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Bill "The Science Guy" Nye Says Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children
timeOday writes "BigThink has released a video missive by Bill Nye ('The Science Guy') in which he challenges the low level of acceptance of evolution, particularly in the United States. He does not mince words: 'I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can — we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.'"
Bill Nye is awesome.
Bill Nye said kids shouldn't be taught that certain scientific theories are wrong. He never even said creationism, once.
This headline is just sensationalist garbage.
bio-engineering
Bill Nye: You are allowed to be an ignorant drain on our society but for the sake of your children's future, don't force them to ignore the things you're afraid of accepting and understanding.
-SaNo
Of course, most American parents don't understand evolution at all, so it will be impossible to fix this mess. If our population was better educated, we'd be ok, but both parties have done their best to destroy it while telling everyone they are fixing the problems.
Never heard of biochemical engineering? Why is this even moded up to a score of 2 already?
What other people think of me is none of my business
...you can't reason with the irrational, so I doubt his point will sink in. If anything, it will likely cause them to react in anger ... "It's an attack on OUR BELIEFS!", and they'll dig their heels in a little deeper.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
I recently surveyed a few of my adult friends. Somewhat surprisingly most did not realize that the stars in the sky are "suns", most attributing their sparkle to reflection from our sun.
BioMedical
Genetic
Genetic Engineering.
Agronomy
Any zootecniques
and a long long etc.
And, ceteris paribus, we are used by evolution much more than we use her. Its just the natural order of things.
NO SIG
What?
-SaNo
All of them.
In order to be a competent engineer, you must be capable of facing reality, even when it doesn't fit with your presuppositions. If you'd rather stick your fingers in your ear and yell "LA LA LA GODDIDIT!" then you've got no business dealing with anything that other people's lives will depend on.
Knowledge of the mechanisms of natural selection, the fossil record, and the tree of life isn't very useful in most fields.
When do "engineers that can build stuff, solve problems" ever use any of that?
Genetic engineering. We induce mutations via the same mechanisms they occur in in nature (e.g. mismatch repair, retroviruses, etc) and increase their frequency through selective pressure. That's evolution.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Computer science with genetic algorithms.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Or more correctly phrased: which field of engineering uses directly observable phenomenon in an objective matter to design things that will actually work?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Fine. You go America. We'll just see what the power map of the world is fifty years from now once your post-awesome country is filled with idiots and therefore of no relevance in that world.
But. I would rather you did turn yourselves around as, even with your bad stuff, I think you're generally OK.
"we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems"
Even people who don't believe in evolution can still become engineers who "build stuff, solve problems"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Never heard of biochemical engineering? Why is this even moded up to a score of 2 already?
Sorry, but you only need to understand the theories of how things work "now". You only need to understand the mechanics of it all.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Also, structural engineering, materials engineering, when you factor in biomimetics.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
mu.
The Catholic Church doesn't teach Creationism.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
What Bill Nye is really talking about, without saying it outright, is religion in general. He is calling out indoctrination by catechism.
More apt is panel #4 of this cartoon.
This is a fundamental aspect of many religions and is most commonly associated with Catholicism, though is also popular in many evangelical Christian churches.
-chill-
In otherwords, you're totally and completely incapable of understanding the concept that teaching children that it's a bad idea to teach children that any science is wrong? Doesn't matter if you're telling them that evolution or physics or geology is wrong. Teaching them that any science is wrong will screw up their ability to be engineers or scientists in the future.
Catholicism officially recognizes evolution to be correct. They're still having trouble with realizing there isn't a god, but you can see why that one is a bit harder for them.
Bill Nye talks specifically about denial of belief in the theory of evolution. While he doesn't use the word creationism, his comments can only apply to that "world-view" which he believes is contrary to the evidence around us.
This headline captures exactly the message of the video, I have no idea why someone would interpret that video otherwise.
No it isn't. There is no assumption or conclusion that some aspect of the world may not exist. One can say "I think therefore everything is" without concluding that "I think therefore everything was".
But the motivation was the fact that the submitter has obviously completely forgotten what the article said in writing the summary, erecting another Dwakins-like strawman/windmill to fence with.
From the poor victimized Christians as they suffer the intolerant bigotry of those liberals who just won't let them do the Lord's work.
Really, how dare those liberals say they're all in favor of acceptance when they reject a religious theocracy.
I don't know if it's part of their expectations, but it seems Christians always want to make themselves out to be martyrs. They always want the rest of us to believe they're being fed to the lions. They don't grasp the concept of church and state, they think the Muslims are taking over, and they protest that their free speech is being threatened when the rest of us refuse to go along with their will. Apparently we can't say no to them without being bullies.
Prove to me that your memory is reliable, i.e. show me how I can rely on my memory other than through faith.
Do not use your memory to form your argument, or ask me to rely on my memory.
Go!
I don't have faith in my memory. I trust my memory. Unlike faith, trust us earned and subject to review. If I were to grow old and senile and found myself forgetting things, I'd be less inclined to trust my memory and more inclined to start writing more things down to get through my day.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Try David Hume's The Problem with Induction. The conclusion is that there is no reason whatsoever to trust inductive reasoning since it requires inductive reasoning to justify itself and thus begs the question. You can go on an say that since science is based on induction that there is no reason whatsoever to trust science.
What it really comes down to is whether you axiomatically accept induction as a valid method of proof or you run into a wall based on your own existence.
An alternate method of your argument is to prove that the universe didn't start just one second ago with a creator making the universe and setting all of the velocities, potentials, etc (or the Universe was created 6000 years ago and God just liked to hide dinosaur bones and ancient rocks for some reason). Or even better consider that the universe is just one frame and time does not exist.
My suggestion, don't waste your time on this. It is a good philosophical question, but if you plan to live in the real world then you are going to have to accept induction and science even though the logic to do so is tough.
Part of an old post:
People who believe in the literal Word of God as the Bible remind me of the grand-daughter of a family friend --- he was a woodworker, old school, wanted me to be his apprentice so he could put me to work re-sawing wood rather than purchase a band saw. He made a cradle as a gift for the grand-daughter in question, for her to keep her dolls in --- she was very impressed when her mother told her, ``Your grandfather made this by hand.'' and immediately evinced a desire to see him and to see his shop and to watch him make something. The visit was arranged and upon arrival, the young lady was taken out to the shop and the large door rolled open, revealing rack upon rack of chisels, saws, hand planes, a simply unbelievable quantity of clamps and other hand tools --- the girl let out a shriek such as only a 5 year old girl can and yelled, ``Mommy! You lied! Grandpa doesn't make things by hand! He uses tools!''.
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories which we have yet to learn about to make people and the world.
Moreover, those who believe that humanity is incapable of learning how God works are being blasphemous and not remembering the lesson of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:6) which indicates that humanity's learning capacity is without limit.
Believing in God doesn't mandate a belief in Creationism (though believing in Creationism requires the belief in God). Anyone whose faith is so fragile that it could be damaged by a rigorous class in evolutionary biology should go back to CCD or Sunday School or whatever their faith's equivalent is.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
There's nothing wrong with believing in a higher power, but scientifically, there's no use either.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Disagree Mr. AC. I do not see how my belief in a creator undermines the engineering of this missile launcher I'm working on. Even my old college professor believes in god, but that doesn't stop him from publishing peer-reviewed articles about superstrings and quarks and the inflationary period (the very basis of creation). Perhaps you could enlighten us how our beliefs make us suck at our jobs. (insert crickets chirping in the silence)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
believe in a creator makes ALL KINDS of problems. mentally, you are weaker when you think 'magic works!'.
essentially, religion is a statement that 'OUR magic works, theirs does not'.
you want kids growing up thinking that?
oh, wait, we already do that. and just LOOK at all the great minds we have in the US, these days (rolls eyes).
the world laughs at us. I hate that. I wish we could eliminate religion. we, as a people, would grow up SO MUCH if we let go of bronze age fairy tales and started to accept the world for how it really is and not how some sheep hearder told us to be.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Bill "The Science Guy" Nye? No no no. It's "Bill Nye The Science Guy"! (Billlll Nyeeee the Scienceee Guyyy.)
No, it's called philosophical bullshit.
If memory was so unreliable, all that technology around you, the development of which definitely relies on the human ability to remember, correctly interrelate, and innovate... simply wouldn't be there. Ergo, memory is incontrovertibly demonstrated to be very effective and reliable.
Here's a pro tip for you: As soon as you have to reach into the murky waters of philosophical nonsense for excuses to shore up your superstitions, you've not only jumped the shark, the shark has bitten off your genitals.
Scientists and rational beings can. Religious zealots and irrational beings can't.
Did you hear about the 17 people beheaded by the Taliban for the crime of 'mingling'? And you expect the zealots to even have a rational conversation about evolution?
Not going to happen.
There's nothing wrong with believing in a higher powe
there is when you use that belief to impose upon other people's lives with it.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Yeah, I know - but thank you for the good response. I was just poking fun at the submitter for having seemingly completely forgotten what the article he was summarising was actually about.
Faith may not be earned, but can *definitely* be subject to review.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If the man was serious he would ask parents to teach their children to be rational beings -- not to blindly accept whatever theory he find politically convenient at the moment.
There is no theory that should simply, at face value, be or not be accepted -- the facts tell you which ones to believe and which ones to reject. That is science.
Mr. Nye has confused his politics and his profession.
I would, but you should prove first that you exist at all (as opposed to being a figment of my brain). When you fail that, kindly remove yourself from existence.
(Just a morning talk show on a music station, not some sort of bible-thumping show. It was just a random topic that went by)
DJ: "If evolution is true, then how come chimps don't evolve into people... any more?"
And that is what passes for scientific debate here in the You Ess Aye.
You are equating faith with belief. Faith in most Christian settings incorporates belief with fiducia (trust).
How do you know that all this technology is around you? More specifically, how do you know that everything you are looking at does what you think it does?
Also, if philosophy is bullshit then we might as well crawl back to ~C4 BC and start again. This is why there are rarely any bright individuals in computer engineering classes: they simply don't see the value of any learning beyond how electricity works.
I do not see how my belief in a creator undermines the engineering of this missile launcher I'm working on.
While your belief system may not affect the quality of your work (although I'm not suggesting that it does not), did you ever consider if your "creator" wanted you to work on a missile launcher? Which faith do you subscribe to? Is it one with an admonition like "don't kill people"?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Also, Structural engineering has evolved over time (underwent evolution)... it's not like the international build codes magically came to be a superior ultimate being.
Human residences evolved from sticks and feces-laden mud all the way to hi-grade structural steel, carbon fiber reinforced concrete, carbon fiber beams, etc. to construct buildings as tall as the imagination can take us.
Creationism's whole basis is that a supreme being (GOD) simply put things where they are now. It reinforces the notion that people are incapable of coming up with brilliant scientific discoveries and achieve scientific enlightment because things came to be from a supreme being, not from your brain.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
You might be interested in this clip from Richard Dawkins' video "The Blind Watchmaker". It shows how an evolutionary algorithm was used to develop a structure for a gas line to supply sixteen different points without any back pressure and while using the least amount of tubing possible.
I don't think it's necessary to believe Darwinian evolution as the origin of the species to be a successful scientist. It is possible to "believe" in the observed existence of mutations and natural selection - the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, moths changing from white to black to white as the environment gets dirty and then cleans up - and still believe that the origins of the human species were other than random.
I think it's hard to simultaneously be a scientist and a young earth creationist, although I suppose you can hold the view that God created the universe 6000 years ago to exactly mimic a 14 billion-year-old expanding universe, and that everything we measure about the universe is consistent with a 14 billion year age because God is really smart. But given that that universe is indistinguishable from one which is actually 14 billion years old, you're also happy to believe all of astrophysics models the universe correctly, because you know God made a perfect fake.
Yes! Stand up for ignorance!
Yes, teach them silly things that contradict reality and to be willfully ignorant.
He's no tyrant. However, there are more than a few wannabe tyrants among the US Christian community who feel they are charged by God to be a tyrant over others. And there are many, particularly those that push Intelligent Design, that don't want people to be capable of arguing in their own defense or contradicting the weak arguments of those they support.
No, but if you're willing to reject evolution in favor of irrational beliefs then your ability as a scientist cannot help but be compromised.
Lemme guess, this is one of those "there's no right answer except goddidit" bullshit-pseudophilosophical puzzles?
The Catholic Church recognizes that evolution may be one correct way of understanding how life works on earth. Unless something has come out in recent years making a more dogmatic stance, it does not explicitly uphold evolution. Whatever the case may be, there are a number of Christians (Catholic or otherwise) who hold to some form of gradual development (be it through theistic evolution [including some forms of intelligent design] or a gradual development followed by disaster followed by the traditional six day creation as recreation). In both of these cases, "creationism" could still be held to apply to their belief system and yet not fall under the critique of Bill Nye's statement (this statement at least).
So, which field of Engineering uses the 'theory' of Creationism?
Reductio ad absurdum. You can only regress faith so far before you have to accept faith as faith. There are no solid foundations, except for the ones you find and accept for yourself.
Good-bye
"Sir, your foreman reports a large crack in the bridge."
"My belief system denies the existence of frangible bridges. It is safe."
Engineers who are willing to let political, religious, or ideological beliefs prevent them from drawing logical conclusions from observed data don't build things and solve problems: they destroy things and kill people.
If you want a real-world example?
"Sir, your engineers report that it is unsafe to launch the shuttle when it's this cold. The O-rings will crack."
"Underling, my political sponsor requires that a Teacher needs to be in Space because his boss's State of the Union speech won't sound as good if we delay the launch. It's worked before. Launch the shuttle."
In the case of Challenger, it was engineers trying to report their observations, and being overriden by management that was more interested in the politics/optics of a situation, but the same principle applies.
If an engineer is willing to reject the conclusions derived from following the scientific method in biology class, how can I, driving over his bridge, trust that he didn't also reject its results in metallurgy class?
Genetic engineering. We induce mutations via the same mechanisms they occur in in nature (e.g. mismatch repair, retroviruses, etc) and increase their frequency through selective pressure. That's evolution.
Actually, that is intelligent design. No doubt your mutations tell themselves you don't exist and they created themselves by evolution.
I'll probably get modded down for this, but personally, I don't see a conflict between Creationism and Evolution. Are there forms of Creationism that can conflict? Sure, but that doesn't mean that the two are completely irreconcilable.
For example, if you look at the creation account in Genesis, and take into account that the word that translates as "Day" can also mean "period of time", "Age", or "epoch", and not necessarily a defined period of time, then you can easily interpret it as mirroring what science tells us about how the Earth was formed and life evolved.
Consider, that we started off with a massive release of energy, then the solar system coalesced from a cloud of dust and gas. As the Earth formed, vapors condensed into liquids, the land cooled and solidified, and the sky cleared (making the sun, moon, and stars visible). Plants developed, and then animals of increasing complexity developed, culminating in Man.
Tradition has it that the book of Genesis was written by Moses, who learned of the Creation directly from God. If you consider the level of understanding that would have been available in his time (Rabbinical tradition holds as being around 1300 BCE), the descriptions in Genesis are a rather good description of what modern-day science thinks on the subject today.
The important thing is to keep each subject in context. Moses wasn't concerned about describing the details of how life was created. For his account all that was necessary is to describe that it was created.
It's not necessary to pick one or the other. You can provide a balanced view of both sides to you children. I know my very-religious physicist parents did.
Whether or not you believe in one god, thousands of gods, three gods "in one," or whatever else should have absolutely no bearing on science, and should not even be mentioned while teaching a lesson about science. You can teach your kids whatever you want; but when my kids are in science class, they had better be taught science, and not anyone's religion. If you want your kids to learn that the theory of evolution is falsehood, home school them, send them to a private school, or whatever else -- and the rest of us will just continue to be astounded by their ignorance of science.
Palm trees and 8
Belief in God and belief in evolution need not be separate things. You can completely believe in God while still believing in evolution. What the AC was pointing out is that most Creationists that completely deny evolution refuse to believe the evidence right in front of them. He said nothing about whether or not God exists, but nice try.
In some sense, engineering is intelligent design, not evolution. But would be a very dumb design if just denies evidence and build blindly according to the "truth" written by someone without even math knowledge more than 2000 years ago.
Why is this even moded up to a score of 2 already?
Because there's tons of Americans here on Slashdot, and most Americans believe in Creationism.
Even the most hardcore creationist would be likely to accept microevolution. That being said, it doesn't seem likely that a creationist would choose this particular field.
www.clarke.ca
And acceptance without proof is faith.
Chemical, electrical, mechanical, bio, structural, civil all use evolution in a variety of ways. A lot of computer modeling is done based on genetic algorithms, for instance.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Based on the transcript, I don't think that's what Bill Nye is saying here. From the video transcript:
Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place.
He's not really talking about spiritualism, religion, or any other belief systems; he's talking about a small subset of people bent on eschewing very carefully collected, studied, and reviewed data because they perceive it as an attack on their personal belief system. The Science guy is concerned that bad and irrational decisions are being made under the guise of "its my religion". His purpose is not to decry religion, but to defend science, evolution specifically as it is the target of attacks. I think the thought process is less "don't let religion get into science" and more "think rationally about scientific matters." His plea for "...scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future." and "...people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems" is less about evolution versus religion and more about ensuring that future generations are trained to think logically; to think things through instead of standing on ceremony, that is, actually try to find the best solution, not just one that someone wants.
Does this mean he's against creationism in the classroom? Probably, because it's inconsistent with pretty much every other scientific model out there. But I don't think he's intending to harp on the idea of there being a creator; just people who want to push their agenda at the expense of education
" if philosophy is bullshit then we might as well crawl back to ~C4 BC and start again."
Im all for this, with minor changes.
" if religious bullshit is to be respected, then we might as well crawl back to ~C4 BC and start again."
There.
NO SIG
Which every single type of engineering uses.
You want to land a machine on the moon, artificial simulated evolution is one way to find the correct thrust.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
+1 for correct use of the phrase "begs the question".
So what you're saying is that if we teach Creationism, then the kids will grow up to build perpetual motion machines? While the rest of us are stuck with pesky laws of physics? Hey, anything if it will get me my flying car faster.
it is funny for you to see bill nye as the threat to your liberty when organized religion is the biggest liberty crushing enterprise ever
it is the same as this bullshit argument about "religious freedom" we hear about when the almighty catholic church might have to cover the reproductive healthcare costs of its employees. "religious freedom" from the perspective of the catholic church here is the "freedom" to be the freedom destroying oppressive force in question.
religious freedom is an oxymoron. there is no such thing as religious freedom. there is only the "freedom", ie, the slave's choice to give up your freedoms to a hierarchy of force that happens to dress in robes. who believes it holds absolute ability to interpret right and wrong based on what some grumpy old men (it's always men) think, who believe they have a monopoly on interpreting the will of a god. and if you disagree with them, force is used against you within the religious hierachy
this is "religious freedom"? there's no such thing. a true grasp on the concept of freedom and liberty requires that you reject organized religion in your life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Amen!
I hear you and I logically agree with you. But I've witnessed many examples that show this not to be the case.
For example, when I was in engineering school the most brilliant of my fellow students was a strong believer in creationism. He once lent me one of his creationism textbooks. I dutifully read it and found it to be nonsensical and completely illogical. Yet he was firmly convinced this was the truth. I never have understood how someone who was getting straight A+ marks while taking a double course load could at the same time believe such nonsense.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
I agree. Why does a belief on God have to exclude an acceptance of evolution? Or vice-versa? I believe in God, I also think that evolution is scientific fact. If anything, the wonders of science strengthen my belief and increase my awe of Gods power. There are many mysteries I do not understand, both scientifically and theologically. But I have often wondered, Why couldn't God use evolution as part of the creative process?
I wish I could think of something witty for my sig.
Also, structural engineering, materials engineering, when you factor in biomimetics.
Also, software development, with each new language we mus master we continue to evolve into more hideous creatures with each passing day.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Whether we agree to that or not (I'm an atheist so I think Genesis has no more to do with reality than Aztec mythology, but anyways), the question is inevitably centered around the question of what to teach children in a science class. In my view, and in the view of people I know who are Christians, it is not appropriate to teach Genesis in the science classroom, not even in the context of "Genesis and cosmology/geology/evolutionary biology don't need to disagree."
Simply put, it is not appropriate to discuss religion in a science class. How a person reconciles their faith and science is a matter between them, their god, and if they choose, their pastor/priest/rabbi/mullah/whatever.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I am working on a degree in Chemical and Biological engineering and we definitely use evolution. There are even computer models now based on adaptation speeds for things like resistance to drugs etc.
Evolution is critically important to modern biotech work.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Prove to me that your faith is reliable using facts from memory; asshat.
The thing is, faith is just your own intuition. Science can at least be proven and as we learn more we can prove more. We have things called hypotheses because we cannot prove them and haven't tried yet. We have theories because we have tried to prove them and, so far, it looks good but it's not 100%. Then we get to Laws; these we know are true and you can go shove them up your God's ass.
Note: to those who can safely straddle the line of spiritual/religious and scientific, I apologize for my rude demeanor.
-SaNo
If you want to get into some deeper philosophical crap about who's to say *that* memory was not simply created [...] then it really does not matter.
Why is it "crap"? Why does it not matter?
Is it because you don't like to accept that you have started by accepting something without proof, i.e. had faith?
Science continues to be about understanding reality.
Indeed. But we cannot begin understanding reality unless we begin with faith - in our memories.
I dont need to prove my memory, dufus. Thats why I have a wall in my cave, to paint on it. A clay tablet, to write on it. A stone wall, to carve stories on it. Papyrus, later paper, later the press, later this, that, and those. And finally, this thingie here we call a macbook pro 15 in late 2011.
The fact that counciousness is our memory and our memory compresses, sometimes loosing stuff, sometimes modifying and interpreting, cannot be weilded as evidence for the inexistance of shit we write to and ITS reliability. All to the contrary: the fact that we devised stuff to remember better is proof that both our memory sucks and we dont like it.
NO SIG
Mr. AC never said anything about a generalized belief in a creator, he was addressing Creationism, which is where fundamentalist religious belief causes people to refuse to belief in actual physical evidence that can be observed and verified, because they prefer to believe origin fairy tales that have no basis in reality and no evidence to support them, and tons of evidence that disproves them. Simply believing in a "creator" doesn't prevent you from accepting evolutionary theory; lots of religious people, including Christians (in fact, most of them if you consider them all instead of focusing only on Americans) have no problem with the theory of evolution, and regard the biblical creation tale to be mere metaphor, not literal truth.
In short, don't get your panties in a bunch.
When you're done congratulating yourself for defeating strawmen, no matter how funny the involuntarily irony of that may be, can you come back to the argument you clearly have nothing in hand for? Haha...
It's called separating fantasy from reality -- congratulations on being capable of doing so.
Palm trees and 8
Bill Nye made a simple and important point about why people should encourage their children to learn about evolution. How did you interpret that as a tyrant bossing you around?
If you think a creationist is going to be scared of genetic algorithms, then you're fighting the boogeyman. You've made some serious leaps of logic that defy reality. A person can easily have a hard time believing that "humans evolved from ooze", yet still be able to easily comprehend and work with genetic algorthms. Thinking otherwise is so far removed from any reality that I've ever experienced, that it's just preposterous.
www.clarke.ca
Totally agree. I feel like majority of religious people are rational enough to realize that creationism and evolution can go hand in hand, unfortunately, it's the ones who can't accept the idea of God using science that are the loudest people out there...
What's your point?
Well, my qualifications are all in mathematics.
And mathematics is a product of philosophy.
So, yep.
I think your title is incorrect: In Catholicism (and many other Christian sects), 3 = 1 under the right conditions, and anyone who thought differently was branded a heretic in 325 C.E.
I am officially gone from
False analogy.
There is no equivalence between the biblical story and the scientific evidence. Firstly, one is a story, the other is evidence. Secondly, the bible then goes on to make several incorrect statements about the order of events that happened on earth, not to mention getting the time scale very very wrong. The final nail in the coffin is the story of the Ark. There are more species alive today than could possibly be stuffed into the Ark - and we 'know' the size of the ark well from the bible. Not to mention all these carnivorous animals, once off the ark somehow didn't eat one of the two non-carnivorous animals hence making that line extinct before the waters even receded. Lastly, how on earth did the Koala, which only eats a few species of eucalyptus leaves - only found in Australia - walk the long trek from the middle east, not eating anything along the way, to Australia and promptly wait for the local trees to regrow their leaves so they didn't starve to death?
I am always amazed how people can believe such stories after mankind came to understand the actual diversity of life on earth. It is truly an embarrassment to believe these old stories.
What other people think of me is none of my business
So, this bacteria is sitting in this petri dish that's been sitting on a lab bench evolving increased toxin resistance for many generations, and he says to another bacteria "You know, someone created all this. His name is Bill Nye, and he hates the weaklings among us who can't tolerate the presence of XYZ. That's why he created all this, so he could weed out the weak, and someday, he'll pluck us from this place and bring us to Heaven, to serve his purpose."
So, they fired him from his engineering job because he was clearly crazy.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It doesn't, and that's not what Nye is saying either. He's saying that your religious beliefs that directly dispute scientific facts makes you part of the less educated populace who makes decisions and vote in ways that are illogical.
Todd Akin's religious beliefs (and the loony doctor he listens to) makes him bad at understanding reproductive systems, and therefore bad at his job.
You and your old professor just got lucky that the bible is fairly quiet on missile systems and superstrings.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
No, that's not right. There STILL isn't anything wrong with believing in a higher power, even when you try to "impose" upon others. The problem there is you trying to impose. That's a huge problem. You shouldn't be forcing others to believe in your view. This is exactly what Bill Nye is talking about. That's poor logic reasoning. The problem is with the morons trying to force/impose others to believe what they believe. That's a seperate problem from the fact that they do believe in a higher power. You're the typical person that takes two different concepts, and lumps them into one, and then cries afoul of both, when realistically there is one problem. That's the type of talk that makes the religious people hate the non-religious people. Because instead of attacking their stupidity in forcing others to believe the same, we just attack their belief. Of course they get defensive over that. And frankly, even if we DID change their belief, they would still be assholes. Because then they'd just be people of a different believe system trying to force that down everyone's neck. The problem is NOT the "belief system" the problem is the "forcing" of the belief system.
No they would only say they were not created by a God and they would be correct.
Ah, solipsism rears it's ugly head.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Perhaps you could enlighten us how our beliefs make us suck at our jobs.
I'd love to, but you've already stated that you will ignore any and all evidence that goes against your presuppositions, while sticking your fingers in your ears (in this case to listen to crickets chirping apparently) to avoid anything that counters your beliefs. Incidentally, that, exactly, is why you're incompetent, and should never be allowed to work on something people's lives depend on. Frankly, if all you're working on is missile launchers, I don't care if your idiocy screws things up so that they short out and do nothing when someone tries to use them, but if you ever start trying to build skyscrapers or bridges, someone's probably going to die because you refused to accept some point of reality that had been abundantly proven, yet went against your 2000+ year old stone age dogma. If you won't look rationally at one piece of evidence, then the probability is very strong that as time goes on, to support your superstitions you'll start ignoring others, until it becomes a deeply ingrained habit, and people end up dead because of it.
Haha, nice one. That made my hour.
www.clarke.ca
You can't force someone to believe. I became atheist despite an evangelical upbringing. I am now back believing, though a little more mystical than in my youth, having thought everything through, but fifteen years of detailed thought will obviously not fit in this comment box.
-- The Grand Teddy Bear has Spoken: "Windows 8 Source Code Available NOW! more disgusting than your pr..."
It led to an interesting discussion. I posted the following comment:
"I like Bill Nye's approach to a lot of scientific teaching, loved most of his TV show growing up, but he does not in any way put forward an argument for evolution or against creationism in this video. He simply waves his hand and says - without offering a logical, this 'leads-to-that' argument - that by not believing in evolution your world view is inconsistent. I'm afraid that doesn't pass muster for me, though I would be interested in hearing a more in-depth discussion on the subject from him.
Personally, I don't believe in *macro* evolution (one species evolving into another) - and yet my world view is 100% functional and, I believe, logical. The great thing in the end, though, is that if evolution is true my worldview remains intact: evolution itself is not integral to it one way or the other :) I believe God created the universe and everything in it, and while I believe He did it within the literal amount of time described in the Bible it would also be entirely believable that He did so over eons and used evolution in the process - it would not change the fact that He did it!"
My friend replied saying that just because I disagreed with the video didn't mean I should disparage it. I almost couldn't believe what he was saying: I felt like I had been very respectful in my comment, and I was responding to a video that I felt was disparaging my position (not the other way around). Thus I replied with this:
"I in no way meant disrespect! I tried to use very civil words in my comment above, and if I came across impolite in any way then I apologize.
However, I do find it somewhat funny that your reaction would be to accuse me of disparaging something I disagree with when that is exactly what the original video you linked to was itself. Bill Nye, who again I respect greatly for his skill at combining education and entertainment, put forward the following:
1) The idea that the denial of evolution is unique to the US - which I very much doubt, as both Christians and some other religions (Islam, in particular) tend to hold views that contradict with macro evolution.
2) That not believing in evolution - which we cannot measure and observe in a lab - is comparable to not believing in plate tectonics (which we can observe and measure).
3) That we need good scientists and engineers, and therefore should not teach our children creationism. This in effect implies that someone cannot hold a creationist viewpoint and also contribute in those fields, which is preposterous (I personally know several scientists and engineers who hold beliefs similar to my own, and who are still very effective in their work - and I have read the works of many others who are much higher up in their respective fields).
These things all disparage creationist viewpoints, without any actual argument from logic about why evolution is right. That was all I was trying to point out previously, and I tried to do so in every bit as nice and calm of a way as Bill Nye portrayed in his video."
I have not yet heard back from him again.
William George
No need to try again. Still not the same as faith.
And you can teach your children whatever you like; just don't force schools to stop teaching for the good of the public just because you might not believe in something as true.
-SaNo
"we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems"
Even people who don't believe in evolution can still become engineers who "build stuff, solve problems"
Not without a fair amount of mental gymnastics. I've always wanted to sit in on a "Christian Science" class and answer all the questions with "Because God wills it to be so". Seems like an easy A.
Additionally, we accept (as a thought exercise) that there is an omnipotent being, then it could create the universe in such a way that it would seem as if it had existed for eons before its creation. It's possible that such a being could have created the universe just yesterday, with all systems in place, all fossils in the ground, all memories in our heads, which would be completely indistinguishable from a universe that existed for billions of years. After all, such a being is omnipotent.
This does not mean that studying the systems and history of the universe would be fruitless. Of course, it would be completely impossible to prove or disprove, as such an omnipotent being would be capable of masking its existence if it so chose.
I will teach my kids whatever I want to teach them.
I don't think he ever said you can't. What we're talking about is what should be curriculum for students in the public schools. Fortunately you and I pay the taxes that fund these institutions, unfortunately that means we have to come to an agreement on what should be taught in said institutions. Furthermore, if you found Bill Nye to be a good educator with his programs and efforts then perhaps you should take his suggestions as more than telling you what to do. "Tyrant"? Please leave the hyperbole rhetoric to the politicians.
Furthermore: Belief in a creator does not negate thescientific endeavor.
No but we're getting to (well, some of us have crossed it long ago) the point where some of the things that science is teaching us blatantly contradicts several ancient doctrines. And while you can claim that believing the Earth is only 6,000 does not negate the scientific endeavor, it sure hinders an awful lot of fields. You can teach your children whatever you want in your home but in order for them to function in society or for higher learning institutions to accept them as scholars, we need to lay down some ground rules. I'll tell you what, I'll keep writing book reviews and you can tell us how much better off your child is for you teaching them creationism over evolution. Can the rest of us please move forward?
Many scientists over the years have believed in God or a god, even as they were unravelling the mystery of evolution and cosmology.
Sure they have! And some scientists have been racists, liars, bigots, adulterers, murderers, swindlers, politicians and even lawyers! But that doesn't make those actions or ways of life right. Read about the twilight years of Georg Cantor and we'll talk about how smart it is to consider everything a genius claims or believes in to be absolutely true. Unlike a cosmologist espousing about god or Georg Cantor claiming Bacon was Shakespeare, Bill Nye is talking about the scientific community's views on creationism versus evolution. And I can assure you that nobody is publishing in peer reviewed journals about creationism or intelligent design while peer reviewed journals dedicated to evolutionary biology are currently being peer reviewed the world over.
My work here is dung.
That's my only problem with Bill's video: it was guaranteed to trigger the knee-jerk response of "You can't tell me how to raise my kids!". It was spoken from the heart, and as such a lousy piece of propaganda. To convince Americans, you have to weave in freedom "you're free from long dead guys telling you how to live your life!" and money "using the theory of evolution at work makes you more money than if you don't". It's sad, but true.
On more abstract notes: actually, we can. You can tell your kids that there's a giant bearded guy in the sky who is responsible for everything that's happening, and we can tell you that you're wrong and reducing the odds of your kids being successful. If you think someone telling you that you're being an idiot is the same as a tyrant telling his serfs to fork over more wheat bushels, you have unlearned every lesson a serf has ever learned. And finally, Creationism is not the same as belief in god. One deals with the unknowable, the other is just a creation myth that some people decided to take literally.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Creationism has a pretty specific definition when we're talking about evolution. What you're describing, and what the Catholic Church tends to advocate is basically a form of theistic evolution. It is useful to have definitions for words so we can all speak the same language, and Creationism tends to be in a separate category from theistic evolution because Creationism, to one extent or another, inevitably denies key facets of evolutionary theory, whereas theistic evolution pretty much accepts all of evolutionary theory, but still keeps "God's hand" in affairs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
uses the theory of evolution?
Outside of biology, evolution has informed our understanding of chemistry, psychology, cognitive science, computer science (especially artificial intelligence), linguistics, economics, math (especially game theory), and doubtless many others. As an example, the principles of natural selection inspired the creation of genetic algorithms, which have been widely used to tackle hard optimization problems.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
In order to be a competent engineer, you must be capable of facing reality, even when it doesn't fit with your presuppositions. If you'd rather stick your fingers in your ear and yell "LA LA LA GODDIDIT!" then you've got no business dealing with anything that other people's lives will depend on.
Competent engineers don't believe working systems pop out of nothing. Compare the feature list of any living organism and then compare it to the feature list of your computer.
Random noise as a creative instrument is an attempt to brute force the problem. It doesn't take much analysis to realize that the set of working configurations is greatly outnumbered by the set of non-working configurations. Natural selection doesn't improve the generation of mutations (new configurations), it only reduces the mutations to the "working ones".
Evolutionary theory itself is a historical claim on events that occurred "millions and billions" of years ago. A dogmatic belief on what happened in the past is completely unnecessary for an engineer to correctly apply scientific principles (which are concerned with the ongoing mechanics of the universe).
So no, a competent engineer should recognize that evolution is in no way a prerequisite to science or knowledge, and all appeals to its popularity are logical fallacies.
Well, there's this "swords to plowshares" thing. Shouldn't that be, like, a slight bump in that particular road?
What they know is a lot of talking points and straw men that look like genuine knowledge to someone who isn't familiar with the subject matter. But this does not mean that they actually know the science behind the theories they claim to refute.
I think that dog breeds are one of the biggest examples of engineered evolution. Surely the most dogmatic (pun intended) of the creationists will have to admit that the present dog breeds were created by scientific evolution.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
In otherwords, you're totally and completely incapable of understanding the concept that teaching children that it's a bad idea to teach children that any science is wrong? Doesn't matter if you're telling them that evolution or physics or geology is wrong. Teaching them that any science is wrong will screw up their ability to be engineers or scientists in the future.
You're kidding, right? Since when has the progress of science been driven by conformists who are afraid to question widely accepted notions? Does the status of "a science" magically elevate ideas beyond the realm where mere mortals are allowed to question them? Do we have to believe in phrenology and phychoanalysis in order to preserve out ability to work as engineers?
Well, for starters, you're conversing with others over the internet.
You remember this.
Given many, many people posting here all possess knowledge which I myself do not have,
And this.
they therefore must be separate entities, and not just figments of my imagination. Therefore, the internet exists,
And you used what you remembered to conclude this.
since I am seeing information which I have not previously been aware of.
As far as you can remember.
This problem is old and familiar. The only thing you can really do is acknowledge that it is exists. Carry on fighting, though...
Mr. AC never denied the existence of God. Accepting God is different from accepting Evolution. Your point still stands. We can still successfully make high-tech crap while still believing things that are not necessarily true (or even logical).
You cant PROVE anything to another human being, it takes faith on some level. I have no direct personal proof that the Sun is a huge ball of gas, i take it on faith that the scientists are telling me the truth. Their claims are lent credence by their methods and willingness to accept they are possibly wrong.
Good-bye
Political "Science"?
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
The fact that you believe in a magic, all-powerful "god" makes your judgment suspect. It weakens your case for logic and *should* be a source of embarrassment for you.
It would be no different in believing, as an adult, in an Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, or that Batman would save you if you ever got into serious trouble. Oh, wait, that's actually a great idea -- compare your religion with belief in Batman. Both have books, written by different people. Both have supernatural and/or extraordinary events. Only one, however, has incest and people being tortured for their religious beliefs and guess what? It's not Batman comics.
No, but the rejection of critical thinking and rationality necessary to defend the belief in the biblical creation story in the face of contrary evidence is something that stunts the mental development of children in all other areas of science and understanding. The belief in biblical creation is itself not the problem, but rather one of the most common causes of the problem. It would also be bad if they were taught to reject physics in defense of a geocentric flat earth story.
1. Science does not deal in Truth. It deals in the best explanation that fits the evidence.
2. That we may not be able to probe further back that the Planck time right now does not mean we will never be able to. Burying your god in the gaps of our knowledge invites your god to get smaller as the gaps are filled.
Which is as absurd a demand as saying "Show me every generation of the spoken language between Proto-Germanic and Elizabethan English with complete syntax and vocabularies."
One does not have to have a complete data set to be able to make inferences based upon the data we do have, and thus we can say with a high degree of confidence that "Elizabethan English is descended from Proto-Germanic" and "all extant life evolved from a common ancestor", when in both cases we can only make indirect inferences about what Proto-Germanic and the earliest common ancestor of life were like.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yep, from what i hear a hand full of people can build an ark that weighs close to 9000 tons out of gopher wood in about a week's time and fill it with 100,000+ animals with food and shelter for all for over a year with only hand tools...
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
This is your big concern in a society where little Johnny can hardly do 8th grade math, let alone Physics 101 or even Earth Science?
While I agree with all the usual bantering that goes on around here about evolution should be taught (blah blah blah), you people are really missing the big picture. Today's science education isn't suffering because of creationism/evolution. It's suffering because kids don't bother with nearly any school work at all. Money isn't a fix. The community is more involved with their TVs than their children. This decline will continue as long as you continue to give merit to strawmen.
I wouldn't say "most Americans". There's just a very vocal minority out there that presents itself as representing the majority.
Creationism is not the problem. It is merely the outward manifestation of it. The problem is mindless evangelicals that expect blind devotion and for you to check your brain at the door. This creationism nonsense is just the most visible part of their worldview. These people are extremists even by the standards of other religious people.
They're like the Amish except with no balls. They make a lot of separatist noises and then just whine and pretend they are somehow victimized by society.
It's also useful to note that this lot were the only people to defend those recent "legitimate rape" remarks.
Creationism is just a symptom of a much more fundemental problem.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That a field of engineering copies what exists in nature, is not evidence that nature came into existence by random chance, or that a belief of it is necessary.
Consider that the competing belief is that an intelligent designer created what exists in nature. Structural engineers would then be copying from a better engineer who left behind some impressive work.
Considering that junior engineers copy from existing designs all the time, the theory of evolution is completely unnecessary for the existence or utility of biomimetics.
The inherent difficulty in deciding that Genesis is metaphorical, especially with the American biblical literalists, is that without the fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, there is no Original Sin. If there's no Original Sin, why did Jesus have to die for our sins?
Your memory is not reliable. Objective testing has shown that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Every field of engineering and science uses an approach to knowledge that is consistent with Darwin and incompatible with creationism.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I do not see how my belief in a creator undermines the engineering of this missile launcher I'm working on.
It isn't your belief in a creator which matters, but your non-belief in the process of evolution (which, by the way, is not incompatible with the concept of a supreme being). The latter is indicative of a systemic inability to evaluate evidence in a rational manner. Those who cannot think rationally about the world cannot be effective scientists or engineers.
Even if you constrain your irrational thinking to only this single topic, it is a symptom of mental illness, no different than disputing the color of the sky.
You seem to be confused that there's a difference.
Santa is way better, he can also judge you magically from afar, but brings you toys every year.
Yep, the guy with multiple Ph.D's disagrees with the your particular brand of invisible sky daddy, must be a dumbass.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
Mommy, what did they do in Sodom that was sinful?
If the practiced Sodomy in Sodom, did they practice Gomorrahy in Gomorrah?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I think therefore I am - that one is easy.
And I don't care whether what I am seeing right now exists - all that matters is that I perceive its existence.
But I can't be so sure about one second ago. This is why I have to have faith in my memory, i.e. trust it without proof.
You do as well, of course. Embrace your faith.
Engineers can play the reduction to the absurd game too.
Engineers never reduce enough. Otherwise they would be mathematicians, and not be so laughably angered by philosophy.
I grew up in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church. We were all about killing people. We prayed for Armageddon, and members of my fathers church sought out positions within the USAF Strategic Air Command, so they would have the opportunity to be involved in the extermination of mankind to fulfill gods will. Fortunately I have come to reject the faith of my father and no longer bow before such evil.
But explaining away something by referring to that higher power's whims can be wrong.
When all is said and done, we'll find that we were created by various alien races. So Evolutionists and Creationists let's chill out and enjoy the ride.
> Belief in a creator does not negate the scientific endeavor.
Yes it does. Science is based on empiricism, not in belief in a 'Holy Book' without questioning.
If you train your children to accept things from authority on faith, you are off to a bad start.
the expansion and contraction we see at long ranges could simply be the crest and trough of something like waves on the surface of the ocean, a minor local event in a universe infinite in time and space. that's what i believe
the big bang fits too neatly with creation myths of abrahamic religions
what proof do i have for my belief? none
just a sense from looking at history and how anthropomorphic thinking and self-centeredness gradually gives way to finding ourselves at the center of a vast, uncaring universe. i feel the big bang theory is the last gasp of mankind's religious prejudices about reality affecting our science
oh and look, the big bang theory started with a priest at a catholic school, of course. who else would see the creation of the universe in this way, in a mind saturated with the "let there be light" family of books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
the big bang theory will be upended. i have no proof
just a gut feeling from the trajectory of mankind's thinking and what reality has shown in contradiction. the big bang theory is another creation myth, like any other
it's turtles, all the way down
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I accept my memory as reliable. My acceptance is an act of faith.
The same applies to you, whether you want to admit it or not.
I grew up Catholic. The Catholic Church does not believe the bible is literally true, and the story of Genesis is considered to be metaphor. The CC has serious issues, but the whole evolution debate is not one of them, nor is it for any non-fundamentalist sect. It's only the fundies who buy into the creationist BS. Unfortunately, the fundies are a growing majority in America.
I read somewhere a recent poll said about 46% of Americans believed in Creationism. It may be a minority, but it was the slimmest of margins when 2 evolution beliefs (evolution guided by a creator, and atheistic evolution) added up to 47%.
Here's where I found it:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/27/bill-nye-slams-creationism/?hpt=hp_bn13
You seem to be using "ignorance" in a different way than the rest of us. But maybe you will come to your senses if your kid decides to forgo education in order to seek out a Jedi temple to learn the Force...
I wouldn't necessarily jump to cheating. I know plenty of people like that as well, not all of them cheated, some were just very good at regurgitating statements and very bad at comprehending and applying them. In fact, I think the majority of the 4.00 students I knew were like that...
This is the kind of thread I save my Mod points for...
Awwww crap I posted.
As a friend at work says, he's part of the church of Bill and Ted, there's one rule "Be excellent to each other." If everyone followed that one rule there would be no need for any other rules... or religions.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
No more than anyone else. Whereas the Religious Right has actual politicians in office pushing woman-hating laws.
