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For Texas Textbooks, a Victory For Evolution
An anonymous reader writes "The Texas Board of Education has unanimously come down on the side of evolution. In an 8-0 vote, the board today approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers — and did not approve the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkBmhM0R2A0
Thank God for this victory
Proof that even Texans have to evolve, eventually. Now on to Kansas...
Maybe there is a God.
Apparently they had an outbreak of common sense in Texas
can someone explain
Read radical news here
Does it really matter these days what American students learn, with respect to science? I don't think it does.
With Europeans, Indians and the Chinese doing all real science and engineering today, it's just something that Americans don't need to know about. I mean, you don't need to know science when performing typical modern American jobs like preparing coffees, flipping burgers or collecting welfare.
So even if American students today learn about creationism in their science classes, it won't really be harmful to them. They'll never actually have to do anything involving science once they leave school.
Unanimous, eh...? Texas? Something smells a bit fishy...
One less meme for the Liberals...sorry, "Progressives" to bitch about.
Woo hoo! The state board of education has come out in favor of science and in opposition to skeptics and free thinkers. Good to see they are going with established scientific practice and vetted theory and understanding instead of giving time to free thinkers unburdened by scientific dogma, who pursue pointless skepticism. A good reminder that learning, even when dogmatic, is about the pursuit of truth, and not pointless wanking from idiots who ignore vetted traditional teachings just to be douche bags.
I had to shut it off after the fifth one though.... incredibly depressing to watch.
I like microcars
Thank God for these intelligently designed supplements!
The scary part is that this subject was even up for debate.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
FTFA: "A creationist member of the review panel released a list of Holt's supposed errors involving evolution and common descent."
Thing is, common descent is provably scientifically false at this point.
Fluorescent cats: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/photogalleries/wip-week59/ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316592,00.html
Are we stating that only events in the far past can be included to apply to common descent based on, well, what the words simply mean? Because there's no question there's been Design of living creatures, the only question is whether Design has occurred only recently.
No, really. Absolute proof common descent is false, and Design (in the abstract) is true. Just click on any of the jpg's. It's right there.
Now, the question is, what more nuanced terminology is necessary to describe the principle of "common descent" in this age of genetic engineering? Because it being false on the face of it, if unqualified as terminology, isn't ever going away.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
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They came down on the side of the scientifically bull-shit evolution. See there is no more proof of evolution than there is of creationism. And far more proof of a generic Intelligent Design theory than either of the others straight up.
Texas has yet to decide on the existeance gravity.
Agreed, mod parent up. On topic, and pertinent. Not an effective sample of the general population but still likely to be indicative of attitudes held by a particular subset.
By your definition, someone who believes that 1+1=3 is a free thinker. He's not oppressed by the dogma in the scientific community, that suppresses and stifles any dissent!
And by God, if he's not allowed to teach the children that 1+1=3, then the socialist lobby with their Godless, homosexual, communist agenda has won!!1!!1
Go Science!
instead lets allow bigots to teach our kids that they have been created overnight from clay somewhere in middle east.
Read radical news here
I am so glad that Slashdot readers have evolved from talking shit about the entire population of the Great State of Texas because a few wacko's live there....
Oh wait a minute, never mind.
i'm starting to think 2012 really will be the end of the world, but it won't be the mayans that will be coming back.
Seriously, there might still be a small measure of sanity left in the world.
This thread is great and all..
Except... there hasn't been any actual physical hands on evidence of one species turning into another..
Soo.. there's much behind it as far as actual _Science_ goes.
Have you looked at population and business trends in California versus Texas?
Thank Darwin.
You mean someone in Texas can spell? Yet, apparently you do not know the difference between 'then' and 'than'. Comprehension is taught along with spelling here in the civilized world.
It's called a 'typo'. Get over yourself, little Southern Man.
And yes, it was my post.
Oh, and let's also explain exactly what a virgin is and what that's all about. Since they may ask what that is, and we mustn't lie.
Whatever you feel about Creationism or Evolution ala Darwin, having a handful of people decide such issues about what will and what will not be known, I would like to point out has historically been a very bad thing.
I mean what is next? Only books that further a given view of science that doesn't contradict or threaten a communities NSF grants are permitted?
I also think that CERN censoring information is also a bad thing. Contrary to what the people at CERN think, not everyone outside their sphere are stupid and cannot interpret the results of the experiments they perform.
This all points to a scientific dark age, which I think we are already in personally.
For example, take climate change. We all know climate change could kill us. But what does the leadership think we should do? Well, so far they hold climate conferences and half of the idiots invited are just super wealthy. If there are any scientists that go to these conferences, they are sucking at the teet of these wealthy for some sort of agenda. Year after year I read the solution that comes out of these conferences is, a world tax on carbon to be paid to, you guessed it, the super wealthy or climate change will kill us all if the super wealthy don't get their tax money. Oh, and lets not forget the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation out there pushing vaccines to "help cure disease in the third world" wink wink (sterlize them or kill them outright those dirty brown/black people also known as useless eaters by the royal family House of Windsor)
So, instead of taking the logical approach which is to liberate the human potential and combine it with the limitless potential of our solar systems resource base, you would think we would begin in earnest to massively hire huge numbers of engineers, jump start whole industries and develop our local area of space.
Nope.
Apparently 27 TRILLION dollars of US Tax payers money went to the Rothchild family, the Dark Nobility of Europe and various banking families throughout the world. Money that exchanged hands of about 80,000 people. 27 Trillion dollars.
We could solve any engineering problem in space and near earth orbit with that sort of cash inflow. New technologies, new medicines. Even access to the mineral wealth of the Asteroid belt, which is probably incalculable how much industrial and economic wealth is there.
Nope, never going to happen. Not now, not 100 years from now, not even probably 1,000 years from now. Technology to protect and stabilize the human condition, to insure our future children have a better future. A future where they do not have to look up at the sky in fear if they see a new comet and wonder. Is this the big one?
Nope. Instead we kill any and all space research and continue to listen to our leaders about how the world is, that you have to do with less so we can have more. Tyranny grips the globe like a IRON vice and there is no place to flee. Tyranny now in the hands of globalist bankers who control the worlds most powerful military on earth and threaten us every day, that if you don't submit more of your freedoms, a nuclear bomb is going to go off in your city.
So you better bend over for that TSA agent, or we will nuke your city, pull your social security checks.
Meanwhile, people are just happy to sit around and argue about how they are going to restrict knowledge and freedom on slashdot to get their Score 5.
M A D N E S S
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I had to shut it off after the fifth one though.... incredibly depressing to watch.
Try living here.
Most of it was depressing, I agree. A few (and I really do mean, a *few*) responses were encouraging--Miss California's for example.
It's amusing how so many responses follow the same, superficial notion of "teach both sides! Knowledge is good! Let people make up their own minds!" That misses the whole point entirely. The question itself is poorly phrased. Evolution isn't something that requires belief, at least not in the sense of personal faith. It isn't something that you "should" or "should not" be taught. Evolution by natural selection MUST be taught, if you are to teach biology. To not do so would be like attempting to teach mathematics without discussing multiplication, or chemistry without talking about the periodic table, or American history without mentioning the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. Thus, to ask the question "should evolution be taught in schools" is no different than asking "should biology be taught in schools," or more broadly, "should SCIENCE be taught in schools." You can't separate the two.
You can't really blame these contestants for being so hopelessly ignorant. They didn't get on that stage with their brainpower.
I had to shut it off after the fifth one though.... incredibly depressing to watch.
Others made a great antidote for that.
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Proving that they have not wasted God's greatest gift, that of intelligence and reasoning.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Try living here.
What? In a Miss USA pagent?
I'd try it at least for a little while. Until my wife found out, anyway....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
this victory is irrelevant for the 4.8 million children currently being home schooled. Sadly this means,
as statistically a higher percentage of homeschool children receive college education than their public peers,
around 4.8 million college inductees are going to have a really bad semester of biology.
or perhaps it doesnt matter, as a parallel market of hundreds of christian colleges
will dedicate itself to ensuring none of these children have ever to atone for evolution.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Oh, and let's also explain exactly what a virgin is and what that's all about. Since they may ask what that is, and we mustn't lie.
Excuse me: I have a pretty good explanation of what all that's about. It seems to be nothing more (or less) that a recurring mythos in human culture.
Of course, when these myths were popularized, there wasn't the Gutenberg press, or the internet, or any sort of mass communication to raise people's awareness that "Hey! Isn't that the same as THIS story over here? What're you trying to sell us?!?" But now, people have to simply be Willfully Blind to not see the parallels in these myths.
And before the Thumpers start rationalizing "Those aren't myths. Those are simply different accounts of the same events.", keep in mind that the spread of these myths completely parallels the trade-routes of the day.
Nope. The FSM mythos is, and always has been, spread by those who have seen it as a way to bring power and wealth to themselves.
In short. A "con".
on the subject be taught. It's an inflammatory subject in which no one will ever agree. Most of which are theories that are based on what might had happened. I really don't think that skipping whole subject will be damaging. I can honestly say that learning science without it wouldn't have been damaging at all, I still have my original opinion http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/07/24/2047222/For-Texas-Textbooks-a-Victory-For-Evolution#
I say we should follow the teachings of these religious folks. The high school students should be taught all the import points that the religious folk have. Here is my curriculum:
A) Creationism
B) Earth is the center of the Universe
C) The world is flat.
I mean the religious view of science has been so bang on for the past couple thousand years why not continue. :)
It's an interesting point, but it seems that it should be possible to teach Microevolution( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microevolution ) which we've seen in the lab, without adding in a bunch about Macroevolution which we *can't* prove(Did *you* see personally see fish evolve into something else? ) . Now, don't mistake this for thinking I mean that Creationism is a better option - it isn't. But there are other options out there, like evolution through punctuated equalibriam versus gradual change. That is, if half the population dies out overnight, I'm sure you'd see some big changes in the norm, because of what now *wouldn'* be there.
The thing I see is a simplistic view on both sides, and an argument that what we see in small scale must translate linearly to large scale and vise-versa. Which, in a number of other fields, is simply not true; so why should we assume it with evolution?
Now, all I'm really saying here is that evolution on a large scale may not be linear, or smooth over time. On the other hand it might be. But pushing one of these options as fact, without adaquate proof... that's just as misguided as pushing creationism.
I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but... it has to be said.
Nelson saying "hehe!"
Well, just framing the question that way is biased. It assumes that obviously Creationism should be taught, and asks if evolution should be taught as well.
Based on some of the answers these contestants gave, I guess every student should get 100% for every test, as it's up to each student to decide what they believe in. Like 2+2=5 for some students.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
You deserve to be flamed, if only for your blatant ignorance of biology. There is no difference between micro and macro evolution.
The concept that there is a difference is a "talking point" (read: "logical fallacy") promoted by cretins... sorry, creationists. Since their first stance - "Nobody has ever seen evolution happen" - has been conclusively disproved by the existence of antibiotic resistant bacteria, they've moved the goalpost, created an imaginary distinction between micro and macro evolution and pretended that macro evolution hasn't been observed.
So it's at least two fallacies for the price of one. And it's biologically incorrect. You will never, ever see a credible biologist talk of macro and micro evolution, and seeing a person claim a distinction should be a red flag as to their dishonesty or ignorance, depending on how kindly you wish to view them.
In genuine biology, what creationists call macro evolution is instead called speciation. And it's universally understood that speciation occurs as a result of the accumulation of small changes, i.e. what a creationist calls micro evolution. Now, not only has speciation been observed, making the "Nobody has seen macro evolution" argument outdated, but pretending that there must exist a single speciation event, rather than an accumulation of change, makes the creationist's argument more convincing. They're playing on the general public's ignorance of biology.
...people will realize that just because there is a Creator, that evolution wasn't by his design :) ...people will realize that even Darwin pondered that...:)
they aren't participating in a "sport" that requires them to say smart things, just to say something that doesn't offend the ones they need to impress ...
says a lot about those too I guess.
What surprises me is that a whole lot of them aren't very pretty either
I bet the only honest girl, you know, the one who blushed, didn't get vey far in the pageant.
" without adding in a bunch about Macroevolution which we *can't* prove(Did *you* see personally see fish evolve into something else? )"
Certainly we can forget about teaching stars are hot gas spheres because, you know, you never touched one of them to know they are hot, do you? Or certainly, tell the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, because nobody was there to tell.
Evolution by mutation is a coherent theory and it is the one that best fits with observations up to the point to detect genomic translocations responsible for diferenciation of some species. The only way not to see evolution as the prevalent explanation for life diversity is, oh well, some stupid variant of the freaking Spaghetti monster.
That's the usual mistake creationists make when feebly trying to punch holes into evolution. "But have you seen macroevolution?" No. Why? Because it takes fuckin' eons and even I ain't that old. "How could a fish evolve into something else? How can a monkey become a human?" Not at all. They just happen to, most likely as far as we can tell today, have a common ancestor. Why did they "split up"? How about separations of populations?
