, but what you're really doing is denying that any knowledge can be gathered that is reliable. You might as well deny that yesterday ever happened, and that the universe began at midnight, and everything is just fake memories. Just remember, if you want to deny or question evolution "because I've never seen it", then you have to be fair and basically call into question *all* knowledge, because everything is susceptible to such an argument.
If you actually want to learn something about evolution, then I recommend going to http://talkorigins.org/ where there are dozens of articles dealing with all manner of evolutionary problems and explanations, with full citations so you can go to a library and check for yourself.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Of course we have seen it. Its all around us. Its in the fossil record. By your logic, nobody has actually seen galaxies evolve because they are looking into the past via the fossil record of the universe - radiation (light, xrays, etc.)
Evolution can be easily traced back to the earliest creatures capable of leaving imprints of themselves behind. The entire process of developing lungs, limbs, spines, etc. etc. is all right there. Each step of the way. It is not a mystery. Just because it doesn't happen in a timespan and a place you personally can witness doesn't make it not so. The sun didn't form before your eyes did it? Did the mountains spring up so you could witness? Is geology a supposition? An educated guess?
You can demonstrate evolution in the lab with bacteria. You can demonstrate complex hydrocarbons doing all sorts of magical stuff in the lab (how life came to be in the first place.)
Tracing the biology of animals of this planet is a well known, well documented science. It is FACT, because the facts are right there in front of the entire worlds eyes, should they choose to look. Fish moving onto land, developing lungs, etc.
We have broken down the DNA code very well at this point, and can trace our origins that way as well. We can see where we differ and what we share with trees, worms, bacteria, dogs and elephants. Natural selection (the mechanism behind evolution) is everywhere as well. Look at dog and cat breeds. Cattle. Plants. Insects. You name it, you can change the creature itself by breeding.
Evolution is science. It is what the facts tell us. This is not a philosophical debate. There are no two sides. It is not a guess. It is about stupidity and blind faith. You can't reject evolution any more than you can reject combustion, or gravity. If people DO reject it, they are simply being ignorant and stupid. Plain and simple.
Basing "science" on something written thousands of years ago by people who were so far from us in their knowledge of the world is ridiculous. It is absurd. Why not simply observe the world? Observe what is right in front of our faces, and learn from it.
It's a theoretical science, leave that to the colleges. Let the grade schools and high schools teach the stuff that can be proven using the scientific method such as chemical reactions, cellular structure etc. Leave the theoretical science to higher education where the kids heads aren't as full of mush.
Science is based on repeatable observations. Religion is based on human whim. This difference should be pointed out in no uncertain terms when impressionable young minds are being indoctrinated.
"The Babel fish," said The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish. "Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic. "'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
Maybe now that they've had some success on this front, they can pursue suppressing the "round-earth theory" in Earth Science, and Geography classes.
I find it incredibly ironic that these debates exist in public school forums. Especially when I and several other people I know were taught Evolution in several different Catholic Schools.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
Can Floridian school boards really claim to not understand why 40% of their 8th grade students lack even just a "basic" understanding of science? Or why they can't retain/get enough qualified science teachers?
They know science education is important, they know that without it, the won't be competitive in the global economy. With evolution framing all of our knowledge of biology, do you really expect these kids to be taken seriously when they enter the job market? How the hell are they going to get through an evolutionary biology class in college if they are taught to believe the mumbo jumbo ID BS?
On a related topic, does anyone have any thoughts on how the US in general can start to retain more of the science talent that we have? Any thoughts from those of you in other countries as to how you retain teachers?
As much as I would like to say the problem is just located on America's Wang, its not, we have a science education brain drain all over this country. There isn't nearly enough emphasis on science/engineering throughout our school system, and adding to the problem, we wont give work visas to the foreign students who get graduate degrees here.
We know the whole US cant just switch to a service economy with everyone ironing each others shirts for money, we have to drive/design new tech to maintain our leadership.
How can we reverse this trend?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Or, in other words:
Evolution is survival of the fittest when observed over many generations.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
If you actually want to learn something about evolution, then I recommend going to http://talkorigins.org/ where there are dozens of articles dealing with all manner of evolutionary problems and explanations, with full citations so you can go to a library and check for yourself.
:)
You might also like to see what they think in the mirror universe of "creation science". Put on your false beard and pretend to be your fundamentalist twin as you visit the creationist response to talkorigins. Then read your Bible and check for yourself!
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Apart from the obvious fact that private schools exist at every level, the experience with Charter Schools has proven this to be a questionable proposition. They've simply not succeeded, much less offered any dramatic advantage.
The problem is quite simple. On average, it costs $10-15k per student year for primary and secondary education, public OR private. A family of four making $45k per year (read: the average American household), simply cannot afford to spend $30k on school. So, on the front-end, you have a choice: public, tax-supported financing or millions of hooligans in the street because their parents can't pay the school bill. Most people find the former acceptable without getting into the greater economic issues. On the other end, where the public schools are abysmal, so are the private schools. "Good" schools, public and private, happen where the community, be it wealthy parishioners or wealthy property-tax payers or both, can afford them. Crappy schools happen where the parishes and tax base CAN'T afford them. Vouchers will not change this for the better. If suddenly you made it so everyone could afford to go to St. Alban's, just as quickly, the price would adjust so that only the very few could, voucher or not.
That IS the market at work.
they're a bunch of in-bred, one-eyed, club-footed freaks married to their sisters. but they're firm believers in de-volution. they are Devo.
http://www.whuddafug.com
So you deny the doctrine of the Trinity then
Tell me, how did you learn of the doctrine of the Trinity?
Did God come down from heaven and tell it to you?
Or did you hear about it at church from a human? Did he read it from a book that was written, published, and delivered by humans?
Are you even sure that your human intellect is correctly interpreting this doctrine?
True or false, the fact is humans have taught this idea to us, and as such it is subject to human fallibility. To put faith in it is to put faith in the humans that teach it, and all the human fallibilities to which their reason is subject.
You are bound to human reason no matter what conceptual or word games you try to play.
The article says that they have voted not to teach evolution. I'm not sure what that means. Does that mean they are not teaching evolutionary theory at all? Or does that mean that the word evolution wont be mentioned anywhere? Doesn't really say..
.....and (drumroll please) KABLAMMO! Here we are after 70ish (give or take 10-100) million years. Numbers like that are so nebulous that it's hard for me to believe. But we seem to know how old the universe is now, wonder how long it will be before they update that figure? A decade is a good be, probably 5 years...
..Just a Little something I thought I'd throw in...
.
Seems folks here are all up in arms over nothing. I've seen several mentions of "how the poor kids will be effected" boo fricken hoo I grew up praying in public school and saying the pledge and I turned out alright. In fact, I might just be one of the guys that will pull over and help you change a tire during the rain, or give you a ride from the airport when you dont have one, or help you make rent when you cant (all these things I have done for people I didn't know).
Let's not get so excited..
Evolution as a theory does quite nicely explain the finches and that sort of thing. We can see natural evolution occur in many different animals and even in humans. That's difficult to argue.
But the real question is, does the Evolutionary Theory _fully_ and I mean _fully_, without a doubt, for certain explain our origins? I think that's where the true battle is. I really don't think it does a particularly good job of that, not in my eyes. The "origin" part of it beings with a nebulous, figurative, primordial ooze and then (after a while) came fish, then they walked (you know the story).
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium". Folks, we don't get get order from disorder, not on this scale (earth). Order on this scale from disorder does not make sense to me. How many times do you have to pour out a bucket of sand before you have a nice sand castle? I think we'd all agree that a Sand Castle would never occur from pouring sand onto sand. I cant believe that we are a result of a cosmic accident of epic proportions...
The Creed of the Modern Thinker:
by Steve Turner:
We believe in Marx freud and darwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your definition of knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there's something in horoscopes UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher though we think
His good morals were really bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same-at least the one that we read were:
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its
compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn
We believe in Masters and Johnson
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
And the Russians would be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good
Grammar Nazi
While I agree with you, I have to point out that scientists themselves are often guilty of this. By definition, physics shouldn't have "String Theory", but the "String Hypothesis".
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Grammar Nazi
That's all well and fine. Nobody argues that mutation doesn't take place or that one might be beneficial. One does have trouble imagining how organs like the eye developed through mutation. Even scientists who promote Evolution don't agree that we came from monkeys. Some think we came from pigs, some thing we came from primordial ooze through another mammal. It's not the premise of Evolution that poses a problem. It's that one specific take on it dominates High School science classes and is taught as though concensus exists on it even though it does not. You'll never find HS Science teaching anything other then we evolved from some primate. Of course this reminds me of the Southpark episode on the topic. It's pretty funny, you should watch it. Nobody with logic denies survival of the fittest. People do have a problem with Evolution trying to take on speciation though. We may have parts in common with various animals but that doesn't imply we evolved from them. Maybe they de-evolved from us. Or maybe species started out very similar to what they are now and only changed a little over all that time.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
There have been plenty of cases of observed speciation - you could've saved yourself writing that long diatribe with its jumped conclusion by just googling first.
1) The ID group deserves all of the flack it gets. It has no scientific basis. You can neither prove nor disprove what they say, it isn't science.
2)Science isn't about finding absolute truth and making people believe it, that would probably be closer religion's job. Science is about describing the world around us. Evolution offers us a much deeper understanding of biology in a way which some open minded investigation may just lead you to change your position.
I've never really seen evolution demonstrated.
I encourage you to do a little research on antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Microevolution, along with genuine changes in the genetic code of bacteria has been directly observed. This is easily explainable in the scientific construct of evolutionary biology (with the antibiotic acting as a selective pressure, causing any bacteria with some resistance to have more reproductive success, eventually causing the new trait to spread through the population). However, when ID is invoked to describe this phenomenon, one imposes the additional requirement of an omnipresent force imposing will upon the bacteria to change their presumably designed genetic code. As this force is not necessary, nor a particularly useful scientific construct, it should not be taught in science classes. While I think it is just fantastic that you have the beliefs that you have, and you certainly have every right to believe in this sort of "absolute relativism" in which can put two contradictory ideas up, and say they are equally correct because ultimately all human knowledge is accrued through direct experience, and no human had direct experience of the creation of life on our planet, ultimately this view is probably not a good starting point for how we should educate the children of our country.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Yes. At least I've read the publications.
And you'll find a good many physicists who agree with you. I, for one, do not think String Theory qualifies as a theory, and find calling it that rather abusive of the term.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That reminds me of something interesting... I have a friend who's an independant batist, and he beleives in "evolution within the same specie, but not in how one specie can become another".
The thing is, that just shows how a lot of people going against these theories simply are not aware of what is known so far... If you put every single living thing that currently exist on earth, put them side by side in order of similarity, I feel we'd be freagin hard pressed to draw lines of where a specie starts and another stops...its almost arbitrary, and only really devided by rules humans made (its more than that, but still). So I'm not too sure what "evolution within a single specie" would imply... but I'm not sure said friend is realising how many species there are, and how similar some are to one another, else I don't think he could possibly beleive what he does...
It comes back to what you are saying...you gave some examples, and there are thousand more...and Im not quite sure how anyone who goes through all of em could keep their bneleifs... they seem to think the world is so much more simple than it is, even if we just take the mostly factual, non-ambiguous stuff....
How do you think murder investigators figure things out? Do you think that they try to observe the murder next time and then get him for that one? Or do they extract from the available evidence an explanation of what happened that is 1) possible, 2) consistent, and 3) conclusive.
Second, scientists have observed evolution happening. Many times. There's plenty of evidence of evolution in the appearance, behavior, and DNA of recently living and currently living things (including yours). There's even more evidence of evolution lying around in fossils, though very few observations from fossils are used to support modern theories of evolution (because there's much better evidence elsewhere).
Look, just because you didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. You never met your great-great-grandfather either, but you're still pretty certain that someone existed who fit the description.
for the rest of the world, enjoy your dark ages America !, the rest of the world is still laughing at you
The comment that struck me is one board member stating that they were "Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact."
....but I bet, never the less that he BELIEVES in it as a fact. Lawrence Lessig (of Physics of Star Trek fame) gave an excellent talk at a Canadian physics conference I was at last year where he explained that scientists should not take too much to heart all these medieval occurances since deap down people really did believe in evolution.
His example was the bird flu scare. Absolutely nobody went around say: "don't worry it cannot possible evolve into something deadly to us, it was designed for birds and will stay that way". So when push comes to shove these people really do believe in science and evolution. So in the end they are really nothing more than hypocrits which, since most of them are politicians, we already knew anyway.
In my experience, they don't seem to care one way or another if Junior actually got an education
Have gnu, will travel.
Or perhaps the world will be a better place when people such as yourself grow up enough to accept that you're not better than others merely because you don't believe what they do. What's wrong with just having different opinions? Is it necessary to call religion "childish" and to refer to God as an "invisible sky daddy"? Because these things don't make it seem like you're not trying just as hard to inflict your beliefs on them as you claim they are trying to do to you.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Nicely put!
Actually you seem to be arguing for natural selection which we can observe happening. You have to setup your meaning of evolution. Do you mean a non directional change or do you mean we ultimately came from molecules that came together to start life? The mutations you give are results of lost information. Bactiera mutates and loses information and becomes resistant to a drug. The protein that comes from this mutated DNA is resistant to the antibodies but can not perform it's original function as efficient as before. Sickle cell anemia is a loss of information that has a byproduct of being resistant to malaria. It does not carry oxygen as well as standard blood cells. Both of these examples help the host live on but at a loss of information. This is opposite of what molecules to man evolution needs. So the rub is this so called 'no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place'. There is not a defining fact that evolution happens just evidence that can be interpreted. Even evolutionists are debating weather evolution happens in the Darwinian sense. http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/21#IDA2DWZO
If the members of boards of education were, in fact, educated people themselves much of this nonsense would be avoided! Until then I may be a good thing that they don't try to teach anything important so as not to wind up vulgarizing and trivializing it. Evolution as a sound-bite about Darwin!
In my daughter's so-called 'Geometry' class in high school, planar forms were 'studied'. Formulas were memorized. The concepts of doing proofs and logical deduction or formal systems were not mentioned. When I brought this up to the teacher ( a sports coach) he didn't know what I was talking about.
Education as vocational school doesn't need this stuff, and besides isn't thinking a little suspect in America anyway these days?
I bet Doctor Ron Paul is just delighted by this news.
Yes, I have. I'm sure there are video of something similar.
Even you could do an experiment to do that.
Grow some clover. regularly remove three leaf clovers. Eventually all you have is 4 leaf clovers.
That segment of clover has evolved.
There are far better examples out their.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Evolution, by its very nature, IS survival of the fittest in the face of stresses against a particular variation. Those that oppose evolution in schools don't just oppose the possible origin of our species, but the entirety of the theory itself. Trust me. I live in Kansas.
It's for reasons such as this that the United States school system is so far behind those in many other parts of the world.
Menus: Linux=function, Windows=vendor, OS X=as little as possible. Makes a statement, don't you think?
As usual, the only one who stands up against the theocratic tyranny is a Jew.
In fact, her namesake Dizengoff designed some of the last centuries great modern art- check out the Dizengoff Fountain in Israel: http://tinyurl.com/2a8dv3
You'll always see Jews on the cutting edge fighting against theocracies- whether its Israel against Islamist governments/dictators or liberal Jews in the USA against this kind of crap.
Now go put on some tefillin and dance!
"...requesting that the State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of Education to revise/edit the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed."
I think most scientists would fully agree, actually, that Darwin's Theory of Evolution should not be taught as the reason the Universe formed.
As long as the Big Bang Theory is still A-OK!
We all know that there are no children in Florida! It's an entire state of old people; it's where you go when you're done with life and have nothing to look forward to except for Death's icy embrace.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Since a major aspect of evolution is the concept it happens over long periods of time, it isn't important if I personally have seen evolution or not. I HAVE seen the product of many years of evolution however.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
My point is there is so much in general science that can be studied, and can give a good foundation to students that there is no need to keep fueling the controversy by trying to stick evolution into the mix...
Yes. Let's stop the controversy by ignoring it. Good idea.
Y'know what I find most disturbing? That people have such little faith in God that they think something like evolution could perhaps challenge His existence. Do they really believe that *intentional ignorance* is the way to salvation? (Disclaimer: I'm an atheist, so I don't really know the answer to that question. I just know that if their faith in God is threatened by knowledge, I'm glad I don't believe in Him.)
The theory of evolution existed before Darwin. Many of the biologists of the day had already come to the conclusion that life evolved. They just had no clue about the *mechanism.* Darwin worked that out over many years. There was no "Eureka!" moment for him, not on Galapagos nor the voyage home. it came on him inexorably, and changed his belief in many things, including the origin of life.
The theory of evolution by natural selection has predicted many things, and those many things have supported the theory. So far, there is *not one thing* that has contradicted this theory. So far, all we get are variations on, "Oh yeah? Well, the eye is so complex, it couldn't have evolved."
Ignoring evolution in primary and secondary education institutions is about as wise as ignoring mathematics. It's fundamental to our entire life and civilization. In fact, I would say evolution is the single most important science subject to teach our children, as much of the science-based policy in the upcoming years will be based around genetics and other biology-based sciences.
As evolution is as fundamental to biology as gravity is to Newtonian physics, I believe it's extremely important to end this "controversy" once and for all. Until we eliminate these religion-based attacks against the teaching of evolution, we are in danger of raising a generation of ignoramuses incapable of understanding some of the most important social debates and issues.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You know what one of these days this dumb assed world is going to wake up to the fact that religion is just a tool used by the MINORITY to CONTROL the Majority then and only then will we start to see a world that has come of age until then it is still a teenage grotto and i mean ALL Religions whatever name you give your perticular version of a con job . Some of us can see straight thru all the BULLCRAP there never has been never will be and never can be a god by any name you care to attach to it it IS just an excuse for a lack of Metal i believe it is called in America i call it lack of Bollocks guts balls mental stability Have fun
Karma
I'm sure you can find a citation for this, and not from the Creationist rag you filched, but from an actual peer-reviewed journal.
I happen to know what you're talking about, but I'll take great pleasure, if you have the courage and mental capacity to actually check this one out, in having you admit that the people that fed you this one were liars.
As to the rest, just more semi-coherent rambling. For Creationists, there is indeed nothing new under the sun.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
(set to the soundtrack of O.P.P. by Naughty by Nature)
Trash Talk
Harm me with harmony.
Doomsday, drop a load on 'em.
Verse 1
Entropy, how can I explain it? I'll take it frame by frame it,
to have you all jumping, shouting saying it.
Let's just say that it's a measure of disorder,
in a system that is closed, like with a border.
It's sorta, like a, well a measurement of randomness,
proposed in 1850 by a German, but wait I digress.
"What the fuck is entropy?", I here the people still exclaiming,
it seems I gotta start the explaining.
You ever drop an egg and on the floor you see it break?
You go and get a mop so you can clean up your mistake.
But did you ever stop to ponder why we know it's true,
if you drop a broken egg you will not get an egg that's new.
That's entropy or E-N-T-R-O to the P to the Y,
the reason why the sun will one day all burn out and die.
Order from disorder is a scientific rarity,
allow me to explain it with a little bit more clarity.
Did I say rarity? I meant impossibility,
at least in a closed system there will always be more entropy.
That's entropy and I hope that you're all down with it,
if you are here's your membership.
Chorus
You down with entropy?
Yeah, you know me! (x3)
Who's down with entropy?
Every last homey!
Verse 2
Defining entropy as disorder's not complete,
'cause disorder as a definition doesn't cover heat.
So my first definition I would now like to withdraw,
and offer one that fits thermodynamics second law.
First we need to understand that entropy is energy,
energy that can't be used to state it more specifically.
In a closed system entropy always goes up,
that's the second law, now you know what's up.
You can't win, you can't break even, you can't leave the game,
'cause entropy will take it all 'though it seems a shame.
The second law, as we now know, is quite clear to state,
that entropy must increase and not dissipate.
Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fsck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
you're now down with a discount.
Chorus
Trash Talk
Hit it!
Doomsday, kick it in!
I mean, the way things are going, sometimes I think that should someone stand up and make this claim, he actually might find a following in the land of the free.
I agree with everything the parent said and have to add another thing. GP is arguing for natural selection, which no one really disputes happening, I mean survival of the fittest is an obvious statement. Evolution however involves using natural selection in much broader ways. Speciation is like natural selection to the extreme, and I feel is poorly supported by natural selection. Sure we see bacteria becoming resistant or see other minor genetic mutations but to create an entire different species from this process is a long and extremely difficult one.
"Maybe I'm living under a rock here, but I've never really seen evolution demonstrated. I've heard plenty of explanations and leaps of logic attached to it, but I've never actually seen anything evolve. And even if I did, that still wouldn't demonstrate that evolution is the origin of life. That's why it's a theory, because we can only infer, we can't demonstrate, and unfortunately no one actually witnessed it."
I'm afraid you have it totally backwards. Evolution is the fact, not the theory. Darwin and many others observed that species evolved. For example bird breaks are different in areas where different food is available. The theory that Darwin came up with to explain this was the origin of species through natural selection. So arguing against evolution, which creationism does, is arguing against facts.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
The crazy logic that website uses hurts my brain. Most of the rebuttals read like timecube or are complete non-sequitors. Do you have an example of a good rebuttal on there that doesn't read like it was written by a crazy person? I really don't want to click through 5000 links trying to find the one coherent argument.
I read the internet for the articles.
Well, it shouldn't have a "String Theory", but that doesn't mean it can't have "String Theory"; string theory seems to me to be a field of "theory" in the unenumerable sense used in mathematics (e.g., "knot theory"), that takes as its underlying basis the conjectures of a particular fundamental model of physics (I'm not sure its even a "hypothesis" in the conjecture->hypothesis->theory heirarchy, since I'm not sure that clear tests for falsification have yet been proposed—which would make it a viable hypothesis—much less carried out, repeatably, without falsifying it—which would make it a viable theory.)
your examples are not very good ones. sickle cell anemia is a disease caused by a double recessive genetic trait that helps you survive (malaria resistance) in a person who has one copy of the recessive and one copy of the dominant. most mutations do NOT involve losing information. those sorts of mutations do occur, but the vast majority of non-lethal mutations are minor changes in an existing gene. any gene exists in many "versions", and most mutations are just one more version of a gene. they are called alleles. the article you post actually has little to do with your argument. the author is proposing a hypothesis to explain the non-constant rates of documented change in a genetic pool over time. his model proposes that a species goes through a rapid proliferation phase, where many new forms show up, then a slow phase, where those forms slowly diverge more and more over time. this is not new, nor is it a case of debate over whether evolution happens in the sense we thought it did.
