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Australian Schools To Teach Intelligent Design
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that schools within the Australian state of Queensland are going to be required to teach Intelligent Design as part of their Ancient History studies. While it is gratifying to note that it isn't being taught in science classes (since it most certainly isn't a science), one wonders what role a modern controversy can possibly serve within a subject dedicated to a period of history which occurred hundreds of years before Darwin proposed his groundbreaking theory?"
"We talk to students from a faith science basis, but we're not biased in the delivery of curriculum," Mrs Doneley said. "We say, 'This is where we're coming from' but allow students to make up their own minds."
I really wish they had gone into detail on what exactly a 'faith science basis' is. I'm not saying they're completely walled off from each other but attempting to give your children solid foundational logic should not be approached from an angle that contains any sort of faith.
... but curiously this "critical thinking" that presents an opposing view is curiously the view that the localized religion adheres to. If you want to teach critical thinking, expose the child to more views than what the adults are already largely marketing to them in the home and at religious services.
If they are indeed teaching intelligent design in much the same way as Niels Bohr's atomic model or -- perhaps more apt -- motivation for slavery then I have little problem with this. But if they spend anymore than a few hours discussing how it was flawed then I would consider this a waste of time instead of 'critical thinking.' It's great to see all the sides of a historical issue but that's all intelligent design is to me and, much more importantly, the peer reviewed journals and scientific community at large.
If you want to teach it as a disproved theory, I got no problem. If you want to teach it to my kids as an outstanding theory or hypothesis, I'm going to sit down and have a lengthy discussion with them. If you do you teach it in the United States, I'm going to be there arguing that you spend just as much time on Native American origin stories or even better the original Hindu creation story followed by Swami Vivekananda's logic of compatibility with Darwinism and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness's decision to largely reject it.
Intelligent Design is an attempt to absolve the scriptures of ever being wrong in their creation story and salvage what is possible when presented with fossil evidence and short-term evolution evidence in smaller celled organisms. Other religions have similar damage control, why do the Christians only get theirs mentioned in state schools?
They are arguing that this helps critical thinking and allows the child to make their own conclusions
This article bounces between acceptable and a BS facade to market Intelligent Design. Australia's a sovereign nation but I will speak up if this comes anywhere near my public schools.
My work here is dung.
What, exactly, is there to teach about intelligent deign?
So if there's like an hour of discussion about it, nobody would get hurt. Anyone knows how much effort they'll put into this kind of lecture?
People like being right far more than they like becoming right.
Becoming right means you have to keep an open mind to the possible rejection of beliefs that bring you comfort or justification. It also means you must perpetually expend effort in the acquiring of new knowledge.
That is WAY too much trouble for most people. So, instead, they insist that they were lucky enough to have learned all the important truths when they were children, and that these things are still true today, and should be treated as such.
I really don't fit in well with my species.
Could Australian schools teach about flying spaghetti monsters too?
You don't know what you don't know.
The fact that people who think we should teach ID in schools is what made me realize there's no god.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
There are many textbooks available on Intelligent Design, and it is really easy to make more.
First, you get one of the wishy-washy creationist textbooks written in the 1980s, before the Discovery Institute decided that actually calling creationism creationism wasn't going to fly.
Then you do a search and replace, substituting "intelligent design" for "creationism."
Then you add a chapter at the end with the nuggets of sophistry that ID supporters came up with, and add some references to other ID textbooks and tracts in the bibiliography.
Voila! ID textbook!
This comment was written by no one and evolved from a series of random pixels. Those pixels spontaneously came to being from a void of nothingness. It just makes sense.
WTF! Seriously. I'm glad I don't live in Queensland. I hope intelligent people are working to put a stop to this absolute fucking garbage! Christian "values" are taking Australia straight to a Authoritarian Theocracy. Americans we have uranium I promise to let you have some if you bring us democracy.
Totally blown away by this article!
Australia's legislature seems to be riding some kind of runaway jesus train lately, with all the anti-porn initiatives and net-filtering. I can't imagine the majority of Aussies are behind this stuff. How is this happening? What is the election cycle like there?
I mean, "educators" can not possibly be so stupid as to waste tax dollars on such ignorance, can they? The sad part is, even with this, they still aren't as bad as some parts of the USA.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Intelligent Design fits well between all the other failed theories: Earth-centric universe; immovable stars; bleeding patients; Froot Loops over Frosted Flakes....all famous in their time, all horribly misguided. In 2000 years, people will look back at our history, now ancient to them, and be amused just like we are.
This is why science people should to take a more active role in speaking their mind. Even fools know that children are the easiest to dupe. Don't let them get their way.
The use of the word "controversy" here is taken directly from the creationist playbook. There is "controversy" about whether a big earthquake could cause California to fall off into the Pacific Ocean, but it's only a controversy between two guys sitting in a bar, it's not a controversy among geologists. When creationists say "teach the controversy," they're really asking teachers to present something that's not scientifically controversial as if it were.
Find free books.
...are to be found in the comments at the end of the article, where the morons tell us what scientific theories are, why you can "prove they are true", and that the universe exists because it just must have been created by [$sphagetti_monster_of_your choice].
The sad part is that this rubbish is taken seriously at all in Australia (though if anywhere, it would have to be Queensland).
First, intelligent design is NOT a scientific theory.
On the other hand, Niels Bohr's aromic model IS a scientic theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_model
Here is why this is the case,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Essential_criteria
Therefore it is incorrect to teach I.D. as a "disproved theory". It never was one in the first place. Where it can be mentioned is as a difference between theory and dogma, where I.D. is clearly an example of the latter,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma
PS: Freaking slashdot reads my mind everything. CATPCHA: instruct
Studies is that that field is less likely to be taught by people with a scientific background. If I wanted to peddle pro-religion non-science, I'd rather take my chances with history teachers than biology or physics teachers.
Not being familiar with Australian education, I don't know what sort of qualifications high school teachers have with regard to the field they teach, but even if in-field qualifications are much better than in the US, a lot more people study history seriously as a result of their religious indoctrination than study biology or physics, either of which would be much more relevant to debunking the anti-science that intelligent design peddles.
The battle is over in the sciences. They're just trying to push it through the back door they perceive to be available to them in the humanities. None of this is a slight against the humanities, which I consider very important.
There are at LEAST 6 different versions of this:
1. Biblical Creationism- the world is 6000 years old (maybe 7000 now) and was created in 7 days.
2. Darwinian evolution- life was created in stages by natural selection.
3. Intelligent Design Engineer/Scientist- Life was created in stages by an engineer-diety using natural selection as an engineering process to an intended end.
4. Intelligent Design Parenthood- God gave birth to the first DNA as an offspring and only interferes as a kindly parent guiding, but not influencing, the end result. God doesn't know the future in this version.
5. Quantum Mechanical Atheistic Evolution- Natural selection is entirely unguided and random- the only thing limiting evolution is death of bad mutations.
6. Intelligent Design Creationism- a bad quasi-scientific cover for Biblical Creationism.
And that's not even going into NON-CHRISTIAN myths, I'd expect in Australia they should at least be teaching the myths of the natives in an ancient history class!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So feel free to ignore the paleontological, cosmological, geological, and archeological record, 'cuz God wants you to be ignorant all by yourself.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
How are we going to determine that? Why can't we apply archeological principles to biology? Thats exactly what ID is.
"We talk to students from a faith science basis, but we're not biased in the delivery of curriculum," Mrs Doneley said. "We say, 'This is where we're coming from' but allow students to make up their own minds."
Without a solid foundation in scientific methodology and critical thinking, students aren't equipped to determine what is evidently correct and what is not. I can't tell from the article what grade they're including this topic for, but unless their schools are a lot better than US schools, I doubt that any high school student is equipped well enough to determine the validity of an assertion such as Intelligent Design.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
word for word from creationism. So while it is "updated" with more modern ideas, the core concept is still pretty old. So no different than studying Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
"Intelligent Design" in the U.S. was nothing more than Creationism repackaged in an attempt to circumvent the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. In other words, it is unconstitutional to teach Creationism or "Intelligent Design" in U.S. public schools. To all the bible-thumpering conservatives in the U.S. who don't like that, now I can say "Send your kids to a parochial school or go live in Australia".
I find it odd they'd file (intelligent) design of things under Ancient History, rather than Engineering. It's true that people designed things long ago, but they still do, at least at some companies. Anyway, it's good they're specifically teaching an important skill like intelligent design, as this is often neglected in engineering.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution
The number of scientists, and more importantly biologists, who think there is any question about the factuality of evolution is so exceedingly remote as to pretty much be considered universal consensus.
As to how the world started, um, that's cosmology, stellar formation, planet formation and geology. Evolution is the study of genetic change in populations, not in how the world came about.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't know about you, but ancient history classes for me included discussions of the paleolithic. You know, things that happened more than 6000 years ago?
Intelligent design is creationism in a cloak of pseudoscience bullshit. Intelligent design attempts to pass itself off as a scientific theory when you can't prove it, therefore it's not a theory, it's a random hypothesis with no supporting evidence. And yet because proponents of ID keep trying to do this annoying tap dance around scientific principles when it's not science.
I refuse to allow ID in any school in any way because it's a lie. Creationism as a philosophy isn't a lie, it shows itself exactly for what it is, it's a philosophy of how people think the universe was created, but there's no science behind it. Fine, so it belongs in a philosophy class that discusses multiple philosophies and ideas and critical thinking and that's it. ID is an attempt to get creationism outside of philosophy and into any other class, and that's because when you allow people to think about and question an idea, critical thinking will expose the truths and flaws. By getting it into another class, it suddenly becomes something that gets more legitimacy. The average person in a history/science/math class simply accepts what they are taught as so. People who are vested in teaching creationism don't want you to think about this or have a real critical thinking discussion, they are just hoping for more sheep.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Design theories go all the way back to ancient Greece. There is plenty to teach about.