But here is a question for creationists: Why do we only have one heart? It's a SPoF in the design of us, and I don't deem that very intelligent, to be blunt. While having one brain makes sense to some degree, having only one heart is a dangerous flaw in the whole design. It makes sense from an evolutionary point of view since having a second heart is more expenditure of resources which gives specimens with only one heart an advantage over those that have two, since they need fewer resources to create offspring and to keep their system running. An intelligent designer would have made sure there's a fallback system, don't you think? And that's only one example of "why this way and not another". There are plenty more where some of the bits and pieces in our body are suboptimal... unless we are the descendants of a species where they made a whole lot of sense.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm sorry. Did you say can't "prove"? We have a fossil record and a molecular record, both of which agree with each other to a high degree, creating the twin-nested hierarchy. As much as anything in science can be proven, evolution is proven (both macro and micro, the meanings of which have sadly been mutilated by ignoramuses like yourself, who are too fucking lazy and too fucking stupid to ever actually get educated).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually the MIss USA candidates had a very wide range of views and opinions on evolution, ranging the depressingly ignorant, to the extremely well informed. The majority of candidates actually appeared to be on the side of teaching evolution, though admittedly many advocated teaching both evolution and creationism.
In fact, as a non American, I found this video to be the most informative sampling of US public opinion towards evolution that I have yet seen. Admittedly the sample had inherent bias, but nevertheless I think the views expressed across the video were broad and representative of the US as a whole.
May the Maths Be with you!
...creationism is not.
The difference between creationism and evolution (macro or micro) is simple - one is falsifiable, the other is not.
Show me a rabbit fossil in the pre-cambrian, and you've falsified evolution.
Creationism, on the other hand, makes no falsifiable predictions - any observation can be explained by a supernatural "creator", even those which would support the idea of evolution.
you should have kept watching... a lot of them actually supported evolution.
May the Good Lord bless all eight and may God protect us from the willfully ignorant, the spiritually smug, and the theologically arrogant.
Oh, and from Justin Beiber too.
Amen.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You should have watched further, there was a glimmer of hope.
There were at least three that provided good answers, maybe four, the girl from Hawaii, California, and the girl from Vermont actually had a very good answer that started to go into the science and medicine links.
But here is a question for creationists: Why do we only have one heart? It's a SPoF in the design of us
Why asks creationists and not scientists? The scientists could give you a perfectly plausible answer why one heart is the appropriate number for our body. One heart seems to work perfectly fine for species that weigh 1/1000th of what we do up to ones that weight 10,000 times what we do.
Did you know that muscles in your feet help to pump blood back to your heart?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Skip to 13 minutes for a minor return to faith in humanity
Reading these hyper-ventilating comments on Slashdot is so depressing. Can't we just let facts speak for themselves? Do we have to politicize everything into terms of "victory" and "defeat"? If the Science is correct, it doesn't need us to defend it. Truth carries within itself its own proof.
May I suggest that some simple humility and a more open-minded attitude is more in order? Human beings have been around -- if the Science is correct --- for a mere blink of an eye in geologic time. We must know almost NOTHING yet. We don't even know what what 95% of matter in the universe is, we just call it "dark" matter, as if that explains anything.
I'm not a scientist, but I have a brain. The universe is bound to be a whole lot bigger than our piddly little theory of evolution can yet explain.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I guess every student should get 100% for every test, as it's up to each student to decide what they believe in. Like 2+2=5 for some students.
That is not a fair comparison. We decided how to count and add and such, so we can say that yes, 2+2=4. However, science is not something that we decided to dictate as true. It is something that we have to test and study and try to find explanations for why stuff is the way it is. There is no "truth" in science. Just a series of ever-more precise approximations.
We can't even say for sure that evolution is true. There is a lot of evidence of adapting to changes in environment, and we have witnessed natural selection and survival of the fittest, but there are still a lot of questions that need answering.
Of course, biology classes should teach evolution as the currently accepted scientific theory as to how life on Earth came to be what it is today. But I fully expect any scientific theory of study to be open to reviewing alternative theories and not just accept the current belief as gospel.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Why one version of theory must beat the other?
Isnt the victory also the fail of scientific spirit?
The majority of candidates actually appeared to be on the side of teaching evolution, though admittedly many advocated teaching both evolution and creationism.
My takeaway was rather that the majority of candidates were personally creationists, but advocated for "teaching both sides". Which is still pretty bad, IMO.
but pretending that there must exist a single speciation event, rather than an accumulation of change
Kind of on that note: One day a few years back I was walking along a trail in the jungles of Hawaii with my extremely-religious aunt. As she was admiring all the beautiful flora and fauna she said "This is proof that God must exist. How else could all this beauty just instantly appear out of nowhere?" I wanted to say something but didn't feel like debating with a religious psychopath who also happens to be a family member that I love and don't really want mad at me. But that right there showed me that they really don't understand what evolution means. Perhaps it's because they don't care to investigate and learn about it, or maybe the information is simply overwritten and blocked by their belief in an almighty creator. Who knows? The fact is it's hopeless to try and teach them actual science.
Look up their posts on YouTube. They clearly explains the many misconceptions creationists have with evolution such as macroevolution, abiogenesis, faith, literal interpretation of scripture and . Also the misconceptions armchair evolutionists have with evolution such as microevolution, variances, apologetics (stemming out of lack of knowledge on the subject, not lack of evidence for evolution), abiogenesis and evolution as an 'atheist' belief (being an atheist or a theist/deist doesn't relate to evolution).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
But when I get the chance to design something rather than having to have it "evolve" from one generation to the next, why should I use the same design for an elephant and a mouse? There are so many things that could be improved in either designs by simply forgoing a few tidbits or adding some others, depending on the specifics.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But here is a question for creationists: Why do we only have one heart? It's a SPoF in the design of us, and I don't deem that very intelligent, to be blunt.
I'm a creationist. Not a young-Earther and I believe evolution to explain the mechanics of how life came to be. Normally I stay out of these sorts of things because this will either be downmodded or cause a tirade of angry replies. That being said, just because you feel that a single heart is a design flaw doesn't make you right. There's a verse somewhere in the bible that comes to mind -- can the clay turn to the potter and ask 'what are you doing?' You're implying that you know better than God
Do I think evolution should be taught in schools? Of course. Religion has no place in a laboratory, just as science has no place in a church. Science is about asking how the world and the universe ticks, not wondering about the existence of God. The two don't have to be in opposition to one another.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
Teaching biology without teaching evolution across millions of years, not just as a trick we can do in a lab, would be like teaching mathematics without teaching the Pythagorean theorem. Have you ever seen the proof of a^2 + b^2 = c^2? No? Of course not.
We have other ways of knowing truth than just by direct personal observation, or by unprovable "faith". People who can't learn to know by those more sophisticated ways are stupid, and deserve pity or ridicule, depending on whether they're trying to exert any power based on their stupidity.
BTW, when we teach evolution properly, we don't teach that it must be smooth over time. You are creating a strawman that does not exist in evolution education.
--
make install -not war
I have to say... I deeply enjoyed this.
I've never seen an argument that is basically exactly the same as saying "There's no difference between you winning a coin toss and winning the lottery, they're both probability, idiot" sustained with such conviction.
No, macro- and micro- evolution are absolutely quantitatively distinct due to the probabilities involved regarding the number of mutually-reinforcing mutations that must occur for the necessary outcome, while maintaining survivability.
To do a definitional two-step and claim that "macro-evolution" can be equivalently called "speciation" (well, no, but let's leave that aside--I don't want to interfere with the acceptability of a word now that you personally used it rather than another term from someone else you say says the same thing), and then stating we've seen speciation -of bacteria-, and then inferring that addresses the probability issue of "macro-evolution" is just astonishing in it's sheer evasive bluster.
Follow the probabilities of the necessary mutations. That's all anyone on either side is contending, redefine, reject terms, propose other terms, whatever. It's all evasion outside of this.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I fully accept "evolution occurs" (testable, scientific), and do not accept "only evolution occurs" (untestable, unscientific, and unfortunately for some absolutely required for their worldview's viability), so I am not contending with evolution per se, just your desperate overreach into the untestable and unscientific.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
They get out voted by the legion of dimwits bred by these creationists. It is already happening.
Here's a depressing thought: not if the "dimwits" are running things. The original poster was right; political conservatives are trying to set up their own parallel institutions to give "backing" to their own opinions.
There was an article in the Boston Globe that the Bush Administration had hired some 150 graduates of Regent law school (which was founded by Pat Robinson), which proclaims its purpose is to "provide [rightwing] Christian leadership to change the world,"
...Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001
It's only a matter of time before conservatives start setting up their own politically conservative science departments to match.
But it doesn't even have to wait that long. Next time we get a Republican president, we can look forward to political conservatives making scientific policy there as well. Back in 2005, a Bush administration aide (with no scientific credentials), made edits to government reports on climate change. From the New York Times article:
...In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports. The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust. ... A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, [Mr. Cooney] has no scientific training.
So, this victory is important, but the war against science isn't won or even over.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The one who credits life-by-evolution is guilty of excessive faith in what has no support. To cover his faults, he or she spends the days accusing others of this fault, hoping no one will notice the personal guilt borne by each. Darwin had zero evidence for his suppositions, but supposed on his deathbed that fossils would be found to support it. A billion+ fossils later, his blind faith has been found to be in error. No fossils have supported his life-by-evolution dogma. Instead, every species appears in the fossil record fully-formed. There are zillions of species in the fossil record, no transitions. Meanwhile, everyone also ignores the woeful impossibility of getting any life at all in the first place. Who wants to align the amino acids? Who volunteers to explain how the enzymes assemble the amino acids into DNA when the DNA is what is producing the enzymes. Let's stop being ignorant and base our faith on the facts, not wishes.
Cranky educator.
There is not one single shred of evidence pointing to the theory of evolution being false. It will never be disproved, it will only be made more accurate as the years progress. So yes, evolution and the theory describing it will never be proven false. Just as if someone thousands of years ago said that "Pi is somewhere between 3 and 4" they wouldn't be wrong to this day, or ever, they just wouldn't be as accurate as our current understanding. Every piece of evidence supporting the theory is a step towards the ridiculous possibility of "disproving" it. So far, as a species, we're doing pretty well.
This is interesting, but a fallacy because it confuses the probability of a complete genome evolving with the individual probabilities of each mutation. Also, the fact that a particular combination of genes is highly improbable doesn't imply that it could not evolve, in the same way that the improbability of winning the lottery doesn't mean nobody can win.
Dawkins addressed all of this in Climbing Mount Improbable. You have read it, haven't you..?
As a home schooling parent, I can say quite specifically that all of the other home schoolers I know do so because of the weakness in the public school system, and a lack of enough cash to send their kids to private schools. NONE of us teach creationism/intelligent design. My experience is that those home-schoolers who do it for religious/ideological reasons are a very small subset of the home-school set. Just Sayin'.
Just a correction; the first part of that post was a quote, so it should read:
No, macro- and micro- evolution are absolutely quantitatively distinct due to the probabilities involved regarding the number of mutually-reinforcing mutations that must occur for the necessary outcome, while maintaining survivability.
This is interesting, but a fallacy because it confuses the probability of a complete genome evolving with the individual probabilities of each mutation. Also, the fact that a particular combination of genes is highly improbable doesn't imply that it could not evolve, in the same way that the improbability of winning the lottery doesn't mean nobody can win.
Dawkins addressed all of this in Climbing Mount Improbable. You have read it, haven't you..?
If /. is supposed to be a sample of our most intelligent, curious minds, Heaven help us. We're f__cked. Every example of what they say they are afraid the fundies will do is being demonstrated by the supposedly enlightened and open minded. You people make me sick to be an atheist.
Perhaps geography provides a better example. People who argue for creationism as an alternative to evolution may just as well be claiming that the continent of Africa is the size of Belgium. Evolution is as close to fact as anything can possibly be. Questions remain but these are not best handled in a school. For one thing, how many teachers would be qualified to get in to cutting edge biology?
It's only worth teaching alternatives if a genuine disagreement exists in mainstream science. Creationism is childish and ignorant junk; it has no place in the science classroom. Discussions of how science works, including historical disagreements, would be very useful.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Science adjusts its views based on what's observed.
Faith rejects observation so that belief can be preserved.
I'd be interested to see the difference in SAT scores between those who are taught creation and those that are taught evolution. Perhaps there may not be any difference but I'd still like to see if there is a difference in how each scores. Oh and creationism is equivalent to burying your head in the sand while the world around you changes. Just because you want it to be doesn't make it so.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
This is only assuming that all children who are home schooled are because of their parents religious beliefs. There are many reasons to be home schooled besides religious ones (better control over education, illness, behaivor, problems with school other than learning, etc). Not all home schooled children learn from the same lesson plans (or from religion-based ones), so many may be learning about evolution. You never know, maybe some parents actually ADD evolution studies!
