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Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes
rollcall writes "The Livingston, Louisiana public school district is considering introducing intelligent design into its science curriculum. During the board's meeting Thursday, several board members expressed an interest in the teaching of creationism. 'Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed "critical thinking and creationism" in science classes. Board Member David Tate quickly responded: "We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?" Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, "I agree...you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom."'"
Science classes in Louisiana? You seriously thought we'd buy that?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Enough said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Prm_vQQcM
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I'd rather not have my tax dollars spent spreading religious FUD. Send your kids to a private school where you can get them to teach anything you want. Problem solved.
Think of the children!
Creationism should not be taught in a SCIENCE class because it is not science. There is no way to falsify any of its claims.
So the only thing I have to add is a Nelson-like "Haw-Haw!"
I still can't get over that he said "We let them teach evolution to our children..." as though this is some sort of compromise with liberals or something...
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
One of these things is not like the other ones, one of these things is not the same.
I hope they *do* add this to the curriculum, and even get their local batshit-crazy evangelical preachers to come in and teach it. Then, when the case goes to court hopefully they can personally bankrupt every single one of these school board jackoffs, and STAPLE THE FIRST FUCKING AMENDMENT TO THEIR FACES.
And I've just lost faith in my home state...
"What is there a tank on the boat? WHY IS THERE A TANK ON THE BOAT?!?" L4D2
... at Sunday School.
If you want to teach Creationism in school, then place the curriculum in a philosophy class, or Religion class if so desired. Keep it far, far away from Biology class.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
If they are going to teach intelligent design, they should teach it at Church where it belongs.
Leela: It's amazing. It's like a textbook on evolution.
Fry: Except in Louisiana.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom.
Would secession really be such a bad option? Just because we started out united doesn't mean we have to stay that way, does it?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Posting as an anonymous coward to hopefully avoid abuse from those infected by (and unable to overcome) the meme.
Technically, evolution and creationism are separated by about 14 billion years. If your going to teach creationism, shouldn't that be in astronomy class? What does the fact that organisms have DNA which allows them to pass on traits to their offspring have to do with the creation of the universe?
"you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution."
Please do. I'd like to hear them. We're waiting... all ears... go ahead... hello?
When I'm looking for graduate students and undergraduate honors students I'm looking for students who don't need a lot of training to get down to work. If I have to teach them basic science then that is too much work.
So I'll add Louisiana students to the list of high maintenance students who I generally avoid.
Your govt betrays your future by making your students less attractive in academia and industry.
It's called "True Blood." Really interesting. I think they have some bigger issues to deal with down there, rather than evolution vs. creationism. I mean, where do vampires fit in to the debate? And werewolves? How would that evolve? Sex with wolves seems to dangerous.
On the other hand, people there don't seem to understand the scientific method, so their science curriculum can't be worth much either way.
...then it's God's Plan to kill everything in the Gulf, not BP.
I also live in Louisiana and this comes as no surprise. This is a VERY religious state. Every 100 yards you see a church, no lie! Louisiana is all about big churches, big trucks / SUVs, low IQs, and butchering the English language.
If I don't believe in math, why should my kids learn that two plus two equals four? That's just science brainwashing them against my belief!
It's also nonscience because it leads nowhere. It merely says at some point "there's no point looking for why here" and that ends science.
Science is the eternal curious ape asking "why's that, then?". As soon as you put in "irreducible complexity" you've closed off science.
Because this is actually an attempt to end science for all. Religion has been cut back further and further, from being the reason why lions eat people, lightning strikes and illness happens. Now we know that lions are independent creatures that eat meat, lightning strikes are caused by electrical buildup in the clouds and that illnesses are caused by little organisms.
Every time science answers a question "why's that, then?" god gets a little slimmer.
And this is an attempt to kill science once and for all.
Louisiana will remain Louisiana for another generation.
I went to a catholic school many years ago. They taught evolution with "enhancements". One was the de'Chardin theory that evolution was teleological, that is, goal-directed toward perfection. Is was their attempt to reconcile evolution and religion. This is not the precise very of evolution, which is non-teleogical, i.e. goal-less. Otherwise they pretty accepted most of regular tenants like long-time and natural selection.
Waiting on the laws of physics and chemistry to change.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Wait wait back up. So they see nothing constitutionally wrong with teaching creationism in a public school? What?! I...I...Internet rage, it is not pretty. All joking aside, if they went ahead with this the secular and even the non secular community will have a grand ol' time tearing it all down around their ears, children shall not be indoctrinated into religion of any sort. There won't be a theocracy while the constitution stands.
iburnaga.blogspot.com
As long as they also include every other creation story. There should be text from scientology, islam, hinduism, buddhism, and thousands of other creation myths from all over the world, in a separate book called "Creationism". Leave evolution in the science textbook with the theories on gravity, germ theory, and all of the other accepted, testable hypotheses.
Similarly I'm okay with religion classes, as long as the world's eight major religions are all given equal time. For some reason I think equal access to alternative theories isn't what they are really after...
Board Member David Tate quickly responded: 'We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?' Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, 'I agree...you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom.'""
Hey, at least they are trying to apply the "scientific method" to argument, though it comes off as nothing short of hypocrisy to me. I would like to have the "fallacies" that were purported to be elaborated on... Perhaps that the earth is not older than 6,000 years old and thus anything with a date slapped onto any research with anything like 1 M.Y.O. is thus "false".
Oh, please don't be "afriad to point out some of the fallacies" to eveyone...
Find one example of a natural process or phenomenon that creationism successfully predicts, just as countless archaeological digs have found in favor of evolution, AND if it can explain all of the geological and archaeological data that has already been found, then you can teach your theory of creationism.
That is, until some new evidence comes along which creationism can't explain. (Good luck with that.)
Yeah, name one.
Technoli
I.D. is not science. I hate it when creationists insist that creation/ID gets included in science classes... do scientists insist that science be included in religion classes?
This is a very bad idea - and that's coming from a self-described Christian. I don't want some goof-ball teacher going over something like this with my kid. They can barely get math right. You focus on math/science/history/reading, I'll handle teaching my kid religion and philosophy at home.
And as always, evolution and creation are not at odds. Evolution answers "How?" and creation answers"Why?"
I don't expect my views to be accepted by devout atheists, OR devout Catholics, so let's leave the creationism at home and not have a big fucking fight for no reason.
Do you work alone, or is there a whole team of you guys ready to declare sopssa a troll at the moment a new story appears? Even if he is a troll, kindly piss off.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Nope. I mean that there is no way to set up an experiment to show that its claims are false.
And you're going to have to define "vertical evolution" if you want to start making claims about it.
It is a funny story. This school board needs a healthy dose of creationism fallacies. How about the problem of evil, or the rock that is too heavy for God to lift? How absurd for creationists to consider the fallacies of evolution. Any discussion of creationism demands a discussion of its fallacies. Perhaps absurd thinking is an adaptation that confers some advantage. That would explain its persistence. Time will tell, no?
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
'You ever noticed how people who believe in Creationism look really unevolved? You ever noticed that? Eyes real close together, eyebrow ridges, big furry hands and feet. "I believe God created me in one day" Yeah, looks like He rushed it.'
Damn shame he's not around today, the material he would have come up with regarding significant events in the past 16 years would have been most welcome.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Presumably presented in a class on paired opposites.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
But they will also have to include creationism on the math, PE, language, history and foreign languages curriculum. And on the musical studies.
it is what human beings do when they engage in the genetic engineering of the dna of other creatures (or of homo sapiens)
the way creationists propose that god designed us is something that will be in the realm of the ability of human beings within a century. and if us lowly imperfect human beings have the powers of god, that says one of two things:
1. we have become gods
2. your understanding of what god is and how god works is wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Spirituality is an exceptionally useful practice. You can ascribe spirituality to bare consciousness, if not an external factor such as "spiritual energy" or "the soul." In that sense, being mindful of your spiritual needs (those being peace, rest, enlightenment, love, etc) is extremely beneficial.
Think about it this way: Everyone knows you need emotional support and physical rest to stay healthy, along with food and exercise. Now on top of that, consider spiritual insight through contemplative meditation, allow your mind to pick its thoughts and just observe; don't fight when unpleasantness comes up. If you follow a routine in which you meditate for say 15-20 minutes every day or half an hour 3 times a week or whatever works for you, this "spiritual" endeavor will help settle your emotions, which reduces stress, and improves the health of your physical body and the sharpness of your mind.
This is not something you can define scientifically: I can't tell you to sit in Lotus watching at a candle doing breathing exercises, and follow a set Yoga and Tai-Chi routine, and contemplate nature via listening and meditative walking, and that'll optimize your spiritual wellness. There are techniques, ideals, philosophies; you must decide on your own which to pursue. By that method, your being develops wellness from the inside out.
Consider it for a while. Unhealthy spirituality leads to things like discomfiture when faced with sexuality, or with concepts you don't want to acknowledge. In your case, I'd be willing to suggest that you experience immediate stress at the subject of spirituality and religion, and possibly anything that isn't hard and accepted science: you'd have difficulty exploring the basic meaning behind everything I've said here because it would be extremely uncomfortable for you to take in that kind of knowledge, even for simple analysis or curiosity. Perhaps due to a slight fear of discovering a usefulness that might be interpreted as a "truth" behind some of the things you find revulsion in-- maybe not proof of God, but perhaps proof that certain "spiritual" exercises do improve emotional health in ways you have difficulty explaining.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe
There is a huge gap between intelligent design and evolution, and poor Mr. Behe has managed to fill that gap in a way that has given the intelligent design folk some major leverage.
He needs to either come out and refute claims that his work = proof of God, and discredit those who make such claims (while admiting his theories need more work), or come out and just confess he is acting on behalf of the Bible so that even the pseudo scientists are forced discredit him once and for all.
That would be doing all of us a favor.
I don't believe his theory of irreducible complexity equates to God created life, and on the surface it appears that he doesn't either. He simply points out that he finds some systems to be too sophisticated to be random, and *appears* to be a *scientist* while making his points.
Most if not all intelligent design advocates have jumped on this, and it is really too bad, because it's working. And I say whether he likes it or not, he could very well be responsible for the miseducation of millions of children.
(Never mind, of course, that the courts will shoot this Louisianan idiocy down in a heartbeat.)
On the one hand, we have the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, a scientific theory backed by a volume of evidence more diverse and massive than that assembled in support of any other theory.
On the other hand...we have a faery tale.
No, really.
Cdesign proponentsists would have us instead accept a “theory” drawn solely on the proposition that the Bible is substantially true.
And the Bible opens with a story — the very one they’d replace science with — about a magic garden with talking animals and an angry giant.
Worse, it continues in exactly that same vein. It prominently features a talking shrubbery (on fire, no less!) that instructs the reluctant hero how to wield his magic wand. It has more talking animals, sea monsters, lots more giants, and an endless string of magic spells. There’s even a dragon in there, and I think there might be a unicorn, too. At the end we have an utterly bizarre zombie fantasy, complete with one of the thralls groping the zombie king’s intestines. And the grand finale? Global zombie apocalypse.
All y’all who dismiss science in favor of fantasy? This is why we laugh at you.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
And if it's good enough for Jayzuss than it's good enough for our kids!
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It's a place where Christians send their kids to learn about their religion. If they just educated their frickin kids in church, they wouldn't need to pollute the public school system.
The premise of intelligent design is that God wasn't able to create a universe in which everything happened automatically. instead, it argues that He created the universe, and then had to constantly meddle because He couldn't get the animals He wanted by following the physical laws that He, Himself, made. This is utterly against my religion's conception of God, in which He does not make such mistakes.
My religion is, I think, a fairly popular one called 'Christianity', and I fail to see why whatever minority religious group is pushing 'intelligent design' should be able to teach Christian children that God is fallible and makes mistakes that He then has to correct.
Surely a better compromise between our two religions would be to simply not talk about what God did or didn't do at all in public schools.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Having lived in Louisiana this doesn't surprise me at all. You couldn't go a quarter-mile in most areas without seeing a church.
John Scopes must be rolling in his grave.
For those of you who don't remember: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
By remanding powers to the states that which is not in the constitution, it allows the states the right setup their own education systems. Don't believe in creationism/intelligent design? If you can't affect the local government, you can always move to a state that supports such beliefs. It was one of the things that made the country great. We didn't use to be this homogeneous mixture of sameness. There were radically different beliefs across aspectrum of ideas that were delineated by state borders. People of certain beliefs were able to affect the government policy that mattered locally. Now everything has to be the same...
But keep it the hell out of science classes because intelligent design is just re-worded creationism and is NOT SCIENCE.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
I bet most of the people here that are all up in arms at the whole Intelligent Design in public schools thing, at least here in the US, are also many of the same people responsible that make this possible. These people are clamoring for ways to make democracy easier through increased ways to register to vote ('motor-voter',welfare office provided voter registration,etc) as well as increase the reach and scope of government sponsored school systems. Indeed, these people aren't upset that the schools are used to indoctrinate kids at all. What they're really upset about is that the kids in this case just aren't being indoctrinated with the correct social agenda.
If you want majority rule to broadly define governments and their policies and you want those same governments to oversee the delivery of education, you shouldn't be surprised that your tax dollars may be spent on someone's agenda for society; be that Intelligent Design, GLBT acceptance, or some other agenda.
For the record I do not accept Intelligent Design as scientifically valid and I wouldn't want my kids wasting their time with it; it's religious dogma. But more to the point I don't believe in an educational system which allows majority groups to control education such that they aren't schools, but centers of of mass indoctrination. I believe in private education systems that allow me to know what they teach the kids and make sure that my kids are being taught according to those principles I believe they need to think, survive and to become the intellectual superiors of their peers. I firmly believe that if you want your kids in a religious schools, Marxist schools, whatever, that's your prerogative; but that right ends with your own children and stops well short of mine.
Brought to you from the same state with two-digit addition on their GED test.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?'
I don't know, maybe separation of church and state?
If any student made it that far and has any interest in working on a university research project you can safely assume that they can train -- or have already trained -- themselves beyond their high school's minimal curriculum. The crappier the school, the more likely this is the case, has been my experience coming from the student's side.
I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
So I'll add Louisiana students to the list of high maintenance students who I generally avoid
I'd somewhat go the opposite way -- other parts of the country/world will have excellent chances to poach some of Louisiana's best/brightest scientific students, people who might otherwise be inclined to stay there, because the Louisianans who get how backwards this is aren't going to want to stay.
Intelligent? The way a 6th grade Science Fair shows intelligence, perhaps.
Don't believe me? Think of all the times where you really needed 3 hands, or 4.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I demand that alchemy be taught side by side with chemistry, so the students can make up their own mind.
Oh and astrology too.
Science classes are supposed to discuss hypothesis, theory, measurements, conclusions and verification or lack thereof for measurable events in our physical universe.
Will the school board or someone explain what can be measured in the field of creationism...other than the number of pages in some edition of a bible in some language?
Assuming that at least a few students of the Louisiana public school system have a head for critical thinking and sound reasoning, what are they to do when the 'teacher' tests them on their 'science' learnings? If the teacher tests the students and the students use their critical thinking and reasoning to conclude that the material is not correct, will they be failed? And if this starts happening wouldn't that be some proof that creationism has no place in the science curriculum?
In fact, I would love to be a student in one of the proposed 'critical thinking and creationism' classes. I wonder if the instructor would be able to hold their ground when students have questions. I wonder if the instructor would be able to demonstrate 'critical thinking' of their own for the benefit of the students, or if it would turn into 'Just Have Faith! It is because that's what it is!'.
Creationists will outbreed evolutionists. Evolution at work.
Is it too late to just let the South secede and be done with all this backwards nonsense?
The entire curriculum will consist of Genesis. The answer to every question is "it was God's will," or "The Lord works in mysterious ways." Any injection of the scientific method into the discussion, pointing out the glaring contradictions in the class text, or other dissent will result in a trip to the pastor... I mean principal's office, where the student will be thrown into water to see if they float. "Creationism 101" should take about 15 minutes of one class period.
Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?
even better, they "know" that this ungodly teaching is the cause of discipline problems
Martin, noting that discipline of young people is constantly becoming more of a challenge for parents and teachers, agreed: “Maybe it’s time that we look at this.
I'm just speechless!
"Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom."
Wrong.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Isn't that what the various religous affiliated schools are for, or has the parochial school system, et al, suddenly dissappeared in the last 16 years since I left it?
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
As an advocate of the world's 273rd most influential and popular religion, I stenuously object to your exclusivist support for the "big eight." (Popularity != truth) && (popularity != legitimacy).
Falsifiable means you can disprove the thing, not that you can't disprove the opposites.
Or more completely that you can set objective tests which test the theory and have the ability to prove it wrong.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
... just not in the Science classes.
A good place would be in the Philosophy classes or maybe Theology (or as we call it, "Religion studies") class.
Science classes is were pupils are taught what scientists currently believe are the explanation for how the world is and maybe other theories also considered by the science community.
In Science classes one does not teach random stuff believed by random people such as:
even if they intuitivelly look like being true and/or are believed by a large number of people.
Otherwise we might as well start teaching "theories" like:
which are all in the domain of Philosophy
You get the government out of schools and then you don't have fights like this and you WILL SEE natural selection at work. Some people will choose schools that teach hard science, some will not. The schools that teach the non-hard science will be un-selected by standardized tests, college admissions etc.
Just like with marriage licenses (a product of the mid-1800s) - as soon as the government gets involved you end up with political fights about religious issues. If marriage was purely a religious issue, no one would care about gay marriage, it would be up to whatever church permitted it or not. Ditto "government science." As soon as government gets into anything it becomes a political fight and instead of "vote with your freedom," it is a winner-take-all proposition so it is a fight to the death.
It is the intended consequences of government regulation and involvement, keeping people polarized and arguing among themselves so that the ruling class can keep ruling. Divide and conquer.
If these school board members want to revel in their ignorance, then that's fine, but to try to force that ignorance on their children is nothing short of child abuse. The Texas and Louisiana school board members should read these articles and try to grasp that every educated person in the world thinks they are morons... http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl,2879/
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
As we seemingly can't stop the spread of idiocity, can we at least get transparency? Please mark clearly on the record sheet whether this student learned evolution or creationism, uh, sorry, they rebranded it to "intelligent design".
Please mark it, so I know, so I can hire only the people who learnt actual science.
If you teach both, please give seperate marks. So I know to hire specifically the people who scored A or B in evolution and F-- in creationism because they ridiculed it all year. That's the kind of people I want to have working for me. If you scored any acceptable score in creationism at all, then find a burger-flipping job somewhere. It means you at least pretended to take it seriously, or you did take it seriously, in which case you're either a liar or an idiot.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
That's what Slashdot used to cover. I miss that.
What does any of that have to do with anything on this discussion? No ones talking about mental health and hippy mumbo-jumbo. They are discussing a real issue.
...when the uneducated are running the education system.
"With all the fundamentalist shit that's going about, someone - be they redneck or raghead - *someone's* going to start playing with nukes soon. And that's no use, because all that leaves us is a *pile of ash*..." Satan, Chronicles of Wormwood
Creationism to theocracy is not that much of a stretch, and is discussed here. And theocracy to nuclear exchange? You decide.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Creation answers "tell me a made-up story, daddy."
There is no answer for "Why?" in the context of all reality, nor is there any practical need for such an answer.
The misconception that there needs to be such an answer is the foundation of a great deal of stupidity.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Unlike many of you, I actually LIVE in the southeastern US.
The majority of people who live in the southeastern US are ignorant
by choice. They are AFRAID of people who are more intelligent and
better educated than they are. This combination of fear and
willful ignorance influences most ( if not all ) of their behavior, whether it's
how they act in a domestic dispute, how they vote, what sort of vehicle they drive, etc.
What I am talking about is dumb rednecks, ok ? You cannot change these people. They
supported Bush when it was obvious Bush was a liar, and they will support bs like
intelligent design REGARDLESS of any facts you present to them. You see, these
people really do believe the Orwellian slogan : "Ignorance is Strength".
This is exactly how the subject is covered at the Leeds City Museum in the UK.
In a evolution based history display in the basement, which covers the early development of the planet, they have a book called Creation Stories (or similar) in which they list the various creation stories from around the planet.
The idea is to show what people have believed about the origin of the planet through history (the Christian one is just one page amongst several) and to contrast it with the evolution based display they can see before them.
The book is just one small area in a otherwise evolution based display and hopefully makes people realise the Christian story is just one of several stories and not something unique.
BTW, this was several months ago. I don't know if it's still there.
It must be a sign from god!
And sit back and see which one gets the most students.
If you want to teach Creationism in school, then place the curriculum in a philosophy class, or Religion class if so desired. Keep it far, far away from Biology class.
Its neither, at best its mythology, but is best classed as fantasy.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
You know what? If someone wants to talk about Creationism in science class, I think that's just fine. All you need to do, is teach what science is first, and define what a theory is. You don't need to get into the whole "is this how life came about?" question with the kids, or ever explicitly say "this is bunk." Just talk about all the evidence that suggested each hypothesis and all the ideas for experiments (and which ones have been performed and which ones haven't) that people have come up with to confirm or falsify each one.
When you get to creationism, treat it just like evolution, and without getting distracted by irrelevant issues like "do we believe this is what happened?" just talk about the how evidence and how each hypothesis can be falsified. Never even mention belief; stay in the realm of evidence.
If you come at creationism from a science perspective, it will be so embarrassing that the religious nuts will be begging to ban the subject from science class.
Because, you see, creationism isn't the real problem here. I bet there are all sorts of non-science things being taught in science classes, because science is usually taught as a "what's happening?" class rather than a "how do we know what's happening?" class. It's the teaching of science itself in America that is weak, not all the various "sciency-sounding" topics within it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Hmm, I prefer Thunderbird over Evolution...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Two different things! Please stop grouping ID with a bunch of religious wackos!
If they can teach Intelligent Design in science class, does that mean that they have to teach Atheism in religion class?
Teach the controversy!
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
"evolutionists" isn't a thing. They're called "biologists" or, for those who don't study it but know it to be true "educated individuals"
This is what you knuckleheads get for throwing a huge wad of tax dollars at Louisiana to rebuild after Katrina. You had your chance. Let this be a lesson to you all from the school of "real life."
I have to say, I am sometimes dismayed at the vast ignorance of my Christian brethren - hard-core evangelicals in particular. I've actually stood in a museum in front of a dinosaur skeleton and had a fellow Christian ask me if I thought dinosaurs were real. My reply is always the same: the fossil record is what it is and once we are in possession of a fact we are obligated to assimilate it. We ourselves are finite beings with limited understanding, so to claim absolute knowledge about the creation of the universe based on a severely-abridged creation account is just absurd. I can attest with first-hand knowledge that there is indeed an alarming number of people in the Christian community who literally choose to remain in their ignorance (about a number of topics, from politics to science, to even the fundamental tenets of the religion they claim to follow).
I agree with other posters that say the "what and how" of "creation" (for lack of a better term) should be all that is taught in a science class. The "why" and "who" do not lend themselves to application of the scientific method and therefore belong in the realm of theology and philosophy classes. It's perfectly normal to wonder about eternity, but that doesn't exempt you from applying discipline to your musings...
You mean that the parents, Sunday school, churches, etc. haven't already crammed enough creationism in their brains? You don't learn evolution in church, so why do you need to learn more creationism in science class since most will already know creationism from church? I think if this passes churches should have to teach evolution....
Anyway evolution is a theory, it hasn't been absolutely proven right, and some criticisms seem to cast some doubts on it in some cases. But it is a scientific theory based on evidence and someday and it will probably be proven wrong or amended based on the evidence.
Creation was not created with the scientific method, there is no way to prove it wrong. There is a website somewhere about praying to god being similar to praying to a milk jug. Which because if something goes right you are like thank you milk jug, and if something goes wrong you are like ah it was not the milk jug's will it is basically impossible to prove that the milk jug is a fraud... Even if creation turns out to be right, it wasn't found through science, so that itself probably wouldn't be taught in a science class.
At the same time evolution is not entirely in opposition to creationism. When building a program/house do you go super elaborate the first time? No you usually start with simpler programs/houses first and then move on to more complicated ones, many times re-using parts from others. Hmmm would you make a human from thin air, or maybe start with single celled organisms, then maybe some animals, maybe looking at the ape and deciding maybe I'll make man.... Plus it seems the universe is full of scientific laws. Maybe if god exists he is a programmer and laziness is one of his virtues. He doesn't want to maintain the universe on his own so he set processes to make it mostly self sufficient. In that case the various laws/ways of things operating belong in science class. The idea that he created the universe maybe not, or perhaps acknowledged with a sentence, okay now let's move on into the science....
But anyway science is about using the scientific method to come up with experiments/ideas/theories and then being proven wrong/right as time goes on. And then finding ways to apply those theories to do useful stuff...well that's more engineering but anyway. Even if creationism is true, it's not something we would be able to do. While if evolution was true, maybe we could find ways to influence it. Or maybe it is some type of combination of evolution/creationism.
Anyway it's not so much that I am opposed to creationism in school, but I am opposed to it taking time away from the normal curriculum. Even evolution is not that large a topic in biology, it is maybe a week or two out of a year class at most. It seems like people intend the whole class to be creationism and that's ridiculous. Biology needs to show genetics, cell structure/function, etc.. basically biological systems. And spending too much time on evolution takes away from that. So I am opposed. Plus most religions mention creationism like every meeting and assuming you go once per week I think you get plenty of creationism education in your life, much more than one or two weeks of evolution in school.
They and their brethern have been mocked, ridiculed, tossed out on their asses in court but it hasn't mattered. Their tiny, little minds are so god-soaked that it runs right off. They are lost causes. The only course of action is for the reality-based, scientifically literate people to continue to fight these battles in court.
You can't fix stupid.
Noha's ark for example, if there was a single grain of truth about that fairy tale all the DNA of terrestrial animals could be traced to more less the same point in time, genetic diversity would be minimal (specialy considering that people that believe this storyb to be true would also say that this happened just a few thousands of years ago).
I could continue, but frankly it is an irksome exercise.
Where I come from, we have RE classes. Religious Education. Mostly Christian, but some about other religions and a lot about philosophical people like Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr. et al.
It hasn't caused lots of problems.
Hell, if you think about it the whole tax dodge thing for religion is US government getting into religion.
And for multiculturalism, there's plenty of comparative theology.
It's not even philosophy. It's demonstrably wrong, unless you essentially denying any factual evidence biologists, physicists, chemists, and geologists might bring up.
I'll grant that it's religion, but it's bad religion.
Its more like mythology, or better yet fantasy.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Creationists will outbreed evolutionists. Evolution at work.
Sadly true, but only because it takes so long for them to figure out how getting pregnant happens.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
It is very nice of them to have gone to the step of saying explicitly "creationism" not even "creation science" or "intelligent design." The history here is interesting. First the Supreme Court said no creationism in science classes, so then the creationists made up "creation science" which was claimed to be scientific. The whole "Earth created 6000 years ago, and a global flood 5000 years or so ago" made the courts not look kindly on that. See Epperson v. Arkansas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epperson_v._Arkansas and then later Edwards v. Aguilard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard. By sheer coincidence, right after the Edwards decision, intelligence design showed up on the scene as a totally new, totally scientific idea. They claimed that this had nothing to do with creationism or creation science, even though the first textbook on the subject, Pandas and People, had a search and replace of "creation science" for "intelligent design" from an earlier draft. Some of these, didn't go so well, like the infamous "cdesign proponentsists" in one draft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandas_And_People Not too surprisingly, a federal court didn't buy into this claim and ruled that intelligent design was creation science which was creationism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District. These Louisiana creationists seem to have the standard problem of being not quite bright enough to pull off the attempted deception and so just use all the terms as synonyms for creationism. That means that if this just gets to a low level court, they will get hammered quickly.
Unfortunately, given the current right-wing makeup of the Supreme Court, it isn't implausible that an appeal to the Supreme Court will get everything overturned and will end up with creationism in public schools again. The original Edwards case was a 7-2 decision (Scalia's dissent is deeply wrong but worth reading). The current court might very well rule differently. And Obama's appointments don't help matters much. Sotomayor doesn't have much of a good record on First Amendment issues with almost no record at all on Establishment issues, and we've got close to nothing on Kagan.
... kids elsewhere actually learn biology and arrive well equipped to University to become prepared to take all those positions in the bioscience industries everywhere (the US included).
That the US's national and local governments don't see this constant antiscience assault as a matter of economic (and educational of course) importance should be a national scandal in the US (and will continue to be an eternal source of perverse fascination pretty much elsewhere in the civilized world, and many bits of the less civilized parts).
From the article: "schools can present what she termed 'critical thinking and creationism' in science classes" As long as they are teaching critical thinking as it applies to creationism, then I'm OK with this. Otherwise, this is a waste of time. But then again, Louisiana has that Stackhouse chic and all them fangers and fangbangers, so what do I care if they're all a bunch of ignorant cusses?
You can't bend reality to meet your perceptions.
What makes this people even more dumb and ignorant is that even the Vatican accepts Darwinian evolution and tries to find a place for god in it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html
Seriously, the world is getting very competitive, and my kids could use a little breathing room.
Thanks,
Surt
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Obviously there was nothing or is nothing to stop the Lord from using evolution as a tool in creating this universe. What the illiterate right wind desires is to teach that the Bible is an absolute source. And that is absurd. I am a Christian and value the Bible as much as anyone can. However the under educated simply don't get it. They lack language skills. The Holy Bible is an inspired work. It is certainly at the very top of literature. That does not mean that it is a perfect work. Leonardo was inspired but if he had it to do over again ever painting that he created would be a bit different. Dwayne Wade is inspired when he plays his best basketball. Inspired does not equal perfect.
So we are left with some right wing Christians who wish to disguise an argument about the absolute perfection of the Word taking an idiotic position. On the other side of the argument we have a science community that is all too aware that given an inch the ignorant will leap to gain a mile and therefore the notion that God would by definition have the ability to design and use evolution must be avoided, in their minds, at all costs.
And make no mistake. The miserable right has a few loonies who can break out with violent acts over these nonsense type of arguments.
the US is going down hill compared to the rest of the world in regards to the sciences (with maybe the exception of the Islamic republics)
the reason the religious zealots fear science is that it takes power from them. if people are made to think that the religious leadership is wrong on this issue, they might start thinking they are wrong on other issues
remember this point, the religious leaders of the middle ages insisted all objects in space go around the earth until Copernicus and Galileo showed that they were wrong. remember they still insisted on this even when Galiileo showed them the moons of Jupiter going around Jupiter instead of the earth. I suppose if there had been creationists in that time they would have argued that they go around the earth because jupiter goes around the earth.
What is the unit of complexity? How do you measure complexity? At what point does complexity become "irreducible?"
Irreducible Complexity has fundamental problems that are far more severe than a simple biological example can ever show. The ID folks can provide as many examples of "irreducible complexity" as they desire, and their proposition still has no grounding in actual science.
Behe has proven this by constantly moving the goalposts. "Oh, that example might not've been irreducibly complex, but this one is, certainly."
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
If that's not the oxymoron of the year...
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Philosophy is strictly logical, or at least it was when I studied it for a degree. Religion is just wishful thinking and brainwashing by those who want to control the ignorant and breed more of them for their own use.
Enough said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Prm_vQQcM
LOL! I mean, we're different skin.
I'm in your corner on this, but I do note that sometimes naked aggression and disruption (threatened or actual) by true believers is sometimes an effective way to get science (or, at minimum, standard scientific references) changed.
To wit:
* - DSM == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, essentially, the trade bible that defines what is and isn't a mental disorder.
** - APA == American Psychiatric Association, the publishers of and folks responsible for the content of the DSM.
So, the Jungians may not see any point in bullying the Freudians, but the homosexuals certainly profited from bullying the psychiatrists. Sometimes, aggression works. I'd call the actions of this particular Louisiana school board pretty aggressive. Whether or not they work, we won't know for a long time.
The solution is educational separation. Give the Christian Taliban school vouchers so they can send their Jihadists to whatever madrassas they like (and keep them out of public school, which is for people who failed to have kids they could afford to raise properly) and since school vouchers would be available to everyone else, caring parents could send their offspring to secular schools.
Boarding school worked well for me. I escaped the vermin who went to the local public school, avoided their mediocre teachers, and got a decent education free from all religion. That is what we all should strive for, and leave the Bible Thumpers uneducated at all. It's easy enough to avoid hiring Bible Thumpers and be friendly while doing it. If they can be (self)-induced to avoiding education, even better. I've had enough of these people. It's time to fuck them over.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
And people wonder why the USA has earned the nickname "Dumbfuckistan"???
"In your case, I'd be willing to suggest that you experience immediate stress at the subject of spirituality and religion, and possibly anything that isn't hard and accepted science: you'd have difficulty exploring the basic meaning behind everything I've said here because it would be extremely uncomfortable for you to take in that kind of knowledge, even for simple analysis or curiosity."
For a lengthy and eloquent rebuttal of your patronizing argument try reading Dawkins "Unweaving the rainbow". Of course it may make you extremly unconfortable to find out you don't have a monopoly of self discovery.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Spirituality is an exceptionally useful practice. You can ascribe spirituality to bare consciousness, if not an external factor such as "spiritual energy" or "the soul." In that sense, being mindful of your spiritual needs (those being peace, rest, enlightenment, love, etc) is extremely beneficial.
Seems like you're simply collecting all the emotional needs that have ambiguous satisfaction mechanisms and calling them spiritual. I don't necessarily object (the world would be far less irritating if you were right), but I suspect this is not what most people mean by spirituality. If what you say were all that "spiritual people" were interested in, NO ONE would have a problem with spirituality. Please don't fall for that sort of semantic misdirection.
It's good to criticize ID advocates. But I really hate when people try to deny them even a *term* for those they disagree with, which you do when you say that there's no such thing as "evolutionists".
They can't use the term "biologists" because there are people (though not many) who study biology but agree with the IDers. Claiming that they have to refer to their opponents as "biologists" is like saying you can't have different terms for "physicist" and "proponent of the theory of quantum mechanics".
It's an attempt to deny, not just the validity of someone's arguments, but their ability to express them. Which is really petty.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Somehow, I managed to get Slashdot to display the "[narth.com]" without a working link. Weird, but pretty obvious from looking at the source. That's what I get for trying to display a link as a blockquote.
Actual link is here.
You can. In a religion class. Creationism is not science however, so it cannot be taught in a science class. Why is this so difficult to grasp?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
every time a teacher teachs creationism god kills a kitten
This is what Richard Dawkins calls, "the argument from personal incredulity" and as you are no doubt aware it is extremely weak!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agga%C3%B1%C3%B1a_Sutta
At that period, Vasettha, there was just one mass of water, and all was darkness, blinding darkness.... And sooner or later, after a very long period of time, savory earth spread itself over the waters where those beings were. It looked just like the skin that forms itself over hot milk as it cools. It was endowed with color, smell, and taste. It was the color of fine ghee or heated butter and it was very sweet, like pure wild honey...
I think you have the right idea, but you aren't making the curriculum offensive enough: I advocate the teaching of infernal Design. Everything is identical to intelligent design, word for word, except that the creator is Satan as described in the Bible. Any argument that the religious nut jobs can make for teaching this theory, I can use. Should they get intelligent design taught in schools, I could pretty much get infernal design equal classroom time, since it is identical save for who the creator is, and I am pretty sure that the idea of legally forcing satanism to get equal classroom time with Christianity will cause them to abandon their efforts.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
another slashdot post designed to scientifically test the efficacy of my acid reflux medication, my bloodpressure medication, and the sound dampening properties of my cubicle walls at the same time.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How many of the school board are trained biologists? When do they start to change math not to contain such modern things as 0 or the empty set? Will they teach an old form of English grammar because the school board believes in it? How about Geography? Still drawing communists countries, because they just hide and lie?
I am lucky i am not there.
Majority opinion here on /. may be that creationism/ID should at most be taught in a religion course, not a science course. However I find it interesting that nobody has commented from a constitutional or federalist viewpoint.
Shouldn't the power of federal or state governments continue to be limited such that local school boards can do as they please? National or state-level standards can be established via standardized tests etc. If local school board buffoons want to teach garbage, then their students can be left to cry when they are unable to pass standardized tests and continue on to higher education outside of their localities.
Sure, I'd like to teach all kids everywhere the things I believe are correct & useful, but I'd most prefer that government leave me alone to decide for myself. Nationally mandated curricula sound good in this case, but what about if that curricula also includes a strong bias toward socialism in its sections on Government & Civics? Or only highlights the evils (and not the benefits) of gun ownership? Or only presents certain sides of sensitive historical topics? Or *insert issue of your choice here* ?
Did these school board members fail history class? You can't teach creationism in a public school science class, the courts have already been quite clear on this. Oddly enough the Supreme Court, in the case I linked to, struck down a Louisiana law as unconstitutional. It was in your very own state!
Let's hope the board has a good lawyer on hand to tell them to forget this idea, otherwise it's going to cost the taxpayers a pile in legal fees to defend this turd.
I believe what I am saying is that anyone who claims to be a "biologist" but doesn't understand that evolution is an irrefutable fact isn't really studying biology. the more appropriate analogy would be someone claiming to be a physicist who doesn't believe in the laws of thermodynamics.
If Louisiana (or a town in LA, in this case) wants to teach creationism in their classrooms that is /their/ business.
Honestly, as a resident of Washington state, I'm glad there are municipalities--states, too: don't forget Kansas!--out there who want to do this: it means more science jobs for our kids. But primaPlus, it's /their/ business, not mine.
Teachers should also be able to look at Pastafarianism and find a way to fit it into the curriculum as well! Our Constitution demands that no one Church or Religion be favored over any other; open up the curriculum to one religion's creation myths, and you leave yourself open to lawsuits from EVERY OTHER RELIGION (including Church of FSM) demanding that their creation myths be included as well... is that really what they want to happen?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Look, all you have to tell me is what you think they should be using instead. I told you why "biologist" doesn't work: because it doesn't denote the same thing as "evolutionist", even though the sets coincide very closely.
But please don't tell them that they can't can't use "evolutionists" to refer to people with a specific belief about evolution, without giving them an alternate, short appellation that they should be using which denotes the same portion of conceptspace.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
They don't learn, do they? What is wrong with this people?
Anybody outside the US have ever heard about "creationists"? I'm sure I have only read about it in US-centric websites.
I think everywhere (including first and third world countries) evolution is a given, until a better theory comes up.
Not even priests (I think not even the Pope) believes in creationism... and the Genesis is to be interpreted as a metaphor.
It's incredible this kind of discussion is still on, on the year of the Lord of 2010.
Seems like you're simply collecting all the emotional needs that have ambiguous satisfaction mechanisms and calling them spiritual.
Yes, of course. As I said, there is no reason to tie "consciousness" to a particular concept; spirit, soul, or just a set of processes, it matters not. What does matter is that every single person is different; and that an array of disciplines that appear as wholly meaningless as voodoo are available for the individual to choose from in order to affect this consciousness.
Many spiritual people are not religious. Many religious people are not spiritual-- which, by the way, is a farce. Think about the writings of Carl Jung and such, collective unconscious, various interpretations on things like that. We are all predisposed to the same needs; but consciousness is so varied that our path to those needs is extremely personalized.
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Wrong. Please stop spreading misinformation. Falsifiable means you can't disprove the thing, not that you can't disprove the opposites.
Falsi`fi`a`ble
a. 1. Capable of being falsified, counterfeited, or corrupted.
2. able to be proven false, and therefore testable; as, most religious beliefs are not falsifiable, and are therefor outside the scope of experimental science.
Seriously, who modded his bullshit up?
Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or by a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. The term "testability" is related but more specific; it means that an assertion can be falsified through experimentation alone.
When someone says something that is the opposite of the truth, yo do NOT mod that up informative! Bad moderator! Bad!
You can't take the sky from me...
ID and creationism isn't in the realm of science. It's not scientifically testable. People can believe what they want, but this isn't science.
There may be ID biologists, but anytime they are bringing in ID into their work, they aren't being scientists, because they aren't applying scientific principals.
Evolutionist is a term to politicize the issue, because if you said "scientists" or "biologists" have a certain opinion, it carries too much weight. Dismissing them as "evolutionists" is used strategically in order to separate them from a position of respect and authority on the subject.
It also doesn't have the same bite as saying "non-creationist".
Really, the way the term is used in arguments, "evolutionist" is to "non-creationist" what "heathen" is to "non-christian".
First: Intelligent Design is NOT specific to Christianity. It is no more and no less than a theory that states that life was created originally by some entity with intelligence and purpose, rather than being the result of an unintelligent process of minor changes over time.
Second: ID should NOT be taught in science class, as it is not a scientific theory. However, I also don't believe that creation via evolution should be taught in science class either. At the end of the day, the way that the world was created is, and forever will remain, an unknowable, unprovable process. Evolution as a process of minor change over time is a different beast all together, which does not need an alternative, and is an observable theory.
I think that the big fuss about teaching ID in school is solely as a result of introducing evolution into school as a theory for how the world came to be. ID supporters, who reject the teaching of creation via evolution, feel that if evolution must be taught, then the alternative should be taught as well.
All one has to do is point out the various dog breeds we have today, which were all descended from the wolf, created via selective breeding. This was done by man. It is proof that the bio-mechanics of evolution are there.
Most creationists nowadays hide behind the Intelligent Design curtain. "We just want to teach the 'theory' that this was all created by *cough*Someone*cough*, not necessarily God *cough*itwasGod*cough*. This isn't religious at all. *cough*God*cough*"
This school board seems to be ditching the ID facade and is going for full-blown creationism. On one hand, I admire their honesty. They're not talking about "possible creators" as if anyone but God is in their minds as the creator. On the other hand, they're doomed to failure. There's a reason most creationists have retreated to ID. The courts have repeatedly struck down teaching creationism as imposing religion and thus a violation of the First Amendment.
If they want to *say* that God created the Universe and Evolution is bunk, they're free to do so (First Amendment again), but the First Amendment doesn't give them the right to force their views into the public schools alongside current scientific theory.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You jest, but have you ever experimented with Google's Auto-Complete function for searches to start in the form of a question, such as "How do I..." in order to see the types of things people commonly search for?
You get some interesting results... and I found out that a huge number of them had to do with questions regarding becoming pregnant. It made it pretty obvious that there are a lot of people who are asking how this works. You'd think that with at least 6 billion people on Earth that have resulted from the process, that mankind would have a pretty good understanding of how it works by now. ;-)
For a lengthy and eloquent rebuttal of your patronizing argument try reading Dawkins "Unweaving the rainbow". Of course it may make you extremly unconfortable to find out you don't have a monopoly of self discovery.
Someone who feels the need to make personal attacks ("Spirituality is delusion. Religion is ignorance") to protect their beliefs is likely uncomfortable with the basic idea of countering beliefs. The same applies to Catholics who are severely obsessed with how evil Pagans (modern Wiccans, New Agers, etc) and homosexuals are. The same applies to less screaming Catholics too, i.e. those who are not following their faith, but feel uncomfortable contemplating their own faith because the religious symbolism upsets them due to their own poor following of such.
The same applies to scientists who need to "get rid of" data that doesn't fit the standard model (i.e. Global Warming data that suggests this may be more environmental than man-made, or simply more environmental than we thought). The same applies to politics, with people who don't want to think about the logic of liberal/conservative arguments. The same applies to politics, with people who don't want to think about anything except the name ("Democrat" "Republican") and ignore the issues.
It's well-known that people dislike having their beliefs challenged. It's also well-known that people are uncomfortable with many thoughts. How would you feel if 11 year old girls started catching your eye? Stressed? Upset? Could you simply accept it, shrug, decide not to act on it, and continue on? Or would you go to therapy to have someone "cure" your pedophilia?
I fail to see how you can rebut this form of thought. Perhaps you can summarize the highlights for me? I'm curious, but other things have my interest.
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If students are going to be a professional biologists, or work in any of a wide range of subjects dealing with biology, they will probably have enough exposure to the subject to form their own conclusion.
If the students aren't going into a profession where understanding evolution is critical, it doesn't really matter.
Now it'd be ideal if the supernatural were left out of science, but it's not the end of the world if students have some exposure to creationism.
Look, what do you call someone who understands the laws of thermodynamics to be true? someone who understands gravity to be a real thing? someone who accepts that humans are made of living cells? The people who study science and believe what the scientific data supports get named "scientists" and then something else according to their field. It's only the people in a separate, divergent group who get their own name. You don't have a term for people who aren't skinheads, or who aren't sociopaths or who aren't Firefly fans because they hold the default position.
It's "biologist" and then "creationist" if a creationist also studies biology they could be arguably be called a "creationist biologist" (not by me though) but evolution is such a core part of modern biology that to assign a special term to those who study biology and understand it to be true is disingenuous to the nature of the issue and the nature of the field.
Board member Clint Mitchell responded, "I agree...you don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution [or creationism, democracy, capitalism, socialism, welfare... with political rhetorical rhetoric for faux-literate people]. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism [for the bullshit it is and not worry about losing their job, being beheaded, burned at the stake...] and find a way to get it into the classroom."
Islamic, Jewish, Christian... religious republics are hazardous to world peace, personal responsibility, and mental/emotional sanity.
Persons who are dogma affected never reason effective should be taught in schools as a major public/social illness that leads to guilt-free (sociopath) mass murder in god’s name.
We should have medical science seek a vaccination for dogma-nuts which probably are the leading historical cause of unnatural human death. Exorcising their mental/emotional demons would only perpetuate their intangible or delusional beliefs in reality.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
You did not get the joke.
Macroevolution = Lots of microevolution over time. And there's mountains (almost literally) of evidence for species "branching" -- People keep finding missing links (note: plural) all over the place. Tiktaalik is a recent example. Go read "Your Inner Fish" (Neil Shubin) or "The Greatest Show On Earth" (Dawkins) if you want a lengthy discussion of just how good the evidence is.
HAND.
Creationism has a valid place in schools. It belongs in philosophy classes, religion classes, and even history classes (i.e. its relationship to the time period and the Bible's influence on history, etc). However, creationism has no place in science classes. What proponents of creationism don't understand is that contributors of evolution realize that evolution is still merely a theory with a whole ton of support. It isn't perfect. That's why it isn't a law but rather a theory, a very strong theory. Theories aren't proven but merely tested against other theories or null hypotheses. Evolution is the best explanation we have. Furthermore, it's important to note that evolution is a theory because it is falsifiable. This is a critical tenant of any theory in science: that you can find evidence to support or deny the claim. What creationism doesn't have is any evidence for it, either for or against it. It deduces down to belief. It can't be falsified and therefore, simply, is not a theory and thus not science. I've heard some people resort to string theory as a similar notion that falls into the science category without any evidence and I would suggest those people do a bit more homework and they will find that in some cases it does find support. The mere fact is that you can't ever know if God exists and you can't know if he/she/it created everything in the universe. Since we can't know, it can't be science since it can't be a theory, since there is no proof.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
Sorry, all I got out of that was, "No, I've never even thought about the issue of what the proper term IDers should use for proponents of the theory of evolution, nor recognized that there is a need for me to provide them with an alternative, so I'm just going to rant about how IDers aren't doing real science as if that were actually relevant to my refusal to allow them the ability to voice their thoughts."
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Evolution has nothing to say on how life originated. It does say that every known living organism has a single-celled common anscestor.
HAND.
- Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith.
- I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude.
HAND.
Someone give Eugenie Scott a call please.
What I'm saying is that by making a special term for biologists who accept evolution the ID people are implying that there is a legitimate scientific debate over the issue which there is not.
The term creationists should use is "biologist". That is what I am saying. There are not two branches of biologists with equal ground and argument over the issue. There are creationists and there are biologists. One side's argument requires the rejection of the findings of modern biology the other is the study of it.
"Evolutionist" implies a special subset of biology that does not exist. They should call them "biologist" and drop the pretense that they have a valid scientific claim.
A common misinterpretation of paradigms is the belief that the discovery of paradigm shifts and the dynamic nature of science (with its many opportunities for subjective judgments by scientists) is a case for relativism: the view that all kinds of belief systems are equal, such that magic, religious concepts or pseudoscience would be of equal working value to true science. Kuhn vehemently denies this interpretation and states that when a scientific paradigm is replaced by a new one, albeit through a complex social process, the new one is always better, not just different.
The problem with this debate is that it is characterised, particularly within the US, as ID (or Creationism) vs Evolution. It is not.
The debate is Superstition vs. Empiricism.
Supporters of I.D. appear to believe that they can throw out the 'Theory of Evolution' but maintain the science that goes into making the soles of their shoes. One cannot. If one abandons the empirical method for evolution you introduce that as a concept.
Tuning into your hackles to gain a sense of reality becomes a valid method of research.
Blind faith in old books becomes a valid method.
Obedience to the political machinations of a popular religious hierarchy becomes a valid method.
I.D. attempts to portray itself as valid scientific scepticism but that is a disreputably small fig leaf to hide Creationism behind. Advocates of I.D. display a wilful ignorance of Evolution and a contentment with schoolboy errors. Risible misrepresentations of the definition of the word 'theory' and 'proof', for example. Abuse of the scientific method of construction of hypotheses based ONLY upon best empirical evidence.
What I.D. proponents will not face up to is that when you abandon Empiricism you embrace the politics of religion. In embracing the politics of religion you put all of science at the mercy of the political ambitions of charlatans.
Religion is essentially a protection racket for the gullible, and a mafia politically active against the intelligentsia. As the political power of whatever superstition rises it MUST suppress the intellectual development of society. The only difference between the Taliban, or Spanish Inquisition and a Southern Baptist Church is the level of political control actionable.
The implementation of a false reality always results in tyranny: whether than be the tyranny of superstition or the tyranny of madness. The attempted mapping of a false reality over true reality results in conflict, and the false reality characterises the friction created as a struggle with some imaginary dark force.
The details of the friction are often arbitrary: they may be the prohibition of eating shellfish, or of education for women. The only guiding influence that reality has over a superstition is that it must be compatible with psychology of the believer. Thus, a male insecurity over female fidelity can translate into a deity's command for women to be covered up in public and kept under house arrest. A superstition must also be compatible with the needs of a controlling elite. So a belief that a deity speaks to everyone personally and no ecclesiastical hierarchy are acceptable will never gain a dominant position in society since the ruling elite cannot adopt a position as leader chosen by 'God', or 'God' himself. A superstition of that type may gain a foothold in some community but it will lose out in any battle for religious supremacy.
In short: when I.D. attempts a selective abandonment of Empiricism it opens the door for the mafioso protection racket power struggle to begin. That door must be held shut by everyone who wishes for the rule of reason.
The term creationists should use is "biologist". That is what I am saying.
And I just explained why that doesn't work, no matter how popular or correct the theory of evolution is. You haven't replied to that.
Furthermore, you are requiring IDers, in order to make an argument at all, to claim that they are not biologists, effectively defining away the existence of their position. ("Hey, aren't you admitting, by your very own terminology, that you're not biologists? Haw haw!")
While *current* biologists do almost universally agree with the theory of evolution, the term "biologist" does not *mean* "someone who endorses the modern theory of evolution", because those are different concepts and it required a crucial inferential connection to recognize that one who studies one should also be the other. (Was Gregor Mendel a biologist? Aristotle?)
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
In my middle school, we learned all about creationism, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. We also learned about Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, and a few others I don't recall.
All of that was done where in inarguably belong -- Social Studies class.
In Science class, we did chemistry, earth science, space science, and watched Bill Nye. And it was awesome.
Dismissing them as "evolutionists" is used strategically in order to separate them from a position of respect and authority on the subject.
Nope, it's a devious way to correctly denote the set of people with whom one disagrees in this context.
Sheesh, how did clear designation of what you mean become an evil strategy?
Also, "non-creationist" doesn't work because they're only disagreeing with a subset of non-creationists (and they don't claim to be creationists, but whatever). "Non-intelligent designer" doesn't work either because it's non-standard, bulky, and doesn't denote a specific positive belief.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I'm sure they already teach about the terrible War of Northern Agression - another clear example of outsiders meddling in affairs that obviously belonged in the baliwick of Local Control.
When a man and a woman love each other very much--and often--God puts a baby in the woman's tummy.
Sometimes God gets the babies mixed up, though. My aunt and uncle are both blond, and God gave them a little black baby.
Furthermore, you are requiring IDers, in order to make an argument at all, to claim that they are not biologists, effectively defining away the existence of their position.
Yes. That is exactly what I am doing. Their position is not a scientific one. Creationism is not scientific and, in fact, requires you to abandon important discoveries from several branches of science (biology, geology, astrology, anthropology, east asian history(which I know is not a branch of science, but still, it goes back too far for creationism to coexist with it)) by it's very nature. Their argument requires them to reject or ignore core principles of biology. Therefore, by being creationists, they cannot legitimately be called biologists.
As for people who don't STUDY biology but accept evolution to be true, as I said "educated individuals".
Seeing how the computer you're reading this message on works by utilizing quantum mechanics, and in fact atoms couldn't exist in classical physics (since electrons couldn't orbit nucleus, being charged particles and thus losing energy to electromagnetic radiation), I'd say it would be quite questionable to call someone "physicist" who wasn't a proponent of quantum mechanics.
There is a difference between arguing in good faith and in bad faith, and frankly, a biologist denying evolution or a physicist denying quantum physics crosses the line from honest uncertainty to intentional deception.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Yes, I "get" that they are in error to reject evolution. You don't have to keep reminding me. That doesn't mean you get to make them use contorted circumlocutions just to identify their arguments, or that allowing them to use the standard meaning of "evolutionist" is some kind of major concession.
I think you're falling into a sort of anti-halo trap, where you can't do anything remotely pleasant to them just because you disagree. I almost think you're about to deny them the use of English altogether because "that just makes it easier for them to communicate", and I wouldn't want to grant such a concession to the anti-science crowd, would I?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
The debates on who has better evidence, which makes more sense, etc... have been rehashed over and over in this science-disabled country, and without foundational logic, people go with their emotions, more often than not, on both sides of this issue!
Here's the real test, the real question that can easily show which should be taught in school, in a science class, etc... for nearly any topic, not just evolution:
What can you do with what you've learned?
If children spend time learning "God did it. The end." as the answers regarding how this world works, what can they do with that "learning?" Meanwhile, people who learned of evolution, how DNA actually works, genotypes, phenotypes, the work of the monk Gregor Mendel... what can they do with what they learned? We already see it. Genetic engineering is very real, it works, it's involved in many of the products in our grocery stores. Animal husbandry, going back thousands of years was a prior step. Selective breeding of plants and animals betrayed an understanding, although not thorough, that traits change over generations, based on how breeding worked out. If a person is taught, and actually believes, that that observed and heavily used mechanism doesn't exist, didn't happen, doesn't work, and that a deity did everything contrary to any such observations, what is that person going to successfully do in these fields?
The best part of all of this, is that this sort of damage is often seen in rural areas, where scientific thought is not as prevalent... but a large percentage of dwellers in rural areas are involved in farming, which is a great show of humans making use of and manipulating the mechanics of evolution. So while their children learn to deny those mechanics, a child from a more advanced civilization, elsewhere, learns genetic engineering, gets employed by Monsanto or some such, and ends up profiting greatly in deals where terms are dictated to farmers, and farmers are sued for raising crops that received cross pollination from nearby "intellectual property" protected crops, etc... The outcome here is, in a darkly humorous way, analogous to Evolution of the Species by Natural Selection.
First, do you understand why "quantum physics is a reasonable belief" does not substantiate the position that "the word physicist means someone who explicitly endorses quantum mechanics"?
Second, does a person studying optics or geology, but who has never looked at the quantum-specific physics equations, and doesn't ever think about the issue, count as a physicist? (If you feel that by saying yes, you're "giving the creationists a weapon", you're already on the wrong track.)
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I have a legitimate problem with them creating a term to indicate a divide which does not meaningfully exist. The people who study evolution are called "biologists". I am fine with them using "evolutionary biologists" if they are discussing the specific subset of biology specifically devoted to the study of biology but to use "evolutionist" implies that modern biological science and evolution are not intrinsically intertwined which is fallacious. What you don't seem to be getting about my point is that I am saying that they SHOULD NOT be using a using a special term to define those who disagree with them.
It is disingenuous and akin to the XKCD comic where there's the cereal on the shelf that says "arsenic free". The point being that while it's technically true, the implication of stating it by it's very nature brings up unsaid assumptions about the topic which are inherently UNtrue. (that the other cereal contains arsenic or that the study of evolution has equal ground to the study of creationism)
Having administrators who cared about providing the best education for their students in the face of a rapidly evolving world and skill set would be priceless.
Instead we have fools sitting around eating donughts who make time for agenda items like "Hey lets spend lots of money tweaking texts to align with our specific world views". Playing games with text books does nothing tangable to prepare students for the future.
Its a total lack of gumption and competence thats at issue here. If I were a parent I would prefer these assclowns all be fired.
The creationists that I have met or conversed with seem to have a marked lack of logical skill. They don't seem to understand what an argument is, what logic is. They are infuriating to argue with, because their arguments usually degenerate into base contradiction, not unlike Monty Python's argument sketch. They don't usually give premises to support a conclusion in their arguments. Or if they do, their premises don't logically support their conclusion. And if you push them outside the talking points they have been given in their indoctrination at church, pushing them to actually think, they get hostile and turtle up; they won't talk to you again for a while after. They inhabit a world where truth is whatever they decide it to be. Of course, they believe that they are absolutely right, that what they read from the bible and their interpretations of the bible are absolutely true, and that others who differ in their views are absolutely false. However, if we extend this to others and make the decision that all of us may decide what is true based on whatever factors we want, then there is no truth. In such a world, nothing can be absolutely true, and nothing can be absolutely false. In that world, there are no facts, only opinions.
If too many in our society form their views of reality not from rational observation of the physical world, but instead based on vague interpretations of a book written centuries ago and translated numerous times, then truth becomes a commodity, a tool of power. Truth becomes something that can be bought and sold. Those who base their "truth" almost exclusively on bible interpretations will inevitably fall under the sway of preachers, reverends, and other charismatic figures. What those opinion makers say will often be taken for truth without question. Trusted opinion makers will be able to make bold pronouncements of truth, and will often not be questioned. Thus they will have a great deal of power over those who trust them. I would argue that powerful groups or individuals in society will be unable to resist corrupting these trusted opinion makers into changing the truth into something more amenable to their own self-interest. Thus, truth can become a commodity, to be bought and sold for profit and power.
Many who argue that the above isn't a negative development cite freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought as justifications. But I would call it "freedom from thought", the freedom not to think, freedom from reason and logic. In a democracy we are free to think whatever we want, and if we want to we are free to turn off our brains and to exist in a blissful bubble of ignorance. However, a vibrant democracy depends on a vigilant and well informed citizenry. If too many of us abandon logic and reason, then democracy itself will be in peril. Those who toss aside reason are shirking their duties as citizens. They should be ashamed.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Doesn't surprise me a bit. The more prudish the society, the larger the teenage pregnancy rate.
I grew up in Ireland, at a time when contraception had to be prescribed by the local doctor, but only for married couples with a note from the priest. The only thing stopping an explosion of teenage mothers was the ease of access to English abortion clinics. And a lot of young girls "spending time with relatives in another county".
I went to a convent run school for a while, and the only sex education was a single film shown in total silence. No questions to be asked!! So I have a hunch this film was not willingly shown. Took me years to figure out what the hell self abuse was in this context. Good thing I grew up on a farm. Or I could be a dad by now.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
I have a legitimate problem with them creating a term to indicate a divide which does not meaningfully exist.
"Evolutionist" indicates "person who endorses evolution" not "there's a big divide in academic science between people who believe evolution happened and those who don't".
The people who study evolution are called "biologists".
No, "biologist" denotes, at its narrowest, someone who studies biology professionally. The fact that there are *other* characteristics that are typical of biologists does not mean it has a different definition. (Nor that people you disagree with can't use clear terminology.) What about biologists who just study orca feeding behaviors?
I am fine with them using "evolutionary biologists" if they are discussing the specific subset of biology ...
But they're not. They're criticizing everyone who endorses mainstream evolution, whether or not their work is in biology. What more accurate term is there than "evolutionist"?
but to use "evolutionist" implies that modern biological science and evolution are not intrinsically intertwined which is fallacious.
Because they're not -- they're *ex*trinsically intertwined via empirical studies and inferences thereon. It required this empirical work to recognize the connection, not hunting through a dictionary.
There's a difference between saying that evolution *explains* biology, and saying that the term "biology" *means* evolution (among other things). They really have different intensions. Again, did biologists not exist before the 19th century?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
If they want to, they can teach religion in the religious classes or if they don't have that in the US, the place where they should go with their children: their places of worship (church, mosque, synagogue). Keep their version of creationism out of science classes. Next thing you know we'll also have to teach Hindu, Muslim, Native American etc. etc. versions of it. Will you be happy then School Boards?
Whether or not you believe in evolutionism, it's tenets do belong in a science class or at least in a (scientific) philosophy/methods class for now since they are based on the scientific method (whether or not you believe their hypothesis are wrong). Once the scientific method has disproved the theory and if then a lot of people still adhere to it's teachings (like the flat-earth people) then you can get it to a religious status because the rest of the world debunked it and you are still adhering to the reasoning of it. Pure Darwinism is an example of something that should be getting classified as a religion as science has proved that the systems of life are a bit more involved than purely survival of the strongest but I doubt there are still a lot of adherents of the original theories.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
> "We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?"
Because evolution by natural selection is science and intelligent design is not, you fucking moron! When is that going to enter into your thick heads, you stupid people?
The DSM isn't real hard science though. Because ethics prevent psychologists from doing proper double blind tests for a lot of things it's more akin to scientifically based philosophy than science.
Homosexuality could quite easily be considered a mental disorder if you assume that the base nature of life on earth is the perogative to pass on their genes, then homosexuality is a pretty major disorder in that. It was taken off the DSM because it was seen as prejudiced to have it on there and implying there was something intrinsically "wrong" with being gay or a lesbian. But both genius and homosexuality are clearly large deviations from basic "proper" human thought and desire. It's only because our species has a pack "different is bad" mentality that they have to keep homosexuality off the DSM. Not because it fails any particular criteria to be on there.
Disclaimer: I have no problem, ethical or otherwise, with homosexuality. I am just noting that it is, in fact, a mental deviation from what is the human norm based on our best evidence.
It's not that creationism is inherently stupid. It's that it's a philosophical belief and not a scientific argument. I believe in God, and also believe in evolution, the big bang and just about everything else that science has taught us. In my mind, science is just a way to understand the tools of God. But this is part of my philosophy and not part of my scientific understanding of the world.
Maybe they could hire some BP executives and scientists to help them out with those subjects.
Small minded people need a god because they can't imagine something so complex evolving from very simple beginnings. Their minds simply can't figure it out, therefore it must be "god"; the best answer they can come up with.
Politicians aren't rewarded by saying anything against god in the USA, especially in Louisiana. The number of voters that are willing to vote out anyone who doesn't invoke "god" in their sales pitch are over 95%+ of them, regardless of political party.
Teaching Creationism in public schools is simply what the uninformed masses of Louisiana want. Logic and reason don't work here.
Devise an experiment that falls remotely within what evolution predicts that would disprove creationism. It doesn't even have to be a *practical* experiment.
Here's the problem: Stripped down to it's core, here's the concept behind evolution:
1. Things have a physical information storing component that tells their bodies how to manufacture themselves. Currently, we believe this component to be DNA, though it being the specific mechanism is not absolutely necessary.
2. Individuals are created by one or more (typically one or two) other similar creatures, referred to here as parents.
3. The information storing component of the parent creature(s) is used as a source to produce the base information from which to create the new individual (whether as a direct copy or some kind of mechanism for mixing the data and producing one result set [sperm and egg, each with a half-set, for example]).
4. The process in (3) is imperfect, generating some small, but non-zero amount of "unique" data in a given individual.
5. Not everyone lives to reproductive age and successfully produces offspring, and traits inherited via the component referenced in (1) and/or modified in (4) in combination with environment can influence an individuals success in this regard.
6. Those who out-breed others make their traits more common in the population as a whole via (3).
Repeat this thousands upon thousands of times, and isloate groups from each other (with different pressures on each group effecting (5)). The implication is that after enough repetition, individuals from separated groups resemble each other less and less, and may eventually cease to be biologically compatible with each other.
Now, where are you attacking this, again?
Someone who uses terms like 'irrefutable fact' and 'believe' in regards to Science should be wary of judging anothers scientific merit...
In modern times, the term evolution is widely used, but the terms evolutionism and evolutionist are not used in the scientific community to refer to the biological discipline as the term is considered both redundant and anachronistic
- wikipedia: most reliable source on the internet (source of citation connected to quoted text)
Modern biology is built upon the concept that evolution is correct. It has become the foundation of enough of the fields understanding that it cannot be removed without finding new reasoning for much of what is currently being done in the field. Also it implies a false dichotomy between evolution and christian creation theory.
Physics existed before we discovered quantum physics but quantum physics is now an irremovable part of the field. Geology existed before we knew... well pretty much everything we do now about geology but that doesn't mean you can hold up flat earth theory as legitimate geological science anymore.
I'm not saying that "evolutionist" doesn't technically describe the people they want it to. I'm saying that by accepting it as a valid term you're inadvertently giving credence to the legitimacy of their position.
Intelligent Design basically says that an intelligent designer (could be a god, could be many gods, aliens, ghosts, who knows?) has put together the world as we know it.
Creationism basically says that the God of the Bible Created everything we know of, out of nothing.
Evolution basically says that everything has changed over vast periods of time and suggests that there was a cosmic event ("The Big Bang") which started everything into motion.
So if a school board says they want to teach creationism, that is different from saying that they want to teach Intelligent Design.
Get your terms straight!
(The definition of terms are not quoted from any source, rather they are from my own simple understanding of each topic.)
Mumble mumble mum....
Minor genetic mutations that enhance the likelihood of survival, or mutations that diminish a organism chance of survival, or even mutations that have no negative or positive benefit. When the population of a organism is radically reduced by a outside factor the genetic pool becomes smaller causing a increase in mutations and thus increasing the opportunity for one or more variations to succeed and overcome the outside factor, while the organism that have a negative mutation will likely not survive long enough to reproduce. Selective breeding is not the cause but the results in most cases, a mutation that limits survival also limits the opportunity to reproduce.
Creationism defies our very observations of the world around us, we can experience the process of evolution in our daily lives.
Take Lawn mowing for example, let your yard grow big, and all the plants grow as though they were wild, but add the factor of cutting grass, this will diminish the survival of tall weeds, if you for instance cut your yard every week then all the tall variations of said weed will not have a chance to survive, each week the tall weeds will gradually reduce to zero while the medium will reduce to a smaller number and the short (flat) ones will continue to thrive and reproduce, we see this with dandelions most prominently, when we consider a dandelions growth as its genetic trait, tall, medium, and short (flat).
We know with humans that genetic mutations occur more when the genetic pool is smaller, and occur most when incest is evident, The two toe tribe is a great example of a genetic mutation that was neither beneficial nor negative to survival, and yet selective breeding ensured the trait survived.
Science, by definition, is the utilization of the scientific method. Darwin made observations, formed a hypothesis based on those observations and then tested that hypothesis. Thereby creating a theory. You can't use these steps in creationism because you're just trying to validate a belief and it therefore IS NOT SCIENCE.
This, to me, is where the argument should end.
End of line.
Well duh, The answer is simple: God burned a few men, and there you have it!
That's the sound of the competitiveness of the United States being knocked down a notch.
Parent is trolling. Please move along. He wants you to respond angrily. Please don't give him what he wants.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Also, "non-creationist" doesn't work because they're only disagreeing with a subset of non-creationists (and they don't claim to be creationists, but whatever). "Non-intelligent designer" doesn't work either because it's non-standard, bulky, and doesn't denote a specific positive belief.
What? Are you implying that not all ID'ers aren't creationists now?
ID is nothing but dressed up creationism. It was started by creationists. It is supported by creationists. It's nothing more than an attempt to try to make creationism sound more valid through the use of pseudoscience, propaganda, logical fallacies, and misinformation.
The creation of the term "intelligent design" is purely politically motivated, in order to avoid the stigma of "creationism". For example, the book Of Pandas and People supposedly replaced forms of the word "creationism" within it's early drafts with the term "intelligent design."
"Evolutionist" is nothing but a politically loaded term. It's used to try to imply that it represents a mere subset of scientists, and to imply that it's a matter of "faith", not based on scientific principals.
It's the same reason they like to refer to "the *belief* in Evolution". It is also very much like emphasizing the use of the word "Theory" in "Theory of Evolution" (and twisting the scientific meaning of the word to a mainstream non-scientific meaning). It's all about spin.
Let me share that I was raised Christian. I was taught to be skeptical of evolution by both my home and church. However, one of the biggest things that turned me against my upbringing was the question, "if these guys have such a strong case, why must they resort to misinformation, half-truths, and spin in order to try to convince people?"
I'm not saying that "evolutionist" doesn't technically describe the people they want it to. I'm saying that by accepting it as a valid term you're inadvertently giving credence to the legitimacy of their position.
And I'm saying that when you make a fuss about this, you're letting your dislike of the group cloud your judgment. Everyone should use accurate terms to designate what they want to refer to, even if they're evil, and such clear communication -- gasp! -- benefits those evil people.
There is no reasonable alternative to the term "evolutionist" that IDers should use, and criticizing them for it is just petty.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
What? Are you implying that not all ID'ers aren't creationists now?
No, I'm saying that whatever wrong IDers may have committed, they need to be able to use an accurate, concise appellation to refer to the set of people who disagree with them, and "evolutionist" fills that role. It doesn't matter that it hurts your feelings, or that they're wrong, or that they're not doing science, etc. etc. etc. "Evolutionist" is the most accurate term for those whom they disagree with, and by denying them the right to use this term, you're effectively trying to make it impossible to voice their opinion.
I'm sorry that for some people, the term might give them the wrong idea, but you can say that about anything. (See the sibling exchanges.)
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
In doing a bit of research before my post, I read quite a bit about the political components of how things get into or out of the DSM. Really fascinating stuff.
and when I looked at the jar upside down I read it as P! presumably for Pseudosience !
Nullius in verba
And the reason that $5,000 is missing from this account is because God has credited thy asset account for your blasphemy
But it isn't an accurate term because everyone else stopped using it ages ago, it's a "technically correct" term. saying "Don't hang out with Steve, he's a real bastard." when Steve was born out of wedlock is technically correct but it's misleading.
The reasonable alternative is not labeling people who accept evolution and then pretending they're the only other option. There are creationist and people who are not creationists. Some of them support evolution, some have absolutely no theory regarding the nature of diversity of life, some support a creation story completely separate from the Christian one. By making it "creationism and evolutionism" you create a false dichotomy by implying that the two are the same type of thing and that all the other options besides those two are lesser while those two are equal. Evolution is a scientific theory while creationism is a philosophical outlook on the nature of existence. They're trying to say it's comparing apples and oranges when they are, in fact, comparing apples and the early work of John Stamos.
You could be right, it could be that I'm letting my bias get in the way of my objectivity. But I feel that they are using intentionally manipulative language to give their belief a stronger position than it can hold on its own merits.
No. Please explain how one can do physics or even be reasonably well-versed in them, yet deny a theory that agrees with all observations better than any other we have and underlies most modern technology. In your explanation, please also answer whether or not the word "physicist" should, under the same principle, be used to cover someone who believes in classical Greek theory of world being made of four elements (air, water, fire, earth), and if not, why not?
No, a geologist is not a physicist, he's a geologist. Dunno what you mean by "a person studying optics" - an optician? A telescope maker? Either way, understanding the behaviour of light in detail beyond making lenses or mirrors does, as a matter of fact, require quantum physics - that's how they got started.