While I have no love for such fairy tales, the First Amendment guarantees that won't happen.
Yeah but he's not nearly as powerful as the Religious Right is.
I'd argue that, far and away, deliberately keeping children ignorant by giving them tightly controlled, fundamentalist christian approved "educations" rife with nontheories like intelligent design is an actual threat to this nation.
Agreed. We should just cut the insurance companies completely and go single payer.
Indeed. And when it comes to health, when you have an emergency you can just die!
Except in a civilized world, we work to prevent people from dying needlessly. Even when idiots like Jenny McCarthy and the Anti-vaxxers push to allow communicable diseases to spread, and "christian scientists" convince their children that they really do want to die from their treatable ailment.
No, but they can certainly subsidize those terrible, cleaner options. Or we could go the other way and cut oil subsidies.
No, tyrrany is something else entirely. Go ahead though, let the Religious Right get real power. That will show you tyrrany.
Why? Why is it needed to assume something that you know for a fact you cannot prove?
I know free will likely doesn't exist, I still live as if it did. I also know that everything I have a word for doesn't exist in the way I perceive them to exist either, and to my best knowledge everything is everything. Yet I still say "I" and manage to eat food and whatnot. I still have them, I just don't have too much stakes in these illusions.
Which of course pisses people off who don't enjoy that luxury.
The Real World, an objective view of existance, is impossible from within it. So what you're really talking about is delusion and insanity. It's okay to not know, but it's insanity to pretend you do.
Which is, of course, the irony in all this. Lots of comments here by not really bright people who are proud of not being blind believers, as if that would make them smart in the least; they have no impatience for the unsolvable uncertainties of our existance, and would like to replace them with webs of words which ultimately all fall down when inspected.
"But we're not doing that, they [e.g. religious people] do that!!eleven". Awwww, cute. Here, have a false dichotomy medal.
Science depends on processing observations.
Processing observations requires trust in memory.
You thus cannot do science without memory.
You thus cannot use science to prove reliability of memory.
Your trust in your memory is thus an act of faith. As is your trust in science.
That's OK, though. Once you've accepted it, all science is good and proper.
Yes, we all had the thought in our first philosophy class "what if all memory is wrong!?!?!?". Then we hit double-digits in age, and got over ourselves. Some, on the other hand, still persist. Congratulations on being stuck in middle-school philosophy.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
That's a bit ingenuous. Evolution is ongoing. Not only that, but a correct theoretical understanding of how things came to be is essential for making and testing predictions of what we are likely to find. The rhetoric that we only need to know how things work "now" assumes that we have he luxury of discarding the best framework we have for formulating hypotheses for future investigation regarding biology or making sense of current data. We do not have that luxury.
And faith that remains in contradiction to evidence is mental illness.
Disingenuous, rather.
Who need faith? Why not have it both ways?
1. Start with the working assumption that your memory is completely unreliable. Reason through all of the conclusions about the nature of the reality that you can arrive at based on that assumption. (I'll wait here)
OK, now let's start with the opposite working assumption:
2. Assume that your memory has some validity. Now work through all of the conclusions about the nature of reality that you can arrive at based on that assumption (keeping in the back of your mind, of course, that your conclusions are all contingent upon that assumption).
That's OK, so is everybody else.
I don't see a problem here. "Metaphorical" doesn't mean that it's completely irrelevant - rather, it describes some real things in an allegoric way. So there is still a Fall of Man, just not because of some silly dispute over an apple in the garden.
You are free to believe whatever fantasies you want, but the real question is whether or not you are capable of setting aside those beliefs when it is time to do science or engineering work. If someone is just not capable of establishing such a separation, what are they going to do when other beliefs are challenged, a common occurrence in science?
Palm trees and 8
Scientifically, there's no use in debating philosophy, ethics, etc. either. They're orthogonal issues, except when stupid creationists try to take ancient writings as literal truth.
I don't recall the Bible commenting much on rape-induced infertility either. Not sure what Todd Akin has to do with this. He's just loud and ignorant. You don't have to be a young Earth creationist to be ignorant, although I admit, it tends to be evidence of ignorance.
Quite. I should perhaps have said "sufficiently reliable".
But I'm just toying with these clowns, angered by the idea that science can't prove itself, who seem to think there is an answer to this old and routine philosophical problem.
I guess the typos should be obvious enough, fix and parse accordingly, if you can. Otherwise, don't even tell me, I don't give a fuck... I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, I'm telling a bunch of people why I find them lame and mediocre and dumb, and brownshirts in spe. In turn they don't care about that, either, so all is well ^^
Believing in divinely guided evolution (like most Catholics do) is not the same as creationism. The former is not rational per se, but it's not incompatible with rational thinking, since it does not contradict one's observations. Creationism, on the other hand, rejects evolution altogether, and thus directly contradicts observations.
Why is it "crap"? Why does it not matter?
Because such a train of thought leads nowhere useful. The end of this line of thought is, "Everything may, or may not be real, including me." Well... okay. Now what?
I simply don't trust people to FULLY think things thru when they are so sure about a bearded sky wizard who throws thunderbolts (or presses the 'smite' button).
it casts SERIOUS doubts as to the depth of your understanding of the world. 'god did it!' is never an answer anyone should seriously take. but if that is part of your deep understanding of the world, I propose you are not the deep thinker you seem to want us to believe.
intellectual cop-outs are a sign of weakness in the mind. given a choice, I would choose not to have you on a project if you believe in magic.
seriously, you should reconsider your belief system. it does hold you back even though you 'believe' otherwise.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Evolutionary theory itself is a historical claim on events that occurred "millions and billions" of years ago.
Given that we can and do observe evolution at work in the labs today, and on a timescale of days or even hours, you clearly don't understand what you're talking about.
(And please spare us that whole "but it's not macro-evolution!" bullshit. There's no difference between "micro" and "macro" evolution other than the time frame.)
As a practising engineer, I would say I use computer models based on evolutionary principles such as genetic algorithms and genetic programming. So the underlying theory that things can change over time to fit their niche seems true, but I as the programmer set the world with all the rules in place. The fact that evolution works does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of a creator.
I see what you are saying. Jesus was a carpenter, so you are saying Jesus crafted the different animals by hand. I understand your point now.
(poe's law disclaimer: yes I am joking)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One of the tenets of the theories that detractors call "Darwinism" is the survival of the most adaptive. Where do you get the "fittest" part from? Celebrity creationists like Ben Stein? And that is far from the only genesis story either, there is for instance the ancient Chinese one about a God being born from an egg and rising up to lift the sky. "Let there be a crack"... Why should yours be right and that one be wrong?
'I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can — we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.'
I love the arrogant presumption that my children are a public resource at the collective's disposal. The last I checked, they were individuals entitled to pursue happiness in any way that suited them, not resources at Mr. Nye's disposal tasked with building whatever kind of world he wants to live in. Maybe they have other ideas about what kind of world they want to live in?
Assholes like this guy worry me a lot more than any creationist.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
Human residences evolved from sticks and feces-laden mud all the way to hi-grade structural steel, carbon fiber reinforced concrete, carbon fiber beams, etc. to construct buildings as tall as the imagination can take us.
Using incremental design improvements by intelligent designers as proof for evolution and against creation is nonsensical.
The core of evolution is that mindless random processes can create products on the level of those designed by an intelligence.
Humans are intelligent. Homes - whether built with sticks or steel or mud or concrete - are all products of intelligent design.
You don't seem to understand the core claims of the competing theories, or how to apply the evidence you have. Creationism only needs a creator (God) to start off the universe, it does not deny humanity's ability to create its own designs or incrementally improve them.
No one said you shouldn't believe in god, not even Bill Nye. He did say you shouldn't believe in creationism. If you've chosen to shoehorn your deity into the tiny niche of having created every form of life on the planet in 6 days despite a mountain of physical evidence to the contrary, that's your own issue.
Never understood people's tendency to believe in a god of the gaps... don't they realize that the gaps are always getting smaller?
That's by far the highest probability, Hazel, as all the evidence points that way; whereas the concept of "the world is illusion" is not borne out by experimentation, observation, or any other tool we have at our disposal. You can come back and argue your case with some authority when it has more behind it than "gee, what if!" And guess what? In order to do that, you have to leave the realm of philosophy.
I go with the model that works. Science uniformly and dependably works; technology uniformly and dependably works; religion and superstition and pretending an unprovable idea is valid on equal terms just because you thought of it... none of that is worth more than a laugh at a party. Except to "philosophers", who are suffering from a massive case of confirmation bias -- having wasted so much time and energy on nonsense, they have to pretend their process is worthwhile, or their self-image collapses in a heap. Most people aren't strong enough to face reality after embracing nonsense. Hence religion, superstition, and this kind of speculative "reality is an illusion" philosophy.
That's what the evidence says, Hazel. The evidence doesn't indicate -- in any way -- that the world is other than our instruments say it is. See, that's the lovely thing. We observe; we develop instruments, like voltmeters; the voltmeters measure the results of our designs; these results confirm that our interactions are doing just what we think they should. It's a complex web of inter-related observations, one which does an excellent job of explaining and justifying itself -- in contrast to speculation that all is illusion, a situation neither engendered by anything other than your imagination, or confirmed by any kind of observation.
See, science (and in derivative fashion, technology) has this very powerful set of benefits behind it: It works. It's self-consistent. It's productive. Philosophy is in no way endowed with these same characteristics. Which makes it not only comfortable, but productive, to go with science.
Ideas don't deserve equal consideration just because they're ideas. That's the bottom line, and that's where religion, superstition, and philosophical mumbo-jumbo all fall flat on their faces. When you can put something behind your speculation that all is illusion (or any variant thereof), then fine, come back to the table, and we can give it serious consideration. In the meantime, it's baseless speculation, and not particularly valuable baseless speculation at that. For value to accrue, you have to demonstrate some verifiable, repeatable connection to reality. If you can't get to that state... you have only ideas of no real value. Or IOW, philosophy.
I prefer "cogito ergo es"
"I think therefore you is"
Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
I am working on a degree in Chemical and Biological engineering and we definitely use evolution. There are even computer models now based on adaptation speeds for things like resistance to drugs etc.
Evolution is critically important to modern biotech work.
How do you feel about the fact that Creationism conferred an evolutionary advantage to its adherents?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
-- Nicholas Humphrey, addressing Amnesty International
The comparisons from here on in get worse and worse as he continues to argue that freedom of speech should *never ever* be compromised....except to suppress ideas he disagrees with. The full speech is one long Author Tract about how we should implement utterly draconian Soviet-style anti-religious policies banning parents from bringing up their children in their own beliefs in favour of forcing them to bring them up in *his*.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
... fwiw, one of the most competent engineers that I know is a home-schooled dyed-in-the-wool creationist, has a gaggle of kids, goes to Church on Sundays. And not just regular-old-competent but rather a go-to guy for building stuff and solving problems whose ability to understand the interactions of a dozen complex systems is beyond question. That doesn't prove much, but working with a person like that reminds me on a daily basis that theology and engineering can be (at least for one person) completely orthogonal areas of life.
This reminds me of one of the planks of Mark Graber's post at Balkinization on amending the American People. Read the whole thing, but I've excerpted one relevant bit:
Creationism is just a symptom of a much more fundemental problem.
I see what you did there.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
And yet here I am receiving about three dozen responses which insist there is an answer.
Plus yours, which dismisses a problem as childish simply because it's intracable. Or, more likely, because it requires every logical man to accept faith ("I agree" would have been sufficient, chump - no need for the insults).
Tell me, "Neutron Cowboy", when you studied this problem in "middle school", which texts did you find to approach it best?
You know... I love philosophy most of all because it really angers shallow westerners. It makes them all hot under the collar like no other subject. Even the most basic 101 questions get them all in a tiz. No! stop thinking about existence! we need to play/write iPhone apps!
I'll admit that coder attractiveness is going in the direction of blind cave fish, but in the long run isn't it a small price to pay for all the precious... I mean productive development tools?
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
Your worldview is ignorant, and not based on where science is. Evidence for speciation has been around for decades. Do you always base your beliefs on nonsense that has to be over a hundred years old by now?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Computer Science
No, actually, creationists do *not* believe in a rational ordered universe.
I am a physicist. I don't know what all the laws of physics are, but I believe that there *are* some inviolate laws of physics which apply uniformly throughout all that is. So far as we can tell, this is true: spectral lines in distant stars are the same as they are here, to very high precision, indicating that atomic and nuclear physics are the same. Electrodynamics and such work the same way inside stars as it does in all conditions we've found on Earth.
I suppose you could be a creationist and believe in a deistic universe, where a god chose the laws of physics and then wound up his universe and let it go. But modern creationists do not believe this: they are overwhelmingly Christian, and believe in such things as a god that actively intervenes on this little planet by making virgins pregnant, people turn into pillars of salt -- in general, they believe in miracles, even small ones like altering the genetic makeup of a species. This is the very opposite of a rational ordered universe: all these things, all these miracles, are inherently disordered, since they entail violations of the laws of physics by an entity outside of them. "F=ma, except when god says otherwise" is not a sound basis for a rational theory of the universe.
In otherwords, you're totally and completely incapable of understanding the concept that teaching children that it's a bad idea to teach children that any science is wrong? Doesn't matter if you're telling them that evolution or physics or geology is wrong. Teaching them that any science is wrong will screw up their ability to be engineers or scientists in the future.
You're kidding, right? Since when has the progress of science been driven by conformists who are afraid to question widely accepted notions? Does the status of "a science" magically elevate ideas beyond the realm where mere mortals are allowed to question them? Do we have to believe in phrenology and phychoanalysis in order to preserve out ability to work as engineers?
You're kidding, right? Since when has the progress of science been driving by non-conformists who throw out widely accepted notions for absolutely no reason?
Seriously, science is about constantly questioning things, but it's also about ACCEPTING WHAT WORKS. You don't reject something just because you feel like it, you reject it because either a) you find evidence of something better, or b) you find a serious flaw in it. Which are basically the same thing -- you reject ideas that no longer make sense. You don't get to say "I don't feel like believing in the Third Law of Thermodynamics today, let's just say that no longer exists." That isn't science.
Sure, if you redefine creationism, but the accepted meaning of the word right now means the belief that creatures were literally willed into being by a deity (presumably with an I Dream of Jeannie pop-in effect) rather than evolving from lower lifeforms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
If it weren't for your ignorance about this you might be an all-round intelligent guy.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Among other things not appropriate for children are Absolutism and Intolerance of conflicting perspective.
Atheists get pissed about religious people forcing their perspective on others but fail to see how they are doing the same. At the core of this whole debate is people failing to respect and be tolerant of others who do not share the same world view. That's what needs to be addressed. Otherwise, you may was well bring out the pitchforks and head up the witch hunt because that's how history is going to repeat itself.
Believe what you want, respect others may not see it that way. It's not OK to persecute people for being, or thinking, differently. Teach your kids that and everything will be better than it is now.
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Social engineering, use evolution and AGW as tests to remove undesirables from the species. Then test for things like civil disobedience, denial of anything deemed as fact by a government panel and take their kids to a state run education center. Because scientist now know everything, instead of funding expensive experiments they can be put to work raising children. Since all of the Slashdot crowd are also experts in how children should be raised they can back fill where no PHD's are available.
In a very real way all creationists are boogeymen. There isn't a single kind of creationism that they all beleive in, its more of an unfounded disbelief in a theory, than any specific belief that can be argued against. Failure to deal with evolution in a rational, objective manner may be a precurser to simular faults of logic when applied to other areas. The key word there, being *may*. People are actually pretty good at compartimentalizing and rationalizing their life.
However, I would expect a study would show that a greater proportion of people who do not believe in creationism to take up science.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
"Millions of years" "God doesn't exist" and "common ancestor" have exactly nothing to do with knowing about and using observable, repeatable, usable things that are actually science and not science fiction.
Bill Nye is just being a bigot if he think being a Creationist prevents you from using science.
Nothing science has actually observed does anything to negate the idea of intelligent design.
Intelligent Design is about understanding how God did it and how his creations work. Evolution (in the Bill Nye sense) tries to make God irrelevant which is just stupid and not science at all.
Work Safe Porn
Your statement is only true if you are correct and He doesn't exist.
If He does, then believing in Him has a use - even for a scientist. If He does exist and is all powerful and can operate outside of the physical laws that He set up for the universe to work in - what us plain folk would call miracles or divine healing for example, then any scientific experiment done that doesn't come out the expected way has one other variable that could have been the cause. Depending on the nature of God and the covenants established between Him and His creation that the scientist is ignoring, it may have an eternal use as well at least from that scientist's individual perspective. In addition, if He does exist and the scientist is on good terms with Him, the scientist might ask for some divine insight into problems that would advance science at a more rapid rate.
We've had a long period of both scientific and technological advancement, and I'm very glad for that because living in the world of a few centuries ago wouldn't have been much fun compared to today. After all, technology is letting us have this conversation in the first place.
Who knows what the next few centuries will bring? Maybe, if there is a higher power that is tired of the attitudes of scientists and engineers, He'll throw up some roadblocks or intentionally mess with them. Maybe He'll just take them out early. At least one God described in human history has been known to take out unbelievers from time to time and all He promised was that He wouldn't take most everybody out at once again in a particular way. But even messing with experiments would keep things interesting now that the scientists think they know everything. Neither would be very good for the advancement of our world.
There is a clear distinction between challenging an established theory with well reasoned evidence and being a fucking moron. It's also quite another thing to make up complete bullshit that is contradicted by pretty much every field of science that can be backed up with practical applications of the findings of those fields. Don't pretend any brand of creationism is doing anything other than making shit up to fit their preconceived notions. Science is the exact opposite, developing a theory that fits the evidence presented, not the other way around.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
Or maybe he's really good at Computer Science, which last I checked, doesn't require you to believe in evolution. At least, not in any courses outside of those which might touch on computers and biology.
I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole of pointing out the better points of young Earth creationists, because I happen to think they're deluded. Still, I think it casts a poor light on their critics to start assuming that must have cheated to get ahead on completely unrelated subject matter. If there was ever an engineering discipline which could harbor a person with these beliefs and not challenge them, it would be computer science.
Once you start just assuming that they are pants-on-head retarded with no evidence, you begin to underestimate them, and you make yourself look arrogant to boot. Bill Nye has a decent point in general, but these people don't suffer from stupidity as much as from the inability to want to change their mind.
EXACTLY! It's not about this algorithm or that process being "inspired" by evolution or "modeled" on evolution. Evolution doesn't have to be a real thing to do that. It's about teaching evolution as a way to educate children to analyze and interpret and draw conclusions about evidence surrounding them...vs creationism teaching them to ignore evidence that counteracts their existing beliefs.
An engineer who believes they already know the best way to do everything and ignore designs others show them that are better; ignores research into new materials or processes; ignores evidence that maybe his design might not be the best....that's an engineer that won't be employed very long.
What if we used the belief to get money to fund science? Now there is niche!
Rewrite that post omitting all sentences which have required you to remember one or more experimental results.
Can you remember what I'm actually arguing, AC? Surely your memory isn't that bad.
Good engineering requires design and creation. The alternative is kludgy hardware and spaghetti code. Just sayin' :)
If your belief in God hinges on the particulars of how specieces developed in history, I'd say the real problem is how weak your faith is. People throughout history have had to endure far more crushing scientific findings that "the earth is more than 10k years old" which isn't even stated in the bible. How about a Heliocentric solar system? Germs? Cells? If I remember correctly the first time they found sperm under a microscope it was rather catastrophic to the idea of conception.
The point is Akin is using pseudoscience (and a religiously focused "doctor") to support his religious belief about abortion. His religious beliefs dictate his view, in direct contradiction to scientific facts, which is the problem that the video is addressing.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
No, it isn't, but it's great the way the everyone on the Internet has a medical qualification.
Anyway, do you remember the evidence you used to uncover a contradiction?
Perl is on the way out. Everything else is butter compared.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
No, the headline isn't a good summary. However, if it had read "Young-Earth Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children" it would have been just fine.
The belief that the world is billions of years old and that biological diversity has grown gradually through a process of mutation and natural selection is in no way incompatible with the belief that God created the world or that He has guided the process. From Asa Gray- said by Darwin to be Darwin's best advocate- to the present day, hundreds of millions of people, including a good number of evolutionary biologists, have held both of these beliefs.
Evolution is, however, inconsistent with an overly literal and naive reading of the first chapter of Genesis. Those misguided individuals who promote the idea that Genesis was a scientific account and try to force schools to ignore the mountains of evidence for evolution and/or to "teach the controversy" are a threat to basic science education. As a science educator Nye has an interest in helping combat that threat. But he is not trying to pick a fight with all theists here.
It's a bit more challenging (to put it mildly) to learn new things about our universe while we still believe we know the answers and that to think or explore certain ideas is "forbidden" or otherwise blasphemous.
In science, we test things in order to prove things. This is without exception. Can't test "god" so it can't be science.
Interestingly enough, while lumps of coal may be punishment for affluent first world kids, it may well be as good as gold to an impoverished third world child that is struggling just to survive because it's the dead of winter and they just ran out of firewood.
And what a waste of resources they were and are, lest we forget that little nasty detail. Well, they are not wasteful in the sense that people need entertainment and nourishment of the "soul" of a varied kind, and some people find such in churches and such. Alas, sacral architecture is no better and no worse than a gladiator arena would be. The pretenses differ, the outcome is the same.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I'm pretty sure that Creationists believe in a young earth pretty consistently, and those about intelligent design more so.
What you describe as "Creationism" is a little disingenuous, nobody means the term to include diests
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Doesn't seem so. They were just jerks who burned others at stakes and such. Jerks win, in the short run.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I wish I had mod points for this one, someone vote the parent up.
Science and religion are not incompatible in the least. Science is not an attack against God, it is goal is to understand how the world and those beings that populate it were created and the rules that govern their existence. It does not have anything to do with the question if there was or was not a creator. It has no opinion on that as a matter of fact. Science and Religion address completely different classes of problems. I am a firm advocate of teaching evolution and countless other theories supported by evidence. I believe to teach anything else in our science classes is deep folly. It goes contrary to the scientific method, and will not make good scientists. Don't bring your why to my science class, its going to confuse the students horribly.
Religion is about the mystery and that which can not be known. I am a practicing Catholic, and I have a deep faith that there is a creative force behind the universe. That does not mean that I am naive and believe that stories told to and by an ancient people can be the whole truth. Try to explain things like the principle of least time, quantum mechanics, or the geometry of spacetime to someone five or tens thousand years ago. You can't, so you tell things in allegory and stories. If you believe that the bible is the exact word of God (which I do not), do you think he would try to tell it how it is? Or would he make broad brush strokes and make sure the principles are communicated without worrying about too much about the mechanism? Religion has little to do with how things were done, religion tries to answer something that can't be supported by evidence, but must be taken on faith.
Take science for what it is, the beautiful pursuit of how the world works and the rules that govern its creation and continued existence. Religion is about something else, it is about believing and having faith in something greater then oneself. For those that do believe, science shows us the brush strokes of our creator. It doesn't tell us that he does not exist. So quit worrying about the scientists and engineers of the world teaching your children that organisms have DNA that changes over time, and those mutations and adaptions bring about new organisms. It doesn't hurt their belief in a higher power, in fact it should only reinforce it.
Jeff | MemVance - Memory Advanced | View my blog on memory and study techniques
As an AC pointed out, that is not intelligent design. That is evolution through artificial selection.
Likewise, even if (a) god had intelligently designed the process by which evolution works, and then threw in a few cataclysmic disasters to steer the evolution of a species in a particular direction, that would also not be Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is the belief that present-day humans (and maybe even every species) have always existed in their current biological form.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
I like Bill Nye's approach to a lot of scientific teaching, loved most of his TV show growing up, but he does not in any way put forward an argument for evolution or against creationism in this video. He simply waves his hand and says - without offering a logical, this 'leads-to-that' argument - that by not believing in evolution your world view is inconsistent. I'm afraid that doesn't pass muster for me, though I would be interested in hearing a more in-depth discussion on the subject from him.
There is plenty of good popular science literature out there that answers this question thoroughly. You can start at Amazon.
Personally, I don't believe in *macro* evolution (one species evolving into another) - and yet my world view is 100% functional and, I believe, logical.
Your world view is not logical, because the separation into "macro" and "micro" evolution is not logical in the first place. Your definition is inherently flawed, because the very notion of "species" is an artificial human construct that is useful for categorization, but does not have any strict definition and does not correspond to anything definite in real world. As two distinct populations evolve, eventually they diverge far enough that we start calling them different species, but that boundary is pretty arbitrary. And basic logic indicates that if "micro" evolution takes place, then, given sufficiently large time period, it will inevitably transform into "macro" as differences accumulate.
The idea that the denial of evolution is unique to the US - which I very much doubt, as both Christians and some other religions (Islam, in particular) tend to hold views that contradict with macro evolution.
The largest Christian denomination, Roman Catholics, do not consider evolution to contradict their views - that's an official Catholic dogma. Most European Protestants don't have a problem with it, either, nor do the majority of Orthodox. So, in the Christian world at least, denial of evolution is pretty much a US-only thing - it happens elsewhere, but on a much smaller margin to the point where other believers consider such people kooks. Only in US 45% of all residents not only reject evolution, but believe in young Earth creationism.
Similarly, Islam is not anti-evolution. In fact, its creation story is more ambiguous, because it speaks of "stages" of creation rather than "days", so it's easier to interpret it metaphorically right away. Even historically, Muslims have actually been pretty acceptive of evolution, including evolution of man - just as with Christians, it can all be easily reconciled by considering evolution itself a divinely guided process, a God's tool of creation. Creationism in Islam is restricted to a few countries, like Turkey, and even there only to some fundamentalist schools of thought within Islam, not the entire population.
That not believing in evolution - which we cannot measure and observe in a lab
Of course we can measure and observe it in the lab - we routinely do just that on bacterial cultures and some insects.
I worked with a couple of sales and marketing guys that wanted to "get into" the computer business. They studied the material for the MCSE exams and aced the tests without ever actually doing any diagnostic work. They didn't cheat they simply studied the notes needed to correctly answer the questions. If the final exam doesn't require them to fix something in front of a trained professional anybody who can memorize things can pass.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
The Real World, an objective view of existance, is impossible from within it. So what you're really talking about is delusion and insanity. It's okay to not know, but it's insanity to pretend you do.
Which is, of course, the irony in all this. Lots of comments here by not really bright people who are proud of not being blind believers, as if that would make them smart in the least; they have no impatience for the unsolvable uncertainties of our existance, and would like to replace them with webs of words which ultimately all fall down when inspected.
Well said. It does interest me that a simple question provokes so much emotion, though.
Or perhaps I should be glad - sometimes people grow up, look back and realise that, when they've become emotional, it's because they had't really understood something but didn't want to accept it.
The biggest problem in the belief in the creator is that it's useless. Evolution is testable, it makes predictions that turn out to be true. Creationism offers nothing of the sort.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Is Windows "evolving" when it installs and works in different computing environments? Is a red car with satellite radio an "evolution" from a blue car with power windows? Both are products of intelligent designers building the system with support for variability. There is a base platform with "optional plugins".
Where did the capability of Windows configuring itself to its hardware come from? The intelligent designers (programmers) behind it. (Sure, we like to make fun of MS products, but they're still products of intelligence)
Where did the capability of living organisms to adapt to their living environment come from? Evolution says random chance created a system that adapts to its environment. Okay, but the existence of an adaptable system is not proof for the creative power of random mutation, because anything random mutation can do, intelligence can design.
Now how plausible is it that random mutation can create functioning systems? It sounds easy, get something working and bootstrap from there.
That's until you start paying attention to just how easy it is to break the system with random mutation. Functionality is information, and information is subject to entropy. Random mutation is applying noise (entropy) to information - and you're expecting natural selection to somehow filter (information + noise) into (more information).
I have yet to see a good argument on how evolution gets past information theory. Would you like to take a shot?
Calling it "microevolution" accepts the premise that there's any evolution at all. Quit trying to sneak in the evolutionary premise and start from scratch - we have an adaptable self-replicating system of systems - does random mutation evolution provide sufficient explanatory power for its existence? Trivial number crunching + information theory says no - so time to do the homework.
That just means that Batman is totally unrealistic. Incest and torture happen all the time.
It seems that we are where we are as a culture because of science and all those that followed it while the creationists have largely just hitched a ride. I also don't see that they actually have an evolutionary advantage.
Overall I am not very worried about this long term since I want to get a robot body and head out into space and explore and what you guys do on this planet will be your problem. I want to spend millions of years learning and understanding what is out there. I am sure there will be others interested in the same and they can come along.
I wonder how well this world would work if the engineers and scientists left and what kind of evolutionary advantage those remaining would have.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Technically your number 3 is correct, but the sort of cognitive errors (such as in your number 2) by failure to accept reality, even in a limited fashion, would seem to have to potential to limit them.
Plate tectonics cannot be "put in a lab" either and require significant time scales also. Yet you put macro evolution (the instantiation of new species from previous species) which has been observed and measured also, in a different category.
Simply because it disagrees with an irrational (not based in observed reality with logical and critical thought applied) view you fail to even realize you apply a different thought process to it(or so I read into your post).
The vast amounts of evidence supporting evolution (both micro and macro) makes operating with any other assumption illogical and irrational without equally substantial and solid evidence.
Mcyroft
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You can believe in the Fall of Man and still believe the book of Genesis is metaphorical.
If you imagine the tribe of Cain (agricultural, sedentary humans) going to war and decimating the tribe of Abel (pastoral, nomadic humans), the story makes more sense and doesn't bring up questions of who were their wives.
No sig for the moment.
Useful mathematics are always rigid scientific metaphor; philosophy is speculation on the fundamental nature of knowledge, existence and reality. Math is science. You can't develop it beyond the trivial without using scientific method (and even the trivial benefits from this.)
Consider the arrow of time; the physics math works in either direction, and as it turns out, there's evidence for that (as demonstrated by relativity and the observation vector across space-time when the observer is approaching or receding from the observed.) Because the physics is solid, we had reason to think that the specific metaphor, that is, the math, was telling us something solid as well, and so it was.
Really not on board with the idea that math is a product of philosophy. A product of thinking, yes. A product of speculation on the fundamental nature of things... no. It's the other way around. Math acquires relevance and respect when it *matches* the fundamental nature of things. Otherwise, it is meaningless. base 10: 2+3=4 is math; but it's meaningless, because it doesn't match the fundamental nature of reality. base 10: 2+3=5, on the other hand, is science and provides meaningful tools and context with science, or without it. Not so for philosophy -- unless philosophy is just parroting the science. And if that's the case... then philosophy's value is questionable at best.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You are literally insane if you put any stock in these ideas. Your mind would be utterly disconnected from reality at a fundamental level. YOU'RE SAYING REALITY ISN'T REAL. Do we have to put faith in some concrete connection between perception and reality? Yes. It's called being sane.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I have no problem with teaching evolution in schools. It should be taught because that's how things work. However, I don't see what creationism has to do with engineering. Just go look at Cologne Cathedral, for instance, and you can see that great engineering can be accomplished without any knowledge of evolution.
Proverbs 21:19
He is an idiot - we all know the flying spaghetti monster created us; there is unfalsifiable evidence of it, though we reject that dogma.
"We are born. We live. We die." Well... okay. Now what?
How does genetic engineering not imply how the genes came to be, if you need to assume that they mix together and are always the cause of some other union amongst genes before all the way to eternity? You dont think the practice can lead you to think that "damn, this evolution thing really works", if only because you know what makes a twin, what makes a clone, whats the difference form a clone and a sexual union and etc.
Sex itself is testament of at least a big chunk of evolution. Positions against evolution need to be much, much, much more sophisticated i think, that what has been presented thus far.
Of course its good for inteligent people to question evolution and whatever else. Its good if for no other cause than to prove just how intelligent they are and how does that differ from how intelligent they think they are.
NO SIG
"To understand the universe and creation is to come closer to understanding the creator behind it all."
So what you're saying is that people are encouraged to learn as much about the universe as possible, but only up until we reach some arbitrary point where a magical stop sign will appear in front of us that says, "You've reached the end! Just God now!"
At absolute best, that's still a fundamental collapse of basic logic and critical thinking skills.
My own view of 'creationism' is based on what 'creationists' say. And based on that, it IS that "God simply put things where they are now". People who believe in creationism are either intellectually bankrupt, are running some kind of power play, or both.
I mean, they actually think that their chosen deity placed dinosaur bones into the ground to "test their faith". I have no idea how you can claim that while at the same time saying you believe in a rational ordered universe and keep a straight face.
You failed science class didn't you?
Science is about creating theories and working to prove or disprove them. Scientists never ask for unquestioning obedience, they want you to be able to verify their work. We don't give credibility to scientists that don't provide evidence or ways to duplicate their results.
Science isn't about magic or faith. All civilizations will eventually come up with the same scientific theories - the same obviously isn't true for religion. If we as a society want to progress forwards technologically and scientifically we need to push rational thinking and science on kids, not blindly believing centuries old myths.
No...that's still evolution. "Guided" evolution, you could possibly say, but still evolution nonetheless. ID pretty much says god created everything and that nothing evolved. A bear is a bear because god created it that way and nothing else. How is that what he's described?
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
Wow.
1) I dont believe in god.
2) Your anti god zealotry is every bit as destructive as what you are railing against. A belief in god does not have to make you stupid. It doesnt mean you have to ignore science. You simply have to believe that in studying science you are quantifying all of the rules that god established.
There are radicals on BOTH sides of the issue and they (i.e. YOU) are the problem.
No, I just don't believe that speciation is evidence for true macro evolution:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cfl/species-kind
William George
Overall I am not even worried about the last question.
I don't see any actual conflict between religion and evolution. What I find strange is all of those that define god as existing in areas that we don't understand since it means as we learn more that their idea of god gets put into smaller and smaller holes.
The catholic view seems to make more sense in that god created this large and complex system and we are learning how it works. I am not saying I believe that doctrine or that it is right or wrong but it does seem more stable as technology advances.
At least with that viewpoint as we learn more the people with that view are not in conflict with science since they can say that we now understand the world and thus understand the design of gods better. I would prefer to have people neutral over those that actively oppose learning. Some religions have even encouraged science as a religious pursuit since it was considered a very good thing to try to understand how reality worked as some kind of praise to god. It means they took the time to learn how this system works.
I wish we did not have this conflict between science and religion but my view is that it is mostly the fault of a few religions that set themselves up as an opposition where none was needed. Science is not attacking religion it is just searching out and learning and there is no reason that religions should be standing in the way of that search when they could be helping or at least staying out of it.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
That's an example of natural selection (well...artificial selection really) which is a key piece to the theory of evolution but they are not one and the same. The theory of evolution also includes mutations, the actual path/course that evolution took (which is where the biggest divide with creationsists is), and so on.
You trust your memory to remember that it has earned trust.
Try again.
Dispense with the rhetorical bullshit already.
You could keep track using external devices if you really gave a rats ass about your useless ideas.
If I put any stock in what ideas?
So sanity is to accept faith in one's memory?
Ugh.
All the more reason to promote science, empiricism, and rationalism. This is what happens when science is portrayed in schools as a list of facts, vocabulary words, and diagrams to memorize. It becomes perceived as more dogma, another belief system. This allows people to portray the issue as a choice between one belief system and another. And which version of reality are people going to choose? The one that requires thinking and math or the one that tells you you're the center of the universe? The answer is: you don't get to choose the version of reality you like best.
Actuallty, it is more then a minority I would say. I remember a study not to long ago stating that 80% or so of Americans believed in a god and over 50% believe in some form of creation.
It does seem to be the truly ignorant among us that insists on a conflict between creation and evolution though. They are both paths to different means and only conflict when someone cannot understand that. Creation is a religious explanation designed to give meaning and purpose to life. Evolution is a natural explanation designed to understanding tot he workings of life. Neither preclude either from being true. One limits itself to the natural explanation derived from observable facts throughout a historical timeline that can be explained by the bounds of natural rules. The other relies on supernatural or not limited to the bounds of nature, acts by a being who itself is not limited by the bounds of nature as we know it.
In computer terms, this can be easily demonstrated as the difference between a web browser that displays web pages and allows you to search and bring information to you and an email applications that allows web pages to display in email messages that someone sent to you. Yea, they both can render a web page but are fundamentally different in their utility.
I guess I should post this as AC because the last time I said something like this, I was the subject of mass down moding for weeks as if this distinction but hurt some evangelical atheists or diehard Christians who can't fathom the concept of both existing in their own respective rights.
I would also note that with comments like this from Bill Nye, it is no wonder why people are complaining about not getting Science funding in the budget. When 80% of the country practices some of religion, comments like this just fuel the not with my tax dollars crowd. That's a call that seems to influence politicians on all sides of the political spectrum unless they are giving lip service to select groups of people to pander for their votes.
I can't believe i'm doin it. But i gotta defend the amish here.
I've known and worked for them in the past. And for the most part they're fine. Don't really LIKE them.. Because i like my modern world.
But they do NOT preach to other people. They don't shove their religon in your face. They are what i consider a 'good' religon on the planet. Just because they mind their own business and don't tell you what you should or should not be doing with your life.
Oh sure they have their own internal problems. But who doesnt. But overall they are mostly harmless.
And i'm pretty sure if the world ever failed and our technology got wiped out. They'd be just fine. lol
Overall tho they are in that group of religious nuts who are not dangerous to the rest of the world. Amish, quakers, buddhists, and maybe a few others. They don't preach to you if you don't wanna know. They don't get in your face. They mind their own business. They don't seem to cause too many problems in the world.
And theres damm few other religions that can say that. The rest of them all love to preach to everyone and tell us we're all going to hell.
We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can — we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.
While I agree with his premise, I know several engineers that can build things and solve problems that are also fundamentalist christians. Most engineers, by their nature, deal with the here and now, not the past, whether 4B years ago or 10,000 years ago. So, while I agree with his premise, his implied conclusion does not directly correlate. That said, I am all for a scientifically literate society, mathematically literate, too.
Unfortunately, the fundies are a growing majority in America.
Majority? Not yet. Vocal minority? Sure.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
How do you remember which observations you have made? Don't you need your memory for that?
Some responses to your points:
There is plenty of evidence already available for evolution, and addressing creationism is a fool's errand.
That's because your world view diverges utterly with reality. It actively rejects the mountains of archaeological evidence, the diversity of species we have, and the fact that bacteria grow resistant to our antibiotics damn near as we watch.
Only insofar as you don't actually wander down into scientific fields that completely break without the concept of evolution. Sadly, your worldview is not logical.
He's focusing on the US because that's where he lives. He also realizes that there's a destructive campaign to get Creationism, wrapped up under the false banner of "Intelligent Design," put into science classes. And I suspect he feels that he has a duty to speak out against such nonsense and to admonish people not to deliberately withhold knowledge from their children because it possibly contradicts their beliefs. And even if those other countries and religions reject evolution, it only means that they too are wrong.
He's right. You can measure evolution in a lab. Like plate tectonics, sometimes that lab is out in the world.
Correct. Literal creationism is used as an anti-scientific weapon by christian fundamentalists in the US.
There is zero evidence for creationism. There are mountains of evidence for evolution. The only side here that actually needs to defend themselves are the creationists.
Because as I foolishly attempt to here, arguing with a creationist as to why their deeply held beliefs contradict reality is often a frustrating, fruitless exercise.
I always preferred the nose-wiggling image of the divine.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Winnar!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
there is when you use that belief to impose upon other people's lives with it.
That sword cuts in both directions, mind you.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
Give us some detail.
This question has been tackled at length, and I know there is no answer. It's just fascinating to watch so many dilettantes think they have an answer.
I figure... just in case...
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Wholeheartedly agree. Not only that, but this quote of his...
...don't make your kids [deny evolution] because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can — we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.
...bothers me since it suggests that denying evolution precludes the possibility of a person becoming an engineer or being scientifically literate, which is far from the truth.
There is a danger of predisposition, I'll grant, since some people have taken things too far and chosen ignorance as a complement to faith, but I do not believe that to be the norm (and most of the hillbilly, backwards types that get cited for that problem are just idiots, period, not because of their beliefs, but rather regardless of them). For instance, I was raised in a household that held to Creationism, came to believe it myself (and continue to do so), yet I went to a good university, graduated with a Computer Science degree, went on to pursue graduate work, and finally went into industry, where I seem to be doing just fine last I checked. I'm not unfamiliar with the ideas behind evolution, nor am I incapable of applying them when the situation presents itself (e.g. genetic algorithms), nor do I think I would disagree with any scientifically-minded people about the physical properties of the world as it is today, which means that there is very little ground where we might even possibly disagree.
As for where I would disagree with other scientifically-minded people, those are in areas that are generally unrelated to my work, so the most "harm" I can typically do is to share my personal beliefs over casual conversations, such as what I am doing here in this post. Even if the opportunity arose for me to cause actual harm via my line of work (e.g. tampering with scientific data), I wouldn't do so for the same sorts of reasons that most people here would't tamper with data for an opposing political party: it's simply wrong to do so, even if you disagree with them. Simply put, they're my personal beliefs, and they have not stood in the way of getting work done, building things, or engaging in higher academic pursuits. The same is true for most or all of the other Creationists I personally know (many of whom are well-educated and have pursued work in engineering or science), so I fail to see what Mr. Nye's concern over denying evolution is in this matter.
It sounds more like he's actually concerned with scientific illiteracy, but that he's misidentified the cause of it (I'd blame it more on apathy, personally). To that I say that regardless of beliefs, we all should be able to agree that we could use more parents encouraging their children to engage in critical thinking and a pursuit of interests related to the STEM fields. Let things shake out as they will.
Feel free to imagine me away and see whether it works.
To know God you have to study God's works. We call this Science. Darwin Studied God's works and showed us Evolution, That is God's work. If you can't cope with that you will never know God.
Just a question how many of those are honorary?
He did graduate with an bachelors in mechanical engineering, but the all knowing wikipedia seems to show that all of his doctorates are honorary. And when exactly did mechanical engineering become branch or origins theory theology or evolution. While I respect the man and his efforts to promote science i have to say this isn't his area of expertise. Secondly in my humble opinion, origins, which is not provable either way scientifically (as per the scientific method requirement of repeatability and ) this is a moot point.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
"Belief in God and belief in evolution need not be separate things. "
They need to be separate otherwise you are in a hypocritical position and it leaves your head in the sand.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Remember that stupid post you just made?
Checking your post history confirms that my memory recalls it perfectly in all it's stupidity.
What is a god to you? If bacteria were sentient it would probably be the one who created the world they live and and changes the environment by his whims. The one that has a plan for them. I don't believe in creationism but could see how it would seem like that to bacteria.
As far as I would be concerned, were I to care about such things, the "relegation to God" and "explanation by God" almost seems to me like calling God's name in vain. It presupposes that our current level of understanding is final, and that we know enough to surely and squarely decide, "oh, God willed it so", or "that's a miracle!". Heck, the whole spiel seems utterly pointless. If you presuppose that God made everything and is running the show, so to speak, why the heck repeat oneself? One often sees signs proclaiming "let God into your life" on billboards. Look, doofuses, either you believe God is already there, or you're just so thoroughly confused it's no wonder people look down on those of any faith. Learn to form a self-consistent sentence, or a bunch, to begin with.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
You won't get any believer answering that question. Richard Dawkins tried to get the bishop in Australia to answer it but he couldn't.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Any stock in your "memory is an illusion" bullshit.
Yes sanity is to accept faith in one's perception and memory, I'd say that's the core basis of sanity. What sane being recalls something to the best of their memory and thinks "This memory I have is most likely inaccurate?"
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It is really unfortunate that people can't discuss these sorts of things and stay friends.
William George
Maybe God created everything by sparking off the Big Bang. Maybe God created everything ten minutes ago, styled to look as though it had been around for uncountable millenia (well, about 14 thousand million years).
Maybe God did it for the lulz.
No, it is not. It is a scientific theory.