Darwin's argument is many ways theological/philosophical and is trying to falsify design theories. So I guess if design arguments of any type isn't worth teaching and isn't science, Darwin shouldn't be taught either. How can a negative answer to design be considered science but a positive answer (even if you think it is false) is science? It just doesn't work unless you simply want to say any argument we find wrong or fault "isn't science", which opens its own can of worms.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
They taught intelligent design in my school. A lot. In social studies class, or current affairs. Along with evolution. In fact they did it much more in those classes than they did in an actual science class. The actual science class discussion, when it came around, was like one day. It is amazing to me the amount of political effort that goes in to a single day of class. Especially when the kids all have their mind made up about the topic by that point anyway.
Seriously, why is this still an issue 150 years later? Why do people feel that evolution needs to conflict with religion, and not say, geology?
Qxe4
“teach” is for actual information about reality.
The word for bullshit and brainwashing is “indoctrination”.
You know, like people in North Korea are brainwashed into thinking touching something with the US flag on it, would make their hands rot of. (According to a guy who helps people get out of there.)
Same thing here. Exactly the same thing.
Only that the churches are the power-hungry dictators.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I think the evolution theory is the best we have right now, and the big band sounds plausible considering the expansion rate of the universe. Is that how it happened ultimately? No freaking clue and I think we fight and evangelize about it too much (myself included at times).
The problem with letting them believe that is that it validates all the other crazy crap they believe and that they try to get turned into law that the rest of us have to abide by.
Maybe teach creationism, ID AND evolution in school... teach them as the three most widely-accepted ideas on how the world started and push them forward as all *theories* and there is no scientific proof (there is evidence for some, but that is not conclusive proof) for any of it yet?
No. Evolution is a scientific theory based on the evidence. No scientific theory is ever proven absolutely true, but evolution is one of the strongest scientific theories out there. ID and creationism are not scientific theories. They aren't based on evidence, they don't make falsifiable claims, and they don't have any predictive power. They are simply myths that some religions have adopted as an explanation for that which they don't understand. To teach them as anything but that would be a lie.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Yes, it's a scientific theory, which is something considerably different than the colloquial definition. Why you guys keep trotting out this faulty and fallacious argument is quite beyond me. In formal definition, what you've committed is the etymological fallacy. Because a word or phrase may have multiple meanings doesn't mean that every application of the word invokes the same meaning. In science, a theory is a considerably more rigorously formulated claim or set of claims than just "wild ass guess", which is where you appear to be going. But it's a standard Creationist and ID stunt to try to diminish the rigorous nature of scientific theories to give a sort of rhetorical bump to claims that aren't even remotely scientific (and ID/Creationism is not science by any useful definition of the word).
I'm doubting that very highly.
And now you're inventing definitions for ID and Creationism to bolster your argument. Creationism may certainly be more expansive, but ID, as formulated by Behe and Dembski, is not about how planets form, but as a direct challenge to features of biological evolution.
I have a pretty good suspicion that you are not at all familiar with biological evolution and Intelligent Design. You certainly know nothing about science judging by the statement Yet, we still call it a "Theory" for some reason.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yet, we still call it a "Theory" for some reason. And yes, I know about most of the evidence, and yes I buy that (more than anything else right now). I also understand that we might possibly be all wrong at any moment.
We still call gravity a "Theory" as well. You are making the common mistake about the scientific use of the word.
According to the United States National Academy of Sciences: Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time.
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
The battle is over in science not because there is no founding for it. The battle is over because the leaders in the scientific go out of their way to seek out those with any dissenting opinion to popular theory and throw them out. Do a bit of research yourself and you will find many valid, well-informed professors thrown out of universities for presenting or even researching on the side aspects that did not agree with the status quo.
People, particularly on this forum, put Christians down as ignorant. I believe it is much more ignorant to just flat out silence opposing views rather than actually investigate them for real merit.
I think we should teach science in science classes, and leave religious education to churches. ID and Creationism are not scientific theories. At the very most they belong in religious studies or philosophy classes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well, yes, there are a lot of books but basically they all boil down to going at length into some (logically invalid and/or based on strawmen) way in which Darwinism is all wrong.
Just ask anyone to explain ID to you without mentioning Darwin and evolution. No seriously. All that is left is basically "god did it!" No more, no less, no falsifiable claim of its own.
It's not even a theory or even hypothesis in its own right. It can't even tell you if God made the Platypus on day 5 of Genesis 1 together with the the birds and the fish, or on day 6 together with the animals and the humans. Or was it what happens when god wakes up at midnight between the two days with a bright new idea and just has to try it? Was it made later by the devil to test you faith? Or what? You won't find that kind of stuff on ID because it doesn't actually have any theory that would go into those details, or for that matter into anything else than "Darwin was wrong!!!!111eleventeen"
Heck, for that matter you won't even find in ID if it was the abrahamic God, or the Chinese goddess Nuwa, or what?
The whole thing is pretty much based on the implied stupidly false dichotomy that if Darwin was wrong, then specifically _their_ fairy tale is right. Which is like saying that if I found a coin in my bed in high school and I'm fairly sure it my parents probably didn't come into my room at night, then it _must_ be a late payment from the Tooth Fairy. In reality, there are a lot of other possibilities, such as that it fell out of my pocket. But they're not even at that point in ID.
But at any rate, there is nothing to teach in ID if you try to actually teach ID and not "but Darwin was wrong!!!!" All that's left is "umm, so God must have done it." You don't even need more than 1 minute in class for that: "Some people believe Darwin was wrong and God made them, because it makes them feel more special. The name for those people is 'stupid.'" Done.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Ah yes, argumentum ad dictionarum. Dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive, and are meant only for cursory definitions.
ID is not science. It makes virtually no testable claims at all, beyond overly expansive ones, and the two cases where it has been attempted to use it; bacterial flagellum and the vertebrate immune system, there were decades worth the literature already in place demonstrating how those systems evolved.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's a smoke show, just Creationism stripped of any direct references to God
So therefore, since it's at it's core an ancient belief, it fits in perfectly in Ancient History. Alongside Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Babylonian, Chinese, African, etc creation myths.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
as per: http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolution.php - evolution has been seen to occur, and we even have every-500th-generation snapshots. This made a wava about a year ago, then went kinda quiet. In brief, a bateria was exposed to a mild poison (a citrate), and over 44,000 generations, mutated into a form able to metabolize it. Evolution in action.
Please don't dominate the rap, Jack, if you got nothin' new to say.
However if we teach science, that fact patterns do not have to fit what is already known, that new things can be created, then we have a person who can create real product, not only catch the fix, but add value, so that we may all benefit with new big flat screen TVs and fancy cars.
Of course I know religious folks have no need for fancy cars or big TVs, as their lord given them all the comfort they need, so they have no need for science.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Care to retract, or will you just keep repeating a 25 year old Creationist lie. It's one thing to be a fool, it's something far worse to be a fool who repeats another fool's lies.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
but ID is clearly correct in every way. this time. /troll
(ofc the whole story is one giant invitation to trolls of all stripes.)
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
You're missing the point. Creationism and ID aren't 'theories' in any sort of formal way (homework assignment - try to formulate a way to test for tenets of ID / creationism - pulling quotes out of badly translated ancient tomes does not count as evidence). Once you elevate them to the level of evolution, you've lost the battle. They should be relegated to Sunday school or YouTube.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That I can see, but not Ancient History. Even speculative ancient history (e.g., why is there water erosion on the Sphinx?) is not a part of most Ancient History curricula.
Ladies and Gentlemen
You thought we'd lost our minds with our crazy continental firewalling...but we're not done yet! Begone Darwin and all that reactionary claptrap. Come to Australia where the earth is flat (ignoring Uluru, hell...we've ignored the rights of Aboriginal folks, so we can ignore their rock!)
Best wishes
Conroy et al.
x
So you admit that it made testable claims that were proved false, making it a science. Or maybe Newton wasn't a scientist because in the end he was proven wrong?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
They are teaching this in Ancient History Studies...hmmm, it can't be soon enough that Intelligent Design can be bundled in with the rest of the crazy mythologies of ancient history!
on this article? seriously?
"one wonders what role a modern controversy can possibly serve within a subject dedicated to a period of history which occurred hundreds of years before Darwin proposed his groundbreaking theory?"
this is not a controversy, there is nothing controversial about something that is undeniably not science. This is the same religious pseudoscience that Thomas Aquinas, Averroes, and Avicenna spent their whole life shoveling unto the masses in a last ditch attempt to salvage the churches stranglehold on mankind as we started discovering cool things about planetary rotation, and human biology. sending a kid to biology class to learn about mitochondria and cellular function only to watch him wander into another class afterwards that demands "science and life are hard but god is the real plain answer!" is an affront to the entire purpose of education.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Right. ID proponents tried arguing that. ID is Creationism with whiteout over "God" and "Designer" written in. It's still at it's core, Creationism. Therefore is as old as the idea of all the land rising up out of "Nu"...
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
First of all, Newton wasn't proven wrong so much as Newtonian physics were engulfed by General Relativity, and GR and Quantum Mechanics aren't wrong so much as they will themselves become part of a larger theory.
And testable claims? They're very sparse in ID. A theory makes explicit testable claims, not nebulous and generalized ones. Of course, you'd probably know that, if you didn't get your definition of science from a dictionary. Testable claims alone don't make something a science, otherwise Greek mythology would be a science because it claims the gods live on top of Mount Olympus and we can pretty much prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they don't.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yet, we still call it a "Theory" for some reason. And yes, I know about most of the evidence, and yes I buy that (more than anything else right now). I also understand that we might possibly be all wrong at any moment.
We still call gravity a "Theory" as well. You are making the common mistake about the scientific use of the word.
