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Louisiana Passes Intelligent Design Law
H0D_G writes "The US state of Louisiana has passed the 'Science Education Act,' a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: 'The act is designed to slip ID in "through the back door"'"
Watch this be shot down in court like the last one in....
ID is such a piece of bullshit.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
So, when are they going to give equal time to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Kevin Smith on Prince
are we so afraid that science will lose the fight?
Sounds similar to our irrational fear of communism.
The truth will win out in the end.
And I don't mind letting kids know that maybe (just maybe) science doesn't have all the answers.
Dawkins doesn't have all the answers, you know.
You make fun of Christianity's aversion to homosexuality, but the fact of the matter is that the harsh restrictions on the lifestyles of Christians make the taboos such as homosexuality and miscegenation all the more attractive. Such extremes such as celibacy have forced even priests into the arms of pederasty.
Christianity and religion as a whole encourages the polarization of actions into "good" and "evil" and by forcing the pendulum to the "good" side makes the "evil" side more attractive than an a-moral philosophy can do.
There's no need to be a "Bible-belt" politician - a simple politician will do.
It seems that in Louisiana the Bible thumpers have gained some pretty big influence, if the 94-3 and unanimous votes mean anything. A veto would have no chance to stand, so Jindal took the easy way out and signed the law.
However, he might have lost a lot in the process. By not challenging the majority, he just stands in the middle of the mainstream. If he had vetoed the law, he would have stood as a voice for reason. He might have lost the next election, but he's liable to lose it anyhow, since he seems to be indistinguishable from at least 94 other politicians.
Evolution is both a theory and a fact. (un)Intelligent design is pile of crap sugar coated to look like science. It is not a valid scientific hypothesis because it doesn't have an valid data or methodologies to back it up. I don't know what state or school you were taught in, but in most classes I have attended, the focus isn't on the theory but on how and why the conclusion was reached, it a sad day when politic have driven education to put the focus on the conclusion rather than how the conclusion was reached.
Get your head out of your ass and learn how science works before posting such idiotic statements.
Why is the act called the Science Education act while no science at all is involved?
The problem isn't proving that evolution is true. The problem is that ID can't be proven false. It's like demanding Scientology be taught in schools because it can't be proven false even though most sane people know it's just bad science fiction.
Well, given how badly misreported this law has been, I'm not surprised that you misunderstood it.
All this law does is provide legal protection for teachers to tech "alternate views" to the Theory of Evolution. It is NOT exclusively restricted to ID teaching. This could, logically, also include FSM theory. So don't worry, be Happy! Teachers in LA can now ALSO tell children about the Noodly beginnings of humanity in addition to other creationist teachings.
Seriously, this really is much ado about nothing. It's just an anti-stupid lawsuit law, to protect teachers who simply ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that not everyone believes ToE is correct. That's it, nothing more, no matter what the militant Atheist sites and D-Kos may say.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
No, because the whole point of science is never knowing for sure. You can never stop investigating and experimenting, because there are always things you don't know that you don't know and you have to question everything.
Yes, you can have a significant body of evidence that supports a theory, which can reliably predict outcomes. Classical Newtonian Physics, for instance, works for most things you encounter in your daily life, but is hardly the last word on Physics. Hell, field theory and quantum mechanics pretty much undo it, at least at the microscopic level.
Similarly, Mendelin heredity more or less works, but is hardly the last word on genetics. Even since the discovery of DNA, we've learned all sorts of new things.
Evolution is an observable natural phenomena. Natural Selection seems to explain it, but there could be other things we don't know and so we have to search them out.
Hell, God *could* exist and *could* have intelligently designed the universe. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible. What *IS* certain however, is that the certainty with which ID/Creationist proponents cling to that crap belies any scientific credit that their approach has.
Certainty is the antithesis of science, at least in my view. I'm sure some PhD will come along and bitch slap me down now.
As soon as the ID crowd can provide proof of any sort to move their take on things from fairy tale category to testable theory, then they can begin teaching it in classrooms.
You're missing the point, ID is not science and shouldn't be taught in a science class. It's perfect for a class on religion or christianity, but don't even try to present it as some sort of equally plausible alternative to evolution.
When I was a kid in school I had classes on all the major religions, and their creation myths, including christianity. I've read the old testament in literature classes. I've had physics classes that taught about the Big Bang. And I've had biology classes that taught evolution.
Noone is saying that we shouldn't teach everything, but each thing has a place, and biology classes is not the place for ID.
I hear this excuse for ID all the time. "We need to teach both, for the children to have a well rounded education".
I'll meet them half way. Go ahead teach your ID in schools, For The Children. And because we care so much that the children receive both sides of the story, you start teaching evolution in Sunday School. After all, it's for the sake of the children.
While I agree with you, teaching philosophy in science class is not the way to achieve critical thinking.
ID is a philosophy, and not an alternative scientific theory. As such, I have no problem with it being taught - just with it being taught in science class.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Science education in this country is getting ridiculous. We go and try to teach scientific "facts" to kids before we actually teach critical thinking and scientific method. It's the NATURE of science that there are - or should be - no "sacred cows" - including evolution or ID or whatever. There is NO room for dogma in scientific thought, and we are seeing way too many people discount notions of the supernatural simply because it's supernatural. Science should be open to everything - including the unmeasurable and unexplainable.