Let us stop right there. You don't even appear to know what evolution is. Evolution works on populations. In simple terms evolution can be defined as the change in the genetic makeup of a population over time.
That the Earth is many times older than the Genesis account has been known since the 18th century. As I said to another poster, this absurd claim that we have to directly observe every moment is as absurd as demanding to know the syntax of every generation of spoken language from Proto-Germanic to Modern English.
The fossil evidence isn't even the only line of evidence. In general, the molecular data agrees with the fossil data giving us two independent lines of evidence; the twin-nested hierarchy. It has not been reasonable to attack evolution based on fossil evidence for over a century, and certainly not reaosnable to claim the relative scarcity of fossils (which there are far more of than you seem aware) for half a century.
I have no idea where you learned above evolution, but certainly not from any biology source. Every population has variability, it's always present. Some members of a population will be more able to survive the environment some will not. Those traits which tend even slightly to give a reproductive advantage will be selected for. Many traits are in fact neutral, and thus have reasonably good odds of simply being selected for (neutral selection or neutral drift), but can in fact at a later time either prove beneficial or harmful. Some genes in fact remain, but are suppressed through developmental processes (a whole other area that I challenge you to learn about), but can be re-expressed, thus leading to humans with long body hair all over their body or snakes with limbs and many other atavisms which are suppressed developmentally, even though the genes remain in our genome.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Scientifically, there's no use in debating philosophy, ethics, etc. either.
I consider ethical behavior to be a phenotype, so yeah there is.
The study of consciousness and the brain is also scientific, and directly related to philosophy.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
since it was guided by intelligent humans that would mean dogs are intelligently designed. just saying.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
At least with car insurance I can opt out (don't drive a car; walk. Or use a horse. Or take the train).
Indeed. And when it comes to health, when you have an emergency you can just die!
Of course, it whooshes above pro-lifers' heads all the time, so they got used to the sound and don't notice anymore. Most of them are pro-war, too. The mind just boggles.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
How do you know that all this technology is around you?
Are you typing this on your paper philosophy degree, or a keyboard?
Also, if philosophy is bullshit then we might as well crawl back to ~C4 BC and start again.
Yes, it's philosophy that brought us out of the caves and developed all this technology. How many philosophy majors are Intel and Microsoft employing these days?
Where did the capability of living organisms to adapt to their living environment come from? Evolution says random chance created a system that adapts to its environment. Okay, but the existence of an adaptable system is not proof for the creative power of random mutation, because anything random mutation can do, intelligence can design.
Again, you completely misunderstand the premise of evolution. It's not about organism "adapting" to their living environment. It's about the environment having a selection bias on specific traits (those that raise the probability of spreading one gene's; on a simplified level, those that lead to more offspring). A single organism does not adapt - it lives, reproduces and dies. The entire population adapts. That adaptation is inherent in the laws under which the system operates - it's not guided in any way, and it does not have a goal. It happens because: 1) mutations happen, and 2) natural selection happens. The existence of those two things - which is a verifiable fact - is sufficient for evolution. In fact, you'd have to come up with a reasonable explanation of how evolution would not happen in these circumstances.
Cars and operating systems do not evolve in that sense because they do not reproduce, and do not mutate. If they did, then, yeah, they'd evolve as well.
Now how plausible is it that random mutation can create functioning systems? It sounds easy, get something working and bootstrap from there.
That's until you start paying attention to just how easy it is to break the system with random mutation. Functionality is information, and information is subject to entropy. Random mutation is applying noise (entropy) to information - and you're expecting natural selection to somehow filter (information + noise) into (more information).
Your mistake is that you treat living organisms as some kind of intricate machines, where one cog out of place breaks the whole thing down. It's not how it works. In fact, most mutations are neutral with respect to fitness, so they don't get weeded out at all. Thus it's pretty easy for them to accumulate over time, and eventually their combinations producing either harmful or beneficial effects, which are then weeded out or strengthened via positive feedback loops that are inherent in the natural selection process.
Random mutation is applying noise (entropy) to information - and you're expecting natural selection to somehow filter (information + noise) into (more information).
Indeed - and what exactly is wrong with that picture? You're right that random noise by itself would not result in evolution, you also need a filter to separate "useful" noise from "useless" one. Natural selection is precisely such a filter, which defines "usefulness" as the ability to propagate its genetic material. Once you introduce that into the picture - and we know that natural selection happens, we've observed it in experiments! - trivial application of statistics will give you all the proof of evolution that you'll ever need.
Creationism does not mean what you think it means. You can believe in God and evolution, but not creationism and evolution.
creationism [kree-ey-shuh-niz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.
2.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, especially in the first chapter of Genesis.
bless thy noodly appendages.
But that is exactly what speciation is. You, or rather the liars at AIG, have created a private definition. Inventing private definitions to win debates is a form of dishonesty, in my view.
Have you ever pondered actually reading a book on evolution by a biologist. You know, sort of like how you would consult a dentist on dentistry rather than, say, a witch doctor?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
My dear friend, all I argued was that memory - hence science, which uses memory - requires faith.
Who here said that memory is an illusion? That was just you and a bunch of other dorks trying to read between the lines.
Celebrate the faith you need to do science, I say!
And mathematics is a product of philosophy.
Yeah, I can see philosophers developing mathematics:
2+2=4... or does it? Who can say for sure?
These people are extremists even by the standards of other religious people.
Unfortunately I don't think you can call such a widely held belief extremist. CNN's article about this video references a Gallup Poll that found 46% of Americans believe "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." I find this incredibly depressing.
1+1=3 but only for very large values of 1
Check a dictionary. Creationism does NOT mean 'belief in God'. Faith is perfectly compatible with all science, really, if you reduce it to 'God created the initial conditions such that the universe evolved as he wanted it.' But that is not creationism, that's just religion. Creationism, BY DEFINITION, means you do not believe in evolution.
creationism [kree-ey-shuh-niz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.
2.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, especially in the first chapter of Genesis.
No, I just don't believe that speciation is evidence for true macro evolution:
Of course not, because "macro evolution" doesn't exist outside Young Earth Creationist talking points. In biology, there isn't "micro evolution" and "macro evolution"; there's only "evolution" (which is supremely well documented, including speciation).
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I doubt it's truly possible to "set aside those beliefs". By the usual religious self-admitted statements, it seems like isn't. Purity of the soul is supposedly a good thing, but it admits that setting things aside, compartmentalizing them, just doesn't work. Your thoughts must be pure. Yeah, you'd like to do that nice girl you just saw, and it's a bad thought to have in spite of you never ever having touched a girl, for example. That means, to me, that one can't set the beliefs aside, and that religious people self-admittedly are simply broken in a way that makes them to an extent unfit to do science.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Funny you should mention Sodom and the tone of the Bible, as having grown up firmly indoctrinated in the Christian church, the story of Lot and his wife were instrumental in me realizing that 1) a lot of it (no pun intended) is hooey, and 2) even if it's not, I don't want to follow this god.
For those who don't know, Lot and his wife were told to flee Sodom and Gamorrah before it was destroyed by God for being so wicked. They were told to not even look back at it by angels sent to help. On their way out, though, Lot's wife turned back and looked, and was instantly turned into a pillar of salt.
Obviously, the moral is not to screw around with God. If he tells you not to turn around and look at something, you'd better damn well not turn around and look or else the consequences could be severe. Practically speaking, though, I was never able to get past how insanely petty this was. This woman presumably had family and friends left in the city. There's presumably a lot of hoopla and chaos happening. Why did she turn around? Was it because she couldn't bear the thought of her family and friends suffering? Was it because she wanted to make sure that the rest of her family was going to make it out alive? Was it just a loud noise that caught her attention? Who knows? Maybe she thought the angels didn't literally mean don't look back, kind of like how even today we say, "I left my home and never looked back." In most cases you don't literally mean that you didn't turn around and catch one last glimpse of it, you just metaphorically mean that you moved on with your life.
At any rate, we have a woman who was probably just an average schmo, likely not particularly evil, else the angels wouldn't have bothered rescuing her. Her crime was taking one last glimpse of the family, friends, home, and life that she would never return to again. She was obviously a loyal follower of God, as she simply picked up and left based on the word of two strangers saying they were angels and her husband who, incidentally, offered two virgin daughters to the wicked men of Sodom intent on raping Lot's guests. So if you're keeping score, Lot offers up his two virgin daughters to be gang raped and gets to live a happy, productive life. Lot's wife commits the cardinal sin of turning around to see everything she knows destroyed by fire, and does she get any measure of sympathy or mercy? Oh hell no, she's killed (or worse, she wasn't and is eternally suffering, being forced to look back at the destroyed city) for something that anybody in their right mind should understand and would probably do.
Anyway, I empathize with Lot's wife, and like I said, this story made me realize that I don't want to follow a god that is so petty and vindictive that he would do such a heinous thing. If that means I'm going to hell, then so be it. Spending eternity slavishly following such a spiteful creature seems like just another definition of hell.
Yet here I am, thousands of years later, and people following this crap are teaching their kids to doubt science, that if the Bible is interpreted as A and science says B, you'd better go with A. After all, if God would punish an innocent woman by turning her into a pillar of salt, you don't want to fathom what he'd do to you if you believe in evolution. Bill Nye is right, teaching creationism to kids as anything other than a fanciful myth is crazy and a disservice to them, their community, and mankind as a whole.
I accept my memory as reliable. My acceptance is an act of faith.
Where do you come up with this shit?
I don't need 'faith' to accept my memory as reliable. I can test it easily at any point.
Even when the belief system officially encourages and endorses the forced imposition of the belief system?
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
intelligent design is NOT science, it is only consistent with the delusion of a god.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Your question isn't intractable. It's sterile. It has the same amount of predictive and analytical power as "Goddidit". It's utterly boring. It leads nowhere. Not only that, but the Greeks already knew about it and found it to be an approach that lead nowhere. The best - and really only response - I got to this question is "Who cares?" As for which texts we read in "middle school", Plato's cave analogy was a nice starting point. Descartes in High School was a bit more interesting, but he fell flat due to the necessity to use circular reasoning to get anywhere with that approach.
What makes me roll my eyes isn't the philosophy, it's the attitude of people like you who think they've found some special trick question. You haven't. You're merely regurgitating a 2000 year old discussion that was rejected pretty much immediately. You're like a 9 year old who yells citizen's arrest! every time he sees his parents speeding. It merely betrays your own shallowness and lack of understanding.
And what's with the quotes. Did you do the appropriate air quotes with your fingers as well?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Dog breeds are not evolution, perhaps in some liberal definition they are but any canine can breed with any other. Even wolves and breed with domestic dogs. Now if after 1000's of years we had come up with a line of animal derived from dogs but couldn't be breed with a dog then we might have something. Even if we could get to a dog that can breed with a wolf then we would have something. And size doesn't matter, if the sperm can fertilize the egg and get offspring that can also reproduce we have it. Horses + Donkeys = Mules is on the right track but still not quite there cause Mule + Mule = 0
It all starts at 0
We prayed for Armageddon, and members of my fathers church sought out positions within the USAF Strategic Air Command
Have they succeeded? As an atheist, about the only thing I've ever prayed for was for the ICBM units' command positions to be manned by level-headed people. Your story sounds a bit scary to me.
Ezekiel 23:20
True, 1+1=3
You just have to use very large values of 1.
8-PP
I thought the whole "legitimate rape" issue was that some people interpreted Akin's remarks to mean that if the woman got pregnant then the rape wasn't "legitimate", but he really meant "forcible rape". In other words, if all parties consented but there's some legal reason why you're not allowed to have sex, it may be defined by law as "rape" even if it doesn't fit the usual definition of "nonconsensual sex".
If I'm a freshman in college and my girlfriend's in high school, it may be statutory rape for us to have sex even though both of us consent to it. I didn't legitimately rape her, so that sort of sex presumably has no impediment to pregnancy. On the other hand, if I hold her down and force myself on her without her consent, that legitimately is rape, and Akin believes (falsely) that she is somehow less likely to get pregnant.
dom
engineering is design, sometimes intelligent but engineering design does evolve as more knowledge is accumulated
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
maybe we should put some other verses from the bible on buildings. like these :
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 : Stone disobedient children
Leviticus 27:1-7
Leviticus 21:5
Exodus 21:7-10 says men can sell their daughters into slavery
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I love philosophy most of all because it really angers shallow westerners.
So the reason you really love philosophy is because it pisses off shallow people? That's... pretty shallow.
It's all an illusion!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I think you're right here, and we have to specify that when we talk about Creationism, we're talking about God--errr, some, unknown all-powerful, unspecified being that is most definitely NOT just a thinly disguised Judeo-Christian God so that the theory's followers can claim it's not a religious theory--just magically making every living thing appear on Earth as they are today and there is no long-term change to any species.
Because here's the thing. Evolution doesn't prohibit the existence or influence of any given deity. Evolution is completely indifferent. Maybe some God created the system of Evolution. Maybe some deity created the universe and set in motion the events that would create evolution. Evolution is about how one species becomes another, how small changes in genetics add up over time and how that reflects on the world. Why life started in the first place, if there is some intrinsic meaning to life, or other questions of a similar nature are, to my understanding, irrelevant to the point of figuring out how life changes.
Science doesn't have to prove itself. It yields technology that works. If faith, or revelation, or scriptural study were a valid means for obtaining knowledge than we would have technology based on knowledge obtained through such means.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So what was the point? Just to flamebait rational thinkers with the F-word by making a philosophical abstraction of a physical process?
On a physical level no faith is required, your brain is hardwired to trust your perception and memory unless it's horribly broken.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Perhaps, but it would take a fanatically strong faith bordering on idiocy to work for an extended time with genetic algorithms, seeing the ornate and radically efficient designs that can emerge from nothing but chaos and selective pressures, and still deny that evolution is a viable theory for how life emerged. Note I'm not saying that a rational person necessarily has to believe that's how it *did* happen, but it takes a particular brand of stupid to use an immensely powerful tool on a daily basis and then turn around and deny that the natural phenomena that inspired it actually occurs.
As for the "evolved from ooze" thing - there you're dealing with biogenesis rather than evolution, which is actually a completely separate and far less well-understood topic, though it does lean heavily on evolution for explanation since the principles apply to pre-biotic chemistry as well.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
1) The idea that the denial of evolution is unique to the US - which I very much doubt, as both Christians and some other religions (Islam, in particular) tend to hold views that contradict with macro evolution.
Individuals not believing in evolution certainly isn't unique to the US, but the sheer number of such individuals is unusually high, especially for a wealthy, educated nation. The US is second only to Turkey in lack of acceptance of evolution. More importantly, the US is the only first world nation where we still have regular arguments about teaching creationism in school.
2) That not believing in evolution - which we cannot measure and observe in a lab - is comparable to not believing in plate tectonics (which we can observe and measure).
There are lots of other things that we can't easily observe in the lab do you doubt them too? For example, do you doubt how fossils form? You can't observe it happening, the process takes too long. You can, however, observe bits and pieces of it and from that extrapolate out the whole process. Similarly you can in fact see evolution working in the lab, the E. coli long-term evolution experiment is the prime example (where batches of e.coli unexpectedly developed the ability to metabolize citrate). But, and I mean as little disrespect as possible, you'll just claim that's 'micro' evolution, somehow not accepting of the fact that 1,000,000 micro-meters adds up to a full meter.
That we need good scientists and engineers, and therefore should not teach our children creationism. This in effect implies that someone cannot hold a creationist viewpoint and also contribute in those fields, which is preposterous (I personally know several scientists and engineers who hold beliefs similar to my own, and who are still very effective in their work - and I have read the works of many others who are much higher up in their respective fields).
I agree, the idea that individuals who hold creationist beliefs cannot advance science is incorrect. However, when you set up a system to constantly and relentlessly snipe at the largest, most well developed, most well researched, and most empirically verified theory in modern biology, you create an environment where kids are left very confused. They can choose to ignore the whole subject, despite the fact that it forms the underlying basis for all modern biological science. Or they can choose to look at the subject and reject the mountain of evidence that supports it. Well, the 3rd option is to walk away to one extent or another, from the faith their parents have taught them, which is why religious people feel under attack.
For what it's worth, I don't think you deserve the troll mod that you've been smacked with. I'm of the opinion that only abusive or flamebait comments should be modded down, and I don't think yours is either of those.
There are plenty of people who believe God "used evolution as part of the creative process." In fact, pretty sure that's basically the official stance of the entire Catholic Church. But that IS NOT creationism! Creationism does not mean 'God created the universe'; it means 'God created all creatures as they currently exist'
creationism [kree-ey-shuh-niz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.
2.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, especially in the first chapter of Genesis.
This is laughable. So you are telling me that something that for all we know could be the direct result of a supernatural being imposing it's will is proof to you that a supernatural being never created the environment you think contradicts itself.
I guess your rejection of critical thinking might be a problem too. You see, the biblical story can be summed up with a supernatural being did some supernatural stuff and the results are what we know today, even what the theory of evolution thinks it knows. The biblical explanation also says the supernatural being gave dominion over the world to man and gave man the ability to use tools and such to exploit it. which sort of implies that anything about evolution that we can use to further our existence is on purpose.
Now before you reply, let me define supernatural. It means above nature or above natural means, not bound by the rules of nature. We are confined to the rules of nature, by default any GOD is not and in not being confined, their works if they exist(ed) can just as easily create our reality in what we can understand from a strictly natural observation. Evolution does not in any way disprove creation, it provides us with a useful set of tools that can used to further our existence and comfort.
I do agree that a flat out rejection of one or the other can be problematic but that is a symptom of how it is portrayed more then how it is. If people insist creation disproves evolution or evolution disproves creation, you will have one asserted over the other.
History would indicate that the individuals I mentioned were in fact not good at computer science at all - they managed to get fired from so many of the "good computer jobs" in the city my University was in, that it became impossible to get a computer job in that city if you admitted to having a degree in computer science from that institution. Having been in the room with them while they cheated at exams, I can state very much that it wasn't so much regurgitation as much as reading their cheat notes (written in another language, once on the walls of the room and ignored by profs who couldn't accept people would be taking their courses for reasons other than loving the subject) and talking to each other during exams in another language (in that case ignored by a prof because 'in her culture it is wrong for a woman to correct a man on anything'. (And no, she is not still a prof, fortunately. And no, I don't understand why she wanted to be one to start with considering the responsibilities like 'grading'.)
In the case of someone who manages to somehow pull off A+ grades in a rigidly logical discipline, yet still claims to believe something completely pants-on-head retarded as the GP stated: "I dutifully read it and found it to be nonsensical and completely illogical. Yet he was firmly convinced this was the truth.", assuming he's either cheating or full of it when he claims to believe that (I also knew people who did that, their reason was "religious fanatic girls are the easiest to get into bed, as long as they think you're also super religious") is a logical conclusion. I suppose it's possible that he somehow managed to be mentally broken enough to be able to handle rigid logic dealing with class work, yet not be able to apply it even slightly elsewhere, but that's less probable. Even a stopped clock is only right twice a day if it's analog, so if someone tells you their clock is only right twice a day, is it more natural to think it's both analog and stopped, or to think it's running backwards?
If someone is crazy enough to believe in any type of god with no proof, aside from a book, what others tell them, intuition, or the voices in their head, no amount of reasoning will convince them otherwise. It is futile. We are mere animals. We just recently discovered fire. It is turtles all the way down. I see your Vishnu and raise you a noodly appendage.
A god would be a some sort of omniscient deity.
A slightly smarter guy than me is not a god.
So if you believe in creationism you can't be a good engineer? In the real world, no one really cares what you believe with how the world was made, but rather if you can improve what's here now.
Creationists are not exactly stupid
You are correct: they are willfully ignorant.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
How is that arrived at by my reasoning?
I say we teach kids science as we understand it, with enough underpinnings as to the methods involved to at least give some understanding as to how to biologists have arrived at that point. There are not enough hours in the day to teach children in the way you demand, and what's more, there need not be, any more than having to go through every single medieval source to show Charlemagne existed is required to teach about the Carolingians or having to provide the syntax and vocabulary of every generation of spoken language from Proto-Germanic to Modern Dutch is required to teach that Modern Dutch is descended from the proto-Germanic mother tongue.
What you're really trying to argue for is teaching the controversy, but you don't want to come out and say it. Your motives are highly suspect, but, if you want to prove me wrong, then tell me why it isn't required to teach the syntax and vocabulary of every generation of spoken language from proto-Semitic to Modern Arabic and Modern Hebrew to be able to state that Modern Arabic and Modern Hebrew are related languages that descended from a common ancestral language.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The term used in the Bible, in English at least, is "kind" rather than species. I'm not sure of the original Hebrew word, or what subtleties it conveys, but I suspect that the difficulties in discussing this stem from our imperfect classification system. We can make one group of flies, over generations, incapable of complete interbreeding... but do these 'new' groups of flies have any real distinction? Does one have an extra set of legs, or has one lost the ability to fly? (not that I would necessarily think either of those to be sufficient for a new 'kind', just trying to put out some examples).
Also, as I pointed out, I do think it is entirely possible that God used evolution in the creation process - I won't die for the young earth viewpoint :) What I would die for is the idea of intelligent design: that God orchestrated creation, whether in six days or in six billion years. I still happen to favor the young earth stand, but I am open to discuss and debate such things!
William George
Yes they did. My father maintained ballistic radar and launch control systems, though he himself never had a finger on the button. Many of the others in the church held similar or higher positions. Until at least the late 80's USAF chaplains were still performing training on the morality of nuclear war that prominently featured quotes from revelations. Are they still there? Probably, but I have not been in contact with those people for 25 years and have not even talked to my father in 15 years. At least the nuclear arming codes are no longer a string of 0's.
I think it would be better if they could let go of the "every sperm is sacred"* crap. Better than accepting evolution, in fact. I would approve making them pro-contraception and anti-evolution in a heartbeat. Evolution denialism is a first-world problem.
*This isn't their actual argument against contraception. It's far, far more stupid.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Obviously, the education system is the work of the devil. Those degrees are only signs of how high you are in the devil's rankings.
(I feel like I'm gonna pay for that comment somehow...)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Yes less then 31% of the people in the US are Scientifically literate. I got this fact from a pod cast on astronomy.fm Not sure who said it.
Why? Psychological screening ensured that these people got in. A nuclear deterrent does not work if you don't have people willing to push the button.
All of the human lexicon is made up of terms we (humans) have invented. What I am saying is that taking a group of flies and making two groups that no longer interbreed is not in any way evidence that single-cell organisms could eventually end up in something as complex as a fish, much less a human being. Separating these ideas of small changes within a type of organism from the idea that one organism can evolve into something totally different, bearing no resemblance to what it came from, is a legitimate distinction. You can all it whatever you like, but being pigeon-holed into using one specific term that you approve of while not allowing other concepts is a much worse form of dishonesty.
Further, I have read lengthy excerpts at least, if not always whole books, from biologists on both sides. I will freely admit that much of the detail and nuance (on both sides) is lost on me, as I don't have a deep education in the life sciences, but I follow along as best I can.
William George
You're getting into a moot point that does not really have any place to go.
Either our senses are so unreliable that everyone around us is knowable, even say Faith since that would have had to come from some kind of stimuli; or we have to accept that our sens are reliable to a degree.
It'd be similar to saying, do we see the same colors?
How do I know my red is not your green? (we actually do have ways to know this but suspend that for a sec)
Any test or stimuli you give me or vise versa would come up as me doing the color as I would.
Also RE: philosophy, wasn't there a language teacher recently that got some thesis published to great accolades, but then came out saying he basically BS'd the whole thing? Just strung a whole bunch of large words together and voila philosophy.
Let's see an architect BS their way into building a building.
We have no evidence that was _observed_ two million years ago. We have observations from a few decades, and all else is extrapolation.
You say that, but that same argument reducto ad absurdum: We have no evidence that everyone dies when they swallow the output end of a shotgun. We have observations from a few decades, but all else is extrapolation. I believe you won't, because you've never done it before.
Not that I necessarily want you to die, but the above makes my point.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Actually you're voicing a common misconception - Laws and Theories are at pretty much the same level of "certainty" and neither is at 100%. One of the guiding principles of science is that *nothing* can be known with 100% certainty, and even if we eventually develop a 100% accurate understanding of the universe we'll never know for sure that we've done so - we could have developed completely false theories that just happen to agree 100% with all observed phenomena.
Which brings me back to the distinction between Theory and Law. Laws describe what happens - gravity falls off with distance as Fg = G*m1*m2/r^2. Voltage divides across resistors in series as V1=r1/(r1+r2). Basically laws are the mathematically predictive side of science. On the other hand theories explain why things behave the way they do - what are the physical processes in play that cause the behaviors described by the laws. Oft times the theories will then suggest special cases where the laws won't behave as expected and such discrepancies can be tested for to verify the theory, other times (such as in quantum mechanics at present) there are numerous theories, many quite outlandish, but none predict definite "corner cases" where their predictions would differ measurably from the established laws, and we're left in the unsatisfying position of having well-tested laws without correspondingly accepted theories to explain why they work.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
That is a great Magic card, btw. Exile a creature for 1 mana, at instant speed? Wow. Classic card.
Bill Nye is in a position to get laws passed that favor his viewpoint (force children to abandon god, allah, yahweh, Reincarnation, etc).
Really?! Bill Nye is trying to force children to abandon god? You actually believe that?
Mainly because I'm tired of people telling what to do. "Don't smoke weed". Really?
Whatever you're smoking, you should probably smoke less of it.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Giving honor to God by capitalizing pronouns when referring to Him is a logical outflow of my belief that He is the 'original person', so to speak. The source and author of all other personhood. It would be similar to referring to a head of state with special terminology or respect, but on a much grander scale. How is any of that inconsistent?
Also, the friend of whom I spoke is still my friend (or at least I hope he is). I don't understand why folks can't discuss these sorts of topics without falling to the level of breaking relationships. Strike that, I actually can understand it - I just find it very sad: many negative emotions are brought up when confronted with truth that 'breaks' someones world-view, and those emotions change the way you react to a person involved in that process... I just wish people could get over that so that we can have more open discussions about these things. The same applies to politics, etc.
William George
Creationists: Putting the Fun, Duh, and Mental in Fundamentalism!
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
Creationism is what people that can not understand Science use as a crutch to turn people away from the true study of God. Creationism is like that of a tool of the devil him self.
Darwin in hid study of God showed us Evolution the work of the true God.
all he's saying is that believing in it didn't make him suck at his job, which happens to be an engineering job?
No, that's not what he said. This is what he said, which is what I quoted and replied to:
I do not see how my belief in a creator undermines the engineering of this missile launcher I'm working on.
Key word being "undermines". Depending on his particular belief system, his beliefs may very well undermine the building of a missile launcher. Maybe even consciously so. Maybe he's designing it to fail, so that it doesn't kill people. That hypothetical engineer would not be one that I would want building anything, lest his system of beliefs undermine the purpose of his job.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I guess it's up to him and his creator whether building weapons designed to kill people "counts" as far as divine rules go.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The are a number of well-regarded M.D.'s that are strict young-earth creationists.
I asked one (who was a friend of mine) how could study and master that much biology while rejecting evolution. He looked uncomfortable, then said "it's just a matter of faith".
For people like him, the definition of "faith" must be "a fervent belief in something that you know perfectly well isn't true".
"For what it's worth, I don't think you deserve the troll mod that you've been smacked with. I'm of the opinion that only abusive or flamebait comments should be modded down, and I don't think yours is either of those."
Thank you! I very much appreciate your saying that :)
William George
Wow you deduce that i am a redneck from one post you are talented, or a bigot hmm which one could that be. and I would like to be shown where I was wrong assuming i am of course, but i have the feeling that you can't.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Have you seen a pug? That guy was a genius :)
Show me a gear or wheel in nature. Immediately we've exceeded the designer's initial design.
Show me the world's fastest sorting algorithm. I'll give you a hint it sorts 6 values using 5 comparisons. This was found using genetic algorithms.
Where biomimetics comes into play is that for their given level of complexity, the solutions are the most optimal.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
It's not as bad as you think:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/40-of-americans-still-bel_n_799078.html
That's 2 years old and had 40% young-earthers and about 38% God-guided evolutioners (theistic evolution). So roughly 50% of creationists believing in young earth. My suspicion is that it's shifting more towards theistic evolution since then. If you broke it down more like wikipedia's creationism article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism) then I suspect you'd get even less YECs and mostly Intelligent Design types.
That is only in the US of course. I would suspect that beyond the US theistic evolution is most common, mostly because that is the official dogma of the Catholic Church.
Like in most groups, the nutjobs are the loudest and most newsworthy, so their numbers seem larger than they really are. Although 40% of the US is still a pretty big number.
It seems that we are where we are as a culture because of science and all those that followed it while the creationists have largely just hitched a ride. I also don't see that they actually have an evolutionary advantage.
Overall I am not very worried about this long term since I want to get a robot body and head out into space and explore and what you guys do on this planet will be your problem. I want to spend millions of years learning and understanding what is out there. I am sure there will be others interested in the same and they can come along.
I wonder how well this world would work if the engineers and scientists left and what kind of evolutionary advantage those remaining would have.
Ahhhh... so, you're an imbecile. Sorry, forget I asked.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Don't bother... you're using logic. You will only alienate him further. Hope he won't go too crazy.
In addition to the above, how about this: if he's a religious engineer building a missile launcher, and he prescribes to a creator religion, then that religion probably has a rule that it's not ok to kill the creator's creations. So either he's ignoring his religion in order to build weapons to kill people, or he's following his religious laws and sabotaging the weapons so that they don't work. Either way, he's being dishonest. Taking the track of "I'm only building one part of the system that kills people, and I don't actually push the button" is the "ignoring your religion" part.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Belief in evolution is really just the marker trait. If you reject the objective evidence in exchange for a mythological story (where the actual scripture in no way suggests that evolution wasn't how the creation was accomplished) in the case of evolution, where WON'T you do the same? You either do or do not accept that where observation is at odds with belief, belief must change to accommodate observation, not the other way around. If you do NOT accept that, your thinking is fundamentally incompatible with science and engineering.
You are welcome to believe that God created everything. When confronted with the evidence for observation, you can say to yourself "AHA! So that's how he did it!" and everything is just fine.
On the other hand, if your first instinct is to deny the observation or claim that they are a trick of the devil, where does it end? If you implement an economic policy and it ends in tears, will you deny that evidence too and claim it's a trick of the opposition? If you implement a bridge and it gallops and collapses, will you look into why and build bridges differently after that or will you declare that God didn't want a bridge there? Will you take your new knowledge and apply it to existing bridges to see if modifications are needed or will you accept ion faith that they are just fine?
The problem comes in teaching children a simple, reasonable explanation for how life got to be the way it is, and then saying "but what really happened is god waved his hand and made it that way" and expecting them to believe it. Creationists are rightfully afraid that children exposed to the theory of evolution at an early age are likely to find a literal interpretation of their creation myths ridiculous.
Now if you have a metaphorical understanding of creationism, sure, you can make it work with a little fancy footwork, maybe more than most parents can manage, but their minister should be capable of doing so as needed - in fact if they're smart they've already indoctrinated children with the "official interpretation" before they ever get exposed to it in science class. But metaphorical Creationists aren't really the ones who are the problem - creative interpretation of facts isn't really a problem, in fact it could be argued that it is the core of groundbreaking science. Denial of well-established facts on the other hand is a major problem.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Most creationists don't argue the concept of microevolution. My "humans evolving from ooze" comment was reflecting the fact that while (I'm generalizing) creationists may not have a problem with the concept of genetic mutation, they're going to have a problem with those processes turning one basic organism (ooze) into another (human).
For an anecdote, I'm a Christian, educated through primary and high school in private Christian schools. I was taught young-earth creationism all through school. I went on to get an engineering degree, and IIRC a much higher percentage than usual of my classmates went on to university. Now that I'm older and have had more of a chance to think for myself, I'm no longer a creationist, but I'm still a Christian.
FWIW, I've done a decent amount of personal research and reading into genetic algorithms in computer science, and that particular field of study has done absolutely nothing to make me consider the validity of the theory of evolution in the natural world. Reading research into biology, geology, and other sciences wrestling with the actual questions of evolution has had a profound influence on my thinking. Genetic algoritthms in computer science are "merely" applying a theoretical way of thinking to applying problems in mathematics and computer science. It would be perfectly possible to use these methods whether or not in reality "people evolved from ooze".
www.clarke.ca
Science isn't important to everyone, so they won't care about this. You can live your entire life without knowing where humanity came from or how your iphone works. For the most part, you're asking the masses to care about a niche topic that most people don't give a shit about. Once they get past high school science, they don't want to step into another science classroom again, then they get bummed out in college cuz they gotta take animal biology or something.
I know people who don't believe in God or care about science at the same time. If you ask them about evolution they'll tell you they don't care. If you ask them about science facts they'll laugh at you and call you a nerd or whatever then buy you a beer.
I know the argument will be, "well their religion is impeding on our right to science," but look at it from another perspective. What has science really given us? -Ok, we fill space with pieces of metal with cameras.
-We made cars and electricity that are now polluting our world beyond belief.
-It increased the lifespan of humans and survivability which may or may not be leading to overpopulation, dwindling resources per capita, global warming, etc.
-Gave us better ways to kill eachother.
Most of the pros can also be seen as cons. I did a fellowship researching green energy and the question that always came up, was "what is the total impact on the environment?" We'd look at things that we think to be clean, but ask the question, "is the manufacturing/disposal process clean?" and so on...
The point is, science is only important to people who think it's important. A lot of people will say it's bad because of the total impact its had on this world. The same can be said for religion. I'm an agnostic, if it's not clear, but I'm starting to care less and less about which side is right, because I'm not sure it will really matter who is right. It's not like there will be a huge "in your face, you're wrong parade" by either side if God were to return to earth or be completely disproven somehow and everyone who was right will inherit a billion dollars or something. It's kind of a pointless fight.
Wrong, "Survival of the Fittest" just became a catchphrase for sociopaths. When used outside of evolutionary theory there's nothing scientific about it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Yep, the guy with multiple Ph.D's disagrees with the your particular brand of invisible sky daddy, must be a dumbass.
Yes, because having a PhD automatically makes you an expert in everything and you should trust what they have to say about anything.
Sorry, mild pet peeve, but seriously, holding a PhD doesn't mean that you are intelligent or even know what you are talking about, as theories can go stale. At best they might be worth taking about, but I've meet some PhD's that knew a lot about a very narrow topic but not much about anything else.
Show me a gear or wheel in nature. Immediately we've exceeded the designer's initial design.
Your point being ... ? I'm not claiming that all that's worth using was already designed and created. (Though if a god created the universe, he definitely made it possible for gears/wheels to exist)
Show me the world's fastest sorting algorithm. I'll give you a hint it sorts 6 values using 5 comparisons. This was found using genetic algorithms.
Not sure which algorithm that is, but whichever one it was, it was found using some sort of software search system created by intelligent designers. That a computer automated the search process does not make it any less a product of intelligent design.
That genetic algorithm did not need the theory of evolution in order to exist. This is giving evolution credit where it deserves none.
After the king james version some one translated "Bring them out so we may know them" to "have sex with them". Yikes. The ancient hebrew/aramic word for know is Yeda and it means to know well. Of the 47 places yeda is used in no place does it strictly mean sex. In fact it is written that David knew god. Was david but fucking god, or did he just, well, know him.
In fact the cannanites were in a time of sporaic war with their rivals, which is why they had a gate keeper named Lot. Now Lot was a sneaky guy who didn't even live with his own people. When he let in two demanding late night strangers and hid them in his home, the people had every reason to be alarmed. Perhaps they meant harm to the village. Asking to meet them and learn their bussiness under such cshady circumstances seeme reasonable. And indeed they did come planning to destroy the place and ulimately did.
The word "them" in bring them out, is gender neutral. The towns people did not know if the strangers were all men, angels, or a family. The word for the towns people is mixed gender "all the people", and so the idea they would be raping anyone in front of their wives and kids seems absurd. Finally, when offered the claimed virgin (but married) daughters of lot, the less than horny towns people turned them down, not being interested in sex but safety.
Finally one can note there were not witnesses other than lot and his wife (and retinue) that escaped so we only have lots story, and that story seems to be plagerized form the book of judges where the same thing happens including offering virgin daughters to protect angels. If this were on CSI-Gomorrah today we would find out that actually lot got paid off to open the town gates to an invading army that razed the place and Lots wife was going to spill the beans so he killed her and told everyone she turned into a pillar of stone. Then he just recycled the story from Book of Judges when asked what happened.
Anyhow. No butsects in soddom. Eziekiel tells us exactly why got sent the destroying angels: the prideful 1%s didn't realize they didn't build their own wealth, society had, and they were not giving back.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You're kidding, right? Since when has the progress of science been driving by non-conformists who throw out widely accepted notions for absolutely no reason?
Never. But your's is a loaded question. The progress of science gets over humps when someone is willing to question the dogma, to ask if they assumtions are valid. When they make great discoveries, those who have an investment in the dogma invariably claim that it is being thrown out for absolutely no reason. We don't need a heliocentric universe. We don't need germ theory.
I see nothing wrong with teaching children that scientists do not all practice science impartially. They need to understand that a scientist's views on contraversial issues such as politics and religion or simply a desire to protect his position may influence his judgement about what the evidence means.
This does not mean we should teach our children wacky creation myths just to be different. But it does mean that it is appropriate to discuss with one's children whether evolution is an atheist creation myth.
Disbelief in evolution is disbelief in antibiotic resistance in contagious and harmful bacteria (MRSA for example). Evolution explains how some bacteria are able to randomly survive exposure to antibiotics and produce offspring with similar resistance. With successive generations and successive random variations, additional resistances can be distilled.
Evolution explains how weeds can become Round-Up resistant. Genetically modified and manipulated plants are about as "intelligently designed" as you get, but there evolution is, randomly guiding plants to do successively better with each generation against this poison. If nothing else, this demonstrates that "intelligent design" and "evolution" have similar outcomes in similar time (I'll grant that intelligent design beat evolution by a decade, but I maintain that isn't a relevant time period).
Thus did Sauron create the orcs from the elves, via his cruel arts.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that, across the 73 years worth of Batman comics, with multiple simultaneous series (currently, there's something like ten or so ongoing comics that Batman is either the sole focus of, or one of the major cast of*), incest and people being tortured for religious beliefs has come up at least as many times as it has in the bible, if not more. The main difference there, is that in Batman, those things are almost always depicted as something negative.
... Batman is being used by DC like Wolverine was being used by Marvel - he's everywhere, and apparently on or associated with every team. Poor guy needs a serious vacation.
* - Batman, Detective Comics, Batman and Robin, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman: Arkham Unhinged, Batman Incorporated, Batman: No man's Land, Batman: The Streets of Gotham, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman Beyond, Justice League AND Justice League International, oh man, that's 12 just from the current month sales listing for DC, and I haven't even started on the Bat-spinoffs like Batgirl, Batwoman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Catwoman, and
Science is just that. A tool.
Sure there are some scientists that would use it for pushing an agenda, but 99.99% of scientists are in it for the improvement of human knowledge.
The "climategate" fiasco showed this - some anti-science people looked at a few emails out of context and jumped to conclusions that the science was bad, but then there was an extensive review that found it to be valid.
The great thing about science is that it ISN'T a religion, so anyone can get the training needed and work it out for themself, they aren't demanded to be obedient to a priest or labeled as heretics if they make a breakthrough.
I am not religious, my son is asking me to explain the religious believes of some of his play-friends and the obvious to him collision with science. I explain that Science and Religion are not mutually exclusive.
I explain that Science does not teach "Absolute Truth" - it teaches to conduct experiments to measure and observe facts, then build theories to predict outcomes of future experiments, perform future experiments, confirm or deny theory. Nothing in the Scientific Approach requires for the facts to be "Absolute Truths" - they only need to be "Observable Truths".
Religion deals with "Absolute Truths" - it's not testable and measurable. It is Philosophy.
Maybe both should be studies at school - evolution in science class, creationism in philosophy class.
Engineers aren't scientists, and they especially don't care about evolution. An engineer can take some formulae describing how a particular phenomenon works, because god wills it to be so or otherwise, and design stuff.
Even most biologists can probably get away with not believing in evolution with no more than the usual irrationality required to dismiss evolution in the first place. An evolution-dismissing evolutionary biologist would require some serious mental gymnastics.
Interesting analysis. But I'm curious, given the amount of skepticism you show about human interpretation and fallibility, how you have determined the Christian bible is the reliable starting point for your source of information? What evidence do you use that it was divinely inspired, rather than a human production? Why that book as opposed to some other religious text which might also claim to be divinely inspired?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
creationism is just a symptom of a much more fundemental problem.
I see what you did there
I think your point about compartmentalizing is salient. As humans, we are forced to deal with inconsistencies in most areas of our lives. We know exercise is good for us but we watch TV after supper anyway. Whatever. I'm sure all of us could find inconsistencies in our beliefs, or between our beliefs and actions, if we're honest with ourselves.
www.clarke.ca
Creationism is not the problem. It is merely the outward manifestation of it. The problem is mindless evangelicals that expect blind devotion and for you to check your brain at the door. This creationism nonsense is just the most visible part of their worldview. These people are extremists even by the standards of other religious people.
They're like the Amish except with no balls. They make a lot of separatist noises and then just whine and pretend they are somehow victimized by society.
It's also useful to note that this lot were the only people to defend those recent "legitimate rape" remarks.
Creationism is just a symptom of a much more fundemental problem.
You sir are an a-hole.
A Christian with balls.
Irrational thinking is not a symptom of mental illness. You disrespect genuine mental illnesses by saying so. Most psychologists would probably state that we are incapable of thinking rationally 100% of the time because it's a massive cognitive load and we have evolved (!) irrational but effective mental shortcuts.
You realize that there are probably no more than a handful of biologists in the last fifty years that reject evolution, so I'm thinking here you haven't read very much at all from biologists against evolution.
At any rate, in the scientific language, macro-evolution refers to speciation and higher, so you're attempt to claim problems by word redefinition pretty much pins you to the wall.
What would you call the molecular evidence for humans and the other apes having a common ancestor, including ERVs, anything but evidence for macroevolution? Or does this simply go beyond you trying to prove evolution false by rhetorical games, and lean more on you just reject evidence that you don't like.
Go for it, Mr. Expert. I want you to explain ERVs common to great apes and humans in any other terms than common descent of those lineages.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh, I'm absolutely a heretic in the eyes of the Catholic Church. In a different era, I would have been burned at the stake years ago.
Of course, your point seems awfully similar to this kind of argument:
It's a shoe! No, it's a sandal!
I am officially gone from
No, that's far too common to qualify as mental illness. Faith that remains in contradiction to evidence is normal. It's the rational among us who are abnormal.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But they are not the same. They are a different species. You have seen the genetic variability between two related populations diverge sufficiently for a new species to arrive. That is evolution in a nutshell. You're just using the tired old Creationist line about "kinds", but Creationists have become slightly more clever and don't choose to use their old claims without masking them.
But go on, here's a challenge for you. I want you to explain common ERVs in the same locales in the genome between humans and the other great apes in any other way but because the original insertion was in a common ancestor. Get to it, can't wait to see what you come up with,.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Subscribing to young earth creationism doesn't necessarily mean the individual is unable to think critically in general. An alarming amount of cognitive dissonance would easily enable that belief to be written off by the believer as a simple exception in a world view that is otherwise near-identical to the world view shared by the rest of the first world.
Not all people bother to develop a coherent world view. It's not always important to them.
... picoseconds of Time are beyond what Science can state as Truth....
To quote Mr. Indiana Jones:
Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.
Probably a question best asked of Descartes or Pascal, or one of the other engineers (and creators of engineering itself) listed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
You're in good company. I'm pretty sure God doesn't think much of religion either. Neither did Christ for that matter - the only people He really chewed out were the religious groups of His day.
Actually, Revelation would also include the two witnesses (Enoch and Elijah) and those martyred for their faith in Christ by the anti-Christ during the tribulation period as going to heaven in the prophetical period from 4:1 to the end. The number of those martyred is not stated. Due to the hardness of peoples hearts which is talked about, it may not be large.