I've never understood why Christianity is so dogmatic about it.
Perhaps I can help clear that up.
The Catholic church existed before the Bible existed. The Catholic church assembled the Bible to use as a cannon of study and teaching. They did not say "this single book was given to us by God, and is therefore correct, and therefore we must try to build our church and beliefs around its contents." The structure of authority went the other way...the leaders of the church (the Pope and his underlings) had received all of God's teachings directly, through oral tradition and through the direct (miraculous) transmission of the Holy Spirit. They were the ultimate authority on what was True, and the Bible was just one collection of sacred writings which they were authorizing for spiritual use.
So the authoritive structure of truth went from God, to Jesus, to the Apostles, to the Church, THEN to the Bible.
Inasmuch as the Bible might be lacking in any detail, or stating anything in a confusing way, the Church was there to clarify things for you.
The doctrine of the Trinity, then, does not need to be Biblical in order for it to be a proper Catholic belief. It merely needs to be endorsed by the Church.
Martin Luther stood that on its head when he founded his own version of the church (the Protestants) and based it on his own interpretation of the Bible and of the teachings of the church. Over time, other people followed his example, creating the numerous sects of Christianity that we see today. These sects do not consider themselves Catholics, and as such are "cut off" from the historical roots of their teachings. They have cooked up this notion that their teachings are entirely founded in the Bible, when in fact many of them are just leftovers from Catholicism, or new additions made by their various sect-founders along the way.
So that's why they get so dogmatic about it. They are taught that:
1) The Bible is the foundation of our beliefs.
2) The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of our beliefs.
And they therefore infer that the doctrine of the Trinity must be Biblical. Some of the more studious ones have found a few vague and poetic verses in various parts of the Bible and synthesized them (with a little rationalizing glue) to produce what they claim is the scriptural foundation of that belief. However, anyone who reads them without already knowing about the doctrine of the Trinity will very likely not conclude that the Bible teaches that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one.
So there you have it.
More of us should read Voltaire's writings. He wrote a great deal about fanaticism and religion (he was not an atheist). Some quotes:
One of my favorites:
From Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary:
Believing that the Earth is 10000 years old in the face of hard scientific evidence is like taking dreams for reality.
Methinks in these days of growing fanaticism, both religious and ideological, we would do well to learn from what Voltaire wrote.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I've always found it funny how creationists and their supporters argue against the teaching of evolution on the basis that, "It's only a theory." What they seem to forget (or were never taught) is that everything in science is, at most, a theory. Nothing is certain, nothing is absolute. Nothing can be deemed "irrefutable" as such a statement implies one can tell the future. It is always possible that new data will someday come to light and contradict that which we hold to be a "universal truth."
:)
Of course, I suppose if the creationists did understand this concept they would attempt to use it against the scientific community. If nothing is absolutely certain, how then do you know anything, right?
*looks around at all of the gadgets, cars, buildings, medical technology, etc.*
Well, we seem to be applying science quite well despite the fact.
I agree with you. We should give equal consideration to all theories, since no one has any actual evidence of what's true anyway. I think Florida should also give consideration to the theory that I believe is actual fact: Pastafarianism. I mean, nobody actually saw His Noodly Appendage create the entire universe (though I find its pretty obviously true).
Nearly everyone I know wears glasses. Everyone I know needs sunglasses most of the year (I live in Nevada). Many, many people I know have had to spend thousands of dollars on Lasik just for this most fantastic of God's creations -- the eyeball -- to function properly.
If I was religious, the last thing I'd want to claim as evidence of God's hand in creation is the human eye, which, although useful, is really just another weak, imperfect, and unreliable device.
They deserve a place in the arena of intellectual debate, and they're more than welcome to submit their work for review. What they don't deserve is a place in the classroom, which is where children go to learn established theory and methodology. We can, for example, debate whether smoking crack is a good thing. As adults, we can engage in a data driven conversation about it and express our opinions. Nobody stops that. You'll find, however, that the established conclusion that smoking crack is bad for you and that people who disagree tend to be crack heads is what we teach in health class. At least, until somebody can come up with a compelling argument otherwise.
People have been trying to prohibit the teaching of evolution since long before the "intelligent design" movement appeared. ID is simply a way of dressing up creationism to get it into schools to work toward the end of discrediting evolution. Nothing has changed over the past few generations on that front. The creationists have just been defeated so many times that they have to try to be clever about it.
Scientists don't worry about what people think nearly as much as they do about what is being taught as good science in classrooms.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I guess now we know that Ron Paul is going to win the Florida Republican primary!
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Nice try, but no. Are you not familiar with the concept of one person's rights ending where they affect those of another? The GP is not inflicting his beliefs on religious people or anyone else. He is merely longing for a day when religious people's beliefs are not inflicted upon him. (Good luck with that, BTW...there is no cure for stupid.)
I agree.
Gravity is a theory that explains why object fall to the ground when dropped. No one can prove that this will continue to happen in the future - but the theory of gravity predicts that it will.
We can observe what is happening in front of our faces, but biology is more then that. Biology lets us predict what will happen in the future under different circumstances. No one can be absolutely certain that these predictions will come true - this is why biology is not an absolute fact.
The thing is, creationists' do not have a scientific theory. All scientific theories can be proved wrong - but not the creationists' theory. This is why scientists do not appreciate it. Believe it or not, science welcomes evidence that a theory is wrong. It allows science to be improved. But all of this points away from the creationists' theory. Should science ignore all of the hard work that has been done over the centuries and blindly follow a non-scientific theory? Can the theories even be compared? The answer from scientists - no.
Evolution is very easy to witness. Just look at a parent and child. That is evolution in action right there.
1. The child dna is based on the parent dna. (easy to see by observing likenesses between parent and child, and even easier to see in laboratories)
2. The dna differences causes the child and parent to have different chance of propagating offspring, for atleast some of the population. (more difficult too grasp for the layman, but the easiest example is to compare a healthy parent with a genetically sick child. It should be pretty clear that the child has lower chance of propagating)
1+2+some very basic math/statistics == evolution (or devolution actually, if you don't believe that a child could have a higher chance of propagating than its parent, which is a ridicioulus but a little more difficult to disprove)
The segment has not actually evolved. What is being demonstrated is selection. Natural selection is the mechanism by which evolution is able to occur. And in response to evolution not being observable, that may be true, but natural selection (again, the mechanism that makes evolution possible) is readily observable. There have been many studies done on natural populations that demonstrate the principle. Evolution may take many thousands or millions of years, but we know enough about genetics, gene flow, and selection for beneficial (or selection out of detrimental) genes to see that evolution is more than probable.
Try to find as much data to support intelligent design.
Support a true independent artist - Leila Lopez
Obviously evolution is a byproduct of creation. Just as we create cars, boats, computers there is always evolution. This is an example of intelligence and a creator. Although I am sure most here agree with Darwinist evolution, this theory speaks more of a "cosmic accident". I think life has enough examples of how we are very complicated and "engineered" as a human race. The fact that you are even alive is a miracle and that your cells are programmed to do jobs which keep you alive, that there is enough pressure on this planet to keep your skin on and ect,ect. To think this is all circumstantial makes no logical sense. We are only able to understand earthly/human concepts, so it makes perfect sense that Man had to carry the messages that have been given by a higher/spiritual power. Evolution is more of a process vs. reason. I think we all know the reasons we as humans create things, usually for a purpose. Do you think our existence may be an example of a higher power and how to understand that higher power is through the examples we are given through human understanding. Don't confuse human science with reason or purpose but more of a tool/process to explain things. The reason/purpose is something we each find out through this experience and at the end of our lives. Remember people, we are temporarily here and for there to be nothing after this experience would not make sense or would life even be worth living if there was nothing after our individual experiences. Hopefully you come to understand faith and that your creator has a purpose and love for you! Those who are parents will understand, you are the creator and what do you want for your children? A great experience here? Things you never had? Unconditional Love? Learn all there is to know here? Maybe we should be teaching evolution of the soul! That is where the answers may be found. Also if you look at Jesus life, you have a much better understanding of how to be a good human and live your life. Unfortunately it is very hard to live your life like that and that is why most people would rather not believe than to live like that. Maybe you could put yourself in a creator/fathers shoes and understand why you would want to have a child? Open your minds..... There is more than science around you..... Logically it makes sense when you understand how amazing and remarkable life is.... Blessings and Luv!
Very rarely is antibiotic resistance conveyed by the loss of some 'vulnerability gene' in the bacterium. Most often there's some accessory genetic element, like a plasmid, that helps the bacterium produce something (whether a different kind of cell surface molecule, or something to degrade the antibody before it can work) and because that plasmid is valuable (at least, in an environment where the bacteria is being attacked) the bugs that pick it up tend to do better even though they have the burden of having more DNA to copy.
And I mean evolution, which is defined as the change of allele frequencies over time. The modern synthesis, more specifically, refers to changes in allele frequencies over time due to differential survival. Neither of these by definition must include BIOGENESIS, which is the origin of life from nonlife. Admittedly, there are a lot of very different theories about how that might have happened, and we might never know precisely how life on earth arose. But once you had faithful self-replicators, Darwin's idea was off and running.
The individual with sickle cell cannot produce regular blood cells. that information is lost. their reproductive cells can carry on the information to an offspring (if both alleles are present). Still the individual will not produce regular blood cells. The article was to show that the scientific community is not in agreement as to how evolution happens and how to explain it so it cannot be a fact for if it were it would be the law of evolution. We know we came from somewhere but we cannot prove for a fact where and how. At least yet.
The I'll Never Evolve Into a High Paying Job Resolution...
Evolution has plans for them, regardless of what they think of evolution!
Obviously evolution is a byproduct of creation. Just as we create cars, boats, computers there is always evolution. This is an example of intelligence and a creator. Although I am sure most here agree with Darwinist evolution, this theory speaks more of a "cosmic accident". I think life has enough examples of how we are very complicated and "engineered" as a human race. The fact that you are even alive is a miracle and that your cells are programmed to do jobs which keep you alive, that there is enough pressure on this planet to keep your skin on and ect,ect. To think this is all circumstantial makes no logical sense. We are only able to understand earthly/human concepts, so it makes perfect sense that Man had to carry the messages that have been given by a higher/spiritual power. Evolution is more of a process vs. reason. I think we all know the reasons we as humans create things, usually for a purpose. Do you think our existence may be an example of a higher power and how to understand that higher power is through the examples we are given through human understanding. Don't confuse human science with reason or purpose but more of a tool/process to explain things. The reason/purpose is something we each find out through this experience and at the end of our lives. Remember people, we are temporarily here and for there to be nothing after this experience would not make sense or would life even be worth living if there was nothing after our individual experiences. Hopefully you come to understand faith and that your creator has a purpose and love for you! Those who are parents will understand, you are the creator and what do you want for your children? A great experience here? Things you never had? Unconditional Love? Learning? Etc? Maybe we should be teaching evolution of the soul! That is where the answers may be found. Also if you look at Jesus life, you have a much better understanding of how to be a good human and live your life. Unfortunately it is very hard to live your life like that and that is why most people would rather not believe than to try to be like him. Maybe you could put yourself in a creator/fathers shoes and understand why you would want to have a child? Open your minds..... There is more than science around you..... Logically it makes sense when you understand how amazing and remarkable life is.... Blessings and Luv! Yes even to Nerds! lol
There's actually quite a bit of literature on it. Darwin himself discussed it a century and a half ago. Just because it strains the credulity of somebody who is not well versed in the theory doesn't mean it's wrong.
Errr... you (or somebody else) totally fabricated that. It's simply not true. I'll be simply amazed if you can find any mainstream biologist who proposes that humans came from something other than an ape-like common ancestor to modern apes. Pigs? WTF?
That's true for the same reason that we don't teach high school students that light travels through the aether or that the dinosaurs went extinct because of a sharp decline in the number of PEZ factories. It's not part of (or even debated in) modern theory.
The genetic and fossil evidence strongly recommends the current interpretation over the ones you've suggested.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Under modern evolutionary theory (since the synthesis of Charles Darwin's work with that of Gregor Mendel), a "living organism" is not a thing that is considered to evolves. "Evolution" is a process of change that produces differences between successive generations of organisms, individual organisms do not evolve.
So, yeah, you haven't seen a living organism evolve: neither has anyone else. Living organisms don't evolve.
Populations over time (sometimes reasonably short time, given the right conditions and creatures that have short generations) do evolve, and that evolution has been observed.
love of truth. No love of others as they love themselves. Just know it all venom and a desperate need to defend dogmas no matter how silly they sound defending them or what new lows of deception they have to sink to in their defense. Well it is slashdot...
Is there a single creationist who has demonstrated a clear understanding of what Darwinian evolution actually is?
Every argument I've heard from them so far contains some statement like, "it's absurd to think that life on earth formed just by random chance." And of course that's correct, but it's also the clearest sign that they need to read a book on evolution. (Among other things it doesn't seem like they've grasped the distinction between randomness playing a role in the game and randomness defining the whole game.)
Don't misunderstand me: I very much want to inflict my beliefs on people who I think are wrong, when the beliefs they currently hold have the potential to drive the world in a direction I see as undesirable. When I see religious nuts closing their eyes to basic science (to our detriment as a society and as a rational species) then hell yes, I want to convert them to my side. Every religion I know urges its followers to go convert nonbelievers, so I'm just trying to do my part for the rationals.
And yes, religion is very, very silly. It amuses me to tears that some people read ancient myths and dismiss them as the storytelling of ignorant primitives, and then go to church to listen to a 2000 year old book about God making the world out of mud and telling us not to eat shellfish or worship cows.
First of all, evolution has no more to say on the subject of God's existence than climatology or hydrology. It's a scientific theory. It is a-theistic (not atheistic, you'll note). You won't find any evolutionary papers that talk about the existence of God any more than you'll find any chemistry papers that do.
Second of all, the evidence shows that we and monkeys share a common ancestor. The fossil record shows this pretty well, but the molecular record is even more clear. You may not like that (I have no idea why), but that's where it sits. We and monkeys are related. We and seasquirts are related. We and bacteria are related. The distances may be greater, but we all share a common ancestor.
And this has nothing to do with God either.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Someday God will punish FL schools that did not ban evolution by bringing a great flood and only those 12 anti-science schools will be saved. Those 12 will be prepared with giant boats that shall also contain pairs of all local animals. (Saving the animals in case of biblical flood is ok; otherwise, man is free to drive them all to extinction.)
;-)
Global warming is blasphemy, god changes the weather to punish the non-believers! Besides, science is wrong on evolution and global warming has even less support so it has to be a lie as well!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
fuck you.. how's that for intelligent design's pro creation?
exactly, so long as you remember the meaning of "fittest" for this context.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
"Evolutionism" requires faith in the work of hundreds of scientists interpreting the present and making educated guesses about the past.
Evolutionism - that's funny. Of course, it's easier to have faith in the work of a bunch of scientists when their methods are open and the concolusions subject to revision in the face of new evidence.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Religion must die!
It is OK to have a different opinion but religion is not an opinion.
I can't tell you "In my opinion I think Jesus was gay and had several orgies with his apostels. I like his preaching but I think he was gay"
And your answer would be "No way, it doesn't say that in the bible"
How can you have a discussion with religious people?
How can people in this day and age still believe this crap??????
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers
Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth
Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."
King James Bible - Deuteronomy 13:6-11
Fuck that, nobody even has the guts to tell their parents or anybody else that they are not religious because they will be killed.
What power has law where only money rules.
You've obviously never gotten too far in Pokemon.
Well said. You have my applause.
Really, this sort of behavior boils down to tribalism. People have a need to identify themselves as part of a group and what better way to do that then to contrast yourselves with those who are outside of your group. This is why some people glom onto fanatacisim for professional sports teams or fall victim to fashion trends. It's all about establishing your group identity. The Japanese have a notably complex system of in-groups and out-groups and expected behaviors when interacting with people in and out of your many groups.
The foaming at the mouth evangelicals love to portray themselves as under perilous attack by secular heathens despite the fact that North America has an overwhelmingly Christian culture and it isn't going away anytime soon. This is all part of the rhetoric established from the time that Christians really were a minority group who had to withstand the oppression of other dominant groups. Just once, I whish these fools could put themselves in the shoes of a Hindu or Buddhist immigrant to realize what it truly feels like to be a little fish in a bowl of sharks.
Of course this is one of the many problems with modern Christianity: it is permeated with an air of anti-intellectualism. You shouldn't try to question the "truth" as given to you by people serving as intermediaries for God (or direct from the KJV Bible for the literalists). To do so would be to admit that you don't have enough faith and without faith you're going to hell so just shut up and believe everything we tell you to believe in. We have things like idiot Protestants claiming that Roman Catholics aren't real Christians. (WTF?) People like Pat Robertson are lionized by millions and yet he openly expresses hatred for non-Christians. Somehow these people can claim to be followers of Jesus and yet they conveniently fail to realize the core meaning his teachings.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
You'll know someone is a Christian by his or her compassion, humility, and love. Someone who hates people because of their actions probably doesn't know Jesus very well.
Right. Can you provide some links supporting the 'not from monkeys' thing? Pigs certainly don't have opposable thumbs.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
From what I've seen, there are clear similarities in the wording when comparing the resolutions from the different districts side by side. It's unlikely that they didn't all come up with these independently, at the same time. Is it clear yet if they were just working together on this, or are they all under direction of the Discovery Institute or some other creationist think tank?
the title should be 12 school DISTRICTS. that's a lot more than just 12 schools.
Although Darwinism is just a theory...
Darwinism (the theory of evolution by natural selection) is a theory the same way that gravity is a theory. (Believe it or not, there are things about gravity we don't understand.) That is, it has been proven so often, and in so many ways, it's no longer questioned, and many medical advances have been made by the assumption of its correctness.
This whole, "Darwinism is just a theory," is part of the Discovery Institute's "teach to the controversy" approach. They muddle the science of evolution to the point where even well-established words like "theory" are up for debate. ("It all depends on what the definition of 'is' is.")
In science, a theory is an hypothesis that has withstood experimental evidence. In science, an experiment is a prediction that is negatable. That is, it's a prediction that can be proven wrong. The theory of evolution by natural selection has made many predictions, and in every case where the results of the predictions are known, the predictions have been positive. So, Darwinism is an hypothesis that has withstood testing. It is a theory.
The distinction between a theory and an hypothesis is important. Scientists assume a theory is correct, and base *other* hypothesis on the correctness of the theory. This is important, as many accepted theories have crumbled in the face of the results of experiments for other hypothesis. This is what happened with Newtonian physics-- although not incorrect, Newton's laws were proven to be specific applications of quantum physics and relativity within a certain domain (moderately sized objects traveling at relatively slow speeds in relation to the observer).
Until there is another field of scientific study to modify or usurp how we view evolutionary biology, Darwinism isn't just "another theory." It is *the* theory that underpins our entire understanding of genetics, physiology, ecology, and sociology (as well as many other *ologies.)
Now, as to the rest of your (non-sequitur) post: damned straight. That's one of the flaws (and greatest strengths) of democracy. The generally-accepted stupidities of our nation (or county or state) get magnified a hundred times and become ensconced in stupid policy. And that's why it's up to us to change understanding for the better, and policy to reflect our better understanding.
And we start by checking our own repetition of the generally-accepted falsehoods, like "Evolution is just a theory," as if it were on a par with Jim-boy's theory of the vast government UFO/bigfoot conspiracy.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Are you trolling? You know, fishing for angry responses? Or do you actually think that what you've written is a reasonable argument?
Newtonian gravity (you know, Newton's Law of Gravity?) is demonstrably wrong. Proving that it's wrong is non-trivial, but it's a well-established fact that Newtonian gravity is wrong. General Relativity is more correct, but, we're fairly certain that it's also wrong. In you're curious, we're also fairly certain that all of the quantum theories are likewise wrong, but for now they're all we have. There are very few measurements that break the Standard Model, and any new theory that comes up must be consistent with everything we've already measured that supports the standard model, so don't think that because we know something is wrong means that it isn't worth using.
I think this has been pretty well covered already.
Nice choice of words; I'm curious, was that on purpose? "Intelligent Design" doesn't deserve mention in a science course because it isn't science. The key facet in science is verifiability. You observe something, you propose a mechanism for that observation, you find an as-yet-unobserved phenomenon which is predicted by your proposed mechanism, you observe the phenomenon (or not, as the case may be), others verify your findings. There is nothing verifiable about intelligent design. There isn't even anything to test! Right or not, it has no place in a science curriculum. If you have issues with evolution being taught, then you should be arguing that science should not be part of the students' curriculum.
To be perfectly frank, there is nothing in all of Biology with as robust supporting data (observations) as the theory of evolution. I'm sure there are problems with the details, but the general idea of evolution is so simple and beautiful that it's one of those "how could it possibly be wrong" kinds of things. Now I know that the reason you religious folks take such issue with evolution is that it hits so close to home with you, but in all honesty, I'm not sure whether or not you'd stand a better chance trying to knock down thermodynamics. Think on this: there is nothing in experimental science that proves the laws of thermodynamics, not even close (in fact, it's not possible), and yet it is the one branch in Physics which Albert Einstein was convinced would stand forever, unassailable. Such is the power of theories based solely on "logic".
Give me a break! How many hours does the evolution theory take in the whole U.S. middle/high school science program? It's probably much less than 1% of it.
What about the rest of it?
Nobody even mentions the sorry state of the science education in school in general, besides the evolution topic. I find it almost embarrassing that almost the only things that most of the high school graduates remember from the science classes is dissecting a frog.
You've seen evidence of it every time you hear a news story about bacteria developing resistance to new antibiotics, every time you hear about somebody who has cancer.
So I can now tell people that my lungs are evolving. Yay!
OK, don't want to jinx myself, I don't have cancer and it just wouldn't be worth it to pull that joke off. Now I need a cigarette.
... $GOD didn't create Evolution? My world view doesn't require $GOD to touch every flower each morning to open. Creating the rules of the game and then sitting back and watching it develop is acceptable to me.
...to Evolution.
The very nature of Science is debate and inquiry. We know what we know because of how well it survives that debate.
Evolution works because there is no other theory that explains what we've observed. Intelligent Design does not count, because it provides no testable predictions.
But when you say things like:
All depends on why you reject it. Everyone I've seen reject evolution has done so for stupid, dogmatic reasons, but you are making stupid, dogmatic statements about science.
I happen to agree with your conclusions, somewhat: Creationism has no place in science. But the reasons you've given for that are not scientific.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The fact that you can't imagine how something could be true is not an argument (at least, not a valid one) against a scientific theory. Though its pretty much all the anti-evolution folks have.