Well luckily my integrity was never endangered by temptation here, due to there being perfectly valid reasons for not answering "yes".
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I went to a Baptist highschool here. Granted it's in Michigan so we get a lot less of the southern weirdos, so take that for what it's worth.
Basically we were all forced to go through three of the following four science classes.
Earth Science: How to identify types of rock and clouds. How rain and volcanos work. Stuff like that
Biology: How plants and animals work, including organs, photosynthesis, circulatory systems, and other stuff like that.
Chemistry: How things atoms and molecules react with each other and how math drives it. (this was actually a really tough class)
Human Anatomy. Basically Biology but all focused on people with some starter nursing program stuff.
We spent one week on the "Theory of Evolution" in Biology, which was a quick overview on what they expected us to know on the state exams. That's it. We didn't even touch on creationism. The teachers said it wasn't relevant to anything we'd have to know to succeed in life so we didn't need it.
We spent a while in Biology class on the process of evolution, understanding how it works, but never on memorizing dinosaurs and how long ago they died like our public school counterparts.
I find it amazing that the crowd even here on slashdot seems to be all about pushing teaching the Theory of Evolution instead of ignoring both sides as equally useless and getting down with something that might make a difference someday.
This is easy to integrate into the science curriculum. The Creationism section would start like this:
Section 5: Creationism
Page 1: This section deals with everything we know to be true from a creationist perspective.
Page 2: This page intentionally left blank.
Section 6: Meanwhile, Back To The Real World
.
.
.
The reasonable alternative is not labeling people who accept evolution and then pretending they're the only other option.
The term "evolutionist" doesn't do this. Other things that IDers do might be doing this, but not the term "evolutionist". Again, you're still not answering the question of what brief appellation they should be using that actually *means* what they're referring to, rather than simply coinciding with it. It's one thing to criticize someone's arguments; it's quite another to define them out of existence and take away every term they could use to voice their opinion.
If they disagree with evolution, that *means* the people who they disagree with are ... um, evolution ... ists. It simply doesn't matter how invalid their position is; everyone, even the bad people, has the right to accurately reference the class of people who disagree with them. Since the belief they criticize is "evolution", the most appropriate term is "evolutionist", and that holds true no matter how good the science opposing them is, or what other nefarious things they might be doing.
(I note you still haven't given them alternative, which makes your position all the more undirected and kafkaesque. When someone tells me, "don't user term X", but doesn't tell me what term I should use instead, their goal quite clearly isn't good communication.)
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
But that's the trick of it. The people they disagree with AREN'T "evolutionists" it's everybody who isn't them. They have their own belief which, were it true, invalidates not only evolution, but every other creation story and 3 or 4 other branches of science.
Evolution is just the easiest opponent they have to attack. Even if they could prove evolution wrong it wouldn't in any way support their hypothesis because they still have all the other opposing branches of science. It's "science and history" vs "creationism".
So I guess that is the term I want them to use. "Scientists, heathens and ancient historians". Because their belief goes contrary to entire swaths of all three.
Like, I said, "evolutionist", as they use it, implies a parallel to "creationist" that just doesn't exist.
But yeah, that's the term I'm saying they should use "Scientists, heathens and ancient historians".
Note how you've changed the topic to "Look at all I know about quantum physics and how well-substantiated it is" rather than "are the definitions of 'physicist' and 'quantum mechanics' (or 'biologist' and 'evolution') different?" The question isn't whether one coincides with the other (which they do), but whether the meanings are the same, and by extension, whether "evolutionist" is the most appropriate term that evolution's critics should refer to those who disagree with them.
Unfortunately, there's a tendency to say, "hey, those people don't get to use the literal meanings of words because they're so offensively wrong", which I find ridiculous.
Well luckily my integrity was never endangered by temptation here, due to there being perfectly valid reasons for not answering "yes".
Unfortunately, your only reason seems to be, "I [justifiably] don't like IDers, therefore I will deny them even the ability to accurately refer to the class of people who disagree with them."
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Religion is nothing more than a power/money gathering structure outside of normal governmental processes. Period. I don't care what social programs X church has implemented, because those programs can and should exist with or without X religion. Also splitting the effort for such social programs between church, state, and other non-profits only serves to segregate benefits, and make them inefficient through dilution.
The only advantage to inserting X religion into schools is indoctrinating more youth to X religion. Disadvantages include indirect persecution of Y, Z, and all other religions, and loss of federal funding through ignoring the separation of church and state.
Adding religion to schools is merely a desperate act of a failing religion, because their message is not true or useful enough to get money donors into church/temple/whatever.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
I remember some creations trying to have a variable speed of light to explain how the universe is really only 6000 years old. (IE the speed of light was much faster in the distant past.) Anyway the striking thing was the explaination was designed so you couldn't test it. Unfortunately he failed and some physics/astronomy types pointed out there were ways to actually test his hypothesis and of course it fails miserably. (The only thing I remember is that any distant pulsar should have an increasing pulse rate. Since none of them actually have this the speed of light hasn't changed in a very long time and trying to use that to get a young universe is nonsense.) I guess I should check on talkorgins for this or something. (I think that's where the tear down of the "hypothesis" was.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
But that's the trick of it. The people they disagree with AREN'T "evolutionists" it's everybody who isn't them.
Sure, just like how everyone else disagrees with everyone who disagrees with them.
They have their own belief which, were it true, invalidates not only evolution, but every other creation story and 3 or 4 other branches of science.
Yes, we've established that they're in error .. again. Nevertheless, because they *intend* their criticism to be of evolution, that *means* the set of people they disagree with are appropriately called ... evolutionists. There's simply no reasonable alternative.
So I guess that is the term I want them to use. "Scientists, heathens and ancient historians". Because their belief goes contrary to entire swaths of all three.
Kind of a mouthful, don't you think? Do you really think that everyone should have to list every group that they, by implication, disagree with, every single time they want to refer to people who disagree with them? Do you hold everyone to this standard, or just to groups that hurt your feelings really bad?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Everyone who wants their belief taught in science class. Yes. I have little problem with people who don't accept scientific fact. I think they're wrong, I don't particularly want to hang out with them, but they aren't in any way lowering me or my family's quality of life.
,immunologists, every other facet of biology which their theory would invalidate, every branch of every other field of science their beliefs would invalidate and more.
But when you present your claim as "science" and try to push it into the public school system you need to be ready to back it up. What the creationists are trying to do is take the archaic and out of use term "evolutionists" and then attack it as a valid opponent when they SHOULD, if they wanted to be honest, be taking every branch of study that opposed theirs. And that isn't "evolution" it's a great deal more than that. In order to properly press themselves into school within the confines of their own beliefs they should be asking to be put into not just biology alongside the teaching of evolution but in geology, in history class, in philosophy, in physics... etc.
By saying they're both scientifically viable and that they're against 'evolutionists' they are implying that
(A) "Evolutionist" is a proper scientific term, which as I showed before, is no longer true, it is not in use in proper science anymore.
(B) That their theory is a competitor to evolution, which it isn't. It's a direct competitor to our entire understanding of the universe which happens to include evolution.
(C) that the only options are creationism and evolution, which they aren't.
In order to be academically honest they cannot state that they are opponents of "evolutionists" without widely acknowledging that they are also an opponent of ancient historians,
Using the word "evolutionist" the way they do is a red herring to the actual issue and the actual nature of both evolution as it exists in the field of biology and of their own theory's scope and nature.
Let all ideas be taught or researched and above all, let them all stand or fall before peer review.
You cannot filter information and expect truth of any kind when you start making decisions for other peoples beliefs.
I have no problem with Darwinism, Creationism etc. Let them all be taught according to what a community thinks is appropriate.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
No, I'm pointing out that being a physicist necessiates one to consider quantum mechanics a real phenomenom, just like being a biologist necessiates one to consider evolution a real phenomenom. The amount of evidence for these phenomenoms being real is simply overwhelming; so overwhelming, in fact, that I find it impossible for anyone to know the subject well and yet argue, in good faith, that they are not real.
Two words coinciding means that they have the same meaning. And evolution doesn't have "critics", as that would require someone pointing out flaws in the theory, rather than just a bunch of conspiracy nuts claiming it's all Satan's plot to lead mankind astray with the help of eeevil scientists. However, at least those nuts are honest, in the sense that they usually don't hide being religiously motivated; Intelligent Design adds a layer of deception on top of that, making itself simply despicable.
Creationists use the word "evolutionist" to suggest that it's just one school of biology. It's not, it's something that underlies the modern biology. Speaking of "evolutionists" rather than "biologists" is simply an attempt to mislead and deceive.
Disagree with what, exactly speaking? ID simply asserts that "maybe this was all designed". Could be; it's certainly impossible to prove one way or another. That's the reason why ID is not science, and doesn't belong in the science class. What's worse, ID is simply a deception designed to make creationism look "sciency" to get Christian creation myths taught in a science class, in a desperate attempt to make them look like a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution and make an end-run around the separation of church and state.
As for the class of people who disagree with taking ID to classroom... that would be pretty much everyone else. ID proponents are liars; they are lying on purpose about what they want taught, and why they want it taught. People arguing in bad faith - lying - shouldn't be surprised when others deny them the ability to twist words to deceive the unwary, which is exactly what calling people "evolutionists" does.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It seems we have some politics here in Slashdot as well. This is a perfectly Insightful post that has been modded down. You may disagree with the sentiments expressed in the post, but that doesn't mean the points raised aren't valid. Personally, I don't think the courts have any role in determining what goes on in the classroom, any more than teachers should dictate what is/isn't allowed in the courtroom.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Creationism was taught for hundreds of years, and didn't seem to cause any problems.
The problem that arises is, what do the Jews and Catholics do when a Protestant guy shows up to teach Creationism? Or a Buddhist, or any of the 2400 other choices for a religion we have out there. Which story do we want, the legends passed down in the Bible, or the best guesses of people who study the planet, observing the scientific method?
What this really is, is teaching Christianity in schools. When you label it like that, the reasons not to do it become clear.
Always remember the chickens that have gone before
The problem is when people make claims that can not be proved and state the unprovable claim to be fact.
Evolution is a theory. The theory has holes and has never been proved. The age of the Earth/Universe is also a theory, with holes, that has never been proved.
The claim that God does not exist has never been proved. Do not be misled, he who makes the claim, bears the burden of proof. Those that claim that God does not exist are required to prove that claim or concede they might be wrong.
The claim that God exists has also never been proved. We are not talking science in EITHER context. So claiming that God does not exist also has no place in a science class.
Science used to be about conducting experiments to either conclusively prove or disprove theories. But it has lost its purpose and has turned into Satanic deception masquerading as undeniable truth.
The existence of God is inherently unprovable because it is not a concept that deals with observable characteristics of the natural world. And it therefore has no place in a science class regardless of belief. It also has no less a right to be in non-scientific classrooms because it can not be proved false.
You aren't talking about science. Otherwise, what is your measurement and with which device do you measure it?
This is liberalism run amok. Atheists are Satanists. They are also profoundly deceived.
Two arguments against that: 1. He/She does not live. If your soul went to heaven - an unlikely proposition, I know - eternal bliss would not be a part of your life, but rather of your afterlife. If this is the place where you can meet your maker, and a place, where you don't live, your maker won't live either, I guess. 2. God has always been envisioned in the Christian theological tradition as a simple being. The same goes for souls and angels, btw. So there is no way of thinking Him as "complex" - because complex things by definition may degenerate, and a degenerating God is inconceivable. Conclusion: Always know your enemy. ;)
The more prudish the society, the larger the teenage pregnancy rate.
[Citation needed]
but
Probably not quite true. Probably it's a larger teenage birth rate, because the "less prudish" society has a greater rate of abortion.
Wow, you argue so much that this last post only had three words per line, squished all up against the right margin. "Evolutionists" is a term not used anywhere outside this debate, right? It's a term that was invented by the fundamentalists pushing their agenda, right? Why the fuck would you defend it?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The Xel'Naga Created both the Zerg and the Protoss! Sure, the zerg later evolved, but they were Created in the beginning.
Wait, this isn't about Starcraft?
Yikes, when I hear religious people talking about self abuse, I always think of the whips and chains that they use to flagellate themselves to become more pious or something. Not, not NOT "lovingly removing the testosterone every couple days so I won't have to launder my sheets!"
Boy, is their value system messed up. I heard a bit on NPR today at lunch about some females who had relationships with (Catholic) priests, and are petitioning the Catholic Church to stop the ridiculous order of celibacy, which has led to so much abuse of altar boys et al. Why would they think that creating a situation where the priests need to launder their sheets weekly won't result in them acting out, due to the significantly increased testosterone flowing through their bodies? Ah well, at least the Catholics don't advocate whacking off the tip of your Manhood like the fucking Jews who convinced my non-Jewish parents to unceremoniously deprive me of those 30-40,000 nerve endings that I will never experience with.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I saw a guy on a fourwheeler driving on the freeway with a confederate flag bumper sticker. Enough said.
That's not strictly true. If the first explanation doesn't make any sense in light of the data, as typically occurs with "creation science," the problem can be "fixed" by just inventing some additional mechanism that makes the first explanation work, but which itself requires dreaming up an explanation without any evidence other than that it is required to make the first two work out. Of course if also doesn't make sense without...and so on.
It's the ad hoc fallacy. You can always come up with an explanation, but when each explanation is invented from a vacuum exclusively to explain an interpretation that itself isn't preferentially suggested by any evidence or existing model, you're really not doing science. Reasoning along those lines has no explanatory power; there are no underlying simplifying or generalized mechanisms. To look at it from another perspective, there are infinitely many things you might choose to believe. Without some underlying rules or assumptions -- or if all those rules and assumptions are ignored -- there is no reason to prefer any explanation over any other.
For example, if I posit that computers work because tiny leprechauns are feverishly working inside the computer chips, I can always come up with some reason that your evidence against my explanation prove I'm wrong. Clearly the leprechauns are tiny. Well of course you can't see them! Obviously they're invisible leprechauns...and so on. If you've ever argued with a four year old you'll understand this rationalization process immediately. It is not science. It is, however, the process that Creationism suffers in order to "make sense" of the natural world.
Holy motherfucking shit. Easterberry won this argument about ten posts ago.
Because it's the most accurate term for the people IDers are criticizing, and every argument against the use of the term seems to be of the form "but they're wrong!", which doesn't speak to the issue of whether the term is appropriate for designating the class of people they're trying to refer to, and it's quite petty to require that they not use a standard conjugation/inflection/whatever of a standard term?
Just a thought.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
http://xkcd.com/258/
It's not petty to have them use a term that the people who hold those views use on themselves. Just a thought.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
So if IDers call themselves "correct people", they can expect that the only appropriate term for referring to them is "correct people"?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Yeaaaaaah man, my team, like, *totally* beat your team, duuuuuuuuude. Rah rah go tribe, beat up their tribe, it's all about us winning against them!
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
You may already be studying creationism. It's called Religious Studies. Taking valuable time away from science classes to examine an argument between a very small section of science and religion is clearly detrimental to students. So make religious studies mandatory in junior high and teach whatever the hell you want in it but don't take time out of the core learning subjects. And most certainly DO NOT compare it to science because it has absolutely nothing to do with science. I hated sport so back at high school and generally avoided participating whenever possible. Outside school I was very fit and used to do plenty of hiking and swimming. I was put into a remedial sports class which took up one of my maths lessons every week. At the time I thought that was a great lark and boy do I regret that now!
It says something about the Christian mindset that I get modded as a troll when basically I am just quoting their article. They write ridiculous nonsense then don't like it pointed out.
...says the person who obsessively posts replies to a thread until they have the last word. :)
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power." -- James Madison
... as we drag ourselves slowly towards a new dark age where religion once again oppresses knowledge
i believe the flying spagetti monster will save us. (or at least feed the hunger) eksenim
The stupidity shown in that video makes me fear the future....
Consider it for a while. Unhealthy spirituality leads to things like discomfiture when faced with sexuality.
You realize you're posting on slashdot right? Besides, i do not believe in a soul or 'spiritual energy', nor do i believe that there is a purpose to life other then the one i define for myself. Your personality, emotions, desires, they all come from the brain, which in effect is the way it is because of genetics (and the occasional brute force trauma), if you realize that, and accept it, life is a lot simpler.
The asshat leadership is just part of the problem though. I came to realize that the mental accommodations I had made in order to believe in a deity which was compatible with science (let alone, souls, heaven, Christ, etc.) resulted in a theology that was all but indistinguishable from wishing thinking. There is lots that I like and miss about church, but it is hard to get over the apparent fact of religion being pure invention.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Wow, you're just out there. Biologists are the ones that they're taking aim at; biologists are the ones who hold forth the evolutionary theory. No scientist calls themselves an "Evolutionist" so why do you think that it's not a derogatory term invented by the religious in an attempt to divide the debate, and isn't that exactly what we're wasting our time with right now? Nice trolling, though.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Sorry, if you consider [belief-you-hold]-ist to be a derogatory term, then *you're* the one who's "out there". IDers are criticizing the validity of a specific mechanism. It follows that the people they criticize are [that-mechanism]-ists. (And yes, I know you're going to go postal because I used the term "belief" here, though you probably won't give a neutral alternative there either.)
Seriously, everyone here needs to spend a few minutes understanding the difference between sense and reference aka extension and intension aka "Oedipus's mom" and "Jocasta".
And I'm trolling because I object to making IDers use contorted, inexact language rather than standard inflection of words?
I'm not trying to defend the validity of ID. I just sympathize with anyone who's told they have to use terminology that directly bakes in a concession of error. Yes, biologists *should* use the model of evolution in their work, as that is the most reasonable belief to hold in that area. That doesn't imply that the *definition* of biologist is "someone who uses and endorses the theory of evolution".
Seriously, the whole crowd here has gone nuts, feeling they have to defend every aspect of "their side", no matter what the relevance to the topic of whether "evolutionist" is an appropriate term in this context.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Really? Read the thread history, and see if I've "obsessively replied to *everyone*". Also, see if anyone has given me a straight, non-subject-changing, non-let-me-show-off-all-I-know answer.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
All societies need a certain number of intentionally stupid people (they specifically elect to be so), in order to ensure that the manual labor jobs are adequately covered - i.e. janitors, vegetable pickers, etc. They might as well be from LA. If you elect to raise your children in an atmosphere of superstition rather than teach them how to think, then you must obviously not want them to think for a living, and manual labor is what is left. I'm sure my children will eventually need their septic tank pumped or their house painted, and would be perfectly willing to hire Louisiana residents to do those tasks. Think about it this way - every creationist janitor that is born today will mean a bigger paycheck for your rational, gene-splicing daughter tomorrow.
Living in Texas on the Gulf Coast, here's how I see things:
ExxonMobile: "Thank god, it's BP."
Texas: "Thank God it's Louisiana."
Okay, find me someone who self-identifies as an "evolutionist".
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Your whole post is about attacking the faults you think you can percieve in others, I see none of the self-doubt you say you value so highly.
"Could you simply accept it, shrug, decide not to act on it, and continue on?"
Yes, everyone has "uncomfortable" thoughts and the vast majority neither act on them, or end up with rubber wallpaper because of them. What is much more uncomfortable are the real life images seared into your nurons, the face of a child as they dissapear under the front of your car, your best mate as a blackened skeleton in a burnt out car wreck, etc, etc. Compared to the uncomfortable things in real life humans have to face, the unplesant thoughts of which you speak are no more uncomfortable than a bad dream.
If you don't have such real life images in your head then you're either young and naive, or extremely fortunate.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Yes, everyone has "uncomfortable" thoughts and the vast majority neither act on them, or end up with rubber wallpaper because of them.
Most people are influenced in some way by something they find unpleasant in themselves. Most people have something they "can't allow themselves to think about." For example, attraction to your neighbor's wife... a lot of people won't think about it, won't acknowledge it, because they feel it's totally wrong and amoral; as opposed to recognizing it, acknowledging it, and simply not acting on it. (Of course, most people will screw their best friend's wife the first chance they get 9.9)
People are also prone to protect their beliefs in the face of facts or alternate opinions-- anything that may lead them to consider alternate possibilities becomes uncomfortable, and threatening. Look at Roger Ebert's recent reaction to the assertions he made that video games aren't art: he claimed that he was wrong to say such a thing, primarily because people are delusional and would attack him for it; in other words, he claimed he's right and you're all a bunch of stupid brainwashed fucktards.
The most disturbing real-life images I have in my head right now are probably from my last trip to Subway, where some guy was carrying around a drooling infant. Babies are the most disgusting thing I've physically encountered; when I got home with my food I had trouble eating due to residual revulsion.
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Could it be cretin science is wrong. It's for cretins wantiing to creat more cretins.
If you replace "most" with "all" I'm inclined to agree. Self skepticisim is the core skill required for critical thinking but it's not a miricale cure for divided opinion simply because in most cases (such as your video games/art example) there is no "correct" opinion, they are just opinions conveyed with various degrees of passion and/or arrogance that you may or may not agree to with your own degree of passion/arrogance.
;)
What I find amusing is that you come across as if you are immune to human nature because you have discovered introspection, however your uncritical acceptance of "climategate" propoganda is strong evidence that you suffer from the same utterly human foibles as the people you are critisizing.
PS: My drooling grandchild gleefully stuffing chocolate cake into (and onto) her face on her first birthday is the most beautifull thing I have seen in a long time. Unlike the swill they serve at Subway, we are all organic but some people are uncomfortable with that fact.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If you replace "most" with "all" I'm inclined to agree. Self skepticisim is the core skill required for critical thinking but it's not a miricale cure for divided opinion simply because in most cases (such as your video games/art example) there is no "correct" opinion, they are just opinions conveyed with various degrees of passion and/or arrogance that you may or may not agree to with your own degree of passion/arrogance.
It is a cure for stress and social disorders caused by alienating people for having threatening opinions. Great hostility only comes from threats; I am still hostile to people who are intentionally vicious and hurtful, for example, but that's because they are clearly attempting to harm others.
If I perceived a "threat" because somebody might say something that hurts me because it goes against what I want to accept as fact yet is inarguable in any way I'm comfortable with, then I'm simply too scared to leave my little imaginary world; and of course, being so threatened, I would become hostile to such ideas and the people that conveyed them. Being willing to grapple with uncomfortable ideas puts you in the unfortunate situation that you may discover you're actually wrong.
What I find amusing is that you come across as if you are immune to human nature because you have discovered introspection, however your uncritical acceptance of "climategate" propoganda is strong evidence that you suffer from the same utterly human foibles as the people you are critisizing.
I'm immune to the human nature of being afraid to analyze the data. Of course, I'm also unqualified to fully analyze the data, seeing as I'm not a climatologist; on the other hand, I can analyze explanations, and I've seen many discussions about "unconforming" data being dropped ... fitting the data to the model. I'm not so delusional that I'd think this only happens with "global warming" of course: I'm sure pharmacies, oil companies, car manufactures, and telecommunications service providers massage their data too. Political climate does, however, encourage all independent researchers to fit the data to the model, and encourage the majority of the scientific body to ignore "quack-job" dissenters who want to challenge an "accepted theory."
I've chosen to see this as a political issue: at best I don't trust the current propaganda; at worst, I don't believe the truth is physically possible to find at this point. Global climate is changing, but that's normal: we've had ice ages, and hell they moved around (the whole world didn't experience an ice age at one time). I think claiming that "humans are causing global weather changes and we need to reverse the damage" is stupid: for one thing, I don't believe we're causing it; for another, I think we need to analyze the new weather patterns and begin adjusting to our new home. This isn't an MEE.
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Yep, as I suspected: there aren't any.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
"I've chosen to see this as a political issue"
;)
In other words you have chosen not to think about it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
By denying the right to use this incorrect and purposely misleading term, you aren't making it IMPOSSIBLE to voice their opinion. What you are doing is making it impossible for them to voice their opinion in the way intended, the purpose of which is to mislead people into thinking that evolution is but one "camp" of ideas in biology.
The word "biologists" is the proper term that ISN'T misleading. They won't use it because it shows just how ridiculous their "opinion" is compared to actual scientists rather than their intended connotation of "a few dogmatic scientists who hate God!"
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.