According to the United States National Academy of Sciences: Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time.
As a side note: scientifical theories must be testable through experiment (this means there should be a way to look for some evidence to prove the theory wrong). This is enough to filter ID and Creationism out.
diegoT
I think schools should be teaching critical thinking as a mandatory part of the curriculum and ID would make an excellent case study for that course.
YOUR JUST WRONG
Your just wrong what? You need another word, or you need to learn how to use possessives.
Propaganda? Interesting, could you please provide two items on the list that you consider propaganda, and what's more explain why the cited sources are propaganda.
In fact I'll openly challenge you right now. I don't think you've read the page. I don't think you know anything about evolution.
But prove it to me. Give me two evidences (whether you believe it or not) for evolution.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'll give you the ID argument, as, that is true, I know little about it. I understand scientific theory (the simplest way to explain a phenomenon based on observations from the past - generally the most plausible way to explain something - i am no expert, obviously). However, it is still theory and not law. Also, I do think these beliefs would be interesting to teach from a historical or philosophical standpoint, but the only one you could possible teach from a scientific standpoint would be evolution (at least right now)... even though, it still might (a minuscule chance) be wrong (still could be those fucking colossal space monkeys).
There's nothing wrong with teaching ID from a phylosophical point of view. The problem is when people want's to teach it as if it was science. As I mentioned in another post: scientifical theories must be testable through experiment (this means there should be a way to look for some evidence to prove the theory wrong). This is enough to filter ID and Creationism out as scientific theories. They can still be taught as other kind of theories though and that would be fine.
diegoT
that field is less likely to be taught by people with a scientific background.
The fact that there are teachers out there without a scientific background scares me.
Boy, you sure know how to throw out the etymological fallacies. "Law" is an outmoded term that hasn't really been used in science since the beginning of the 20th century. There is fundamentally no difference between the old 18th and 19th century notion of a "scientific law" and the 20th and 21st century notion of a "scientific theory". It's just a change of usage.
You're floundering. Your lack of knowledge is such that your just aping very bad Creationist arguments.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well if it kept to history (even though it is pretty recent history and I am not so sure of the historical significance except as the most recent challenge to evolution - that is somewhat generally known) with an explanation that ID is NOT a scientific point of view or even a scientific study, then, yeah, teach the crap out of that crap. I think, that this stuff is more suited for college or high-school at least. Some of this is pretty heavy for younger kids. Even evolution is a pretty heavy subject - easier to grasp as science is more logical process that you can step anyone through, while philosophical thoughts are considerably more abstract and often requires just "belief" to have any "truth" in them.
At least learn a little about evolution before trying to "debate" it.
HAND.
Intelligent design or not. How many signs of human intelligence have you seen lately? Perhaps there is an intelligent alien species somewhere. I get very tired of the ID people trying to convince me that vicious parasites were carefully and intentionally designed by The Designer. I get even more tired of the fanatical preachers of Holy Evolution, most of whom have never even bothered to read Darwin, nor anything else for that matter. They "know" that evolution is a fact in much the same way that Medieval Europeans "knew" that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin was a "fact." Both sides of the controversy wildly cackle trash in the belief they are communicating something useful. A plague on both your houses.
"humans are God's special creation" thing.
HAND.
Best post I've seen on /. yet. I'm actually surprised you got a mod point for this ;^)
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I mean, what's there to teach? You start off with "God done it!" - where can you go from there?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
If they are going to teach it in that class, shouldn't they use the ancient name for it, creationism.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Ok, I'll play along.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
Mosquito resistance to DDT.
Yet, we still call it a "Theory" for some reason.
Followed by
I understand scientific theory
Shows that you do not understand the meaning of the word "theory". Because if you did, you wouldn't implicitly wonder why evolution is called a theory.
http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
Do yourself (and everyone else here) a favour and read that - once you understand it, you'll be able to understand why evolution is "still" referred to as a theory.
That's not really macroevolution, now is it, though it does prove rather well the basic tenets of evolutionary theory; change in genetic populations over time and the fitter tend to be selected.
But I'm referring to specifically what you railed against, which was macroevolution. Come on, I gave you damned link with a few dozen evidences, and all you can come up with are examples that don't even really broach the major lines of evidence?
You're not playing along at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Thank you, I can't believe that got modded troll.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
You asked for two evidences of evolution. That's what I gave. Might want to re-read the request.
None of this stuff surprises me. There's lots of crazy religious whackjobs and woo-peddlers from Queensland, and besides wheat, coal and bauxite, Christian, right-wing and New Age crap is one of our biggest exports.
Having grown up in regional Queensland, I can testify first hand that this place is, as some wag once said, like Alambama with better beaches.
The place has a deep right-wing authoritarian streak going way back, and it periodically resurfaces in the form of the "Liberal National Party", a rabble of right-wing redneck farmers who occasionally scrape together enough votes to get into power and screw everything up. Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (USians, think Huey Long), was the closest thing to a dictator this country has ever seen, and presided over a thuggish and thoroughly corrupt ostensibly-Christian police state which followed around and harassed its enemies. I have friends who had Special Branch files a foot thick... which the Joh government conveniently had shredded Stasi-style when they were kicked out for being outrageously corrupt.
That kind of parochialism and petty right-wing nastiness breeds a xenophobic and superstitious outlook that hasn't changed a bit as long as I've been alive. Rural south east Queensland is a hotbed of cult activity, and our Christian fundamentalists are reknowned the world over; several of the world's biggest IDers and Creationists come fresh from beautiful and sunny Queensland to spread their vile ideas around the world. We also have export-grade racists and idiots like Pauline Hanson, who left Australia recently for London (without even a hint of irony) because there are "too many Asians" in Australia. We also have a lot of New Age silliness, and it tends to cluster in places like the New South Wales border. They're mostly harmless, apart from their embrace of dangerous silliness like the anti-vaccination movement, which has caused communities to lose herd immunity, and children to die from diseases thought eradicated 50 years ago.
Outside of the fairly vibrant and fast-growing south east corner, Queensland is a Mecca for all sorts of stupid, vile and ugly people, many who purport to call themselves Christian.
The context of it was your claim that macroevolution never happened. It strikes me now that you can't actually back up your claim and are trying to weasel out. Typical Creationist, big talk, but nothing below the surface.
I'll wager you've never even read an actual book by a biologist. You certainly seem incapable of defending your position. You certainly never bothered looking at the page, which comes with full references and citations. Calling that propaganda is itself little more than dishonest hyperbole.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The "Founding Fathers" were born generations after the initial settlers of the original colonies. As a very large generalization, the settlers were religious zealots who could not get along with their countrymen. There were exceptions: Georgia was an early experiment in the sort of penal colony that Australia would later become and Virgina was largely settled because of delusions of easy money, but in general the colonies were settled by religious zealots. It's a misnomer to say that these colonies were founded for "religious freedom" too. The colonists were generally free to practice their religions back in England, but felt terribly constrained by their inability to force their beliefs upon their countrymen. Again, there are exceptions: Pennsylvania was founded for religious reasons, but with a goal of true religious freedom.
This has little to do with the events of two hundred years later when the decedents of these original settlers decided to break ties with the mother country. The men who founded the United States were chronologically separated from the original European settlers of the land that would eventually become the United States by nearly as much time as we are separated from those founders now.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
what is that? some sort of missing evolutionary link between different textbook phenotypes?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well said "nimbius"... who cares what Australia teaches.
The religious faithful are to self-appointed scientists(*) as paedophiles are to tabloids or Muslim terrorists to western governments.
Here's a definition for ID: the intelligent creation of the laws of physics and the beginning of the universe such that, by chance, everything would end up evolving pretty much as it has. Potentially provable? To a degree. Potentially disprovable? Certainly not. Scientific hypothesis? No. Believed by many, before and now? Yes. Relevant to history? Yes. Relevant to religion? Yes. Relevant to science, as the most obvious illustration of what cannot be disproven by science? Yes.
Exercise: try stating any scientific theory and asking, "why?" repeatedly to it until you can go no further. No matter how far you go, you will always stop after a finite number of "why"s. Science is an activity performed by humans, who are mortal. It involves making an observation, writing a specific hypothesis, and providing evidence which supports (or refutes) that hypothesis. That is all. It won't reveal the secrets of the whole universe. It will never reveal the absolute origin of everything (even if some God appears, where did he come from? and so on).
ID vs evolution, Christians vs Muslims, commies vs capitalists, and any number of idealistic debates tend to depend on some assumption you have made that the opposite party has not made. Meanwhile, the pragmatists continue not caring, getting rich and increasing their control of today's world.
(*) It's rarely the practicing scientists... often those who have sipped from the Pierian spring and believe they're experts on philosophy of science.
You should go back to school. This is embarrassing.
maybe you should take a minute to explain it to me then, mr. smartypants. your comment is useless otherwise.
Presumably my "bit of research" should pretty much begin and end with Ben Stein's intellectually dishonest documentary he came out a few years ago?
After reading about this a bit more, I have to say that you are right. Why the change of usage and why the deprecation of the word "law"? I am certainly a layman in these respects (painfully obvious by now), using the word "theory" to the rest of the world seems to indicate something that isn't totally proven. I even think that the distinction is incorrectly taught to this day. I mean I was taught that in my junior-high school days in the mid 80s - and no indication was given, of course, that "law" is not used much anymore. Going into college my studies didn't really center around those distinctions either (ok, I am sure my Physics courses did, but I didn't care about them so much then - I was Computer "Science" - where not a lot of science is really taught in regards to software development).
/.
when I'm wrong, I'm wrong... and usually, for all to see on
Being on topic and echoing in another post I made, I still think creationism and ID would make good philosophical studies (and maybe history, even thought for ID not sure of the significance except as the "counter" to evolution), not sure it would be appropriate for grade schools.