The 144,000 are specifically counted from among the Jewish people who are protected supernaturally during a part of the period and who are taken to heaven. The particular book of Revelation doesn't speak of the rapture of the rest of current humanity at all (assuming the rapture doesn't happen while this generation is alive). Depending on your interpretation, it may be implied in 4:1 where after the church age is discussed in chapters 2 and 3, 4:1 talks of the things which must come hereafter. While the word rapture is modern, the taking away of the church is mentioned in other Bible books though.
I would tend to agree that the number who will go in the rapture is not nearly as large as the number who think they will go in the rapture.
That does not mesh with any definition of the term from any online dictionaries nor with how I normally see it used.
Google for define: Intelligent Design
The theory that life, or the universe, cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity.
The key point of ID over something like Theistic Evolution is generally a rejection of random chance as a factor.
Here's wikipedia's guide to classifying your classifying various types of creationism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism#Types_of_biblical_creationism
Firstly, plate tetonics makes a great corollary. It's a past scientific dispute which had somewhat similar patterns of denialism, and of course, that we all accept as true today. Secondly, evolution can be and is measured and observed in labs today. Get some fruit flies and run your own tests, if you're skeptical. There are plenty that you can replicate for yourself. Thirdly, we obviously do need good scientists and engineers. I was raised as a creationist, and when I got to college, needed a solid dose of education to catch up on scientific topics in general. Granted, not everyone in every field needs to even understand biology...but many do, and most of us will at least need some scientific understanding to complete our degrees. No point hindering kids by teaching them BS.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
Nye: "We need people that can — we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems."
Well throughout history I don't believe that Nye can provide any actual correlation of a scientific advance that required a belief in evolution other than the study of evolution itself. While evolution is interesting and I like to read about it myself, but it exists primarily to employ college professors and scientific pundits who make their living pushing it. A belief in evolution is not a prerequisite for any field of scientific endeavor, not even in biology or human physiology.
So according to Nye we can't have electrical engineers, mathematicians, etc. unless they have a belief in evolution. To me this is abandoning empiricism and elevating evolution to some sort of religion that if you are not a member of the faithful then you obviously wouldn't have the mental ability to become a member of the holy order of the scientist.
I imagine people will be able to discover new drugs, new consumer electronics, new fuel technologies, etc. whether they believe in evolution or not.
I say we teach kids science as we understand it, with enough underpinnings as to the methods involved to at least give some understanding as to how to biologists have arrived at that point.
Yes, and this should include the perpetual caveat that there is shit loads we don't yet know anything about. I would have been far more interested in science at school if the text books hadn't presented the current state of scientific knowledge as unassailable fact. I know that outside of school textbooks scientists are very conscious and humble about this, but if I had read even once something like "well that's what we think but, you know, we haven't found the higgs boson yet so...." I think it would have been quite inspiring to my inquisitive mind.
Our planet is still a place full of mystery and unanswered questions, and I think the presentation of science in classrooms could go a long way to leveraging children's natural inquisitiveness and get them thinking there are still huge contributions they can make in future to human knowledge.
Hej! Nasi tu byli!
Rational means that it can be expressed as the ratio of two integers.
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
"perhaps in some liberal definition they are"
No, by the actual definition they are. You seem to be working via some definition of your own that requires speciation to be evolution.
Evolution through natural selection, which is the theory of biological evolution most people mean (a la Darwin), posits that biological systems change over time in response to selective environmental pressures. This CAN lead to speciation, but doesn't necessarily. Dark and light peppered moths can breed with each other, yet the change in colour is a classic example of evolution.
Your definition of species also needs work. Polar bears and grizzlies are considered different species, and if you saw a grizzly evolve into a polar bear you'd probably agree that you'd seen a speciation event. Yet polar bears and grizzlies can and (very occasionally) do breed.
Clearly you've never done genetic engineering of the type the OP is talking about. It is not like building something. You spray around some mutations, impose a selective pressure, and repeat. It is just like natural evolution except you up the mutation rate (lots of things do that in nature as well) and you impose your own selective pressure instead of "survival of the fittest."
There's not a lot of intelligence involved, and certainly no design.
So you believe in "God" but you think you have the wisdom to kill other people
You should check out the bible some time, it's full of things like orders from God to kill every last man, woman, child, all of their livestock, burn their belongings and salt their fields, and such. That whole "no killing" thing only applies to people who are part of the same tribe/religious sub-group in the actual original written form, and is frequently paraphrased and misquoted to say no to killing in general.
... you build missle launchers? You people blow me away.
I see what you did there.
Not ALL philosophy is bullshit. But the kind that starts with things like "if a tree falls in a forest..." and "how do you know you exist?" are interesting thinking exercises with very little applied value. Other kinds of philosophy, such as thinking about how we generate and validate knowledge, has proven to be very useful.
Evolution is scientific. Belief in a creator is religious. Belief in evolution is rational. Each of these statements is true in a way.
False.
No one who understand what science is believes in evolution. Science is not a system of beliefs, it is a system of evidence based reasoning. It is not proper to say "I believe in evolution", but rather "the theory of evolution is the hypothesis best supported by the evidence". In science, nothing can be fact, or definitively proven. We rather conduct experiments to reduce uncertainty in a theory, or to disprove a theory. So, evolution is not scientific, nor is it religious. Evolution and creationism are ideas; two competing hypotheses describing a process. Evolution is supported by the scientific process, while creationism is not supported by scientific evidence. Creationism however is supported by a faith based belief system, and people such as yourself (im assuming) who only know belief systems in turn think that scientists believe in evolution. Perhaps it is not your fault that you are unfamiliar with evidence based reasoning, what skepticism really means, and the scientific method, but that is all the more reason for you to support better science education in our nation's schools.
"We are born. We live. We die." Well... okay. Now what?
This conclusion is also unhelpful. That's the point -- let's stick to discussing things which have some utility.
After the king james version some one translated "Bring them out so we may know them" to "have sex with them". Yikes. The ancient hebrew/aramic word for know is Yeda and it means to know well. Of the 47 places yeda is used in no place does it strictly mean sex. In fact it is written that David knew god. Was david but fucking god, or did he just, well, know him.
I think the new translation gets it right. Context is key.
"Bring them out so that we may get to know them; have a little chat, and welcome them to the city"
âoeNo, my friends. Donâ(TM)t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But donâ(TM)t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.â
So you're saying Lot didn't want to introduce the strangers to his neighbors, and that's it? What's with the "protection" talk, and the attempt to appease?
If this were on CSI-Gomorrah today we would find out that actually lot got paid off to open the town gates to an invading army that razed the place and Lots wife was going to spill the beans so he killed her and told everyone she turned into a pillar of stone. Then he just recycled the story from Book of Judges when asked what happened.
If Lot could recite from the Book of Judges, then he's definitely a prophet. Or a time traveler.
You should really read up on some of the research regarding memory. It's not nearly as reliable as you think it is. Our brain is constantly re-writing itself and it's freakishly easy to plant memories or make subtle changes to things people weren't paying very close attention to. It generally works for what we need it to do, but when it comes to witnessing crimes this can be a life-or-death issue for the accused.
I guess you could say that based on my faith in science I reject my experiential belief that my memory is reliable and accept it's unreliability.
When your computer model sufficiently proves, repeatedly, that a human being raises up as the destination of 'adaptation' from simple bacteria, I'll believe your proof of full scale Evolution. Until then, I'll call it what it is. Mutations and Adaptations. Solid proof is needed for OR against the theory. And frankly, neither side has irrefutable proof.
Never claim two high dimensional vectors, or complicated functions, are orthogonal unless you can find the dot product between them. Lots of religions discovered that their religious beliefs and science weren't so orthogonal after all. Creationists and evolution, for example.
And theres damm few other religions that can say that. The rest of them all love to preach to everyone and tell us we're all going to hell.
Or try to blow us up and send us there personally. Barbarism.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Many religions speak of instances of deities lashing out against faithless individuals. Many religions also have accounts of the 'faithful' themselves taking it upon themselves to invoke gods will upon the non-believers for the betterment of mankind. This isn't just a game where you can hedge your bets, pick a faith, and hope it's the right one (assuming a right one exists or has even been discovered). Even if it were, your best bet would be to start every day by saying: "To any or all placate-able deities (or just really powerful entities), I pay you my respect that you please look upon the Earth with favor, spare us your wrath for another day, and help me on this science project." If that sounds absurd, it's no worse than picking any single faith on the grounds that you are no worse off. While the roulette wheel approach might seem harmless, people take faith seriously and the impacts of the decisions they make based on it have real effects on the lives of others.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
It's not just depressing, it's downright disturbing. People that hold irrational views in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary are dangerous, pure and simple.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Given the various statements in the Bible, and the general interpretations of the text, the more correct command in modern English is "Don't murder." War is only considered murder by the most liberal definitions. Following the more modern conventions of war (little things like not torturing prisoners, not killing soldiers who surrender at some reasonable point, etc.) the line is clearer.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Yes, technically, you are right, since evolution is a broad term that includes both origin of species theory, from one side, and, mutation/adaptation/selection/inheritance set of factors, on the other side. Many people deny the first (Popper used to) and very few people deny the second. Second is used in technology, while first is not.
First is extrapolation of the second to the area we cannot verify experimentally on the same level of scientific robustness as we do in hard sciences.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
It's funny how your perfectly logical and reasonable argument got labeled as Troll by some trigger-happy moron atheist.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Young Earth creationists and Bill Nye represent the screwball ends of the spectrum.
Rants like Bill's only serve to strengthen my belief that Darwinists are in deep denial. The fact they can't face is that their ideas are speculative. Since they are speculative, intelligent, informed persons can disagree. In order to protect themselves from this uncomfortable fact, they erect elaborate sematic barriers.
Uhhhh... Evolution as a principle is not speculative. It's just the way things on this scale work.
No, I suppose it isn't. Gradual genetic change in a population certainly takes place. The speculation part is that all living things in all their variety were produced by long strings of such changes. (With the help of some selecting factors.)
This is what I meant when I said that evolutionists rely too heavily on semantic arguments. They call both the genetic changes and a bold theory about them "evolution". They then pretend that we must accept or reject them both together.
You have an unknown factor here, which is the probabilities involved.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
You really don't seem to understand science at all. You don't "believe" in scientific theories. Evolution is a theory, not a fact. A theory is a "system of ideas intended to explain something" As such, evolution is the best scientific system put together that explains our observations of the world. It's not perfect, but very few theories are perfect. Even in pure mathematics there are contradictions and holes.
If you refuse to accept the usefulness of evolution to explain the world, then you should similarly refuse to teach any scientific theory, which would make for extremely incompetent engineers.
Damn you, AC, I was going to post something similar and you had to go flaming. He's no idiot, but "creationists" are not necessarily anti-evolutionists. Every Christian believes that God created the universe, but all but a few morons accept that evolution is how he went about making different species. Even the Pope says so.
Teaching your children about God is not the problem, stupidly denying science is the problem. And I suspect that the antievolutionists are wolves in sheeps' clothing, not unlike that evil preacher from Florida who demonstrates at military funerals with "god hates fags" placards. That goes against every single thing Jesus taught; God loves gays, he just doesn't like what they do -- but he doesn't like my or your sins, either. Gays are forgiven like any other Christian, we all sin. How can that Florida asshat consider himself a Christian?
I suspect that many of these creationists are simply trying to make unbelievers out of believers. I'm convinced that Pat Robertson has converted far more Christians to atheism than Richard Dawkins ever dreamed of converting.
Free Martian Whores!
The same argument applies to the probability of monkey typing complete text of Origin of Species by random. If you apply selective pressure on monkey to type exactly the character that is next is that profound religious document, then here you go: monkey typed The Origin of Species...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Reminds me of Sinefield episode where the finish all the sentances "Yada yada yada..."
Which makes sense if you think about it. (As someone you know well, doesn't need the details, as they already know)
>Science does not deal in Truth. It deals in the best explanation that fits the evidence.
This definition omits the definition of when we stop explaining and just say: "we don't know".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
While I have no love for such fairy tales, the First Amendment guarantees that won't happen.
Phew, that's a relief! The government would NEVER subvert free speech!
/sarcasm
While I don't think there is any fear of an anti-creationism law being passed, I think it's more due to the right-wing nuts than any sentimental fondness on the part of the government for any of the various portions of the Bill of Rights that they ignore on an increasingly frequent basis. That said, I don't think creationism should be taught in science class, either.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Huh. I'm a natural cynic and I don't believe everything that is in the Bible's various incarnations as the word of God. In this case my cynical approach generates a distinctly positivist theory. By that I mean that I interpret the Genesis 11:6 lesson as "Nothing good will come from a language that your current rulers don't understand."
Imagine, 3000 years ago, a city-state's citizens aren't happy with their abusive nepot ruler and begin to usurp him via messages using a different language or code (think pig latin or something similar). Messages being passed around (orally since vast majority cannot read) that only the usurpers can understand could be very dangerous to a dictator. Seems like a good way to control the masses would be to tell them God frowns upon alternate languages. It has added bonuses...
-Creates linguistic unity among those being ruled, and forces conquered peoples to adopt the conquerors dialect
-Any believer who hears the usurpers secret language would make a stink and turn them in
-Foreigners will be easy to identify and isolate
-Enforcing linguistic rules through academics enhances the ruler's perceived divine right
The Bible's proliferation is strongly correlated to the "dark ages" and a lack of representative government for over 1000 years and I think the Tower of Babel "lesson" is a part of the reason why. Luckily for us, Christiandom went through the reformation and many those archaic beliefs were pushed to the wayside in order to make room for the things we see before our eyes every day that couldn't be explained by the written word. The earth circling the sun, geology showing how ancient this planet is, newly discovered lands with people who had their own "pagan" religions, etc...
Even today we see that many people cannot grasp the intricacies of the explanations for our world and this leads them to simpler models. Some people just want to be held by a warm embrace to the bosom of an organized religion. That is fine for them, but when someone starts trying to override science with religion in school, or apply cherry picked interpretations of an old book written by men, to explain scientific advances, it rubs me the wrong way.
After the king james version some one translated "Bring them out so we may know them" to "have sex with them". Yikes. The ancient hebrew/aramic word for know is Yeda and it means to know well. Of the 47 places yeda is used in no place does it strictly mean sex.
There are certainly a few places where it is used to mean sex. For example, "And Adam knew [yada'] Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain" (Genesis 4:1) certainly draws a cause-effect relationship between the "knowing" and the "conceiving."
Even in the passage dealing with Sodom and Gomorrah, when the men of Sodom demand "Bring them out unto us, that we may know [yada'] them" (Gen. 19:5), Lot tries to appease the mob with his daughters. He says, "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known [yada'] man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes." (Gen. 19:8) The plainest reading of this description suggests his daughters were virgins.
So you are correct that yada' [insert Seinfeld jokes here] doesn't always mean sex, it certainly can refer to a carnal knowledge.
Amen to that.
That's sort of what the Catholic Church did. One of the original amendments of god in the bible is, "Thou, shall not worship any other god than me", meaning no worshiping of deities other than the creator himself. Yet the catholic church has their pope, (a deity since they treat him as some holy or divine being). They even changed the bible so that amendment says something that suits them better.
Another interesting tidbit. In the constitution of the United States, it explicitly lays out the separation of church and state. Had the catholic church been a backer of the free the colonies, certainly a debt for their (economic) favors would have included them in the governance of the new land and today they would have significant influence in the most powerful nation in the world.
If god does/did support the Catholic church or Christianity, it would not be beyond the reaches of clairvoyance to be able to foresee the end of the reign of creationism and the Church, especially because the holy book seems to give such emphasis on the gods need/desire to be worshiped, and have compelled the leaders of the church in the 1780's and 1790's to stand beside France and fund a revolutionary war against Britain (a defector of the church in fact if memory serves) and claim a right that would place such encumbrances in the constitution of the new nation sufficient to secure the power and influence god and the worshipers would certainly covet.
After all, isn't that part of investing in nation-building? Securing your interests in the new nation? That's what the US did in Iraq anyway.
Having said all of that, I have no evidence that god does not exist; and conceding to her existence, she certainly does not favor Christianity, Islam, or any of the other religions that emerged from the old testament.
Building our relationship with god as individuals is important because when we can find strength, reason or courage and do what we believe needs to be done, we are stronger because of god. Perhaps irrationally stronger but who can claim that reason is better or more important than intuition?
I am an engineer, and I spend my days building stuff and solving problems, and a belief in evolution has nothing to do with my ability to perform this work. While I certainly believe in the concept of evolution and the FACT that evolution does occur, that does not mean or require that I believe man evolved from apes or any other create or species that has ever existed. Simply because evolution DOES happen in small ways now doesn't mean it DID happen in huge ways thousands to millions of years ago. Nor is a belief that God directed the creation of the Earth in any way contradictory to the theory of evolution. The fact is people are going to believe whatever "feels" right to them, and there's nothing wrong with that. The more intelligent a man, the more convince he should be that he doesn't know anything.
If god used these things to create the universe, then who and by what means was god created? and so on and so forth...
The term used in the Bible, in English at least, is "kind" rather than species. I'm not sure of the original Hebrew word, or what subtleties it conveys, but I suspect that the difficulties in discussing this stem from our imperfect classification system. We can make one group of flies, over generations, incapable of complete interbreeding... but do these 'new' groups of flies have any real distinction? Does one have an extra set of legs, or has one lost the ability to fly? (not that I would necessarily think either of those to be sufficient for a new 'kind', just trying to put out some examples).
Note that not being capable of interbreeding is also not a useful trait to distinguish species. We used to go by it a while ago, but we found out it to be not all that consistent in practice. Many species in the wild don't interbreed because of physiological differences but can technically produce offspring with artificial insemination. Some can become impregnated that way and will produce an embryo, but will be unable to give birth to it. Some will give birth, but the offspring will be sterile with a certain probability, which can sometimes go all the way to "practically certain". It's not clear how to count either of those. Not to mention ring species and such.
As I've mentioned earlier, this all is due to the fact that nature doesn't really have strict boundaries between species. This is the inevitable consequence of the process from which they are created. When you have a single interbreeding population, any genetic differences that arise are quickly spread around it. When populations diverge, their respective differences begin to accumulate, being different partly from chance (neutral mutations), and partly from natural selection favoring different mutations due to different environment. If you reunite the populations, so long as there is some means of establishing gene flow between them (direct or indirect interbreeding etc), they will again exchange their genes, and, given enough time, homogenize through natural selection favoring the same combinations in the same environment. Obviously, at some point the accumulated differences are so vast that there is no possibility of natural gene flow; at that point you can definitely say that the species are distinct. That puts the upper boundary on the notion, but not the lower one.
Actually, come to think of it, even the upper boundary is not that clear. We can now splice genes from one organism to another in a lab, even between vastly different ones (like plants and animals). Technically, this is gene flow, and if we keep doing it, and then let natural selection apply to the resulting creatures, given enough time, this would work the same way as natural interbreeding does. And who's to say what's "natural"? The difference between artificial insemination and gene splicing is not all that great, conceptually; and one could argue that, insofar as humans themselves are "natural" - being a product of a "natural" process of evolution - then so are their activities, and the products of their activities. Nature itself doesn't really care about the distinction of whether a tree burns because it's hit by a lightning, or because an ape cut it off and used it to build a fire. And genes don't care whether they're combined by a "natural" process of directing semen at where it can combine with ovum and exchange genetic material with it, or by a white-coated guy in the lab.
Also, as I pointed out, I do think it is entirely possible that God used evolution in the creation process - I won't die for the young earth viewpoint :) What I would die for is the idea of intelligent design: that God orchestrated creation, whether in six days or in six billion years.
That idea by itself is not contrary to the observed evidence, so I don't see why it would pose any problem for one's scientific endeavors. Of course, it is also not science in and of
One major issue that many fail to understand is that science cannot define truth. Science and Philosophy are two separate realms. Science is the process of creating and disproving theories based on currently known facts. The important limitation here is "current" and that theories can only be disproven, never proven.
What is the probability that a scientific theory will never be changed or proven incorrect in the future? This is an unanswerable question, as we don't know that which we don't know. We can't even produce a probability of correctness, yet still there is belief that currently held scientific theories are true.
The logically correct conclusion is that belief that current scientific theories are true is as much a matter of faith as belief in a god/gods. Faith that scientific theories will never be changed, faith that humanity will never discover some new fact that changes or invalidates current theories, faith that humans are capiable of discovering everything there is to know about the universe we live in.
Creationism is just a symptom of a much more fundemental problem.
I see what you did there.
I honestly cannot tell if you think he made a pun on fundamentalists, or you are lampooning him for casting stones at others while spelling poorly.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
"You sir are an a-hole."
The truth is bitter.
"A Christian with balls."
Little teeny, tiny ones Mr Anonymous.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories
oh yes! he creates disease, pain, suffering. he's quite the DNA expert.
of course, he's as evil as can be! what else can you say about a 'god' who unleashes such evils to the world and just sits back and laughs.
oh, and according to many, if you make a mistake in choice, you will spend *forever* in pain.
yeah, real loving caring god you guys got there.
go ahead and rationalize it away with this or that quote. you won't accept the truth that our world is controller-less and always has been.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Evolution is to sporadic for me to accept it as anything more than a funny Idea, to me it equates to putting all the ingredients for spaghetti into a bag and shaking it around, plating it, and saying "look spaghetti!" without cooking it. You cannot make something without first knowing all of the ingredients.
The funny thing is that's a terrible example. Sure, you can't make something without knowing the ingredients -- but if I show somebody a bag of uncooked spaghetti, then show them a plate of cooked spaghetti, they can pretty easily guess that somehow the uncooked spaghetti got cooked, even if they don't know how. They might even be able to figure out how if they study it enough.
However, you seem to be arguing about abiogenesis rather than evolution, which are related but distinct topics. Similar to the spaghetti, we know what kind of materials living creatures are made from and have an idea of how the might get there. We haven't recreated it yet, but that's no reason to throw our hands up in the air and declare that an omnipotent supernatural force did it.
On the other hand, evolution explains how early forms of life diversified into modern life, and there is a staggering amount of evidence for it. The fact that you're confusing it with abiogenesis and call it "sporadic" just says to me that you haven't actually gone researching the subject.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
So God is your creator, and all of the people are his children, and it's not for any man to decide which other man gets to live or die, unless you're in warfare then you're free to decide which of your creator's children get to die. Got it, thanks for the clarification. What about the adultery one, can we say that that one meant that we're just not allowed to have sex with animals, but it's ok to bone another woman when you're married? That would make it easier to call myself a Christian. Also, the lying one. And the whole stealing thing. And the lord's name in vain one. And the business with the sabbath. And the envy thing, because you see it turns out my neighbor has this great vibrator that plays "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful", and I'm really jealous.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
They prefer the euphemism "faithful."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
I suppose that is a good point. I personally define creationism a little more loosly as the entire process employeed by God (or whomever you prefer) to get from "nothing" to what we now have, whether that be through evolution, big bang, or what-have-you.
Perhaps to be more correct, I should have said that I believe many religious people realize that the science of evolution does not discount the involvement of a diety.
I recall reading a story a few months ago on this subject, and was surprised to see how large a percentage of religious americans accepted evolution as compatible with their religious beliefs. Before then, it seemed all I heard about were the extremists who fight against evolution whole-heartedly. This is what prompted my initial comment.
Your invocation sounds like some of the Roman invocations I've seen in history books. But the reality is that if there is only one God, He would rightly be mad at generalizing an invocation to anything that might be out there.
I happen to believe there is just one, and that He has made himself known to humanity. Others would disagree. Regardless, as He has done so to me, I must follow Him. And as an engineer, there are definitely times I will gladly acknowledge His help. There are also times in my personal life that I gratefully acknowledge His protection and help. The slashdot group ignores instances of divine intervention because they can't be reduced to a repeatable experiment, but they are sufficient for me.
Engineers aren't scientists, and they especially don't care about evolution. An engineer can take some formulae describing how a particular phenomenon works, because god wills it to be so or otherwise, and design stuff.
Easy counter-example: if you truly believe that $GOD determines the True and Natural Order of things, and the bridge falls over, is it a failure of mathematics or $GOD's Divine Will?
Once upon a time, the study of the heavens and the gods was a pursuit in understanding our world and our place in it. It was a humble pursuit by humble people who only wanted to learn more about that which they did not understand.
Now it seems that, at least for the mass audience, religion has become a yoke, a system of limiting knowledge. And sadly, it seems to be for the purpose of maintaining societal hierarchies. Keep them dumb, that'll keep them poor. If they're poor, they'll be hungry. If they're hungry, they'll do what you say.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Belief that all currently held scientific theories are true is, in fact, religion. It is a matter of faith as science doesn't deal in truth.
One is part of a system of thought that espouses that everything can be understood and explained. The other specifically states that there are things which are unknowable. Sounds pretty separate to me.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories which we have yet to learn about to make people and the world.
What sort of God do you refer to?
Do you really think that a good God would resort to 4 Billion years of "clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works" to make people? This positions imagines a malevolent God more akin to a devil.
The various fly and bacteria studies are not what I consider true indicators of the level of evolution needed to develop advanced lifeforms from single-cell organisms. I know of those tests, and do not in the least deny their direct findings... but taking that and then saying that from these results we can be sure that a single cell lifeform can evolve into a complex, multi-organ creature is what I call into question. That is what we cannot directly test and observe, while we can measure plate tectonics directly and observe the results of their interactions.
William George
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories which we have yet to learn about to make people and the world.
The problem isn't what he's capable of. The problem you face is that he is unnecessary for anything and everything we observe in the real world. DNA and quantum mechanics and everything else work perfectly well without a guiding hand, and we do not have a single piece of scientific evidence pointing towards any unexplainable influences. Not one. Millions, billions of measurements, not one shred of finger of god.
Sure, maybe he's just playing hide&seek really well, but you know what? So do Eris Discordia and the FSM.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
For example, if you look at the creation account in Genesis, and take into account that the word that translates as "Day" can also mean "period of time", "Age", or "epoch", and not necessarily a defined period of time, then you can easily interpret it as mirroring what science tells us about how the Earth was formed and life evolved.
Genesis is hopelessly flawed, It is a earth and human centered creation account.
According to Genesis earth was created "epochs" before the Sun and stars! Also it is (as is religion in general) very ego-centric in that it teaches that all this (that is the universe) is created for humans... hog wash. Ego-centric religions must go the way of animal sacrificing religions... in the dust bin where they belong.
Actually, in ancient Hebrew "Yeda" is commonly used as a euphemism for sex. For example (My translation from Hebrew): "And Adam YEDA his wife Eve and she became pregnant and she had a son" (Genesis, chapter 4 verse 1)
Again, you completely misunderstand the premise of evolution. It's not about organism "adapting" to their living environment. It's about the environment having a selection bias on specific traits (those that raise the probability of spreading one gene's; on a simplified level, those that lead to more offspring). A single organism does not adapt - it lives, reproduces and dies. The entire population adapts. That adaptation is inherent in the laws under which the system operates - it's not guided in any way, and it does not have a goal. It happens because: 1) mutations happen, and 2) natural selection happens. The existence of those two things - which is a verifiable fact - is sufficient for evolution. In fact, you'd have to come up with a reasonable explanation of how evolution would not happen in these circumstances.
Quick tangent: Single organisms do adapt to their environment. (ex: We tan in response to sunlight) There are also scientific studies that an animal's experiences affect the genetics of their offspring. (genetics are not completely fixed at birth as thought)
Back to the main point - I'm talking about systems - so my point applies both to the individual and to the population of individuals. Whether an individual and its offspring, or the population in general - there is a genetic source code that contains the information encoding all of the organism's functionality. Senses, processing, movement, self-assembly and replication. The only way to add to that code under evolutionary theory is random mutation. It is insufficient, and I'll get to why that is.
1) mutations happen, and 2) natural selection happens. The existence of those two things - which is a verifiable fact - is sufficient for evolution. In fact, you'd have to come up with a reasonable explanation of how evolution would not happen in these circumstances.
Cars and operating systems do not evolve in that sense because they do not reproduce, and do not mutate. If they did, then, yeah, they'd evolve as well.
Self replication isn't sufficient to create information.
If I take a hard drive and pass a magnet over it to create a random bit configuration - the chances of that creating a working operating system on the hard drive is practically nil (possible, but improbable). If I do it a second time, it's still unlikely. That's all replication really means in terms of building information randomly - reroll the dice and hope. That's great if you're dealing with a 50+% chance of success; but it's meaningless if your chance of success is 1 in a billion. One hundred more tries doesn't noticeably improve the odds.
Your mistake is that you treat living organisms as some kind of intricate machines, where one cog out of place breaks the whole thing down. It's not how it works. In fact, most mutations are neutral with respect to fitness, so they don't get weeded out at all. Thus it's pretty easy for them to accumulate over time, and eventually their combinations producing either harmful or beneficial effects, which are then weeded out or strengthened via positive feedback loops that are inherent in the natural selection process.
I didn't make that mistake. Life has a lot of redundancy and error checking built into it. That's engineering margin, and completely consistent with a designer creating a robust system. Evolution has to explain it as random chance evolving this extra capability over time (so at some point there was no margin, and the organism was fragile; yet somehow survived as a population long enough to develop out of it)
Random mutation is applying noise (entropy) to information - and you're expecting natural selection to somehow filter (information + noise) into (more information).
Indeed - and what exactly is wrong with that picture? You're right that random noise by itself would not result in evolution, you also need a filter
Bleh. That should read "less than 1.0 expected value", not "1.0 expected value". Stupid me and html tags.
he creates disease, pain, suffering. he's quite the DNA expert.
That is the problem with this contrived new-age approach (ie old earth creationism) is that God comes out looking very limited or evil entity. Of course the traditional explanation for these things you mention are the Fall. However these defects have been in existence long before there were any humans to "Fall". The gloss approach express in the grandparent is flawed on so many different levels.
It is myth people! Attempting to find coherence of a myth to reality is a fools errand.
Bill's major point seems to be that the next generation of scientists will be somehow rendered incompetent unless their worldview is based on an acceptance of the theory of Evolution as indisputable fact. He doesn't phrase it that way, but that's the impression I'm left with by this and other, similar, points of view. It would seem to me that many, if not most, fields of science could be performed perfectly well without needing to be grounded in that way. He says towards the end: 'we need engineers who can build stuff - solve problems' - as if to say: a child who is taught Creationism couldn't possibly learn maths, physics, chemistry to the degree required to become an engineer...huh!?
(Moving away from Bill Nye) As far as what's appropriate for children to be taught; schools should be required to teach a science curriculum that covers a set of topics that is common across the board. Beyond that, I don't think it's anybody's business to tell a parent what is right for their kids to be taught. If parents choose to send their kids to a school that teaches Creationism *in addition* to the core curriculum, then so be it.
I'm not an expert in biology, and never claimed to be :) However, a quick Google search of the terms you used pulls up several results that look well researched and which, via a cursory reading, appear to be written by folks who are experts. I have found such results on both sides of this argument, which tells me that this is not as firmly established of a conclusion as you might think. For example, check out this article (one of the better ones by the look of it, given the number of citations and general quality of writing):
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/do_shared_ervs_support_common_046751.html
In the end, none of us were there when either God created the world, or life evolved, or a combination of the two. As such we cannot absolutely say what happened one way or the other. The upshot of that is that it also doesn't matter to the vast majority of modern disciplines: someone can be a perfectly good engineer, doctor, etc without needing to believe one way or the other on this topic! Now someone who didn't believe in gravity - that person I might not want building an airplane... or someone who didn't understand the size of viruses, allergens, etc building an air filter for use in medical applications. Bill Nye implying that because we need smart and well educated kids to continue our society we should teach evolution is a non-sequitur.
William George
I suppose you could be a creationist and believe in a deistic universe, where a god chose the laws of physics and then wound up his universe and let it go. But modern creationists do not believe this: they are overwhelmingly Christian, and believe in such things as a god that actively intervenes on this little planet by making virgins pregnant, people turn into pillars of salt -- in general, they believe in miracles, even small ones like altering the genetic makeup of a species. This is the very opposite of a rational ordered universe: all these things, all these miracles, are inherently disordered, since they entail violations of the laws of physics by an entity outside of them. "F=ma, except when god says otherwise" is not a sound basis for a rational theory of the universe.
I am not sure what you mean when you describe such a universe as "irrational". Why does interfering in the operation of a machine violate the laws of physics? Surely when I press a key on the keyboard of my computer it does not cease to behave in a rational manner.
The idea that a "miracle" violates a law of nature goes back at least to David Hume. It may have made more sense then. After all, society was just coming to terms with the idea of complex machines and that the universe might be one. He could position the idea of the universe-machine as an alternative to the idea that God makes the flowers bloom in spring. But nowadays the implication that if the universe is a machine we must assume that God does not touch it seems odd.
I suppose much of the objection is related to the idea that miracles are magic. It is assumed that divine will operated without mechanism. It simply altered the way things are. For some reason the idea that God applied a sufficient outside force is not considered.
Take your examples. Modern science can certainly make a virgin pregnant and I am sure that with sufficent time and funding a weapon to turn someone into a pillar of salt could be built. If man can do these things without violating the laws of physics, then why not God?
Of course they are mutually exclusive.
One is based on the idea that we get truths from some Holy Book (of which there are many inconsistent instantiations, you pick one because some guy says this is the right one, and go to war if some other guys say no ours is the right one) or you get truths from empirical observation. No Magic Book, just hard work.
These are mutually exclusive views of what to base thought on. You cannot weasel around it. One or the other.
Choose.
Actually, there's a lot wrong with believing in a higher power, as it makes it easier to escape from responsibility, shift blame and claim higher authorities to acts that you'd not even consider had they come from another human being.
There are also advantages, apparently mostly in the health area, as some recent studies have indicated.
So the sum total is still out. But you can't say there's nothing wrong.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And what does any of that have to do with your desire to teach your children bullshit and lies?
I'm sure plenty of people didn't watch it, but the very title of the YouTube video is "Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children". He also said,
"To the grown-ups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world that is completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe - that's fine. But don't make your kids do it, because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems."
By doing this, he is implying that a creationist cannot 'build stuff', 'solve problems', or vote in a way that is responsible. This is quite insulting to me personally, and I think is counter-productive to any discussion of this subject. This is akin to an 'Ad hominem' attack in logic.
William George
Your question isn't intractable. It's sterile. It has the same amount of predictive and analytical power as "Goddidit". It's utterly boring. It leads nowhere.
And yet it's brought out a good 80+ wrong answers and the chance for people to think again about their premises.
I hope for the world's sake that you're no teacher.
Not only that, but the Greeks already knew about it and found it to be an approach that lead nowhere.
Perhaps you're misinterpreting some Greek writing, or misunderstanding the question.
The best - and really only response - I got to this question is "Who cares?"
All questions can be answered like that. Like I said somewhere else in this thread, why aren't we all out playing football on this sunny day?
As for which texts we read in "middle school", Plato's cave analogy was a nice starting point.
OK, so you remember reading about Plato's Cave at school and you think that this answers all the elementary philosophical questions. Well, nope. Plato was obsessed with the idea of an ephemeral world of change and decay as perceived by the senses and felt that his mind's eye could go beyond that and somehow witness the truth. It was a great genesis for mathematics but produced a rather mediocre start to science. And it had fuck all to do with trusting one's memory..
Descartes in High School was a bit more interesting, but he fell flat due to the necessity to use circular reasoning to get anywhere with that approach.
"That approach" being...
it's the attitude of people like you who think they've found some special trick question. You haven't.
In the dozen or so responses I've made in this thread before you posted, I've told people repeatedly that this is a well-known question and that they should think twice before thinking there's a good answer. But you might as well carry on a roll of historical ignorance with some contemporary. ignorance.
You're merely regurgitating a 2000 year old discussion that was rejected pretty much immediately.
Nope. The question has not been "rejected" ever, just deemed unanswerable. But it's formed part of "sterile debate" on the power and limitations of philosophical induction per Hume, leading to Popper's falsifiability, and all the other Philosophy 101 names you could have dropped if you hadn't engaged bullshit mode.
You're like a 9 year old who yells citizen's arrest! every time he sees his parents speeding. It merely betrays your own shallowness and lack of understanding.
I'm not sure what speeding being a summary offence (E+W) has to do with this discussion, but OK.
And what's with the quotes. Did you do the appropriate air quotes with your fingers as well?
I thought air quotes were an illustration of incredulity. But your nick was just as middle-school as your argument. Not that it matters - you'd have been equally wrong without the silly name.
Scientific people do not accept their memory as reliable. They know that it isn't. However, they also realize that with a healthy dose of care, memory is largely acceptable, and can be used when nothing of higher reliability (like a video or written document) is available.
No need to rely on faith if you have a couple facts. We can actually make fairly good educated guesses at the reliability of memory. We don't have to "believe" - we can test and measure. In fact, we've done so.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How do you know that you have this evidence?
You're begging the question, chump.
"These are mutually exclusive views of what to base thought on. You cannot weasel around it. One or the other."
Sorry, no. No weaseling needed. They aren't mutually exclusive. You're obviously biased against the Bible and transferring that prejudice to Creationism. Let the hate go dude.
Just to flamebait rational thinkers
No. The intention was to flame the irrational ones who thought that the question is answerable, until reason overtook emotion and allowed them to reconsider their position.
your brain is hardwired to trust your perception and memory unless it's horribly broken.
I'm sorry for your limitation. I'm able to make a conscious choice to make up for the fact that, in reality, memory and perception are often quite unreliable so need reflecting on and compensating for.
Can't it be both?
(It's not; I totally glossed over the spelling mistake.)
casting stones
I see what you did there. Fundamentalists stone adulterers and bad spellers, amirite?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Please provide a scientific definition of 'kind'.
It is important to remember that for almost 2,000 years the Bible was treated as allegory. No one treated it as the literal word of a sky wizard and it was interpreted with regard to the world view of the people that wrote it. It was analyzed with regard to who wrote it and what their world was like when it was written.
It was 20th-century American lay-ministers that created this rejection of centuries of logic and rationality (all things being relative, of course) and began insisting that, even though it was written by imperfect humans, the magic sky wizard's perfect meaning was conveyed literally in the writings.
tl;dr -> The literal interpretation of the Bible is an American corruption of Biblical tradition by uneducated fanatics.
Then nobody is the only person who gets it right.
Creationist is the set of people who believe the world was created. That's what the world means.
If you want to only talk about the subset of Creationists who believe in a young earth, we have words to describe that subset - "Young Earth Creationists", as opposed to "Old Earth Creationists". Only referring to YECs with "Creationist" is to confuse sets and muddle the discussion.
In any case, my post was more about the poster confusing instances of "intelligent design" for "evolution". There is an "evolution" (change over time) of human designs, but it has little to do with the concept of evolution as applied to biology. (purposeless random processes creating cool things) There are similarities, but the former is not evidence of the latter.
I don't know if Bill could have just come out and say that. It would be offensive; better beat around the bush. Politically it's stupid to talk about religion (or politics lol). So he attacks the fruits of their beliefs instead. That only works because of a commonplace preconception of a distinct and favorable distance the concept of science has from religions; Bill is awesome.
Fundamentally creationism is the result of using the context of a religion and trying to explain observations and questions in that context. So for what its worth, a plausible definition would be applying creativity and imagination to explain an observations or answer a question in a religious context.
If you understand science to be a religion (and it fits the definition http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion except item 4 because scientist isn't in the list) modern scientific theories are also results of creationism insofar that an application of creativity and imagination are/were used to explain observations and answer questions in the religious context of science and its underlying belief(s). All scientific knowledge is based on at least one belief => that what is observed and/or measured is the truth. And while that may not be completely untrue, it also is not completely true; you just have to make up your own mind, take it on faith, or not.
Bill is an idiot.
This is a counter example of what exactly? It has nothing to do with evolution. Nor does it have anything to do with religion, except possibly for some kind of super extreme psychology that has a 100% external locus of control.
There are lots of great engineers who have plenty of irrational beliefs. So long as none of them are directly related to the practice of their trade, they don't matter. Engineers do not depend on their general critical thinking skills.
So can random mutation create information? It's not enough for "good mutations" to exist - mutations are random, so you need the average mutation to add to the organism rather than hurt the organism in order for the organism to incrementally improve over time. But in reality, as noise, mutations are more likely to destroy information than create it. For each "good mutation" you can find, there are millions more that make the code "not compile" and fail. There are a million ways to fail for each working implementation. Unless the good mutations have extra high probability, on average your mutation will harm rather than help.
Yes, on average harmful mutations are more common than beneficial ones. That's precisely why you need natural selection, which will screen out harmful mutations, only allowing non-harmful ones to persist, and re-enforcing the beneficial ones.
Also note that a single harmful mutation will not make the code "not compile". In most cases it will manifest itself as a slight, barely noticeable disadvantage that is only visible statistically on groups of organisms, but not on any individual one. Genes are not at all like code in that respect, you're very unlikely to get a completely unworkable organism just by flipping a couple random proteins in the DNA.
I'm sticking to a higher level concept rather than trying to carefully craft a mathematical model, but hopefully you get the general thrust of my position - life is not simple enough to be created by a few random coin flips based on the preceding analysis, using concepts from computer science, information theory, and systems engineering.
You seem to be arguing against abiogenesis here rather than evolution. Evolution is not concerned with how life is created - it only deals with how life changes once it's there. We have a reasonably decent understanding of how, say, single-cell organisms could have evolved into multi-cell ones, and from there on - all based on evolution.
We do not know, as yet, how single-cell organisms have evolved. We do have some theories based on the application of same principle - biological evolution is certainly not a single instance of complexity arising spontaneously when selection is involved. All that's needed is some form of reproduction, and that can happen on level much lower than genes.
Also, you should realize that evolution scientists have carefully crafted mathematical models based on the data that we have - a quick google search will give you plenty of papers to read on the subject. And, the models do in fact support evolution - and also show that it is effectively inevitable once some replication mechanism is in play.
The situation is like a gambler thinking that he can beat the house by playing many games with a 1.0 expected value. If he succeeds (which is possible), it's a fluke, because the probabilities are stacked against him.
The situation is rather like a gambler recording his moves, and adjusting the probability of selecting some future move according to the gain produced after playing it.
Yep. Bill Nye is an ignorant jackass using his modest amount of celebrity to advance his political agenda. Any remaining respect I had for him just flew out the window.
"Given the overwhelming amount of evidence against this position, why?"
We all look at the world through our perspective, which is affected - or 'colored' - by the presuppositions we begin with. Because of that, the modern evolutionist sees all of this 'evidence' from a standpoint that presupposes the universe having existed for immense lengths of time. When things can be interpreted one way or another, they default to the interpretations that lend themselves to their already-established world view. No matter how logical an argument you build up, if the foundation you build upon (the presuppositions of your world view) are wrong then the conclusions you come to can be wrong as well.
I find that so many things which are claimed as evidence for evolution / ancient age of the world / etc can be explained in other ways with equally logical reasoning. For example, the layers of sediment that are claimed to indicate various epochs of world history could have been laid down much faster by massive flooding and the resulting deposits. Carbon dating, and indeed many forms of radiometric dating, are dependent upon our estimates of what the environment must have been like (ratios of carbon-12 to carbon-14 for example) - and if you start with different estimates you end up with drastically shorter ages, well in line with a young earth.
In the end, it comes down to the fact that none of us living today were there when any of this took place. I believe one person was (God), and the information He passed along in the books now collected as the Bible give an exact answer to most of the questions of origin. I believe in the validity of the Bible for a whole host of reasons, which are too numerous to describe here (but I can link you to books on the subject if you are interested) - and because I believe the Bible has held up in many areas which can be reasoned and compared to other historical documents then I don't have any reason to distrust it on the origin of life.
William George
What has utility?
You appear to only want questions to which there are clear answers, rather than questions which prompt further thought.
We use the memories we have faith in to confirm that science works.
Hey, by your reasoning I could build an engine without the crank because i didn't know what it was for and it would still run....try again.