True enough, but it's a shame that the ones who are going to lose out the most in all this are children, who've had nothing to do with the decision and don't really know any better.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Such extremes such as celibacy have forced even priests into the arms of pederasty.
What the hell? You think not being able to have sex with women makes people have sex with little boys? That's a whole new level of ridiculous.
They are allowing it to be taught on equal footing (I think). That would be similar to allowing an alternate teaching of gravity. Nobody has proven the fundamental reason gravity works, though it has been demonstrated that the effect has certain parameters and is highly repeatable. Evolution has similar backing. Other theories, such as the various stories of creation by Christians, Pastafarians, et alias, do not have the base of scientific review. It is not "science." It should be taught in the appropriate class - i.e. Religion.
If some people want to call parts of science class a sham, that's fine. Science has been shown to be wrong in some cases over time, such as the model of the atom, but science is specifically about updating as new discoveries are found. Don't start teaching religion in science class, or literature in mathematics class for that matter.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
That's the real problem. We need to teach critical thinking so that people can recognize the morons when they see them.
No sig today...
I don't even believe that it's any particular sect of Christianity. I know members of various denominations, and the majority of any seems to believe that ID is simply a rebranding of creationism, and by definition isn't science. (Although, most of the people I know are either employed, or related to those employed in the life sciences).
The one group that seems to be more highly associated with ID in my personal experience (for what it's worth) is Born Again Christians. My grandmother is a firm believer in ID as something that should be taught in schools along side science, but then again she's also emails me religious spam half a dozen times a week
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Relax, the entire world is becoming more and more secular if you look at the statistics.
In fact, the outbreak of fanatic islamic terrorism has a secularizing effect on the moslem world too, because most regular moslems think the fanatics are fucking nuts and distance themselves from them. This splinters islam in the same way that the reformation once started splintering christianity.
The more choice of religion people have, the less religious they will be, since it's obvious that if a bunch of different religious groups all claim to the the One True Faith, none of them are.
The louder the various fanatics scream, the less people will actually listen to them, so in the end, this whole ID thing will only make the US more secular.
And you've assigned the blame to a small sect in the Roman catholic church, when there's small sects in nearly all religious groups that don't practice what they preach.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Are there any other theories supporting how humans and all the other species currently on earth got here? ID is not a scientific theory anymore than me stating that the extra terrestrials delivered us all here from some intergalactic ark. The problem here is that people don't realize the difference between cockamamie theory with no evidence to back it up, and a real scientific theory. Teaching intelligent design in school is quite comparable to what happened many years ago when people were taught that the earth was flat, or that earth was the centre of the universe, even though all knowledge from the scientific community points in completely the opposite direction. I'm all for teaching children the alternatives if any real ones exist. But just because a lot of people choose to believe something, doesn't make it fact, and doesn't mean that it should be taught in science class.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
So, should we also protect teachers who simply ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that not everyone believes the Earth is round?
A teacher's job is not to tell the children what some people believe, his job is to teach what is known to be the most accurate theory in existence.
As for teaching alternative views, I have nothing against that, as long as they are presented exactly as that: alternative. If a teacher presents the "ID" theory in class, it should be shown why ID is not a reasonable alternative to evolution. Children should be aware that ID exists, because they will find it mentioned outside of class, but they should be aware that a well-informed and intelligent person would have absolutely no doubt that evolution is the correct alternative.
Your broad brush that says it's cool to hate Christianity right now is incorrect. Some people that label themselves Christian give the concept a bad name.
In the US, the separation of church and state should be strong; the concept's been in the US Constitution as a principle from the Articles of Confederation. Once again, a legislature tries to impose dogmatic/orthodox beliefs on others. It's been happening as long as the constitution has been around, and it will be struck down like the rest of the attempts.
Louisiana now joins Tennessee, Kansas, Indiana, and other jurisdictions where the votes have been for legislated morality.
And so fie on your sense of hatred of Christians-- it's a small orthodox lunatic minority that gives Christianity a bad name. Fight them.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
And pray tell, what scientific alternative to Evolution is there? Name one scientific hypothesis or theory which can be used as a substitute for Evolution.
Contrary to your sniping at militant atheists*, this DOES allow the teaching of ID and other religious, not scientific, based precepts in a science curriculum.
Um, yeah. I dare you to find one teacher in Louisiana who, even as a joke, would teach anything about the FSM. I guarantee you that should any teacher be so bold to do so, calls for their head on a pike would immediately go out regardless of what you claim this law says.
Here's a question: why is it that one, and ONLY one, religious group wants their viewpoint shoved down everyone elses throat yet, when the mention of allowing children being exposed to other religious or cultural viewpoints these same people have apoplectic seizures because somehow that could "contaminate" the children. If it's acceptable to shove your views down my kids throat, why can't I do the same to yours? After all, if you're just trying to provide equal opportunity to show different points of views, then you shouldn't have a problem with other people having their say.
*I laugh every time this phrase is used because a large portion of the people who don't want ID to be taught in school come identify themselves as one of the four major religious groups.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
So I guess gays should be thanking Christianity for the centuries of persecution? What with it making homosexuality cool and all.
Seriously I don't see your point. So more people might try homosexual experiences on account of the taboo aspect. So what? It isn't the browser wars - gays and straights aren't competing for market share. I think you'll find most (actual) gay people would rather live in a world where they have the same rights as straight people rather than a world where they're treated like second class citizens or worse by large parts of society but get the occasional come-on by a curious Christian.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Public school teachers have no right to teach "alternate views" based on mythology and superstition. If a chemistry teacher starts teaching alchemy, they should be fired for incompetence. Same goes for a science teacher trying to teach Intelligent Design.