Furthermore, basically all of them miss the central point of the entire discussion. That,
Scientific Theory == Scientific FACT
What is most disturbing is that they could not retain this basic premise, this basic definition. Every "theory" that is in science, is actually a scientific fact. No ifs and buts about it. Let's list a few,
Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection
Theory of Gravity (General Theory of Relativity)
Special Theory of Relativity
Theory of Electromagnetism
Nuclear Theory
Theory of Plate Tectonics
etc. etc. etc.
and let me link to some more (not all are theories, some are hypothesis and it is indicated which ones are which). Others are mathematical models and are not theories - a theory must *predict* something *new* that is then *verified* to be true
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scientific_theories
Have you ever seen the proof of a^2 + b^2 = c^2? No? Of course not.
Not arguing with the rest of your post, but if you've never seen the Pythagorean Theorem proved, your mathematical education missed a really basic and important opportunity. Every geometry course should include at least one version of that proof, and it should be outlined in first-year Algebra.
For your own edification, I suggest reading and understanding a few proofs of the theorem. A very complete collection can be found here: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/index.shtml
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Oh please, it's plainly obvious what you believe.
You want there to be something more than evolution. Religious reasons most likely, or possibly human egotism. But you consider yourself "too smart" to be one of those anti-intellectual, borderline medieval YE creationists.
So you "believe in micro evolution, but question macro evolution", is that about right? You want there to be something more than evolution going on, because otherwise, you're just an ape. An ape in clothes, with an internet connection, but an ape all the same.
To maintain this cognitive dissonance, while feigning intelligence, you buy into the micro/macro distinction. Which has been thoroughly debunked. All macro evolution is is the accumulation of micro evolutionary changes. It's much more straightforward than the creationists like to pretend. There are no single speciation events; no missing links, no sudden jumps (unless a hundred generations counts as "sudden").
I've seen people like you try and talk about what you believe to actual biologists. The room gets positively chilly the moment the words "macro" or "micro" are brought up. Because guess what? Even if those terms were appropriated from actual biology, they have long since fallen out of use precisely because they have been appropriated. To use either phrase is to identify yourself as a creationist who aspires to elevate his faith to fact.
And you're fooling nobody.
You are not the special little rebel you think you are. You're just another ape who imagines he's got wings and a halo. And there are a thousand others like you, all pretending there's a qualitative difference between them and the fundies. Hell, at least the fundies are honestly stupid. Don't think for a second you can fool anyone but the other special little rebels.
You're implying that you know better than God
While the previous poster's specific example is a poor one, I don't think that's what he's implying at all. Rather he's implying that because some of the aspects of our biology are so grossly unintelligent, this provides evidence against the idea that there was an intelligent designer. He's implying there is no god, because if there was, he'd be pretty dumb and weird, ala, nipples on men, nasal passages rotated 90 degrees from optimal, obvious deficiencies in the eye that are easily explained by a particular evolutionary route, but make no sense if you were designing from the ground up, etc., etc.
Well, interesting, but it seems if this is your stance, it is false right at the root.
You are saying that 100 mutations occurring in a single organism, is of equivalent probability to 100 mutations occurring in 200 generations? Well, no, simply false as a matter of chemistry, and additionally contradicting the core proposed mechanism of mainstream evolutionary thought.
I'd like the link to Dawkins--he's often wrong, but this is an unexpected level of -astonishingly- wrong to me.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Geometric proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem are not the kind of proof that they're talking about. To accept the kinds of proofs you're offering, you have to accept the abstraction of a triangle. They're talking about a proof that is directly experienced. To prove that for this theorem, people would have to measure every possible right triangle. Or creationist types would claim there's some even larger/smaller or differently proportioned triangle yet to be provided that doesn't fit the theorem's descriptions.
FWIW, I had lego-like blocks making triangles to play with to prove that the two smaller squares equaled the size of the larger square, for any triangle I cared to try with. That convinced me, but I was about 5-6 years old. After a while I learned how to believe facts without having to test them all directly myself, and how to tell the difference between facts/fantasies, and between honest investigators and bullshitters.
--
make install -not war
The room gets positively chilly the moment the words "macro" or "micro" are brought up. Because guess what? Even if those terms were appropriated from actual biology, they have long since fallen out of use precisely because they have been appropriated.
I'm curious--how would you propose I differentiate this "chilliness" from abject awareness in the "other side" that their argument is erroneous, and psychologically preparing to equivocate and dissemble and misrepresent the (perhaps more reasonable) positions of -their own field-?
Apart from the wider discussion, I find this fascinating. You precisely describe -the very definition- of symptoms of evasion, and present that as your evidence they are comfortably correct.
I conclude "the way they act is obvious evidence of misrepresentation", you conclude "the way they act is obvious evidence of their truthfulness", with -the exact same- input. Is it possible we both can actually honestly believe these diametrically-opposed positions? An interesting sideline discussion, someday...
But anyway...
As for what I believe, though of course irrelevant to a -scientific- discussion of the questions at hand, it wouldn't matter at all to the viability of my overall worldview. To me, like a car factory, designing a system that produces an entity is equivalent to designing the particular end result. There's little conceptual difference between me saying "individual biological forms were designed" and saying "the process that produced individual biological forms, evolution, was designed". The questions of particular acts of design applying to particular biology would be fascinating from a -scientific- perspective, however--precisely as we see people trying to ensure we never investigate this, and thereby damage science, on the supposed behalf of science.
I have no need to find "gaps", because my worldview works equally well with or without "gaps". This was just something that Dawkins wanted to make up about theism to fit an argument he was prepared to type something about for some book-cash. Not actually true at all.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I'd like the link to Dawkins--he's often wrong, but this is an unexpected level of -astonishingly- wrong to me.
"Ignorance more commonly begets confidence than knowledge." (Paraphrased).
Dawkins says one thing. You say it's obviously wrong. Dawkins is qualified to speak on the topic of biology; he's earned that right through lifelong study. He can be as wrong as any other man, but it would take an equally qualified biologist to identify Dawkins' error. What, exactly, are your qualifications?
You're confident in your views because you're ignorant. Which is okay - everyone starts ignorant, even the most knowledgeable man on any given subject once knew nothing of it. Go learn. It should take you about two years to go from ignorant of biology to qualified enough to offer criticism. Then form your opinions.
(And yes, I meet my own criteria. I do actually know bio. And I'm not as confident in my views as my posts would indicate, but I am also aware that arguing effectively requires minimizing the ambivalence in your statements, else the more confident idiot you face will look more correct to the undecided observer.)
We in Texas know better then to spell "existence of" as "existeance"
1) "existeance" should be "existence", not "existence of"
2) "then" and "than" are not the same word - look them up
It seems that what you actually know how to do is make more errors than the post you tried (and failed) to critique.
Couldn't have said this better myself. Pretty much sums it up in a nutshell.
I am on the other side of the fence, a creationist.
Evolution does require alot of belief. Most people belief that evolution is just the changes of an organism, like the how the pepper moths in england with 2 colors or the beaks in finches. If that was true that would make me an evolutionist.
But evolution contains a half true which will make it every believing until to understand and break down it components.
For evolution to work you will need a selecting agent and a changing agent.
For me this is how I see Evolution.
Evol = Natural Selection + Mutation.
Now I've talked about this on /. before but no one is interested.
Both NS and Mutations are hostile to evolution. For evolution to work in the context of goo to you via zoo, it must have the capability to information.
With NS this will specialize the variation in the "creature" . e.g. all dogs comes from wolfs (evols & creationists agree on that) due to man's natural selection, we get Great Danes and chiwawas, it doesn't matter how many times the chiwawas breeds, you never get a great dane out of them. the information for being big has been bread out of them.
Thats why mutations are required in the formula. You need a changing agent. But the problem with mutations is that the vast majority of them are negative, with only a very few being positive for the host. and of those being positive none of them invovled increase in the dna, just disabling of functionality which just happen to a good outcome.
E.g. of good mutations which are actually mutations which disabled working functionality.(again thats the opposite way for evolution)
westerners who can drink milk have a mutation which stops a gene normally being turned off as a baby.
theres a beetle off a windy island off Italy somewhere where because there wings are disabled, they dont get blown out to see. (the main land bugs can fly)
The really muscular cows in Europe. (of course NS in the wild would kill them off cause they need to humans to help give birth)
So I argree that Evolution should be taught, along with all it flaws about how it can't explain goo to you via zoo happens. because as of now it is being taught like it was a fact without all the flaws in the theory.
To summarize:
Evol = NS + Mut.
NS = fact but works against Evol
Mutations is fact, but works in all known cases against evol (doesn't actually has to be bad mutations in rare cases)
Evol is a half true story which means its a fabrication and shouldn't be used to darken the name of science.
Ask yourself does what I have written make sense to you. As I hope I have reached some people with understand as why I will not believe evol and why (some) creationists are not crazy nuttys and actually understand the issues at work here and come to there own conclusion and not what others say to believe.
Okay, now moving past the irrelevant personal critique spice up with and Appeal to Authority and Ad Hominem fallacies...
Exact same question--is it your position that the probability of 100 mutations occurring in a single organism, as opposed to these 100 occurring over 200 generations, are equivalent? If so, are you thereby opposed to the position of mainstream evolutionary biology?
Don't care in the least about your parading your supposed qualifications that exempt you from even deigning to answer a troublesome question. Just answer the question.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
The largest problem in this debate is that somehow, in the minds of many Christians, believing in Young Earth Creationism has become equivalent to believing in the Bible as the Word of God. It has been pounded into their heads that you reject God if you believe in evolution. Until this changes, you will continue to see stupid stuff like this. YEC is not only very bad science, but poor biblical scholarship as well. A careful reading of the third chapter of Genesis will reveal that the laws of physics changed due the fall of man (Somewhere between verses 14 and 19. Of course, God being God, he can do this at his pleasure). For example, the fundamental laws regarding increasing entropy could not have existed before the fall (At least, it could not have existed as we know them today). My personal theory is that the change to the natural laws took place gradually, finishing at the Tower of Babel, with time sort-of "collapsing" in both directions. (Fits the gradually decreasing life expectancies up to the flood, and the fact that it is about the period in history when the archeological evidence and the Bible start to match up, though not perfectly I admit) The biblical bit of this is, of course, mostly useless from a scientific standpoint. But from a religious standpoint, neatly severs, as should be the case, The Science of Really Old Things, and Religion.
>>It's amusing how so many responses follow the same, superficial notion of "teach both sides! Knowledge is good! Let people make up their own minds!" That misses the whole point entirely.
I would completely agree with this if the question had been "should evolution be taught in science class?" As it was, the question just said "in school," and I could understand if comparative religion or something along those lines were a mandatory subject. That is, I would be horrified if science curricula started including YEC-ism; but if someone claimed that science itself should be balanced by a brief study of all the major religions during one year or semester of high school, that would make sense to me. Some of those in the video might have had that sort of idea in mind, but just weren't able, or didn't see the need, to express that aspect of it clearly.
No, macro- and micro- evolution are absolutely quantitatively distinct due to the probabilities involved regarding the number of mutually-reinforcing mutations that must occur for the necessary outcome, while maintaining survivability.
Well, that's a tangled statement, but let me see if I understand your stance.
You're arguing that macro-evolutionary changes go against probability, right? That the odds of a new genetic configuration being viable (survivable or reproductively fit) are low, if the changes arose from random mutation?
I agree. And now, let me qualify my agreement, by saying you've got the wrong idea. (If I just agree with you, I'll have angry ACs calling me a creationist. I am in fact firmly in the rationalist camp, and a student of biology).
Each change is essentially tested one at a time. Since most changes won't be viable, most changes won't be passed on.
Say that in a given breeding population two thousand new mutations arose. Half were dropped for very basic reasons, like the change wasn't viable and was spontaneously aborted by the mother. A majority of the rest didn't make it to reproductive age. Say there's two hundred mutations, a tenth of the original number, that weren't written out of the genome in one generation. And that won't be one organism with two hundred mutations, it'll be two hundred different organisms.
So those two hundred mutations get tested. Some make no difference and go nowhere. Some are advantageous, and propagate. Flash forward a few generations and a significant minority of the hypothetical population have the successful mutant genes. Further ahead, they won't be a minority anymore. The species will have changed.
Repeat this process often enough, and what you see is the emergence of a new species. Speciation in a nutshell. Find the fossils for before and after, and what you'll see is two different species in snapshots an epoch apart. There was no single macro-evolutionary event; just ten thousand minor ones and a hundred thousand false starts. I think it may be the false starts you're overlooking; most creationists don't get the idea that some mutations are selected for and others against, or the idea that most aren't viable.
But the GP was correct in saying there is no separate macro-evolution. He could have been more polite about it, but it is undeniably true that the terms micro-evolution and macro-evolution have fallen out of favour, due to creationism subverting their meaning to create a false dichotomy.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
The simple fact is that by every reasonable measurement we have, the human body (and the bodies of many other creatures) a chock full of examples of crappy design. Designs that would get anyone kicked out of engineering school. The single heart is an extremely minor example compared to some of the idiocies nature comes up with. Damn straight we're implying we know better than God!
You're basically just trying to switch the argument. It goes like this:
There must be a God because nature is so perfect!
Nature isn't perfect, it looks like it was designed by a blind, drunk idiot!
It's perfect because God created it that way!
This is a classic example of what we call circular reasoning. Look it up sometime. Even if you truly believe that it is perfect in some manner that we cannot comprehend, the argument that God must exist because Nature is so perfect is dead, dead dead!
Back in the 1930s, according to Thor Hyerdahl, the Lutheran school he went to taught him two things about creation that should have made everyone happy:
God did it.
Darwin worked out some things about how it happened.
Most of the fundamentalists opposition to evolution is that it is really just a soft target in an anti-intellectual attack. The poorly educated lay clerics running those groups see the educated as a threat to them expanding their flocks just as they saw the educated clergy of the established churches as a threat years ago (and people with dark skin, and gays etc). Their politics thrives on meaningless conflict and really all of this bullshit is just politics and a way to accumulate power. None of it is actually about religeon, they just want a bigger tribe or in some extremely blatant cases a bigger cashflow.
People will believe in facts. get your had out of your butt :) You are actually the stupid one,
Hey, fuckwit: Evolution is NOT a theory about the origin of life. It does not talk to how, where, or when life started. It explains how life mutates to better survive in it environment.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
AMEN!!!
That misses the whole point entirely.
Well, it IS a miss contest, isn't it?
In Australian state high schools we had three hours each month where a group of people from various religeons would come in and give a class to the students of their denomination. We had religeon coming in from the front door in small doses instead of being kept out and trying to sneak in via biology classes. Of course we nearly got the second for a while as well when a corrupt state premier allegedly accepted a brown paper bag full of cash to allow it - but that was opposed at all levels and stopped when he was removed from office.
Follow the probabilities of the necessary mutations.
Hint: it's not just a matter of 'probability' if the numbers on your lottery ticket can change.
No, macro- and micro- evolution are absolutely quantitatively distinct due to the probabilities involved regarding the number of mutually-reinforcing mutations that must occur for the necessary outcome, while maintaining survivability.
Your mental model of the scientific process is broken. Chances are that you're religious, which would mean that you've been lied to, probably all your life. You should be pissed about that. Instead, you respond with incredulity, sophistry, counterattacks against meaningless straw men ("only evolution occurs"), and continuing demands for proof from the people who have already shown it to you.
Meanwhile, you're cheerfully content with the complete lack of proof from people who have asked you to believe ridiculous things.
Which is kind of sad... but I guess it works for you. Except when it doesn't.
No, that's not what I said and not what Dawkins wrote.
This is your error - looking at the improbability of a 200-generation change in the genome as if it were equivalent to the improbability of a single-generation change (or a sequence of such changes).
Look at it this way - the probability of you winning the lottery is dependent on the number of entries for that lottery. The probability of both you and me winning consecutively is vastly smaller, but you wouldn't say that any given two people winning the lottery in sequence is improbable - because that's what actually happened.
That is not a fair comparison. We decided how to count and add and such, so we can say that yes, 2+2=4. However, science is not something that we decided to dictate as true. It is something that we have to test and study and try to find explanations for why stuff is the way it is. There is no "truth" in science. Just a series of ever-more precise approximations.
Are you saying Mathematics is not a science?
How about teaching the kids a new-and-improved theory: "Evolution is The God's greatest Creation."
When in doubt: procrastinate, accelerate or turn left.
Any nerd who decides to fuck a beauty queen should watch this from beginning to end - at least 5 times ( and to avoid chicks from states beginning with A )
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I would suggest reading "The Blind Watchmaker" for a better understanding of what evolution actually is. For one thing, you are leaving out the vast scales of time in which these changes occur. Or, if you don't care for Dawkins, pick up a copy of "Song of the Dodo," by David Quammen. It is a terrific read and takes you through some of the history of Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
This one will make you feel better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QBv2CFTSWU
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"If the numbers can change"... maybe you can elaborate on this, because it sounds to me like you are stretching an analogy to a point that simply doesn't apply to the constraints at hand. Each mutation has a finite probability, a combination of such mutations has a probability of the product of each individually. So far, simple math. Survivability at each generation, if proposed occurring individually, or the above probability as represented as a product if proposes as occurring in a single organism.
The probabilities are exactly what they are, mathematically, regardless of inapplicable analogies. Fortunately, once our modeling of the chemistry, mutations required, and the relevant population size becomes precise enough, we'll just hard-calculate what the specific probability numbers are. Then everyone can make their own appraisals of credulity.
As for being "lied to", well, of course you have no possible way of knowing my history, so your supernatural claims to psychic knowledge might be something for you to look at, but... indeed, I have asked for proof from the relevant entity able to provide it, and duly received it. That you haven't, and do not know, is not even -possibly- relevant to the fact I have. What you can validly claim, and cannot, your psychic powers notwithstanding, have been well-defined by the subject of epistemology. I'd suggest a refresher.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Just another fundie trying to act smart. Pathetic!
He's not an ape. He has a common ancestor with an ape, though. Maybe you should hold back on the criticism until you get *your* facts coordinated. Also, not all beliefs beyond evolution involve halos. Actually, you really are an ignorant little douche, come to think of it.
Umm, you think a sampling of beauty pageant contestants is an informative sampling of US public opinion? They aren't exactly average Americans.
Although, I'll grant you this... those contestants are trained to try to make an appealing answer to a general American audience. So one could read something into the fact that how they answer is trying to reflect as many American's opinions as possible. But, given that 80% of them thought that the theory of evolution was a "theory" as in "conjecture" and not as in "scientific theory", I don't think they were aptly equipped to perform a sample.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
So, no argument, admitted fail, next.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
That video is even more frightening... I really don't know if they are joking or not!
Maybe y'all are stuck on the notion of what IS the truth. But as Bill Clinton said, "it depends on what the definition of IS is.". So why not move on a bit, and discuss instead what you can DO with these various theories (aka models) floating around? The evolution / natural selection model leads to stochastic biology experiments and monte-carlo simulations. Useful drugs have emerged from this. I suppose some versions of creationism are more useable than others in this sense, but let's let the advocates speak for themselves. Any takers? And please, no tripe like "enables conspiracy theories".
And here was me thinking that the story kept being changed. As in hammered and banged about a bit until so that the underlying premise still "worked."
Ah well, it's all bollocks anyways, so I await the flames... :P
Understood, and in this case the population size existing at the time represents the "number of entries". This still resolves to a specific probability, given that.
That is, ultimately, probably, quantifiable. When we get to the point of quantifying all the factors, we'll plug it into an equation, and see what the numbers are.
Until then, my position remains the same. "Evolution occurs" as a general statement, is absolutely true, while "-only- evolution occurs" (that is, we need refer only to naturalism mechanisms to account for all cases of biological structures) remains unverified and untested, and as such should not be accepted as demonstrated, as a question of fundamental correct application of the criteria of science.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
"To not do so would be like attempting to teach mathematics without discussing multiplication, or chemistry without talking about the periodic table, or American history without mentioning the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence."
It's even more profound than that. As Theodosius Dobzhansky titled his famous essay on the subject: Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I don't think many would argue against teaching processes such as natural selection i.e. population of birds develops longer beaks over many generations as the short beaks die off - genetic information is lost in effect. Most of the controversy lies in the idea that beneficial genetic information can be somehow added through random mutations etc over millions of years. A fantastical narrative is spun around that which sounds great but has no more evidence to support it in the fossil record than the story of a global flood.
I've been here long enough and I have the Karma to spare.
What I see here is a disturbing level of cheerleading for a point of view, that while clearly the most likely of scenarios, isn't completely proven at the expense of a point of view that while clearly the least likely of scenarios hasn't been completely disproved either.
Darwinian evolutionists are just as dogmatic and vindictive as any Creationist. Have you ever heard of any of the evidence for the extreme antiquity of mankind? Have you heard about any of the evidence that modern humans existed as much as 2 million years longer than Darwinian evolutionists say is possible? If not, that's why.
"Creation science" isn't science by any stretch of the imagination, but come on now. Politics and money have at least as much influence over academia as does science. Contradict the life's work of the wrong professor and you can easily find yourself blackballed. Find a fossil that the orthodoxy says shouldn't exist and you'll suddenly find yourself accused of planting it or being too stupid to understand that you since you couldn't have found the thing that you found, you must not have found it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
debating with a religious psychopath who also happens to be a family member that I love
On another note, with statements like this, do you -really- think you should continue to exist?
Really?
Not even completely-appropriately disowned, as a complete emotional and economic parasite?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
indeed, I have asked for proof from the relevant entity able to provide it, and duly received it.
Voices in your head?
I often wonder how much progress has been lost because obviously smart people, such as yourself, devote their lives to justifying their religious beliefs.
I had maths lecturers at University who spent most of his research careers working out convoluted mathematical explanations for biblical teachings. It seemed like a waste.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
Sorry, a little too much Tilt to drink here tonight.
Should have been structured and posted as proper HTML, and should have read "self-contradictory statements".
Other than that, completely accurate. Even if we have to wait awhile for the rational, moral outcome for you.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
"If the numbers can change"... maybe you can elaborate on this, because it sounds to me like you are stretching an analogy to a point that simply doesn't apply to the constraints at hand. Each mutation has a finite probability, a combination of such mutations has a probability of the product of each individually. So far, simple math. Survivability at each generation, if proposed occurring individually, or the above probability as represented as a product if proposes as occurring in a single organism.
Today's vocabulary term is "fitness function." Lotteries don't have a fitness function -- the ticket is printed, it wins or it loses, and then it's discarded, with no further influence over the system.
If, however, the "lottery" is a continuous process rather than a discrete event, and if the numbers on a single ticket can change in a way that makes it slightly more likely to win, it's no longer just a numbers game. Whoever suggested blind luck to you as a model for thinking about evolution had a reason for offering such a flawed paradigm. What was that reason? Did you bother asking?
All that's needed for evolution to occur is a localized environment that offers some form of feedback -- any conceivable mechanism that supports the tendency for the numbers on some of the 'lottery tickets' to change in the right direction -- and energy to make it happen. Given a quadrillion square meters of surface area that's both fertile and varied, and billions of years of available energy on the order of a hundred watts per square meter, it would take a God to stop life from arising.
As for being "lied to", well, of course you have no possible way of knowing my history, so your supernatural claims to psychic knowledge might be something for you to look at, but... indeed, I have asked for proof from the relevant entity able to provide it, and duly received it. That you haven't, and do not know, is not even -possibly- relevant to the fact I have. What you can validly claim, and cannot, your psychic powers notwithstanding, have been well-defined by the subject of epistemology. I'd suggest a refresher.
You're not fooling anyone but yourself. Either stand behind your faith or walk away from it.
What are you on about?
Is there a problem with loving my religious psychopath of an aunt or am I supposed to display hatred towards those who disagree with my views, family or not?
Perhaps "religious psychopath" isn't the correct phrase for what I'm trying to convey. Maybe "radical Christian nutjob" is more along the right track. "Religious psychopath" implies that all religious people are psychopaths.
Been there done that, even have the Stars T-shirt to prove it.
But no matter where you go, shit kickers are shit kickers.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Evolution as taught is not science?
Maybe the Theory of Evolution is evolving, and in the meantime we should not actually teach the part that's changing with every fresh edition of Science but focus on the contribution to biology that is measurable and valuable for a school student. At the end of the day, these are not Ph.D. post graduate studies, they don't have to understand how life was created on Earth...
You guys need to realize that all of you is worried for an ideological battle and NOT for teaching or evolution or the two together. You are worried that your materialistic monopoly of the brains is going to be broken. :)
But history is more like a swing, so it will come back to the other side. The more extreme in one side, the more extreme on the other.
I don't want to fake argue here on the quazi scientific arguments on or against Evolutionary Theory. Let's just say, your proof, at least scientifically (in the strict sense) cannot be stronger than mine. Actually, most probably my axiomatic system is less vulnerable than yours. Doesn't make it provable though
So don't worry if the kids don't get your brainwashing. They are your hope also, to clear your mind as you grow older.
peace, out.
Listening to most of them, almost all of them say the same thing regardless of their personal point of view.
The question appears to be: "Should evolution be taught in schools?" I'd say that that's a biased question right there.
Their answers were mostly: "Both evolution and faith should be taught so that people can make up their own minds."
Obviously, if you want to be voted the winner, you don't want to alienate a huge chunk of voters. (I don't know who votes, judges or viewers. Not that it matters.) So from a strategic point of view, they are pretty much bound to say that both should be taught.
Notable exceptions to the rule that I found:
- Miss Minnesota, 7:19
- Miss Nevada, 8:36
- Miss New Mexico, 9:46
- Miss Pennsylvania, 11:28
- Miss South Dakota, 12:03
- Miss Vermont, 13:00
I only found one who appeared to be against evolution in schools. Can't remember who. But she was against teaching both.
Reading between the lines, I'd say that very roughly about half (possibly a little less) seem to be evolutionists, but were treading too carefully to be up front about it.