Correct. In fact, its pretty much universally accepted that we didn't. "Evolution says we came from monkeys" is a distortion from the anti-evolution forces.
Source?
All scientists think that we came from the first life on Earth (where that came from is outside of evolution, while "primordial ooze" is a popular expression for the dominant theory on that, there are other conjectures, and it really doesn't matter to evolution), and that somewhere in the chain of species leading to our own were several other mammal species.
High school science classes typically teach two things: (1) the scientific method, and (2) useful simplifications of the currently dominant theoretical models in the field covered by the class. (These "useful simplifcations of currently dominant models" are often exactly equivalent to models that have since been rejected; for instance, my high school physics class taught Newtonian mechanics.)
They very often don't teach alternative models except as occasional illustrations that such things do exist to illustrate the scientific method.
Since we understand the mechanisms by which traits are passed on, and we have observed changes both less than and resulting in speciation and understand the processes which lead to these changes, the only excuse for people having this problem honestly is ignorance, which is correctable.
Maybe next they could make PI 3 and eliminate all those darned irrational numbers. They could make light obey the 55mph speed limit like everyone else has to.
I knew that folk down in FL were dumb, but this is so dumb that it has to actually hurt. Do they just sit around all day saying "Ow... Ow... Ow..." "Wassamatter?" "I so dumb it huwt."
Going to be interested to see how they teach that. (And on what basis.)
Yes. It's past time for "militant atheism" as Richard Dawkins put it in 2002 TED Talk
ignorance isn't going to STAY correctable if this crap keeps up.
That would happen if pi were equal it 6. Think of your hexagon as 6 equilateral triangles, then it will make sense. Of course, this fails to account for a "radius" that would be perpendicular to one of the sides of the hexagon. That measurement is easily calculable using the pythagorean theorem.
Help I'm a rock.
.... would it not also be fair to say that graduates of these schools will not be looked upon favorably by medical schools? Well... what do you expect from a state who's last 2 govenors were Jeb and Buddy? LOL
Time to dust off my Michael Denton and Phillip E. Johnson books for another new year.
Maybe it's the fact that Pig and Human DNA have been succesfully combined. Or maybe it's the fact that the so-called "missing link" was in fact a pig tooth.
Two of the big pieces of evolution are common ancestry, and a "tree of life" of phylogenetic tree as scientists use it. The data that we have does in fact build a very good tree of life. Even if the choice of data changes the tree comes out remarkably similar. Generally Ribosomes are used, as they have a low mutation rate. But other markers such as synteny (same ordering of genes) can be used as well. This has been seen, sure with instruments, but its the same with anything small even modern microprocessors. We rely on scientific methods to get data.
Common ancestry is a slam dunk, we have a virtually identical genetic code with every other organism on the planet, other ancestry should have its own codon table.. eukaryotes have the same cell membrane composition... There are literally thousands of pieces of interlinking observations that support evolution.
However to disprove evolution, you would need to find evidence of "cut and paste" along different branches of the tree of life. So find a bat that has four cycle breathing like a bird, and you'll have a monumental paper on your hands. Or a human (heck any mammal) that has chloroplasts.., or a reptile with chitin (bug-shell) armor.
Disproving common ancestry, find a mammal that has a very different codon table.. um good luck with that.
Science is basically a game, like a puzzle, where if a hypothesis fits it gets added until the hypothesis is mucking up the puzzle. Scientists dont care that much about what people think, but they do care if little kids add "magic pieces" to the puzzle and throw a fit when mom says the magic pieces must stay. Scientists want to do the real puzzle, not some puzzle that includes magic pieces.oh the piece of mom saying the magic pieces stay is when school boards say intelligent design is science.
Let the scientists play by the rules, otherwise other scientists snicker behind their backs, and it isnt pretty.
Storm
Oh...wait a minute...that's the same thing you and everyone else who says, evolution is the only way we got here, are doing to people who are in favor of creationism. Hmmm, kind of makes you wonder. Does that mean evolutionist are going to start suicide bombing next?
NOVA has a great show about the argument over evolution. It's called Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. It shows just how much evidence there is to support evolution. Apparently we should be teaching more about evolution in schools instead of less.
No, not really.
The `problem' with string theory is,mostly, that we do not have instruments good enough to measure its predictions, not they it does not make predictions or that it is not testable.
How does combining DNA from two animals demonstrate pigs are closer than apes? It doesn't even make sense.
And as to Nebraska Man, that's about as pathetic as it comes. The very guy that found it, Henry Osborn, quickly realized what it really was. Oh, and this was back in the 1920s.
You are an idiot.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I suggest that you look at different species of snails and their eyes if you want to imagine how our eyes evolved to the state that they are in now.
If a child talks about his amazing friend nobody can see, people may patronize him, or tell him this friend isn't real, or ignore him, but they never take it seriously.
If an adult talks about his amazing friend nobody can see, and this friend is named George and he wears a purple hat and says that everyone should play pool every Friday night, he will probably be institutionalized.
If an adult talks about his amazing friend nobody can see, and this friend is named Jehovah, and he says that everyone should go to church every Sunday morning and pray to him, he will be called "Father".
Why the special treatment? Why is one invisible friend taken seriously and another one is not?
I call you ignorant because I observe that you clearly don't know anything about evolution. If you wish not be seen as an idiot, then actually learn something about the theory before you think yourself capable of criticizing.
And just to show you how much of an idiot you are, I challenge you to find a single citation in peer-reviewed or primary literature where the existence of God is even broached.
And no, Richard Dawkins' books for popular consumption are not peer-reviewed or primary literature. So don't bother with that.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Practically a String Conjecture. It's near-bloody-useless right now and until we get something like the LHC fired up it's barely worth wasting time over. I mean, yes, people will continue to waste time on it, and it may or may not turn out to be productive, but seeing as we're nowhere near to a solid "theory" (as in "evolution theory" and "gravity theory") their time is very much like building an elaborate house of cards on a rug which needs vacuuming when your mother is standing at the top of the basement entrance wielding a Dyson like a broadsword.
I really need to sleep now, that was a terrible analogy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
who thought that science provided a framework for understanding the world that was no more reliable than religion or magic, to Thomas Kuhn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn
whose work has been used to justify claims that the selection between competing scientific theories is a fundamentally irrational process, the religious right could find many allies in postmodernist academia. I'm surprised that the Christian fundamentalists haven't been more enthusiastic about adopting a constructivist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructivism
world view, because they could then charge that scientific knowledge was nothing more than a 'social construct', just as many constructivists relish doing. The science wars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
are far from over. The irrationalists could still win. In fact, the only thing that's probably kept them from making more headway than they have is the fact that the 2 main anti-realist camps seem to hate each other. If they can ever get past their mutual loathing long enough to join forces in their opposition to reason we will all have a great deal more to worry about.
Perhaps then, you can explain to me how we achieved the genetic diversity to sustain a species if it all began with a single, completely evolved and modernly literate man? Or perhaps you can explain why human fossils found in Africa are older than any yet found on the Arabian peninsula (where they would be infinitely better preserved)? Or why the Bible never once mentioned a dinosaur? Or a Buffalo? Or a penguin? Or a Polar Bear? Or how the earth managed to survive a worldwide flood with only two of each animal being spared, and emerge with species of butterflies and plants that were unknown to humans until 2007? Creationism is only implausible if ignorant, uneducated people continue to take The Bible literally. Yes, almost everything in Science is considered a theory - but some theories, like plate tectonics, are demonstrably factual in almost every sense.
I would point you to this page which shows a number of fossils which show progressively more ape-like creatures (the older the fossil, the more ape-like). No modern-type human fossils have been found with similar ages, nor any giraffe-like humans, nor penguin-like humans. I'd call that evidence.
Religions do predict: "If you don't believe what we tell you to believe we will send the boys round to bash your head in".
OK: the language used by the inquisition and all sorts of fundementalists of many different flavours might not have been quite my words above, but the meaning was clearly the same. This is one of the ways that religions deal with dissent.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Don't judge us all by the loud members of the Christian Right. There are plenty of Christians who do not behave the way you describe, and who disagree with those who do. Some of us are liberals. Some of us are scientists. Lots of us believe in evolution.
Latitude correlates to IQ!
The lower you go, the lower it gets.
[End Of Line]
Anyone can... state how stupid I am for not following the scientific wave of the support of evolution.
You're not stupid for not following the scientific wave. You're stupid because your reasons for rejecting evolution are ignorant and wrongheaded, and you show no interest in correcting those reasons.
Evolution is a theory and has not been proven, just as the belief of God is not proven.
Unlike God, evolution has a vast amount of evidence from a vast number of sources to support the theory. To the extent that anything can be considered "proven" in science, evolution is. In scientific terms the basic theory is as firmly supported as the theory that the earth orbits the sun.
If I'm wrong and their is no heaven and their is no hell. Then so what.
What if you're wrong, not about God's existence, but how he wants to be worshiped? What if your failure to be a good Mormon is what damns you to Hell?
That's the problem with Pascal's Wager, as you've expressed it: It takes no account of believing in the wrong God.
But what if your wrong?
If I'm wrong, and a plausible scientific theory successfully challenges evolution, then it will make no difference to my day to day life, or to my metaphysical view of the universe. My reasons for being a moral, happy person have nothing to do with either God or evolution.
I don't believe that we, just by chance, came into existence.
Evolution doesn't say that we came into existence "just by chance". See my first statement on why you're stupid.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Math can contain theorums. It might contain theories, but these are irrelevant -- in pure mathematics, if you know something, you know it, and you have a mathematical proof.
I've said before that there are certain truths that are not a matter of point of view -- not open for reasonable debate. Two plus two equals four. If you disagree with that statement, you're either stupid or insane.
Well, look into mathematical proofs. Not only is two plus two equal to four, but people have actually proved the principles of basic addition, or at least worked out what basic assumptions you need for them to be true.
Not quite. Here's how it works:
We have observed things to fall in the past. If we were to be rigorous, we'd say that on a certain date, at a certain time, in a certain location, we dropped a certain item and watched it fall towards the Earth.
Newton came up with some mathematical equations which describe this phenomenon. Note: Not "explain", but "describe". But of course, they describe more than one object falling in one place at one time -- they describe that any object will fall anywhere, and, more generally, that objects attract.
We call this a "hypothesis" -- it predicts something (things fall, and they accelerate at this rate). Most people consider gravity to be sufficiently tested -- we've worked out (with Newton's equations) that some particular thing should fall, and how fast -- and, similarly, that something we launch into space will orbit (or not), and how fast, and whether it will stay even with the Earth.
When a hypothesis is sufficiently tested, we accept it tentatively as a "theory". That's all gravity is -- a temporary theory until we find something better. And we did -- Einstein's General Relativity actually disproved Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.
Well, correcting you again, but this is the "hypothesis" of evolution tested.
And it can and does provide very specific predictions. It predicts that certain fossils will be found -- and we then went and found those fossils, and they were pretty much what we expected. It predicts that if you develop a really effective mosquito spray, and any of the mosquitoes are immune, those mosquitoes will survive, thus showing that the mosquito population as a whole has adapted to that spray.
I'm sorry if you were expecting a Borg-like adaptation, where, in the span of a few minutes of screen time, an organism adapts to a particular threat.
Well, no one has witnessed quite a lot of things that we have theories for. You know, crack open a science textbook -- do you think anyone has actually seen an electron? No, we can only infer.
For all you know, there's infinite monkeys in your computer making it go. Or maybe it's the Hand of God Himself. But we consider computers, among other things, to be evidence for -- not proof of, but evidence for -- the existence of electrons.
And it's generally not useful to suggest alternate ideas that have no testable predictions. For instance, if you said my computer operates because of the hand of God, that's a fine idea, but there's absolutely nothing that predicts. It doesn't tell me w
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You when will you literalists ever learn?
God only used an integer because support for floating point operations was severely limited in the CPUs of the time.
I'm not arguing that they do not mention God. Believe it or not (don't really care). I've actually read Darwin's book on evolution, and it doesn't mention God. Which is kind of my point. It leaves everything to "somehow everything just appeared and here we are descended from a single celled organism to what we are now." By the way science has not been able to prove that a single celled organism can in fact evolve into a multicelled organism. Go figure.
If you actually read the http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/shared.content/board.meetings/minutes/11-20-07.pdf>meeting minutesyou would see that they are actually EXPANDING on the theory of evolution into the real of cosmology and quantum physics.
"[we] are requesting that the State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of
Education to revise/edit the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is
presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed."
I have a graduate degree in physics, but I wasn't aware that the universe was formed by evolution. Although I have to admit that the thought of mating galaxies has a certain appeal.
---------------------
People who don't understand sarcasm are bound to be an irresistible target for it.
Yes Gravity is an easily observable phenomenon - but when you scientists refer to the "theory of gravity" what that really means to those in the scientific community is the equations that explain how gravity works. They all agree that it works - but there are a number of "theories" to explain HOW it works.
There was newtons "Law of Gravity" which came first - F = G(m_1 m_2}/r^2)
where:
* F is the magnitude of the gravitational force between the two point masses,
* G is the gravitational constant,
* m1 is the mass of the first point mass,
* m2 is the mass of the second point mass,
* r is the distance between the two point masses.
Now if you use this calculation is it true 100% of the time in all observable cases? What we found out, was no, it doesn't. For example Newton's theory does not fully explain the precession of the perihelion of the orbit of the planets, especially of planet Mercury. There is a 43 arcsecond per century discrepancy between the Newtonian prediction, which arises only from the gravitational tugs of the other planets, and the observed precession.
When Einstein came along and said e=mc^2, his equation on relativity showed that while Newtons "law" was very close it was off by just a little bit and Einstein's equation with Newton's gets us closer.
So yes, everyone knows gravity exists and is a force - but try coming up with an equation or "theory" that explains it 100% of the time in all cases.
addressing the US;
can all of the believers in God and creationism please move to the south, and all of the science believers and those who think religeon is a reasonable basis for morals but not pure fact please move to the north. Then we can have a civil war and end this stupid debate.
Now I know the south will have an abundance of strong 'kick your ass' types, AKA Rednecks, but I am hoping the north will just make a disease and wipe them all out.
Not really. The world will be a better place when some particular beliefs are absent. Xenophobia would be a good one to get rid off, but religion might also qualify.
The issues that are arising with this enormous flame war between "evolutionists" and "creationists" is because it keeps escalating.
It seems to me that this whole thing started when christians wanted to teach creationism either in addition to or alternative to evolution and has escalated into this tremendous argument over science being anti-religion.
The real issue at hand is that theology does not have a place in a standard educational system. If you want that, go to a private school. I'm actually surprised that these evolutionists aren't also fighting for biblical stories in Literature classes, biblical math (pi = 3) in geometry class, and prayer before lunch.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Like you said, none of the theories is more definitely proven than the other - evolution happens to match our observations, but it might just be a coincidence that things happen as predicted. Or our model is too simple. Evolution as we see it today might not be an accurate theory, but neither might be creation (which has the added malus of not fitting any but the most basic observations like "humans exist").
So in the end either you teach both side by side and let the students decide which they believe in (maybe both?) or you don't teach them at all, because they're both unprovable. Everything else is pushing your views onto the students.
Onfortunately, people like pushing their views onto others, regardless of whether that's in the interest of anyone.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Man, it's amazing how many "enlightened" folks here have their arguments so well formed. These people are just clueless, they are bigots, they hate fags and/or jews and/or science and/or whatever...
Look kids: this is america. We have the RIGHT to believe what we believe, to say what we believe, and to act on what we believe. Political lobbying is speech and, if you don't like the way things are going, you're damn sure not going to accomplish anything by calling "the other side" names and being BIGOTS.
Some christians are fucked up. Yeah. But from the looks of it, so are most of you ranting about them in this thread.
Oh, and for all you Ron Paul supporters: THIS is exactly why he wants to break up federal control of the schools: to return to a system as outlined by the founders. But don't kid yourself for a minute that means "no religion in schools." If you will study your history you will see the original plan was for THE COMMUNITIES TO DECIDE. Don't like the values of your community? Move, or work to change them. But don't think you deserve special treatment because you're all alone in your beliefs in a sea of "zealots;" Move.
So, you armchair libertarians and constitutionalists better make up your minds, cuz if you really believe what you speak then many of you need to learn a HELL of a lot about respecting other's beliefs.
Now if the state is trying to force these people to accept evolution as an explanation of the origin of the universe, I'd be miffed about it as well. On the other hand, if they came up with this bit all by themselves, I think that they really do require someone to explain what evolution really is. I'd feel sorry for the good people of this county, if they hadn't been the ones electing the board in the first place.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Plenty of examples you can experience for yourself. One of my favorite examples of evolution through the application of natural selection that you can actually *taste* is beer. When I brew beer, I put a bunch of yeast in a liquid rich in sugars. The little yeasty beasties consume the sugar and one of the byproducts of this process is alcohol. However, all of these yeast organisms are not created equally with respect to the amount of alcohol they can handle in their environment. As the alcohol content of the pre-beer rises, less stalwart individuals die off and the ones that are left (i.e. the ones that can handle their liquor) are fruitful and multiply. Their descendants inherit the tolerance of the alcohol-rich environment, and as the generations go by the tolerance of the population gets higher and higher since the less tolerant lines die out and leave only the most robust. Natural selection and beer. Elegant and delicious.
An example of "artificial" selection that also illustrates the principle are the Heike samurai crabs, and no one tells this story more passionately than Dr. Carl Sagan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiNKt6gcEM8
http://cis.poly.edu/~mleung/CS4744/f03/ch06/SamuraiCrabs.htm
Cheers!
first, i don't think you understand how people get sickle cell anemia. everyone has two copies of a gene. they don't have to be identical. if you have two normal copies, you have no malaria resistance, and normal oxygen carrying capacity. if you have one normal copy and one abnormal copy, you have malaria resistance and normal oxygen carrying capacity. if you have two abnormal copies, you might have malaria resistance, but it doesn't matter, because you have low oxygen carrying capacity and are probably not healthy to begin with. if you die and don't have kids, your genes will not get passed on. people with sickle cell anemia would be less likely to have tons of babies. people with ONE abnormal gene might have lots of babies, since they don't get malaria as frequently. the gene is not lost. someone who has sickle cell anemia does not LACK any genetic information. they lack a trait (normal blood cells), and that makes them less likely to survive and make babies. thankfully, their brothers with only one copy of the gene have an advantage in the survival department (not getting malaria) that will make sure the gene stays in the general population. evolution does not concern itself with where new genes come from. there is a very clear source: genetic mutation. evolution only deals with what causes some genes to endure and some to die out. our imperfect replication enzymes supply a steady stream of new information, in the form of new versions of genes. some of those new versions will make you less likely to have babies, and logically, over time there will be fewer individuals with that version. some mutations turn out to be helpful, and become common, and may eventualy become the normal" version. helpful tip: just because science doesn't think of evolution as a dead issue does not make its truth controversial. someone proposing a new model to explain a small detail of evolutionary doctrine doesn't mean that the existence of evolution is being debated by scientists.
Evolution, like all sciences, relies on naturalistic explanations. If it didn't, it wouldn't be science. And just because we don't know some part of a theory does not mean the theory is not useful or does not explain things.
And abiogenesis is a rather active area of research, which, like evolution, quantum mechanics, geology, climatology and every other science you care to name, does not mention God either.
As to multicellular organisms, there are a rather large number of colonial single-celled organisms which give us a good picture of how multicellular organisms evolved. That isn't even really a problem for biology, and hasn't been for decades. The real open question is how some prokaryote lineage evolved into eukaryotes. You see, you don't even know where the problems in evolutionary biology lie, because you're just aping some bullshit you've read on Creationists sites or from Creationist literature.
Oh, and get rid of the word "proof". Proof is for alcohol and mathematics. Science doesn't "prove" things in the sense that you think it does.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Maybe I do believe in the wrong God, but it doesn't change the fact that I believe in Intelligent Design
Human evolution is quite easy to create. Humans could evolve to have an average height of 7 feet. This would be rather simple to do in theory: Identify all people who are taller than 7 feet, and then prevent everyone else from reproducing. I can pretty much guarantee that almost all children thereafter would have a height larger than 7 feet, assuming they had an equivalent diet to those humans who existed before. This could be done on pretty much any genetic trait one could choose, and it would produce long term changes, assuming that the filtering went on for several generations.
This is often how evolution occurs in nature. If some sort of disaster causes the death of 99% of the population of a particular organism, then the individuals left behind will pass their own unique genes onto future generations. Evolution often happens quickly. Of course, the population must have first developed some genetic diversity over time before being culled, or no significant changes will occur.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
A. Quit talking about what atheists want or don't want. You clearly don't know.
B. Evolution has nothing to do with atheism. Evolution has nothing to say on the existence of God.
C. I'm an atheist, and I don't accept the existence of God. What you are proving is how immoral you are, in that you will bear false witness against me. You better hope I'm right, because if I'm wrong, you're going to burn forever for your sins against me and my fellow atheists.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Any teacher who teaches the theory of evolution as a fact, is not qualified to teach science.
And I don't think that it's possible to devolve. I mean, by definition and whatnot (e.g. not evolving = death).
Oh yeah, and the study of evolution is not concerned with the origins of life. Scientists studying evolution are not trying to determine where life came from. Evolution is about critters that are or were already living, and how they came to be by looking at how they were then (or predicting how they were then by how they are now, etc etc). The study of the origins of life is called abiogenesis (life from non-living matter).
That's my point: What if God is a Mormon God? What if, after you die, you find yourself in Hell because, as a Christian, you failed to read the Book of Mormon every day? You say that it's no skin off your nose if you're wrong about believing in God, because being wrong has no eternal consequences. But what if it does have eternal consequences because you rejected Mohammed as his prophet (Islam) or ate beef (Hinduism) or failed to acknowledge the Pope as God's Vicar on Earth (Catholic)?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
So Christians aren't Christian? That doesn't really make sense.
Evolution is a pretty poor theory, though. If I were being semantic, I'd probably go with 'Hypothesis' as a descriptive title, as it really can't be tested in any useful time. I mean, after all our millennia of twisting wolves into various shapes from Great Danes to teeny tiny yippy chihuahuas, they're still not separate enough that they're separate species. A better experiment than that, I'm not aware of, though IANAEB.
Which is not to say that it's a wrong theory. Occam's razor, as in, the complete lack of contradicting evidence combined with quite a bit of indirect evidence all points to it as being the likely course of events. The point is that science education is not about rote learning of "established facts." Therefore, the shortcomings of evolution should absolutely be a part of science education.