I think a lot of the problems people have accepting evolution would go away if people understood it a little better. What you've stated is not how evolution works.
There are many problems with your scenario. The most obvious one is that if the engine and the crank evolved separately, they wouldn't have to have functioned as an engine without a crank and a crank without an engine. Hell, the intelligently designed engine wasn't created that way. Rods, cylinders, pistons, gears...these were all known and had uses outside of an engine long before the steam engine was invented.
Take an actual evolutionary example: fish developed swim bladders as a way to help them move in the water. Holds gas, which allows the fish to modify their buoyancy. This has nothing to do with breathing, but once a mechanism was available to hold and release air, it was a precursor to lungs. You probably don't believe there's a connection, but it's obvious once you examine lungfish.
Your crank / engine argument is akin to saying, "by your reasoning I could build a sac to hold air without the mechanism to extract the oxygen from the air and oxygenate the blood and it'd still work as a lung." Well, no. But it's useful as something other than a lung. At which point, all you really need is for blood vessels to form along the walls. Even if they are not drawing the oxygen from the gas, if it' s not disadvantageous, it's not a mutation that will go away. Once you have enough vascularization that it does oxygenate the blood, you've provided an advantage to that mutation. Now you have inefficient vascularized gas bladders that the organism can use to breathe, and a clear advantage to increased surface area of the gas bladder. Lungs easily follow, given enough time, which is another thing people who don't believe in evolution have a hard grasping. We're talking about millions of years here. Very, very small changes, things of the sort that don't provide any advantage or disadvantage, mutations you wouldn't even notice...well, they add up to very big changes given that amount of time.
I hypothesise that you will have to use your memory in order to remember all the above, and again to check each page, and again to recall your results for a conclusion.
You are welcome to try again, but better minds than ours have found no appropriate experiment.
It seems you had faith that you would correctly remember why you were checking my post history.
First of all, old Earth and evolution are orthogonal. They are only related in that both are the natural outcome of applying scientific method to the available data. But there's no such thing as "evolutionist perspective" - there's the perspective that accepts the methodology, and there's the one that rejects it.
Sure, you can always come up with a self-consistent explanation of YEC. For example, you can say that God has just created all things as they are, including light travelling from distant stars, as if they were actually created billions of years ago and started shining then - which would be rather a necessity in any form of YEC (unless you're also willing to rewrite a good half of physics). The common point for all those explanations is that they are necessarily much more complicated than old Earth - for example, they need to introduce some arbitrary changes in conditions solely to explain discrepancies in observed data, with those presupposed changes not having any other evidence for their existence. In other words, it's a massive exercise in fudging facts to fit assumptions. That's not bad in and of itself, and we often do it elsewhere, but only when we don't have any better explanation. And when we have more than one, the one that has to make the least amount of assumptions to explain what we observe, and to predict future experiments, is the one that we prefer.
Of course, as soon as you drag the Bible into it, it becomes a matter of faith and not science. I am an atheist; I do not believe Bible to be divinely inspired in any sense, nor am I at all impressed with its predictive capability, so it's simply not something that I would consider in this discussion.
Note also that even some parts of the Bible may be shown to be true, or even predictive, it does not follow that others parts similarly are. For example, one can accept the literal correctness of every single word in the Bible insofar as it describes events, while rejecting any claims God makes about himself in the Bible (e.g omniscience or omnipotence).
That's because RF engineering requires divine intervention. Antenna design is about as close as an EE can get to magic or voodoo! :-)
John
Which is as absurd a demand as saying "Show me every generation of the spoken language between Proto-Germanic and Elizabethan English with complete syntax and vocabularies."
One does not have to have a complete data set to be able to make inferences based upon the data we do have, and thus we can say with a high degree of confidence that "Elizabethan English is descended from Proto-Germanic" and "all extant life evolved from a common ancestor", when in both cases we can only make indirect inferences about what Proto-Germanic and the earliest common ancestor of life were like.
This isn't quite the same thing. A spoken language dies when its speakers die. Evidence only remains if the culture had writing that is on a substrate that can survive long periods of exposure.
When a species dies out there is at least a possibility that there will be some fossilized evidence. I don't think we would find complete fossilized skeletons, but we should be able to find some evidence of intermediate species. I think it is disingenuous to ignore the very real questions about intermediate steps in the evolutionary process. We may find more fossils in the future that demonstrate the evolutionary transitions, but right now this is an area that is lacking
It's a symptom of the slow progression in our society from a weird but long-held belief that "ignorance isn't bad" to "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge" to "your knowledge is bad and therefore my ignorance is superior".
...and yes, a lot of it goes back to evangelicals and the fact that it's far harder to fleece someone who will rationally evaluate the things they are told.
The whole fight here I think is much more cultural and political than it is religious. The logic seems to go along the lines of they believe that they are the majority in the country and are being forced to endure a remote government controlled by a minority of people with completely different moral and cultural ideas. Thus "I'll teach my kids what I want without some foreign socialist president telling me to teach something else." Politically the local lawmakers know they can get elected by supporting local laws and opposing federal laws. Evolution is just one of thse hot button issues that gets people elected and gets the populace mad when told that they're not allowed to believe it or teach it. America has a long history of of people refusing to be told what to do. This is why you will see some people who've never been to church in their entire lives protest against the teaching of evolution, because they treat it like an "us vs them" fight.
Sounds like an asshole to me.
Well, people all around the world create their gods in their own image. Naturally, some of them end up with an asshole god.
So are we still talking about sodomy? I'm so confused...
:-P
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
But we don't. We have lab notebooks in which we write down how we did experiments, why we did experiments, and what the result of those experiments were, so we're not relying on our fallible memories.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Perhaps "reliable" is too likely to be read as "always 100% correct", and I apologise for that.. I didn't want to confuse the basic question, but what you've said is quite true.
You can indeed show that memory is not always reliable.
But you can only do that once you have assumed by faith that memory is at least mostly reliable.
That does not mesh with any definition of the term from any online dictionaries nor with how I normally see it used.
Well, are we both talking about people who dismiss the whole concept of evolution? Because that's what I thought we were talking about. I don't think I've ever seen an ID discussion where the ID side was not trying to claim that present-day humans (and maybe even every species) have, for as long as they've existed, always existed in their current biological form. Perhaps not always existed throughout all of time, but there was no gradual change in any particular species that eventually resulted in humans.
Or put another way, IDers in my experience reject even the notion that an intelligent entity guided the evolutionary process.
The theory that life [...] cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity.
Deliberately leaving off the "or the universe" part since we're only talking about people pushing ID with regard to life. But.. well maybe it's my bias, but saying that life was "designed and created by some intelligent entity" sure doesn't sound compatible with evolution. It sounds more like the way I described ID, with a complete rejection of evolution, including evolution that was guided by some intelligent entity.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Yes, on average harmful mutations are more common than beneficial ones. That's precisely why you need natural selection, which will screen out harmful mutations, only allowing non-harmful ones to persist, and re-enforcing the beneficial ones.
Note that beneficial mutations are not necessarily the same thing as gaining information. There are flightless birds that have "evolved out of flying", as well as blind fish that have "evolved out of seeing". They certainly have a higher level of survivability in their niche environment, but that doesn't increase the information contained in their genetics, or the functionality of the organism itself.
That's not the right direction to get from a single celled organism to a human being. On top of that, evolution as described is a "greedy algorithm" - it cannot plan ahead, and has no good mechanism to develop complex capabilities that require multiple parts.
You seem to be arguing against abiogenesis here rather than evolution. Evolution is not concerned with how life is created - it only deals with how life changes once it's there. We have a reasonably decent understanding of how, say, single-cell organisms could have evolved into multi-cell ones, and from there on - all based on evolution.
They're highly interlinked because they use the same handwave to the probabilistic improbability - give us a lot of time and a lot of tries. The problem is that there isn't enough time and there aren't enough tries. You're trying to win a 1 in a trillion chance lottery by buying a million tickets. An extra million tickets doesn't improve your odds enough to make things a certainty, but that's exactly what supporters of evolution will claim.
We do not know, as yet, how single-cell organisms have evolved. We do have some theories based on the application of same principle - biological evolution is certainly not a single instance of complexity arising spontaneously when selection is involved. All that's needed is some form of reproduction, and that can happen on level much lower than genes.
All replication means is a few more tries. That's not an explanation, that's a handwave. Replication itself is a feature that must be randomly mutated into existence. You haven't offered anything that will overcome "information + noise => less information".
All the work we can do with computers, we accomplish by suppressing the noise. It's why we use digital over analog circuitry wherever possible - it can almost perfectly suppress noise. (Conveniently, our DNA is also a digital code) To say that noise adds information is absurd - but that's what evolution repeatedly asserts. If taken seriously, it contradicts the entire field of computing. Why bother removing noise when noise could be adding information to the message you're transmitting? You just need to filter it afterwards!
Also, you should realize that evolution scientists have carefully crafted mathematical models based on the data that we have - a quick google search will give you plenty of papers to read on the subject. And, the models do in fact support evolution - and also show that it is effectively inevitable once some replication mechanism is in play.
The computer models that show evolution is inevitable are universally flawed. They're making the assumption that the average mutation is a net gain, so voila, positive feedback loop and a ratcheting gain. Again, random mutation is noise, and a net loss, it is a negative feedback loop that destroys information without external intervention. Generally, evolution models provide permanent "savepoints" for "fit" configurations that guarantee progress; evolution is inevitable in the models because the model is designed to make it inevitable.
In reality, life is not in every nook and cranny of the universe. There are areas of the universe completely inhospitable to life. On top of that, life can go extinct - a possibility not seriously entertained in the models.
A computer model that does not allow extinction or failure is not modeling reality, and shows us nothing about what happens in reality.
He is so right, forcing a child to believe in creation is child abuse.
Nope, you'd fail. It's only because God wills it to be so when it's good and to our benefit. However we lost the last high school football game because Tommy is a klutz, not because God wanted us to lose.
Ie, too many people are inconsistent here. If they believe in God as a micromanager for all facets of the universe and everything that ever happens is His will then they'd have to reject free will for humans. If they accept that God exists but allows free will then they'd have to accept that God is hands-off manager and that bad things will happen that He did not cause. Granted these are complex theological debates that have gone on for centuries. However we have far too many fundamentalist Christians in the US who fully accept the inconsistent view that it's all God's will except for the bad stuff. It's a sort of children's Sunday school version of theology.
Really, you may laugh at this but I think a lot of these people are dumbing down Christianity also.
They probably had a Dremel and lots of duct tape too.
Evolution is scientific. Belief in a creator is religious. Belief in evolution is rational. Each of these statements is true in a way.
False.
No one who understand what science is believes in evolution. Science is not a system of beliefs, it is a system of evidence based reasoning. It is not proper to say "I believe in evolution", but rather "the theory of evolution is the hypothesis best supported by the evidence". In science, nothing can be fact, or definitively proven. We rather conduct experiments to reduce uncertainty in a theory, or to disprove a theory. So, evolution is not scientific, nor is it religious. Evolution and creationism are ideas; two competing hypotheses describing a process. Evolution is supported by the scientific process, while creationism is not supported by scientific evidence. Creationism however is supported by a faith based belief system, and people such as yourself (im assuming) who only know belief systems in turn think that scientists believe in evolution. Perhaps it is not your fault that you are unfamiliar with evidence based reasoning, what skepticism really means, and the scientific method, but that is all the more reason for you to support better science education in our nation's schools.
Note that I said these statements are true only "in a way". That means that I consider them misleading.
Your are correct, I do believe that scientists who claim that "the theory of evolution is the hypothesis best supported by the evidence" are heavily influenced by their belief systems. They are atheists. According to their belief system, there is no creator, so the world must be of natural origin. Can I conclude differently when prominant evolutionists say things like 'evolution seems imposible, but we are here, so I have to believe it occured'? I am bemused and somewhat insulted by your assumption that I reach this conclusion only because I am not sufficiently informed.
I respect and value the scientific method. But I also understand it. I know that it is a tool for exploring natural processes. If the world is of artificial origin, then those who insist on studying its orgin as a natural process will inevitably reach incorrect conclusions.
I think people like Bill Nye are doing themselves a disservice when they assume that anyone who finds the arguments for evolution unconvincing must be ignorant or worse. It creates the impression that they are hopelessly blinded by predjudice./p.
How do you remember what to write down in them?
How do you remember that you wrote down the results in the lab book you refer to?
I accept my memory as being mostly reliable.
My acceptance of this is not an act of faith.
I can prove the reliability of my memory against established facts. I can also prove that it isn't reliable under all situations.
Despite the instances where my memory is unreliable, I work under the assumption that it is. Similarly, I still go to restaurants despite the possibility of food poisoning. That is, the successes outweigh the failures.
Note that beneficial mutations are not necessarily the same thing as gaining information. There are flightless birds that have "evolved out of flying", as well as blind fish that have "evolved out of seeing". They certainly have a higher level of survivability in their niche environment, but that doesn't increase the information contained in their genetics, or the functionality of the organism itself.
... and? Evolution is about survivability (or rather propagation - it doesn't matter if you survive so long as you managed to spread your genes). This whole idea of "more evolved" and "less evolved" species is actually flawed - evolution is not a directed process. We like to look at it as such, because it meshes well with our anthropocentric view of the pinnacle of creation, but the truth is that the goal of evolution is not to produce a man; we're just an accidental side effect. So it any other species.
That's not the right direction to get from a single celled organism to a human being. On top of that, evolution as described is a "greedy algorithm" - it cannot plan ahead, and has no good mechanism to develop complex capabilities that require multiple parts.
It does have such a mechanism, namely acquiring those parts separately for different purposes, and later combining them and evolving them together. Indeed, every time we've explored the evolution of some complex organ (like the eye, which creationists often use as an example of "irreducible complexity"), we universally found out that there are, in fact, a series of obvious separate steps, each of which gives a definite advantage in and of itself while remaining plausible to evolve. Furthermore, when distinct species under pressure to adapt to similar circumstances evolve, they acquire organs that are functionally identical but can differ considerably in implementation detail for no obvious reason other than evolutionary baggage (e.g. human eye vs octopus eye). Finally, the very existence of the aforementioned evolutionary baggage - i.e. the fact that organisms are often constructed in a very convoluted way, all the way down to how cells operate - shows that the argument of there being some "neat" code base that would be inevitably polluted by mutations is flawed. What we have is more like a hodgepodge of simple code snippets that are randomly copy-pasted, and occasionally changed, all over the place. All the time, you see the same base thing used for vastly different purposes in different organisms, and usually in both cases it has to be mangled considerably to become suitable for that purpose. If that is the product of an intelligent designer, that would indicate considerable lack of skill on his behalf, and the lack of understanding of such basic principles as code reuse.
All replication means is a few more tries. That's not an explanation, that's a handwave. Replication itself is a feature that must be randomly mutated into existence. You haven't offered anything that will overcome "information + noise => less information".
Natural selection is that mechanism. You keep handwaving around that fact, but it's observably true. Get a Petri dish and run your own experiment already.
To say that noise adds information is absurd - but that's what evolution repeatedly asserts. If taken seriously, it contradicts the entire field of computing. Why bother removing noise when noise could be adding information to the message you're transmitting? You just need to filter it afterwards!
The reason why you remove noise from the transmitted message is that you have a specific purpose that you intend to achieve by transmitting that particular message. Any noise interferes with that purpose. So, by definition, any filter that would achieve your goal would be the one that removes all noise.
Evolution does not have a purpose or a goal. It doesn't care about primitiveness or complexity. It doesn't ca
Evolution is scientific. Belief in a creator is religious. Belief in evolution is rational. Each of these statements is true in a way.
False.
No one who understand what science is believes in evolution. Science is not a system of beliefs, it is a system of evidence based reasoning. It is not proper to say "I believe in evolution", but rather "the theory of evolution is the hypothesis best supported by the evidence"...
I understand your core point, that "science is not a system of beliefs". However, it also bears noting that ambiguous use of this term "believe" can lead to unproductive bouts of talking past one another.
To wit, one may believe in science in the same way that one believes in gravitation or in the blueness of the sky -- in this sense, "belief" is more of a statement of expectation or a statement of one's view of the universe based on learned experience. Meanwhile, one can believe in a supernatural entity who is both all-forgiving and vengeful at the same time, which in most cases is *not* based on learned experience. The two meanings of "belief" are broadly similar, but the distinction is an important one.
(I say "in most cases" as there do appear to be instances of people who have had experiences related to such a being; meanwhile, I have also had extensive conversations about the subjectivity of reality with a close friend of mine who suffered from a schizophrenic disorder. I accept that reality is subjective and an individual experience. I also hold to the view that any subjective experience of reality that is not broadly shared with others is of dubious value in formulating reliable judgments about the world around me.)
Looked at differently, "belief" could be interpreted as a statement of trust in received wisdom. How many of us actually have experience carrying out the vast array of experiments upon which modern science is based? No one can, as there's simply too much to fit into one lifetime. We must, to some extent, take scientific findings as a matter of faith. The big difference between faith or belief in science, and faith or belief in (a) deit(y/ies), is that science can be replicated and verified, while supernatural events cannot be. Faith or belief in the supernatural must ultimately depend upon the authority of the person from whom such information comes. This may help explain the correlation between the rise of fundamentalism and the rise of authoritarianism in the US.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
All Science is speculative, this is just part of Science. Science is not a dogma, nor a belief of any kind. It is a methodology. It is a way of arriving at answers. Whether or not those answers are true to false is not part of Science. The theory of Evolution has the most evidence. It can be objectively tested and happens in laboratories constantly. If someone comes up with an explanation that is more accurate and can be objectively tested, then it will supplant Evolution.
The gripe of the "Darwinists" is that people are losing the ability to reason in a scientific manner. It is this ability to reason that created the Cultural and Industrial revolutions that led people to invent the modern world. The number of people who do not believe in Evolution is a symptom of a culture that does not understand or embrace a scientific methodology.
The alternative is a faith based methodology. The last time a faith based methodology dominated, we now call it the "Dark Ages." These two go hand in hand. The Darwinists don't want to see us return to a state of ignorance.
I have come to think that the unyielding rigidity of fundamentalism (be it Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Pastafarian, what-have-you) indicates a form of mental illness. I speak not in hyperboles -- a flat-out refusal to accept empiric reality represents a turn straight into pathology. Entropius's description here of the irrational universe and inherent disorder cleaved to by young-Earth creationists depicts an alarming rejection of reality and embrace of capriciousness.
How very worrying.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
So creationism = "I don't know".
Whenever I don't know how something works, I can just say it is the doings of a god(s). That way I can stop worrying about it. This formula has worked for thousands of years - why stop now?
Dog breeds are not evolution, perhaps in some liberal definition they are but any canine can breed with any other. Even wolves and breed with domestic dogs. Now if after 1000's of years we had come up with a line of animal derived from dogs but couldn't be breed with a dog then we might have something. Even if we could get to a dog that can breed with a wolf then we would have something. And size doesn't matter, if the sperm can fertilize the egg and get offspring that can also reproduce we have it. Horses + Donkeys = Mules is on the right track but still not quite there cause Mule + Mule = 0
Chick + Donkey = Donkey Show.
Be seeing you...
"Note also that even some parts of the Bible may be shown to be true, or even predictive, it does not follow that others parts similarly are. For example, one can accept the literal correctness of every single word in the Bible insofar as it describes events, while rejecting any claims God makes about himself in the Bible (e.g omniscience or omnipotence)."
This is almost correct, and would be except for one point: Jesus' death and resurrection. If Jesus rose from the grave, then that in and of itself would be evidence in favor of the claims God makes about Himself. If that one point is not true, all of Christianity falls apart... but likewise, if true then it would revolutionize our understanding of the world (and I would contend that it has). Consider these points:
- If Jesus had not risen, then why would the authorities who crucified Him not simply display His body as proof when it was claimed that He had come back from the dead?
- If His close followers had not seen Him after His resurrection, why would they have gone on to do what they did? Of the eleven disciples left after the crucifixion, ten of them were killed in horrible ways later on for their beliefs. None of them got rich off it, or gained political power (some of that came much, much later). Why would that many people who all *knew* whether the beliefs they were spreading were true or false be willing to go on to die for it... unless it were true?
There are many other resources on this topic I would happily share, some written by folks where were atheist and out to prove the Bible wrong, if you are interested.
William George
Actually, I'm pretty sure that, across the 73 years worth of Batman comics, with multiple simultaneous series (currently, there's something like ten or so ongoing comics that Batman is either the sole focus of, or one of the major cast of*), incest and people being tortured for religious beliefs has come up at least as many times as it has in the bible, if not more. The main difference there, is that in Batman, those things are almost always depicted as something negative.
* - Batman, Detective Comics, Batman and Robin, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman: Arkham Unhinged, Batman Incorporated, Batman: No man's Land, Batman: The Streets of Gotham, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman Beyond, Justice League AND Justice League International, oh man, that's 12 just from the current month sales listing for DC, and I haven't even started on the Bat-spinoffs like Batgirl, Batwoman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Catwoman, and ... Batman is being used by DC like Wolverine was being used by Marvel - he's everywhere, and apparently on or associated with every team. Poor guy needs a serious vacation.
I am going to point out i have digital copies of all of the various Batman comic books, and once i finish reading my collection of Hulk comics (at #460 now), I'll get on the Batman and document how much incest is in it, since it's the only thing you mentioned that is interesting.
Be seeing you...
Disagree Mr. AC. I do not see how my belief in a creator undermines the engineering of this missile launcher I'm working on. Even my old college professor believes in god, but that doesn't stop him from publishing peer-reviewed articles about superstrings and quarks and the inflationary period (the very basis of creation). Perhaps you could enlighten us how our beliefs make us suck at our jobs. (insert crickets chirping in the silence)
I'm sure your "creator" ie, your Mom & Dad are glad you have a job and are able to pay the bills.
I'm sure your "professor" parents/creators are glad he has a job also.
Lets get real here, the only people that created any of us, was our parents.
Who created our parents? Their fucking parents. (get it, fucking parents? they fuck, ah, forget it.)
Be seeing you...
And yet it's brought out a good 80+ wrong answers and the chance for people to think again about their premises.
I saw very little thinking about premises, and very little results from your attempt at socratic teaching. All in all, I rate your attempt a flat zero.
I hope for the world's sake that you're no teacher.
From the feedback I've gotten, I'm pretty sure I'm a better one than you.
All questions can be answered like that. Like I said somewhere else in this thread, why aren't we all out playing football on this sunny day?
The trick is knowing when it is a good answer, and when it is a bad answer. As for your follow-up question... stop trying so hard, and you might actually become interesting.
As for which texts we read in "middle school", Plato's cave analogy was a nice starting point.
OK, so you remember reading about Plato's Cave at school and you think that this answers all the elementary philosophical questions.
No, I remember that Plato's cave was a nice starting point about this idea in middle school. Did you read what you quoted? Not sure why you think that it was supposed to answer all questions. Extrapolating much from your own experience?
Nope. The question has not been "rejected" ever, just deemed unanswerable. But it's formed part of "sterile debate" on the power and limitations of philosophical induction per Hume, leading to Popper's falsifiability, and all the other Philosophy 101 names you could have dropped if you hadn't engaged bullshit mode.
It's been rejected as the basis of any form of reasoning about the physical world, as well as reasoning about moral imperatives or the limits of logic. The answers it produces are either trivial, useless or contradictory. For what it's worth - you should be able to tell by now with which philosophers I'm throwing in my lot.
I'm not sure what speeding being a summary offence (E+W) has to do with this discussion, but OK.
I figured as much. The similarity still amused me.
I thought air quotes were an illustration of incredulity. But your nick was just as middle-school as your argument. Not that it matters - you'd have been equally wrong without the silly name.
Yes, because we all need to pick obscure names out of little known short stories in order to be taken seriously. You would have loved my nick that I used on some gaming boards. It was a great way to pick out posers, know-nothings and kids who thought they were hot shit. As for your incredulity about learning about Plato's cave in middle school, that says more about your education than about my knowledge of philosophy.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
To say that noise adds information is absurd
I think this is where you're stuck. Information + Noise, fed through a filter that only allows fitter results to reproduce, will obviously encourage change. The question surely is, if evolution does not occur, then why not? The whole argument can be approached from another direction - and so, answer me this; what prevents evolution?
They're making the assumption that the average mutation is a net gain,
This is plainly false. No such assumption is being made. The assumption - actually the fact - is that if a mutation is a gain, then that mutation will survive and spread.
Why bother removing noise when noise could be adding information to the message you're transmitting? You just need to filter it afterwards!
Because in information transfer, you actually want the original message. If you wanted to construct a system that created millions upon millions of randomly altered messages, and were somehow able to convince millions upon millions of people to read those messages and choose the one's they preferred, then absolutely you would eventually produce new information. Question; where did that information come from? Let's remove the issue of the syntax of the message, and instead suggest that the message should be a melody. Let's randomly alter the melody millions of times, and recruit millions of willing listeners to choose their favorite. Let's do this for millions of years. Are you suggesting that the result wouldn't be a better melody?
I think we could come closest with something along these lines: 'each created kind is a unique combination of non-unique traits'. It was described this way in an article I read -
"Perhaps each created kind is a unique combination of non-unique traits. Look at people, for instance. Each of us has certain traits that we may admire (or abhor): brown hair, tall stature, or even a magnificent nose like mine. Whatever the trait, someone else has exactly the same trait, but nobody has the same combination of traits that you do or I do. Each of us is a unique combination of non-unique traits. In a sense, that’s why it’s hard to classify people. If you break them up according to hair type, you’ll come out with groups that won’t fit with the eye type, and so on. Furthermore, we recognize each person as distinct.
We see a similar pattern among other living things. Each created kind is a unique combination of traits that are individually shared with members of other groups. The platypus, for example, was at first considered a hoax by evolutionists, since its “weird” set of traits made it difficult even to guess what it was evolving from or into. Creationists point out that each of its traits (including complex ones like its electric location mechanism, leathery egg, and milk glands) is complete, fully functional, and well-integrated into a distinctive and marvelous kind of life."
This was taken from a discussion on the topic here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cfl/species-kind
William George
I hear you and I logically agree with you. But I've witnessed many examples that show this not to be the case.
For example, when I was in engineering school the most brilliant of my fellow students was a strong believer in creationism. He once lent me one of his creationism textbooks. I dutifully read it and found it to be nonsensical and completely illogical. Yet he was firmly convinced this was the truth. I never have understood how someone who was getting straight A+ marks while taking a double course load could at the same time believe such nonsense.
[George Orwell] Doublethink. [/George Orwell]
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
but.... thre verses later
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing.... —Genesis 19:8
known here is clearly a 'sexual' reference.
also
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. —Jude 1:7
46137
No, he isn't.
" So you are telling me that something that for all we know could be the direct result of a supernatural being imposing it's will "
For all we know, there is no supernatural being. Because in all we know, there is zero evidence of one.
"Evolution does not in any way disprove creation,"
actually, it does. Creating is an idea put forth in the Bible, and it has been thoroughly shut down.
If you would bother to understand what Science is, you would understand that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not the question that was asked. The question was; which field uses the 'theory of Creationism'? Not; which scientist believes in God?
And the answer is, None. There is no field of engineering that uses the theory of Creationism, being the idea that God created everything. This is not an idea that you can 'use'.
Ignoring the fact that you are building something that will be specifically used to violate you tenets of your 'belief'..
IF you can not think critically and apply it all the time, then you are making serious assumption based in blind faith of something.
IF you can' not apply critical thinking to everything, then how do you know you are applying critical thinking to your job?
"Even my old college professor believes in god"
And? I'll set aside the superstring and faith jokes.
". Perhaps you could enlighten us how our beliefs make us suck at our jobs. "
You're faith indicates that when you get an emotional entrenched belief you can't change you mind or deviate from that regardless of scientific evidence. It also shows you will believe in things without evidence. YO can not be trusted to make a critical decision without bias.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Genetic engineering. We induce mutations via the same mechanisms they occur in in nature (e.g. mismatch repair, retroviruses, etc) and increase their frequency through selective pressure. That's evolution.
No, thats natuaral selection. True evolution is the creation of ADDITIONAL NEW function that was not there before, not the re arrangement or rexpression of existing functionality. Developing thermal imaging sensors on your hands would be evolution.
46137
Firstly, starting with nothing is a false requirement, starting points are not addressed by evolution (in particular starting at null). Once you have started something, you can get all kinds of stuff out. Secondly, your definition of filter needs work. Filters don't always only remove information, sometimes they just move it around. Ultimately you should think of the selection part of evolution not like a filter, but more like an informational version of Maxwell's demon. When a useful bit of information shows up, it's trapped. The more useful the information is the stronger the walls of the trap. Get past those points and you'll be OK.
If you're actually curious, google Genetic Algorithms. A large number of experiments have already been done similar to what you propose. Heck I even wrote one a while back to see if random mutations would converge to a solution, and they did. It wasn't complicated or sophisticated, but a set of numbers would converge on a solution.
Yes they did. Also many people running the pubs think the same way. They WANT strife in the mid east.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
IT also doesn't work if you have people looking for any excuse what so ever to push the button. These people are hoping to Start armegeddan. They are the most dangers mix of ignorance, stupidity and hubris.
If they could get someone in there belief into Russian high command, we would have had a nuclear war.
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You misunderstand children. No child is going to choose a piece of coal over a toy. A parent would, not a young child.
Almost as if it's a children's story. You might want to look into the history of Santa, cause he wasn't created by rich people.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The astronomer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks, "How odd. Scottish sheep are black." "No, no, no!" says the physicist. "Only some Scottish sheep are black." The mathematician rolls his eyes at his companions' muddled thinking and says, "In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, at least one side of which appears to be black from here."
This is almost correct, and would be except for one point: Jesus' death and resurrection. If Jesus rose from the grave, then that in and of itself would be evidence in favor of the claims God makes about Himself.
It does not. If Jesus died and was resurrected, all it demonstrates that one particular person is capable of resurrecting once after dying. It does not demonstrate that he is God, much less an omnipotent once.
(I wouldn't be at all surprised if we will be capable of doing the resurrection trick with recently deceased people in the next couple hundred years or so)
Then again, I do not believe that the recounting of events in the Gospel is literally true in every single word, though it's likely to be based on some real events. Specifically, short of the Gospel, there's a considerable shortage of contemporary or near-contemporary sources that mention resurrection.
So just because it says that Jesus died and was resurrected, or that other followers went around and died for their believes, doesn't necessary make me treat it as true. Some probably did; Paul, for example, was a definite fanatic, and surely there were others like him (esp. if Jesus selected them based on criteria of blind loyalty). Specifically:
Why would that many people who all *knew* whether the beliefs they were spreading were true or false be willing to go on to die for it... unless it were true?
They didn't have to know; they only had to believe. And human belief is a thing so flexible that it can, at times, be scary. Many Christians believe in Jesus through some "personal experience" they've had; but it's clearly not something material, that an outside observer can watch and record - the only observable thing is the change of behavior. Well, and the activation of certain neural centers in the brain, once we've started exploring that area Who's to say the apostles didn't have their own "personal experiences"?
Obviously, the education system is the work of the devil. Those degrees are only signs of how high you are in the devil's rankings.
BS - Beginning Satan MS - Minor Satan PhD - Pretty high Devil
(I feel like I'm gonna pay for that comment somehow...)
Yes. A DCMA notice is on the way for use of my copyrighted and patented concept.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
>>>let the Religious Right get real power. That will show you tyrrany.
I find it funny you fear the religious right so much. It is the Media/Corporate-serving Left that has been causing most of the problems lately. Like shutting-down Megaupload. Arresting & prosecuting Jamie Thomas millions of dollars for downloading 30 songs. Passing or trying to pass laws like Protect IP, SOPA, and CISPA.
Forcing us to bail-out GM when it should have been left to die. Forcing us to provide Corporate Welfare for Solyndra and hundreds of other companies (most of which went bankrupt). Forcing 50 million uninsured Americans to buy product from the Insurance Megacorps (made their stock go up the very next day).
I see the religious nuts as annoying, but I don't have to fear they will arrest me under PIPA, fine me millions of dollars, or force me to provide bailouts/corporate welfare/buy a product which I don't want. All that shit is coming from the left.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
There are probably tons of atheists who believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old; after all, just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean that the Earth (and everything on it) didn't spontaneously come to exist in a single moment not all that long ago...
You know, there are people in this world who actually don't have memories. There's an interesting documentary about a particular English individual called 'The Man with the Thirty Second Memory'. It's quite heartbreaking. If you haven't already watched it, I suggest that you do so. I would have thought it rather an insult to his memory to persist with your absurd navel-gazing.
And of course we use faith when we take most of what we experience as in some sense truth. This is the only rational course of action, and I'm fairly sure that Philosophy as a discipline moved on from questions such as these a fairly long time ago. More interesting, and more difficult ones, are available. Perhaps you could put your playful attitude to work on the problem of the existence (or non-existence) of Morals.
Running to an anti-evolution site to handwave away evidence. Shocking.
Okay, specific examples:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001026
Explain them some other way. Do you think God inserts ERVs at specific points in animals already seen to be closely related by phylogeny just to test faith?
And as to your last paragraph, I guess even you know how weak your argument is, so it's time to trot out epistemological nihilism. I dunno, can you be absolute sure that I don't exist and you're just debating with yourself? You see where that kind of ludicrous thinking leads, to the denial that any knowledge can be reliably determined.
At any rate, kids should be taught to science in class, even if they're going to become tax attorneys and never use it again, just as they should be taught accurate history (as accurate as we can determine at that time), even if they're destined to be beautician. To argue against teaching knowledge because its application may not be obvious, or applicable to everyone, is a backwards way of trying to justify teaching things that are known to be wrong in any given field.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You don't need to have Original Sin to have sin.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I accept my memory as reliable. My acceptance is an act of faith.
Your faith is misplaced. Human memory is significantly better than random chance and guessing, but it's a far cry less reliable than say... ANYTHING ELSE. So much so, In fact, that in criminal cases the ones concluded on memory alone (eye-witness testimony) are the most often overturned. Memory is so unreliable that airplane pilots of various stripes must use a checklist to start/fly/land their plane correctly and safely. When pilots realized the unreliability of their memory, the incidents of accidents and pilot error went down dramatically. In fact a large number of complex operations rely on checklists to complete because of the unreliability of our memory. Better to rely on more permanent and reliable mediums like say, the written word, video, etc.
Bill Nye is in a position to get laws passed that favor his viewpoint (teach children that Creationism is wrong & their parents are nutty twits, in the government schools). He's not a tyrant himself but he is friends with those who are tyrants in the CA Legislature and Congress.
As for why I'm "tired" of being bossed around? Mainly because I'm tired of people telling what to do. "Don't smoke weed". Really? Who the hell am I hurting if I'm just sitting here watching Star Trek and a cigarette in my mouth? If I am DUI then sure: Arrest me and throw me in jail with the alcohol drunks, but not when I'm just sitting at home not hurting anybody.
There are also other things that government forces you to do. Like give-up the password or encryption key on your hard drive. Force you to submit to car searches along highways (why? You don't have a warrant). Hold-up people at the TSA and demand to know why they are carrying $4000 in cash. And on and on.
That my friend is the opposite of liberty. It's tyranny.
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So humans are apes, right? Part of "ape kind".
But it appears to me that even accepting your classification, it's worthless. Even Linnaeus's system inherently recognized relationships between presumably distant ancestors. How do chordates hang out in the "kind" system. How do you separate birds from dinosaurs, fish from amphibians? Because you've constructed a completely self serving system that doesn't actually classify anything save in a fashion that meets some bizarre literal reading of Genesis, you create a system of no utility whatsoever.
If I look at the genome of two species and see that they hold about 98% common in genes, and not only that, despite some chromosomal differences, it appears that the loci of most of the genes can be mapped one to the other, how does that fit into "kinds"? You can reject common descent and the twin-nested hierarchy if you like, but at least it makes solid predictions which we can then go test. "Kinds" is little better than a child's form of classification, if that. I think even the Greeks had better classification systems than you put forward here. Do you realize how embarrassed you should be?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The subject line was supposed to read "Creationism faith!" (oh, and I left out the /sarc tag... but that was on purpose; I'm hoping for some downright incredulous responses!). :p
Aw, Geez... that's twice that /.'s eaten the "not equal to" symbol that was supposed to be between "Creationism" and "faith;" don't I feel stupid...
Catholicism officially recognizes evolution to be correct. They're still having trouble with realizing there isn't a god, but you can see why that one is a bit harder for them.
Which of course, ends the argument since God himself established the Church through Jesus and carried on by the Popes. So arguing against evolution is to argue against God, as I like to point out to my fundamentalist friends. They do seem to get a bit upset over that, but hey, who am I to argue with God?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Actually, Climategate showed us that scientists would rather plug their fingers in their ears and scream than confront serious flaws in a field that is mainly dealing in prognostications. Then they are investigated by other scientists, with a vested interest in keeping their priesthood's reputation intact. It's little surprise that, similar to Catholics investigating child molestation and pedophilia, these scientists claimed they found nothing wrong.
Sorry, you can't build a reputation back up by simply shouting down the critics. It has to be done with honesty. Of course, this is a heresy against the priesthood of Science, who would have us believe that their credibility never suffered after Climategate.
It is the same thing. We do not possess every single transition between Proto-Germanic and Modern English. In fact, we know almost nothing about West Germanic, which is the direct antecedent of Anglo-Saxon. But because there are traces of the ancestral languages in ones we can read, we thus have the ability not only to state that English, German, Dutch, Swedish and a whole host of languages descended from proto-Germanic, we can even go so far as to do tentative reconstructions.
The same goes for the fossil record. You do not need a complete fossil record to lay out a map of how you start at a common ancestor and arrive at its descendants. These trees were being assembled a century ago, and are still assembled today. But fortunately we no longer rely just on fossils, we can also use the molecular data, which in the large degree confirms the fossil data. In other words, we have two independent lines of evidence which fit together well; the twin-nested hierarchy. And the fossil record is nowhere near as sparse as you would make out, and like a language family, you can find at least some hints of ancestral languages simply by looking at the features of a large number of descendants.
They've done a tentative reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, even though it was spoken at least two or three thousand years before anyone started writing its descendant languages down. In the same fashion, we can do tentative reconstructions of common ancestors based upon fossil records AND the molecular data.
I will repeat. You do not need perfect data to reconstruct an evolutionary event, any more than you need to know the position of a bullet at every millisecond from the barrel of the gun to the victim's head to reconstruct a trajectory. Yes, evolution, biological and linguistic, actually follows rules.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
>>>>>Congress mandates we all must drive hybrid cars? We all must install solar panels on our roofs? We all must buy CFLs or LED bulbs? Being forced to buy something you don't want to buy.
>>
>>No, but they can certainly subsidize those terrible, cleaner options.
No? Try "yes". According to the Supreme Court ruling, Congress has the power to mandate we buy any product of their choosing, and if we don't comply they can fine us through the IRS. And I don't agree CFLs are cleaner:
They create pollution when they are shipped from China. They create pollution when they are shipped back for recycling. They create pollution if they break open (mercury vapor). They waste energy when you have to open your house and let the vapor (and heat) escape outside. And they rarely last any longer than a normal incandescent bulb since their resistors/capacitors typically fail when exposed to the heat generated by the bulb.
Plus they are dim when you first turn them on (I have to wait 4 minutes until the light's bright enough to read my book). CFLs are a perfect example of a product that is actually worse than the one replaced.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
It is the Media/Corporate-serving Left that has been causing most of the problems lately.
is it backwards-day again today?
last time I checked, the Right is the side that wants corporations to get more and more powerful. that's not a Lefty characteristic.
the Occupy guys are the right or left? the left, in case you weren't sure. they were protesting the overy-strong and unbalanced control the extreme rich have and how corps are the new princes and kings of today.
the Right wants to arrest anyone who challenges the status quo.
sir, you really have things backwards. you really do.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Creationism is just a symptom of a much more fundementalproblem.
I saw what you did there....
I was sympathetic to your rant until you called evolution a religion. Scientific theories are not religions.
Well if you claim anyone qualified to look into things science related are on the same side, then you're going to have trouble. Who else would be able to look into the research? Someone with no scientific background? It wasn't the same scientists looking into it, or even just one related group. Multiple independent groups cleared them of wrong doing.
When the critics have no idea what they're talking about, it's fine to shout them down.
How memory works is still an open question, but it has a lot to do with varying the strength of synaptic connections between neurons in the brain. If you're interested, this is a good place to start reading. Not sure what the relevance is to this conversation though.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You are confusing faith and belief.
Many religious people have faith in God. I believe evolution is a fact, and that the Theory of Natural Selection is the current best explanation for this fact. Belief is not blind faith. Belief is something you think is true due to some sort of evidence.
Note: evolution is a fact because it has so much evidence supporting it: the fossil record, selective breeding, genetic engineering, etc... The Theory of Natural Selection is the best theory we have come up to explain the fact of evolution, just like Newton's "Laws" of gravity were the best theory explaining the fact of gravity until Einstein came along.
Anarchists never rule
Always black and white with this subject when the multiverse is grey...
Belief in God is fine. It feeds the soul. It speaks to the world of spirit. It's a really great thing. But it's a really rare belief system that demands it's practitioners to be -in the moment- and holding spirit with presence. The Bible points us toward that state of mind, but too many are worshiping the words instead. That leads to absurdities like expecting the words to literally explain all that is in a dynamically changing environment.
Belief in Science is fine. It feeds the mind. It speaks to the world of experience and logic. It's a really great thing. But it's a really rare belief system that demands it's practitioners to be willing to toss aside all theories to consider another. Science demands that we treat all our scientific knowledge as theories, but too many are clinging to our models as facts, and the map is never the territory. This leads to absurdities like scientism and the belief that science can fully explain all aspects of our existence and consciousness.
Life contains many mysteries. Use all your lenses, including science, spirituality, and any other reality tunnel you've got, to see the mysteries from many perspectives.
Metaphysics is fun to debate and read, but has very little bearing on the real world. Our best evidence that the world is real is that we all see the same world. All dreams are private. I think it is important to explore questions like "how do we know what is real"; it isn't bullshit, but it can rarely be used to argue against realism and empirical evidence with a straight face.
Anarchists never rule
Why would you need faith to accept your memories are real when it is so easy to test. You could survey people about past events you remember, you could write things down and compare to you memory later, you could video stuff... I'm sure you could move from faith to belief in only a few weeks of experimentation.
Anarchists never rule
You are confusing faith and belief.
Faith is something you believe with no evidence, or despite evidence contrary to that belief. A normal person's belief that the sun is a big fusing ball of mainly hydrogen does not require any faith. You can look up lots of evidence, do you own experiments, learn some physics, that in turn can be corroborated by your own experiments. This path would be a bit extreme, but should be sufficient to help even a skeptic to believe the sun is in fact a large fusing ball of gas. A rational belief doesn't require 100% certainty. Outside of math and logic nothing can be known with 100% certainty.
Anarchists never rule
Why would he though? He's God! He can just zap us in to existence! Surely, that's better than having distant cousins eat each other just so they can survive. We've defeated evolution to some degree. Evolution in its pure form is unimaginably brutal.
The religious suffer from a cognitive bias where they assume that any contradicting evidence is more proof of their man in the sky. The point of the Origin of Species was to give us a mental framework that required no man in the sky!
Science shows that your God tries very, very hard to look like the null hypothesis; which is, complete and total none-existence.