Wow, troll? Is there really someone who missed the whole Catholic priest scandal?
To mods: I wasn't implying that all Catholic priests are pedophiles... sheesh!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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How do you propose science does that, exactly? Do you know what science is or how it works? Were you "educated" in Louisiana?
I'd love to hear your ideas on how to scientifically test something you can't measure. Even better, tell me how science should pursue the unexplainable since, by definition, it's unexplainable (according to you).
Once upon a time people couldn't explain why or how illnesses were passed on, but science came up with the germ theory of disease. Would you prefer that we just continued to think of it as unexplainable or attribute it to demons and hating Jesus?
Alas, I am becoming a god.
So what? You said it yourself. It allows teachers to teach 'alternate views' of the Theory of Evolution. Such as that it's wrong, and they'd better read their Bibles. The protection from lawsuits is just a happy side-effect.
If you think that this will ever be used to teach anything other than creationism, then you are:
1) Hopelessly Naive.
2) Someone who has never been to Louisiana.
This law will ensure that no one from Louisiana will ever receive a real education.
I think spending your whole life being taught sex is dirty and evil, and dedicating yourself to spreading that myth, causes the sexual urges that never stop coming to express themselves in strange and awful ways. Like fucking kids.
Normally, I don't feed trolls, but here goes just once...
Proofs exists only in the abstract world of mathematics and logic. In the real world there is no such thing as a proof... only very, very compelling evidence, and theories that spot-on predict experimental outcomes. And of course, evolution being an intractable algorithmic process, you by definition can not predict the exact outcome of any evolution. But again, if you have ever bothered reading anything on evolution, you would have known that Darwin and evolution is not about the "why" or the "where to" question. Only about the how...
Complexity is a measure of our ignorance...
What I find weird about these first few comments is that Catholics have nothing to do with intelligent design. It's a born-again thing, and they utterly hate Catholics.
Well, I wouldn't call the Black Sea a small inland lake.
My aversion to homosexuality has nothing to do with Christianity. My aversion is rooted in evolution; the "yuck" factor maintains reproduction. Evolution depends entirely on reproduction!
A lot of Christians make too much noise about a minor sin like homosexuality that is none of their damned business (and none of mine) while ignoring major sins like malicious lying, adultery, war, wanting others' possessions, stealing, execution of criminals, etc.
They would try to take a speck from their brother's eye when there is a two by four plank in their own. IMO they should stay out of the old testament and read the testament that supersedes it.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
In order to be a legitimate scientific theory you have to be able to create tests that prove a theory as false or inaccurate - not tests that establish the theory as fact.
Once you beat the hell out of a theory from many different angles over a period of time, AND you can begin to accurately predict the outcome of your tests before you execute them, you get CREDIBILITY. It still isn't a FACT. In fact, it's still referred to as a theory by scientists.
The only facts are the results of your TEST.
Now, develop one falsifiable test on a theory of life that has ALL of its function wrapped up in the abilities of an Omnipotent, Omnicient, Omnipresent entity that does not present itself but only lets itself be known to those who demonstrate "faith"?
Now tell me why an Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent entity needs a fucking plan? A plan gets you from state A to state B while minimizing risk and maximizing efficiencies. What part of that is needed by something that can do DO ANYTHING, KNOWS EVERYTHING, AND IS EVERYWHERE AND WHEN?
I am so sick of people spouting off "God's plan" like they have any fucking clue as to the mindset of a being as powerful as a true god. I'm no Atheist, I believe in a god, but not this anthropomorphic piece of social control zealots seem to know so well.
Science and god don't contradict one another, Science and RELIGION do. Its the one thing that religious nuts know and hate. You don't want the truth, you want your story to BE the truth.
ANY argument based on an idea that only becomes credible if you choose to accept DOGMA as truth lacks any understanding of how ANYTHING works. This becomes even more apparent when that DOGMA is focused on humans telling other humans what an OMNIPOTENT, OMNICIENT, and OMNIPRESENT beings's motivations are.
You lack the fundamental ability to even comprehend how such an existence would manifest itself, much less be able to map its quantity and depth of perception to your measly five senses (which happen to be temporally and locally bound).
And before you start ranting on how can I know a god with all this being true, let me say I can't. What I can do is immediately tell anyone who tells me that they know what God wants, or what God was thinking, that they can go fuck themselves.
"You might want to check your reading level, even the sub title says "EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION" not PROOF. From what I read, it sounds like they don't even know how the observed change occurred, it doesn't say that they know for a fact it was evolution."
You don't understand. Where is this "evidence" of ID? I can fill up my house with research papers building on Darwin's theories proving well beyond reasonable doubt that evolution theory is indeed correct to anyone that bothers to do the research themselves. There are certainly questions yet to be answered, but ID is just beyond silly when considering the vast amounts of verifiable, tested, observed evidence for evolution theory. ID is borne of faith based beliefs, and then people went out to try and find reason to take it seriously... which fails miserably with, well, everyone else.
It's all faith-based BS, and should be left in Sunday school where facts are largely unimportant, and critical thought is denounced. Remember, in most successful faith-based religions, questioning your faith is the biggest sin...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Catholicism != Christianity.
Christianity has no priests.