Now, the ideas of creationism probably shouldn't be taught in the science class, neither should history and poetry. A separate cosmology class, or possibly a philosophy class that includes epistemology would better handle it, though I'm not sure it would be easy to teach in this context in a way that the proponents of ID would get on board with. There is also no need to present the material on evolution in a way that specifically discredits any religion.
"Nanny Nanny Boo Boo, your parents are slack-jawed hillbillies who uncritically believe everything from guys with colorful robes when everyone knows you should only believe guys in white robes, heathen." really isn't the best way to go about any educational plan.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Everything has it's own purpose in life. Everything works in a certain way to coexist and to function which science helps to explain how these things work. A computer was DESIGNED to work a certain way so that things work correctly (unless your running Windows). This is how I see the world, DESIGNED by God for everything to work correctly.
You fail it. Pi is the ratio of the circumference and diameter, not of the circumference and radius.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
A+B imply C.
A)Pigs and Humans are not closer then Apes and Humans
B)We all knew it was a pigs tooth even though the discovery was famous enough to still be around
C)I'm an idiot!
Wow, now if that isn't the scientific process as it's finest, I don't know what is.
Perhaps not, but surely they've seen plenty of de-evolution.
I'm inviting a flame war here, but isn't math - at least in the sense that we teach it - an artificial construct that we invented to describe our observations? Math can contain theories, but I don't think it could ever be classified as one because we actually know what it is.
If math is anything, it's just bloody minded self consistency. So-called "pure math" doesn't have to describe anything. With any math, you state a set of axioms that don't contradict each other and then run with them. Differing sets of axioms can contradict others. The "plane geometry" many of us learned in HS isn't the only one for instance.
If we "encode" our observations of the natural world to create axioms, then we can use mathematical tools to create scientific models. Most importantly we can model things that don't map well to everyday workaday experience or just don't lend themselves to spoken language well. Nothing stops you from describing a universe completely different from ours and perhaps impossible in an absolute sense. Properly executed math will describe that world as well as ours as long as the system is self-consistent.
Math is often a tool of science but it is not itself science.
You are living under a rock! You see evolution all around you. You ever wonder why the old and young need to get flu shots every year when the immune system adapts to previous infections? It is because the flu is evolving. Mutations are resulting in an increase in fitness. If you don't believe in evolution then don't give your grandma a flu shot! Why do you make her accept evolution if you don't believe in it? There are literally millions of example around you right now that show how evolution works.
Then I guess I didn't get it right and I'll spend the rest of eternity in Hell along with you everyone else who didn't get it right. :)
Of course, you've made the opposite assertion with no reasoning to back it up, so you must be well schooled in the topic and correct by fiat. I assume that by scare quoting "evidence" with respect to fossils that you've also examined quite a few fossils and found all of modern biology to be in error. Kudos.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Nothing like having to delve into the world of metaphor and allegory to prove your point. If anything, life demonstrates that it is not optimized. I've needed glasses since I was six years old. Salmon can be attacked sea-lice. Viruses can kill all sorts of organisms.
For every example of some sort of mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship, i can provide you a counter example of a delerious relationship.
Save the poetic unnuanced crapola line for someone who doesn't know a damn thing. Besides, you're avoiding the whole issue entirely by leaping on to this bandwagon.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
School = logic
Church = faith
I see no problem teaching evolution in school and having creationism in church. Every time this gets brought up it amazes me nobody mentions this.
Well, if you believe what the bible says then the story of the Tower of Babel would explain the diversity in humans.
from evolution is not the fact that it would get rid of god's hand from making the world, it's the fact that it disproves the whole 'original sin' concept the Christian religion is based upon. Face it, without the fall from grace and creation of original sin(putting aside the fact that it's a fable about movements of the stars and planets). Then there is no need for a savior to wipe it away(putting aside the very strong evidence that he never existed).
Well, I sympathize with what you are saying. It does seem that way, but how many "religious people" do you actually know personally. Because I know quite a few and they don't act as you describe at all. It is true that there are politically motivated people that like being obnoxious, and they get a lot of attention from the media, but I wouldn't say they represent, or even compose a significant percentage of, all followers of every major religion.
I've been half-listening, mostly ignoring, this debate for years. I think the biggest problem is not the disparate views, but rather the tendency to generalize the opinions of a few hot air-spouting pundits to an entire demographic. Members of religious communities generalize the opinions of authors like Dawkins and claim that scientists are trying to disprove the existence of God and attacking religion, which is not the case. Likewise, the scientific community sees actions by special interests that influence school board decisions and claims that religionists are ignorant superstitious zealots that ignore science and prefer to live in an imaginary world, which is also not the case. Such publicized generalizations tend to make people defensive, and then they don't want to hear what you have to say at all. If you can't sit down and have a civil conversation with someone about their beliefs (scientific, religious, or otherwise), then you will never see an end to debates such as these.
Employers who expect their employees to be conversant with modern science and the scientific method should send letters to these school districts decalring they won't hire anyone who is a product of their schools.
Yes, that's unfair to some students, but these willful Luddites need to be taught a lesson.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Creatures in the past changing into slightly different creatures over generations (which I will use as my definiation of Evolution) may not be "proved" in the sense that 2+2=4 is proved, but there is far better evidence that creatures have evolved in the past, than there are for a great many things.
Not treating evolution as tentativly factual, (at least pending new explaination that fits the evidence even better), I'm trying to come up with reasons to explain it:
A) you don't believe the evidence really exists. To me, while I have to admit there is a slight possibility of this being true, it would take a fabrication and conspiracy on such a worldwide scale that it's just silly.
B) you accept the evidence but believe the scientists are intentionally lying. Again, seems to take a huge conspiracy
C) you accept the evidence but believe the scientists are wrong. To me, this is the first plausible argument. People are often wrong. But the idea of evolution has been around for a long time, and been hotly debated for much of that time, and nobody's come forward to say "sorry I was wrong" or "we see a mistake in your reasoning", at least not in such a way to convince the large numbers of poeple working on it. So, while admitting the possibliity it can be wrong, it seems to be holding up well so far, so I have to weigh the chances of mistake as less likely.
D) you accept the evidence and believe the scientists have read the evidence correctly, but you do not agree with their conclusions. An arguable position, perhaps, but I have yet to hear an alternate explaination which I found as good a fit with the evidence. Creatures could have been replaced by different creatures over time by some other mechanism than by evolution, but it would seem awefully strange. If its happening by creation, then why not just create the final product?
E) you accept that evolution has happened over time, but you do not agree with some of the implications of evolution. To me, because I use a limited definiton of evolution, this means you are debating a different territory. But if you include with evolution some of the ideas that are often presented with it, then you may disagree and argue with them. In that case, I wish you well, because we mostly agree on the subject, and I don't feel like arguing fine points.
F) you accept that evolution may be science's best explaintion to date, and tentatively accept it (pending replacement by a better explaination), but you want to make clear the difference between truly "knowing" something, and things which are only "accepted" as true. It's a good point, and well worth noting.
But I am suprised that it sounds like you are defending the point of view of those who want to forbid the teaching of evolution. Perhaps I read you wrong, and you merely want to illustrate the argument they make. Banning teaching of anything seems wrong to me; but I also don't want to see someone teach that 2+2=5. I guess I would hope that there would be no need to ban someone from teaching that 2+2=5. That one's easy cause it's pretty black-and-white. To me, I think the evoluation case is also black-and-white, but I guess others might feel its more gray.
SPREAD THE WORD
Evolution is a scientific fact, and every organization whose research depends on it should explain why.
Three cheers for the US National Academy of Sciences for publishing an updated version of its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism (see http://www.nap.edu/sec). The document succinctly summarizes what is and isn't science, provides an overview of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights how, time and again, leading religious figures have upheld evolution as consistent with their view of the world.
For a more specific and also entertaining account of evolutionary knowledge, see palaeontologist Kevin Padian's evidence given at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial (see http://tinyurl.com/2nlgar). Padian destroys the false assertions by creationists that there are critical gaps in the fossil record. He illustrates the fossil-rich paths from fish to land-based tetrapod, from crocodile to dinosaur to feathered dinosaur to bird, from terrestrial quadruped to the whale, and more besides. Creationism is strong in the United States and, according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, worryingly on the rise in Europe (see http://tinyurl.com/2knrqy). But die-hard creationists aren't a sensible target for raising awareness. What matters are those citizens who aren't sure about evolution -- as much as 55% of the US population according to some surveys.
As the National Academy of Sciences and Padian have shown, it is possible to summarize the reasons why evolution is in effect as much a scientific fact as the existence of atoms or the orbiting of Earth round the Sun, even though there are plenty of refinements to be explored. Yet some actual and potential heads of state refuse to recognize this fact as such. And creationists have a tendency to play on the uncertainties displayed by some citizens. Evolution is of profound importance to modern biology and medicine. Accordingly, anyone who has the ability to explain the evidence behind this fact to their students, their friends and relatives should be given the ammunition to do so. Between now and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on 12 February 2009, every science academy and society with a stake in the credibility of evolution should summarize evidence for it on their website and take every opportunity to promote it.
Interesting that on /. the only way I can get any replies to my posts is if I post something that is in opposition to the majority of the people on /.
What bandwagon?
Evolution as a scientific theory (aka common fact) supported by physical evidence.
Creationism as a scientific hypothesis (aka common theory), supported by faith.
These are great examples to use to teach the differing definitions of fact, theory and hypothesis.
It's important because the definitions are fundamental to understanding what science is.
Until there has evidence to the contrary,
then to teach anything else is to teach religion, not science.
Teaching religion may be a noble goal, but not in a public school science classroom.
"And even if I did, that still wouldn't demonstrate that evolution is the origin of life."
It really bothers me when people confuse and conflate evolution, biological change over time with abiogenesis, the origin of life. Every time I read about these creationist campaigns in schools you hear the creationists talking about "where life came from" despite the fact that evolution never makes any claims about the origin of life. Scientifically there doesn't seem to be much consensus on the origin of life and if it is a topic in the classroom I don't really have a problem with a theistic POV being presented alongside scientific hypotheses, but that should have no bearing on the teaching of evolution.
If people continue to abuse this feature, I will have to remove it. - Slashdot Comment Box, 1998
What pisses me off are the fossils I've seen on dislay at Natural History museums and the like. They have like 1% real fossil and then the rest is filled in by imagination and conjecture with something similar to silly-putty meets plaster.
I believe in God and I also believe that we were created by a supreme being. Anyone can mod me down or even state how stupid I am for not following the scientific wave of the support of evolution.
Why do you think that evolution is somehow incompatible with God? Imagine this. You're driving in the country in the autumn. All of the leaves are neatly pushed off to either side of the road. Why is this? The explanation is simply that the leaves which sit in the roadway get blown around by passing cars, until they eventually end up on the side of the road and stay put. You don't have to call on God to explain this. This is really all that evolution is -- life states moving into configurations where they can continue to exist. To dispute evolution is to dispute all sorts of perfectly mundane everyday occurrences.
The question that I would like to ask those who do not believe in a higher power though is: If I'm wrong and their is no heaven and their is no hell. Then so what. I lose nothing. But what if your wrong?
So basically, the only reason you bother believing is out of fear of burning in Hell? That doesn't sound like a very legitimate reason to believe in God. Sounds like you feel like God is a threat to your eternal soul and you therefore pay protection money to Him to stay out of Hell. This makes you a tool, not a worshipper.
A true believer would continue to worship God even if it was 100% guaranteed that you'd wind up in Hell. This is called "devotion." You seem to lack it.
Actually, that sounds kind of like evolution...
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
I hear ya there. Just yesterday I was having lunch with a friend of mine, who's a devout Christian. He asked me if I was Christian, and I told him no. He was surprised, probably because I've been in some tough spots with this guy academically (low marks, easy opportunity to cheat without anyone ever finding out), and have proven my moral character many times. I think he was under the impression that anyone with good morals must be inference be a good Christian!
He then goes on to give me his story about finding God. He dismissed the Mormons, Catholics, and Jehovah's Witnesses, saying that their interpretation of scripture is based entirely upon dogma (hah!), and that they have no substantial proof of anything (hah!), and also claims that the Book of Mormon cannot be a valid text, since it was written by some crazy dudes (similar to something else?)... All in all, every reason he gave for rejecting one religion or another to me sounded like reason enough to reject Christianity itself.
What surprised me most was that his reasons for rejecting certain religions were the exact same arguments I would use, except in my case Christianity didn't get a free pass. Odd.
Are you saying that they taught you that evolution is a theory posed to explain abiogenesis? Where and when were you taught this?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Well, to paraphrase something from the talk.origins newsgroup, if you showed a creationist a mutation that gave wings to a flightless animal, they'd categorize it as "loss of the inability to fly."
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
trying to find the one coherent argument.
While you're at it, let me know when you find a coherent argument for Flat Earth too. hehe
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
but I thought we'd have peace if there was no religion, thats what all the athiests say. or is greed considered a religion? The all mighty dollar!
I don't believe that we, just by chance, came into existence.
Anyone who has any understanding of evolution knows that "just by chance" is an extremely poor description of evolution. Randomness plays a very, very small role in the evolutionary descent of organisms.
I am a Christian, and like many others, it doesn't matter what you say to me
Can I quote you on that?
That simple fact indicates why your philosophy fails: it is, like all faith, completely resistant to evidence. It doesn't matter what you are shown, explained, or demonstrated: you will perist in a pre-determined pattern of belief. When you decide a belief before hearing arguments, it is philosophically equivalent to sticking your fingers in your ears and going "wah wah wah I can't hear you". Most religious people won't admit it as you just have.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
No, at best it would explain the diversity of languages.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
First of all, no one (not even fundies) is disputing that natural selection occurs. That natural selection occurs to the extent that evolutionists purport is where the dispute lies. You have perfectly illustrated a huge problem with the way evolution is taught in schools. If you say that there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place, and you teach it this way, then my friend, you have just departed from science. Science needs questions and questioners. Science absolutely needs to be questioned. A science classroom that forgets this, that refuses to consider alternate explanations, does need to be banned. I absolutely think that evolution should be taught in schools. But not as fact! I personally don't believe in evolution, and I think that intelligent design should be taught alongside it, also not as fact.
Now, here are the main counter-arguments that people might give, and their respective rebuttals:
(1) Intelligent Design is not good science, because it is presupposes supernatural forces.
It's true: Intelligent Design presupposes some supernatural creator. Evolution presupposes no creator. But, in interest of the quest for knowledge, we should allow ourselves to be open-minded about our presuppositions. Certainly, we should not restrict our children's understanding by teaching a theory (that is a product of one set of presuppositions) as absolute fact. Why is one set of presuppositions better than another? If you think that good science can't be performed with the presupposition (I know, this is a tired word) that a creator created the universe, then consider Newton, the father of Calculus and traditional Physics.
(2) Religion has no place in schools, so intelligent design should not be taught in schools.
What makes intelligent design religion? Note that it is a superset of fundamental Christian beliefs, not a subset. Why not call evolution religion? When I read comments that there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place, I see a person talking about faith (or ignorance), but not science. Evolution needs plenty of faith. How did the first organism come into existence?
And why is that funny? Have you? Living organisms don't evolve. Populations do. Evolution is "a change in the statistical distribution of alleles in a population over time". This happens continuously, and is observed about as often as gravity.
I sometimes wonder if any schoolsare teaching evolution in the first place.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I think Jeremy (TV's Top Gear) was on to something when he said 'I think Americans have started to mate with vegetables'.
I can't help but think that this kind of thinking borderlines with some of the extremist rubbish from our Middle Eastern neighbours.
What explicit predictions does string theory actually make? It seems to me, and to a number of physicists, that that is one of its major problems, that it doesn't offer a clear cut set of potential tests. I don't even know of any high energy tests in the forseeable future that would actually be able to demonstrate things one way or another.
At the moment it remains an interesting mathematical model that may or may not have anything to do with how reality works.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Acting on our Evolutionary beliefs we should remove creationists from the gene pool.
Clearly folks who believe in a creator are pulling us down.
The world would be a better place without computer viruses.
The world would be a better place without mind viruses.
If we don't work hard to contain both, the world will be a worse place. You do not have the right to spead infectious disease, why should you have the right to spread infectious memes?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Science is about making useful predictions. Doubting evolution, like doubting gravity, does not help make useful predictions.
Intelligent Design is not science period. It does not make falsifiable claims, which is another way of saying it does not make useful predictions. It should not be taught in science class (except as an example of what science isn't) purely on that basis.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
from http://www.answers.com/religion&r=67 Religion: Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
Atheism from http://www.answers.com/atheism&r=67 Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. Even Evolution takes faith. Again, you obviously don't know the definition of science and faith. from http://www.answers.com/faith&r=67 Faith: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
From Wikipedia on scientific method: It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning
I can't make it any clearer, sorry
Religion is more than silly. It's dangerous. Religious people burn "witches", wage holy wars, spread misinformation, naively give their hard-earned money to corrupt church officials, refuse medical treatment for themselves or their children (sometimes resulting in death), obstruct scientific progress that could benefit all of humankind, and blindly leave their fates (and/or the entire world's fate) in the hands of an imaginary being when they should be taking action. Intelligent design has no credible evidence supporting it whatsoever, its logic is circular, and it's unfalsifiable. Evolution is as valid and well-supported a theory as gravity. I am astonished and horrified that people in the developed Western world- in the most militarily powerful country in the world, at that- would even briefly consider teaching intelligent design in high school science classrooms or removing evolution from high school science curriculum. Evolution is as close to a fact as any concept can get. Intelligent design is as far from a fact as any concept can get. I don't think this is silly. It doesn't amuse me. I'm horrified and disgusted.
The people that oppose teaching evolution are, for the most part, not the type that want to have religions pl. taught
Let's clarify here the difference between the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution. If you accept Darwin's definition of 'descent with modification,' then it is a FACT that evolution takes place: we can look at fossils and see how living things have changed forms over time. In this sense, saying that evolution is a fact is no different than saying that the rotation of the earth is a fact--in both cases, we directly observe the evidence with our own eyes.
The theory of evolution (the modern syntheis) basically clarifies Darwin's definition by positing natural selection as the agent of modification. This is also observable to some degree, as my original post pointed out; in other cases, we infer it based on substantial evidence.
Now, is it possible that we're really mistaken, and we've totally misconstrued all the evidence? Well, sure, but the odds are pretty tiny. We may be off on a number of small details, but the big picture is very convincing. Not 100% (nothing is) but about as close as you'd want. This isn't faith. It's fact.
And do yourself a favor: like most people who don't have a damn clue what they're talking about, you lump BIOGENESIS in with evolution. Nothing about the theory of evolution is meant to address how nonliving chemicals came to comprise living cells; it merely explains how a faithful self-replicator, once it arose, could differentiate into all the things we see alive today.
Nice try. The one thing you got right is that math, and everything else in science is a model of reality and not the actual thing itself. The same applies to creationism and religion. Religion is a model of reality, regardless of whether you are a believer or not. If you are a believer, religion is simply your (or your church leaders') best understanding of God's design and will for you and the universe. Or are you saying that believers automatically have a perfect understanding of the reality of God's will? For the believer, religion is a human model for understanding God and the universe. If you're a non-believer, god gets removed from the equation: religion is a human model for understanding the universe that has been superseded in most cases by science and the scientific method. So intelligent design gains no traction by declaring evolution as a "model". Intelligent design itself is a model, and should be evaluated by comparing the two models scientifically, not politically.
Evolution isn't just educated guesses about the past. There's the fossil record, there is the observation in the present day of mutation and natural selection in species ranging from bacteria to human. Bacteria are mutating and being selected for immunity to antibiotics. Human genes are still mutating at a rate comparable to that of other primates. And the measured rate of mutation in various species indicates species divergence that matches the fosssil record. In other words, we are finding common ancestor species in the fossil time frame where genomic theory predicts they should be.
The creationists continue to mis-use scientific terminology to cloud the issue in the public mind. For all practical purposes, a "theory" in science IS a fact. A theory represents the best available explanation of a natural process or phenomenon, and for elementary school students and the general public it might as well be a fact. Gravity, the laws of thermodynamics and mass-energy conversion are theories, and evolution stands as a peer to those based on over a century of scientific study and measurement. The disproving of scientific theories is always possible, but it's an activity best left to people experienced in the use of the scientific method, not by clouding the minds of primary and secondary school students.
What the creationists have isn't a theory, and to give it scientific equivalence to the theory of evolution in our primary and secondary schools is a farce. While some studies of creationism and intelligent design have been conducted, the results don't provide enough (or even any) evidence to raise creationism or intelligent design to the level of a theory. In scientific terminology, intelligent design is at best a hypothesis: an educated guess that needs to be tested and evaluated further.
The difficulty is that intelligent design and creationism have not yielded any statements that can be verified by experiment. This isn't saying that the experiments have failed, it's saying no one has been able to design an experiment yet to adequately prove it one way or the other in areas where it contradicts the theory of evolution. The main tenet of intelligent design is that plain old evolution by random mutation and natural selection can't be true because it the rate of evolution from primit
We are the 198 proof..
No. Evolution is a change in the genetics of a population over time. Mutations are introduced into the gene pool at a near constant rate. Many are harmful. Some are beneficial. The vast, vast majority are neutral. These neutral mutations are passed from generation to generation without any selective force governing them. The effect is aptly named genetic drift. The genotypes of the population simply drift randomly.
Viewed in this context, natural selection actually slows the rate of evolution. The areas where natural selection has occurred are less varied than other areas of the genome because a beneficial mutation has been selected for.
I realize I'm pretty far off-topic. It's just starting to bother me that it seems like very few people, on either side of the debate, really understand what evolution is and how it works.
Hey, now...
I was born and raised in (South) Florida, and even my Catholic Schools (forget the public school system) taught evolution! I'm only 21, so that wasn't all too long ago, either. My teachers saved the religious BS for "Religion"/"Theology"/etc whatever they wanted to call it, and "Science" was indeed Science. The teachers were pretty crazy about some things, but they didn't let that get in the way of real education...I remember once they made a fellow teacher quit because she re-married without an annulment. I also remember once in Science (8th grade) I had to show my teacher how to draw/use a graph, because she'd forgotten...but at least they didn't deny major theories.
I think the main problem with the public school system in FL is lack of truly qualified teachers (and 'qualified' parents also). I've heard of a few of my former classmates "going into teaching", and let me tell you, it makes me want to home school!