Do a bit of research yourself and you will find many valid, well-informed professors thrown out of universities for presenting or even researching on the side aspects that did not agree with the status quo.
Can you point out some examples?
I believe it is much more ignorant to just flat out silence opposing views rather than actually investigate them for real merit.
Seriously, these "opposing views" aren't silenced or ignored so much as they are disqualified because they fail to pass simple theoretical tests. Why would we want to spend time and resources to "investigate the merits" of something that fails even casual theoretical examination?
*sigh* back to work...
Yeah, that was definitely a case of Mod abuse. There was absolutely nothing resembling trolling in that post. I guess someone had an axe to grind.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
around 4.5 billion
Likelihood (Probability) = 1
100%
Open your eyes.
Perhaps pedantic, but its an important point in this context:
A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable through experiment (that is, it must make some prediction[s] about how things will work in specific circumstances that can be tested and which, if the test fails, will demonstrate that the hypothesis is incorrect.)
A scientific theory is not merely a testable hypothesis, but a hypothesis which has been subjected to testing and not yet been falsified.
Let me review your data for this. If it is accurate my eyes will be opened and i will believe whole-heartedly.
Smart people are so dismissive of people who do not see or believe the way they do. Instead of being able to fully explain thier facts they demean those that question. It is a very small, sad, "smart" person who behaves this way. Try being a little more open minded and try to consider why you believe the way you do, and be able to explain it to those who question instead of demeaning them. You may find that you are able to sway them to your view. Demeaning them will almost certainly not do so.
Open your eyes, indeed.
If you're looking for odds, check out the Drake equation. No doubt every advanced creature in all the billions of galaxies is asking "what are the odds that I came into being." But they did, so clearly they beat the odds.
You are a unique individual with a unique combination of genes (unless you're an identical twin). What are the odds of you having your exact genetic identity? Zillions to one. Yet here you are, so why fret about it?
I piss off bigots.
The argument from design (prior to the modern era, the term `intelligent design' would have been considered to be a pleonasm) certainly predates the Christian era.
I can't recall off the top of my head if any of the pre-Socratic philosophers discussed it. But a form of it was certainly addressed by Aristotle. The definitive development is widely thought to be that of Saint John of Damascus (d. 8th century AD) in Book I of his "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith." It was also brought up by a number of Arabic philosophers and by Thomas Aquinas.
So it seems to me that Ancient History is one of the places where studying the argument fits best.
Take a deck of cards. Shuffle as long as you want. Draw 52 cards in any order from that deck. What are the odds that it came up in that order? Before you drew the cards, the odds were 52! Once they are drawn the odds are 100%
Scientists don't agree with Intelligent Design. There's no scientific evidence to support it.
Most Christians don't agree with ID. Nowhere in the bible is ID mentioned.
No other religions propose ID.
Most surveys indicate hardly anyone asked believes ID. (most either believe full religious creationism or evolution, not ID).
Why then is it being taught in schools?
http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In science there is no such thing as "laws" anymore. This is an outdated concept. Everything is really a theory. Although Newton's "Law of Gravitation" is still named "Law", it is really a theory. Incidentally Einstein proved that Newton's "Law" was essentially incomplete in that Newton's equations are true only for situations where there is relatively low mass and low speed. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity fills this gap; however, Einstein knew that this was incomplete as General Relativity is incompatible with Quantum Mechanics.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I didn't dismiss your questions, I answered them with the facts available.
The paleolithic era is pre-history, not ancient history. In most of academia, ancient history means pretty much everything from the invention of writing up to the beginning of the middle ages. This varies a bit as some people groups didn't get history until relatively late in the game. For example, in most (not all) of North America, everything prior to the arrival of the Europeans was pre-history.
Intelligent design certainly fits into "ancient history" as it was discussed by Aristotle.
I'm doubtful that it has much value being taught in most schools but that's mostly because I think the time better spent studying how to form logically sound arguments. But if that is taught first, then the argument from design could certainly be used as an example of how to work out which premises of the argument would have to be true in order for the argument to be sound. I think most students would be better able to do this at the collegiate level rather than at the high school level.
Yes, democratically run education systems will sometimes disagree with what I think is right. Scientific fact however is not democratic. Intelligent design is just plain wrong, no matter how many people like it. As a scientific theory, it's failed completely.
That's my rationale for arguing, to a democratic society, that ID should not be taught in schools. "sucking it up" and letting ignorance prevail is not something we do in working democratic societies.
Let's put it this way, could Evolution be proven wrong? Perhaps, but it would take an insane level of evidence to do that. Something like finding a rabbit fossil where only single cell organisms should be. Absent from that level of insane evidence, challenges to Evolution are in the "tweak not toss" category. Maybe hominids developed a little earlier. Maybe dinosaurs were a little different. A tweak here and a tweak there and Evolution survives as a changed theory. (You still won't get cavemen riding dinosaurs, though.)
So while it is true that Evolution could be proven wrong, the chances are minuscule. You have better odds of buying a single lotto ticket and hitting the $300 million jackpot than you have of Evolution being proven completely and totally wrong.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Pointing to the scientific definition may help, but maybe it's better to point out why scientists use it that way. Everyone who takes a prism out in the sunlight can see that the light is split in different colors. That is the practical, the observation without any theory as to how and why. What they don't get from that is the background of why they're seeing those colors in that order, why different materials will bend light differently and so on. That is what scientists call theory, it is the explanation, the theoretical foundation, the underlying principles and not simply a hunch.
Unfortunately, scientists occasionally use the casual meaning of the word themselves, because in the scientific world there's no confusion. "Hmm, that doesn't look right." "Yeah well, I have a theory about that. It might be that..." is hardly that unheard of words. It's just that no one of them has a problem separating "pet theory" from the "generally acknowledged scientific truth" variety. Well at least as close as you get truth, principally gravity could stop working right now. And there's the philosophers who'll argue that potentially we couldn't know "truth" from the Matrix and so on. But if you accept living in a real universe with other people, evolution looks pretty damn solid.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except that evolution isn't about how the world started. It isn't even about how life started. It's about how life, once it existed, evolved.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The theory of evolution has as much evidence and support as the theory of gravity. The story of "intelligent design" has as much evidence and support as the story of "intelligent falling". In America, the constitution protects us from religious stories being told in class (though discussing the effect such stories have had on man is fine), but apparantly not in Australia.
BTW, what would you accept as "evidence of no god"? There seems to be only Occam's razor (why introduce a God when the universe seems quite explicable without one), and the Problem of Evil, both of which are evidence only against certain kinds of gods (such as the Christian god as commonly understood).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The was a branch of ID tha made testable claims that were proven wrong - kudos for them for attempting science. Sadly, most ID supporters did not in any way accept this as a disproof of ID and continue to argue for teaching it in schools - the ID those folks are pushing is not science, as they simply excised those incorrect claims and kept going.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Good, next up we will demand that the kids are taught that rain is gods tears, lightning is gods anger, the earth is flat, dinosaurs never existed (god only put the bones there to test our faith)
and once we got all that, we will demand teaching the fairy godmother, santa clause and the bogeyman.
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
A few scraps of fossil doesn't really count as evidence for the complex systems of the human body being some fluke. Even less so for the complex emotional side of humans. Don't get me wrong, Im not a big fan of intelligent design either, but I dont like hearing darwin being preached as if its as proven as 2+2=4. Science has been proved wrong before, and I've no doubt it will be again. I've not heard of Occam's razor before, but really, the universe is far from explained, big bang theory still has that gaping whole of what caused it to happen, and where did that energy come from. If your constitution really does stop the 'stories' of religions being taught thats seems kinda sad, not that you should approach them all as fact, but there are more religious than non-religious people on this earth, a little respect for them might do you good. Trying to show atheism as the only way is as much of a lie.
Don't forget to teach Intelligent Falling while we're at it!
After reading about this a bit more, I have to say that you are right. Why the change of usage and why the deprecation of the word "law"?
Because "law" implies that it is absolute, unchanging, and untouchable. Everything in science is up to repudiation because scientists concede that we don't know everything. The revision was made because "laws" like gravitation were modified showing that they are not absolute.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The theoretical underpinnings of "chance" are shaky. All scientific theories assume that things happen in a predictable way (theories must make testable predictions). Due to complexities of small-scale phenomena, chance has been presented as an alternative partial assumption (quantum mechanics).
Some think that the randomness in quantum mechanics is actually brought on by unmeasurable or unknown variables. Others think that things are actually happening in a partially unpredictable way. Since the truth about chance isn't known, we shouldn't be teaching children that the universe, and all life in it, arose through random chance. It is only appropriate to present that as an idea.
Who is advocating teaching them that all life arose through random chance? Chance is only one element of evolution. One that we're all quite familiar with. If you have a another scientific theory to present, then please present it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
As far as the complexity of the human body, there's good evidence of how each and every system evolved, with a solid basis in evidence for the history of each, with the exception of self-awareness. The "complex emotional side" of humans isn't particularly unique among animals - many show complex emotional states. Self-awareness is quite interesting, however.
Nothing in science is "proven" as 2+2=4. That's not the point of science - science seeks the model that best describes the universe quantitatively, and accurately predcicts things we haven't measured yet. New hypotheses must make some predictions that are different from the established theory - mere descriptivism isn't science. It's quite rare for science to be "proved wrong" - rather, limits of accuracy are found for specific models (Newton is quite accurate most of the time, but sometimes you need Einstein to get the right answer).
Occam's razor simply says: when evaluating competing theories, choose the one that postulates the fewest entities that aren't part of the measured data. It's a great rule of thumb.