And you've assigned the blame to a small sect in the Roman catholic church, when there's small sects in nearly all religious groups that don't practice what they preach.
I'm sure I'll be modded flamebait or troll, but this is a serious question. I really want to know.
Is there any sect of Christianity that practices what it preaches?
For example, do the old testament rules apply or not? When it suits their agenda, the old testament is the unerring word of god. When they want a ham sandwich, the old laws don't apply any more; they've been superseded by the new testament.
sounds to me like they are trying to allow teachers to present both sides of the argument... I thought we WANTED our children to learn how to think on their own, not to be spoon fed theories that are widely accepted (and taught) as fact but still not proven.
Presenting ID as equal to a sturdy, well researched and rigorous theory as evolution is tantamount to teaching 5+5=11 because some people like ones more than zero. There's no good reason to believe that 5+5=11, it just looks like a good idea and fits in nicely with my personal theory that all numbers should have as many ones in their sums as possible. If I were to teach that to your children, you'd probably have me chucked out the window. Teaching ID as science is equally as irresponsible. ID is NOT science as it is not testable. Presenting ID as an example of a bad scientific theory is a GREAT idea, but full of too many landmines to be useful in a classroom. Teaching kids to recognize good science from bad science is a great idea, however.
When we teach science we should teach science, not religious creation stories. Those belong in another, equally important class, but not in a science class.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
All this law does is provide legal protection for teachers to tech "alternate views" to the Theory of Evolution. It is NOT exclusively restricted to ID teaching. This could, logically, also include FSM theory. So don't worry, be Happy! Teachers in LA can now ALSO tell children about the Noodly beginnings of humanity in addition to other creationist teachings.
That's the words. Every law consists of two parts: The words and the interpretations. Judges do and will ask what the intention of the law was, and I think GP as well as almost everyone else here correctly assumed the same thing that judge will end up with.
But if you're a teacher in that area, why don't you test it out? Teach the FSM creation theory. No, wait, that wouldn't be taken seriously, and religiots are bad at humour - teach the islamic creation theory, and omit the christian one. Wanna bet on the number of lawsuits that'll hit you before you're even through?
Seriously, this really is much ado about nothing. It's just an anti-stupid lawsuit law, to protect teachers who simply ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that not everyone believes ToE is correct. That's it, nothing more, no matter what the militant Atheist sites and D-Kos may say.
Name one acknowledged evolutionary scientist who today considers the theory of evolution to be incorrect. Not minor detail nitpicking, an actual scientist in this discipline who thinks the whole theory is bonkers and should be replaced with something else entirely. Just one and I'll shut up.
The fact of the matter is that Darwin is right up there with Newton and Einstein. There is as much doubt in evolution as there is in relativity. Both have been tested extensively and passed - again, and again, and again.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Note that the priesthood is not the only mechanism available for such denial: being a mega-preacher or a republican politician with a 'family values' platform are also high-profile examples.
A-Bomb
Christianity really shouldn't even teach from the Old Testament, the only purpose that it serves is to provide all the prophecies that pointed to the coming of Christ. Christianity should be taught from the New Testament, and specifically the Gospels.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Wow, troll? Is there really someone who missed the whole Catholic priest scandal?
To mods: I wasn't implying that all Catholic priests are pedophiles... sheesh!
It was a good question to pose. We naturally assume the priesthood to be of good intention.. if we never question the priesthood, it is, as you posited, a perfect place for pedophiles to infiltrate. Much akin to the idea of the creation of the world.. if we don't seriously question the biblical idea, it leaves the door open for the wrong idea to be implanted by fools posing as religious authorities.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Err, there are plenty of examples of a beneficial mutation being passed on. We like to call them antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
After all, a given bacteria is the offspring (which in the case of something asexual means near-perfect copy [mutations being the differences between the two]) of some progenitor bacteria, which is itself the offspring of some other bacteria and so on and so forth. So that one or more bacteria in a culture will develop a resistance to a given antibiotic demonstrates a mutation, and that cultures derived from such bacteria maintain the resistance demonstrates inheritance.
How long it takes to demonstrate something wrt evolution relies entirely on the time between generations of the organism. This is why most clear examples of evolutionary progress are demonstrated in microorganisms such as bacteria, as they tend to reach reproduction very quickly and produce lots of offspring, thus providing a wide spread for a given mutation to show up, and lots of offspring for a beneficial mutation to get ahead.
ID in comparison fails on, if nothing else, being unfalsifiable. Give me an example of some test or some condition that could potentially be examined that would, given a specific set of results (regardless of if those are actual results obtainable [e.g. an apple falling away from the earth (barring another force acting on it or a larger mass than the earth being involved) might potentially violate all or part of the theory of gravity]) prove ID false. For evolution this is fairly trivial -- if you could somehow demonstrate that organisms do not inherit traits from their parents and/or that there is absolutely no variance -- ever -- between traits possessed by an offspring and it's parents, you would significantly damage evolutionary theory, as it relies on those two concepts (inheritance from parents and variation from parents) as primary assertions.
I wonder about this too. Homosexuality is an abomination, and so are shell fish. So, why is it that shell fish are ok now, but homosexuality is not? You'd think an abomination is an abomination, right?
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
So since my wife and I aren't going to have any children - we're icky?
Heretic! The world was created last Thursday. Tuesday and Thursday are heretical blasphemy!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Why don't the IDers slip in a different spin:
./big-bang ...