That the scientific and pro-evolution groups realize that the vast majority of the population believes in God, and controls the purse strings. So, as long as the science community continues to allow an extremely vocal miniscule minority to bash Christianity and Christians themselves, there will be repercussions. Funds for science will continue to dry up and hostility to pro-evolutionists will keep climbing until the science community comes up with a compromise solution. If you don't believe me, just keep it up, I and my majority of Christians will be happy to revoke every last cent of spending for any scientific pursuit that attempts to thrash our beliefs or undo our morals. You want more money for science? You catch more flys with honey than vinegar. A couple of suggestions: A) Science is not divorced from morality, so don't pretend that any scientific pursuit is O.K. just because it's "science". B) There is more than one way to skin a cat, and if y'all are so smart, prove it by coming up with ways to explore space, cure diseases, and discover the history of our planet without biting the hand that feeds you.
Impetuous! Homeric!
The difference is, macroeconomics and tax laws are not fundamental to existence. And as far as grasping the basic concepts of evolution by natural selection-- how hard is it? Kids know this stuff intuitively. They live with it all the time. The big kid may be able to bully them on the playground, but the smart kids kick the bully's ass in math. Different environment, different advantages.
The battle between parents and schools is only there because there are political bodies (Design Institute, and others) that push their political agenda. And I, for one, am not about to give in to them. As soon as you stop fighting, they win. The controversy is artificial. Letting kids grow up without being exposed to evolution is tantamount to giving in to DI and their pet project, Intelligent Design.
Believe me. I know, from first-hand experience. I was married to a fundie. We had a kid. She's smart, and she's willing to listen to her dad. But because I ignored her education in the formative years of her life (out of necessity, really), she is not willing to accept anything but creationism. It's how she was raised.
We can't ignore this. Controversy or no, we have to fight it.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I posted this in response to some of the comments on the linked blog:
To Rob Poole and biblethumper, excellent responses.
Also, I would like to add for clarity that "theory" in the scientific context (or any other) does not mean a blind guess, or even an educated guess...
A theory, contrary to its colloquial usage, is defined by Webster's as "The analysis of a set of FACTS in their relation to one another."
Thus, that evolution occurs is a fact. HOW it occurs is what The Theory of Evolution proposes to explain. It explains it so well that it has been used to predict much of the cause-effect relationships that have resulted in most of the medical care you receive today. Were it not for evolutionary biology, very little of today's medical expertise would exist. You cannot peruse any corner of medicine and/or science without running invariably into evolutionary biology, paleobiology, genetics, heredity and all the myriad life sciences that were, of all things, spawned unknowingly by the discovery of a monk (the aforementioned Mendel).
The problem with imagining that Creationism is anything remotely resembling a theory is that it consists of no facts. When questioned as to the facts that support it, a mishmash of suppositions are presented, but no evidence. When asked what Creationism proposes, no cogent explanation is provided. In short, Creationism/Intelligent Design fell apart upon very basic scrutiny in Kitzmiller et. al. v Dover Board of Education, during a cross-examination of ID's biggest "expert", Michael Behe, a molecular biologist from Lehigh University... The court testimony of Behe exposed that Creationism/Intelligent Design consists of no direct evidence, proposes nothing, disproves nothing, and proves nothing.
It should be noted, however, that contrary to Rob Poole's post that the Theory of Evolution doesn't have "just as much" evidence as Newtonian and Einsteinian Theories of Gravity. The Theory of Evolution, in fact, has many times the evidence behind it. Over 150 years of findings published in thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles.
It is useful to note that Mendel, who did not understand yet the mechanism of heredity but observed its occurrence, was vindicated three centuries later by James Watson and F.H.C. Crick's discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, the mechanism of heredity (not unlike how Arno Penzias and Bob Wilson discovered in 1960 the Cosmic Microwave Background that Dirac predicted some 40 years earlier). It is also useful to note that modern genetic research on homeobox genes, the "master control switches" of huge sets of genes, are vindicating key aspects of Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge's Punctuated Equilibrium -- namely the abrupt and drastic periods of divergence interrupting long periods of data-backed, not gap-backed, stasis.
How does the Bible explain the interchangeablity of the Pax-6 homolog between Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens sapiens? Why did the Bible not predict the structure of DNA? If two humans can do it, surely god could have proffered an explanation of his own invention.
There has not been in the history of modern science (circa the advent of chemistry and physics) a more demonstrable theory with more evidence to support it. If you refute evolution, you might as well walk off a cliff and hope for the best.
I agree with those who say that faith and science are not entirely incompatible. But whereas science does not attempt to do anything but find facts, religiion does not do anything but pursue meaning... and poorly at that. So in a way they ARE incompatible. But where science is the best system for testing hypotheses and deriving what is fact, as the scientific process is more successful than any system before it for doing so, religion is no better than a great philosophical treatise or a poignant fiction in giving human beings a sense of self-worth and meaning to find their place. The difference is that, Siskel and Ebert's cutthroat debates aside, usually
Evolution is what it is because nothing else can explain observation. It flows from the facts. It is not a hypothesis. It is a theory. Which means it is testable with experiment, and fits all observed facts. Nothing has ever been shown to prove otherwise. Ergo, it is fact.
How so? Is all fact open for debate? This subject is closed. It is not dogma. Is relativity dogma? Are plate tectonics dogma? What did I say that was stupid and dogmatic? Because I don't question every fact?
The reasons I have given ARE scientific, because the reasons were listed as the testable, provable real things that make up evolution. Observable natural selection. The fossil record. Speciation. The DNA record. etc. etc.
Just because I say that people are stupid if they disagree with fact, does that make me dogmatic? Not at all. If you disagree with me on the cellular structure of a potato, just because, well, you are being stupid. I can show you in a microscope the provable fact of that structure. Same goes for something like evolution.
Certainly, things like quantum gravity are open ended discussions, because we have no theory to fit all facets of observation in that realm. Something like evolution is simply not debatable, unless new, before now unknown facts come to light that do not fit observation and experiment. Since these things have yet to surface, I will call anybody who rejects evolution an idiot, because they are. For whatever reason, because there is NO valid reason. Plain and simple.
You are totally confusing science fact, with belief and religious dogma. I do not believe anything about evolution or science. Belief has nothing to do with it. I do not have faith in science. I do not accept it because I feel I must to support some other agenda. I accept it because it is what reality is, it is what is testable and observable. At the very least it is the quest to understand what is testable and observable.
Excellent point.
Science is really an epistemology. But we teach the knowledge gained by science as if it *were* science.
I agree. The scientific method should underscore all scientific teachings. Then we could judge the pile of stones as a house only when it is truly a house.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Actually evolution has been specifically witnessed at several points:
Corn is evolved from what it was orriginally, through selective breeding we have brought about the traits that make corn what is today compared the maise of yesterday- thanks to genetic sequencing we can even track what has changed in the maise->corn change. A similar story follows wheat.
During the industrial revolution in england EVERYTHING was covered in black coal, during that time several local moths evolved to be black instead of white. After the large scale coal burning stopped, the moths evolved to be white again.
Dogs and other animals are being bred for specific traits to this day, as are cats- including 'designer' breeds like the savanna and the serval.
Any time someone performs some feat of genetic engineering they are in fact causing evolution (though it's 'laboratory evolution' rather then situation based evolution like Darwin envisioned)
Further, evolution does not try to explain the origin of life- it just explains how life became so diverse when starting from a single subset of creature (microbacteria)
Thanks. This is *exactly* what I should've written in the first place.
I'm gonna plagiarize you from now on.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
He was hiding behind the couch.
is it me or is Florida now sounding like a really bad stargate SG1 episode?
I love the way those guys can watch CSI and have no problem agreeing that a 99.9% DNA match "proves" the suspect is the real father and then turn around and claim that a 95% DNA match between a human and a chimpanzee is just Satan's plot to deceive you into believing in evolution.
The grandparent was directing his comment "at believers who waste their energy over this argument." Don't try to confuse the issue by bringing all Christians into this.
I wasn't aware that any subjects covered in a science class were ever taught as facts.
What is a "Dyson"? Wikipedia has a whole bunch of things that have "Dyson" in the name, but none of them is wieldable unless you're talking about the Flying Spaghetti Monster wielding a Dyson Sphere somehow. If the FSM threw one of those at you then you'd certainly be in trouble.
Cow Cube
A friend of mine once claimed that Catholics weren't Christians, but Protestants were. I can only assume that she had never heard of Martin Luther and did not know the history of how some of the Christians sects were formed.
Yes I read it right.
That's the thing. Evolution is a theory in Biology, not Cosmology. They were showing their Scientific ignorance and why they aren't qualified to be deciding on science curriculum.
Well, I was raised in several different sects, including pentecostal, catholic, non-denom protestant, and baptist. My father was an assistant pastor at a pentecostal church.
Sure what I said doesn't apply to every christian, but let's be honest here... I've been in the churches, I've seen first hand for myself, the militant attitude that is encouraged from the pulpits of these churches(caveat being, I did not see it in the Catholic church) towards science and evolution. I've been there. I was on the other side of the fence. I was a part of it.
If you can't sit down and have a civil conversation with someone about their beliefs (scientific, religious, or otherwise), then you will never see an end to debates such as these.
Here's the problem... you can't reason with someone who thinks they've been handed God's own truth and who likely thinks you are going to hell, are in league with the devil, have demons, etc... These beliefs are real. Christians entertain them about people who don't believe as they do. You can soft peddle it all you want, go turn on Christian television programs and you can hear it for yourself. You can't expect to reason with people who believe you are under satanic influence because of the very beliefs you would like to sit down and and have a civil conversation with them about. It simply does not work.
To those who don't harbor such beliefs, you can do it, and they're not the problem. But these beliefs are widespread and they've more and more dominated the mainstream of US christian sub-culture.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
I, personally, of course have not; I am not a biologist. Humans in general, however, have. (And as another poster correctly pointed out, organisms do not evolve; populations do. Please have at least a fundamental understanding of the ideas upon which you are commenting.)
Omnes stulti sunt.
Thank you for the CliffsNotes version of his post!!
Actually, they don't ever show full fossils of something that is 1% complete (that would be perhaps two teeth). They will often reconstruct 10-30% complete fossils based on nearest common ancestor or other complete specimens.
Not to mention that there are many nearly complete fossils. A few jump to mind instantly: most of the German limestone impressions (Lagerstaate or some such, the spelling is off) [Archaeopteryx]. Sue the T-Rex anyone? Or the famous "Fighting dinosaurs"? When we don't have full fossils, and we're not sure, we don't try to "fill in" the rest. See Deinochierus.
In short, your analysis is flawed at best, and more likely criminally incompetant. I suggest you read peer-reviewed works, and learn your fossil record. Pretty much anything I mentioned can be Wiki'd.
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Whether or not he meant it this way, I'd argue the "better place" argument should be taken as "the world will be a better place when the bulk populace will not try to base decisions on religion when a well-reasoned and demonstrated scientific theory serves the same purpose, or does not find this to be incompatible with their religion and thus try to exclude science from the public sphere". Because, honestly, that's what some of these nutjobs are trying to do.
To quote a friend of mine: "debate about evolution? man.. did we just go back 150 years?"
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Religious labels being applied to groups that do obnoxious things is why so many people think religion is bad.
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Unless they become so abundant that the definition of the word "Christian" becomes redefined. Not to mention that churches teach that the only thing you need to get into heaven is unfaltering belief that jesus is the sun of god, and that any transgressions will be forgiven.
Of course there will always be people inside a group that view certain others affiliated with said group as non-members. Case in point: You.
"Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car." - Garrison Keillor
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Actually you have to believe that incest is cool - after all, you started with one man, one woman, and then from there they had sons and daughters who had children of their own.
From an IT perspective evolution should not be used because it hasnt been tested.
I see the discussion is doing quite well without me, but there are a couple of points most people don't raise that I feel are very important.
Firstly, you may not have 'seen evolution', but it goes on all around and you definitely encounter the products of it every day. Selective breeding is evolution in action, but it is evolution by artificial selection instead of evolution by natural selection. If you're being reasonable I'm sure you will accept that new plant and animal varieties are developed by breeders. This might seem like a trivial point, but to deny evolution is to deny that selective breeding works so it is very important.
I would also like to note that if somebody has been telling you that evolution has never been observed, they are either shamefully misinformed or deliberately lying to you. These are people I detest; they are enemies of knowledge. Whether you believe in evolution or not should be your decision based on evidence but such people will deny you the evidence to make your decision. I oppose them in principle, regardless of the discussion at hand.
Secondly, the argument is not about whether evolution occurs (which it unarguably does), the argument is about whether ALL life on earth is descended from a single origin with ALL the variation between life forms attributable to evolution. This is an interesting argument with room for discussion, but few people realise that such a specific claim is the core of the argument - and then they challenge the idea that evolution happens at all, which is a ridiculous position to take.
And as a last point, the theory of the origin of species through evolution by natural selection doesn't say anything about how life started - that's a completely different argument. Evolution can only happen when you start with some life and introduce mutation and selection over generations - it's not about how life starts, it's about how life changes.
I'm happy to go into more detail if you like, but I tend to waffle on and the posts are flying thick and fast already.
.evom ton seod gis eht
Uh, no. Both sides of the debate agree that natural selection takes place. The argument is over the creative power of random mutations. Bacteria being immune doesn't prove anything unless you can prove that not a single one of those billions of bacteria was _already_ immune. Similarly with living things changing over time, could be a sign of natural selection but you need to be a bit more specific about what kinds of changes over time before claiming proof of the creative power of random mutation.
Aside from (poorly) attempting to put words in atheist's mouths, your conception of the "Big Bang" is obviously inadequate and almost certainly antiquated. You probably don't know about the theoretical or observational underpinnings of decoupling times, background temperatures (yes, more than one), inflation, total energy content, matter distributions, quantum mechanics ... the list goes on.
You also probably do not know how any of those apply to either cosmology, the greater field of astronomy, or your everyday life.
Finally, when you "zoom in" enough to get to our solar system, you quite evidently do not know about the early solar system, or how simple things like density gradients and angular momentum give you the right concentrations of materials at the right distances.
You also are using an outdated model by which early organic molecules and polymers may have been formed. There are many potential models right now, and we are currently refining our data on early Earth before we start to claim definitive superiority for any number of models. What we have observed in the laboratory, however, is that certain reducing atmospheres with electrical discharges can produce amino acids and other organics. It so happens this was probably rather unlike early Earth's atmosphere, but we admitted that a while ago. Didn't you get the memo? Or were you too busy ignoring what scientists said?
And what is life anyway? You certainly have never given a good definition of it. Probably too busy blindly claiming your 2000 year old book was better than the 3000 year old stories of other cultures. And of course, much better than current-day science.
Your argument, as many others that are based around the claim that scientists live with a "religion of chance" seems to rely on the fact that its debaters have no concept of probability or of how mind-bogglingly big the universe is, or how long 14.7 GYr really is. But you have no problem in believing an invisible perfect being existed before the universe, was uncreated, more complex than the universe, created the universe, and in this one tiny tiny tiny tiny pocket in this completely average star 2/3 out of a more-massive-than-average galaxy a little bit off a main arm on a relativley small planet either imperfectly created human beings, who happen to be the three-dimensional representation of this mystical thing, or, directed some special little fatty chemicals and sugar chains over 3.6 GYrs to get to these amazingly imperfect beings.
Oh man, and I'm not even touching the morality argument.
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every holy book in the history of man was written by a man, probably by a liars hand.
- quote from a bodycount song.
hey folks, if this stuff was handed down to us for 4000 years now (old testament) or 2000 years (guess which) - and we look at the many, many
different versions and everyone just saying that theirs is the right one, they got the apocryphs (hidden books, stuff left out while other stuff got in) right,
WHOM of these people would you believe ? all these "lost in translation" stuff...
have 10 people describe a house, it will always sound different. now have them tell their neighbour, and so on - at the end of one of these streets you`ll have at least
a four armed camo coloured cyberdragon where the small bird statuette was in the window.
now how do you find out which description is the right one, if you can`t just go and see the house ?
web of trust ? yeah, surrounded by liars, bloody liars and statisticians ?
Religious fanatics want rational people to believe that it's completely illogical for the universe to have started from a very hot singularity (no, the Big Bang theory doesn't state that the universe sprang from 'nothing'. Conservation theories apply, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it was just in a different form, condensed in a very hot spot before space and time expanded). They want us to believe that the it's impossible for this energy to coalesce into particles, particles into hydrogen atoms, hydrogen atoms into stars via gravity, for stars to create heavier elements through fusion, for these stars to explode and release these heavier elements around them, and for these heavier elements to coalesce into planets due to the force of gravity. They also want us to believe that it's impossible for a mechanism to exist that would form molecules capable of self-replication, even though we have completely modeled the self replication of these chain molecules as a simple chemical process.
All of the above is too far-fetched to be believable. So, what do you want us to believe instead?
That a conscious being who did not need a creator himself (even though it's impossible that humans, which are far simpler beings than this creator, to have developed consciousness without a conscious creator to help out--a bit of circular thought there), because he wasn't 'created' but rather 'is eternal and has always existed' (even thoudgh the energy to create all the mass of the universe couldn't have just 'always been there' but must have been created by someone). They want us to believe that life is something special which requires a divine influence to form, even though we understand the process so well that we can interfere with it and help it along (artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, cloning, the directed and controlled selection process that created all the dog breeds we know today). They want us to believe that human life is significantly different from other life and requires a 'soul' to give us our sentience, even though we know enough to completely and utterly change a person's personality and even end their sentience by performing surgery on or otherwise influencing their very palpable brains (lobotomies, transcranial magnetic stimulation).
All of that makes a lot more sense. Because this creator told us that's how it is. Even though he doesn't directly show himself and tell this to everyone. We have to take the word of this book written by him. Oh no, he didn't write it either. People who had dreams and visions wrote them. Except for these tablets that nobody other than this one guy saw this creator write.
I don't get that. If *I* told you that I had a dream where God told me that you should be upside down when you pray, you wouldn't believe me and start praying while upside down. You'd either think I was lying, or you'd tell me it was just a dream. If I told you that I personally saw a man who claimed to be the Son of God walk on water, you wouldn't believe I was telling you the truth. But you believe the accounts of miracles and dreams from these people because they wrote it down...a really long time ago. Oh, it must really have happened.
Strictly speaking Mormons don't believe in Hell per say. There is this thing they refer to as outer darkness, not really the hell of Christian tradition, but it where Satan and the dark angels reside. Outer Darkness is mostly restricted to Mormons committing very specific acts, although IIRC murderers also can end up there. So under your assumption that the Mormon beliefs are true, he would end up in the Tealestial Kingdom, and if he ever was exposed to and rejected the Mormon faith he would end up in the Terestial Kingdom. Both kingdoms are part of Heaven, but relegated from God's presence. Strictly speaking, being removed from God's presence for eternity is what Mormons believe is Hell.
Nevertheless I don't intend to fool with your analogy, although you aren't as concise as others.
You know the idea of the Earth going around the Sun, and forming the basis of a year?
That's a scientific theory, just like evolution. Gravity is also a theory, but we have a lot more evidence to support evolution than gravity, as strange as that sounds.
We all know what the bible says about evolution: nothing. What's the bible say about the Earth going around the Sun? Nothing. The Old Testament states that the Sun goes around the Earth. Why are you Christians so anti-evolution, because it's a "theory" and not mentioned in the bible, but you make absolutely no comments about the heliocentric model of the solar system, which is a theory in the same sense, and is also contradicted by the book you constantly talk about?
This entire Creationist-Evolutionist debate suffers immensely from an inability of folk to understand their opponents' views and positions.
Please do understand here that you have basically given what YOU feel are two significant arguments against teaching Intelligent Design in the schools. These are, unfortunately, not much better than straw man arguments.
Oddly enough, you haven't stated the most significant reasons you'll see over and over and over again if you would dig ever so slightly into the writings of your opponents.
The reason Intelligent Design is bad science is not that it presupposes supernatural forces. People may argue that this is one reason it isn't science at all. But if someone says it's a bad Scientific Theory (or not a Scientific Theory at all), this is not why.
Furthermore, the rest of your arguments attempt to continue this ill advised view that Intelligent Design, as a theory, should be comparable to the Theory of Evolution.
The problem with Intelligent Design is that it is not a Scientific Theory for at least two significant reasons:
1) Lack of Falsifiability
2) Lack of Predictive Power
I'm not going to go deeper. There are vast amounts of resources available on the web to assist anyone seriously curious here. It isn't hard to see where and how the Theory of Evolution excels here and Intelligent Design simply fails outright.
But you must start by learning how Scientists view Science, including the Scientific Method and how Scientific Theories are used. Your points clearly indicate you do not adequately understand this.
Now, religion indeed should be taught in school, but in a proper forum, namely History, Sociology, Humanities, etc.. It should not be taught in a Science class and especially not as Science.
Next, as others have said here abiogenesis is not evolution.
Lastly, I do actually think that Intelligent Design should be taught in school. Be careful what you wish for. Intelligent Design should be taught when kids are old enough to dig into the Scientific Method, Scientific Theories, Null Hypotheses, Philosophy of Science and all that jazz. Intelligent Design serves as an excellent counter-example of a valid Scientific Theory and should be used as such (and you don't have to be rude to theists to do this).
When FSM hears about this it is all going to hit the fan. big time. those floridians should know better not to mess with HIzzself
I bet all this teologists have something in common.
None of them have studied POLITICS in much depth.
(rant: and that is understandable, comming the live in North America, the land of the idiots, and ignorants.).
Just one stupid guy's advice.
They shall read trotsky, and learn about socialism, market socialism (think Einstein had some writings/thoughts on market socialism), and see how those work in contrast with religion.
At a point, you would realize, politics, and socialism, overlap with religion.
Then, they would understand, that such thing we call religion/god/gods, is nothing else than the "strength"(faith) that joins the atoms of this planet together,that "manifests" in our conscience/evolution/religion/even-science, or said in other words, the knowledge/beliefs of the community is what/which makes religion.
Communism? Hell yes, its the ability of a "community" (and the force of it measured by the size/faith of this community), to forge its surroundings (the land), the culture that governs this "common land", and EVEN the ability to model its citizens, knowing even their thoughts, (there is where thinfoilhat madmens come into play, that happens when you are an "alien" in your community, i mean, when you are a guy who thinks in a MUCH different way that your community does).
The effect that occurs in "the thinfoilhat madmen", is explained by the workings of the community over this individual, to "change its mind", in a VERY RELIGIOUS / FAITHFULL way. And in the fact, this community can, effectively, FEEL him, thoughts included. (think of Joan of Arch, and how she was injected those "dreams", and think of the remote possiblity that happened for real, instead of being just a tale).(think of other profets/crazy mans, van gogh for example, he was an alien on those lands aswell).