The US constitution forbids government preference of or endorsement of any specific religion. A public school teacher teaching e.g. a Bible story clearly violates that. Teaching that many people believe in religion, and discussing that in a Social Studies class is fine.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The problem with your response is that you assume that all of these things occured without ID, therefore they are proof in themselves. [This is clearly not the way to prove anything. Its the chicken and the egg scenario all over again.] Your assesment may be entirely accurrate but what are your facts to backup the statement? Run down your list of proof the same way a mathemetician can prove his equations.
I am completly open to being shown the error of my beliefs. But statistically, it seems exceptionally improbable that these things could have occured 100% without intervention by some force or intelligence. I am thinking in terms of the something like the lottery - 180,000,000 to 1 odds of winning... and then winning twice? and then three times? what about 50 times in a row? These are the statistics i am talking of. On a cellular level I can see how you can get into billions and trillions of cells mutating into more and more advanced life, and all of this occurring in the span of the earth's existance...but where is the spark that starts it all? How does that spark occur? and in what conditions. Clearly, once we figure this out and are able to replicate it then this will no longer be theory. Until we do then it IS all just theory, cannot be proven, and we should neither condemn nor demean those who believe otherwise. I respect the beliefs of others. I don't judge them for those beliefs. But don't judge me for questioning those beliefs. There is nothing wrong with asking Why.
"Theory" in science doesn't mean the same thing as "theory" in common speech. In everyday speech, "theory" means "what someone thinks." In science, it means something that is capable of making testable predictions, and that has made correct predictions in all the cases where the theory is applicable. For example, Newton's law of gravity is a scientific theory. Although we know it's not true in any absolute sense (because it's only an approximation to general relativity), we know that it is accurate to within certain bounds, under certain conditions.
Creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories in this sense. They don't testable predictions.
One of the favorite lines of creationists is "it's only a theory." If they mean that evolution is only a (scientific) theory, then they're saying that evolution is totally solid. If they're saying that creationism is only an (alternative) (scientific) theory, then they don't understand what a scientific theory is.
Here it sounds like you just don't have enough scientific knowledge to evaluate the evidence correctly. The current rate of expansion of the universe is not the only evidence for the big bang theory. Within the last 15 years, cosmology has become an exact science. There are extremely tight observational constraints. In addition, one of the things Stephen Hawking built his early career on was proving certain singularity theorems. One of those singularity theorems says that given what we currently observe about the universe, general relativity predicts that there *has* to have been a big bang.
One of the most common things that laypeople misundertand about science is that they think scientists know about things they don't know about, and don't know about things that they do know about. The big bang falls in the latter category. Just because you don't know enough about the evidence to be sure, that doesn't mean there's any doubt remaining among scientists.
Find free books.
We still call gravity a "Theory" as well.
Ah now, what we call the "theory of gravity" is the mathematical and physical explanation for the effect that we see - namely, that massive bodies experience mutual attraction.
Gravity is an observational fact; the mechanism by which it operates and the equations that describe it are the theory.
Not that I'm disagreeing with your argument in the least of course, but as long as we're being semantically rigorous...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
So, generally speaking, I don't find the ID arguments very convincing. That said, I find part of this article's summary, and a common refrain from the anti-ID crowd (i.e. most everyone) to be troubling. Namely that ID "isn't science".
It seems pretty obvious to me that one could "scientifically" go about determining whether something was "designed" or not. Suppose a meteor lands on earth with some "interesting" properties. Maybe it has a particularly regular stucture. Maybe its engraved with the prime numbers expressed in binary. Etc. Are we going to say its impossible to scientifically approach the problem of determining whether this object was "intelligently designed" or "naturally occurring"?
It may well be that ID arrives at wrong conclusions for ideological reasons, but it also seems like the scientific establishment is overstating its case when it dismisses the entire problem of "design detection" (for lack of a better word) as "not science".
The theory of gravity is trivially reproducible. The grand theory of evolution...not so much. Sure, we can observe things happening on a more limited scale, but you can't exactly reproduce "the totality of life on earth has its origins in the primordial soup". Its the difference between theorizing about "this is the way things work" (e.g. gravity) vs. "this is what happened a long time ago" (e.g. evolution, cosmology, etc.)
----Ridiculous questions snipped---
I am not saying evolution is untrue, nor am i saying that ID is untrue. I am saying that we have no method of verifying our "scientific" finding that life evolved and there was never any ID involved at all. To me, that means the science that is frequently put forward as truth is actually just a theory and not really a fact. This belief of mine is furhter solidified in my mind by the fact that we still cannot create life from lifelessness. We can create synthetic life using building blocks from existing life, but no one, to my knowledge has taking a bunch of inorganic material and make it a living and procreating life-form. Statistically, i believe that such life from lifelessness is very very improbable without some form of ID, somewhere along the line. I also believe evolution occurs without needing ID. That is, once life exists, it evolves to suit its environment, or it dies.
You understand that people are giving angry responses because it's obvious that you haven't done the first bit of research before throwing out those inane questions, right?
Please educate yourself about the theory and then come back and ask some sensible questions. Preferably some that aren't already answered here.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
1. The odds that Complex life, speciation, etc. occurred is 100%.
2. There are mountains of evidence supporting the theory that it occurs by means of natural selection.
3. There is no evidence that it occurs by means of supernatural power.
Therefore, the odds that the explanation is due to supernatural power is infinitely small, as compared to an explanation based on available facts.
Now this doesn't prove anything, but there is also no proof that gravity makes things fall, or that germs cause illness.
I don't need proof that an illness isn't caused by a curse, I assume it's caused by a pathogen, because there is overwhelming evidence.
The notion that natural selection determines that outcome of the universe is, to many people, a profoundly unsettling explanation.
(just speculating) Could this perhaps be due to a tendency for people to shirk responsibility for what happens to them, e.g. blame luck or fate for lack of preparation or ability?
Such as saying "it wasn't meant to be" for failed relationships instead of analyzing what went wrong or was incompatible and learning from it.
Or perhaps to be able to have hope that despite what they do, if it was "meant to be", then they would have gotten that house/job/child.
Just makes me wonder how much religion and faith stems from personal failings and the human need for hope.
ERROR: SIG NOT FOUND (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?:
"the totality of life on earth has its origins in the primordial soup".
This is not a claim of the theory of evolution. Abiotic genesis is interesting, but a different hypothesis. The theory of evolution primarily claims that the distribution of alleles in a population changes over time, and secondarily explores the consequences of this. Evolution explains how the variety of life observed on this planet may have from a common ancestor, and in doing so made millions of predictions (about relationships between species) that turned out to be accurate - but that common ancestor could have come from anywhere.
Everything living has the same chemical basis for RNA, which argues strongly for a common ancestor somewhere along the line, on this planet or another.
A competing theory that explained the observed relationships between species without common ancestry would be as amazing a thing as a theory that explained the orbits of planets and galaxies without gravitational attraction - there would be a heck of a lot of explaining to do.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Indeed. And while we're at it, let's, maybe, teach that the earth is a more or less spheric rock among balls of burning gas, also that it is flat, and then that it rests on the backs of giant elephants, all the way down... teach them as the three most widely-accepted ideas on earth's relation to the cosmos...
May we live long and die out
What about "common designer" instead of "common ancestry"? I mean, if I were some super-intelligent race of space aliens and was going to design life on earth, I'd probably establish the basic mechanisms as a platform, then diversify on top of that. Tweak it here, tweak it there.
In philosophical studies, one would review Hume, and find out he debunked the core argument of ID; Paley's Watchmaker argument, nearly three centuries ago. Intelligent design is as bad a philosophy as it is a science.
If you add in St. Augustine, one can even posit that ID is bad theology, too.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Queensland is NOT part of Australia, and any sort of intelligence fled during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen years when he kept telling everyone "d d d dont you worry bout that now!" in response to any questions from the media. Intelligent design is just the usual Queensland double speak dialect for being told to do and believe what you are told or face the consequences of just what happens with that there banjo.
This topic gets so overheated that I think we can miss a subtler point- having a short unit on the the fact that some people believed Intelligent Design in history, and then discussing how to analyze claims like that scientifically. You can approach the topic as an observer rather than necessarily as an authority.
For example:
"In 1997, 39 people committed suicide via drinking poisoned Kool Aid, because they believed that would free their souls from their bodies to teleport to a hidden alien spacecraft hidden in the tail of Comet Hale-Bopp. Let's use this example to discuss social psychology, peer pressure, and cult-like thinking in human behavior..." This could prove to be an interesting topic that makes kids think about just how far people can go. Teaching it does NOT mean teaching the children that alien comet-craft are real or that poisoned Kool Aid is a good, although hysterical claims to that effect could be made.
Similarly, at least rationally discussing the historical fact that some people believed in Intelligent Design and concepts like scientific provability, experiment replication, hypothesis and how to support them with evidence could be a fine topic, worth discussing. I know this sounds a little like capitulating to the whole "Teach the Controversy" approach, but I think there is potential in valuing how people came to believe "controversies" that absolutely no longer are. Examples: Sun revolves around earth, earth is flat, etc etc.
If you postulate a designer for some primordial common ancestor, then, sure, why not? It doesn't really change or explain anything, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.
If you postulate a designer who designed every living creature with all of the millions of tiny details in exactly the way they would have turned out thanks to common ancestry (which isn't the straightforward way to design things - you can't model e.g. automobiles this way), that's just Last-Tuesday-ism, which is pointless in the extreme.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Sadly, no. If it were "science", once the testable claims were proven false, ID would be thrown into the dustbin of history; like heliocentrism, steady-state cosmology, and Lamarckian Evolution. Proving ID false will, just again, cause its proponents to ignore the results.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
You forgot to provide citations for your "evidence"...
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Maybe we can get that good 'ol aussie Ian Plimer to do good instead of evil like he used to.