Oh, there you go. Back to nuttery.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The agreement between our current scientific understanding of evolution of life and the Book of Genesis is pretty good considering that Genesis was written 4,000 years ago by several uneducated authors who had likely never traveled more than a few miles from their home village and were relying on even earlier oral traditions. The creation sequence described in Genesis is 1) light, 2) Earth's rotation to provide day and night, 3) dry land on the Earth, 4) plants and vegetation, 5) moon and sun to mark night and day, 6) fishes and birds, 7) mammals and all kinds of terrestial creatures, 8) Man. Our current scientific understanding of the evolution of life is 1) big bang to create all space, time, and mass, 2) stars form, 3) pre-earth forms, 4) moon forms from impact of planet with pre-earth, 5) oceans condense, 6) early life, both photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic, arrives in ocean and on whatever 'land' exists in warm earth with no polar ice, 7) life evolves in oceans to more complex multi-cellular forms, invertebrates, and then vertebrates (fishes), 8) More dry land forms and life forms colonize it, 9) mammals, 10) man. The key thing is that both creation accounts rely on a sequence of events arising from creation out of nothing at all which is counter-intuitive to our imagination working alone. If you put most of us down in a little village 4,000 years ago and asked us to describe creation, we would likely either say 'it's always been this way,' or 'the gods formed everything from the raw materials at hand.'
intermediate steps in the evolutionary process.
There is a misunderstanding here. All steps are intermediate steps. There is no such thing as a non-intermediate step. Hell, there's no such thing as a 'step'. Gradual change is what we're looking at, and the fossil record is incomplete for perfectly reasonable reasons. The formation of a fossil is a highly unlikely event, and thus it didn't happen all that often.
If the only evidence for evolution were the fossil record, you might have a point. But the evidence is massive, and comes from areas as separate as molecular biology and geology.
The problem with this whole 'where are the intermediate forms' argument, is that it can never be satisfied. As soon as you fill one 'gap', you are left with two - albeit smaller - 'gaps'. Then you've got to fill those too.
It's interesting that you seem satisfied with the evidence for languages descending from each other, and rightly see no problem with missing details about intermediate languages (again though, all languages are intermediate) - yet you cannot accept the sparsity of the fossil record. Why the distinction?
Thank you. This. Things like Descarte's Evil Genius are age old and simply flacid. There tends to be one of two responses. 1) The kid gets all wide-eyed and is in awe as they think that they just freed themselves from the Matrix or 2) the kid recognizes "how can you confirm the perfectly unconfirmable" as the bullshit dead-end it is and moves on.
In my experience the people who bring this line of thinking up use it as a win/win cop-out. Don't have faith in your memories? HA! Then how can you trust your evidence? You DO have faith in your memories? See, I told you that you had faith! Let us not tarry lest we be late for church! Alternatively they may try to say that your faith in memory is just as weak as their faith in the sky daddy and thus therefore just as valid.
In fact, I didn't say it wasn't murder only in context of war, but you go with that. As for the other ones, please feel free to provide your address and I'm sure someone else who doesn't think stealing is a big deal will help you on your path to minimalism. Of course, they may also not have a problem with murder, but that's okay, too, right?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Not that this undermines your overall point, but I get tired of hearing this. I'm tempted to blame Indiana Jones but I'm not certain that's the origin of this meme. Science very much does deal in truth. Capitalizing the "T" doesn't make it some mystical transcendent concept. A descriptive proposition is true to the extent that it accurately describes reality. Science is all about coming up with accurate descriptions of reality, and is therefore all about the search for truth.
How you should make the point I think you're trying to make is to say that science does not "state as truth" as the GPP wrote; it searches for truth. Since there is an infinite amount of truth to be found (in an infinite universe), it can never say that it has found all of the truth, but it can say with various degrees of certainty that "that's the truth over there". And most importantly, if it doesn't know where the truth on some question is to be found, it's happy to admit such, rather than make up some bullshit just so it can claim to have found the truth; but at the same time, it always assumes that there is some truth to be found, even if it hasn't found it yet.
"The answer is probably..." and "We don't know yet" are the twin mantas of science.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Go back to shilling, you sockpuppet idiot.
>They're like the Amish except with no balls.
Actually, the Amish don't discount technology and science as evil or anti-christian, but they feel that a simpler life is a better life. IIRC they feel that the modern western life distracts from Fod, not that it conflicts with God.
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
Or neither. This is a core construct in our society, and each side should get equal time and the individual should choose which they believe in.
Not offering both sides to a particular issue for debate is anti-science in itself.
I happen to think creationism is a crock, but that's my decision and i wouldn't want either side forced on to me so i was unable to make that decision ( forced by the absence of the other )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What an extraordinary point of view.
Evolution is not a moral position. Fitter organisms reproduce more often, that humans appeared sometime in the last twenty thousands years or so and got their knickers in a twist about whether or not it's moral to allow such a mechanism to continue is irrelevant.
Evolution will continue irrespective of humanities moral position on the matter. There are just too many organisms on the planet, reproducing and changing a tiny bit all the time - what are we going to do about it?
Yes. But hopefully, not by you.
I wish that were true but too many fundamentalist have hijacked our religion and now we have people believing outrageous things. Natural Revelation coincides very well with science, the way you describe here, but there's the creationist museum which changes the very definition of the word
yeah, what happened to metamoderation? It still exists in the help section but i have no idea how, now that the site has changed
as I don't have a deep education in the life sciences, but I follow along as best I can.
Which, and I genuinely don't mean disrespect, wouldn't appear to be very well.
Dog breeds are not evolution
Wrong. The various breeds of dogs have evolved from wolves, but not by natural selection. You might call it forced selection or unnatural selection, but it is undoubtedly evolution.
"Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations." from wikipedia.
-- QED
At the root of all 'evidence', is faith. Its the trust that you are telling me the truth AND Im parsing it correctly. There is a universe of error possible between those states.
Good-bye
I always took the term "creationist" to be a reference to the creation story of the bible.
And yes, architecture is clearly intelligent design, and old earth creationists (such as most Catholics) are also creationists, I'd still say applying it to Deism is a stretch.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Yup, the Sodomites wanted to rape the intruders. That was definitely wrong.
I rather think the offer of the virgin daughters to the prospective rapists was just as wrong.
Both these were only trivial wrongs compared to the actual breach committed by the Sodomites, which was to transgress against the rules of hospitality upon which civil society was founded. In context Lot's offer was arguably the very opposite of wrong, (though that may not be obvious to C21st eyes).
Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.-- Gen 19:8 [emphasis added]
So important is it for Lot to make good his promise of hospitality that he offers up his daughters (perhaps he should have offered his goats ... or were they more valuable?). The fact that the Sodomites refused even this generousity merely exacerbated their serious transgression. That's why they got nuked.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
The research has been under contention for years. The gridding scandal alone is worthy of consideration, as are the selective tree-ring samples.
My point is that the people chosen to investigate the Climategate principals were not interested in the truth of the matter, they were there to create a whitewash.
And your last statement is pretty telling. All you need to do is label somebody a denier, then you can claim they don't know what they're talking about, and then they can be safely ignored. This is the kind of thinking that caused the entire third world to walk out on Copenhagen, once the cat was out of the bag.
1. I remember your post.
2. I look it up in your post history.
3. They match.
Let me prove your stupid memory/faith assertion as completely wrong in about the simplest way possible. How is it that you get home each day? Or don't starve to death? Or know how to talk?
Because... you... remember... these... things.
If this isn't enough proof for you, then you are just refusing to accept reality.
Perhaps it's one because it's the other?
Sure, but lots of christians don't recognize the catholic church (arguably they aren't even recognized as christians by the eastern orthodox because they view themselves as the successors of the Papacy), most notably protestants who have a somewhat different interpretation of the bible than catholics.
That is, in a way, one of the few redeeming things about the catholic church, they've realized (eventually, somewhere along the line) that they can't try and take the bible literally, and they can't try and ignore scientific reality, because scientific reality will persist long past the people disagreeing with it. If you stake your credibility on something that is demonstrably not true you will eventually disappear - the question remains how long they can cling to a belief in a god when no one sensible believes in one. The protestant faiths that are ignoring evolution have all had to give up or move to the US, because no one takes them seriously anywhere else.
If we're allowing that any intelligence behind the universe may be incomprehensible (and the universe it's behind thus likewise incomprehensible), then we're down to an unprovable assumption either way: either we assume the universe is comprehensible, or we assume it is not. Since we can only make an assumption either way, there can be no logical argument for or against either proposition.
But there can be a pragmatic one.
If the universe may or may not be comprehensible, but we can't know and can only assume either way (and must, by our actions, tacitly make one assumption or the other), then there are four possibilities:
- We assume the universe is incomprehensible, and it is, so we never comprehend it and never could.
- We assume the universe is incomprehensible, but it's not, so we never comprehend it even though we could have if we had tried.
- We assume the universe is comprehensible, but it's not, so we never comprehend it no matter how hard we try.
- We assume the universe is comprehensible, and it is, and eventually we manage to comprehend it.
The only chance we have of ever comprehending the universe is if we (at least tacitly) assume that it is comprehensible. So since we're making a baseless assumption either way, pragmatically we ought to make the assumption the operation under which at least gives us a chance, instead of just giving up from the outset. That is the real harm of "God did it" explanations: they give up on understanding and just suggest that we cannot understand. It's a quitter's answer.
Thus given that assumption that the universe is comprehensible, the workings of any God there might be behind it must be as well, at least insofar as they effect the universe and are thus evident to us at all. So to the extent that the evidence suggests there is no comprehensible design behind the universe, the evidence suggests that there is no design behind the universe at all. "There's a design, we just can't understand it" is merely giving up trying to understand.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Seems Kepler ("Oh God, I am thinking thy thoughts after thee") for one, found it a useful analytical heuristic.
And, it is remarkably difficult to have even an explication of biology without "slipping" and injecting terms an concepts derived from concepts of design or teleology (e.g. "survival of the fittest"), even when one is assiduously trying to avoid referencing these for explanatory purposes.
Find me any writeup on evolution longer than 10 paragraphs, by any scientist you like, I'll find you where it anthropomorphizes or implies overall intention.
For engineering in general, your notion rests on the assertion that entities used for reference aren't created, because you say so. I"d be quite willing to bet that at least one engineer working on Jaguars would disagree, though, for starters.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
These days, "Creationism" (with a capital 'C') generally implies disbelief in evolution.
I don't think that he's that far off base as if you're already predisposed to go with your belief vs science (as in you choose to believe in ID/Creationism over evolution) It really isn't that much of a leap to say: I'm going to use pig iron over structural steel in this here skyscraper I'm designing, because pig iron was good enough for Jesus my preacher told me so.
Yes they are mutually exclusive. For starters, there are no evidence of a god. Even appealing to the idea of a prime mover does not mean that the prime mover was a god. And for that matter, what prime-moved the god? (Oh yes, I forget, it always existed, right?)
Evolution is based on facts.
Creationism is based on shit people make up.
You're right, there is no evidence of a God. You're right, the idea of a prime mover doesn't mean the prime mover was a God. What prime moved the God? No idea. And the rest of your quote was just prejudiced BS.
ID doesn't require an omniscient and omnipotent God. Claiming that ID and evolution are mutually exclusive just shows how little you actually know about what you are railing against.
I would be okay with that, Wht i have an issue with is it is stated as FACT in schools and not explained as an idea and POSSIBLE explanation of macro evolution. There are many holes in the evolutionary theory and more are found and ignored than found and explained, Take for example that the rocks date the fossils and the fossils date the rocks. Also, I'm horrible at analogies, gimme a break. (Also, I'm a creationist, however I'm not a young earth creationist, I think we were put here to figure out the workings of the universe...what was that Ecclesiastes 3:11 iirc? "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ever wonder why we always look to the sky when we think hard and deep? Now you know. I'm also a firm believer in if God put us here, who's to say he didn't put others out there like us? Aweful big universe just for us to have all to ourselves eh? I'd lol if ET came to visit and asked us as a planet if we knew Jesus christ as our personal lord and savior...I would absolutely DIE laughing...Would atheists and evolutionists dare to speak out against it then?
I think the original poster got modded troll simply because he wasn't participating in this Christian-bashing session. And truly that is the only reason this article was posted. Regardless of whether or not Bill Nye is "awesome", or the validity of the statements, this article was only posted to rile people up and generate a bunch of hateful comments. And it was also the first thing I thought after reading the comments, that evolution has little to do with our manufacturing and engineering industries. It would be like a minister telling me I should have abandoned my computer science studies because it would hinder my faith in God. Regardless of whether you think Christian faith is pointless and wrong, by repeatedly feeding into this hatred of people who believe things you don't, you are feeding the ultimate troll, Slashdot itself.
loooool
If you think that's "left" you're delusional. Everything in the US Federal Government is right of center, all that differentiates them is to what degree and how pro-corporate they are.
I'm sure the Republican party will get right behind those same things. Oh right, they were behind SOPA/PIPA right up until the people of the country turned against it.
So jump across the aisle and the only thing that changes are the companies, and even then that isn't guaranteed.
You should. Only they'll start ramming Jesus down your throat, cut your ability to afford medical care, give more money to the richest in the country, and cut back your rights as far as they can.
You are utterly out of your gourd.
That's not what I saw. I saw that they had the power to tax, which they do. But please, bark up and down about how they "banned incandescent bulbs" to force us to buy CCFLs, when they didn't actually do that.
How do you explain the fact that Lot asked the people of Sodom not to do such wickedness? (Gen 19:6).
You also need to explain why Lot offers his daughters INSTEAD (it is clear that Lot thought the men of Sodom had sexual intentions).
Would you claim that Genesis 4:1 was not strictly talking about sex? The NET bible specifically links the use of the word in Gen 19:5 with Gen 4:1.
Perhaps Eve became pregnant some other way?
Also, I accept that the KJV might be ambiguous, but it is far from being the best translation available these days. Most other translations agree that a sexual act is being referred to here in Gen 19. These translations would not follow the KJV if they thought the translation was doubtful. The footnotes in the NET do admit that there is some debate over what is meant, but gives clear reasons for why they chose the wording they did. None of it has to do with the KJV. You need to give textual critics a bit more credit than that.
Whilst I can see your logic, it sounds like it is you who is using the KJV to promote your interpretation. One simply cannot take one meaning of a hebrew word and apply it verbatim to all uses of the word. Just like english, the meaning of a word can depend on the context. Translations such as the NET do not take this sort of thing lightly, and when all translations agree, it kind of puts the burden of proof on anyone claiming otherwise.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
After the king james version some one translated "Bring them out so we may know them" to "have sex with them". Yikes. The ancient hebrew/aramic word for know is Yeda and it means to know well. Of the 47 places yeda is used in no place does it strictly mean sex.
There are certainly a few places where it is used to mean sex. For example, "And Adam knew [yada'] Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain" (Genesis 4:1) certainly draws a cause-effect relationship between the "knowing" and the "conceiving."
No it does not. To mean that requires a phrase or adjective as you just proved! It clearly shows that you need to supplement the description with the word Conceive or it would not make sense. To know someone intimately is not so say you want to fuck them, it is intimacy. If you add the word conceived now you are saying it was sexual intimacy. But without the adjective sexual, the word simply means what it means which is to know well.
But don't take my word for it, look in a torah or look up the aramic or the greek.
Even in the passage dealing with Sodom and Gomorrah, when the men of Sodom demand "Bring them out unto us, that we may know [yada'] them" (Gen. 19:5), Lot tries to appease the mob with his daughters. He says, "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known [yada'] man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes." (Gen. 19:8) The plainest reading of this description suggests his daughters were virgins.
So you are correct that yada' [insert Seinfeld jokes here] doesn't always mean sex, it certainly can refer to a carnal knowledge.
So then david did butt fuck god? I'll alert the pope and all the rabiis, and ayatollahs of your discovery.
I urger you to google the phrase Yeda Yahweh. Either there a lot of people who want to fuck god or maybe you have it wrong?
Meanwhile here is what others say:
" "Yadha" never means "same-gender sexual activity" in any of its mearly 1000 appearances in the Bible."
"There is no Old Testament text in which yadha' is said to refer to homosexual coitus. The less ambiguous word shakhabh, however, is used for both homosexual and bestial intercourse, in addition to
coition between man and woman. Shakhabh appears fifty times in the Old Testament; if it had been used instead of yadha' in the Sodom story, the meaning of the text would have been unmistakable. As it is, we have no grounds to assume that the wrath of the Almighty was turned against these cities because homosexual practices occurred there."
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Clearly they would offer that no matter how much humans through their own personal intelligent design and modify dogs appearances they never stop being dogs as evolution says they should.
Evolution never says that, and the analogy to natural selection is to think about how much greater the modifications of nature could be if working on the principles of success rather than the trivial human inkling of noticed traits in breeding animals. Darwin noted to great lengths the changes by dog breeders and pigeon fanciers go to illicit in their relevant stocks and points out that given geometric growth potential and linear growth actuality that a great many animals that could exist, do not exist because they lose the struggle for existence and any edge in that will pay huge dividends to those descendants with that same benefit and so the natural propensity for life is to improve over time. Which in no way implies dogs becoming non-dogs but rather dogs becoming a rather large group with many very different species without that group given natural selection and millions of years.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
The problem is that belief in God is consistent with anything. No matter what objections one may raise, one can counter them with "Well, God just arranged it to look that way."
As a result, belief in God is not useful. It's also often extremely harmful... because it's consistent with anything, it can be (and is) used to justify all sorts of evil.
Or to put it in the language of logic: A false premise implies any conclusion (See #3).
but.... thre verses later
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing.... —Genesis 19:8
known here is clearly a 'sexual' reference.
also
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. —Jude 1:7
No sorry. You are referring to modern english bibles where this mis translation has been inserted. GO back to the hebrew and you will find that they said "virgins" not "not known man". The references to fornication do not particularly refer to homosexuality. Besides do you seriously think Ezekiel would have not mentioned this if that had been the issue??? really? kind of a big omission.
Let's face it Cananites and Benjamites and ishmalites were all just losers in the battle to write their own history. It's like the Hatfields writing about the McCoys. The Hattfields are going to say what a bunch of filthy motherfuckers the McCoys were. Don't make it so.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
We're executing nature already, but it takes time to take down a beast that resilient, c'mon, cut humanity some slack!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
May I also add that the whole creationism bull is very US centered and pretty much unheard of in Europe? Quite seriously, demanding that Creationism be taught in schools would be a pretty good way to end your political career prematurely.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, but they built in Creative mode.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
statutory rape exists when the rape is completely rape by act of law between two otherwise consenting people. Rape exist when one party doesn't consent and unfortunately, statutory rape is the same generally because the law assumes one or both of the parties cannot give consent for whatever reason (age, mental state).
You are right that the legitimate rape was claimed to be an attempt to make a claim about rape other then statutory. but the claim attached didn't seem hold water much either. There are some doctors out there claiming that the violence associated with rape (not just holding someone down but the forcing and stuff too), combined with the mental trauma makes pregnancy highly unlikely. Evidently, there doesn't seem to be a statistical recognition of that.
As of now, it is just a bunch of words people bring out like the tubes or I invented the internet. or 640k should be enough for anyone.
Some do think this, but you can also be a creationist who believes God created everything 13+ billion years ago - or whatever the latest estimates are and believe that dinosaurs actually lived in the proximity of time scientists say they did and that their fossils weren't created to just test our faith. This position is equally consistent with the Bible. It isn't the popular view, but it is the view of some who would still call themselves creationist. There is a consistent reading of scripture which would allow for an unknown amount of time to have passed between Gen 1:1 and what we view as a restorative process after the judgment on Lucifer recorded in the rest of Gen. 1. The Bible is largely silent on what went on during this time period so we make no comments concerning natural selection or evolution, other than to point out that as far as man and by far the vast majority of creation is concerned, it perished with that judgment and was restarted as noted in Gen. 1. The fossil record also seems to bear this out if I remember my Scientific American, as most early hominid fossils come to an abrupt end at pretty much the same time, and modern man starts shortly afterward.
First of all, you don't have to believe in evolution. Science is not about believing, it's not a religion. Science is about exactly the opposite. Science is about doubting what is established, testing it and building a better theory. And that's the beef I have with religion: That's exactly what you must NOT do. Believe it or be damned. Now, in what way is that scientific?
Science does not claim it has all the answers, its only claim is that it looks for them. To do so, people formulate theories. They get tested against evidence. As long as we cannot find contradicting evidence, the theory is considered valid. Not true, but valid. Fine but important difference. Allow me to give you an example.
Before Einstein discovered his relativity theory, we were looking for a tenth planet (back then, Pluto was still one). Because Mercury's orbit was kinda off. It didn't quite roll around the sun as it should, and the only thing that scientists considered possible would have been the gravity pull of another planet. That's pretty much how we found Neptune, too.
Well, we didn't find a planet inwards of Mercury. But back then, a lot of astronomers were looking out for it. We even already had a name for it. Vulcan. Well, Relativity eventually cleared that one up and explained why Mercury's orbit is the way it is.
What I want to say with this is that science isn't believing anything. It observes and formulates theories based on that observations. They may be falsified by new scientific discoveries. And, to finally get to the reason why it is relevant for scientists to NOT "believe" in anything, this is also how we get to new discoveries: By noticing that something we observe does not match a theory, and not simply shrugging with a "God works in mysterious ways" but actually go out and search for the reason.
And that's important in any field of science. If you're working on the edge of science, you will sometimes find things that contradict what you thought was right. And then you have to have the mindset to accept that what you learned can simply be wrong.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But your problem is that his statement was bound in empirical fact where yours is bigoted ignorance. In making it, you responded to someone presenting logical evidence with you adopting the "creationist mindset".
Now you can worship Bill Nye all day long for all I care. It doesn't matter to me. But don't counter fact with bullshit you made up on the spot because your feelings are hurt.
The Arc was a TARDIS and Noah a Timelord, so he could easily finish it in time.
What? It sure as hell ain't a worse explanation.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If we really need some bearded guy on a fluffy cloud to be morally acceptable beings, I weep for humanity.
And for the record, I don't give half a shit about whether Clinton had sex with Lewinsky. I prefer a Prez who gets a blowjob to one that really needs one badly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, I guess they shouldn't get told that the microbe de-volved back into something slimy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Except in Turkey, from what I read.
I'm waiting for that day myself, when someone can magically disappear all those believers and restore the planet to some semblance of sanity.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I don't have faith in my memory. I trust my memory. Unlike faith, trust us earned and subject to review. If I were to grow old and senile and found myself forgetting things, I'd be less inclined to trust my memory and more inclined to start writing more things down to get through my day.
From here.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
who can claim that reason is better or more important than intuition?
Reasoning tells you how to investigate, intuition tells you what investigate. It's the difference between believing what feels true, and what is true.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Before I consider Turkey a part of Europe, I'll rather accept that Russia is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How do you explain the fact that Lot asked the people of Sodom not to do such wickedness? (Gen 19:6).
You also need to explain why Lot offers his daughters INSTEAD (it is clear that Lot thought the men of Sodom had sexual intentions).
The word "wickedness" is mistranslated from the Hebrew as well. Wickedness does not imply satanism as it does today. the literal word is "to break" custom or abrahm's laws. In this case the custom is a man is obligated to protect guests under his roof including giving his own life if necessary. To force him to give over those under his obligate protection would break custom. Lot thus took extra-ordinary measures. Apparently this was not unprecedented however as giving over a woman to appease an unruly crowd with sex was also used in Judges 19. There are many examples of extreme hospitality to strangers in the bible starting with Abrahams injunctions, and there are multiple examples of mass killings when hospitality is abused. (ask the sodomites, or the benjamites or the people of Gileah.)
Lot himself was considered an asshole by the people he worked for (cananites) as well as by his relatives. If there is any validity to their feelings about Lot then perhaps this also explains why he would think offering his daughters was a grand idea.
Just like english, the meaning of a word can depend on the context.
my point exactly. The over whelming context here is that Ezekiel tells us exactly why god wanted to destroy Sodom. He never mentions homosexuality. Supporting this are lesser contexts. There are excellent words for sexual congress especially prohibited congress like bestiality in hebrew and used elsewhere in the bible but these are not used. In context the towns people would not have know the gender or angel status of the strangers (and it appears the aramic uses a genderless term as well). The passages says it was all of the people, not all of the men, that were gathered. So were the children going to be raping as well? If they were sex crazed then why the refusal of the daughters? Would not their concern over their safety from late night strangers hidden by a untrusted man and a gate keeper who of all people should know better, be a much much much more plausible explanation for "All of the people" turning out instead of, say, a few horny drunks? That's the context.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Except that Turkey keeps trying to get accepted into the EU, whereas Russia does not.
Geographically, they're both technically part of Europe, in part (a small part of Turkey is on the same landmass as and borders Greece, and everything east of the Urals in Russia is considered part of Europe, not to mention that funky exclave just north of Poland on the Baltic Sea).
How do you explain the fact that Lot asked the people of Sodom not to do such wickedness? (Gen 19:6).
You also need to explain why Lot offers his daughters INSTEAD (it is clear that Lot thought the men of Sodom had sexual intentions).
How would you explain that Lot raped his own daughters? Gen. 19:36
Lot is a sicko.
Imagine some sicko who is ethnically different from you lives nextr door, everyday he walks by your house giving you the stink eye and eyeballing your pre-pubscent daughter lasciviously, he keeps shouting that your religion is poison and telling you that you are gonna die and god is gonna kill you. One day he sneaks some men wearing turbans in at midnight to his house.
You are worried. What do you do?
Later on after everyone in town is murdered, and he is having incest with his daughters, he tells your next of kin his wife "died" mysteriously.
At this point would your kin believe him if he told them you were an angel rapist and some angels killed you?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I saw very little thinking about premises, and very little results from your attempt at socratic teaching. All in all, I rate your attempt a flat zero.
Then you're not reading hard enough. Count the number of experiments people have tried to make up in this thread.
From the feedback I've gotten, I'm pretty sure I'm a better one than you.
I expect you realise the absurdity of that statement, given what it assumes.
The trick is knowing when it is a good answer, and when it is a bad answer.
IME, "Who cares?" is what a child answers when they find a question difficult. It's possible to say "That question is unanswerable because..." or "That question is unimportant because...", but your main focus has been on being angry at someone for asking a question - and that's damn entertaining.
No, I remember that Plato's cave was a nice starting point about this idea in middle school.
Are you going to continue keeping your mouth shut on why, or are you going to explain it to the class and risk revealing your misunderstanding?
Did you read what you quoted? Not sure why you think that it was supposed to answer all questions.
It's a habit of dilettantes to remember something they read and assume it's an answer to the subject at hand.
It's been rejected as the basis of any form of reasoning about the physical world,
How can a question be rejected as a form of reasoning?
Faith in memory is certainly a basis for any form of reasoning about the physical world, if that's what you're worried about.
as well as [discussion] about moral imperatives or the limits of logic.
Such as, say, the problem of induction. Some AC in this thread, evidently with more clue than every other poster combined, immediately identified this early on.
The answers it produces are either trivial, useless or contradictory. For what it's worth - you should be able to tell by now with which philosophers I'm throwing in my lot.
I've already learned that you're one of those people too afraid to present a concrete argument.
As for your incredulity about learning about Plato's cave in middle school, that says more about your education than about my knowledge of philosophy.
Your reading comprehension is just awful. I can only hand hold you so much.
I'm sorry. I thought you were trolling or bored, but I think you're just of limited wit.
You seem awfully familiar...
And yet, over 90% of those answers were actually people telling you what an idiot you are,
Well, no, only a few (like yourself) were empty enough to provide nothing but insults. But it's good when wrong people get angry. Anger is a natural immature response to lack of understanding. When people mature, they often look back at when they got angry and review what made them angry.
Same towards you. I took real philosophy courses in high school and university and you know what?
I hear what you're saying and it sounds like "I took a class I am smart". There's a dissertation behind me full of the philosophy of mathematics, and my supervisor's name would be recognisable if you have any interest in the history of mathematics. If you want, I am happy to play big name and big word games, but that doesn't really show anything. I'm not playing academic top trumps - I'm trying to stimulate thought from a bunch of intellectual teenagers. That's never easy, but it's occasionally productive.
All of them pointed out that questions like yours are pointless mental masturbation used by idiots to make themselves feel like they're smart.
Then either the department was awful, or - more likely - you completely misunderstood the message.
Just because you make a false claim about your pointless question being significant, deep, and meaningful doesn't mean that it is
Where did I say it was deep? It's obviously significant and meaningful that everyone has to have faith in their memory. It's prerequisite to everything you do. The fact that it causes so much anger rather than quiet acceptance is kinda interesting.
That's funny, I've seen it rejected at least thirty times, just in this slashdot thread. This means that you not only fail at philosophy, you also fail at reading comprehension - which probably explains why you fail so hard at philosophy.
To reject something, one must show that it is inconsistent. Apart from a couple of instant recognitions of the question and the work that's come from it, all I've read are people providing wrong answers and people telling me the answer doesn't matter. The "wrong answer" set have hope; the "don't care" set are like the jocks who say, "Why do you like math, nerd? Is that going to get you girls, nerd?" and are merely laughable.
When I hear terms like "fail hard" I know I've got a Keyboard Warrior.
He was pointing out an example of an immature person taking an action they know damn well is only going to annoy the people they're acting towards (the kid yelling "citizen's arrest!" in a situation where it isn't appropriate), and saying that it was equivalent to your own actions, which it is.
No, I still don't understand, sorry. What is wrong with a child demanding that the driver stop speeding? To cry "citizen's arrest!" would be a misunderstanding of the law where I live, but the sentiment is perfectly understandable. Maybe you have put yourself in the driver's seat and think that you know better than everyone from society's legal system to the concerned kid in the back - looking it at like that, I can certainly understand why that analogy has been raised.
I don't follow that. The reliability of memory is a question worth asking and answering, no matter what your initial assumption is. Which, btw., differs by person. Some are rarely confronted with the unreliability of their own memory and thus assume that it is reliable. Some have had early confrontations with the fact and have thus formed a different base assumption.
Interestingly, there have also been studies on the meta-reliability of memory, i.e. about how reliable people think their memory is, compared to how reliable it actually is.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The concept of the supernatural is incoherent. If it interacts with the natural world, we can observe it through those interactions just like we observe any other part of the natural world, and it's as good as natural itself. If it doesn't interact with the natural world, then it doesn't interact with us, seeing as we live in the natural world, and we can never have any experience of it whatsoever and have no reason to stipulate its existence or for that matter care whether or not it exists since for all intents and purposes it may as well not.
In any case all we have to go on is our experience of the natural world, and a choice to either assume there is some sense to be made of that experience, or to assume there is no sense to be made of it. We can't really know either way, we can only assume, but to assume the latter is simply to give up on trying to make sense of it (even if we potentially could), so we rationally must always assume the former, and try to make sense of it as best we can. That means assuming that there are explanations, but never assuming what they are (for assuming a given explanation stops you from trying to make sense of things just as much as assuming there are no explanations does); just moving gradually forward with progressive tentative hypotheses. In other words, doing science.
Anything else is irrational, and someone disagreeing with that "premise" doesn't change that. It's possible to start from an incorrect premise, and it's possible to argue about premises. it just pushes the argument back further, from science to epistemology in this case, and I think I have a pretty sound argument here in favor of a scientific epistemology. I've only glossed over it very briefly here, but I'm happy to write you an essay about it if you have a problem with this short version.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Yep, from what i hear a hand full of people can build an ark that weighs close to 9000 tons out of gopher wood in about a week's time and fill it with 100,000+ animals with food and shelter for all for over a year with only hand tools...
No, no, it's a metaphor or a parable or a mistranslation or a typo.
Any time there's some particularly egregious nonsense in the Bible, all the excuses come out.
"No, obviously God didn't create the Universe in six Earth days. When the original Hebrew says 'six days' it is a misinterpretation of a phrase meaning 'roughly six, but may be more, and possibly a lot more units of any time period whatsoever' and therefore clearly means 'fourteen billion years ago'. "
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories which we have yet to learn about to make people and the world.
Yes, but if you can use DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics to explain how the world was made, why do you need a God at all?
If you have two dishes, one of tagliatelle, oil, garlic and black pepper, and the other of tagliatelle, oil, garlic, black pepper and God, and they taste the same, what is the point of adding God?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Funny I thought acceptance without proof was acceptance.
Belief without proof is Faith.
I accept my memory as mostly reliable because there's nothing that can be done if it is not. If my memory changes every night as do my circumstances in a perpetual and perfect experiment like those performed on the people in Dark City, there is nothing that I can be done about it. It's not faith because I do not believe that my memory is infallible. Even worse, the possibility exists that our memory is continually invented on the spot. However, that's the same as the evil homunculus problem, and the answer is the same if my memory is a fraud then the fraud is so good that I have never seen evidence of it and probably never will, and thus makes no difference to me. The fraud appears to be as reliable as the real thing.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Many people with Ph.D. are religious. Here you can find some interesting (statistical) information: Does More Educated Really = Less Religious?
In love, war and slashdot discussions, everything is allowed.
The research has been under contention in the US by oil companies for years. The big scandal of "climategate" was someone had an insecure email server.
If you yourself were to learn how climate science works and then investigate the same thing, you would come to the same conclusion. The catch is it takes some work to become educated, you can't just make guesses that you're right.
I'm guessing you're going to be defending the flat-Earth supporters next? There's evidence that the world is round, but who can really prove it! Better to just assume it's flat like the Bible says.
The belief that the world is billions of years old and that biological diversity has grown gradually through a process of mutation and natural selection is in no way incompatible with the belief that God created the world or that He has guided the process.
Yes, it is. Repeating this drivel over and over and over has become the latest fashion of putting your fingers in your ears and going "lalalala".
Evolution is the death sentence to any and all religious creation myths because it removes the necessity of creation. If life can evolve on its own, and we have no evidence of any outside influence (godlike, alien or anything else), then the most likely answer is that it has, and anyone claiming otherwise carries the burden of proof.
So unless you have any evidence for evolution being "guided" or whatever, you're just someone who can't let his pet myth go despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
That's something of a non sequitur, though.
I completely see where you're coming from—if there is no necessity for a God to make the world be as we see it, then Occam's Razor says that we should assume that there isn't one.
However, that only means that it's less likely that there's a God. It doesn't disprove the existence of God. I mean, that's sort of the whole problem with God in science: He's unfalsifiable.
I understand your desire to disabuse people of what you see as a dangerous delusion of belief in God, but logically, your argument that these two things are "incompatible" simply doesn't hold up.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Perhaps "reliable" is too likely to be read as "always 100% correct", and I apologise for that.. I didn't want to confuse the basic question, but what you've said is quite true.
You can indeed show that memory is not always reliable.
But you can only do that once you have assumed by faith that memory is at least mostly reliable.
You keep using that word. I do no think it means what you think it means.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Rational means that things have a reason; Naturalism says that God cannot be a reason, rationalism has no such limits.
If you don't have to worry about annoying details like conforming to the observed laws of nature or basic plausibility, then anything is "rational".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Some AC in this thread, evidently with more clue than every other poster combined, immediately identified this early on.
Yes, that AC identified what you were going on about. He and about 1-2 others thought you were actually interested in a discussion, rather than provide you with entertainment. About half of the other posters identified what you were going on about, and also identified the complete lack of discussion that was going to be had. The rest hadn't heard about it, but implicitly arrived at the same conclusion.
Yep. Hell of a thread. Without your guiding hand, we'd all be stumbling around in the philosophical dark, futilely raising our pitch forks against our own ignorance. Congratulations.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
You are creating an artificial model, so by definition there is an artificer.
That says precisely nothing about the real world.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And I don't care whether what I am seeing right now exists - all that matters is that I perceive its existence. But I can't be so sure about one second ago. This is why I have to have faith in my memory, i.e. trust it without proof.
Why do you place a higher certainty on your perception than on your memory? Why would you make a distinction? If there is no distinction and trusting your senses is a matter of faith, why do you need to ask the (then) superfluous question about the accuracy of memory? If trusting your senses is not a matter of faith, why then trusting your memory is?
You do as well, of course. Embrace your faith.
And what's your point? Why would you use a loaded word like "faith", instead of, let's say, "assumption"? What's your agenda behind the use of that word? I do embrace my assumption that both my memory and perception are somewhat reliable. No, I don't have faith in it. I assume it to be true. I could assume it is false (and probably some people do), but the assumption that memory and/or perception are absolutely unreliable is less useful than the assumption that they are reliable, *even* if they turn out to be absolutely unreliable. That is, even if all my memories and perceptions are false and my thoughts *right now* where the only truth (side question: why would my thoughts *right now* be spared, as implied by "I think therefore I am"?), the assumption of unreliability is still no more useful than the assumption of reliability. So, right now, I'm not having "faith" that I read your message a few minutes ago. I'm making a cold, calculated decision between the two assumptions, on the basis of which one is more useful.
Engineers never reduce enough. Otherwise they would be mathematicians, and not be so laughably angered by philosophy.
Well, I am a mathematician... I am not angered by philosophy, but I'm angered by crappy philosophy. I'm curious, though: as a mathematician, do you take your axioms as "faith" as well? (If "yes": really!? If "no": why not?)
I do not see how my belief in a creator undermines the engineering of this missile launcher I'm working on.
No, it just gives people two reasons not to want to invite you to their parties.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You and your old professor just got lucky that the bible is fairly quiet on missile systems and superstrings.
I'm sure they're there in metaphorical form somewhere if you look hard enough.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They can't "push the button" without the launch codes.
So, you want someone reasonable to make the decision to use the codes.
Once the codes arrive, you want _that_ person to not hesitate to arm and deploy the device.
Diesel
The problem is that belief in God is consistent with anything. No matter what objections one may raise, one can counter them with "Well, God just arranged it to look that way."
True, but that would be totaly irrational. And yes, young Earth creationists are totaly irrational.
As a result, belief in God is not useful. It's also often extremely harmful... because it's consistent with anything, it can be (and is) used to justify all sorts of evil.
Most any philosophy can in the wrong hands, including Darwinism. Think of all the evil that has been justified on the basis of the survival of the fitest.
The problem I have is that these are philosophical objections. To argue about whether belief in God is useful or beneficial has nothing to do with whether or not he really exists.
I hear you and I logically agree with you. But I've witnessed many examples that show this not to be the case.
For example, when I was in engineering school the most brilliant of my fellow students was a strong believer in creationism. He once lent me one of his creationism textbooks. I dutifully read it and found it to be nonsensical and completely illogical. Yet he was firmly convinced this was the truth. I never have understood how someone who was getting straight A+ marks while taking a double course load could at the same time believe such nonsense.
There must, presumably, have been a lot of otherwise clever people who voted for nutsacks like George W Bush and Ronald Regan. Human beings are seldom good at everything.
Having a belief as an adult in fairy tales is probably no great handicap, just as long as the subject of said fairy tales doesn't come up too often at work. If you're constructing skyscrapers, you're probably safe unless you take the whole Tower of Babel think too literally.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Well said. It does interest me that a simple question provokes so much emotion, though.
That's easy. It provokes so much emotion because you intentionally chose the wording to provoke that emotion ("prove... other than through faith", in an anti-faith thread). You can't prove/show anything through "faith", the question itself is ill formed. However, had you posted the question in another forum (say, a philosophy class, or even another thread on slashdot), or had used less inflammatory words, the result would most likely have been different.
Try this: "Tell me why you think that your memory is reliable."
"Tell me", instead of "prove" (or just drop the first half of the question), because you know well that if you reduce any question to "but it all may just be an illusion", which was your goal, then nothing can be proven. "Think that", instead of "show through faith", because faith, specially in the context of this thread, implies a suspension of reasoning.
Your use of "prove" and "faith" was to provoke a reaction, which is perfectly acceptable if your goal is to stir a discussion (a technique used often in philosophy classes). But wondering afterwards why the "simple question" provokes the reaction, when you worded it precisely with that goal, is hypocritical.
The theory of Evolution has the most evidence. It can be objectively tested and happens in laboratories constantly. If someone comes up with an explanation that is more accurate and can be objectively tested, then it will supplant Evolution.
I sincerely believe that this is an illusion. Evolutionists see these evidences as persuasive because they believe they offer our best clues as to how Evolution works. But if someone seriously doubts that Evolution explains life's origin, they have no persuasive value. The Evolutionist sees enlightenment in peppered moth studies, the doubter sees wishful thinking.
The gripe of the "Darwinists" is that people are losing the ability to reason in a scientific manner.
My gripe is that the Darwinists are trying to hitch their unprovable atheistic views to the wagon of science. This undermines the whole idea that science involves impartial reasoning. Respect for and interest in science can only suffer as a result.
It is this ability to reason that created the Cultural and Industrial revolutions that led people to invent the modern world. The number of people who do not believe in Evolution is a symptom of a culture that does not understand or embrace a scientific methodology.
The alternative is a faith based methodology. The last time a faith based methodology dominated, we now call it the "Dark Ages." These two go hand in hand. The Darwinists don't want to see us return to a state of ignorance.
I see you are a victim of Rationalist disinformation. The whole idea of an age old struggle between faith and reason is a fiction invented by Enlightenment writers who played fast and loose with the facts. In reality, many of the founders of entire branches of science, such as Newton and Priestly believed in God, in special creation, and in miracles and wrote extensively on these subjects.
Really. It does not matter if the entire universe is nothing but a figment of my imagination and nothing and nobody else is real. If I can still use science to observe and predict, then science is useful for that. And that is how it is different from faith.
Please have the intellectual honesty to address the point before being condescending:
That's OK, though. Once you've accepted it, all science is good and proper.
Catholicism officially recognizes evolution to be correct. They're still having trouble with realizing there isn't a god, but you can see why that one is a bit harder for them.
I think they could work around the god thing as long as they kept the pope.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
the world laughs at us
I wish more Americans would understand and be embarrassed by this, instead of hiding behind the "well at least we have the freedom to be total fucking idiots unlike you socialists in Europe" argument.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Note: evolution is a fact because it has so much evidence supporting it: the fossil record, selective breeding, genetic engineering, etc...
The problem is that highly inteligent and informed persons believe it is not a fact on the basis of the very same evidence. Even some Evolutionists admit that the fossil record, superficially at least, seems to support special creation. Selective breeding has limits which cast doubt on the idea that organisms can evolve indefinitely. Genetic engineering is not readily distringuishable from special creation, so citing it as support for the plausibility of Evolution seems perverse.
The Theory of Natural Selection is the best theory we have come up to explain the fact of evolution, just like Newton's "Laws" of gravity were the best theory explaining the fact of gravity until Einstein came along.
Some Evolutionists disagree with you and advance competing theories such as Punctuated Equilibrium, but OK, what if it does best explain the fact of Evolution. It still doesn't touch the question of whether Evolution (in the Origin of Species sense) is a historical fact. After all, we can erect highly convincing theories to explain the motivations of characters in Star Trek, but that does not remove it from the realm of fiction.
You seem to be using "ignorance" in a different way than the rest of us. But maybe you will come to your senses if your kid decides to forgo education in order to seek out a Jedi temple to learn the Force...
Not a great example to use on slashdot...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Damn you, AC, I was going to post something similar and you had to go flaming. He's no idiot, but "creationists" are not necessarily anti-evolutionists. Every Christian believes that God created the universe, but all but a few morons accept that evolution is how he went about making different species. Even the Pope says so.
I wouldn't trust the Catholic Church's opinion on the plausibility of scientific theories. Look at the whole thing with Galileo. In fact I think the Church's support of Evolution says more about its enbarassement over that than about the compatibility of Evolution with belief in God.
The problem I have with the evolution-is-compatible-with-belief-in-God camp is that we have two extrodinary claims here. One is that a fantastically powerful and skilled superhuman created the world. The second is that complexity arises naturally. We pretty much have to believe in one of them. Two accept both (absent extrordinary proof) is unnecessary.
Teaching your children about God is not the problem, stupidly denying science is the problem. And I suspect that the antievolutionists are wolves in sheeps' clothing, not unlike that evil preacher from Florida who demonstrates at military funerals with "god hates fags" placards. That goes against every single thing Jesus taught; God loves gays, he just doesn't like what they do -- but he doesn't like my or your sins, either. Gays are forgiven like any other Christian, we all sin. How can that Florida asshat consider himself a Christian?
I suspect that many of these creationists are simply trying to make unbelievers out of believers. I'm convinced that Pat Robertson has converted far more Christians to atheism than Richard Dawkins ever dreamed of converting.
Though I don't find Evolution convincing, I do agree with you that most forms of Creationism could almost have been deliberately designed to make objections to Evolution seem irrational.