In that line of thinking, the community, can "void" reality. Yep, as the conscience that rules that common land/city, the laws/religion (or call it socialism, central consciousness or whatever), that the land will follow, are the laws of those who inhabit it. Meaning, the rules, reality, physics, can be void. I mean, will obey not the self, but the central consciousness.
In that line of thinking. Current EEUU administration, has made that land (north america), thought of some "terrorism" attack on america...
Well... somehow, eeuu, has worked "against" some other communities of this big mass of atoms that is earth.
And has, then, made a "global community" angry about it. (its more about global world being angry at north america seen as responsible for the attrocities/abuses some international enterprises (or very greedy individuals in charge/behind this international enterprises) had commited in foreign land).
What im telling, is, america has made an alien of itself in the world.
It has to do with the way, capitalism, has replaced the real value of the individual and it community, and predated resources/cultures in every place it has been implemented.
As, we all know, capitalism, was not in this land first, it is not "independent" and it is not superior to the force contained within this planet. The "nature" of the planet. Although, in all the places capitalism is the ruling system, it has overrun (and utterly, destroyed), the nature, the local culture, and the individual.
Im not talking in favor of terrorism, nor making terrorism, nor remotely capable of such. What im explainig, is the way things work. And how, inadvertently, america "generates" somehow this so called terrorism.
I mean, in a "world" view, america is the "thinfoilhat dude". And the ruling and physics of the world CAN be changed the the rest of us, the "world community" (without us notticing it), with the objective of making this "alien" change its mind, on how he is behaving.
As a resume:
-Communism cant be avoided (in this planet at least), its a "feature" (effect or bug if you like).
It can be understood as the will of the land
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
florida welcome too the dark ages. The middle east was the axis of science and know until fundamentalism and dogma took over. The sad fact is in America more people believe in UFO's and ESP than evolution we're fdisk'ed
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XML causes global warming.
Well, Darwin did come from a big "bang", if you get what I mean! ;D And well, come to think of it, a lot of evidence does point that we all come from a big bang, though not the kind I was originally referring to. You could say that Darwin came from 2 sorts of big bangs! :D
But no, he did not tell me HIMSELF; rather I learned of the THEORY of evolution from a textbook, from a classroom, and from a lecture hall from multiple humans. Now, if this theory was not correctly interpreted, observations that lead us to believe that the theory of evolution is likely to be feasible would not make much sense. Because observations made over the past century or so (advent of genetics, DNA, genes, heredity, etc.) do not disprove evolution and very much support it, I am very confident that evolutionary theory provides a valid explanation regarding the biological lineages of species alive today.
Now, I hope I have illustrated that belief in evolution does not take "faith", at least not in the sense where faith is required to believe in religion. What observations over the past 2000 years lend support to the belief that there are dieties or a singular diety that gave rise to all that exists? I can't think of any. You MUST take it on FAITH, belief without being presented with supporting observations, that such a thing is so.
While certainly people can take on the belief of evolution without knowing the supporting observations (ie, lack of scientific or educational training, these people have faith that there are such supporting observations though; otherwise they'd be fools), a GOOD scientist CANNOT. In order for scientist to believe the theory to be valid, there must be supporting observations present, and if there are no supporting observations, NO ONE should be able to simply believe in the theory, or have FAITH in it's validity.
Funny, I think that Pope Benedict released a papal bull describing Catholic hell that way--a state of "eternal separation from God."
Which would suck, really, if you knew that there was God. An eternity of "doh!"
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Hey, *Americans* may come from apes, the rest of the world evolved from hominids ;)
(yes, yes I know... It's just a joke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominid )
FTFA linked in TFA there is this Gem.
But a Miami paramedic warned that taking God out of the classroom has led to immorality and violence. He related the beating death last week of a toddler by a 12-year-old in Lauderhill to the teaching of evolution.
Damn you Darwin, Baby Killer.
Jesus Mohamed Buddha Christ on a Jetski. I give up, I mean there is no reasoning with these people. Darwinism threatens their tenuous hold on faith, they attack it with the ferocity of the LAPD.
Can their beliefs not stand in the light of facts? Millions of people around the world seem to be able reconcile their imaginary friend's ability to breath life into clay with the fact that it cannot be done. Why is it so hard to keep this one too.
I recently had a discussion with someone who was of the opinion that he derived his "Human Worth" from the creator, and if then he was a product of evolution his sense of worth would become diminished to a pointless existence.
What a crock, I reminded him that all people are born with equal "worth" and their actions over their lifetime define and increase or decrease their worth to society and themselves. I'm not sure he understood, but it was worth a shot.
I am saddened by this news story and am grateful that in at least this school district, science trumps religion in the classroom. Religion trumps science everywhere else in this burg but at least "Our children is learning."
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Some people are religious Christians, some people are religious drunks, and, if you don't believe that science can be a religion, you have not tried to discuss facts with someone who has a pet theory. Atheism may be a religion for some people: it depends on whether they are atheists because they don't see the need for anything else or because they are against religion. Many people, perhaps most, are religious about the core things in their life because they accept them on faith and believe them dogmatically, whatever their philosophical underpinnings.
Science does require faith for the same reason that accepting the Bible as describing spiritual events requires faith: people do not, for the most part, directly experience the things they read about or are told. Sure, in theory, you could reproduce the Michelson-Morley experiment, but have you? Did you witness the Gettysburg address? Or do you just accept that someone has? Even if you are very skeptical, you cannot ever verify ever bit of scientific knowledge you depend on. People depend on a structure of reasoning and a framework to put those bits of knowledge into so that they *could* be tested, but practically, we trust each other (most of the time). Yes, they *are* different, but there are fundaments that are the same, and, even with religion, one should not blindly trust everything one is handed. That is why it is important to study and explore, to figure out what has meaning to you.
I am not saying that scientific reasoning and religious reasoning are the same. They are not. But in the end, meaning is where it is at; the rest fills time.
Is there a single athiest who has demonstrated a clear understanding of what Christianity actually is?
Every argument I've heard from them so far contains some statement like, "they typed this wrong, or translated this wrong, or My second cousin told me that it says this in the bible" And of course that's correct, but it's also the clearest sign that they need to read a book on Chistianity. (Among other things it doesn't seem like they've grasped the distinction between hearsay playing a role in the game and George Bush defining the whole game.)
There are only three possibilities.
1. All species that exist today have always existed. This would only be compatible with a steady-state cosmology.
2. Complex species appeared suddenly (with no predecessors). Observe as long as you wish, you will never see this happen.
3. Single-celled species appeared at some point in the past, and complex species evolved from those.
Guess which option I'd put my money on.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
....you don't know the definition of religion......
The definition you cite is only partial. Anything that becomes supremely important can become an object of worship. Money and material possessions become idols many worship and serve. Power over others and fame are not far behind. A supernatural aspect is not a necessary ingredient to religion. Atheists may not believe in the supernatural aspect of religion, but nevertheless have some overriding, consuming passion which qualifies as a religion. For some, evolution can also rise to religious fervor. Users of Apple or computers and less so Linux fans are often accused of religious fervor. For some it is sports. In short, any consuming passion can assume religious overtones.
All theory is gray
People say that Religious people are close minded, but my opinions are based on what I have observed, are yours? have you observed evolution? or did you read it in a book? or did someone else that read it in a book teach it to you. I was raised a God hating athiest too. but my current beliefs are based on what I have observed from the point of view of being an athiest. then reading books "after" observing. and then making my theory. And I will have more faith in Science when the corporations stop sponsoring/paying for it, just like the truth in the media. for me science is true when it is well proven not when it's made a break through and needs more funding. I beleive more of what i see rather then what I read. I enjoy reading all points of views with a truely open mind and it bothers me when I see hipocryts calling the other haters or stupid. I think religious people need to do their homework, and I think evolutionist need to stop misquoting mistranslations of quotes of the bible they don't understand. I also do not need definitions of what Religion is and what a theory is. If you step back with a true open mind, not just a "cha right, what ever" atitude and look at the amount of slamin on Christians on this and any other forum on any topic that touches religion, well, look who the peacefull ones truely are and look at the ones talkin shit. I agree their are a lot of Ignorant Religious people out there, but there is an equal amount of Ignorant evolutionists. and sorry John Lennon but Imagine there's no religion would not make peace, the Greedy would find some other form of leverage.
Oh - wait - religion wants us to be all meek and follow the leader and his disciples.
There is only one religion that always works and that is Murphy's Law. But there are some who think's Murphy was an optimist. - In short "Shit happens".
"Religion is only a crutch"
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Should have been evident from context that GP was talking about a Dyson vacuum cleaner, not a Dyson Sphere.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
I've never really seen evolution demonstrated
I've seen a model organism with four chromosomes develop a new genetically stable chromosome.
FWIW, evolution NEVER claims to be the origin of life, it is a most likely explanation of the diversity of life on this planet.
I've never seen any evidence of God.
Check, your move.
There are similarities in Genesis to other creation myths in geographically and epochally nearby cultures, but... it's point is pretty odd compared to them. Specifically, God did not fight off some other bunch of gods or proto gods or monsters or anything, then reform the world. God, in Genesis, makes the world from nothing by calling it into being. That, by itself, is the point of Genesis. Up until the creation of humans, the rest is pretty much window dressing and the window dressing is not particularly original. The other, theologically significant, point that many people miss is "that it was good." *This* is not window dressing and is repeated because it is an important theme of the story: the world was created as it was, whole and with a purpose: what with one thing and another, with conflict and change, good and evil, it's all *supposed to be there* and will come to a desired end.
The story may bear resemblance. The *theology* is different.
Here here. One of the things these bible thumpers always miss is that we have freedom of religion in this country...which implies as well a freedom from religion. If you want to teach creationism...do it in your own church.
Dyson (proper noun): Overrated bagless vacuum cleaner
http://www.dyson.com/homepage.asp
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
One of the things that would help the debate is getting at the core of the objection. Evolution, the idea that variation exists, is inheritable, and that some variants are more likely to reproduce than others, is not really "theory" as much as just description of observable phenomena at this point. The "theory" part, and what most fundamentalist Christians object to is not Evolution, but abiogenesis, the idea that life just kinda popped into place accidentally. This is just as dogmatic for many scientists (not all) as creationism is for many Christians. There are also alternate scientific theories, like the idea that primordial life was spread by comets. Abiogenesis can never be proven because our own origin is not reproducible. We could show that it might have happened, that it could happen elsewhere, but we cannot prove anything about how we got here. It's just a theory. Even Darwin was not convinced.
:-)
Recognize that distinction, and Evolution/Creationism are easily reconcilable. One is a scientific description of a process, another is a religious description of origin and, more importantly, *purpose*. The problem is that *nobody* uses the terms correctly and the issue gets confused. Even framing the argument correctly won't gain traction with the real fanatics (on both sides), but for the extreme Christian literalists, point out that today's species would have had to evolve from the small number of "kinds" saved on the ark, so they have to invoke evolution to support their own version of history
And "Newton's laws of motion" and "Kepler's laws of planetary motion" etc. Doubly bad to call them laws since we _know_ they are not 100% correct.
Getting back on topic:
My not-entirely-rhetorical question was prompted by watching some very public figures saying some factually incorrect things about evolution. Take Huckabee for example: "A person either believes that god created this process, or believes that it was an accident."
And elsewhere he's made it clear that he thinks Darwinian evolution is all about random chance; again, that's utterly false. He's not the only one. And this matters a great deal, not just for the state of scientific education in the years to come, but also for policy making in general: if leaders do not take the time to really understand views with which they initially think they disagree then we (both citizens of the U.S. and people around the world) are in for yet more trouble.
We share a lot of dna with a banana - what's your point?
Science explains how things work. It expounds theories about how we can make certain things happen consistently. What it does not answer is *why*. That is where religion (or philosophy in general) comes in. Without something to make it meaningful, science is empty and useless. And, before you say, "the quest for truth" or something like that, "Why?" Why does finding out the truth matter outside of a philosophy or religion that makes truth or exploration meaningful? In the end, none of it is rational because we are not merely rational beings. At the same time, religion does a lousy job with "how". We need to recognize that and move on.
Well obviously. Why would people reply to a post that they agree 100% with?
If there is a god creating everything, then this god is doing it in such a way that agrees with the theory of evolution anyway so what's the problem?
Until somebody breeds two dogs and gets a nuclear bomb (or some other thing) instead of the expected hybrid of the two parent dogs, I think evolution is quite a safe theory to use.
You're right. Shit.
Help I'm a rock.
Firstly, it's atheism, not athiesm.
Secondly, how can not believing in something be a religion? Do you believe in unicorns? I would guess not. So, by your reasoning you are member of the No Unicorns religion, right? Tell me, where is your church, and how often do you attend?
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
I just cannot understand why people should pay taxes to run state-funded schools. Companies, not-for-profit associations, and communities could run schools, and parents and private teachers could homeschool the kids. Same for universities. I see no need for centralisation in education. Quite the contrary, I see ample need for decentralisation. Instead of fighting over what to teach in state schools, I propose to break free from all catch-22s by simply making the problem irrelevant by switching to private schools. Let everyone learn what they want in a free educational market, and then let the free market economy choose the best people. As simple as that. Government, if it wants, could run voluntary certification programmes, although I would tend to say that similar programmes by NGOs would work just as good.
"The world will be a better place when we grow up enough, as a species, to put away childish things like religion."
Here's the odd thing: the 'lower' mammals don't have any such thing as religion, as far as we know. And religion probably developed pretty far along in the evolution of the human species. If religion is a backward thing, how come it came about as an 'advancement' at some point in the development of the human species?
No, I'm neither trolling nor am I believer or any such thing. Just trying to understand how these things happen. Of course, the unstated assumption here is that all development occurs in a monotonic fashion, from less advanced to more advanced; from a given situation to an improved situation. And evolution need not necessarily have the 'forward' impetus all of the time. Or does it?
Religion EXISTS. It isn't real (because all religions disagree, so either just one, or a small subsection of some religions are real).
Evolution however, is real. We have bird flu, cancer, drug resistances, pesticide resistance and so on to show it is real and happening. Natural selection is a theory that explains how this reality comes about. Evolution is real and exists. The theory exists.
Think about it, if there's no evolution, then drug resistance must be God trying to stop us curing illness. Therefore all medical research must be doing the work of Satan!
I exhort the Florida medical services to ban any medicine sales.
Any problem caused by a tank can be solved by a tank.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Whether or not the definition of atheism says lack of belief in god or not, many atheists do in fact treat their belief system with as much fervor as religious people. These are basically the "evangelical atheists", those who do not simply disbelieve god, but go about trying to prove god does not exist to all those around them, and remove all references and information regarding religion around them.
Personally, I think it's just as false to believe that it's impossible for a god-like intelligence to exist as there is to believe that one definitely exists without proof. If there's no evidence in either direction (because the evidence is basically impossible to prove in either direction, since it would basically be an entity greater than and existing outside of the observable universe) then it really can't be disproven or proven in either direction.
Going back to the original topic, however, no religious dogma should ever be taught in a science class. Science does have a specific definition, which "intelligent design" and creation myths cannot possibly ever fit into, because both are unprovable and untestable. People forget (or never learn) that science is not a belief system. Science is a process by which man uses controlled experiments and observable data to learn how the universe behaves. Evolution is science because there have been testable experiments and observable phenomenon that support it, and, importantly, because it can be disproven. ID/creationism are not science because they cannot be disproven (barring a time machine or a chat with a superdimensional intelligence that can control genes with his mind).
"Florida: proving Darwin wrong"
I can't make it any clearer, sorry
Evil: If you're wrong, Benson, my revenge will be slow and unpleasant. I will turn you inside out over a very long period of time.
Benson: Oh, thank you, Master. Thank you.
--Time Bandits
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
There you go again. Atheism is not a belief system. I am very serious about logic and scientific honesty and am very serious about evangelizing atheism and making religions go away. That means while I cannot absolutely prove my position, I can defend it fairly well. That said, I get fervor only when someone doesn't understand what I'm saying or accept that we can use logic in reasoning even about religion.
Personally, I think it's just as false to believe that it's impossible for a god-like intelligence to exist as there is to believe that one definitely exists without proof.You're right of course. However, some people are claiming that a god-like intelligence had something to do with creation, and might even be meddling with the world's affairs now! Such a god MUST leave behind evidence. If he does something that has a significant effect, that effect must be measurable. Because science is simply careful looking at the evidence and science does not see such an effect, it's outrageous to claim such effects still exist.
What if god created us and then disappeared? ID, you know. Well, if I designed humans, I'd make brains understand symmetry. It would be very easy to apply what I've learned about moving my right hand to my left one. A really simple mirroring. In reality, my left hand is almost useless compared to the right one. Clearly I wasn't designed by intelligence.
If there is a god who didn't create the world and doesn't have any other effect either.. Well, gee, what a god, you know. He might exist, but so what? That's not a useful hypothesis.
1 John 2:3-6 (NIV): "We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."
nevertheless have some overriding, consuming passion which qualifies as an obsession.
Fixed that for you.
If a being is all knowing, exists outside of time, and has absolute control over all matter, how -- you being limited in knowledge, and physically limited by time and space -- do you propose that you would be able to find any evidence of such a being's meddling? Logically, they could instantaneously cover up any such changes to the fabric of reality. If I were god, why wouldn't I set up a series of physical laws to define my universe such that it worked in an orderly fashion? And being god, if I so chose, what would limit me from breaking those laws and, for example, converting water into wine?
Anyway, I don't specifically believe in god, but I don't specifically disbelieve in god, either, and there's a lot more to religion for most people than simply "god said there was no dinosaurs". It gives them comfort in times of grief, it gives them hope for the future, it gives them faith that other people can be good people. I don't need these things in my life but I can recognize that other people might find god or religion useful. Who am I to take that away from them? As long as they're not bothering me (and it's usually the vocal minority that intrude on others' lives, like almost all things in life) I don't see any need to bother them.
Atheists don't believe that it's impossible for a god-like intelligence to exist, they just don't see any evidence to support that it does. Much in the same way that most people don't believe there are flying pigs, there isn't any evidence to support that they exist either.
Personally, I believe religion is a framework for answering questions we don't know the real answer to in such a way as to appease (or control) the masses.
Clergyman: Don't do that! Peasant: Why not? Clergyman: Erm... you'll go to hell where you'll be tortured until the end of time... yes, that's why. Peasant: Oh, alright then.
Not to say that religion isn't good in many ways. Sets out a great moral framework for people to follow. Some of us follow the same moral code however, without the threat of eternal damnation hanging over our heads if we don't.
Funnily, the Dyson from Quantum Field Theory is related to the vacuum cleaner Dyson.
i thought in florida only old-age pensioner settle
Well I belive in God, however I accept evolution as a very good therory (with all the evidences behind it). In my opinion religion and science should be really sepatated. Religon on one hand has some quite good moral lessons, and has some nice spiritual aspects, but science on the other hand describes the universe as we see it. Religion should teach people how to be nice, and be a good member of society and give them some spiritual balance, not explain phisics, or mathematics or whatever. Just 2000 Years ago Zeus was throwing his lightning bolts at us, and now we know, its just a big electrical discharge. That would be only my opinion...
Also I would have a question to any one, who does not accept evolution:
Wolud You marry Your sister/brother? Would You breed with Your brother/sister? No? Why? Are You afraid of Gods punishment? Maybe You are simply afraid of genetical disorder and other diseases, that would kill Your family in a few generations? Ok. Then HOW in the hell did Adam and Eve populate the planet?
Just a thought....
:)
This is not a bad thing. Religion serves as a coordinating force, organizing a society. It may be outdated today, but this was extremely beneficial to past civilizations. Summarized, religion is "This is the way things work, this is good, this is bad. Period." With religion, a huge number of people could be organized into supporting eachother.
Key point: Religion supports a strong warrior class. People willing to fight and die for their group. Good for war. Civilizations that are good at war tends to destroy other civilizations and spread.
As civilizations spread, they start to differ slightly. When they grow too big they fraction into different civilizations. Sooner or later, the stronger of those might conquer the weaker. Survival of the fittest, on a civilization scale.
Religion is also a product of evolution.
I lost my sig.
The unqualified teacher problem is rampant in the Southeast as well. For example, I have a good friend who teaches Highschool Spanish in Savannah, GA. There are two problems. He doesn't have a teaching certification (doesn't need one in GA) and worse, his degree is in...wait for it... Italian.
The mystery of the trinity is just as responsible as this theory. With both there is no valued mindset for a comfortable conclusion to what truth is. General religions are guilty of pandering to popular opinions that adds Confusion to Evolution Pollution. There is no third option to an on off switch. But here it doesn't matter when the light is burnt out!
Correct, and thats why I said that definition is almost arbitrary. We decided that its what makes a specie. But if you think that God created everything, YET that evolution is possible -within- one specie, then you have to also think that our definition "based on reproduction", which, as you pointed out, has flaws, is -exactly- what God was thinking.
Plus, a tiger and a lion can mate together, but they're quite different creatures. A lot more different than many creatures that can't mate together. Thats why you have to add "that produce fertile offsprings". But oh, in many cases, if you have a male of A, and a female of B, the offspring is not fertile, BUT, if you have a female of A, and a male of B, then the offspring will be! Plus, what can and cannot mate may change over time...
Basically, what I'm saying is, that definition of a species is simply arbitrary for classification purpose, and it has no real value in nature, thus is not possible for a given phenomenon to be universal, but only "within a species", unless it is part of the definition we gave to the word species, arbitrarly. If memory serves, I think Darwin agreed with me on that one.
Our definition of species is about as "good" as our definition of planet.
but i tell you santa is real !!!! =\
This rather works for Evolution too. It's the current Best that Science has to offer. There were many mis-steps along the way. There were religions spawned by early hominids' extrapolation of physical phenomenae. Along the way Humankind sought to further explain God. There were many mis-steps along the way.
The Gnostics thought they could divine God from Knowledge. Is that so different from Science or are we just at another lateral step?
you may actually realize that you too have a religion: you bow before the god of False Assumption my friend.
damaged by dogma
I'm from Scandinavia. I and my girlfriend plan to marry, but that's becoming increasingly unusual around here. Maybe when my kids grow up, they'll be writing books about how bad it is to be raised in a two-parent family and why multi-parent, flexible families are so much better. I'm not saying "divorced", because you can't have a divorce if people don't marry in the first place.
And birth rate? We're 6.6 billion people! Humanity's only hope for the future is that we can reduce that number. Having a high birth rate only means we'll have to kill eachother for resources some day. Keep in mind China, where low birth rate is the law, and be happy that you're from a country that doesn't have the same problem.
I lost my sig.
Twelve school districts refuting evolution? I thought science said Alzheimer's wasn't contagious?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Evolution is an easily observable fact - if we use dog breeding as an example. Everyone on the planet knows that if you mate two dogs of wildly different types you'll get some kind of funky hybrid. A recent example - the labradoodle. Seems like an easy way to undermine the whole "Evolution is not a fact" statement. Then it's just a simple matter of extrapolating from the unnatura selectionl to the natural selection - i.e. random couplings of breeding pairs will produce variant offspring - some will do well in the environment, some will not. Robert.
Remember that Einstein said gravity is not a force, it is the absence of all forces; an observer in freefall does not feel his own weight.
Most people's belief in science is based on 'faith'. Very, very few people have the intellectual capacity or education to truly comprehend or competently discuss the science that they believe in.
The average person who believes in evolution has only the dimmest understanding of the science on which those theories are based.
An astronomer can suggest that the universe is 12 billion years old and people will believe it. Then another astronomer makes another theory that the universe is actually 25 billion years old and people believe that. Ordinary people have no way of understanding the math, physics and other observations on which the theories are based.
A scientist may base his belief on evidence, but the ordinary person is basing his belief on 'faith' that that scientist is right.
I don't fricking lack any belief in any god. Lack of something means that there was or there should be something but for some reason it is now missing. So if there was nothing to begin with how can there be any lack of it?
You don't know what you don't know.
Its a theory, not a law. Evolution is unproven, it should be presented that way. A theory is an explanation that seems to fit the known set of observations. Evolution is a good theory and lots of people are confident that that is how life got to the state it exists here on earth today. That is how a responsible science instructor should present it.
Lots don't though, many present it as "this is how it happened", which is IMHO every bit as unscientific and wrong as the literalists/fundamentalists refusing to allow it to be taught.
I would think as a literalists/fundamentalists you would really want your children taught as much evolution as possible at least after they have been taught that its just a theory; but a well supported one; and what it means that something is a theory. After all It might be useful to understand your opponents arguments no matter how incorrect you believe them to be.
I know I would be much more impressed with the opinion of someone who posses and can demonstrate expert knowledge about an opposing theoretical model and still thinks their explanation is better then I would be by someone who just says may explanation is better and knows little about the alternate prevailing thinking.
In an intellectually honest debate with accurately defined terms there is plenty of room still for both evolution and Genesis.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Really, go back and check your facts. It will do more to illustrate the flaws in your argument than anything anybody here could say.
One does have trouble imagining how organs like the eye developed through mutation.
Nobody has trouble imagining how a less-effective eye (say, with no focusing lens) is more effective than no eye at all. One does have trouble imagining why God would create the human eye with the retina pointing backwards, into the skull.
Some think we came from pigs, some thing we came from primordial ooze through another mammal.
No scientist thinks we came from pigs. There's absolutely no scientific doubt that human beings are members of the primate order.
It's that one specific take on it dominates High School science classes and is taught as though concensus exists on it even though it does not.
But there is a consensus. The greatest fraud of the ID/creationism movement is to assert that there's no scientific consensus on evolution. That's simply not true - the consensus is there and is universal. There's some dispute at low-levels about who's precisely related to what when the genetic information, the stratiography, and the taxonomic cladistics don't quite match up - as they occasionally don't - but the consensus is there.
People do have a problem with Evolution trying to take on speciation though.
People who don't understand it have a problem. That's the fault of the abysmal teaching of biology in high school, which honestly is the best biology most people ever get. People who actually sit down and try to understand evolution understand easily how random mutation and natural selection create new species when subpopulations are separated, genetically, from their parent populations. Speciation is a population-level change in organization. It's not something that happens to individuals.
In fact that's true of all evolution. It's a population-level phenomenon.
Or maybe species started out very similar to what they are now and only changed a little over all that time.
That, at least, is a testable idea. As it turns out we have a dated record of the physical bodies of a lot of different organisms over Earth's history - the fossil record. And we can compare your idea to that fossil record and see that species have changed dramatically over the course of history.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
"Our attitude" toward science depends on who the "our" is, and where you look.
While there are a significant number of people in the USA who honestly believe in Bible-based fundamentalism (in various ways personal to themselves), many are pandered to by corrupt portions of the ulta-moneyed class in order to maintain their power.
Put it another way, the Bush/Cheney crowd don't honestly care about evolution, stem-cell issues, anti-gay histeria, etc., but if by putting up a good face to these issues they can get votes from a base that helps elect them to allow them to cut taxes to the ultra-wealthy, deregulate just about anything where a big buck can be made, eliminate the inheritance tax, give our social-security to Wall Street to manage, get a pointless war going to do god-knows-what in the second-biggest oil producing area on the planet and provide unsupervised billions of $ in free money or no-bid contracts to buddies, squash education and heath care spending, (etc.), they will gladly pay that price. And we see that they do.
Hey, you down there! This is GOD talking!
The administrator clearly doesn't understand how the US school system works. The kids always lose out. The education system is designed to improve the lives of the adults (parents, teachers, unions) involved in it, not the kids.
Its a theory, not a law. Evolution is unproven, it should be presented that way.
You're confusing the scientific use of the word theory with the english word theory.
All scientific knowledge is "theories", even when some become entrenched enough to be referred to as "laws", which has (in scientific jargon) no extra meaning whatsoever. For example, we have Newton's LAW of gravity, but Einstein's THEORY of general relativity which nonetheless supercedes Newton's "law" and proves it to only be an approximation that holds in limited circumstances! Of course in high school they teach you Newton's "law". Go figure.
Anyways, whether you call it a theory (whether or not using the scientific meaning of that word) or a law, you'd really be wrong in either case! Darwin's "theory" critically depended on a hypothesized mechanism for hereditary traits subject to some degree of variation, when at the time no such mechanism was in fact known! Since then of course DNA was discovered, proving Darwin's hypothesis to be correct.
If you consider the "theory of evolution" today, given the proven existence of DNA, then things like the creation of new species is nothing more than simple irrefutable logic - there's nothing in the least bit theoretical about it in any sense of the word.
The essence of evolution can be summed up by "survival of the fittest" (i.e. "those better able to compete, win") and the proven existence of an hereditory mechanism for those fitness traits (DNA) means that the fittest not only preferentially survive over the less fit, but that they also leave descendents who carry those same traits. It is therefore **inevitable** that species will evolve (DNA will change) over time in the direction of increased "fitness", and furthermore given that "fitness" (match between individual traits and the pervailing environment) is a function of environment, it is **inevitable** that a population divided into subgroups in different environments may genetically diverge. If the genetic divergence is sufficient to make interbreeding unsucessful then we call these seperate species (which will then **inevitably** continue to evolve independent of each other specifically because they have passed that "no turning back" point of inability to interbreed). There is nothing in the least bit "theoretical" about any of this given that DNA is a proven thing, no longer a Darwinian conjecture.
Darwinian evolution, "the origin of species", is inevitably going to happen regardless of whether god or any other mechanism is also creating new species. It is a plain fact, and absurd to deny it in a scientific classroom.
A theory is an explanation that seems to fit the known set of observations. Evolution is a good theory and lots of people are confident that that is how life got to the state it exists here on earth today. That is how a responsible science instructor should present it.
As above, new species creation (and evolution of existing species) according to Darwinian evolution is happening regardless of any other mechanism that you might like to theorise. The origin of life on earth in the first place, in it's simplest forms, is really a totally different matter than evolution and the creation of species.
Whether the first "life" occured naturally as chemicals similar to DNA/RNA/etc (or much simpler precursors) developed in the primordial "soup", or whether single cellular life arrived on a meteor from space, or was even created in an act of god makes no difference to the matter of evolution - given a starting point with an hereditory traits mechanism (DNA or a much simpler precursor), then evolution and the creation of new species will inevitable ensue.
I think many creationsists (or more generally those fighting the teaching of evolution) are confusing the origins of life with the origins of species, when they are in fact two diffentent things. Evolution and the origin of species is plain inevitable fact. The origin of life on earth is not so certain, certainly not proven.
No, it fits the facts.
Ergo, it's the best we've got. The closest we have to fact.
Are Newton's theories fact?
It's semantics: Your use of the word "fact".
Yes. Because there is, again, the implicit assumption that it's fact.
As far as the relevant debate goes, it's a lot closer to "truth" (if there is such a thing) than things which don't even qualify as hypothesis (like Intelligent Design).
That is true. Same is true if someone disagrees with you on evolution. But...
That's pretty unnecessary. If someone disputes the cellular structure of a potato, you can show them with a Microscope. You don't have to be an asshole.
Again, wrong. It is testable and observable. That doesn't make it real.
That's the first humble thing you've said all day, and a lot closer to the mark than "this is reality, and you're stupid if you disagree".
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Science is about making useful predictions. To some extent this is true, but that is not precisely what science is about. Perhaps that is what makes science useful, but science, at its heart, is about a quest for knowledge about the nature of things. This is often accomplished through the testability and falsifiability of its claims, but I submit that testability is not always possible. Should we immediately disregard something that may be true, just because it does not meet our testability criteria? With this being said, I do believe that intelligent design is at least somewhat testable. To test it, we simply need to disallow the cop-out arguments of the "God put evolutionary evidence there to test us" nature. And I do believe that intelligent design contends nicely.
Intelligent Design is not science period. It does not make falsifiable claims, which is another way of saying it does not make useful predictions. It should not be taught in science class (except as an example of what science isn't) purely on that basis. Try and be objective for a moment. There is plenty taught in schools that is no more falsifiable than intelligent design. One example is naturalism. When evolution is taught in schools, it is almost always taught from a naturalistic standpoint. That is, the first life is taught to have arisen through exclusively natural phenomena. Is this a falsifiable claim? Since life must have begun through either supernatural (intelligent design) or natural means (it must be one or the other), the only way to falsify this claim is to prove that life begun supernaturally. You see, using this reasoning, we can effectively reduce the falsifiability of naturalism to the provability of intelligent design. Likewise, the falsifiability of intelligent design can be reduced to the provability of naturalism. So why should we favor one over the other in schools? These two theories are merely functions of their presuppositions. Given scientific observation, naturalism actually seems less likely to me. There is not a shred of solid theoretical backing for the first life spontaneously occurring. It has repeatedly been failed to be demonstrated (by Stanley Miller and others). You also might consider the work on irreducible complexity by Behe.
I'm not saying we should take evolution out of schools. I am saying that we should stop teaching it as fact, because it is not. (Please don't give me a bunch of crap about scientific theory being basically fact, because I really don't want to regurgitate everything I've written in this post and my previous one). As far as I am concerned, it's not even solid theory. I think we should teach intelligent design right along side it, because like it or not, it is a feasible explanation for life (and in my opinion, it is the only feasible explanation). Thanks for reading.
Evolution has plenty of holes and problems.
I hate to do the you know whats wrong with America thing - but "I'm working my ass off to make sure my kids can go to the finest private non-religious schools available"
Why not work your ass off to help us have a government that produces the finest public schools available? We had great public schools before - so if its been before why can't we do it again. Giving up and just worrying about ourselves is only going to hasten the demise of this once great nation
listening to and reading some of Dawkins books and interviews and such, I'd hardly say that he understands Christianity. He basically refers to them as Psychos. And well when we look at who George Bush is well he may be right, but that is NOT who Christ is or was and teaches. It is unfortunate that we do have these Anti-Christ public figures speaking for Christianity though. I think it is important to understand the difference. And if something was not purposely created how can you say that it was not a random accident?
Does your world of war craft character have evidence that you are meddling with his existence? If an all powerful god exists, why should he be constrained to the laws inside of the universe that he has created? are you constrained to the laws inside of WOW? or do you exist in a completely different set of laws and dimensions? One of the biggest mis understandings about a God is that he must dwell within his creation, and there for be bound by the very laws that were created by him.
I don't have time to reply to each of your arguments, but if you read my reply to lgw it addresses most of them (if not all, all of the significant ones).
"As to evolution, of course you can observe it."
And let me add to that: in our laboratory, we use in vitro evolution to find nucleic acid aptamers that bind the best to larger proteins. One such RNA aptamer is on the market right now for treating macular degeneration. So not only can you observe evolution, it is advantageous for scientists to use experimental setups that mimic evolution to find the best (i.e., the fittest) molecule for a particular task. This has become quite common in modern drug design.
If you're claiming that failure to explain the origin of life is a failure of evolutionary theory, then yes, you have lumped the question of biogenesis in with evolution. Admittedly, naturalistic science doesn't have a good answer yet to how life first arose: there are a number of theories, but one guess is as good as another.
This doesn't validate intelligent design as a useful paradigm of thinking, for a number of reasons. First, what is your criterion for invoking the supernatural? Is it everything we don't understand today the work of a capital-C Creator? What happens, then, when we learn something new tomorrow? There's no way to divide the unknown from the unknowable, which means that you inevitably confine god to a marginal role as more is learned (the 'god of the gaps' argument). Second, ask yourself where science would be today if, say, Watson and Crick decided that the shape of DNA was a divinely ordained mystery, and not to be understood by humans, or if Ben Franklin believed lightning to be the wrathful finger of god. You don't learn more by willfully choosing ignorance.
The fact that you refer to Behe in your response to lgw explains a great deal. You might want to take a look at the number of papers published since 'Darwin's Black Box' which explicitly detail evolutionary explanations for the systems he erroneously labeled 'irreducibly complex;' he was quite embarassed during the Dover school district trial when the opoosing attorney plunked down stacks and stacks of work published on the immune system and flagellar motors. And his recommendation for experimentally proving ID is a joke--how exactly does one prove that a particular biological system could NOT have arisen under evolutionary arguments? These things, wholly independent of the religious angle, make ID worthless, and your arguments specious.
First, to answer your question, there's no reason to think that evolution invariably 'drives' toward greater complexity. If you took a population of humans and put them in an environment where food (particularly complex protein) was extremely scarce, then over time the high metabolic costs of advanced brains might well cause selection for simpler creatures more akin to our ancestors.
How did religion arise? Good question, and I don't propose to know the answer. Presumably a certain level of cognitive capacity is necessary for the idea to exist, so maybe human beings are the first creatures capable of holding religious beliefs. If all known human societies have some form of religion (I think they do, but I'm not positive) then that would suggest that something about our nature causes us to come up with religious ideas. Maybe it's nothing more than the fact that we're visually oriented apes with enough brainpower to ponder cause and effect living in a world where we can't always explain what we see (lightning, plagues, etc.). But, like appendices, or tonsils, the fact that it evolved in us at one point doesn't necessarily make it useful or desirable now.
No, certainly not. We just can't call it a useful scientific theory at that point in its development, and as such, it's really not a subject that we should bother covering in science class.
I agree with you. The problem is that the vast majority of ID supporters are simply religious people who like the way ID validates their beliefs rather than people who are interested in setting up a real test to see where the evidence leads them. The major people behind ID are simply PR organizations that are pushing it as a re-branding of creationism. I strongly suspect that's why nobody, not even the vaunted Dembski or Behe, have bothered coming up with and testing a testable claim. Until they do that, it's all philosophical hand waving.
Hold that thought for a moment. ALL of science is taught from a naturalistic standpoint. Why not complain that physics is also taught from a naturalistic standpoint? The orbits of the planets could be gravity, or they could be gravity + intelligent agency. If I suggested that, people would point and laugh. Why should biology be different?
You've had your hand slapped for conflating evolutionary theory with abiogenesis elsewhere in this thread, so I won't bother doing it again. In my experience, the subject you're bringing up is typically only given a few minutes' time and the answer amounts to "we don't know yet, but here are some thoughts." Again, we could apply the same standard to physics. "We know that electrons behave this way. We don't know why. Some physicists theorize X, and some people think that God likes them to behave that way."
Hasn't IC already been thoroughly roasted to death? Behe has never answered the point that one need not always *add* pieces to get to an IC system. He also doesn't appear to have done any useful work in the area, and every potentially IC system he has come up with has a number of theoretically possible pathways that he simply dismisses because they upset him. Sadly for ID, Behe is about the best they've got.
As long as they allow the Flying Spaghetti Monster in his Noodly Glory as well.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You didn't stumble upon him... I told you about him :)
I stumbled across him in the greek section of a philosophy book...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My WOW character is constrained by the laws inside WOW. If those laws are broken for him, it's a bug or an exploit, and I will complain loudly ;). I am not constrained by WOW laws when I am outside WOW, but I am, in WOW.
If something or somebody meddles with the world of WOW and its internal laws are broken, I will notice. That is my whole point - if a god meddles with this world, his deed cannot go unnoticed if it's significant.
By the virtue of looking. We have good knowledge about the physical laws of nature, and can make predictions with them. If reality significantly differs from prediction, that's evidence for meddling. At least if that difference is inconsistent - a consistent deviation from predictions would probably be explained by another law of nature we didn't know before.
A god is free to convert water into wine, and I am free to remember that wine used to be water and thus know that a miraculous thing happened. That's pretty much the point - if a miracle happened, people could tell that it's a miracle. Such miracles don't happen.
Yeah, a god could cover up any changes he makes, but that would necessarily include meddling with the brains of all living beings and all stored information, texts, audio and video. Because if only the scientists oddly forgot things when researching for something, other people would notice.
If a god would regularly meddle with world affairs and in doing so would fix everybody's memories and all other stored data, I'd very much choose to not worship such a sod!
Anyway, I don't specifically believe in god, but I don't specifically disbelieve in god, either, and there's a lot more to religion for most people than simply "god said there was no dinosaurs". It gives them comfort in times of grief, it gives them hope for the future, it gives them faith that other people can be good people.You're making a fair and important point here and I mostly agree. Not all religious views though, and not only religious views, have that property. Atheists I know don't seem to be any worse off than religious people I know. That's partly explained by the fact that hardship makes people more vulnerable to religion, so it's difficult to calculate the net benefit..
In any case, religion is dangerous. It necessarily involves the belief that one is right and righteous and others are less so. I find religious politicians are often the bad ones.
If you're actually interested in things that give comfort and hope, I heartily recommend "Ancient Wisdom, Modern World" by Dalai Lama. In it he deliberately avoids religion and uses common human experience in building a wonderful basis for a good life =).
You are right, real Christians who follow Christ's life example have none of the hatred or bigotry that the so called right wing "Christians" have! This is why there are allot of new Christian church's who do follow Christs teachings by his lifes example. Unconditional love is what Jesus is all about! I want my kids to learn this! I also want them to have a relationship with their true creator. In the end, what in life really matters without an after life? Its all only temporary. Maybe if you believe in Nothingness, then what thats what you will get. Only God has the true answers, yet we always try to play God here on earth. If we put all our focus on just our earthly existence, we will miss out on the bigger picture and the things we can only dream of understanding from a higher power. Blessings!
Well it looks like I had my previous message regarding this deleted. Do we have censorship trolls on slashdot? I'm sorry but thats not very "Christian" of slashdot admins! lol Anyway this response to another sums it up. I do believe that many people without spirituality can be good people and I am sure most of you are. I as well have been a none believer personally when I was young and seriously questioned authority and did not appreciate laws or their intension's. I also did not like Religions and felt they caused more damage than good. But to understand a spiritual belief fully and own it in your heart in its true intent and to experience the change in your life is another form of freedom that you would have to experience for yourself. To have a conversation with your creator and be great full for life and the blessings around you on a daily basis can be magical. So I can appreciate and understand the freedoms you are describing even though I would disagree that spirituality in its pure form limits any type of freedom but in actuality is freedom. I still to this day believe people should govern themselves, but in the end most people are not educated enough or ethically capable of doing this. So we must have a set of laws for these people to live by so that we can live together in some form of peace. Unfortunately many people do not have the internal guidance like yourself and need to know their purpose here and a way to live their lives and really do need a set of spiritual laws to govern their actions. I personally thought that I could find life's answers through science and education. But in the end it is a limited cause that really only spirituality and prayers to a higher power "God" gave me. If you where to study specifically Christianity and truly learn about Jesus (The New Testimate) and learn about his life, you would understand that there is no such thing as hatred, bigotry or any of the negative things that many so called "Christians" of the right wing may teach. Just like their are bad Muslims and good Muslims. I think there is some extreme mistranslations in teaching and many "Man" made cultural bias's which are passed on without spiritual basis. It really is a Journey that you should take for yourself and educate yourself, be objective and read the Bible and the Qoran or other well documented spiritual beliefs at least just to educate yourself on them. To be honest these things have been documented (Historically) but only through faith are they proven! No scientist can prove them or do I think they are or were ever meant to be proven in a physical sense. I thank you for the time and being open minded on the subject. I hope that your past experiences or judgments about spirituality can be set aside long enough for you to honestly explore them further to find their true meanings in your life and the lives of others. P.S. - I think at least a good objective and thorough "World Religions" class should be taught in high school as to educate teenagers on the subject of Religion and let them choose or not choose for themselves!
One wonders how this kind of thing happens. School boards have a range of non-curricular obligations, and aren't really tasked with curriculum at all. I recently had a chance to interview some of the people running for the local school board. I was part of a committee and asked two questions: 1) How does the candidate separate "general policy" from micromanagement? Most of the candidates made that distinction and I wanted to know how exactly they did it. A couple of them said they didn't want to micromanage but then described what they would do and it was micromanagement. So that was odd. Related to this question was number 2 "Do you feel that it is the board's role to promote any particular cultural values?" The candidates all said no, but one of them had included a transcript of some questions another community group had asked him. He said he thought there should be one Biology course with evolution and a different, separate course with Intelligent Design. In the interview, he didn't go that far, saying only that he didn't have a problem with ID in bio classes. Some other candidates said they didn't mind ID in a social studies class, or the Bible as literature, which was more than I expected. The guy who wants two Bio classes goes to Liberty University in their Distance Learning program. It's a project they give to their undergraduates: get elected to local office and start pushing the Liberty University agenda.
We were interviewing to determine the union endorsee. In his district he'll run unopposed if he wins the primary so it was an important decision. We can do things like this and our endorsement does count for something around here because Maryland isn't a "Right-to-Work" state like Florida.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
The issue with you is not science, evolution or even Christianity. It is your closed mind. God could appear before you and tell you "I created the universe with a set of rules and a structure that lead from the big bang to the formation of the elements, the stars, the planets, life and then through the process of evolution, that I set in motion, to man" and you would still deny the evidence before your eyes. If evidence or an appearance of God could not change your closed mind, why should others even try?
Many theists today (but not all) seem to equate belief and faith with denial, ignorance and lack of reason. Your limited imagination assumes evolution somehow disproves that a higher power exists, but if God is supernatural, then science says nothing about God by definition.
If you are wrong and worship the god of ignorance, then you lose your chance to understand your true relationship with God.
The fact that you "believe" in it doesn't make Intelligent Design a fact.