Many textbooks put forth theories for the origin of life, claiming that it arose out of random chance. They claim this is a "scientific" explanation, but it is not a testable scientific hypothesis so there really is nothing scientific about it. Just read the other guy's explanation, it makes sense.
Everybody knows that although 'laws' are useful they are _all_ wrong/incomplete.
In other words you still learn Newtons laws and how to apply them. You then go on to learn where they don't apply.
Newtons laws hold now water as theories. That is not what they have become. Laws now have scope. (e.g. V much less then C for Newtons laws of motion)
Just because something isn't universal doesn't make it useless.
But the core point remains, theories don't often grow up to be laws. When they do it isn't because they are proven, just very useful.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I never understood why evolution is such a threat to religion. How does us evolving from apes say anything about the existence of God? What does it even have to do with it?
Others have already given their thoughts on why they directly conflict, but my take on it has always been something a little more subtle. The advance of scientific explanations of the world makes God, or any other mythological explanation, an increasingly unnecessary hypothesis (as Laplace once told Napoleon when asked why his book on astronomy made no mention of God). Without a concept like evolution, atheism is susceptible to a rather plausible appeal to absurdity: "so, what, all this order in nature, including human intelligence itself, just happened to pop into existence for no reason?"
Creationists often like to portray the claims of evolution as being like this, like claiming that everything just happened by chance, but really evolution is an *alternate explanation* for the existence of order, not the assertion that there is no explanation. Evolutionary theory provides an explanation for how a chaotic system can develop into an ordered one by natural, impersonal processes, thus dissolving the dichotomy of "a person (God) made this order... or, lol, everything just happened by coincidence, right". Without the only alternative to God being that improbable coincidence, one of the major arguments for the existence of God (called the teleological argument, or argument from design) loses its foundation, and failing another, better argument, people might just think "well, if this evolution thing explains all that, then where exactly does God fit in this picture?"
And the theists don't like that idea, so they either come up with some other role for God to play, the typical ones being pushing it back further ("God created the first single-celled organisms and then let evolution take over", or even "God created the Big Bang and then let physics take over") or the "morality is the domain of religion, reality is the domain of science" angle (which I just wrote a rant against elsewhere on Slashdot)... or they argue against evolution to preserve a place for God.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Instead it's some idiots with an agenda and they are going to take it out on the kids they have under the control of the schools they own.
What do they really think they are going to achieve apart from confusion by teaching Genesis without God in it? It's a weasel tactic that sets a very bad example and is really in opposition to Christian values anyway. If they can't be up front about what they are teaching they shouldn't be getting taxpayers money to assist their schools.
Who is advocating teaching them that all life arose through random chance?
Exactly this statement is why I wish evolutionists would find a different word to refer to the origin of life.
To answer your question: every evolutionist, when he switches from speaking about the records that support the theory of natural selection and starts using those records to support Evolution as the way life began.
Anyone that claims that evolution has anything to do with the origin of life doesn't know what they're talking about. Evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis or any other theory on the origin of life. They are completely separate theories. Evolution only covers how life evolved to the current state of biodiversity that we see throughout the fossil record until today. It's about the mechanisms that enabled this to happen.
In fact, since ID deals with how life began, every person here who is claiming that evolution disproves ID is making the claim that life arose out of random chance. The random combination of just the right molecules that gave that collection of molecules an advantage over others, and thus subject to natural selection. Then the random connection of those into something with a bigger advantage. Just like the random mutations that gave preference to one offspring over another...
Having an advantage over others doesn't make something subject to natural selection. Everything is subject to it, advantages or not. That which survives to reproduce gets to live on, those that don't, don't. Chance is only a component, but the process is deterministic.
Evolution -- change in existing systems. ID -- creation of new systems. Two different concepts, routinely conflated. There is no reason evolution cannot coexist with ID, other than a common goal of evolutionists is to prove there is no God. Otherwise, there is no reason evolutionists would be so rabidly anti-ID.
No reason, except that ID is not a scientific theory, is not falsifiable, is not predictive, and is not supported by any evidence. Other than that, no reason at all.
If you have a another scientific theory to present, then please present it.
Evolution as the "origin of life" is not a scientific theory, since it is patently untestable and completely undisprovable. So no, not "another" scientific theory. "The origin of life" is a question we will NEVER be able to prove (or disprove) the answer to. It's outside the scope of our knowledge, and will remain so forever. To pretend that one has a "scientific theory" that disproves everything else regarding the origin of life is completely absurd and shows a lack of understanding of what the scientific method is.
Then why the belief in ID if the origin of life is something that can never be known? Why not just say it's unknown? That's what science does. They come up with theories, of which there are several, but they acknowledge that we really don't know if any of them are correct. IDers don't do that, and they have even less evidence to back up their claims.
That's all really beside the point anyway. As I said before, evolution doesn't cover the origin of life. The theories that do cover it will never be proven in the absolute sense, as no scientific theory is ever proven in the absolute sense. They may eventually be able to prove that life could have originated in one way or another, or possible in multiple ways. We may not be able to know for sure, so we'll just have to accept that we only know of possible ways that it originated. Whatever the scientific outcome, ID is still a load of garbage, and nothing more than ancient myths updated to sound pseudo-scientific.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Many textbooks put forth theories for the origin of life, claiming that it arose out of random chance. They claim this is a "scientific" explanation, but it is not a testable scientific hypothesis so there really is nothing scientific about it. Just read the other guy's explanation, it makes sense.
Bah. Meant that last response to go to the other guy. Whatever. It applies to you as well since you agree with him.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Who is advocating teaching them that all life arose through random chance?
Exactly this statement is why I wish evolutionists would find a different word to refer to the origin of life.
To answer your question: every evolutionist, when he switches from speaking about the records that support the theory of natural selection and starts using those records to support Evolution as the way life began.
Anyone that claims that evolution has anything to do with the origin of life doesn't know what they're talking about. Evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis or any other theory on the origin of life. They are completely separate theories. Evolution only covers how life evolved to the current state of biodiversity that we see throughout the fossil record until today. It's about the mechanisms that enabled this to happen.
In fact, since ID deals with how life began, every person here who is claiming that evolution disproves ID is making the claim that life arose out of random chance. The random combination of just the right molecules that gave that collection of molecules an advantage over others, and thus subject to natural selection. Then the random connection of those into something with a bigger advantage. Just like the random mutations that gave preference to one offspring over another...
Having an advantage over others doesn't make something subject to natural selection. Everything is subject to it, advantages or not. That which survives to reproduce gets to live on, those that don't, don't. Chance is only a component, but the process is deterministic.
Evolution -- change in existing systems. ID -- creation of new systems. Two different concepts, routinely conflated. There is no reason evolution cannot coexist with ID, other than a common goal of evolutionists is to prove there is no God. Otherwise, there is no reason evolutionists would be so rabidly anti-ID.
No reason, except that ID is not a scientific theory, is not falsifiable, is not predictive, and is not supported by any evidence. Other than that, no reason at all.
If you have a another scientific theory to present, then please present it.
Evolution as the "origin of life" is not a scientific theory, since it is patently untestable and completely undisprovable. So no, not "another" scientific theory. "The origin of life" is a question we will NEVER be able to prove (or disprove) the answer to. It's outside the scope of our knowledge, and will remain so forever. To pretend that one has a "scientific theory" that disproves everything else regarding the origin of life is completely absurd and shows a lack of understanding of what the scientific method is.
Then why the belief in ID if the origin of life is something that can never be known? Why not just say it's unknown? That's what science does. They come up with theories, of which there are several, but they acknowledge that we really don't know if any of them are correct. IDers don't do that, and they have even less evidence to back up their claims.
That's all really beside the point anyway. As I said before, evolution doesn't cover the origin of life. The theories that do cover it will never be proven in the absolute sense, as no scientific theory is ever proven in the absolute sense. They may eventually be able to prove that life could have originated in one way or another, or possible in multiple ways. We may not be able to know for sure, so we'll just have to accept that we only know of possible ways that it originated. Whatever the scientific outcome, ID is still a load of garbage, and nothing more than ancient myths updated to sound pseudo-scientific.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
there was nothing and then one day nothing exploded and then there was everything.
Seems as far fetched as creationism.
You post two random links and conclude that "ID is certainly a science". How exactly is ID a science? Please be specific. But you can't explain that, can you?
Clever signature text goes here.
Random links? I posted a link to the definition of science, and the wikipedia definition for ID. I'd hardly call that 'random'.
Definition 2 (the definition for 'a science' as opposed to 'science':
2 a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study
Note also that this precedes the definition 3, though one might conclude that definition 3 is what slashdotters would prefer to argue about:
3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method
I'd then encourage you to read the ID article and weigh honestly whether or not it meets the definition. I think the evidence that it is a failed scientific theory is ironclad.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The Anthropomorphic Principle and Information Theory with respect to live haven't had much mention here. The sheer complexity of cellular life is such that we still don't understand how it could have come into existence via evolution. Probability is so much against it that some scientists have proposed life arose elsewhere than Earth and we got infected (doesn't solve the problem, just shifts it outside where we can easily study it). Other scientists have suggested cells arose from another platform such as clay.
Then there is the problem of natural selection which selects for a reduced level of information - it doesn't add information. That has to come from mutations from radiation or stealing genes from other life (which again shifts the problem without solving it).
Slashdot readers have a far better appreciation than most of what it takes to create something that performs a useful function. Given the majority here belief in Evolution, I'm surprised no developers have suggested that they just write one program that will naturally select what the customer wants and let it run on a supercomputer for a while to spit out the solution. Oh, perhaps that's because it requires Intelligent Design to write that program...
Statistics can be massively misleading. For example 6 out of 7 dwarves aren't Happy. Also 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang-rape.