No one claims that major evolutionary changes are as likely as small ones. Winning the lottery is less likely than getting heads on a coin toss, BUT people DO win the lottery because enough people play to make this very unlikely event happen. In much the same way, seemingly unlikely changes do happen via evolution because of the very large number of small changes over very large times.
There is no other theory that explains the diverse life on Earth. There is NO evidence that any other force other than evolution is at work. Evolution is tested, and is scientific.
Anarchists never rule
Not exactly "devoting my life", in a literal sense. Most of my time goes into my career as a software developer.
Nonetheless, if you feel "called" to do something, by a compelling demonstration by what you can only conclude is a supernatural entity, you tend to do it.
As for "progress", well, apart from religion there can be no permanent "progress" whatsoever. Every single atheist, and all of their views, will be dead and gone in 150 years. Same for any more of them after that. And even should one get past that lifespan, entropy will be along to eliminate everything and everyone, inescapably, if we limit ourselves to a naturalist metaphysics.
Still, interesting perspective framing things in terms of "progress". I rarely encounter any opposition that doesn't just obviously think in terms of "I'll say or do or think whatever I have to, to try to feel unconflicted about getting away with whatever I want to get away with right now". They don't say it, of course--but that doesn't mean it isn't just as directly obvious anyway. What's the evidence? Pick any two and see if they even have the mere beginnings of any common ethics--that is, any functional ethics, for which commonality of agreement is an absolute prerequisite. Seriously, pick two, and have them write down, separately, their Top 5 ethical axioms--when there's no correlation, realize there isn't specifically because they never wanted to pursue any correlation, because regardless of how many times they might use the word "ethics", they absolutely never wanted anything resembling a functional ethics to be put into practice, that could apply to themselves. That's why it was never pursued, that's why there's no similarity on their respective lists. They want the antithesis of ethics, and that's what they have, as verifiable at any time. Trying to bluff what their real objectives are with empty claims, well, just doesn't really work in the long run.
But, yeah, thanks for the reminder at least someone is framing this in the context of a goal "progress". It's important.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Nonetheless, if you feel "called" to do something, by a compelling demonstration by what you can only conclude is a supernatural entity, you tend to do it.
The asylums are full of people 'called' by supernatural entities. They hear voices, they see things. So, what does Occam's Razor say about your own epiphany? Was it an unlikely but possible coincidence, a mental glitch, or the voice of God? If your conclusion was the latter, then why do you trust your perceptions to such an 'improbable' extent?
I wouldn't, myself. I know all too well that my mind and perceptions are fallible. If God spoke to me, I'd like to think I'd do the right thing, and talk to someone with expensive wallpaper about it.
He IS an ape - homo sapiens (the only extant human species) belong to the Great Ape family (Hominidae), in the Primate order.
This is indisputable evidence of evolution.
Evolution by natural selection MUST be taught, if you are to teach biology. To not do so would be like attempting to teach mathematics without discussing multiplication, or chemistry without talking about the periodic table, or American history without mentioning the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.
Yeah, I'm not sure you have much of an understanding of Biology OR math AND chemistry AND History. When I took biology in high school ~2003 evolution nor ID was taught and they managed to fill up a curriculum just fine. We learned about you know, genetics, micro biology, organic chemistry, cellular structure, and a few other fun useful much better substantiated representations of reality. I think that's way it should be. Biology is not so much like Physics where you build on fundamental concepts, it is more of a collection of useful interesting observations. I think the evolution and ID people both have an agenda their are pushing and they are both damaging to the education of our children.
Based on the statistics in your link, 51% now (2009) believe that god created man in its present form, 30% believe that god guided evolution and 15% believe that evolution happened without god. Those don't seem that bright but when you compare them to the same numbers from 2004 (55%, 27% and 13%), it's actually looking pretty bright. In just 5 years, those who don't believe in evolution at all have diminished by nearly a tenth (55% to 51%) and those who believe in evolution (with or without divine guidance) have grown significantly (40% to 45%).
Assuming those studies really represent the american people, that large changes in just 5 years is amazingly good. In other words... you might be at the bottom of a pit but you're digging yourself out very fast.
What? No, it doesn't. That's like saying that identifying a red car implies that all red things are cars.
Ydco co
So, it's my understanding that micro and macro actually do have a biological meaning. Microevolution is evolution which does not result in speciation, whereas macroevolution does. I haven't done more than check Wikipedia at this point...
I doubt any creationist would appreciate those definitions, however -- as you've pointed out, speciation has been observed in the lab. What they're really trying to get at is something much more nebulous -- some categorization usually called a "kind", as in "You never see one kind of thing turn into another." But they never pin that down to anything as precise as, say, species. The closest they come to actually defining a "kind" is to give perverse examples -- "You never see dogs giving birth to cats!" (Indeed, and if you did, it'd falsify evolution.)
I also doubt many biologists would care about these definitions. To anyone with a working knowledge of evolution, it seems clear that if microevolution works, the only reason evolution at any scale wouldn't is if there's some sort of barrier -- and creationists have yet to even define where that barrier is to be found in the animal world, let alone a mechanism for it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
There were 51 contestants. 48 said that evolution should be taught. 2 said that evolution should not be taught. The remaining contestant didn't voice an opinion. Of the 48 contestants who said that evolution should be taught, 19 said that both it and creationism should be taught. The question was ambiguous, so it's hard to tell (without sketchy inferences) how many of the remaining 29 contestants who said that evolution should be taught also believe that creationism should be taught. I don't find this terrible, considering these girls were pandering to the crowd for votes, and the sample is non-representative. I do find their generally low level of intelligence troubling. See below for more details of my analysis.
I rated each response on what they said should be taught and what they believe. The question was "Should evolution be taught in schools?" Many literally said that evolution should be taught and left out any mention of teaching creationism; these ratings include only what the contestant literally said, instead of what they implied. Some of these were still hard to call, depending on how you interpreted the answer given. Many were also vague about creationism being the "other side" they wanted taught, but I hope that's a safe assumption. Here are my rating breakdowns:
Setting aside statistics, most of those girls were idiots. One used the word "creationtism." Many clearly weren't certain in their beliefs (stammering; trying to make profound statements everyone can agree on; laughing; flashing an almost flirtatious smile). These were generally trying to project confidence, which made for even stupider answers. Many of them implied that all beliefs are equal, and what you believe doesn't matter so long as we all get along in the end. There was exactly one contestant who professed a belief in evolution, and she gave a focused and succinct answer. My impression is that she was (by a ways) the smartest of the bunch, because of her answer's clarity and the speed at which she formulated it.
To be fair, a 'proof' that is directly experienced and scientific proof are both wholly different from a mathematical proof, which is simply a sequence of deductive steps originating from a stipulated set of axioms and definitions. Given a rational person who also happens to be a creationist, even he would agree that assuming
then B is provable in this system. This is in contrast to scientific inquiry, where there are no axioms. Instead, there are measurements and observations, and hypotheses are created which attempt to explain the measurements and observations. If a hypothesis is successful in its explanatory or predictive power with respect to further measurements and observations, eventually we may call it a theorem. At no point did we prove the hypothesis in the mathematical sense, and in fact if there came along a measurement or observation that contradicted the theorem, it would have to be revised or discarded.
Demanding to see more data before accepting a scientific theory is not an unscientific thing to do, as long as one does it honestly and with intellectual integrity. Obviously the gotcha arguments thrown around by many creationists concerning the inability to directly collect data from before the dawn of man doesn't really fulfill the spirit of science...
it seems that it should be possible to teach Microevolution( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microevolution [wikipedia.org] ) which we've seen in the lab, without adding in a bunch about Macroevolution which we *can't* prove...
So, follow your Wikipedia link. You'll find that Wikipedia also defines Macroevolution as "evolution on a scale of separated gene pools.[1] Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species..."
In other words, if speciation happens, macroevolution happens. And speciation happens. We have observed that.
Did *you* see personally see fish evolve into something else?
Awhile back, I remember reading about why Amazon S3 went down.
Ok, first of all: Do you believe Amazon? I'm guessing that on reading this story, you, like the rest of us, tentatively accept it as true. Unless you have good reason to believe otherwise, Amazon would know -- they're certainly the best equipped to know. So if you're not willing to dig deeper, it seems reasonable to trust the experts when it comes to evolution, also.
But how does Amazon know?
I could speculate. I could re-read the article and see what I come up with. But I think we can both be pretty confident that none of them personally saw the bit flip, to the extent that such a thing can be seen. In fact, I'd even hazard a guess that no one was even aware that it had happened until the service started to drop.
Please, if you learn anything from this exchange, never use that argument again. The other arguments you've made could fairly be called ignorance, and you do even have some good points. But this is stupidity. We don't apply "did you personally see" as a restriction for almost anything else we believe, especially when it comes to matters of religion. There are reasonable standards of evidence. If I personally saw it happen, that'd be sufficient, but it sure as hell isn't necessary.
Now, don't mistake this for thinking I mean that Creationism is a better option - it isn't.
Well, it's not an option. Let's start with that. It is not and never has been science, and does not belong in a science classroom.
OTOH, I'm all for comparative religion.
But there are other options out there, like evolution through punctuated equalibriam versus gradual change.
First of all, these aren't "other options" to macroevolution. They are both theories of macroevolution. And I've got no problem if a science teacher wants to talk about the real scientific controversies -- things like this -- rather than manufactured public-opinion controversies.
But more importantly: We don't need to teach the entire discipline, especially all its esoteric controversies, in a high school biology class. In high school physics, it's really enough to cover Newton's laws of motion. It'd be cool if you can talk about things like relativity, but you want to cover the Newtonian stuff first, even if it's technically "wrong" now -- it's still relevant and useful, and approximately correct in almost every situation where they'd care. Similarly, understanding the basic concepts of evolution, including natural selection, speciation, and the evolutionary tree, is still useful and relevant regardless of whether you accept gradualism or punctuated equilibrium.
an argument that what we see in small scale must translate linearly to large scale and vise-versa.
Actually, that's kind of backwards -- ideas of evolution were proposed, and natural selection was suggested as a mechanism after the fact. But sure, we can go this way, too -- we see selection and spe
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Try leaving. There is, so far, no law against it.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Agreed, mod parent up. On topic, and pertinent. Not an effective sample of the general population but still likely to be indicative of attitudes held by a particular subset.
No but read the thousands of quotes underneath the video such as "Honestly, evolution is simply false. Who would believe in something that is not only a mere theory..." Though some comments do disagree with them it does indicate a very notable percentage that must share these superstitious beliefs and not just in the bimbo subset.
Well, ok, you could, but you'd be wrong. Evolutionary theory is the basis of all of biology. None of it makes sense outside an evolutionary context.
So, let's see... evolution is backed by mountains of evidence. Creationism is backed by... a book written roughly 1700 years ago.
Guess it's fifty-fifty then, huh?
Here's another hint: One of these is scientific, the other isn't: A) Evolutionary theory, B) Creationism. Guess which is which.
HAND.
You're projecting a straw man who holds the fallacious belief that "it's natural therefore it's good".
Btw, the "atheists have no morals" objection has also been answered a multitude of times. Morals, cooperation and empathy are innate in us, "bred" into us by evolution.
HAND.
"You're implying that you know better than God"
I certainly know more than something that does not exist. Now if i could meet the Creators creator and ask a few questions.....
"The two don't have to be in opposition to one another."
most of these problems would go away if religion remained in its proper place i.e. at home/church and as important as a football team fan club and didn't get involved in stuff outside their remit i.e. politics, education etc.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Don't know, nutjob idiot of a poster (see how it's true because I put the words there?), but I'm glad you love psychopaths. May you find one to be your lifelong partner.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
"without adding in a bunch about Macroevolution which we *can't* prove(Did *you* see personally see fish evolve into something else? )"
There isn't some fixed cutoff point where one species becomes another, taxonomic definitions are rather arbitrary, one taxonomists cutoff point is completely different to another's.
Or to put it another way for you, something doesn't just "turn into" something else, it starts evolving the traits of what is later defined as a new species over time, such that there is a gradual spectrum of change from one species to another, and there are no real consistent guidelines that hold through all families of living beings as to when we say, right, it's changed enough to be a new species now. As such, it's enough to say that if we can see "microevolution" in the lab, then we're seeing "macroevolution" too, because we can simply say that the changes we see in the lab from one generation to the next are enough to say right, we've got a new species now, simply because it is entirely arbitrary.
You'll get flamed, because you show a basic lack of understanding of evolution and it's link with taxonomy, and then try to assert something based on your lack of knowledge- only assert things based on what you do know, not what you don't. Taxonomy is a rather flawed science, because it relies on being able to say "Right now it's a fish, okay, now it's an amphibian", it's an attempt to provide very digital logic in a very analog world. Taxonomy tries to group living beings based on arbitrary differences between two species, but can sometimes miss intermediate entities in those species that then blur that line, and make it questionable. Worse, in the past it's often been based on visual traits and similar, which falls flat in the face of evolutionary convergence where two seperate species show similar traits such that they have been lumped into the same genus even when DNA testing has shown that to be a false lumping of the species because they were much more distantly related than the classification suggested. One example is in the plant world, very often in the past two relatively unrelated plants have been lumped in the same genus because they have had identical looking flowers, when in fact they were not closely related at all, and had only evolved the same flower because they shared the same pollinators, and the flower they both evolved was the best fit to date for that pollinator.
Pushing evolution is NOT misguided, it's pushed because we do have adequate proof for evolution, only stupid people think we do not, and using your further lack of knowledge about taxonomy and classification as your justification for suggesting that because you don't understand it, it must be wrong, is just pathetic.
No they don't, the (loaded and horrible) question itself implied that evolution was the politically charged issue, and not creationism. When you watch this, you'll hear nearly every single candidate there specifically point out that it should be one option of many taught and that they don't personally believe in evolution. They nearly all believe that creationism should absolutely be taught, but that it's generally good if kids also have the option of learning about evolution too.
"As she was admiring all the beautiful flora and fauna she said "This is proof that God must exist. How else could all this beauty just instantly appear out of nowhere?""
For what it's worth, when faced with this in the past my response has been to tell them to think of a beautiful plant, such as an orchid like a Phaleonopsis, or a large cactus such as a mature Echinopsis in full bloom, and to imagine growing it from seed. You start out with nothing but a pot with brown mud in it and a little seed, but then after time a green sprout appears, and it grows, and grows, over a few years, and with a little patience we get our first flowers, and a little later we get a beautiful bloom of many flowers. I point out that if nature can produce something so beautiful with a bit of patience over 3 or 4 years, then why shouldn't it produce something as beautiful as the natural world in which we live in over millions of years? Why does it have to be created? The plant grown from seed isn't, it finds it's own way with the right natural conditions, why shouldn't that happen on a larger scale?
When you start posing it to them like this then some of them can be reached, but it depends if they're the type of person who is a die hard zealot, or someone whose capable of being open minded but never really taken the effort to think about it and simply swallowed what they were taught.
He's implying there is no god, because if there was, he'd be pretty dumb and weird, ala, nipples on men
You obviously have not yet discovered the pleasure they can give you. I'm still very thankful to my second girlfriend for opening that whole new world to me.
"Macro" evolution is just the accumulation of traits through "micro" evolution. The only reason these terms are so prominent is because some creationists have chosen to ringfence the most immediate and demonstrable forms of evolution as a means to somehow deny the remainder. To me it's as absurd as someone conceding people can walk one step at a time but refusing to believe that they use a succession of steps to travel large distances.
No, macro- and micro- evolution are absolutely quantitatively distinct due to the probabilities involved regarding the number of mutually-reinforcing mutations that must occur for the necessary outcome, while maintaining survivability
But what is a necessary outcome? The number of genes controlling the formation of limbs is surprisingly small, for example, and with little help you can grow chicken with a tail and teeth, dinosaur style.
I can't see how any amount of time can make something possible. If you extract back, the theory suggests chemical evolution of a "simple" cell. which even the simplest known living organism has 482 protein coding genes are required to be wholly operational for life to begin. The famous muller experament (in ~1957 I think) shows a chemical trap required to get proteins but in that shows the enormous problems of the information. For life, aka the simplest of self sustaining cells require all the proteins to be either left or right handed. If a left protein attaches to a right protein then the chain is terminated. all of the human body is right handed. The experiments also require that there be no water and no oxygen in the environment. DNA at 0 degrees break down in under 10,000 years and all the goo stories I've heard are "hot" pools where the proteins break down even faster. (at 100' I remember it being 90minues.) I remember reading about a scientist creating 2 of the RNA molecules in just under 13 steps which each step was then filtered because the process in each steps produces side products which are "fatal". e.g. left and right handed proteins. So saying there are long periods of time is actually harmful to the process of chemicals self assembling themselves. Since I am holiday and board out of my mind, I'll try and google for this book.
btw: .website but it dosn't matter that you dont believe the christian stuff which is usually at the bottom of the webpages. Read about the science articles and come to your own conclusions they will show in science things in the different light and will make you think.
A resource I look at often is the website http://Creation.com/origin-of-life-questions-and-answers. that link contains alot of information many people just dont know about. They are a "christian"
just a quick search of that site and i can quote this: which is the odds chemically of just 100 amino acids where the simplest known is 480 proteins.
what is the probability of getting just 100 amino acids lined up in a functional manner? Since there are 20 different amino acids involved, it is (1/20)100, which is 10^130. To try to get this in perspective, there are about 10^80 fundamental particles (electrons, etc) in the universe. If every one of those particles were an experiment at getting the right sequence with all the correct amino acids present, every microsecond of 15 billion years, that amounts to 4.7 x 10^103 experiments. We are still 10^27 experiments short of getting an even chance of it happening. In other words, this is IMPOSSIBLE!
But I'll will look at the book mention above, I just hope some of you people will read the things I said from the other side of the fence.
Not an effective sample of the general population but still likely to be indicative of attitudes held by a particular subset.
"I think people should be free to chose a religious curricula for their children should they so desire, but they shouldn't be allowed to force religious bullcrap onto other people as an equal option to scientific fact"
Way to piss off your voters, miss-nowhere-to-be-seen-in-this-video. The girls are shallow and stupid because they are the product of a selection process orchestrated by the shallow and stupid. The smarter girls don't engage the issue directly to not offend the stupid.
I still don't get where you're going with this. Are you trying to make a point of some sort, or just insulting me in defense of radical Christian nutjobs everywhere?
No, macro- and micro- evolution are absolutely quantitatively distinct due to the probabilities involved regarding the number of mutually-reinforcing mutations that must occur for the necessary outcome, while maintaining survivability.
It's perfectly simple to understand. An individual who possesses a beneficial mutation will have an improved chance at reproducing. Their offspring carry a copy of the benefit and over time the mutation becomes dominant amongst the population. Over time multiple such beneficial mutations occur and at some point the organism is distinct from those occurring many generations earlier, and from other isolated populations with the common ancestor. It's called speciation and it has been observed happening as well as countless examples in the fossil record.
It really isn't hard to comprehend the concept or the evidence that supports it. Declaring "probabilities" as if it were some game of tossing a hundred coins into the air and hoping they come up heads just shows you are playing the same game as creationists.
Yes, because if he did not watch this video, his might accidently get the chance to fuck a beauty queen. Yeah, right!
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Let's be honest here, if there is a God I really want to get some of the stuff he was on when he designed the Platypus.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I watched a youtube video the other day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfAzaDyae-k
And read about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
- and concluded that, what Neil Tyson says is what all humans who haven't been educated in basic science do, i.e. make an argument from ignorance.
It's the normal human thing to do when you don't know, because as he says, not knowing is somehow wrong, but an ignorant assumption is somehow right to our primitive minds.
There's a lot I can thank the basic education, and one of them is not to trust arguments from ignorance, even though they didn't specifically teach it. .. It would be though nice if they did teach people about the normal everyday human fallacies we do, just so we can live better.
I strongly disagree. It is neccessary to discuss Science. There always were people fighting against Science and there will always be, and sometimes Science looses, sometimes it wins. It's scary to watch Science being exchanged against crude theories based on whatever. But discussion itself is not scary in itself, it is an essential part of Science.
What we need to do is not to scare those who don't understand Science.
cb
While I don't disagree with your point I have to take issue with this:
But that right there showed me that they really don't understand what evolution means.
And by "they" you mean religious people or Christians, presumably. Unfortunately this kind of generalisation is all too common on Slashdot these days, and I'm not picking on you in particular.
It happens in most environmental/nuclear debates too. One side sets up their environ-mentalist straw man who wants to return everyone to the dark ages and the other builds an effigy of the totally corrupt, incompetent and evil capitalist who will always choose profit over safety. The debate becomes polarised and it is impossible to talk about the issues and how they affect the real world because everyone assumes you are in one of these two camps.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
>Also, the fact that a particular combination of genes is highly improbable doesn't imply that it could not evolve,
By that logic, well the odds of a bunch of atoms being arranged into a DNA molecule with the GP's particular combination of genes are billions to one. I must therefore conclude that it is impossible for the GP to exist.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
There was an interesting variation of this argument used in a science vs. religion debate at the Glastonbury Festival this year. It was broadcast on the BBC, might still be on iPlayer.
Anyway, the religious argument was that science is the same thing as faith because we can't see some things that we believe exist. The example used was dark matter. The universe has lots of it, but there is no way to see it, we just have faith that it is there. The rebuttal pointed out that it isn't faith at all. We think that it is there, our best theories and models say that it is probably there, but until we find some way of proving it we have to keep our minds open. Once it is proven no faith is required.
Similar to the "atheism is a religion" debate. Mere deliberate twisting of the meaning of words to confuse the listener.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
>Dawkins says one thing. You say it's obviously wrong. Dawkins is qualified to speak on the topic of biology; he's earned that right through lifelong study. He can be as wrong as any other man, but it would take an equally qualified biologist to identify Dawkins' error. What, exactly, are your qualifications?
I'm sorry but even though I am a rationalist I must dispute you here. That entire paragraph is a call to authority - which is a fallacy. Dawkins's being a respected authority on biology does NOT EVER make what he says about it more trustworthy than a criticism by a layman. Not only would claiming so be a fallacy it is also repugnant to the scientific method (one of the specific reasons FOR the scientific method is a defense against authority).
Dawkins' has authority because his science is sound - NOT the other way around. When a layman argues against him - that argument should be measured on scientific virtue - NOT on the "rankholding" of the speaker, because that is entirely irrelevant. Many scientific breakthroughs have been, and continue to be, made by laymen - and every young scientist would give his right arm to prove the great authority in his field wrong about something.
That's what science IS - and it's exactly WHY we can put such trust in it. The correct answer to the GP would be "Dawkins follows the scientific method in his writings and thus far has done so impeccably, you say he is 'obviously wrong' - without giving any science at all to back up your assertion. Unless you can answer his science with BETTER science that's just meaningless drivel".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
http://silentcoder.co.za/2010/11/how-intelligent-is-the-designer/
Nuff said.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
If God Did It (tm), then that is supposed to be the end of it.
If Evolution Did It, then you continue to ask questions about "how", "why", "where".
Therefore since science is about learning about the universe and its ways, God Did It isn't science, since it stops the learning.
Absolutely nothing there to do with which one is right.
Just with what has anything to do with science.
With NS this will specialize the variation in the "creature" . e.g. all dogs comes from wolfs (evols & creationists agree on that) due to man's natural selection, we get Great Danes and chiwawas, it doesn't matter how many times the chiwawas breeds, you never get a great dane out of them.
You say that as if its true. Its not. Select the largest of each litters and breed them. See how the size increases. No magic involved, no "lost information" restored.
Even if what you said was true. It would just be a case of waiting for a mutation to produce a larger offspring, and to select that. RInse and repeat as needed and you have something of the size of a Dane again.
>Umm, you think a sampling of beauty pageant contestants is an informative sampling of US public opinion? They aren't exactly average Americans.
No, they aren't, but just because they bucked the trend on obesity doesn't imply that their other opinions will be different :P
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Mathematics is not a science on its own because we define the systems we use. It is a tool we have created to help explain and work in the world we exist in. It is, of course, possible to study our tools and find new ways of using them that the people who created them never considered, which could be called a science, but generally math is a tool of science, not a science on its own.
I don't think any scientist would argue that Evolution should be taught as gospel. However, Intelligent Design isn't a valid competing theory. All that is is thinly veiled Creationism. It's not science it's a reduction of all arguments to "God Did It!" Intelligent Design doesn't fit into all of the facts/evidence we have gathered. Instead, it thrives when you ignore, twist and misinterpret them. If you come up with a theory that actually fits in with the facts/evidence better than Evolution does, then you'll have a valid competing theory and I'll agree that it should be taught in schools. (You'll also likely win the Nobel prize in science, but that's besides the point.) Personally, though, I won't be holding my breath that such a theory will come along. Evolution fits the facts so nicely that the only thing that keeps it from being called "A Theory" instead of "A Fact" are the rules of scientific terminology.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Why do you imply that I do not know better than God? From an engineering point of view, God is a pretty crappy engineer. From what I see when I look out there into the animal kingdom, he seems to be one that subscribes to the "try and error" approach. Oh, let's see, we have something with four legs. Let's try 6. How about 8? How about a few dozen? Does that improve it... erh... doesn't seem to. Dump it, retry something else. And so the poor millipede is still trying to sort out walking.
And don't get me started on the Platypus. Must've been God work for college when he was high on something.
Or reproduction. A billion different ways to propagate. Was God bored or something? Then, what's the idea behind parasites? Is God an asshole that he sends us these kinds of bugs? I can see bacteria and flesh eating maggots, being required to break stuff back down after it's dying, but parasites? Bugs that invade living, otherwise working organisms and destroying them for their own benefit? C'mon, that's not intelligent! Ok, it's intelligent from the point of view of the parasite, but not when assuming a great planner that designed everything around. What's the deal with those bugs?
But I guess I already know the answer I'll get. Oh, we're just mere humans and cannot understand God's plan. How convenient! Every time something doesn't make sense in the Bible, we cannot comprehend God's big plan. Ok, then explain me why I should worship a God whose plan seems to include getting on my nerves? If anything, I'd love to see him replaced by a better god with a more comprehensive plan.
I mean, do you vote for a politician whose plan you cannot understand and who demands from you to trust him to have your best interests in his mind, despite his actions contradicting that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If they were pretty, they probably wouldn't need the ego-boost they get from beauty pageants.
You think people don't have an agenda when they teach English, Maths, Science, Geography or History? Seriously, just having an agenda isn't a bad thing, meetings have them, have you ever been in one? Why do you think pushing for the teaching of evolution is damaging? Do you hail from Texas? Either you teach ID and state that animals don't genetically evolve over time, or you teach evolution which states they do. How can you not teach either? Pretty important thing for humanity to know don't you think?
China is churning out more engineers and doctors, every day while the US bickers over whether to teach Religion or Science to kids. In 30 years, it will not matter what you teach your kids as long as they learn Mandarin and can operate heavy machinery.
"We can't even say for sure that evolution is true."
Yes we can. It's been verified again and again and again. I suspect what you meant to say was "we can't even say for sure Darwin's theory of how evolution works is true," which would make it a factual statement.
"Of course, biology classes should teach evolution as the currently accepted scientific theory as to how life on Earth came to be what it is today. But I fully expect any scientific theory of study to be open to reviewing alternative theories"
That is not how science works. Until a theory of evolution comes along that is stronger than Darwin's (i.e., fits with all currently known evidence and makes verifiable predictions that Darwin's theory cannot explain), then Darwin's is the prevailing theory. "ID" is not a stronger theory. It's not even a theory. It's not even science. It doesn't pass the sniff test. It's the equivalent of claiming spiders have hairy legs because their aunts knitted them leg warmers to ward off the chill.
Viva la Evolucion!
(can't believe I'm the first to say this!)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
OK, in what way is teaching about evolution as part of a science curriculum "damaging to the education of our children" ?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I'm sorry but even though I am a rationalist I must dispute you here. That entire paragraph is a call to authority - which is a fallacy. Dawkins's being a respected authority on biology does NOT EVER make what he says about it more trustworthy than a criticism by a layman. Not only would claiming so be a fallacy it is also repugnant to the scientific method (one of the specific reasons FOR the scientific method is a defense against authority).
I think you should look up "appeal to authority fallacy", because you've got it wrong. The fact that he is an authority on the subject in question, and that the vast majority of other experts in the field agree with him, is the reason this is not a fallacy.
The correct answer to the GP would be "Dawkins follows the scientific method in his writings and thus far has done so impeccably, you say he is 'obviously wrong' - without giving any science at all to back up your assertion. Unless you can answer his science with BETTER science that's just meaningless drivel".
This is precisely why his statement wasn't a fallacy. If Dawkins didn't follow the scientific method and didn't use good science to back up his arguments, he wouldn't be an authority on the subject, and the vast majority of experts wouldn't agree with him. Then it would certainly be a fallacy. For what it's worth, I also don't think there are that many scientific breakthroughs being made by laymen.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I fully expect any scientific theory of study to be open to reviewing alternative theories and not just accept the current belief as gospel.
I would be open to this as long as the alternative theory isn't derived from Gospel.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Biology is not so much like Physics where you build on fundamental concepts, it is more of a collection of useful interesting observations. I think the evolution and ID people both have an agenda their are pushing and they are both damaging to the education of our children.
No the ID people are pushing an agenda. Scientists are pushing back. Equal time to both sides is unfair when one side (the biologists) can muster up so much of evidence, so much of explanations, so many predictions, and much of testing that has withstood rigorous scientific examination for 150 years. And the other side (creationists) has no science, not even a hypothesis, no evidence and just some tenuous assertions.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think you are missing the point. Genetics only makes sense in light of evolution. While you may not have explicitly had a section called evolution, it is implicit and informs the entire topic of genetics or microbiology. Mutations and polymorphism, inherited diseases, phylogenetic releationship are all brought together by evolution. You do not need to spend a semester studying finches in Galapagos to discuss evolution, rather it is the best explanation for common phenomena such as antibiotic resistance, variation among individuals, etc. While the the word evolution may never have to be mentioned in a basic biology class, it is understood to be relevant. Furthermore, for advanced classes, evolution MUST be taught. The days of biology as simple observation and cataloguing are disappearing, instead much of current biology research focuses on modeling, and elucidation of the "big picture". This reseach is driven by an understanding of evolution. If you agree that we ought to teach children the best current understanding of a subject, evolution is unavoidable.
Einmal ist Keinmal. What happens but once might as well not have happened at all.
A "Victory for Evolution"?
Only if a victory means that you steered the death-trap of a car you're riding high-speed in away from the edge of the mountain cliff. You're still going down-hill way to fast in a vehicle without brakes and there's oncoming traffic.
(And I'd love to quibble with the phrase "A Victory for Evolution" - that sounds on-par with "A Triumph for Purple".)
Bad example, 2+2 can indeed be 5 (for large values of 2),
I can't see how any amount of time can make something possible.
Yes, you've made that clear, hence the book recommendations.
If you extract back, the theory suggests chemical evolution of a "simple" cell. which even the simplest known living organism has 482 protein coding genes are required to be wholly operational for life to begin.
Now you're talking about abiogenesis, which is not part of evolutionary theory. Evolution deals with how the diversity of life that we see came about. It doesn't deal with how life first began on the planet. There are theories for that as well, though.
just a quick search of that site and i can quote this: which is the odds chemically of just 100 amino acids where the simplest known is 480 proteins.
what is the probability of getting just 100 amino acids lined up in a functional manner? Since there are 20 different amino acids involved, it is (1/20)100, which is 10^130. To try to get this in perspective, there are about 10^80 fundamental particles (electrons, etc) in the universe. If every one of those particles were an experiment at getting the right sequence with all the correct amino acids present, every microsecond of 15 billion years, that amounts to 4.7 x 10^103 experiments. We are still 10^27 experiments short of getting an even chance of it happening. In other words, this is IMPOSSIBLE!
I would appreciate it if you would look into sites that offer an actual scientific perspective rather than the illusion of such a perspective. It's easy to lie with statistics, especially when you cherry-pick your facts. The site you linked seems to be full of straw-man arguments and other fallacies that misrepresent the scientific position. Most of the positions taken have been addressed, and these distortions are pointed out.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Most of the controversy lies in the idea that beneficial genetic information can be somehow added through random mutations etc over millions of years. A fantastical narrative is spun around that which sounds great but has no more evidence to support it in the fossil record than the story of a global flood.
The only controversy around that comes from ignorant people with no understanding of modern biology or paleontology. There's nothing fantastical about it at all.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Although, I'll grant you this... those contestants are trained to try to make an appealing answer to a general American audience.
Well, actually they're trying to appeal to the segment of the American audience that gives a shit about beauty pageants, which is probably skewed significantly towards those who are ignorant enough to think of evolution as conjecture that opposes their religious beliefs.
but if someone claimed that science itself should be balanced by a brief study of all the major religions during one year or semester of high school, that would make sense to me. Some of those in the video might have had that sort of idea in mind, but just weren't able, or didn't see the need, to express that aspect of it clearly.
How, exactly, would that "balance" the study of science?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
As for "progress", well, apart from religion there can be no permanent "progress" whatsoever. Every single atheist, and all of their views, will be dead and gone in 150 years.
Ahh, the love is pouring out of you now, how compassionate. How do you know god did not change her mind about atheists since she inspired the bible? God can change his mind right? And she can do it without informing you correct? So you are basically speaking for god without its direct approval. Hmmm, sounds like you are suffering from delusions of grandeur in the highest order!
So we see now, the true person you are. A selfish, self righteous religious nut who tries to act smart. Your silly arguments and twisted views mean nothing to anyone who has observed the world around them. People like you are interesting in one aspect. That is, what is fundamentally wrong with your brain. Other than that, you are worthless to the progress of the human species, dead weight.
Occam's Razor says what I concluded would be the simplest explanation. "God did it" is remarkably simple in terms of a hypothesis. Of course, unlike you, I both understand, and avoid misrepresenting what Occam's Razor says, and it says nothing about truth-status, ever. Only conceptual economy of description, when all else is equal.
My experiences mostly took the form of "coincidences" piled so improbably and close together that concluding they were by chance took on the characteristic of being absurd.
Beyond that, I'll discuss it in an appropriate venue with someone who isn't just an Anonymous Coward. My arguments stand alone, and need no backing to them of the nature of elaborating on personal experiences.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I lack compassion by stating simple facts both you and I agree with?
Odd notion.
But no, things I have no control over have nothing to do with the degree of "compassion" I may or may not have. Same case everywhere, for everyone.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
So we're not allowed to love those relatives we have that may have differing viewpoints?
As wrong as her viewpoints may be, she still has one up on you in that she still loves her family, and doesn't put arbitrary criteria on that.
>now moving past the irrelevant personal critique spice up with and Appeal to Authority and Ad Hominem fallacies...
Ummm, referring to someone who is actually an expert in the field is not an "Appeal to Authority" fallacy. It's recognizing that there are people who know a fuckton more about a field of study than you. If there's something wrong with you, and someone tells you to go see a doctor, is that an "Appeal to Authority" because people recognize that a doctor knows a fuckton more about medicine than you?
Q: You know the difference between a Magic Show and a Beauty Pageant don't you?
A: A Magic show is a cunning array of stunts
An ape in clothes, with an internet connection, but an ape all the same.
I want to be this. Or at least see it in cartoon form.
Neat. Not even the slightest attempt to show correlation, much less start to address actual causation.
And, remarkably, Slashdot mods you up. Guess the single topic most beaten to death here is immediately dropped as long as something anti-theistic is stated.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I think the evolution and ID people both have an agenda their are pushing and they are both damaging to the education of our children.
It's always amusing when creationists try to appear "balanced."
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Every single atheist, and all of their views, will be dead and gone in 150 years.
Because none of them will think to write them down in books, and pass them on to the next generation?
If your statement was anywhere even close to true, then every major religion in the world, including Christianity, would have died out within 50 years of their inception.
You deserve to be flamed, if only for your blatant ignorance of biology. There is no difference between micro and macro evolution.
This response begs the question. The claim that "there is no difference between micro and macro evolution" is equivalent to the claim that all biological diversity is the result of natural selection from a common ancestor. And guess what, that's precisely what GP is questioning: the claim that, for all putative ancestors A and descendants B, natural selection could realistically turn A's into B's in the time scale claimed. Pointing out examples of "observed speciation events" helps, but not as much as you make it out, because (a) you're defining "species" in a funny way the creationist doesn't have to accept, (b) you're trying to defend a universally quantified statement ("for all x, P(x)") by pointing out individual instances where it's true, while it just takes one counterexample to refute it, and the creationist will find an example you can't respond to.
Evolutionary theory has weaknesses; there is the difficulty of demonstrating that there is some sequence of small, viable, inheritable mutations that can, over hundreds of millions of years, slowly turn fish into elephants. And then there's the impossibility of doing that over and over for all of life on Earth. This means it's easy to cast doubt on the whole edifice; there will always be cases where somebody can raise the question whether natural selection really could've done what it's been claimed to do, and some of those cases will turn out to have been wrong.
We teach this stuff in schools not because it's bulletproof and perfect; we do it because it's scientific, which creationism isn't.
What's not OK, however, is logically invalid responses to creationist claims, like you have done by assuming the conclusion. If you try to pull that off with a smart creationist (and yes, they exist), you're gonna get ripped apart. The correct answer to objections like GP is to point at the large body work that's constantly being done exploring intermediate stages for big evolutionary changes, both works that attempt to explain how they can be useful (the serious answers to the question of what good is "half a wing") as well as the slow but gradual growth of fossil specimens and how the fossil gap is actually decreasing over time. Then there's the responses that simply amount to recognizing that some of the auxiliary sciences are still very weak (e.g., fossils tell us phenotypes, fossil DNA tells us genotypes, but we still don't have a detailed enough science of gene expression to fill a lot of the gaps).
Are you adequate?
Your quote falls to pieces based on the vast raft of assumptions that increase the probabilities, mixed with a lot of "nobody wins the lottery" ideas. Firstly, why does one need to line up 100 acids? Is the posit that there are no shorter chains that will do anything? Then we add in their idea that any given amino acid is just as likely to bind as any other which simply isn't true in the real world, the fact that successful shorter combinations can combine with other groups, and so on, and the "odds" quickly fall far, far away from the ludicrously high figures that run the whole assumption. Pile on top of that their idea that the last combination is the right one and their further assumption that there's only one chain that "wins" and the declaration of impossibility quickly falls to pieces.
You're going to have to do better than this.
Virg
I don't think many would argue against teaching processes such as natural selection i.e. population of birds develops longer beaks over many generations as the short beaks die off - genetic information is lost in effect.
The bolded part is a failed statement, because it's nonsensical. Genetic information isn't lost by the changing size of a bird's beak. There's genetic encoding for beak length in the bird's DNA. It specifies a certain length, with variations due to random chance or mutation. That's it. If a longer beak fits the environment better, then birds with longer beak code will breed more than birds with shorter beak code, and the average length of the bird's beak will get bigger. If the environment changes such that birds with shorter beaks do better, then the short-beak birds will start outbreeding the long-beak birds, and the average length will drop. There's no loss of "information", just a selective change in the bird's physiology to make it fit its environment better.
As to changes in the fossil record, there's a vast display of changes mapped out that demonstrates how life adapts to its environment. The mechanism of natural selection does a good job of explaining how it works. The idea that beneficial information is added by random mutation is a simple concept, just like the idea that detrimental information is added by random mutation. The difference is that detrimental additions drive themselves out and beneficial additions reinforce themselves. If there's only one beneficial mutation among hundreds of detrimental ones, guess which one will pass down through the following generations?
Virg
That is more or less a Tim Minchin quote from 'Storm'. Very accurate to be tossing that out on this discussion since the whole thing is about using critical thinking to judge things.
Tim Minchin's catalogue as a whole has an impressive number of little gems hidden in there that debate blind faith in clever and amusing ways. Admittedly, it is just hidden within a collection of songs/comedy that seem to look to find something that offends just about everyone, not just the religious. All funny though.
"reviewing alternative theories" So teaching Pastafarianism creation, or Satanist, Wiccan, Buddhist, Norse (the list goes on) should also be taught as alternate theories? There's already a class for that, it's called Religious Education, it's usually quite distinct from science. It's a science class, where science is taught, a religious class is where religion is taught, if science was taught in RE, then there would be a mob of imbeciles clamouring to get it kicked out; yet again it signifies religious group's hypocritical nature.
While we are at it, let's teach both sides of Math. You have your theories, but my version deserves equal time. Just because my version of math is completely useless and has no possible relation to reality doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taught in schools. We have to let the students see both sides and make their own faith decisions.
Perhaps "religious psychopath" isn't the correct phrase for what I'm trying to convey. Maybe "radical Christian nutjob" is more along the right track. "Religious psychopath" implies that all religious people are psychopaths.
Or specifically, that your aunt is a psychopath, which by definition is someone that would be pretty difficult to love. I'm sure your aunt loves you and loves a number of people, so "psychopath" wouldn't be the best of terms. Radical Christian or Christian Fundamentalist might be more appropriate. A psychopath feels little empathy towards everyone, including you (that's... greatly simplifying it, and there's still debate over what a psychopath actually is), so the term itself is a bit loaded, like saying someone is a Nazi. It's a fair bit of hyperbole.
Evolution is a joke of engineering and will not protect your brain from lasers. Go get your palm read hippie...
South Dakota's response was the best. "Yes, it is basic science, it should be taught in schools"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJKG5lGMwF4
Evolutionary theory has weaknesses; there is the difficulty of demonstrating that there is some sequence of small, viable, inheritable mutations that can, over hundreds of millions of years, slowly turn fish into elephants
As another poster alluded to above, given a few cosmic rays through your henhouse with the right (wrong) parameters, your chicken's offspring will grow a dinosaur-like tail and teeth.
So either the chicken had an evolutionary predecessor that was, indeed, almost as different from it as a fish is different from an elephant, or there's something else wrong with your argument from incredulity.
What's not OK, however, is logically invalid responses to creationist claims, like you have done by assuming the conclusion.
I'd say you're the one who has assumed a conclusion, in this particular case.
Occam's razor. Hundreds of years of experiments have utterly failed to identify, let alone explain, any non-naturalistic explanations for evolution - or for ANYTHING, for that matter.
Keep on hoping, though... there's always a infinitesimal probability that you'll find it.
The fundamental basis of morality is the Golden Rule. The way I learned it was "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." but sometimes it's stated in the negative sense like "Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.". The Golden Rule is based in the instinctual empathy that most humans (and many animals) have (with the exception of psychopaths and to and extent sociopaths).
But morality is a human concept. The natural world is fundamentally amoral. Maybe in the evolution of animals a certain morality gets built in because it is beneficial to the species but that's just natural selection doing its job.
We can't even say for sure that evolution is true. There is a lot of evidence of adapting to changes in environment, and we have witnessed natural selection and survival of the fittest, but there are still a lot of questions that need answering. Of course, biology classes should teach evolution as the currently accepted scientific theory as to how life on Earth came to be what it is today. But I fully expect any scientific theory of study to be open to reviewing alternative theories and not just accept the current belief as gospel.
Evolution is a fact. To deny that animals change over time, and may eventually turn into related, but distinctly different creatures requires willful ignorance of facts. Either that or a deity that not only purposely places "things" that look like they are related to modern creatures, but are not, and made deceptive laws on the universe that would confirm the purposely placed deceptions. We'll have to rewrite physics if evolution isn't true.
Now the "theory of evolution" that deniers love to pounce upon is in itself either an ignorance of what a theory is, or a willful distortion. A theory in science is a falsifiable concept, and we spend time trying to falsify it. If a theory stands the test of time, it becomes accepted as close to a fact as something that cannot be 100 percent proven because we don't have time machines. But all the evidence and physics fits so far.
So the theory is pretty stable.
Now let us touch upon alternative theories.
Intelligent design? The first thing wrong here is that evolution says not one thing about the origin of life, and intelligent design is by definition only about the origin of life. The two are not even related.
Even if we did teach ID, here is the beginning and end. "God created the universe. Or maybe aliens." Which one do you think kids?
Or maybe a flying spaghetti monster?
We're touching on something here. If we are to teach the "controversy", there are a lot of different possibilities for Intelligent design candidates.
The flying Spaghetti monster is equally as plausible as aliens or God. Why? because they aren't falsifiable. What's the evidence? All it takes for any of these is faith - no evidence needed, just a belief.
The groups pushing for ID "just happen" to be fundamentalist Christian groups, though Their scientists just happen to be the same people who were pushing for creationism in years past. The Discovery Institute that is a driver behind ID, states that their"Governing Goals" are to "defeat scientific materialism and it's destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies", and "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and humans are created by God". Their "wedge document" states that they have a Five Year Strategic Plan Summary that the IDM's goal is to replace current science with "theistic and Christian science".
Seems sort of deceptive, no?
Google Kitxmiller v Dover and wedge document to see just what you support when you support ID.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's a shame so many Southern states are at the beginning of the alphabet haha.
I think the evolution and ID people both have an agenda their are pushing and they are both damaging to the education of our children.
It's always amusing when creationists try to appear "balanced."
--Jeremy
It's always amusing when people force a label on you so that can attack it with ad hominem.
The "agenda" is bad because these two parties are sucking down huge amounts of energy to fight about something that I think is really not very important. Our schools suck in America and teaching Evolution wont all the sudden turn them around, but this fight is what the vast majority of energy is poured into. Granted, teaching Creationism instead of Evolution in a biology class would make them worse but would Americans really be that much more scientifically illiterate than they already are?
Why aren't physicist demanding we teach the Big Bang? The Big Bang is _way_ more substantiated with evidence and has even made testable predictions for us, something Evolution has not done with anywhere near the level or granularity.
So no, I really don't think it matters if our scientifically illiterate populace (were 30% are stupid enough to be fooled that we didn't go to the moon because of the Van Allan belt radiation) believes we came from monkeys or God. They will still be stupid either way.
I've seen this foolishness before, the claim that information cannot be added to the genetic code, only lost. It was invented, apparently out of thin air, by a quack called Rupert Shedrake who claims that his 'morphic fields' somehow add the information that make organisms change over time towards some phantasmagorical ideal. His followers seem fanatically devoted to his ideas, although generally fairly incoherent and utterly incapable of explaining why it seems so convincing to them.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I agree in general that Evolution plays a role in Biology, but I disagree with the magnitude depicted in the OP. It is nowhere near as important conceptually as multiplication, the Periodic Table, or the American Revolution. These subjects are arguably objectively more important by themselves, and are certainly more import relative to their fields.
Biology ... is more of a collection of useful interesting observations.
That's really sad. I'm sorry you had incompetent teachers, you missed out on a lot.
Biological systems are fascinating, be they at the scale of intracellular communications or oceanic-wide ecosystems. That's the most important thing that you missed out on, that biology is made up of interlocking systems. Evolution helps to explain why and how the different parts of these systems came about, and how they're likely to change in the future. Biology then changes from a bunch of unrelated trivia into information.
Having learned about evolution as a fundamental concept in high school biology (1970s) helped to make sense of more involved/specialized sciences that I examined later such as oceanography and meteorology.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Neat. Not even the slightest attempt to show correlation, much less start to address actual causation.
And, remarkably, Slashdot mods you up.
Why not? That's the usual modus operandi of the religious crowd, isn't it?
When questioned, their last defense is always "You've got to have FAAAAAITH".
And, BTW, where, PRAY tell, is YOUR attempt to show correlation or causation, or lack thereof?
That might be true, but biological systems are in a lot of ways very much more complex than just about anything else think we understand. I'm not convinced that your can really have a meaningful resolution to address this complexity in the average high school biology class. I see teaching biology with that resolution as similar in difficulty as trying to teach high school students chemistry by starting with the schrodinger equation and having them derived how chemistry must work based on how quantum mechanics causes atoms to from in a certain way which causes electrons to have certain properties and so forth. That's great and all, but it might be a bit unrealistic to expect from a single high school class.
I know I am quite ignorant about biology, I studied physics and I don't really care to dedicate time to learning any advanced biology, its way down my priority list. That being said everyone seems to make this claim that Evolution is some amazing concept that is vital to the understanding of _Everything_ in biology. I just don't see how it can be that important. Evolution is a model that has been used with success to describe our surroundings, but I have never seen the theory used to make predictions. There is not even an attempt to have a mathematical construct that will try to model and predict how species will evolve on a macroscopic scale. Now I know that this is in part because biology is so complex and maybe one day we'll get there, but the other side of that is that Evolution formalized as a general guideline; a set of generalizations that match observation and is therefor limited in its usefulness as a theory. It reminds me of string theory, it can model the things around us, but is also so flexible as a theory that it is "impossible" to prove it wrong, and it doesn't make any useful predictions.
But again, I'm no expert, at the very least it is obvious to me that if evolution does have some irreplaceable critical role in understanding any biology then the community has not done a good job of communicating this. Maybe if they focused more on teaching people about evolution and spent less time demanding that they must be taught it this wouldn't be an issue. In science, good theories have a way of standing on their own and over time wining out no matter how much resistance there is. If evolution is a 'good theory' I think it will eventually speak for itself.
I am a creationist, but also a thinking human being (ok my spelling may not be very good but dont hold that against me).
It seems to me that there is room for both sides. There is clearly not enough science to prove evolution totaly, we dont have all the facts or even close to all the facts about how the universe was formed, or how sub atomic physics actually works. As we the human race are still working on many of the problems, related to these.
But the natural selection as part of evolution has got a lot of backing in science.
But just becuase one aspect of Darwin's ideas has a lot of backing does not mean we can extrapolate the start of the universe as we currently see it. its simply unscientific - science has to be backed by provable and repeatable experimentaion for it to be considered as fact.
Finally , a state with common sense.!
hmmm interesting link, It will take me a while to read it. thank you.
the 100 acids was an example shown minimum complexity. for any cell to function it needs to have certain mimimum level of functionality. Like how a mouse trap needs 4 parts to work, the base, latch, spring, trigger. If you take any part of theses away, the trap can not go off. And the same will apply to any cell. (well, I've heard some cells and degenerate so much that they are leaching off other cells to survive) Like in a car, if the cars doesn't have wheels, or doesn't have a cam shaft, or doesn't have a pistons then the car will not drive. There is a minimum level required for a cell, that was my argument for abiogenesis.
I've noticed you mention that shorter combinations can combine, and thats a big problem for evolution because you can't randomly mix senquences together because either they produce something which doesnt work,or they kill the chain like in left vs right handed proteins.
And example off the top of my head is hemoglobin, I have a memory hearing that it's is first generated as a ~1000 long protein string folded into a 3d shape. This shape has no functionality. Another protein then shaves off part of the 3d shape and you were left with ~700 proteins, this happens 4 times until you get the function red blood cell at 564 proteins. Now there are a few (6 i think, i am probably be wrong) variations of this which are genetic blood disorders.
My wife is calling me, good bye Virg.
Yep, which probably happened billions of times in the billion or so years before the first cells appeared.
Of course, we don't see any of those examples today because they didn't work and didn't survive... you may be onto something there.
No, seriously, fuck you.
Theism doesn't provide any kind of basis for morality -- look in any holy book and you'll see that plain as day. Assuming you agree(*) with that proposition, how do can you explain the fact that humans are apparently better at deciding moral truth than $GOD?
(*) Otherwise, you'll essentially be endorsing slavery, mutilation of girls/boys/etc. etc. (Your holy book may contain small differences, but they're basically the same misogynist, homophobic bullshit.)
HAND.
Thanks for supporting my point. :) Like I said... 'a particular subset'.