~/god# make
~/god#
** universe created
** planet Earth instantiated
** animal life evolving
** humans emerging
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
"My aversion to homosexuality has nothing to do with Christianity. My aversion is rooted in evolution; the "yuck" factor maintains reproduction. Evolution depends entirely on reproduction!"
alright, your stance and all that...
But how do you reconcile that with:
"A lot of Christians make too much noise about a minor sin [...] while ignoring major sins like [...] adultery"
Surely the adultering person would be much more adapt at furthering evolution? Whether it be the a guy impregnating multiple womens or a woman getting pregnant from different men (and thus a larger gene pool).
Something tells me the foundation for your aversion is on.. well not shaky ground, perhaps, but have you heard of the tower of Pisa?
When it suits their agenda, the old testament is the unerring word of god. When they want a ham sandwich, the old laws don't apply any more; they've been superseded by the new testament.
My counter argument is that, as one would logically expect, the Old Testament laws that haven't been superseded by the New Testament retain their authority.
For instance, to borrow your example of eating a ham sandwich, one can argue that it's acceptable because Jesus said it isn't things that are eaten that make one unclean but rather the condition of one's heart. There might still be health concerns (pigs are scavengers, and pork is still considered a relatively unhealthy meat, so much more so then before germs and such were discovered and proper sanitation practices were developed), but it doesn't make one morally impure.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Through so many enforcements of the constitution, SCOTUS has interpreted ...Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment... to mean that one religion (in this case, the orthodox/literal translation advocacy) doesn't get to play.
If you "don't understand why" then you haven't researched all of the other creation myths out there, and there are many. You can believe what you like, but you can't teach my children your mythos. You're entitled to your beliefs, but you're not entitled to your facts.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I know it's cool to hate Christianity right now
Here we go again with the picked on theme the Christians keep beating to death. Don't you guys ever tire of telling each other how much society is oppressing you by not allowing you to teach your religion in our public schools, or not letting you force your "morality" down the rest of our throats. It's especially ironic considering you're the ones in power.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Celibacy is arguably the most un-natural thing a human being can do. Everything in our existence points towards reproduction. It could well be a reason why we see this behaviour with priests.
Except the Catholic Church doesn't consider sex dirty or evil. Certain sexual practices, and who you do it with might be evil, but sex as practiced between a married man and woman is not evil, but sacred.
The fact of the matter is that some priests are sick individuals who are previously inclined to this sort of action, and choose to become priests because not getting married isn't a sacrifice to them, and this inclination wasn't discovered during their formation (training).
Maybe you're confused about the definition of "or", but you can still have science without direct experimentation.
Anyway, there IS loads of experimentation going on around evolution. See the announcement the other month where a 20 year experiment saw E. Coli mutate into an entirely different species in a stressful environment for an example. It directly contradicts the idea that we've never seen a beneficial mutation be passed along.
Was it an "entirely different species" or was it just an adaptation? Could you cross breed this "new" version of citrate metabolizing E. Coli with the original strain? Is so, then it's not really a new species, just the same with a new ability.
Granted, over another million years or so of isolation, it may become a "entirely different species", but not in a mere 20 years.
Also, given 20+ years and 44,000 generations to develop the ability to metabolize citrate, how long does it take to evolve into a platypus?
(Note: I believe in evolution. I just don't see this as "proof". There is still much to be learned.)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
It's your mythos, and I don't want my children getting your mythos passed off as fact. Freedom also means freedom from mythos-expostulating nutcases, and that includes all of the proselyters, evangelists, and other teachers of mythos. I get to choose what my children learn; it is my duty, responsibility, and gift, not yours, or other religious peoples.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Because one, and ONLY one, religious group has political strong influence in the state of Louisiana. But evangelical Christianity is not unique in this attitude. I imagine you'd get the same attitude in Saudi Arabia.
Kind of makes you wish we could set up a forcible teacher exchange program between the two, doesn't it? People who are for religion in public schools might get the point a a bit faster when the religion being pushed isn't theirs.
'The act is designed to slip ID in "through the back door"'"
I thought that sort of thing was illegal in the Bible belt.
"In the day of my father" *still* does not imply the millions of years that is necessary for evolution. Furthermore, even a cursory reading of Genesis shows it does not match up with reality. God separates the light from the darkness AND creates plants BEFORE he creates the sun. You can be a christian and believe in evolution, but not without going against the first book of the bible.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
if we don't seriously question the biblical idea, it leaves the door open for the wrong idea to be implanted by fools posing as religious authorities.
Yeah, but thankfully we know that would never happen....
This guy's the limit!
Without going into a semantics discussion about how you manipulated to quote into something a fair bit different, you're even then only almost right.
You're only almost right, and not completely so, because you're missing a couple of fundamental issues. For one, something being scientific doesn't entail it being accurate, or even true. Galileo's heliocentric model was scientific in nature, as it was susceptible to experimentation, but was ultimately inaccurate when compared to the (unscientific) orbs model of the time, only to be superseded by Kepler's as the leading heliocentric model. Darwinism was inaccurate in some aspects, but was susceptible to refutation through observation, in proper scientific fashion. Those observations led to refinements, rather than refusal by the scientific community as a whole, indicating that it was a pretty good starting point.