Statistically, i believe that such life from lifelessness is very very improbable without some form of ID
This is true. Unfortunately there was no designer so we had to wait several billion years for a planet with the right conditions to appear. Once that was in place the rest didn't take too long (cosmologically speaking), just a few million years.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing
God exists, He's just lazy. Create a universe full of elementary particles and let it go. Ta-da! Life evolves.
I piss off bigots.
I have a radical proposal. How about we teach an accurate overview of science, as actually understood and practiced by professional scientists in each field.
And what about "scientific controversies"? Well, if one PhD astronomer gets schizophrenia and claims the moon is made of cheese we're obviously not going to mention that in any class. So how about this, if actual physicists are equally split on something we spend equal time on both. That's perfectly logical, right? And if actual chemists are split 90% vs 10% about 10% on something, we teach the 90% view as mainstream accepted science, and lets be generous and say maybe it is worth while spending 10% of the time discussing "the controversy" and the contrary view. That's more than fair and reasonable, right? Spending 10% time on a 10% view? And if there is a 99% vs 1% split between actual astronomers on something, we absolutely teach the 99% version as accepted science and we spend, MAYBE, AT MOST, 1% time pointing out that sometimes a few scientists disagree with accepted science and briefly mentioning what the 1% view is. I think it is grossly generous to spend 1% time teaching a 1% "controversy". And how about we use that 1% level as a cutoff. How about we agree that anything below a 1% level pretty much represents the random crackpots that exist in every field. How about we agree that anything rejected by more than 99% of professionals in a field has no place in a science classroom.
Is that reasonable? Is that agreeable?
Oh, by the way, if we rounded off to the nearest full percentage point, 100% of professional biologists accept evolution. If you want to start getting into decimals, more than 99.8% of professional biologists accept evolution. Seriously. Intelligent Design isn't science. It's a public relations campaign trying to pass itself off as science to claw it's way into science classes. The ID materials are plausible enough to confuse and mislead school children, but it's all flawed or misleading or just plain false. All of the supposed science in ID has been refuted by actual biologists.
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I think they mean Intelligent Design of the universe, not of the iPad.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Back in grade school we did spend a good amount of time on Greek and Native American Creation myths...discussing Christian creation myths would only be fair.
ID should be placed in the backseat of history as far as education is concerned, along with Aztec Sun Gods, Zeus and Osirus. Knowledge of that stuff is definitely important in analyzing multiple perspectives from multiple cultures, and in the long run it means ID will be considered a fanciful, romantic, and dead religion that a bunch of people got riled up about.
No one is presenting the Greek religion as a scientific fact in a science class. I dare say that if someone did, our friendly neighborhood creationists and you would stand up and scream about violation of the Establishment Clause.
We do not "teach the controversy" of opposing views of evolution for the same reason we don't "teach the controversy" about geocentrism in opposition to heliocentrism, or about belief in a flat Earth as opposed to a spherical Earth. Children have enough to do in science class without having to be burdened with learning about things that are demonstrably false, much less presenting those demonstrably false things as some kind of legitimate scientific viewpoint.
Now, statistically, can you explain the odds in all of this occurring over the course of the earth's existance?
I think you're looking for the Anthropic Principle. In summary, all of those things had to be just so, or we wouldn't be here to notice that they were different. It's really just a form of selection bias.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Actually the odds would be 1 in (52*51*50*49*48*...*5*4*3*2*1) or 1 in 8.06581752 × 10^67.
Think of it this way. You've shuffled the deck and laid it down. The first card could be any of 52 possible cards. The next card will be any of 51 possible cards. And so on through the deck.
An ID proponent would say that, since the odds are so tiny that the deck would come out that way, The Intelligent Designer (*cough*God*cough*) must have done it.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Perhaps pedantic, but its an important point in this context:
A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable through experiment (that is, it must make some prediction[s] about how things will work in specific circumstances that can be tested and which, if the test fails, will demonstrate that the hypothesis is incorrect.)
A scientific theory is not merely a testable hypothesis, but a hypothesis which has been subjected to testing and not yet been falsified.
Never pedantic if it clears out misconceptions. Thanks for the correction, I found it insightful. :)
diegoT
Why the change of usage and why the deprecation of the word "law"?
Once upon a time we had the Law Of Conservation Of Mass, and the Law Of Conservation Of Energy. And then Relativity came along and subatomic physics, and we found that both are false. Mass can become energy, and energy can become mass. Calling them "laws" in the first place was wrong, or at best misleading.
We inherited the usage of "law" from hundreds of years ago when the methods and philosophy of modern science were first being born. Whenever some apparent rule of nature was discovered they slapped the name "law" on it. They were discovering the Laws Of Nature. Newton discovered an equation describing gravity, so they slapped the name Law Of Gravity on it.
As modern science progressed it became clear that that understanding progresses in layers. Things that were "true" and "facts" yesterday can always be superseded by new and better understanding tomorrow, and things that were "true" and "facts" yesterday can always be refuted by new experiments and new evidence tomorrow.
In the modern philosophy of science everything is open to question. Everything is open to new and better understanding, new and better evidence. The highest status anything can have in modern science is theory, a theory supported beyond any reasonable doubt by all available evidence. The existence of atoms? That is atom theory, supported beyond any reasonable doubt by all available evidence. The existence of atoms is inherently open to question, but anyone would be an idiot to waste their time on it unless you can present some damn good new evidence and a new theory that explains known chemistry better than the current atom theory.
Between Evolution, Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, Evolution almost indisputably holds the strongest scientific status of the three. All three are supported beyond any reasonable doubt by all available evidence. Allow me to split Evolution into two parts. One, evolution as a process, and two, evolution as an explanation of history.
Evolution-as-a-process is a mathematically proven fact. Given a few minimal conditions, given essentially any system involving selective replication of information with mutation, it is mathematically proven that the process of evolution will occur and that it can and will create new "useful" information. (Where "useful" means useful for being selected and reproducing.)
Evolution-as-an-explanation-of-history is supported beyond any reasonable doubt by all available evidence. New evidence will help fill in new details, but barring a massive fraud of false evidence planted by God or intelligent aliens there is no reason to expect some new level of understanding and some new underlying truth fundamentally overturning the evolution-as-history. It's like we're a jury in a murder case and we have fingerprints and DNA evidence and we have lousy quality video of the suspect committing the murder. The video is very noisy and it is mostly gaps. But barring a massive deliberate fabrication of evidence to frame the suspect, there is no reason to imagine that new evidence is going to fundamentally alter the prosecution's theory of historical events. New evidence from cleaning up the video and filling in the gaps is not going to fundamentally change the story.
In comparison, we know for a fact that at least one of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics must be wrong. There are spots where they directly contradict each other. The available evidence supports each one to the best of our ability to test, but the available evidence also says that neither one is fundamentally sufficient. Physicists do expect a fundamentally new layer of understanding to explain (and potentially overturn) both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
The science side in this conflict merely wants to treat all fields of science the same. Evolution and chemistry are both "theories". They are supported by all available evidence beyond any reasonable doubt. For all practical purposes they are "true" in the same sense t
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Evolution has as much evidence as gravity? That's laughable. You know that you can test the theory gravity right?Something that you can't do with the theory of Evolution... The constitution does protects us from religious stories being told in class as fact, but it also protects us from keeping viable theories (different from religious stories) outside of the classroom. The universe demands the existence of a God, and cannot be explained without one. That's one of the greatest arguments for a God. And the "Problem of Evil" isn't a problem at all.
My head did not explode.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Evolution is as scientific a theory as ID is, in fact, it takes more faith to believe it than ID. Why? A theory attempts to explain the "why" of what you observe around you. In order for evolutionists to arrive at their theory, they have to jump across a gap of missing logical/data/observational fact. ID don't have this missing gap in truth, and thus don't need as much faith to believe it Both are theories explaining the scientific nature around us. To teach that there is only one explanation would be worse than lying.
People, particularly on this forum, put Christians down as ignorant.
Lets see if I can help correct that.
You are ignorant. The majority of Christians however, do accept evolution.
And just in case you were unaware of the fact that the majority of Christians accept evolution you can take a look at this article and the image in it. The United States is almost completely Christian and is evenly split on accepting evolution. Then you merely note the fact that other overwhelmingly Christian countries accept evolution by large margins. Even if try you stack the figures as far as possible by assuming every non-Christian in each country accepts evolution in order to maximize the percentage of Christians rejecting evolution, it still works out impossible for there to be less than 50% of Christians on the evolution side.
Turkey is the only developed nation that has a lower acceptance of evolution than the US.
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Actually, I would bet that mutations are not all that random. Sure, cosmic rays and quantum fluctuations are random, but I would expect an organism's genome to employ more or less error protection in different areas so that critical areas are less likely to mutate while areas that have needed to adapt fast in the past are more likely to mutate and may even be "intentionally" more susceptible to carcinogenic chemicals.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
They are random because they do nothing to support your assertion. If I tell you that "flat earth" is science, and link to the definition of science and the Wikipedia on flat earth beliefs, that doesn't make it science.
It clearly does not. ID is denial. It's "you are wrong, we are right, but we can't explain how or why." It has no explanatory models, no research, no nothing. Even the ID leadership admit this. They insist that it is science, though, despite not meeting even the lowest criteria for being even remotely similar to science.
Even a conservative creationist judge appointed by George W. Bush on recommendation from creationist senator Rick Santorum had to rule that ID was religion and therefore had no place in science class.
ID is relabeled creationism, as the Pandas book and its "cdesign proponentist". Actually, this is just one small piece of evidence showing the true face of ID, but it is perhaps the most amusing.
Clever signature text goes here.
...that they keep insisting that hundreds of millions of years was not enough time for the species we see today to evolve, but that the small number of animals in Noah's ark was able to evolve into a much larger number of species over the course of the last 4,000 years. They never seem to pick up on the incongruity of those two sets of ideas.