It does not even make ID a scientific theory since it does not involve the natural world, does not make testable predictions, explains nothing and is not supported by observable phenomena. Just making you and others feel better about your religious beliefs does not make ID a scientific theory, whether or not you believe it. A guess at an explanation is not a theory, it is a hypothesis. The ID hypothesis cannot be tested (unless you can get divine intervention) and so it remains at best a hypothesis.
I didn't mean to imply that at all. Perhaps it was poor word choice. I personally do not ascribe that connotation to the word "lack", although after checking a dictionary it's pretty clear that's what it normally implies.
Google Ciclids in Lake Victoria or Ring Species.
We have directly observed the generation of new species of fish, specifically ciclids.
Ring Species are rare but can be found several places. They are characterized by a genus of animal that surronds an impassible obsticale (Mountain range or huge lake etc). The original species expanded into the area and was split as it progressed down each side. By the time both sides met up on the far side of the obsticle they have all the appearances of two distinct species. However all the evolutionary changes are maintained along both paths. So while they can't directly breed with each other, they are still connected through a common ancestor which they CAN both breed with and still exists.
Personally I have absolutly no problem with teaching creationism. However it should not come under "Science" class. It belongs in a moral/philosophy class that teaches the wide range of beleifs our society is based on and just like basic science should be mandatory...
As it should be. Teach these things as "theories with tons of evidence". Problem solved.
Lisa Dizengoff made a good point. Creationists occasionally come close to making a valid point, although I've never seen them quite make it. Science is taught, until college, as a collection of facts. Science is, in fact, a method of understanding the world by testing assumptions or best guesses, called hypotheses, in order to determine and verify the best hypothesis, which may eventually be given the status Theory if it is robust and general enough. Although their specific hypotheses are atrocious, the rest of us could salvage some benefit from the noise of the Bible thumpers by calling for more emphasis in education on science as a method of learning than as a collection of facts, proven scientifically by others, to be dispensed like commodities and taken on faith by all who follow them. If the Bible thumpers' kids were allowed, in one class period per week, to challenge the Theories presented in whatever textbooks are in use, they'd have a much harder time feeling righteously indignant about their hypotheses being "ignored." In classes taught competently, the offspring will also notice that they're wrong. In general, nobody will be able to accurately claim that their point of view is being ignored.
People with certain types of color-blindness can't tell the difference between dark blue and dark green sweaters. Unless I first instruct them in the wave nature of light and the correct use of a photodetector, why should they believe me if I tell them their sweater is "really" a different color than mine?
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
This wikipedia entry is intersting when it comes to dissent about how Evolution works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
Also, less then 1% of fossils are ape-like yet almost every one discovered is said to be part of the line of species leading up to Homo Sapiens.
Also look at this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil
Which leads me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus) which has a picture of a 40% complete fossil which is painfully easy to tell that it is not enough information to draw the wild conclusions they do like her being covered in course hair and her facial structure since almost all of the facial fossils are missing.
Not really. A lot of High School science classes present Evolution as a theory of abiogenesis. Never mind that it has all kinds of flaws when applied as a theory for that. I literally watched a video in biology in High School where it said all life came from primordial ooze and didn't even attemp to explain how all of the sudden DNA popped into existance.
But evolutionary biologists have done a much better job of answering this question than I (or any other layperson) could; so if you really want the full answer, you'll have to read a book on evolution. (FYI, "The Blind Watchmaker" is pretty good.)
Now, people are often confused when they initially confront the idea from modern Darwinism that genes undergo some random variation while the overall process is said to be non-random. (Dawkins has referred to evolution as "the non-random survival of randomly varying codes".) To many this may seem contradictory, but it's not. It might help to think about casinos, where the role of randomness is a little bit similar to its role in Darwinian evolution. In a casino, the outcome of any individual role of the dice (or dealing of cards, etc.) is pretty much random. And yet we can be confident that the casino will consistently make a profit because the odds of its profiting in each game are in the casino's favor (a conclusion we can reach when we consider the details of each game and the probability of profiting at each iteration). So the process in a casino might be described as "the non-random accumulation of profits earned by a casino through large numbers of iterations of games where each game iteration has a random outcome".
Note, I'm not saying that evolution works like a casino. (: I'm just saying that randomness appears to play a similarly-sized role in both casinos and evolution: randomness is not the whole system, but rather it is a component of the system.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
calcapt:
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
What do you mean, that's not on the menu? I know the chef can cook it.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
I think we should put all murderers & rapists in prison for life, without possibility of parole or even of outside contact. I would be very curious to see, then, whether the people who remain free would decide they have a need for religion, or preoccupy ourselves solely with pursuit of happiness within our Constitutional and natural rights. This is just a pet theory, mind you, but I have this germ of a hypothesis -- which happens to be consistent with my views on law and science, both derived logically, as much as possible separately, on the premise of their respective purposes to humans generally -- that criminals are both the direct cause and primary beneficiary of the majority of preposterous beliefs classified under "superstition," "conspiracy theory," and "religion." Consider, for example, the doctrine of "original sin," the most obvious effect of which is to instill an unearned sense of guilt among the innocent. In light of that effect, I think it is only reasonable to speculate -- to hypothesize -- that the purpose of that particular doctrine is to instill such unearned guilt, in order to effect the irrational eagerness to forgive, which is the direct result of that doctrine. Any "intelligent design" would choose a form to follow its function, would it not?
Now that my little tangent, sparked by your "sense of harmony with life" gibberish is over, I note that your position is weak on less subtle measures, as well. The post to which you replied did not assert "equivalent plausibility" and your counterargument therefore applies only to the straw man you constructed, not to your actual opponent. Now, you seem to be forgetting the context of the thread, which is, in your words, "political stance X": use of public money in support of a particular religious dogma. The subsequent question to which you replied, why this particular religious dogma, is a fair one, in this context.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if some guy on Slashdot knows something that he hasn't submitted to Wikipedia, and nobody else has gotten around to updating the relevant article there -- yet. Anyway, that's a fascinating topic, and a much more interesting way to pass some near-term spare time than re-hashing the same tired old "Prime Mover" and "non-overlapping magisteria" arguments!
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
I'm not at all interested in judging you, but if you take offense at reactions to the use of public money to support an establishment of religion, FYI, I might think that's silly.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
So, as an expert on hominid morphology and the classification of bones, what do you think Lucy is and why?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/lucy.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter8.asp
The website cites sources so you can check the fact yourself. I doubt you'll believe even a word it says though. As for "Lucy", I can't say but I'm not going to make wild assumptions not supported by the evidence either. "Lucy" was a great find but taking that find and trying to wedge it in as some sort of missing link totally defaces the worth of the find.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
I've done as you suggested and searched both subjects.
The literature about the Ring Species was interesting, and I had heard about the Cichlids before, but all of the digging that I've seen refers to their evolution as something that happened over a span of time that far exceeds recorded history, and is therefore the product of speculation - albeit careful and thoughtful speculation, but speculation just the same.
If I have read the wrong description of the event, please provide something more specific, because that's what I came up with when I hit Google with those terms.
When I say observable, I mean something concrete that has happened and been documented in the last hundred years. I've seen mutations and breeding defects - like in cheetahs for example - but nothing that would actually prove or demonstrate the broader implications of evolution or molecular biology.
Trying to classify Evolutionism as science and Creationism as philosophy as they pertain to the origin of life, would seem to me to be hypocritical and a disservice to science. To restate my original conclusion, both explanations are unprovable (though people on both sides vehemently argue to the contrary) because neither was directly observed. It boils down to someone saying that one guess is better than the other.
An evolutionist looks at the complexity of life and sees millions of years of improbable but wonderful adaptation and specialization. A creationist looks at the complexity of life and sees a marvelous feat of engineering. They're both trusting to faith - one is a faith in the educated scientific community, the other is faith in the supernatural. It all depends on what one is willing to accept as concrete proof.
Both subjects belong in philosophy and should be optional. I fail to see how indoctrinating children into one view or the other is so crucial.
"You may not like that (I have no idea why)..."
(From a third party here): I know why he doesn't like it. Simple group-ego. He or she is an oh-so-special "human", much, much greater than lowly "animals".
People with low individual self-esteem have to resort to pumping up their egos via group identity.
Basis of racism, etc. Of course racists get resistance from other races. Imply all humans are somehow "special" and very few people will disagree.
1) Of course less than 1% of fossils are ape-like. Far less than 1% of all organisms are ape-like.
2) Your claim about most fossils being classified in homo sapiens lineage is...well...false, and the AiG links don't support it. As far as I can tell, you've essentially made it up, just like you made up the claim about scientists being unsure if we're more closely related to pigs or apes. Fabricating factoids to make your point doesn't do you any good.
Let's just say that history has taught me to be skeptical of AiG's claims. As for your links, they're the typical AiG gambits:
1) It's all in how you interpret the evidence [neglecting to point out that people who study fossils for a living generally agree on one interpretation and people who run churches and write "science" books for the popular press agree on another].
2) The Vast Scientific Establishment is suppressing good science to keep the Truth from being known.
3) They use the phrase "the missing link" which makes biology educators weep bitter tears.
4) By rejecting most of modern physics and geology, they can shoehorn in a reasonable sounding "interpretation" of the data. And of course, for that totally reasonable interpretation to work, we need merely reject most of modern atomic theory, quantum mechanics, cosmology, and geology. Then everything fits with only a few holes, and for all that effort, we get a theory with zero predictive power. Yay!
The saddest part of the whole thing is that AiG is probably the most honest and professional of creationist organizations. If an argument is totally flawed in a way that even a child can understand, they usually retract it. If it's only subtly flawed, it stays in, but that's generally true of most organizations that are more interested in doing PR than science. We can only ask so much.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You obviously missed my post on the use of the word shoehorn.
Also like I said you didn't belive anything they said. You didn't disspove anything they said either. Instead you put up this fantastical straw-man argument and shot it down. AiG doesn't reject atomic theory, quantum mechanics, cosmology or geology but go ahead and keep thinking that.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Evolutionary theory works not just with the bones that are found but with the time lines calculated for those bones. AiG's interpretation only "works" with the bones. They reject the time lines and in the process come up with some of the most fanciful and crack-headed physics I've seen outside of the time cube guy's web site. They jump from having an eccentric but logically consistent interpretation of a set of bones to unsupportable nonsense like flood geology and atomic constants that jump all over the place to support their interpretation. That's where they start having a logically untenable position, because they claims they make are thoroughly stomped by the observable data. It's not just the bones. It's observations from several other scientific fields that they have to explain away.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
Man introduced Ciclids into lake Victoria about 200 years ago. There are now a dozen more species of Ciclids than were ever introduced and they are all found exclusivly in lake Victoria. Also other African lakes with Ciclids have shown similar but not quite so dramatic changes. I remember an exibit from the Field Museum in Chicago where a sample of Ciclids were inventoried. Shortly after the local fisherman started using nets with large holes. A few decades later the fish in the lake were inventoried again and they discovered new species of small fish. The then fisherman changed their nets to catch the smaller fish. Very quickly large fish developed which were capable of breaking through the new nets. This is only remarkable because the large species is different than the original large species. This is less significant than the lake Victoria example because it is possible (although very unlikley) that the species already existed and was just missed in the very through inventory earlier.
Ring species are simply a proof of evolution. There is no way to explain them in a faslifiable maner without evolution.
Also, I suggest you research chaos theory. You will find that in any complex, self-supporting system with an energy input, complexity will tend to increase and at the same time make the system more stable against outside disruption. In biological terms, the clotting cascade is a perfect example. To clot we have a large number of steps from the initial injury to a final clot. Each step provides a handle for added control. Currently we need each step to work right or we will either spontaneously clot (your blood becomes solid in your veins) or not clot at all (we bleed out from a minor scrape). Through random changes it is very easy to add steps to this system but extremly difficult (but not impossible, look up dolphins) to remove a step without killing the organism. At this point in history we are absolutly reliant on our blood to transport the oxygen we need for our high energy lifestyle. However this was not always the case. Some species of sponges have a blood equivalent but minimal if any clotting ability. They can do this only because they don't NEED blood. They can survive without it, it just makes the sponge more efficient so they can afford to bleed out as the tissue around the wound heals instead of stopping the flow first.
We know through direct observation that speciation happens through evolution.
Now, with that all said, you are correct. Evolution as an Origin of life is WRONG. Evolution requiers a funcitoning system to work on. The system can be extremly simple but it still must be minimally self supporting. Therefore by deffinition, evolution cannot be the origin of "life." All the development from the point of the first self supporting sytem onward CAN be account very well with current evolutionary theory. But just because evolution can't demonstrate how the first life form originated doesn't mean we have to resort to divine intervention.
For evolution to work, we must have a self supporting system. This doesn't mean it has to be made of lipid membrane bound protein, sugar and nucleic acid as we see today. As I understand it, the current hypothosis is that life probably started as free floating RNA in a sheltered lake with some specific but relativly common clay types in the rocks. The entier lake would be a self supporting system and would be "alive." Over time evolution would add complexity and optomize the chemistry to encorporate simple proteins and lipids as they would make the chemistry easier. Eventually all the necessary components would happen to be enclosed in the lipids they were associated with (this is a very easy senario to replicate in the lab) and form the first cell. Since everything was self contained it would be many times more efficient and this this cell would quickly consume the resources of the lake and spread out across all habitable areas on the globe. In all probability there would only be one cell randomly form
The literature I read about Lake Victoria must have been completely false then as it was referring to periods of 20 to 40 thousand years in respect to the evolution of the cichlids.
I don't fully agree that evolution, as it is being taught currently, is conforming to your ideal of falsifiability, but YMMV based on the curriculum I suppose. If science was taught as purely as you are presenting it, then I would agree with you, but my own practical experience with it has been much to the contrary. You are one of the few people I have encountered who did not use science to prop up a strong religious belief in humanism that is openly hostile toward potential detractors. Pure science should welcome contradiction and embrace different viewpoints as a means of determining the ultimate goal of truth.
What I'd like to see happen:
Creationist: The universe was sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkelseizure and that is the origin of life.
Scientist: That sounds far fetched. Prove it.
Creationist: I have proof, it's in the ancient texts of the Arkelseizure - that's what it says happened.
Scientist: No, I mean prove it with science.
Creationist: I can't prove it with science because it's not a scientific explanation. Well, what do you think happened?
Scientist: Crude protein combined to form the origin of life and successive recombination led to greater sophistication until life became what we see today.
Creationist: That sounds far fetched. Prove it.
Scientist: I'm working on it. I've reasoned out ways that it could have happened, and since a lot of people agree with my logic, that's almost the same thing as proof.
Creationist: No, I mean prove it by showing me in the texts of the Arkelseizure.
Scientist: I don't think the texts of the Arkelseizure are right, and a bazillion people agree with me.
Creationist: I don't think your reasoning is right, and a bazillion people agree with me.
Scientist: Oh, well whatever, best to keep this about science and not a popularity contest. Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're wrong, new discoveries happen all the time. I need to get back to doing science, good luck.
Creationist: I believe I'm right, and that's enough for me. I need to go do my hanky ceremony to prepare for the great return, see ya around.
But what happens most often is more like this:
Creationist: The universe was sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkelseizure and that is the origin of life.
Scientist: That's insane. Prove it.
Creationist: I have proof, it's in the ancient texts of the Arkelseizure - that's what it says happened.
Scientist: No, I mean prove it with science.
Creationist: I can't prove it with science because it's not a scientific explanation. How dare you doubt the word of the Arkelseizure, you will be condemned to the pit of eternal earwax!
Scientist: Crude protein combined to form the origin of life and successive recombination led to greater sophistication until life became what we see today. Only morons don't know that.
Creationist: That's complete horse manure. Prove it.
Scientist: I have proven it, and all the smart people agree with me, Neanderthal. I can't believe you're living in the dark ages. You shouldn't even be allowed to teach such nonsense. I'm getting a court order to have your theory removed from school.
Creationist: You shouldn't be allowed to teach blasphemy against the great Arkelseizure, see you in court. You'll see how wrong you are.
Scientist: nuh-uh!
Creationist: yes-huh!
Scientist: NUH-UH!
Creationist: I'm telling the Arkelseizure on you!
I've seen it go round and round and round like that enough to make me sick. Neither has any proof, and both believe that the other is inferior for not agreeing. Half of these people are only casually acquainted with the creationist or scientific theory they subscribe to and end up bandying around absurd arguments anyway. I'm tired of the faith of bo
I appreciate your compliment and my coworkers now wonder why I am grinning and blushing! I have just one further comment.
Your comment "The fact that the current (most popular) scientific theory of the origin of life seems to change with each new discovery or theory is precisely why I do not believe it should ever be taught as or considered fact." actually proves that evolution "conforming(s) to your ideal of falsifiability." Specific aspects are proven inadequate (common) or wrong(very rare) and replaced. Just like Einstein's theory of gravity proved that Newton's theory was wrong and therefore replaced it. Just like the egyptian Pi of 3 was proven wrong and replaced with 3.14... . That is the essence of scientific exploration.
But I also think you are confusing the deffinition of fact, hypothesis and theory. A fact is a direct observation. A theory is the reasoning that results in the observed fact. A hypothesis is a specific test to evaluate and attempt to disprove a theory.
Therefore:
Fact-New species are created through genetic diversification of ancestors.
Theory-Environmental pressure creates a force to encourage the strong and discourage the weak therby exploiting pre-existing or new genetic changes.
Hypothesis-Putting a species in a new environment will cause an observable change over time.
Fact-Jesus Christ led a ministry in and around current Jeruselum circa 30AD and was supsequently executed for blasphamy and sedition. (Confirmed through innumerable 3rd party records that outnumber the 3rd party records that prove the existance of Julius Ceaser)
Theory-The big JC is the son of god and his death liberated the rest of us from our sins just like he said.
Hypothesis-Try to come to a saving knowledge of Christ and find out for certain.
As far as our discussion goes:
Fact-The biblical record has proven to be remarkable accurate from the time point of the book of Exodus onward. (Confirmed through archeological evidence)
Theory-The book of genesis is equally accurate.
Hypothesis-??? Hence the problem.
Fact-Modern lifeforms requier a complete biosphere to survive and the initial environment on earth could not support said life.
Theory-The non-living earth gave rise to living organic lifeforms.
Hypothesis-Create an environment like found on primordial earth and see if organic life arrises within a statistically relavant time.
No one but a lazy reporter or a politician say "evolution is fact." People who know about it say "evolution is a proven theory." While I freely admit that the abiotic start of life is not yet a "proven theory" neither has it been disproven to the point that it is impossible. I personally am looking forward to the first true abiotic life created in the lab.
I also sadly agree that your conversation is disapointingly accurate. I have really enjoyed conversing with you. In the end, science needs to be kept out of morality because it cannot provide a why, only a how. Religion needs to be kept out of science because it cannot provide a how, only a why.
The adverb "religiously" as you used it derives only loosely from one aspect of religion, the practice of religious rituals. You are asserting an equality by means of the false implication that the adverb "religiously" [as in regular performance of an action or adherence to a behavior pattern] is more similar -- in fact, identical -- to that subset of habits that are religious rituals. The difference is in the reason for habits, and is not trivial. Scientists practice the habit of quantifying their results, for example, for a good reason. Likewise, on the generous assumption that you habitually brush your teeth, you do so for a good reason, which does not derive from worship of teeth, a high priest with a degree in dental medicine, or a dental deity. One common usage of the sound denoted by that combination of letters "religiously" is as you characterize it, but the similarity in sound does not trump the difference of meaning. The existence of the colloquialism "religiously" to refer to all habits is not sufficient to bridge the gap in meaning between religions, and all habits of all kinds. Outside of religion, many things are done regularly, which you sloppily equate with ritually, in order to conclude the falsehood "religiously," in order to then equate the distinct, unequivalent usage of that adverb with the noun "religion."
No, it is much deeper than that. Not all alcoholics are 'religiously alcoholic' in the same way that not all scientists are dogmatically so. It is a matter of how you define your life and purpose. Many drunks have used drinking to replace purpose and meaning: burying themselves at the bottom of a bottle, feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt, a fundamental view of a universe that is uncaring or that cares, but in which they themselves are worthless, abandoned. Or possibly a belief in entitlement, that they have a right to the production of others and simply do not have to contribute, are better than everyone else just because. I have met both kinds as well as those who have simply been caught up in habit or addiction.
In the same way, many scientists are wedded to certain views completely outside the view of a rational universe or the pursuit of truth. They believe certain theories to be true because they were taught it and will fight tooth and nail against anyone who opposes the standard model because change threatens to topple the foundations of their world, the patterns around which they have built their life. This is why science often stagnates for long periods until someone who is determined to find truth, explore alternate theories on their merits to accept or discard them, comes along and shakes things up. The punctuated equilibrium of scientific development. This is simplified, but it has a point.
Religion also has similarities in having differences in the way it is approached and practiced. Again, I am not saying that science and religion are the same; they are certainly not. You seemed to have missed that in my post. However, they have at their core, a pursuit of truth, even if vastly different kinds. Religion does not care about causality and repeatability. It does not care if it can be proven. That is not and never has been the point, even if many practitioners lose sight of that. It is about exploring meaning. Some people take up that exploration as their call. Others, just like some scientists, get locked up in particular dogmas and practices, frothing at the mouth about people 'going to hell'. In order to belong to a particular religion, there are core beliefs and practices, but how that is personally applied and what it means to the individual is really the important part. I, for instance, took many years to finally settle on a specific choice of religion; I will be exploring meaning and determining the way I wish to live for my entire life. That never stops
http://www.expelledthemovie.com/blog/ You say "Yay!" sarcastically, but this group produces theories with zero predictive power like Toyota produces automobiles. Occam's Razor suggests -- unless it requires -- that such consistency is not the result of random chance but of unintelligent, designed malevolence.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
What's your opinion about the idea that God created life on Earth and set up evolution to eventually create human beings (to whom he eventually sends his son)?
I'm an agnostic, so I'm unsure about the existence of God, but even I can see the beauty in that.
B. Evolution has nothing to do with atheism. Evolution has nothing to say on the existence of God.
Yes it does. God has always been at the very heart of the evolution debates because evolution speaks to creation and one of the jobs that is usually ascribed to God is 'creator.' It's disappointing to get modded as 'troll' for attempting to talk about the other side of the 'evolution in education' discussion. People need to open their hearts along with their minds if they want to understand why so many care about this issue rather than just cover their ears and say 'Everyone who disagrees is against science!' followed by 'I can't hear you!'
If you could demonstrate that with sufficient evidence, you could even convert me away from my athiest beliefs.
;)
However, I ain't buying it. God wouldn't have a seven-digit slashdot ID.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.