Hell, in this sense, even ID can be seen as scientific, insofar as you make a clear statement that God created life as it is, and that living creatures are unchanging (roughly speaking, I'm sure you can phrase it in a much better way). This statement is perfectly reasonable as science, insofar as I can experiment, and determine that today's creatures are different from creatures from 1 million years ago, or that today's creatures are changing, and both observations would refute it in a perfectly scientific manner. The problems begin when ID "scholars" start "rectifying" and dodging and trying to evade contradictory observations.
Secondly, not actually having made observations doesn't mean a (presumably scientific) theory doesn't set the framework for those observations to be made. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics both set forth results that were unverifiable with what was the state of the art at the time they were originally conceived. Even today, more than a century past the Annus Mirabilis, we keep coming up with novel observations regarding relativity. Yet the 4 articles Einstein published at the time were considered extraordinary (and most definitely scientific).
There is a difference between the theory of evolution and the principle of natural selection.
The theory is based on the idea that all life forms on the planet developed through *random* natural selection, while natural selection is the response of an organism(s) genes to external stimuli. I personally believe that God works through natural laws, although often higher laws than we yet know. Thus I believe in intelligent design through *focused* natural selection.
Evolution and religion are not always mutually exclusive.
First, I highly recommend you read "Finding Darwin's God" by Dr. Ken Miller for an interesting treatise on the interplay between the realms of science and faith.
But more than that I recommend that rather than shoehorning the idea of spiritual faith into an idea of science you accept that for most people faith has little to do with making a metaphorical reference to natural phenomenon. It may turn out that you're precisely correct - that the idea of 'God' is best equated to the idea of the 'Universe as a whole'.
It may be - and probably is - that spiritual faith has little to do with 'using scientific tools' at all. It doesn't have to do with equations or with rigorous processes. Indeed, if you compare the modern conception of science to Buddhism's Noble Eight-fold Path, it fits pretty well into step five; begging the question of what the others are, or are for?
Traditionally the answer to that has been a very personal one. But I encourage you to recognize that while you can say that science is a way of examining God, this is not true for all people - that spirituality has little to do with the explanation of the material experience. Until there is that general acceptance there will be a great deal to fight about.
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One argument against supposing an intelligent desinger is that the desing is not all that intelligent
For eksample the human eye has the optic nerves on the inside of the eye redusing space for light sensitive cells and making a blind spot where the nerves come togheter and leaves the eye. Some species of octopus has this the right way, but as humans according to the bible are created after the sea-creatures it is strange the designer did not keep this better solution.
The human spine seems like it has been designed for moving on four limbs and given some minor tweaks to fit bipedal movement. Maybe the designer was too short on time to redesign this properly?
We have multiple nerves that are wired in a way that allow a strike to the wrong (or right dependig if you are the striker or the strikee) place to disable a person completly. Maybe fighting was not in the original design goals.
These weaknesses must mean the desinger was not omniscient, or maybe lazy. Or maybe there was some other reason, makin life more challening? I dont know.
These weaknesses can be explained by evolution.
Because any change to happen in evolution there must be a path in "gene-space" from one form to the new where every step in the way is a improvement on the previus step. Creationists tries to use this property of evolution teory to disprove it by trying to find exsamples of features where there can be no such path.
So a specie can be "trapped" in an local optimum in the "gene-space" until a change inn its enviorment causes it to no longer be an local optimum, a big (beneficial) mutation causes it to make a big leap in "gene-space" out of the local optimum or it goes extinct.
The big mutation event is the least likley one, but considerig the timerframe and the number of species and individuals it probably has happened may times.
My aversion to homosexuality has nothing to do with Christianity. My aversion is rooted in evolution; the "yuck" factor maintains reproduction. Evolution depends entirely on reproduction!
So would you extend your aversion to nonprocreative heterosexual couples then? Other people's reproductive choices (or, in many cases, physiological limitations) seem like a bizarre thing for you to get worked up over. But if your aversion is only to nonprocreative homosexuals, what about homosexuals who do have children?
Because it's not true. Most of those who use the term use it to mean a man with a beard who wears a white dress, lives in the sky, and can do magic.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
For something to be science, it must be testable. You have to be able to experiment with it to either prove or disprove it. You cannot do this with intelligent design, therefore it has no place in school classrooms. Anyone who calls this science is daft and needs to have his/her head examined. I a not saying that science and religion should be mutually exclusive, because this is not true. If there is indeed a God, what better way is there to show our appreciation than to strive to understand the universe around us that he created?
Absolutely correct, in some respects. Misleading in the case of this article.
What you are missing is that (if, as has been done before and incorrectly) the creationists wish to teach their religion, there is a time and a place. Creationists have so far, undeniably, chosen to teach religion in Science lessons. In my country, you can't even teach religion in Religious Education lessons - you have to teach what the curriculum tells you to teach even if you're a satanist and satanism isn't on the curriculum. If you disagree, get the curriculum changed - but the curriculum SHOULD always be set by experts in the SUBJECT CONCERNED. Hence, religious experts should get as much say in a Science lesson as Scientists do in a Religious Education lesson. NONE.
Teaching creationism (as it currently stands using their previously-displayed tactics) in a Science lesson is the equivalent of me coming into your church/mosque/other place of worship, forcing science textbooks into your congregation's hands, demanding that Bibles all carry warning stickers about how unverified their sources are, lecturing to them about how wrong they all are, and FORCING THEM TO LISTEN.
In fact, it's worse than that... it's the equivalent of me doing this to YOUR CHILD'S SUNDAY SCHOOL, with nobody but a scientist "at the front of the classroom" and you not being present, for MANY HOURS a week. That's what creationists are asking, trying and in fact to some extent have achieved in certain states for a limited time (until uproar ensued and EVERY governor was thrown off the board and replaced with someone who DIDN'T believe this was a good idea).
Nobody cares about what anybody "believes in", what most people are concerned about are the methods, the venue and, to a much greater extent, the back-handed forced-ignorance of established curricula. Creationism in Science is the equivalent of being forced to learn that Pi is four in Maths, that full stops and commas don't exist in English, that sitting around makes you fit in PE or, indeed, that electricity runs through cables not by the transference of electrons but by the "magic angel dust" that a God put there in Science. They aren't relevant or correct within the scope of the subject being taught.
This is a SECOND underhanded attempt to change the law in a state in order to teach religion in something not a religious lesson (which is illegal in my country, by the way, even in a school with a stated religious bent). They call it a "Science Education Act" when it has NOTHING to do with Science. They slip it in after previously-dirty tactics failed. That's the problem, not what they actually WANT to teach (even if they were fighting for the teaching of the existence of the spaghetti monster, they are DOING IT WRONG, and the same people would STILL be up in arms).
That said, I'm a scientist. I think creationism is a load of pretentious, fabricated, illogical bunkum, more so than most religions that I hold to be merely completely untrue. But I don't go into RE lessons in the schools I work in and tell them that, or force them to recite it. If I did, I would be sacked. If any teacher in the schools in my country did, they would be sacked and quite possibly sued (and if the school allowed it, the school would be sued, etc.).
ID is not a theory. Please stop perverting that word. A "theory" is a scientific term for a model that is backed by evidence, has not been rejected by evidence, and is falsifiable.
/rant.
ID is NOT backed by evidence and is NOT falsifiable, thus it is NOT a theory. It is a belief. Evolution can be proved wrong. ID cannot be.
Of course, nothing in science is ever proven correct either, we just teach the best model we have and work from there. If someone discovers a better model, the current one gets replaced. Keep ID where it belongs: in a comparative religion or philosophy course. It is not science.
ID has no place in any science curriculum. It has just as much place as Last Thursdayism or FSMism.
Back to the question of ID, I think schools should offer both teachings. Neither are provable as correct or incorrect, they are both theories, but the students should be allowed to decide what they believe in and what makes sense to them.
You can't teach ID as science, because it is not science. If you'll teach it, teach it in theology along with the other creation myths, where it belongs.
Was it an "entirely different species" or was it just an adaptation? Could you cross breed this "new" version of citrate metabolizing E. Coli with the original strain? Is so, then it's not really a new species, just the same with a new ability.
Ah, the meaningless macro/micro distinction.
Okay, look, it's like this. You believe, due to the evidence, that evolution can cause adaptations and new abilities in a species, and pretty substantial ones at that.
Now (and assume a sexually reproducing species here, it makes it easier to make the distinction), imagine you separate a species into two geographically separate populations. Each would then undergo its own random development of abilities and adaptations, just as you believe the unified population would. Now, is there any reason to believe that one of these adaptations couldn't impact the reproductive cycle (everything from a change in how fertilization occurs to an alteration in number of chromosomes), such that were you to bring the two geographically separate populations together, they would be physically incapable of producing viable offspring?
At that point, they are different species, and as they continue undergoing adaptations, the differences between them would increase to arbitrary levels. What was once the same type of organism is now two different types, neither completely resembling the original.
There's no difference between micro and macro evolution. None. If you believe a bacteria can evolve to metabolize a completely different food source than it used to, then there is no reason at all not to believe that an ancient ape could have evolved into separate populations of chimpanzee, orangutan, and homo sapien.
Also, given 20+ years and 44,000 generations to develop the ability to metabolize citrate, how long does it take to evolve into a platypus?
Gee, I dunno, around 500 million years give or take? I mean I have no idea exactly when platypi evolved, that's just how long it was from the start of the Paleozoic to Cenozoic era. I really don't get why the jump is so difficult. Small changes happen fast, big ones take time. Where, anywhere, is anything to suggest that big changes aren't possible?
The enemies of Democracy are
I assume (but don't really know) that homosexuals are as averse to sex with woman as heterosexuals are averse to sex with men.
Your comments demonstrate a lack of knowledge about sexuality in general. Sexuality is not a binary or digital description - it is an analog scale of diversity. There are heterosexual men and women who sometimes have same-sex experiences, and the same is true for some homosexual individuals. There are people who are nearly asexual. There are people who have a mismatch between their physical sex organs and their gender. There are people who couldn't care less about sex and others who have an insatiable sex drive. Fetishes run the gamut. And, these issues can range from a minor preference to a deeply emotional need.
You would do yourself a big favor to learn about sexuality before forming and sharing opinions.
Fwiw, evolution happens. However, the mechanism by which it happens is still up for questioning. The mainstream science community holds to the notion of natural selection as that mechanism. Proponents of ID say "god did it". Scientists say "lets examine what we know, and come up with some good guesses". Natural selection is one of those good guesses, and while it doesn't plug every hole and answer every question clearly, that is a rare occurence in science as a whole. Theologians desire absolute answers to everything, but science is about accepting the fact that there are some things we don't know, and then trying to find good answers to those unknowns. So while natural selection may not be perfect, it's still pretty decent. Maybe someday, someone will come up with a revised theory. As for your last question. In a way, I think computers and software have already evolved. The human brain for instance is a huge parallel processor, light-years more evolved than present day computers.
I just feel, and this is from my limited understand of evolution and Darwinism, that evolution isn't truly science either.
There is a VERY STRONG correlation between your "limited understand of evolution" and why you believe "evolution isn't truly science".
It is kinda like a person who cannot do simple arithmatic telling mathmaticians "math really doesn't work"...
Well then let's not let it in the backdoor. The first thing we can do is stop calling it 'Intelligent Design' which is a pr-term to disguise what it really is: Creationism (or in my mind: A step 1000 years back in time for real science.)
And if you are a grown, college educated person, who believe that the Grand Canyon was formed by a three day flood, you are not a believer. You are a fool.
Metaphysical, by it's very nature, implies something 'beyond the physical'. How can the universe have anything 'beyond the physical'? What possible force or matter is used for these metaphysical beings to exist. Now, if someone could come up with a theory how a being made of pure energy could exist, become cognitive, and manipulate matter, that I could at least discuss intelligently. Oh, wait .. that would make them physical, now wouldn't it.
Creating metaphysical reasons for physical objects is a great way to trick someone into believing they have an answer without really having one. 'Look, lights in the sky .. it must be a UFO since we can't figure out what else it is' isn't an argument, it's refusing to accept that one doesn't know the answer about something and is either too insecure to be ignorant about it, or too lazy to search for the truth. Or has a huge ego and likes to strut around say 'I know, I know!!! Look at all these fuzzy pictures and poor use of science I can use to prove it.'
I prefer the 'Look, lights in the sky. I wonder what they are' discussion myself. I can live without knowing the answer to everything.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Celibacy gives the priests more time to devote proselytizing the religion - rather than wasting their time and effort on a family. It was an effective strategy for growth of the religion. Much like the strategy of encouraging procreation and forbidding contraception grows the religion (because kids are much easier to indoctrinate). The religions with effective strategies for growth are the ones that are still around and dominating today. You could say that these strategies have evolved since the religions that did not practice them died out. :)
My understanding is that the premise of Intelligent Design is that evolution is not caused by random events, but by the will of God.
Not quite true. The basic premise of intelligent design is primarily a negative one - that evolution *cannot* produce the speciation and diversity that we see today. Most IDers do believe that evolution is responsible for gradual changes (i.e. the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria) - but cannot create things that are "irreducibly complex" such as the human eye, or a bacterial flagellum.
And while I'm on the subject - let's be clear that evolution is most certainly *not* caused by random events - the primary mechanism of evolution is selection, which is a distinctly non-random process; random mutations simply make the process of selection productive.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
The doctrine of celibacy originated due to the problem of inheritance. In the patriarchical, family-based societies of late antiquity and the Dark Ages, titles and wealth typically followed the law of primogeniture. In the Germanic barbarian societies who adopted Christianity, the title of priest (along with the privileges, power and wealth of the tithe) would typically pass from father to son and thus become a hereditary institution. This undermined the control of the central Church in Rome, and thus obligatory celibacy for priests was introduced as a rule to ensure that the distribution of offices of the Church remained in its own hands, rather than becoming bound to particular families. As with so many of the doctrines of Rome, it was based on maintaining centralised control.
More generally, it's a quirk of fate that the two religions that make a big deal of belief happen to be the ones that dominate the news (Christianity and Islam) giving the warped view that belief, and especially *correct* belief, is a necessary part of religion. But it's not true of Buddhism, or Judaism, or most brands of pre-Christian polytheism or many other religions.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
ID is not a theory. Please stop perverting that word. A "theory" is a scientific term for a model that is backed by evidence, has not been rejected by evidence, and is falsifiable.
ID is NOT backed by evidence and is NOT falsifiable, thus it is NOT a theory. It is a belief. Evolution can be proved wrong. ID cannot be.
While I think ID is total crap, it is potentially a valid theory. The premise of evolution is that speciation is caused by small, random genetic mutations that occasionally increase survivability. In order to "disprove" evolution, one would have to find evidence of instantaneous, large genetic mutations that are statistically improbable. This is exactly what the ID people argue. The problem with ID is that the evidence is really weak.
What do you think is more likely, A meteor that strikes the earth carrying the first bacteria, or heritability arising from natural chemical reactions? Is the meteor theory valid as a theory?
Bit of a correction first - what you stated is not the premise of evolution, it's merely one theory of how evolution could work. There are others, not all incompatible with each other.
Here's the thing which gets me about this whole thing - and I often find it hard to express this complaint clearly...
Science starts from the idea or observation that something did happen, must have happened, and attempts to find a solution that will fit the available evidence. There is life on Earth and we know it must have started somehow, and we assume there is a reasonable explanation for that.
Intelligent Design basically circumvents this. Rather than starting with "this must have happened, so there must be an explanation" it instead starts with its own premise and tries to substantiate it, mostly by tearing down competing theories. "Science can't sufficiently explain how this biological process could have come to be (never mind the fact that the previous statement may be false) therefore the development of life must have been guided by an intelligence."
I find this apparent negation of the basic model of the world's events disturbing - if things happen not because of an unknown cause-effect relationship but rather, because of an unknown intent of an unknown designer - if we make no assumptions that we can connect pieces of evidence and try to come up with a mechanical explanation that fits the facts, then what can we rely upon in this world?
I hope I've expressed my idea clearly. I have a lot of trouble trying to get this particular point across.
Bow-ties are cool.