First, I don't think the parent post deserved to be modded troll. He asked questions, and not particularly unreasonable questions if they never learned about evolution in school.
What are the odds of life evolving on its own from within an environment devoid of life?
I'll come back to this at the end.
What are the odds of such evolved life would mutate?
If we flip the question backwards, if you have reproducing life they would multiply to over a thousand in ten generations, over a million in twenty generations, over a billion in thirty generations. You're basically asking what is the probability that none of them would ever be imperfect, none of them would ever get hit my a stray chemical reaction, none of them would ever get hit by radioactivity or a cosmic ray or anything else. They probability that there would never be a mutation is obviously zero. That means the probability some copies will eventually mutate would be 100%.
What are the odds of such mutated life to mutate into a form that would allow it to continue to live?
If you mean the probability that any given mutation would live, that is irrelevant. Any fatal mutations simply die and it has no effect. We have a multiplying population that keeps going. We can completely ignore fatal mutations.
So what we're really looking at is whether any mutation would ever live. Well, in experiments we've proven and studied single molecule that replicate and evolve. There were a huge number of places the molecule could (and did) mutate and continue to replicate. So it is experimentally proven that a single molecule replicator can mutate and continue to reproducing. We simply throw away fatal mutations and simply wait for any non-fatal mutations, this is again 100%. Some mutations are non fatal and that's all that matters.
What are the odds of such survivable life to further mutate into a higher order of life?
To really understand evolution you need to abandon the concept of "higher". That's not how evolution works. There is a population of individuals, individuals have children, and those children are sometimes are sometimes slightly imperfect copies of the parents. Obviously over time additional new variations appear, and over time some of those variations will themselves be imperfectly copied into a variation of a variation. Viewed strictly within evolution process there is no concept of "higher" here. The closest thing to "higher" is that later generations are more evolved. The bacteria in your ear and the squirrel in your back yard are equally evolved, they are both the product of the same 4 billion years of evolution. The bacteria in your ear is highly evolved and highly successful at living and reproducing in your ear, and the squirrel is highly evolved and highly successful at living and reproducing in the tree in your backyard. Heck, many plants have vastly more DNA than you do and could by some definitions be considered more complex. Animals aren't "higher" than plants, plants and animals are more like brother and sister. Plants came up with photosynthesis and animals came up with muscles. Modern plants and animals are both the same "age", equally evolved, just evolved in different directions.
The anthrax bacteria is able to defeat your immune system and kill you because it is just as evolved as you are.
Anyway, you have an unlimited replicating population. Some of them mutate and die, we can completely ignore them. And sooner or later some offspring have helpful mutations, something different that makes them better able to survive and reproduce. The best stuff sticks around and the worst stuff dies. And over time new beneficial variations pile up on top of old beneficial variations on top of older beneficial variations.
Consider lottery tickets. There are millions of individuals each with a lottery ticket. And as you know, virtually every week someone wins the lottery. If you are a secretary in the lottery office, every week you see someone walk throu
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Well, you know that, and I know that, but just today, in the "5.5 million species" thread, people are posting about evolution being the way life began. They call it "evolution", just like the "change" kind. THAT'S why I said I wished that people used a different word for it.
Having an advantage over others doesn't make something subject to natural selection. Everything is subject to it, advantages or not. That which survives to reproduce gets to live on, those that don't, don't. Chance is only a component, but the process is deterministic.
There has to be an advantage for natural selection to have something to select. Otherwise everyone is a winner, everyone moves on in the evolutionary process -- which means there IS no evolutionary process. And that advantage arises through pure chance. Chance is not just "a component", it is a necessary and required precursor.
No reason, except that ID is not a scientific theory, is not falsifiable, is not predictive, and is not supported by any evidence. Other than that, no reason at all.
There are two cases. 1) evolutionist believing that evolution covers "how life began". This person is using a theory that is JUST AS NON-SCIENTIFIC, just as unfalsifiable, just as non-predictive as ID, and yet he uses those criteria to deny ID. 2) Evolutionist who knows that ID covers a completely different concept and topic, yet he uses evolution as a bully pulpit to denounce something that he has no evidence against and cannot have evidence against. Both groups must be doing this for a reason. There is no reason other than to try to disprove God. Group 1 is painting themselves with the same paint, and group 2 is stepping outside science to try to apply science to something they want badly to not exist.
Then why the belief in ID if the origin of life is something that can never be known?
Why not? Man has a burning desire to explain things. The "big bang" is another example. Why belief in the big bang if we can never know how the universe started?
They come up with theories, of which there are several, but they acknowledge that we really don't know if any of them are correct.
Oh, please. Most people who believe a theory believe that it is correct, and pull no punches saying so. "Evolution is a fact." "AGW is a fact, there is no room for discussion." Do not flame the ID'rs for doing the same things many scientists do.
They have exactly as much evidence for ID as the evolutionists have for their theory of how life began. Yes, I know, you said those evolutionists are wrong. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
The theories that do cover it will never be proven in the absolute sense, as no scientific theory is ever proven in the absolute sense.
You missed the point completely. You keep calling the "theories" of how life began scientific when they are not. No theory of "how life began" is testable or disprovable, and that is an absolute requirement for the scientific method. If you say "my theory is X", for it to be scientific there must be an experiment I can perform to test your theory. That experiment might be technically impossible with current technology, but there has to be one.
There is NO possible experiment that can test the hypothesis that life began through evolution. The only possible experiments that could be performed are ones similar to the Miller (IIRC) style "pump a bottle full of primordial gases and electricity and see what heppens". Those don't prove "how life began", only "life MIGHT have begun...". Very different.
Whatever the scientific outcome, ID is still a load of garbage,
If you cannot refute through logic, refute through insult and invective. That is also not the scientific method.
Before life evolved what chance would you give life evolving through darwanian means in this "universe"
I don't think that the Theory of Evolution says anything about evolution before there is life.
I think a better question would be:
I don't know the answer to that question either but it makes the question more manageable. If the odds are any finite value then the chances are 100%. If the chances are infinitely small then we have 0 x infinity which is undefined without further knowledge.
Actually the odds would be 1 in (52*51*50*49*48*...*5*4*3*2*1).
Sorry, I meant to write 1/(52 factorial).
After I hit the submit button, I realized that the "1/" was missing and that the "!" might be interpreted as an exclamation mark rather than the factorial symbol.
With the scientific establishment so dogmatic about their modern slant on good old spontaneous generation, aka "neo-darwinism" and it's mythical mutants engineered by some magical wizard called, "natural selection" ....and the every handy magic wand of "eons of time" so skillfully fashioning the most complex and integrated systems imaginable, I really think that ID and creationism need to be studied as "superscience" or something.
One thing that the scientific establishment insists is that anything taught as science must adhere to the principles of science. It must have observable, repeatable evidence and must be falsifiable. ID has no testable evidence and it cannot be falsified so it cannot be considered science. Science does not have an opinion of whether ID is true, only that it is not science. Rather ID is considered dogma more than anything else.
As for the rest of your post, it shows a complete lack of any understanding of what science is and is not.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Anyone that claims that evolution has anything to do with the origin of life doesn't know what they're talking about. Evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis or any other theory on the origin of life.
Well, you know that, and I know that, but just today, in the "5.5 million species" thread, people are posting about evolution being the way life began. They call it "evolution", just like the "change" kind. THAT'S why I said I wished that people used a different word for it.
The fact that people misuse words doesn't change the definition of evolution.
Having an advantage over others doesn't make something subject to natural selection. Everything is subject to it, advantages or not. That which survives to reproduce gets to live on, those that don't, don't. Chance is only a component, but the process is deterministic.
There has to be an advantage for natural selection to have something to select. Otherwise everyone is a winner, everyone moves on in the evolutionary process -- which means there IS no evolutionary process. And that advantage arises through pure chance. Chance is not just "a component", it is a necessary and required precursor.
My point was that the process operates regardless of whether any given individual has an advantage or not. Even those with no advantage, or even a disadvantage can survive to procreate. Chance is a component, but the process isn't not random, as it is continually refining the population towards fitness for its environment.
No reason, except that ID is not a scientific theory, is not falsifiable, is not predictive, and is not supported by any evidence. Other than that, no reason at all.
There are two cases. 1) evolutionist believing that evolution covers "how life began". This person is using a theory that is JUST AS NON-SCIENTIFIC, just as unfalsifiable, just as non-predictive as ID, and yet he uses those criteria to deny ID. 2) Evolutionist who knows that ID covers a completely different concept and topic, yet he uses evolution as a bully pulpit to denounce something that he has no evidence against and cannot have evidence against. Both groups must be doing this for a reason. There is no reason other than to try to disprove God. Group 1 is painting themselves with the same paint, and group 2 is stepping outside science to try to apply science to something they want badly to not exist.
Case one is an ignorant person who doesn't understand the theory of evolution. Case two depends on what version of ID you're talking about. Plenty of creationists define it as a replacement for evolution. If they use it that way, they're completely ignorant and there's likely not much you can do but point out that fact and move on. We see this a lot with those folks that want to "teach the controversy" between ID and evolution.
If they use the definition that you seem to be talking about, referring to the origin of life, then there's a different argument. ID is still not a scientific theory, so it contributes nothing to science. As an explanation for the origin of life, it doesn't actually explain anything. It's simply an assertion backed by nothing, so what's the point? At least the scientific theories around the origin of life base themselves on what we know about the basic structures of life and how they form. We haven't figured out all the details that go into creating life, but we're getting a lot closer to figuring out how it can be built "from scratch", so to speak. The scientific theories have at least got something to support them. They may never know with any high level of certainty how life actually formed, but we'll likely know of at least one possible way that it could have formed. That's more useful than anything that will ever be learned from ID, because ID is just unsupported speculation.
Then why the belief in ID if the origin of life is something that can never be known?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer