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Want a Science Degree In Creationism?
The Bad Astronomer writes "In Texas, a state legislator wants the ironically-named Institute for Creation Research to be able to grant a Masters degree in science. In fact, the bill submitted to the Texas congress would make it legal for any private group calling themselves educational to be able to grant advanced degrees in science. So, now's your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won't hold you back any longer."
The Institute for Creation Research made a similar request to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year, but were shot down.
State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler)
This gives the rest of the world one more reason to giggle at us. I mean, really.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
The ironic thing is the scientific method ultimately brings one back to the same sorts of mysteries that Creationism want to jump straight to. Parallel universes, etc. The "god story" doesn't sound so wierd once you get to the advanced levels of stuff.
I think things like parallel universes are mathematical hypothesis. No scientist AFAIK is stating that they exist as a scientific fact.
And yes it is important to keep an open mind. Unfortunately closing oneself off in either a religious community or a scientific community has generally involved historical atrocities. Josef Mengele is no better than Jimmy Jones, and MKULTRA isn't any better than Sharia Law.
Try punching "experimental evolution" into Google. That only turns up 25 million hits but here are a few to get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution
http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Bacteriophage_experimental_evolution
It looks to me like these people are doing actual work to justify their conclusions. Now you can dispute their methods and conclusions but what they are up to isn't faith in a religious sense. Sticking lots of exclamation points on astounding ignorance doesn't rescue it from that state.
Science is falsifiable. It produces specific predictions. Creationism/ID doesn't.
By that definition, evolution is not science either. It has never predicted anything and never will.
So tell me, does it hurt to be that stupid?
I've already discussed this in detail on Slashdot, and have archived the conversation here.
But I'll copy the most relevant part. There are several specific predictions that evolution makes:
That's what falsifiability means. There has to be some type of evidence which could, in principle, prove the theory wrong. I've linked to many many more tests in the conversation that list was taken from.
Ahem: what you've posted has been rather thoroughly refuted by members of the scientific community:
1) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
2) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/magfields.html
I highly recommend that you peruse talkorigins.org and determine the veracity of your claims before posting. Anyone with a reasonable grounding in the relevant topics (geology, astrophysics) can quite quickly see that the articles you have linked to are not sound science, merely poor arguments presented to appear as science.
The Copenhagen interpretation is commonly viewed by physicists as a way to wave all the metaphysical issues raised by quantum mechanics off to the side. As Feynman once said, "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain," into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. [regarding quantum theory]"
It's true that interpretations of quantum mechanics aren't experimentally distinguishable (yet-- I've seen some proposals in this direction that seem interesting). But that's scarcely relevant because no undergraduate or graduate quantum mechanics class spends any significant time worrying about interpretations. Most physicists focus on the predictions, which have been verified to an absurd number of significant figures. Students work problems that give real, experimentally testable answers.
It's also true that popular science books give the impression that quantum physics is mystical, and that physicists spend all their time worrying about Schrodinger's Cat. We don't. I think it's an interesting question, and personally prefer the Everett-Wheeler interpretation, but it's not the central issue. Be careful not to let the interpretations of the equations obscure your view of the equation itself.
Religion is the anti-thesis of science because you are not allowed to question in religion.
Speaking from personal experience, this is very nearly completely untrue in Judaism.
When was the last time anybody happened to say, "you know the bible/koran/tora needs updating, let's change a few paragraphs shall we."
Most likely not the most recent example, but see Reform Judaism
When was the last time this happened in religion?
All the time.
Changes in the dogma of Anglican churches over women priests are a recent example.
The history of the early church was full of debates.
All the founders of religions challenged the dogmas of existing religions. All the reformers of religions challenged existing dogma.
It happens slower than in science because there is rarely any new evidence to consider
Scriptures are not changed, but that would be dishonest. It would be like the police changing witnesses' written statements because of evidence they were mistaken or lying. The correct thing to do in both cases is to present both the statements and the evidence or arguments contradicting them.
A rabbit in the Cambrian. A fossilized dinosaur with a human skeleton in its stomach. Things of this nature are quite contrary to evolution's predictions.