Evolution explains the propagation of traits (alleles) in a population. Selection pressure is the limiting factor. We modeled the process o evolution and applied it to computer algorithms. It works.
We take an initial population, of a RANDOM mix of traits, apply a scoring function and see how each member of the population scores with the task. We then take the traits from the better half and mix them, and repeat the test. We also introduce a RANDOM mutation in. Eventually, after several (30-100) generations we have an particularly fit individual.. In this case, an algorithm for sorting that does not make any logical sense. But it works. So we start at randomness and create order. Very efficient order. And there;s the thing, since it does not make "sense", no "intelligent" designer would have designed it. It appears as random swaps. Generally you only orderly swap things if they are out of order.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Modern science can certainly make a virgin pregnant and I am sure that with sufficent time and funding a weapon to turn someone into a pillar of salt could be built. If man can do these things without violating the laws of physics, then why not God?
I'm curious, but why on Earth would God ever artificially limit himself in such a manner?
Because for him to limit himself to things that make sense and which he could explain if he so chose is not a real limit. If we believe that God is real and the miracles described in the Bible are real, then they must fit into the framework of reality that God created. It is not reasonable to hold that God's will is a magic wand. Rather, he wills things and then takes appropriate steps to make them happen.
Take the example at Matthew 28:2. Did God suspend Newton's first law of motion so that a body at rest (the stone) would move? That would be silly. He had his angel apply "an outside force" to it just like you or I would if we wanted to move it.
I am not sure what you mean when you describe such a universe as "irrational". Why does interfering in the operation of a machine violate the laws of physics? Surely when I press a key on the keyboard of my computer it does not cease to behave in a rational manner.
When you press that key, you expect a specific signal to be sent to the computer, and the computer to respond in a specific, predictable way. If God intervenes, then when you press "g" the computer may receive, by a miracle, the signal "England expects that every man shall do his duty," and the computer may respond by turning into a gallon of lamp oil.
I don't know if you are serious or not. Just in case you are, let me explain:
In my illustration, the computer is the universe. The person pressing the key is God. My point is that applying an outside force to some part of the universe does not cause it to suddenly cease to behave in a predictable way. If I thow a stone on Earth, the world remains rational. If God throws a stone on Earth, it still remains rational.
I wouldn't say "most Americans". There's just a very vocal minority out there that presents itself as representing the majority.
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
A recent Gallop poll asked Americans which of 3 statements they agreed with most. 46% chose strict creationism, i.e. "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years".
This excludes the "God-guided evolution" believers, who make up 32%, so 78% of Americans believe in either creationism or intelligent design.
Only 15% believed humans came from non-God-guided evolution.
Sadly, I think this shows creationists are way beyond a "vocal minority", and are at the very least a vocal plurality in the USA.
There's a dissertation behind me full of the philosophy of mathematics, and my supervisor's name would be recognisable if you have any interest in the history of mathematics
Ah - now things are coming together. It explains this sentence quite nicely:
I'm not playing academic top trumps - I'm trying to stimulate thought from a bunch of intellectual teenagers.
I met a few people like you while working on papers myself. Super smart, super knowledgeable, but quite insufferable. Their contributions to the field were often good, but not nearly as good as their attitude indicated.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Bill Nye Claims: "don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can — we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems."
Then maybe you should stop killing them with abortion and contraception? It's well known that intelligent atheists fail to breed.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Without much digging, here's a gallup poll on the issue from 2010 (Americans like polls, yes, despite their massive flaws?). 40% believing in "strict creationism" (that's "God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago"), 38% for "God-guided evolution" and a mere 16% for God-less (but not necessarily atheistic) evolution.
So if you include the second option as "creationism", that's 78% and a clear majority. Even going with strict creationism, that's more than any of the other options. Based on that I think "most Americans" is a valid claim.
The education table is quite an interesting one; the difference in "strict creationist" believer; those with no college education at 47%, those with postgraduate education at 22%, whereas the "God-less evolution" goes from 9% to 25%.
The politics comparison is also interesting; for strict creationism you have 34% D, 52% R (and with independents never more than 1% away from the Ds).
Evolution and Creationism co-exist. Who created evolution ? God did !
I'm sorry, that's not the way my religion works. I steal from other people, not the other way around. That's what all of my guns are for. You see, I get to interpret my religion to fit my pre-existing worldview and lifestyle, and everybody is happy. Well, I'm happy anyway, I don't really care about other people. My religion suggests that I should, but I've found a way around that one also.
I know one thing, though: my god definitely likes me and approves of what I do. It's part of his plan. Who am I to question his plan?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
>>>I saw that they had the power to tax, which they do.
Which means they have the power to punish as well, by fining people who didn't buy a certain product. Thanks Obama and Heritage Foundation for creating this stupid plan.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I will never understand why people don't stop to think that PERHAPS religion and science are meant to work together. They are talking about the same universe after all..
I didn't realize that speciation wasn't required for evolution. It's kind of disturbing because the Creationists can then say "All species were created at the beginning and simply "Evolved" their appearance". I don't think we want that. As for the grizzly/polar bear example do we know if the offspring are sterile or not? If not then I get a picture of Evolution that's much cooler than I ever thought. You now have a way for a breed to become another specie if environmental conditions demand or to back track and interbred with its former line to start again another century.
It all starts at 0
There are lots of examples of populations changing such that even though they could breed with each other, they don't. Sometimes it's physical (chihuahua and wolf) and sometimes it's because the two don't have characteristics that attract mates from the other population. A bird changing it's mating song, for example. Since those two populations then stay isolated (genetically) from each other, they drift apart until they form two species that can't interbreed.
There's no point in trying to change evolutionary theory to head off creationists. It's a losing battle. When faced with evidence of speciation events (even by the can't-interbreed-under-any-circumstances definition of species), creationists just claim that god created all the "types" and we've never seen a whale evolve into a racoon, for example.
Most of the ursid hybrids seem to be fertile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursid_hybrid
First of all I think you are attacking a straw man. I never said that I was opposed to evolutionary theory. It seems to hold up well in many ways, and I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the religious zeal that defends evolution to the point of denying its weaknesses.
I happen to believe in guided evolution. I think there are enough questions about evolution and abiogenesis that blind evolution is unlikely.
Secondly, while I don't have a problem with language reconstruction, I think there are valid questions to be asked in that realm as well. I am not a linguist, so you can take my opinion for what its worth, but I think it is pretty humorous that we think we can accurately reconstruct a language that hasn't been spoken in thousands of years. There isn't anyone to confirm that the assumptions behind the reconstruction are correct, and there is no way to verify. That doesn't invalidate linguistics or the reconstruction process completely. It does mean that we have to have at least a shred of humility and acknowledge the weaknesses inherent in the process.
After the king james version some one translated "Bring them out so we may know them" to "have sex with them". Yikes.
Indeed, that's the problem with the NIV. There's a place in Acts describing how they all shared possessions, the KJV says "thay had everything common." NIV says "everything IN common" which is not what the original Greek says.
Eziekiel tells us exactly why got sent the destroying angels: the prideful 1%s didn't realize they didn't build their own wealth, society had, and they were not giving back.
Indeed, you find the evil of greed all through the bible. It says "the love of money is the root of all evil". Yet so many 1%ers actually think they're going to heaven. Perhaps they will, if they can get their camel full of possessions through the very small gate they called the "eye of the needle".
I can never figure out how someone can consider himself both a conservative and a Christian. Jesus was a liberal, Caiphas (the one who condemned him to death by torture... er, which political group is for the death penalty?) was a conservative. So conservative that they crucified Christ for his progressive ideas.
Free Martian Whores!
Breeding *out* traits - like the diversification of the wolf and dog - is not evolution. It is changes within a broad species or lifeform grouping, and it does not introduce any new genes, traits, etc. The same is true of the fly experiments. Evolution - in the Darwinian sense - would require new information / genes / etc to be introduced into a population without grafting on from an external source... and without manual, human intervention. That has not been empirically verified.
William George
Bill's video missive was all fine until he issued his appeal to parents to not teach children their own belief's. It's the same as if Bill had said that there's no evidence for Judaism and so parents should not raise their children as Jews. Ridiculous. Yes, the world needs engineers. And yet the world also needs artists, musicians, and even people with religious faith. Science itself needs people with a good morale and ethical point of view, and fundamentally in our world, the instilment of these values comes from religion. Religion might not be the only source, but it is the dominant place from which these values come.
Bill, and all of the /. community, should recognize that NO theory in science is sacrosanct. The fundamental approach to science is its openness to other ideas that challenge the accepted belief. It is that basic approach that leads to advancement. And it means that being closed minded and intolerant of others is anti-science.
Darwin's theory of evolution is not a law. Its a theory. It is generally accepted by science as true. It is the best explanation for the facts at hand. But is it proven that humans evolved from non-human forms by the facts and data that we have, or is it just a proposal based on sets of data points and the supposition that those points form a curve that leads to modern human form?
Scientists need to use their self-proclaimed higher intellect to be open, respectful, and tolerant. Just because someone else doesn't subscribe to the same ideas as Bill Nye the Science Guy doesn't make them deserving of Bill Nye's contempt. Nor does it give him the right to tell parents how to raise their children.
I see what you did there.
So? He did what you see there - beat that!
np: Seefeel - Vex (Succour)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
I'd waste time answering you, but I'm just a few days from finishing this job and going home to my wife. Who I'll enjoy fingering in the pleasure-garden (located between the sewage outfalls). Then after a few hour of rampant sex, no doubt my back is going to be killing me. Meanwhile, my slowly failing pancreas is storing up death in another way for me. And my feet are agony after 16 hours on deck.
Tell me about this "impressive work" again : your "intelligent designer" looks like a fucking retard to me, and I look forward to you producing her so that she can get the baseball bat in the kidneys that she so richly deserves.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Could you point exactly where in the literature that any researcher on hominid or hominoid evolution makes this claim. You are aware that bipedalism and the ability to climb trees are not mutually exclusive.
Again, all you're demonstrating is your ignorance and your ability to construct strawmen of evolution. I cannot imagine that you ever read a book on hominid evolution to be able to make moronic statements like the one above. It's so idiotic that it's not even wrong.
But, as Richard Dawkins so ably pointed out to the standard Creationist complaint against the evolution of an eye that half an eye is of no use, that in fact, if you look at the range of eyes in nature (everything from photo-sensitive patches on primitive animals to the complex eyes of the octopus to the vertebrate eye), that in fact half an eye is better than no eye at all.
And I'd question the "radical changes" claim. Morphologically, we are not all that different from the other great apes. In fact, it's a real problem in that we are not, even after four million years, fully adapted to bipedal locomotion, and thus back and joint problems are so prevalent among humans. Our spines, knees and ankles are only partially evolved towards bipedal motion, so it would appear that your basic claim that all features have to be present in complete form to be useful is, even in the very example of H. sapiens, utterly and completely wrong.
Here's my tip, my friend. You are ignorant. You don't understand evolution, in general or in specific lineages. Get educated, because what you write is silly, uninformed and does you no credit at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your "world's fastest sorting algorithm" doesn't have a name? I'd like to read up on the actual algorithm, rather than hearing your vague summary. An algorithm "that does not make any logical sense", but which works the best, must be seen to be believed.
But as for your algorithm being "un-intelligently designed" - it's being used by intelligences that designed a system to find the algorithm and used it. Intelligence was quite intimately involved with finding the algorithm.
If you espouse such moronic claims as that, expect to be ridiculed. You have a right to express your opinion, you have no right to have your opinion automatically modded up. People with stupid ideas are mocked.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I figured you'd ask, so I started looking for it, but got flooded with articles using genetic algorithms in the past 10 years. The one I speak of is older than that.
I'll keep looking though.
So now you'll claim the product of evolution is not evolution because the process was chosen by the creator was intelligently designed? You just backed up one step too far. That would be to imply that God invented evolution, which does not disprove evolution. Rather it disproves God, because non evolution would not create anything new, whereas evolution does. Therefore, by the anthropic principal, evolution is true.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Indeed, you find the evil of greed all through the bible. It says "the love of money is the root of all evil". Yet so many 1%ers actually think they're going to heaven. Perhaps they will, if they can get their camel full of possessions through the very small gate they called the "eye of the needle".
You cite one of the best known phrases in the bible, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to reach heaven. And yet it is so ignored: it's meaning were not perfectly clear, but not welcome.
It is funny to note however that Camel is a mistranslation of Gamel, which means rope. I like the camel image much better since it is so memorable, but I guess rope does make a lot more sense for what was really said.
Other amusing mistranslations are the Leper Jesus dined with was a Jar maker, not a leper at all. and then there's that unic, who was just a traveler not a unic.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... and? Evolution is about survivability ...
Add up a million such mutations, and you do not end up with a higher order organism. Wrong direction matters. If these mutations are reducing functionality (destroying information), then add up enough of them and you will end up with a nonviable genetic code.
You're selling items at a loss, but you're not worried about the lack of profit, since you'll make up for it in volume.
It does have such a mechanism, namely acquiring those parts separately for different purposes, and later combining them and evolving them together. Indeed, every time we've explored the evolution of some complex organ (like the eye, which creationists often use as an example of "irreducible complexity"), we universally found out that there are, in fact, a series of obvious separate steps, each of which gives a definite advantage in and of itself while remaining plausible to evolve.
A scientist's imagination is not proof that the sequence you describe is physically possible. It's a starting point to find the proof - if it exists.
The level of proof you must demonstrate is to reconstruct the "intermediate" life form with all of its intermediate traits. (We're a long way from this, obviously, as we still can't even plagiarize life and create our own single celled organisms). That's the scientific level of proof. A historic level of proof is to show documentation that the lifeform existed - but fossils don't provide that level of detail.
It's not enough that you have a valid sequence of genetic code that creates the structures in question. (Which we know exists because the organism with the structures exists) You must be able to build that sequence in incremental steps, with every intermediate form being completely valid. (fit to survive, capable of reproducing and outcompeting the previous version)
Try to build Windows 7 that way starting with DOS, using a greedy algorithm. It is possible, but improbable, and highly inefficient in both time and resources.
Finally, the very existence of the aforementioned evolutionary baggage - i.e. the fact that organisms are often constructed in a very convoluted way, all the way down to how cells operate - shows that the argument of there being some "neat" code base that would be inevitably polluted by mutations is flawed. What we have is more like a hodgepodge of simple code snippets that are randomly copy-pasted, and occasionally changed, all over the place. All the time, you see the same base thing used for vastly different purposes in different organisms, and usually in both cases it has to be mangled considerably to become suitable for that purpose. If that is the product of an intelligent designer, that would indicate considerable lack of skill on his behalf, and the lack of understanding of such basic principles as code reuse.
Convoluted way? Compared to what? Show me the human built organism that does it better - it doesn't exist yet, we're still sixth graders trying to copy a DaVinci painting.
Those "simple" code snippets? We don't fully understand how they work yet. If we did, we'd be coding up our own lifeforms from scratch. Instead, we're tinkering with the existing lifeforms at the margins.
Unless you can build it better, you have no grounds to criticize the implementation - maybe you're simply ignorant of the tradeoffs necessary to make the design feasible.
Natural selection is that mechanism.
Natural selection subtracts, it does not add.
You must abandon random mutation in order for evolution to make progress - but that "allows the divine foot in the door", so to speak. It abandons the natural mechanism that evolutionary theory prides itself on.
This is plainly false, and shows that you don't actually have familiarity with the subject at hand. I sugg
Whether the writings were inspired or not depends on your belief system, but we do know that the writings were selected by a committee. I believe it was a Roman who set up the committee. Originally an Atheist, he "saw the light" and decided to assemble the writings, what to include and what should be left out.
"The big scandal of "climategate" was someone had an insecure email server."
Hahaha. OK, man, keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile, people whose critical thinking organs are still intact see this for what it really was - a scandal of titanic proportion that blew the AGW carbon doomsday scenarios out of the water.
Yep, the guy with multiple Ph.D's disagrees with the your particular brand of invisible sky daddy, must be a dumbass.
Their answer to that is that too much education is bad. Seriously, my Southern Baptist grandparents gave me books that say exactly that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I think this is where you're stuck. Information + Noise, fed through a filter that only allows fitter results to reproduce, will obviously encourage change. The question surely is, if evolution does not occur, then why not? The whole argument can be approached from another direction - and so, answer me this; what prevents evolution?
Just try to apply that to computer code. That you can randomize some parameters does not mean you can mutate any part of the code. Mutate your drivers? Blue screen of death is more likely than +5% FPS in Skyrim.
The problem is one of probability. One quality of information is that it's a tiny subset of all the possibilities. "Awesome" has meaning, but "Awsmoe", "Maewes", etc do not. If possibilities have equal weight, a random change to a string is much more likely to find a non-word (non-information, junk, noise), then an actual word.
That's why noise destroys information. Without outside interference, the noise "averages" the information - and the average is not information. It's pretty much entropy, but applied to a non-material quality.
Question; where did that information come from? Let's remove the issue of the syntax of the message, and instead suggest that the message should be a melody. Let's randomly alter the melody millions of times, and recruit millions of willing listeners to choose their favorite. Let's do this for millions of years. Are you suggesting that the result wouldn't be a better melody?
The information you've found is by taking the entire solution space, and filtering it down to the working solution space. That's a brute force method to finding a solution, and it's incredibly inefficient and slow. You can make it more practical by using a directed search instead of a blind search, but then that's not random mutation anymore - pseudo random using intelligent prediction, maybe. You also used a million intelligences in order to create a smart enough filter.
Now theoretically, random mutations can just pop out a fitter individual - just like a million monkeys and typewriters could recreate the works of Shakespeare given enough chances (if they don't get into a poopfight). The problem then is finding enough chances. A billion tries at a 1 in a million chance is going to get you a few success. On the flip side, a few million tries at a 1 in googolplex chance has practically 0 chance of succeeding.
Trying to brute force your way to life and higher order lifeforms requires many orders of magnitude more chances than we've actually experienced. The universe isn't remotely old enough. To insist it did happen by random chance is to insist a miracle happened.
If we can boil down evolution to "a miracle happened", how ironic that its opponents are derided as "anti-science".
Doesn't bother me. Personally, I'd be embarrassed if "my side" was guilty of that tactic. It's surrendering the battlefield of ideas. "Bravely ran away ..."
I figured you'd ask, so I started looking for it, but got flooded with articles using genetic algorithms in the past 10 years. The one I speak of is older than that. I'll keep looking though.
Funny that the world's fastest sort algorithm is so difficult to find. You'd think people would care to use it, and talk about the methods by which it reaches the best performance.
So now you'll claim the product of evolution is not evolution because the process was chosen by the creator was intelligently designed? You just backed up one step too far. That would be to imply that God invented evolution, which does not disprove evolution. Rather it disproves God, because non evolution would not create anything new, whereas evolution does. Therefore, by the anthropic principal, evolution is true.
Purposeless mutation does not create usable search algorithms. To find the algorithm in question, a purposeful search system. The system did use purposeless mutation as an input, but it then used a purposeful filter to remove the non desired results. The filter, which graded search algorithms and picked out the best ones, is what gave the system its purpose.
If you removed the filter, then you have purposeless mutation - but you'd end up with mostly bad or useless sorting algorithms
You are equating faith with belief.
And...?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Firstly, starting with nothing is a false requirement, ...
Compare a bacterium to a human being. Notice any differences?
Such as ... multiple cells, specialized functionality, sexual reproduction ... ?
Does the bacterium have the information for that functionality encoded within its DNA? No? Then yes, it's starting with "nothing", and ends up with "something".
... Once you have started something, you can get all kinds of stuff out.
If.
Secondly, your definition of filter needs work. Filters don't always only remove information, sometimes they just move it around. Ultimately you should think of the selection part of evolution not like a filter, but more like an informational version of Maxwell's demon. When a useful bit of information shows up, it's trapped. The more useful the information is the stronger the walls of the trap. Get past those points and you'll be OK.
However you use them, filters do not add information. They find subsets, not supersets.
As far as evolution is concerned, yes, if you passed the right information to the filter of natural selection, natural selection will "retain" it. (Somewhat - minor errors can creep in over time, and various animals have gone extinct). But that's not the entirety of the problem - you also have to have the right information to pass to the filter - and the only mechanism for generating that right information is random mutation. The right information is not something likely to be found by random mutation; so your only solution is to try again and again and again and hope to hit the jackpot.
If you're actually curious, google Genetic Algorithms. A large number of experiments have already been done similar to what you propose. Heck I even wrote one a while back to see if random mutations would converge to a solution, and they did. It wasn't complicated or sophisticated, but a set of numbers would converge on a solution.
If the algorithm cannot fail to succeed, it's not modeling evolution.
Genetic algorithms do borrow from the concept of gene transfer, but that's not enough to prove out the claims of evolution - that random chance is sufficient to create the vast number of complex functional life forms we see on Earth today. The main thing to note is that all genetic algorithms with useful results were crafted to find those useful results, and you get what you look for.
But is nature really searching for a fur-less biped with an affinity for lolcat videos? Can you find me a genetic algorithm that found something it wasn't searching for?
Just try to apply that to computer code.
DNA is not computer code. It is not analogous to computer code. There isn't enough information to encode the human brain in DNA, so clearly small changes to DNA can have large effects.
It really seems to me, with all this arguing over information theory and so-on, that you just don't understand what the theory of evolution posits. Your basic argument seems to be that evolution is obviously wrong for all these obvious reasons, and those scientists just aren't smart enough to see what seems to obvious to you.
In my rather contrived melody example, you suggest that the method is equivalent to brute-forcing the entire solution space. This is false for numerous reasons. First, the solution space is infinite, as modifications to the melody may add notes as well as change them and/or remove them - so it is theoretically impossible to brute-force, and therefore I can't be brute-forcing it. Secondly, you suggest that because in my example I have human ears choosing the 'best' melody, that I am actually running an experiment in 'intelligent prediction'. This is also false, since in the example the only way of choosing the 'best' melody is via some-ones ears. In real evolution your objection falls away, since the 'filter' through which only the 'better' mutations - or recombinations, or viral insertions, etc - is the environment itself. Thirdly, and this is the most important point, at no point do we try every possibility in the solution space. We create random changes, and only allow those that are in some sense better to survive and thus go-on to reproduce. We don't just create billions of random tunes and choose the best, for that would be absurd. We take the melody, and make - say - ten thousand ever-so-slightly different variations. We the enlist the efforts of humans to determine which is the best - and yes I know that humans are intelligent agents, but please understand that this is an objection to the analogy, not to evolution itself. From our ten-thousands of modified tunes we choose a few hundred of the best, and repeat the process with those.
This is more or less exactly how evolution works for populations of bacteria. There are limited resources, and so only a smaller number of the thousands of slightly modified individuals survive.
In the early days of life, something - and we don't know what, but probably not DNA as we know it today - was busy reproducing in those ancient oceans for literally billions of years. During each one of those billions of years, trillions of individual reproductive units - whatever they might have been - were busy reproducing and changing uncountable numbers of times. So we have billions multiplied by trillions multiplied by maybe hundreds of thousands. This seems like quite a large number to me.
I just don't think you understand how the process is supposed to work. It isn't remotely like brute-forcing. Because there's this environmental filter that weeds out things that don't work. So the things that do work, need only happen *once* and then they spread. It's a feedback loop, wherein only the 'better' outputs are fed back in.
Anyway, look - it's exhausting arguing with you. I just think you don't get it. Let's try to narrow this down to a single question - can a theoretical feedback loop with (very very slight and quite rate) mutations, that selects only outputs that are as least as good as its inputs were and then feeds those output back in, over time produce better individuals? I believe it can, and that it's perfectly obvious that it can. You, as far as I can make out, do not. Or at least you believe that such a process would take too long. Despite all the evidence of far simpler ancient creatures - see the Cambrian Explosion for instance - that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. How did they turn into us, if not via evolution?
And please, can we leave abiogenesis out of it? You must know, as well as I know, that evolution as a theory starts with s
Does the bacterium have the information for that functionality encoded within its DNA? No? Then yes, it's starting with "nothing", and ends up with "something".
Well, according to your definitions (which are quite silly), here's something from your so-called 'nothing': Bacteria Evolve New Ability The information was not there one day, and there the next. You might even say a number of small minor changes built up into something more complex later.
... Once you have started something, you can get all kinds of stuff out.
If.
Really? You're going to call millions of molecules a nothing/null to serve your argument?
Secondly, your definition of filter needs work. Filters don't always only remove information, sometimes they just move it around. Ultimately you should think of the selection part of evolution not like a filter, but more like an informational version of Maxwell's demon. When a useful bit of information shows up, it's trapped. The more useful the information is the stronger the walls of the trap. Get past those points and you'll be OK.
However you use them, filters do not add information. They find subsets, not supersets.
*sigh* That's what I said. Also look up Maxwell's demon, seriously.
But is nature really searching for a fur-less biped with an affinity for lolcat videos?
Why on earth would you assume we're the only possible result of evolution. If you're going to jump to conclusions, at least be reasonable and say evolution could be looking for something alive. There are one or two examples that aren't humans.
Can you find me a genetic algorithm that found something it wasn't searching for?
Why sure, here we found an entirely new way to use an FPGA, look here. The original paper is sourced in the reference section. The telling part is that the ultimate implementation was beyond the understanding of the experimenter. How could he be the source of the information if he didn't have it in the first place? Sure he had an idea how to test for what he was looking for but that doesn't mean he knew all the structures possible to use. In the original paper (it's not listed on the TO website unfortunately, but the paper is cited and published for reading) there were temperature sensitive effects that were not anticipated and not looked for as well, but existed in the final output.
Finally see the inset here Keane and Brown 1996 It's also a cited published paper. The Algorithm was designed to look for structures that fit criteria like stronger, flexible, etc. The result looks curiously like a biological bone structure and would probably be closer, but in 1996 computing power was tough to come by, so low number of iterations. That structure was not planned or built in. Like it or not, information CAN and DOES appear out of your theoretical "no-where", but it's not free and doesn't violate entropy.
You seem to be hung up on the creation of information/violation of entropy. Never fear, the creation of this information does cost energy, and lots of it, entropy is still preserved.
Really? What was the scandal in it? Did you even read any of the emails? Did you read ALL of the emails?
Sounds like the Fox News summary is all you're going off of here.
I have all the emails, and read many of them. In it we are privy to descriptions of how to subvert the peer review process, threats to "beat the shit" out of people who disagree with the very questionable statistical maneuverings that the CRU team has foisted off on the world, talks about selective gridding (ie the west coast of S. America was gridded so the highest temperature reporting stations were the only ones included in the data set), talks about how to waste the yearly budget without attracting the auditors, conspiracies on how to avoid the requests for original data (all deleted to avoid the requests), collusion with the media to paint the people who were skeptical as nuts, loonbags, and oil company employees, etc.
It's clear to me that you didn't actually read any of the mails. If you did, you'd be appalled not only at the CRU team, but also at the media and the bodies that investigated the leaks themselves.
It doesn't really matter, though. The cat's out of the bag, the third world will not go along with any Copenhagen-style schemes, China and India won't, and it's partly because of these mails.
Your continued tactical use of insults, insinuation, and other dirty schemes also shows you to be irrational and unable to critically think. Denier is the new nigger, right?
I sincerely believe that this is an illusion. Evolutionists see these evidences as persuasive because they believe they offer our best clues as to how Evolution works. But if someone seriously doubts that Evolution explains life's origin, they have no persuasive value. The Evolutionist sees enlightenment in peppered moth studies, the doubter sees wishful thinking.
Once again, Science is not about beliefs, only process. I can make falsifiable tests for evolution. I can observe evolution in nature. Why do you think parasites and diseases become resistant or even immune to drugs or insecticides? We can observe their genetic changes that give them that advantage. These experiments and observations are what gives Evolution the upper hand in the debate, not dogma.
Science does not care about religion, any religion (or atheism for that matter). Science is not a set of answers, it is a method to solve some questions. Any question for which falsifiable experiments or observations cannot be created, for example "Is there a God?", is a question that Science cannot answer.
My gripe is that the Darwinists are trying to hitch their unprovable atheistic views to the wagon of science. This undermines the whole idea that science involves impartial reasoning. Respect for and interest in science can only suffer as a result.
There are bad scientists. That does not mean we need more bad science, such as Creationism or Intelligent Design, to compensate for them.
, many of the founders of entire branches of science, such as Newton and Priestly believed in God,
Being religious does not preclude someone from being rational; nor does it preclude them from being a scientist. The important thing is not what you believe, it is process you use to find your answers. Atheists can, and frequently do, employ faith-based methodologies. They are not the exclusive purview of religion. The change that occurred during the Enlightenment is not that most of the thinkers were not religious, quite the opposite, but the methods they used to solve problems concerning the physical world changed.
I don't expect to persuade you. Anyone who "sincerely believes" enough will see what they want to see. There is nothing wrong with that and I think there is an important place for such things, but it isn't in Science.
Upon reading what I wrote, I realized I shouldn't have placed Creationism along with Intelligent Design. Creationism is perfectly fine as part of religious studies. Intelligent Design, however, is an attempt to make Creationism appear more scientific. Intelligent Design fails as a Science not because of its answers, but because it doesn't use a scientific methodology to arrive at those answers.
I wonder if he ever considered that the titans of science where for the most part...Christians.
I can tell you're trying to make a point, possibly that people use religion to excuse their bad behaviour. Given your overall sarcastic tone, I will assume that you don't actually hold to any particular religion. So you take all the credit for willfully being an ass on yourself? Gotcha.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Evolution is to sporadic for me to accept it as anything more than a funny Idea, to me it equates to putting all the ingredients for spaghetti into a bag and shaking it around, plating it, and saying "look spaghetti!" without cooking it.
Instead, it's "intelligently designed" where the designer throws all the parts of a car in a blender, and out pops a car, using magic. That makes so much more sense. Oh wait, it's never about making sense, it's about using "logic" to defend your person pet beliefs.
Learn to love Alaska
I assume you also reviewed the data yourself as well and made your own climate models that show the planet is absolutely not warming at all? Looks to me like you got the Fox News Highlights of the emails.
It must be fun living in a fantasy where millions of people are involved in a conspiracy to...improve the world?...and it's up to you to spread the truth.
Climate scientists have been wrong is the past. Models from a few decades ago predicted that the world would be cooling to a new ice age, but as more data was collected and models improved, that was reversed. According to you, they should have continued on that path and labeled the people disagreeing with them as loonbags - but they didn't because that's not how science works.
China and India obviously don't care about the environment or killing their population. Air quality is so poor that people need masks to breath outside in some areas. If you look at climate change in a pure short term economic point of view, then of course you're not going to go with it.
Take some time to learn about what science is, maybe take a class or two at your local high school. It's not like a religion at all - ask Bill Nye
At the end of the day Evolution is just a theory as creationalism is. No one has ever, EVER been able to PROVE evolution. They just assume it is and we know how that can turn out - To be WRONG. My personal theory is we mutate though cosmic rays, not selection. Hey, before you pick up the poison pen, it's a theory just like the others. The difference is I'm probably right. I have a feeling I'm a lot smarter than Darwin was.
are you just reading strongs concordance and substituting alternative meanings at will?
textual critics do in fact think about these things when translating a verse. How do your hebrew/greek credentials as well as knowledge of the culture of the day stack up against theirs?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Hello, I believe the universe can be billions of years old. I have no problems with evolution. Still, I still believe in a literal Creation.
If science and theology disagree, this normally means theology is incorrect.
This is a powerful article for this discussion
God spoke to me
"Looks to me like you got the Fox News Highlights of the emails."
I think there's a scratch in your record.
"Take some time to learn about what science is, maybe take a class or two at your local high school. It's not like a religion at all - ask Bill Nye"
Of course it's a religion. Your statements above prove it. I don't need to investigate the data myself to know that many other scientists wanted it, needed it to replicate the research of the CRU, and were denied it.
You can stay with your religion if you want. It's almost impossible to reason with somebody regarding their faith, anyway. Your shoddy attempts at discrediting me, coupled with your sophomoric insults, proves that you're not interested in reason.
You really should read the mails, though, because it's clear that you haven't even done that. I would consider it the bare minimum of due diligence that should be undertaken when looking at a topic like this. Of course, if you're happy to leave the interpretation of the facts to the priests, there's no reason to investigate them motivations, poor character, or ridiculous subversion of the process of science for yourself.
The OT was already compiled before christ was born. You can see Josephus' quotes for that.
The NT was compiled in the early 2nd century, and the compilation was completed in the following centuries (I'm not sure of the specifics off hand). In any case, for the books we know to be authentic (most of Paul's writings for example), they were written in the late 1st century. We have eye-witness accounts from people who knew the original authors.
The study of this stuff is quite interesting, but also it can prove quite revealing about how trustworthy the bible really is (or isn't).
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
You should check out Ring Species.
The entire concept of whether or not species can interbreed completely falls apart. There are quite a few known cases where group A can interbreed with group B, which can interbreed with group C, which can interbreed with D, which can interbreed with E, but the increasing genetic differences along the chain prevent A from interbreeding with E. If you simply kill off B, C, and D, you're left with a perfect illustration of exactly how a single original population smoothly diverges into two separate species A and E which can no longer interbreed. Genetic differences can steadily pile up to the point that an A-E hybrid cannot to develop to birth.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You think that science can be used to observe and predict because you have faith in your memory.
If you didn't have faith in your memory, you'd have no idea whether science can be used to observe and predict.
No, actually, creationists do *not* believe in a rational ordered universe.
I am a physicist. I don't know what all the laws of physics are, but I believe that there *are* some inviolate laws of physics which apply uniformly throughout all that is. So far as we can tell, this is true: spectral lines in distant stars are the same as they are here, to very high precision, indicating that atomic and nuclear physics are the same. Electrodynamics and such work the same way inside stars as it does in all conditions we've found on Earth.
I suppose you could be a creationist and believe in a deistic universe, where a god chose the laws of physics and then wound up his universe and let it go. But modern creationists do not believe this: they are overwhelmingly Christian, and believe in such things as a god that actively intervenes on this little planet by making virgins pregnant, people turn into pillars of salt -- in general, they believe in miracles, even small ones like altering the genetic makeup of a species. This is the very opposite of a rational ordered universe: all these things, all these miracles, are inherently disordered, since they entail violations of the laws of physics by an entity outside of them. "F=ma, except when god says otherwise" is not a sound basis for a rational theory of the universe.
They do not believe in a completely ordered and repeatable existence. That is, they do not make the (actually inherently risky) assumption that just because we've seen lots of things behave as if they are ordered and repeatable, all things must always be so.
Consider a man in a room who asks his colleague (outside) to bring in any cats he finds that are black so he can count them. If a cat isn't black, don't bring it in -- maybe it'll be black later or maybe it's black in some way I can't see yet, so we'll reserve judgment on it and not include it as any form of evidence either way. Naturally, the man in the room can only see an endless stream of black cats, and might (wrongly) be tempted to think that is ever-increasing evidence that all cats are black. Unfortunately, that is the position of a man who believes that because we've found more and more orderliness and repeatability in the universe, existence must all be orderly and repeatable.
Those who believe in any form of divine action (including but not limited to creationists) are actually rather more rational in their conclusion in this regard: "Wow, there's a lot of black cats, and we can probably find lots more, but I'm not going to insist they all must be". Separate sources of evidence then give them reason to believe that God is an example of something that is real but not mechanistically repeatable.
Interestingly, a lot of the early impetus for science -- the notion that the universe would be orderly at all -- came from the religiously-derived belief that it would be ordered because it would obey laws laid down by God for it. That derivation, of course, does not exclude divine action nor does it have your slightly obsessive "all or nothing -- either it's completely ordered always or otherwise it's a totally irrational model" mantra.
Funny anecode/aside, but "F=ma except when god says otherwise" is not only a rational model but is precisely what is modelled in almost every simulation -- almost every simulation I have seen or written has allowed its author to pause it, change a variable, and then set it going again.
You are correct, no one evolved from a monkey.
I guess you haven't read the bible. All those questions are answered in the first chapter- even most cliff notes versions that are available cover it well.
But judging from your comment, I would assume you aren't interested in knowing those answers and were attempting to troll.
Why not? I mean you just did. The center of the universe had/has nothing to do with creationism. Perhaps you should practice what you preach some.
Anyhow. No butsects in soddom.
Impressive story, but there has to be a money shot, which is why Lot's daughters laid with him. So, no sodomy, but yes incest!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
ha... I see what you did there.. must be turtles all the way down.
Mr. Nye, Out of what shall they build things? Oh! Out of all this "stuff" that just so happens to be everywhere. This stuff that we can't seem to completely disassemble, duplicate, or even fully understand. Your world would seem to be made up of two kinds of people: 1. Those who think that all this "stuff" just poofed into existence-or was always here* lying around. and: 2. Those who think that it was deliberately planned, engineered, and created specifically to interact in such a finely detailed and controlled way that those of us inside this reality do not have the ability to see the seams. I would suggest that the second group, if properly educated, would be much better at interacting with this "stuff." Personally, I believe that the first is much like a bunch of fleas denying the existence of a Dog, but I digress. What if the digital construct, or simulation scenarios postulated by some are correct...sort of. What if God transcends the concepts of digital, analog, chemical, organic, etc. What if in His realm light is downright pokey. What if He deliberately set up a construct in which the most curious of concepts could be brought to life and tested: The possibility of failure. Pretty liberal for One who can only know perfection, don't you think? What if the ability to begin to understand this "stuff" was tossed along with Heavyside's apple cores and orange peels when he threw out Maxwell's multidimensional math and rewrote his work - omitting most of it? (The parts he couldn't understand?) Please explain all this Mr. Nye. I don't understand maths, I just know what I like. SG *Please tell us "Engineered Reality" idiots just exactly where "here" is. While you are at it could you also say what's outside? Hebrews 11:3 (vortex atom? Spun-up energy, you know, like invisible yarn.)
Just in case you don't know this, Answers in Genesis is considered a joke by everybody who isn't a Young Earth Creationist. Seriously, we've all seen the site, and we all laughed for a few minutes before we started cringing at the thought of how many people actually believe that. You will never convince anybody of anything by posting a link to AIG; it's equivalent to just saying, "I don't know what I'm talking about and am going to ignore everything you say."
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
The thing is, there isn't an alternative to science. There's science (reality), and then there's make believe. You seem to personally hold a grudge against all the scientists in the world (seems like you never interact with them), but that doesn't change that science is all there is.
Exactly. The filter is the "selection" part of "natural selection" that makes evolution work towards meaningful ends. Invariably, those ends are: escaping predation, breeding, and feeding. All traits and behaviors are for one of those three purposes. Any trait that develops that is not in one or mroe of those areas won't be selected for, but will carry on as mutation.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Forgot to mention - the selection pressure may be internal - ability to process food more efficiently - or external - your predator is getting faster.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Dropping the F word again doesn't answer the AC's post.
Please address the AC's point, or go away. I'm not planning on "stealing" the AC's thread. I just want to keep you honest, or to uncover your dishonesty. Address the AC's point and you may deserve a further thought; drop another "you need to have faith" and you'll prove that you are trolling.
Really. It does not matter if the entire universe is nothing but a figment of my imagination and nothing and nobody else is real. If I can still use science to observe and predict, then science is useful for that. And that is how it is different from faith.
Hint: he stated that the question is pointless. You have received enough replies to have an idea of what that means, including mine, which you decided not to address. Hint #2: To prove that the question is not pointless, you need to show that the answers lead to [observably] different results. Go.
I am touched that you are so keen to want me to respond ;-). I'm out of productive concentration today, so here goes...
Why do you place a higher certainty on your perception than on your memory?
Memory is required to reason, while perception is only required to observe. We can do mathematics in our mind's eye (per Plato) but only because we possess memory. In particular, without memory we could identify neither contradiction nor perform philosophical induction. Memory is something more fundamental than any perception we have of the external world.
Why would you use a loaded word like "faith", instead of, let's say, "assumption"?
Faith is a type of assumption. Consider:
1) An applied assumption about an imagined world - an axiom;
2) An applied assumption about the real world based on observation but lacking theory - a working hypothesis;
3) An applied assumption about the real world lacking any evidence - faith.
I'm making a cold, calculated decision between the two assumptions, on the basis of which one is more useful.
Usefulness is not a measure of truth.
To prove that the question is not pointless, you need to show that the answers lead to [observably] different results.
OK, you're proposing a definition for what makes a question "not pointless". Various responses:
1) Given enough time, whatever humans do, I don't think the universe will be observably different. Any two alternatives only make a fleeting difference, just as a constantly tricked mind may be repeatedly remembering an inconsistency then forgetting that it has ever identified that consistency. Your little "observably" is implicitly considered below, though it may be that we're just not yet sufficiently advanced to devise an experiment to identify inconsistencies;
2) A question doesn't have to admit an answer to be worth asking. I expect that sort of whining from engineers, but as a mathematician, you should know better - hopefully you are right now thinking of a list of "prove xyz" requests which cannot be answered except with "I cannot do that, and here is why...". You could argue that the request is then badly formed, but sometimes you only know that after thinking about the question, and it's more stimulating and less limiting to phrase the matter in terms of a possibly unanswerable question than it is to simply say "oh btw here is an unattainable goal";
3) I want to know my own nature. It makes a difference to me. If I can be somehow taken out of my body and be shown that my mind is being occasionally tricked, I want to know this. Perhaps there's a way I can identify fight the trickery, if only I train my mind - and this brings me on to...
a) The fact that, indeed, our mind does often create false memories - this is good motivation;
b) To someone in the latter stages of dementia, there may be little difference between reality and nonsense created by the mind. To the sufferer, the effect may be unobservable - he is in exactly the position you describe as "pointless" to consider. But to the external observer, the effect is not only obvious but usually thoroughly distressing. Is it inconceivable to take one more step back - to consider a position extrinsic to the normal mind as normal minds can find one wrt/ Alzheimer's patient? And maybe there are physical processes which could allow us to admit the existence of such a position.
i gtg...
back. hm, feel free to pound me with retorts to the above, i haven't read it through.
I repect a well-thought-out answer which addresses the points raised. I agree with much of what you say here.
I am interested in the question of why each side in this debate sees the other as composed of arrogant fools blinded by prejudice. I suspect the answer is that many of the most vocal are.
The examples of observable evolution in nature which you cite certainly do exist. The question about which reasonable and well-informed persons disagreed is: what is their significance? The Evolutionist believes he is looking at a little piece of a process similiar to that described by Charles Darwin, a process which will in time produces truly radical changes. But, one who suspects the existence of an inteligent creator may see designed-in adaptive mechanisms and feedback loops. As far as I have been able to determine, there is not sufficient scientific evidence to answer this question.
Unfortunately, way the most vocal public advocates of Evolution understand the meaning of the evidence is so shaped by their atheism that they are unable to even parse expressions of doubt. They are so sure that a naturalistic creative mechanism much exist that that naturalistic theory which best fits the evidence is the best theory of all. When some demure, they become angry, make bombastic statements, and launch into wholly ineffective appeals to be rational. This is ineffective because rationality is not the problem, differing assumptions are.
Of course, Creationism has even worse nuts who play right into the hands of the Evolutionist demigogs. Could God have created the fossil record and the light from distant stars? No doubt, if it were absolutely necessary. But since it wasn't necessary, to assert that he did is silly. They should just admit that they misunderstood Genesis.
It seems that for you the word "believe" has some kind of baggage. I assume this is connected with Rationalist rhetoric which contrasts "belief based systems" with "evidence based systems". When I said that I "sincerly believe" I meant that I had come to a conclusion after giving the matter serious attention.
I agree that the real change that occured during the Enlightenment was not that most thinkers were no longer religious. Rather, thinkers began to understand that the world is a machine. This was contrary to the assumptions of many who had supposed that God commanded the flowers to bloom and the lightening to strike.
But, rationalist philosphers liked to tell a different story, suggesting that the universe-is-a-machine view is incompatible with the idea that God interacts with the natural world in any way at any time. I suppose on the background of that culture they may have seemed like opposits, but today, when even the uneducated know that the universe is a machine, such arguments simply puzzle the believer. It is amusing that these worn-out arguments keep getting brought up on Slashdot. ("Please, no devine intervention! I want my universe to stay rational!")
Your remarks on the difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design are insightful. I would expand on them by calling Intelligent Design the bastard child of Rationalism. Rationalist thought places the idea of a creator into a compartment called "faith" or "belief" which exists alongside another compartment called "reason". It is frequently claimed that these compartments represent "different kinds of truth".
The problem with this kind of reasoning is that if the word really was created by an inteligent being, that is an historic fact which nothing can alter. It does not matter what we believe or do not believe about the identity and motivations of that being. It does not matter if we surround belief in this historical fact with the most absurd superstitions imaginable. It does not matter if we believe that it never happened. Our mental state cannot alter history.
Intelligent Design is an attempt to meet Evolutionists on terms which the Evolutionists have themselves chosen. All peripheral assertions which could possibly be superstition or kn
Actually, that is intelligent design. No doubt your mutations tell themselves you don't exist and they created themselves by evolution.
No, Its Genetic Engineering. Intelligent design would be to create the raw gene sequences from nothing. Genetic Engineering can be more accurately described as cut-and-paste.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
The fact that evolution works does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of a creator.
People should not confuse the facts of evolution, the theory of evolution, and abiogenesis. This is part of the reason it's so frustrating trying to have a productive conversation about these topics, because some people seem to think that accepting the fact that bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance means they have to accept that life evolved from a lifeless confluence of chemicals and energy, and so we end up with a completely inappropriate distrust of science and medicine when it comes to the things that matter.
It is unlikely that you will ever see irrefutable proof of anything resembling this. A computer simulation of the evolution of life at the scale of the planet earth would be impractical. Further, mutations are essentially random. Even if you could get a computer simulation that accurately modeled how live evolves, and you ran that simulation repeatedly, it is unlikely that the resulting intelligent species would resemble humans.
You say "neither side" as though there are two competing scientific theories. I would advise you to check your assumptions there.
A "species" is not even a well-defined term. It is a convenience term that we use to label things. Nothing about evolution requires speciation. Generally speciation occurs when two populations mutate/evolve to the point where they don't interbreed much, but there are always exceptions, and some populations "between" the two can interbreed with the others. It's all a huge gray area. There's no one moment where there's a clap of thunder from the sky and a voice proclaims the first member of a new species is born.
Evolution is simply change/adaptation over time. There are facts of evolution, which we observe (moth experiments, antibiotic resistance), and there are theories about how humans evolved from our ancestors, our place in the tree of life, etc., and there are theories about how the first organisms arose. The theories of evolution and abiogensis seem completely consistent with our observations of the world, are entirely plausible and do not require us to invoke magic or deities. Those theories, consequently, prevail. Other theories are easily refutable, or make no attempt to explain the mountain of observations that the prevailing evolutionary theories explain, until they invoke "well a god must have just done it that way". And at that point there's just no point.
I can tell you're trying to make a point, possibly that people use religion to excuse their bad behaviour.
More like people tend to act however the hell they want anyway, and if that conflicts with their religion then they find an easy way to rationalize it and avoid guilt. Or, they just go to confession and then they feel good about themselves while going about their selfish lives. Then they make sure to apply a sticker to the back of their car to let everyone know how pious they are.
So you take all the credit for willfully being an ass on yourself?
That's some weird grammar, but yes I take responsibility for my own actions. I don't blame some invisible being that no one can see or talk to for the bad things that I or anyone else do in the world. Likewise, I understand that if good things are going to be done that I and other people have to be proactive about doing them. Good things don't happen on their own, they happen because people make an effort to do them. I also understand that hope and prayer are not a strategy.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I am touched that you are so keen to want me to respond ;-).
Oh, please, don't be condescending. That's ridiculous. Either respond honestly, or don't do it at all.
I'm out of productive concentration today, so here goes...
I believe you. 28 Slashdot posts so far today. It doesn't seem that you are even trying to concentrate.
Why do you place a higher certainty on your perception than on your memory?
Memory is required to reason, while perception is only required to observe. We can do mathematics in our mind's eye (per Plato) but only because we possess memory. In particular, without memory we could identify neither contradiction nor perform philosophical induction. Memory is something more fundamental than any perception we have of the external world.
That was not my question. I asked why do you place higher certainty on your perception than your memory, not which one is more useful.
Why would you use a loaded word like "faith", instead of, let's say, "assumption"?
Faith is a type of assumption. Consider: 1) An applied assumption about an imagined world - an axiom; 2) An applied assumption about the real world based on observation but lacking theory - a working hypothesis; 3) An applied assumption about the real world lacking any evidence - faith.
No, it isn't, unless you stretch the word "faith" to mean that. An assumption is just that, an assumption. "Faith" is an unquestionable belief, an assumption isn't. If I assume that my senses and memory are worth anything, I arrive to a set of conclusions. If I assume the contrary, I arrive to another set of conclusions. It just happens that one of those sets of conclusions is empty. You are free to linger on that set. I'm not claiming the truthfulness of either assumption. I'm just claiming that I considered one assumption, got the empty set, and now I'm considering the other assumption, which I haven't finished exploring.
I'm making a cold, calculated decision between the two assumptions, on the basis of which one is more useful.
Usefulness is not a measure of truth.
When did I say it was?
To prove that the question is not pointless, you need to show that the answers lead to [observably] different results.
OK, you're proposing a definition for what makes a question "not pointless". Various responses:
1) Given enough time, whatever humans do, I don't think the universe will be observably different.
I didn't say "given enough time". I didn't say the set of results "X time into the future, for some value of X". I also didn't say that it was a sufficient condition for usefulness, merely a necessary condition. But you are right, after the extinction of the human race, the question of whether I am blowing my nose right now, will be unanswerable and pointless, even though it is not pointless now. Feel free to construct an scenario in which the competing answers to your question lead to observably different results.
Any two alternatives only make a fleeting difference, just as a constantly tricked mind may be repeatedly remembering an inconsistency then forgetting that it has ever identified that consistency. Your little "observably" is implicitly considered below, though it may be that we're just not yet sufficiently advanced to devise an experiment to identify inconsistencies;
Let me simplify this for you. I "observe" (for some definition of "observe") my memory (whatever that is), and perceive it to be (sufficiently) accurate. Even if my memory is not accurate and my perception of it is just an illusion, I still perceive it to be (sufficiently) accurate. That is what makes your question unanswerable, and that is precisely what makes it meaningless
You are stuck in a fallacy trying to state that only what you can see exists.
By definition, if I cannot observe something, it cannot affect me. If something, such as a god, were capable of having any effect whatsoever in the universe, by definition, that effect would be observable by us. We would perceive that effect as a deviation from our understanding of the laws of physics, and we would have to throw away all of our theories that do not explain that observation, and try to find a new theory that incorporated it. If this happens often enough, the scientific theories about the nature of the universe would begin to describe a universe guided by a deity, and science would confirm (presumably your) religion.
including eye witness accounts of it.
How can an eyewitness account confirm a god? How did these eyewitness accounts come to you? In a book written by a person? What makes you think the thing the eyewitness observed was actually a god? What makes you think that the written account of that story was even truthful, or translated correctly?
that is not exactly empirical evidence but it is far from zero evidence.
From a scientific standpoint, it is exactly zero evidence. From a faith-based perspective, people tend to believe what they want to believe, and so I completely understand and appreciate that things written in a book that all of your peers believe is true and accurate means that you're likely to believe it's true and accurate. I don't suffer from your groupthink and confirmation bias, and so written 3rd-party anecdotes such as this don't sway me.
Another way to think about "evidence" in situations like this: if these observations happened today, and were written down by someone in the same manner (i.e., we can't talk to the person making the observation, or the person that recorded the observation), would a courtroom in the US admit that account as evidence?
Creating is an idea put forth in the Bible, and it has been thoroughly shut down.
Hahaha.. you are so funny. Tell me, where has it been shut down. Where exactly has science proved that supernatural events never- ever- happened at all.
I think the other poster was talking about the literal creation stories, where earth was created 6000 years ago, life was created exactly as it appears today, etc. None of that is consistent with our observations of the world around us and there are no plausible theories that incorporate both the creationist account and those observations.
I agree that it's ridiculous to suggest that science test supernatural events, but I don't think that's what the parent poster was suggesting.
Creation simply is not testable.. period.
The question of whether a deity created the universe can't be tested. That the universe was created 6000 years ago can be. It's possible to whittle away pretty much everything in the creation myth that doesn't involve a god doing something. What we're left with is something indistinguishable from the thing that science explains with evolution and abiogenesis, plus some supernatural component that by definition we can't test, because we can't observe. And if we can't observe it, it can't affect us, and so what's the point in thinking about it?
Because a population is effective at something despite a handicap does not mean the handicap does not exist. It should be fairly obvious that, in a role that requires rigid rational and critical thinking, someone that exhibits an inability to think critically and rationally about something fundamental to their life would be less effective in that role than someone that does not. That does not mean a religious person can't be effective, but it does imply that the average religious person will be less effective than the average atheist, in some roles.
Who said that there should be an alternative? My point is that just because somebody claims to be a scientist, we should not take him at his word. A real scientist would not have done the things that the fake scientists at the CRU did.
This is why I call science a religion, and why I think it's clear that you are simply interested in believing scientists without questioning them. If science were not a religion, you would be appalled at the so-called climatologists working at Hadley for their statistical manipulation, cooked data, and destroyed original data. Instead, you tell me that I need to "take science classes." If you can't see the irony in that, you would make a fine Jew or Jesuit.
Oh, please, don't be condescending. That's ridiculous. Either respond honestly, or don't do it at all.
OK, I see a light-hearted introduction isn't your thing. That's sad. Never met an entirely serious man who has anything worthwhile to say, but let's see what else is on the plate...
I believe you. 28 Slashdot posts so far today. It doesn't seem that you are even trying to concentrate.
Gee, sorry for chilling, uh, mom. They were almost all inane and must have taken a few seconds each. I did make about 5 minutes' effort on your post, though I can see it was probably wasted.
That was not my question. I asked why do you place higher certainty on your perception than your memory, not which one is more useful.
No. You questioned the difference. I don't place so much certainty on my perception. It's quite irrelevant anyway.
An assumption is just that, an assumption.
And there are categories of assumption, as illustrated.
"Faith" is an unquestionable belief, an assumption isn't.
What rot. Faith of all sorts is tested and rejected all the time. I think you're trying to build a strawman to fit what I assume are preconceptions about religion.
If I assume that my senses and memory are worth anything, I arrive to a set of conclusions. If I assume the contrary, I arrive to another set of conclusions.
Even to argue like this requires a faith ("assumption" about some aspect of reality without evidence) in your memory.
It just happens that one of those sets of conclusions is empty.
It's not empty. It just means that you perhaps can't define life and reason and science in the way you may want.
and now I'm considering the other assumption, which I haven't finished exploring.
Recalling that you must assume that your memory is reliable in order to be able to rationally consider whether it is reliable. What's more, I'm betting you're going to spend the majority of your life assuming it despite a total lack of evidence - i.e. faith.
Usefulness is not a measure of truth.
When did I say it was?
"decision... on the basis of which one is more useful."
Why so arbitrary?
Feel free to construct an scenario in which the competing answers to your question lead to observably different results.
I don't see why one has to be in the position of constructing an experiment in order to usefully ask a question. It's a stupid argument which could have been used (and, indeed, has been used) to defeat all sorts of hypotheses which later experimentation has revealed to be true. For one thing, the question as posed is too vague to create an experiment.
We know far too little about how memory works to try to figure out whether there might be an experiment to suggest that humans e.g. repeatedly forget certain inconsistencies. We may not be able to prove that memory is reliable, but we might be able to show that it is in some fundamental way unreliable such that we have so far all been missing some crucial aspect of reality.
Let me simplify this for you. I "observe" (for some definition of "observe") my memory (whatever that is),
Not good enough. How do you observe it? What is it exactly that you're observing?
and perceive it to be (sufficiently) accurate.
How do you perceive that without relying on your memory? If you mean that right this moment you see no inconsistencies, that could just be because you've forgotten them.
Even if my memory is not accurate and my perception of it is just an illusion, I still perceive it to be (sufficiently) accurate.
Only by assuming that your memory is accurate can you perceive i
I agree, you shouldn't take anyone's claim at face value. Science however gives you methods to verify claims so you don't have to go off faith. That's where it differs from religion.
It's a bit of a silly argument. One that philosophers really love to spend centuries on. There is however a very simple answer: there is no truth, there are simply degrees of belief (not faith, belief). This Bayesian view of knowledge dismisses your argument as silly, as belief is not a boolean. You will have to quantify it. So yes, I have about five nines 99.999% belief in the accuracy of my memory, maybe more. This is quite in contrast with my 0.0000000001% belief (maybe less) in a divine being. You call both 'faith'. I call the first true, the second false.
Truth in this Bayesian sense is intimately tied with evidence. To ask 'is this true', you are actually asking: how much evidence would you need to be convinced otherwise? Much more useful than the sophistry that you employ in this thread. So my question to you is: what type of evidence do you need to be convinced that your memory does or does not work? And have you witnessed that evidence?
But you're still not willing to castigate the Hadley CRU for destroying their original data in order to thwart researchers who wanted to attempt to replicate their results? If you aren't than to you, science is a religion. If you are willing to admit that Climategate was real, and the whitewash has damaged the reputation of science in general, and badly damaged the reputation of climatology specifically, then there's hope for you.
You see, when scientists are allowed to conduct themselves in a manner like unto a priest, science is a religion. We don't need that original data, we should just trust them, right?
It still think you're either a pharisee or a Jesuit.
I'm not sure what you think your point is unless it's some sort of protest about someone saying read a math book when you have questions about math. Do you normally get all upset when someone says Read the fucking manual too? Because that is in essence what is happening here, you asked questions that had already been answered and right in front of you had you not refused to look for the answers yourself.
And how exactly would he do that? Maybe put it in a book or tell others to spread the word? Or are you saying that God needs to hold your hand and walk you through everything instead of you learning something yourself? We learned early on in the bible that after the fall of man, God's tends to frighten people which is why he used specific people instead of just saying something. But hey, why let a perfectly good rant about what you think it wrong with something go to waste just because it's already answered in the reference material right?
Again, this is answered in the book called the bible. Perhaps you should gloss over it, or grab a cliff note's version so your ignorance is not so annoying and maybe your expectations can be grounded more within reality.
Because I fail to see the reasoning for living your life on a fictional novel?
If "God" wanted everyone to live by the Bible, he's say: "Here's my manual"
Instead, you put your faith in a bunch of humans who tell you they are right, some of which like to do inappropriate things to children. Hypocritical Bastards... all of them.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
There is a story about a guy who gets on a train. He looks out the window and see sheep. They are all white so he declares all sheep are white- none can be black or blue because he has never saw any like that. Are you saying that this guy is correct or something in his declaration simply because you too have only seen white sheep? You have other problems too. Why are you insisting that a divine intervention would have to deviate from the laws of physics as we know it? That is only a precondition imposed by you- you are essentially saying X can only do Y, Y can't happen therefore X is not true. But what you are neglecting is that the understanding of X or Y can very well be the basis for your understanding of the laws of nature/physics. But your rules of physics seem to not be hard set rules when we look at quantum applications so again, you have perpetuated the myth that everything has to be how you know it.
How can an eye witness confirm anything happen? How can any history be recorded and told after it happened? what makes you think the English actually lost the American revolutionary war or that injustices occurred in the practice of slavery? If eye witness accounts have no legitimacy at all, then most of what we know can be tossed to the side.
And here you go putting a fallacy into play. Why is it that you insist that there is only way to show something and that is through science? There is no scientific evidence that Hilter existed. There are however, written accounts and documents as well as eye witnesses to events. Do you refused to suffer group think in this regard too? Now yes, we have video and audio recording of Hitler, but go back in time a bit before that was available. Do any of them exist?
So if the mob kills all witnesses to the crime, the crime never happened?
Umm.. I guess your just too ignorant to get it. The bible is his manual.. It tells the history of his demands and how they changed over time and what he expects now.
You do not have to life you life based around the bible. We were given free will in order to make our own decisions on it. But when you ask stupid questions that are already answered, RTFM is somewhat appropriate.
That was not my question. I asked why do you place higher certainty on your perception than your memory, not which one is more useful.
No. You questioned the difference. I don't place so much certainty on my perception. It's quite irrelevant anyway.
No, these were my exact words: "Why do you place a higher certainty on your perception than on your memory? Why would you make a distinction?" And now I have to ask why questioning your perception is irrelevant but questioning your memory isn't.
What rot. Faith of all sorts is tested and rejected all the time. I think you're trying to build a strawman to fit what I assume are preconceptions about religion.
No, I'm not building a strawman. Before embarking on the reply, as a non-english speaker, I did a "define:faith" in google, just to be sure of the meaning. First meaning I got: "Complete trust or confidence in someone or something". If that's not the same, I apologize. But that's irrelevant. You are extending the definition of "faith" to cover each of the contradictory hypotheses that I assumed. Did I have "faith" in that memory is completely unreliable when I made that assumption, and then changed my "faith" when I assumed the contrary? If you answer "yes": well, great, I had "faith" then, but only after you twisted the meaning beyond recognition.
If I assume that my senses and memory are worth anything, I arrive to a set of conclusions. If I assume the contrary, I arrive to another set of conclusions.
Even to argue like this requires a faith ("assumption" about some aspect of reality without evidence) in your memory.
Let me get this straight. Assuming that something is true in order to advance an argument requires "faith" in that something?. Ok. Twisted meaning of faith. I also have faith in the axioms of euclidean geometry, and sometimes I even have faith in the axioms of non-euclidean geometries, because I assume them to be true when I do geometry.
It just happens that one of those sets of conclusions is empty.
It's not empty. It just means that you perhaps can't define life and reason and science in the way you may want.
"in the way I may want"? No, it means that if I assume that memory is absolutely unreliable, I'm not even able to think, because by the time I finish a thought, the previous one is already in the past, i.e, a memory. Even the assumption that memories are wrong are just a memory by the time that you start thinking about the consequences. "I'm assuming that all my memories are wrong. Given that... oh, wait, I remember that all my memories are wrong. Including this one. So I'll assume that all my memories are wrong. What I was doing? Oh, yes, trying to get to any conclusion under the assumption that all my memories are wrong. But that is a memory. So it is wrong. Why is it wrong? Ah, because I assumed that memory is wrong. Gah, I just remembered that. Invalid. Why?...".
and now I'm considering the other assumption, which I haven't finished exploring.
Recalling that you must assume that your memory is reliable in order to be able to rationally consider whether it is reliable.
Recalling that when? While I'm doing my reasoning? Well, yes, I recall "I'm assuming that my memory is reliable". But that's just my assumption, so there is no contradiction there. To think about the consequences of the assumption that memory is reliable I must assume that memory is reliable. Duh. To think derive any arithmetic result, I must assume the axioms. There is no circular thinking there. I'm not concluding my assumptions in either case.
What's more, I'm betting you're going to spend the majority of your life assuming it despite a total lack of evidence - i.e. faith.
That's ridiculous. Do you spend your who
You do know that the Bible you read today was written and voted upon by humans? (Romans to be exact) It's a popularly voted upon instruction manually for people who wanted to unify under a common banner where they got to pick and choose what to put in... It doesn't "change over time". The people that decided what to put in and what order to place them did that. They sat down with various religious documents and tried to come up with one that they could stand behind and preach. So, how are you supposed to follow a manual that doesn't include all the instructions, maybe puts some of them in different orders and isn't consistent? How do you seriously constitute that to the "will" of said god? Maybe that ignorance you speak of is not mine.
http://www.deism.com/bibleorigins.htm
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Yes, just like history books are.
Everything you said could be said about history books. But here is where they are similar, the stories in the bible are not just made up. They were studied and told from generation to generation in a methodical way and everyone was supposed to know and understand it. How we know the bible is accurate, because except for a few minor wordings and the new testament, it's the same as the Jewish Talmud for the most part. Are you forgetting the Jesus was a Jew?
You mean other then ignore it and ask the questions already answered by it? Seriously, that is the point of contention here. You said if he wanted people to follow his word, he would have created a manual. Well, he did create one, it is more of a history book but answers all those questions and now you are objecting because one was created.
I'm pretty sure it is yours. You went through all that trouble trying to depict an elaborate scheme that you thinks means everyone else is incorrect but failed to recognize it wasn't done in a vacuum and the very same processes are what happens to this day with history as we know it.
No, these were my exact words: "Why do you place a higher certainty on your perception than on your memory?
Already answered: I don't.
Why would you make a distinction?" And now I have to ask why questioning your perception is irrelevant but questioning your memory isn't.
Already answered: see text beginning, "Memory is required to reason, while perception is only required to observe..."
I did a "define:faith" in google
Google doesn't come close to providing a good primary definition - people who were once faithful to something (e.g. their god) are often no longer faithful. Assuming you don't have an OED copy or subscription, you can at least check online for the primary Collins definition:
"strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence"
So, like I said, you have a strong belief in your memory without proof or evidence. You have faith in your memory.
You are extending the definition of "faith" to cover each of the contradictory hypotheses that I assumed.
In order to contemplate various hypotheses, you have to have faith in your memory. Otherwise you could not be sure that you have been contemplating anything.
Then, when you continue doing science, you are holding onto that faith in your memory.
Assuming that something is true in order to advance an argument requires "faith" in that something?
It is impossible to assume anything without using your memory. Even an argument about memory requires you to use your memory. Perhaps you are so slow that you cannot grasp that, in which case I apologise and am probably wasting your time.
"I'm assuming that all my memories are wrong. Given that...
The alternative is not that your memory is always wrong but that it is unreliable. Geeks and their false binaries!
To think derive any arithmetic result, I must assume the axioms.
To be able to assume anything, you must first assume that memory is reliable. But that itself is an assumption. "Memory is reliable" is as vacuous to logic as "logic is logical".
Do you spend your whole life asking you this question (every time you access one of your memories), having the discussion in your mind, and concluding that you have faith?
You don't have to think about your faith all the time. You just carry on with your life while having faith.
I didn't say [usefulness] is a measure of truth.
So why did you raise it? What are we discussing, if not truth? I might as well say that I prefer the option of unreliability because I prefer the letter U to the letter R. Explain your context or expect your audience to try to fill in your gaps.
Well, construct any scenario, in any time scale, in which there is an observable difference. If there is no scenario in which there is a difference, then the question is irrelevant.
That's as good as three hundred years ago saying, "Construct any scenario in which man can fly. If you can think about no such scenario, then asking questions about human flight is irrelevant." A scenario could involve a memory probe which identifies the brain processing certain events on a minute timescale but rejecting them before they reach short term memory because they identify certain contradictions. We may be continually filtering out a huge chunk of somehow observable reality, subconsciously making simplifying assumptions to maintain consistency.
[I observe] the figment of my imagination that claims to be a memory.
How are you observing it without assuming that it is there?
Thus perceiving it as sufficiently accurate.
Are you sure? It was a split second between results and conclusion. Are you su
Also, afk now and I probably won't be reading your response. I can only procrastinate so much. Thanks for taking up my time! ;-)
My point is, if this god wanted you to follow that instruction book, it would have been written out by that god himself in a consistent language that everyone would understand. What this bible is, is recollections of stories past and until it was written down it's no better than that game of telephone kids play on School Buses. You cannot rely on any of that information further than you can throw it.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I could also argue that whatever power(s) that be may not yet have decided to reveal themselves or are waiting for us to find them and are absolutely fuming that we are so easily misled by false prophets. For any definition of a deity that could be pleased by a particular action there exists a defintion of a deity who would be displeased by it. If recognizing the correct deity and the particular way they want us to behave is truely as important as people tend to believe then the reason for your decision had better be pretty solid. If an engineer believes that it is ok for important decisions to be based upon personal emotional responses and intuition without being able to back up such decisions with repeatable tests, then I want to know which cars, bridges, and medical devices they were responsible for designing. It's fine to take your best guess at something as a starting point, that's part of science as well, but if you expect to apply your ideas or communicate them to others you had better have an objective justification and a way of consistently and repeatably demonstrating your assertions.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
Really? So you claim you do not believe in a god or the bible but you can speak for him should he exist.
As for your kids game of telephone, nothing you said yet has demonstrated your ignorance on the subject this well. You see, the stories weren't just recalled by some old fuck with a failing memory like the ancients in African tribes. The stories were very well part of every day life and people were expected to study them in public, learn and understand them, and recite them in front of everyone else in the village. There is no room for error because when someone got something wrong, the entire audience would correct them. There were entire feasts planned with the sole purpose of elders, priests and so on in a village would go to central locations and recite the same stories in front of others who knew it. the feast of tabernacles is one of these such events.
If someone got something wrong in the story, they were corrected. The jews still do this to this day, the Christians don't so much as a whole but it is still practiced. Your basic understanding is completely flawed on this.
There is a story about a guy who gets on a train. He looks out the window and see sheep. They are all white so he declares all sheep are white- none can be black or blue because he has never saw any like that. Are you saying that this guy is correct or something in his declaration simply because you too have only seen white sheep?
This guy is "correct" in the sense that Newton was correct about gravity. Both created a model of the universe that accurately allows them the ability to predict something, like the color of sheep. If this man never sees a sheep that isn't white, his model is sufficiently accurate and might as well be absolute truth.
On the other hand, if this man ever came across wool that came from a sheep that wasn't white, he would have to decide between (a) theorizing the existence of sheep of other colors, possibly resulting in a quest to confirm his theory and advance his knowledge of the universe; or (b) he can shrug his shoulders and say "God did it," and never be the wiser.
Why are you insisting that a divine intervention would have to deviate from the laws of physics as we know it?
Because no known mechanism exists for a divine being to affect our universe. If the deity appeared before someone, and spoke to them, somehow the deity is affecting our universe, by creating the perception of the deity's image and voice in the mind of an observer. If the deity is actually creating audible pressure waves in the air, and emitting photons that can be picked up by the observer's eyes, those are things that can be measured by other processes. The spontaneous creation of photons and sound would be an interesting event, and if they can't be explained, would require some theories as to where they came from.
At the very least, these observations would register as evidence that our theories are incomplete, and any model/theory that outright forbids the events that were observed would be immediately suspicious.
But your rules of physics
My rules of physics? Your bias is showing.
seem to not be hard set rules when we look at quantum applications so again, you have perpetuated the myth that everything has to be how you know it.
I disagree. Nobody ever said we have a complete understanding of the universe. But we do know a great deal about it, and the theories that we've devised are consistent with all of our observations, including the fact that we observe people that believe in gods, and we observe literature that makes claims about gods. All it takes is one reliable observation to destroy a scientific theory (or at least spur a refinement to it). If you want to replace theories of evolution with something based on a religion, start with finding that observation that disproves evolution.
How can an eye witness confirm anything happen? How can any history be recorded and told after it happened?
All of these are excellent questions, and there's an entire field devoted to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method
WIth respect to the American Revolution, on one side we have thousands of independent accounts, self-described as historical records, on the winning side and losing side, in agreement about events, and attesting to the validity of formal written records, with ample physical evidence of the events. On the other side, we have a small number of accounts written thousands of years ago, with many claims that are provably false. Totally the same thing.
Why is it that you insist that there is only way to show something and that is through science?
Science doesn't "show something". Science is how some of us attempt to explain that which we have been shown. If you show us something that is inconsistent with our theories of the universe, our theories will be disproven
Well, based on this, definition kinds don't exist, thus proving creationism incorrect I guess.
Of course I wish the original data was available, and the scientists should have made a better effort to make sure the raw materials were still around.
On the other hand, I can understand why they might get rid of boxes of data that had long since been processed after no one looking at them. It's not like anyone wanted to look at the data until they heard it was gone.
Your point is taken. As an engineer, I must examine all of the data points. In the case of religion, this includes historical data points throughout time.
If a forum reader has never experienced God personally, then he or she is most likely to fall in the group that takes everything that the Bible says or any Christian says as a mere story with no basis in truth or reality and dismiss every miracle or healing or time that God spoke with His people completely because that particular exact thing cannot be duplicated on demand today, regardless of how many people witnessed it when it happened. I think I can safely say that this position represents the vocal majority on slashdot - and most of the world for that matter.
But to ignore a pattern of data points is equally wrong. It is true that many of the data points are recorded in the Bible. Most on slashdot don't like that. But most on slashdot also studiously avoid any place where they might discover new data points about present day Christianity themselves.
In the church that I have attended for a few decades, there have been people that I personally knew, and knew the histories of, healed. It doesn't happen often - you can't just go there on a given Sunday and see a healing, but if you attend long enough you will see people healed and you will have come to know them well enough to realize that they aren't faking it. The pastor isn't getting any glory for it. It isn't particularly publicized to bring in people because if you are going to church to see God perform, then you are going for the wrong reason. In my case, my wife was healed by being prayed for by a lay person. The doctors had narrowed her problem down to one of two things - neither of which they could fix. She went up, was prayed for, and came back with no symptoms. She has remained OK since, although the person who prayed for her said she might need prayed for again at some point. I know she wasn't faking, because I lived with her symptoms for months before she was prayed for and she hasn't had them since. She wasn't faking them. She was healed - just like the Bible describes in 1 Cor. 12. That is a personal data point, but it is no less relevant than all the data points being reported by missionaries around the world and other people in the Christian church today. God just doesn't do things that are reproducible, so the forum crowd waves the data points away and says none of them matter.
We do routinely have messages in foreign languages and interpretations by people who do not speak or understand the language being spoken. The first common comment is - well if neither one understands the language how do you know that that is what is being said? Partly, this is on faith and the other gifts operating that will check you if something seems off. But at rare times, there is a third party in the audience who does speak the language and will come up after the service and ask either the person giving the message or the interpreter something like - where did you learn to speak X as it is uncommon today? Neither the party giving the message nor the party giving the interpretation have ever learned it, but the third party can vouch that the interpretation was correct. This is again as told in 1 Cor. 12
Other times, a word of knowledge has been given to me as an individual where someone comes up and says God told me to pray with you about this or that you need to be aware of this. They have no way to know that I am dealing with the particular issue or have a problem at that particular point in my life about what they tell me, but it is spot on. Not even my immediate family knows about some things I deal with. But God does. This is also seen in 1 Cor. 12.
God is at work today, just as He was in the early church, and He is at work in churches and individuals all over the planet. There are also, sadly, a huge number of churches and individuals that have the name of Christ but who are far from Him. You have to pray to Him and ask His direction to find a good church for you to go to wher
Dude, everybody knows all languages were created by God when he punished humans for creating a too big a tower. They are all related to each other in exactly this way.
No, the filter does not add work. It only leaves behind any "meaningful work" done. All natural selection does it take a set of living organisms, and kill off a subset (which could be all of them). This is always a reduction in diversity and information.
Any meaningful work must be done by the random mutation part of the equation - and unless you abandon random mutation, you don't have enough tries to even have a tiny chance of success. Count how many steps you must take between bacterium and human - and then roll a thousand sided dice (generous approximation) for each step. Each step is an exponential reduction of success rate, and population size (# of tries) decreases with complexity of the organism - you simply don't have enough tries to make the expected value even approach a meaningful %.
Anyways, where is that "world's fastest sorting algorithm"? Something that is the best in the world should not be that hard to find.
DNA is not computer code. It is not analogous to computer code. There isn't enough information to encode the human brain in DNA, so clearly small changes to DNA can have large effects.
1. DNA is not a computer code, but it is a digital code that is analogous to a computer's source code. The key part is that DNA is *more* complex than a computer's source code, and computer source code was designed by a large number of highly intelligent humans. The effort those people put into computer code is a rough indicator of how much information is encoded into both the design of computer code, and the software written with computer code. So how much more information is encoded into the design of DNA, as well as the animals whose designs are encoded by DNA?
2. Somehow, the DNA that "can't encode the human brain", manages to contain the blueprints for it - unless you'd like to suggest that DNA is not essential to the formation of a new human. A better explanation is that the information in DNA is highly compressed, rather than there being no design behind the brain (why do they develop the same across the human race, then?). You cannot get around the fact that the brain's design is the embodiment of much information; if it takes a network of supercomputers to emulate the capabilities of the brain, that's a hint to the level of the design. (it sets the floor for the minimum amount of information built into the human brain design) We're still trying to make AI mimic the basic capability of the human brain; don't be so dismissive of it.
Your basic argument seems to be that evolution is obviously wrong for all these obvious reasons, and those scientists just aren't smart enough to see what seems to obvious to you.
My argument is that until evolution has an answer for these very applicable arguments, its claims are unproven.
I don't care how many scientists believe evolution is true. I want to see their arguments for evolution that manages to answer these objections.
So far, I've gotten repeated chants of "mutation + selection!" as if that magically solves every engineering problem. As an engineer ... no, it does not, and I've pointed out why and how. An idea that sounds plausible in the high level summary can be very wanting when examined in detail.
In my rather contrived melody example, you suggest that the method is equivalent to brute-forcing the entire solution space. This is false for numerous reasons. First, the solution space is infinite, as modifications to the melody may add notes as well as change them and/or remove them - so it is theoretically impossible to brute-force, and therefore I can't be brute-forcing it. Secondly, you suggest that because in my example I have human ears choosing the 'best' melody, that I am actually running an experiment in 'intelligent prediction'. This is also false, since in the example the only way of choosing the 'best' melody is via some-ones ears.
Your randomization chooses random samples from the entire sample space. You randomly guess at a good solution and use the filter to see if the guess was good.
If the best melody "solutions" are neighbors to good melodies, then focusing the effort around previously successful (or least horrible) guesses, does have improved odds over a completely blind search. Blind search is brute force (and is your starting point). Iterating on previous successes is a directed search. Given enough tries, it will find *something* - that is the brute force aspect; you cannot predict with any level of certainty that you can find a solution within O(???). (estimating the O() requires understanding the problem. We're still learning what the "problem" of life is, let alone trying to solve it)
The point about intelligence in your filter, is that creating a filter to decide that a melody is "good" is difficult. A good melody is appealing to a subjectiv
Well, according to your definitions (which are quite silly), here's something from your so-called 'nothing': Bacteria Evolve New Ability The information was not there one day, and there the next. You might even say a number of small minor changes built up into something more complex later.
I don't understand what you're disagreeing with here. If you start with something, the capability exists, and doesn't need to be mutated into existence. Evolution doesn't claim that the entirety of human genetics is encoded within the first ancestor lifeform.
Though for E. Coli metabolizing citrate, apparently that is the case - they already have the ability to metabolize it under certain conditions. The mutation documented gives them the ability to use it more freely, but with some tradeoffs in other aspects. "[the mutation] decreased their ability to survive long periods in stationary phase cultures"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
... Once you have started something, you can get all kinds of stuff out.
If.
Really? You're going to call millions of molecules a nothing/null to serve your argument?
I'm saying that there are low chances that a self-replicating machine will pop into existence by random chance and mindless processes. If you disagree with this claim, would you like to show how it's a high probability event?
Why sure, here we found an entirely new way to use an FPGA, look here. The original paper is sourced in the reference section. The telling part is that the ultimate implementation was beyond the understanding of the experimenter. How could he be the source of the information if he didn't have it in the first place? Sure he had an idea how to test for what he was looking for but that doesn't mean he knew all the structures possible to use. In the original paper (it's not listed on the TO website unfortunately, but the paper is cited and published for reading) there were temperature sensitive effects that were not anticipated and not looked for as well, but existed in the final output.
Uhm, read your own article.
"His goal was to evolve a device that could at first discriminate between tones of different frequencies (1 and 10 kilohertz), then distinguish between the spoken words "go" and "stop".
He performed a directed randomized search for an FPGA circuit that would respond to voice commands, and found an FPGA circuit that would respond to voice commands.
I asked for an example where what was found had NOTHING to do with what was being searched for - so for example, finding a voice analyzer circuit while searching for a sort algorithm.
That a human designed a machine to look in a solution space, perform automated evaluation of those solutions, and then pick out the best solution - is not an example of mindless, purposeless evolution. For one, the human (intelligence) provided the evaluation criteria, and he also built the search engine. Those aspects make genetic algorithms different from random mutation + natural selection because the evaluation criteria is not so specific in nature, nor is the randomization specially limited. (Note that the FPGA circuit was restricted in what parameters could be randomized; if not, the search would create many non-working circuits).
Finally see the inset here Keane and Brown 1996 It's also a cited published paper. The Algorithm was designed to look for structures that fit criteria like stronger, flexible, etc. The result looks curiously like a biological bone structure and would probably be closer, but in 1996 computing power was tough to come by, so low number of iterations. That structure was not planned or built in. Like it or not, information CAN and DOES appear out of your theoretical "no-where", but it's not free and doesn't v
Bill Nye's secular humanism is inappropriate for children.
All in all, Bill Nye comes across as an angry athiest, pissed off at Christianity and trying to twist evolutionary theory to bash Christian beliefs.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
And yet they call that a fallacy because all of what you know is not the entirety of what exists. dyeing wool is a common thing. He could just say a merchant did it and be both right or wrong.
How interesting. So you do not think that outside of an entity being divine, that it can interact with the known universe in ways that are not divine. As soon as entity is classified as divine, its abilities would be beyond any limitation you would arbitrarily place on it.
As for incomplete theories and suspect models, isn't the exact opposite happening? Well, first, when did science decide it knew everything and we couldn't know more? That alone seems a bit concerning, but the crux of the argument put forth seems to be that it is impossible for a divine or supernatural being to exist because science knows it all.
Not at all. You are the one insisting a set of rules exist that can never be broken despite it happening all around you on a quantum level.
lol.. You where just saying the opposite. Please make up your mind. Now, as I previously said, nothing is stopping your understanding of the universe as being the result of a creation. Do you understand that? What you know could be the direct result of a direct act. It may not point to that act either and even lead you to conclusions other than it. You can say the theories of evolution are supported by fact and are useful. You can even say creation is not needed, but you cannot say it "shuts down" any account of a creation.
Well, according to your definitions (which are quite silly), here's something from your so-called 'nothing': Bacteria Evolve New Ability The information was not there one day, and there the next. You might even say a number of small minor changes built up into something more complex later.
I don't understand what you're disagreeing with here. If you start with something, the capability exists, and doesn't need to be mutated into existence. Evolution doesn't claim that the entirety of human genetics is encoded within the first ancestor lifeform.
Oh Good, for a while there we sounded confused. My point was exactly that. But you're missing a key point, bacteria did not have the ability to metabolize citrate. You're ignoring that completely new structures developed in the cell to make the process possible, apparently because you just don't like the implication. You don't get to ignore the creation of new information just because you don't like it. Especially since it seems to be the key point you're missing about evolution, that such small changes are indeed dramatic and require new information to have been synthesized out of thin air. And if they can happen once, a long slow cycle of changes can build up over time.
Though for E. Coli metabolizing citrate, apparently that is the case - they already have the ability to metabolize it under certain conditions. The mutation documented gives them the ability to use it more freely, but with some tradeoffs in other aspects. "[the mutation] decreased their ability to survive long periods in stationary phase cultures"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
I'm saying that there are low chances that a self-replicating machine will pop into existence by random chance and mindless processes. If you disagree with this claim, would you like to show how it's a high probability event?
You continue to conflate abiogenesis (the beginning of life) with evolution (the development of life), and you seem to do it in places that only serve to help your argument. This leads to fairly deep misunderstand about the requirements and processes of evolution because everytime I point out something you try a "NO TRUE SCOTTSMAN!" fallacy. So this conversation isn't getting very far.
Last try: Your claim was 'evolutionary processes CANNOT create new information'. Or more specifically it was: 'Random bit flips + filter can't create new information'.
My response: So we have some examples here where NEW information and functions developed using so-called impossible evolutionary processes. You're reply: "But but, that's because we looked for it!" This a typical 'moving the goalposts' defense, and makes you look dishonest. Regardless of who put the filter in place or why, random bit flips + filter made completely new and previously unknown information/organization/structure. Full Stop. Don't bring up abiogenesis or any thing else on this point simply because you don't like the conclusion.
Ultimately you've already acknowledging the process CAN create information. You've also acknowledge in previous responses to others that the environment qualifies as a filter, and mutations qualify as random bit flips. My contention is that you've already acknowledged evolution and are either trolling or have such irrational resistance to the word 'evolution' that you cannot think clearly.
I'm not a big fan of socialized medicine, but I also don't believe it is the end of the world.
I am amazed that the majority of people who are 'foaming at the mouth' crazy in their opposition to socialized medicine are also 'foaming at the mouth' crazy in their support of socialized religion. Not all, but there does seem to be a strong interest on socialized religion from the right wing in America...
I have no interest in socialized religion.
Nope. I'm saying 'neither side' not because it's two competing scientific theories. I'm saying it because both are based on faith. One is based on belief, the other one is hope. Both fail on the scientific principle... as of today.
For starters, if you're any of the garden-variety American variations of Christianity, you should be having some serious issues reconciling missile launchers and "thou shalt not kill".
Keep searching for balance and understanding. God and religion are not the same thing. Religion is an activity of man, not of god. You might have been taught that doubting and questioning is a bad thing.
In the Bible Jesus is quoted as saying:
But remember that according to Christian belief Jesus was just a man, not a god. Jesus had his doubts and was not 100% sure of his own beliefs:
If Jesus was 100% sure he would survive death on the cross, then he really wasn't sacrificing anything through his death. Christian belief says that the sacrifice Jesus made gives mankind redemption or forgiveness from sin and pays for mankind's salvation. Well if Jesus was 100% sure he wouldn't really die, then there was no sacrifice, and then there is no redemption and no salvation. So in Christian belief, Jesus's moment of doubt is the central defining moment.
So if you have doubts about your beliefs that should not be a problem. Jesus had doubts. Any Christian that thinks you should have no doubt isn't doing what Jesus did. If you are going to base your beliefs on books written by humans, remember that even the best of us are fallible. Jesus was not happy with the way religion was practiced in his time. You can also be unhappy with the way religion is practiced in your time. Just try not to die for your beliefs, live for them instead.
I do believe that scientists who claim that "the theory of evolution is the hypothesis best supported by the evidence" are heavily influenced by their belief systems. They are atheists. According to their belief system, there is no creator, so the world must be of natural origin.
Science first, then atheism. Religion has the advantage that, in general, children are raised to believe in it based on dogma. Rational thinking and the scientific method dispels mysticism. The evidence points to evolution not because scientists are atheist, but because scientists looked at the evidence.
Religion has the advantage that, in general, children are raised to believe in it based on dogma.
This is unfortunately true. I believe that religion should be based upon reason.
Rational thinking and the scientific method dispels mysticism.
Very effectively. Many if not most religions are heavily polluted with mysticism. Rational thinking cleanses religion.
But the core question here is: did the species evolve or were they created in much their present form by one or more superhuman extraterestials of extrordinary skill and posessed of immense resources. To argue about whether this idea is part of a mystical belief system is to miss the point. The point is that it either is or is not an historic fact. What religionists do, say, or believe is totally irrelevent.
It is not irrational to believe that superhumans created the world if there is evidence which tends to support such a view. It is not irrational to believe that these same superhumans communicated with man in the past if there are historical documents which attest to this. This does not mean that everyone has to believe that these evidences are reliable, but to say that those who do are behaving irrationally is dishonest.
The evidence points to evolution not because scientists are atheist, but because scientists looked at the evidence.
That is what they assert. Now you have repeated this assertion. What is that worth to me?
I disbelieve them because when they are backed into a corner they make statements which sound like expresions of faith in Rationalism and argue on a philisophical rather than an evidentary basis. What little evidence they do cite is compatible with Evolutionary theory, but is also compatible with belief in a creator.
Then there is the fact that in incautious moments Evolutionists have frequently admitted that some line of evidence (frequently the fosile record) is more in accord with Creation than Evolution. They have lately taken to claiming that they have been misquoted. But, what they deny is not the substance of their remarks but their seeming lack of faith in Evolution. They assert (likely truthfully) that they do not believe in creation and are certain that furthur research will clear up these little difficulties.
So, I have to conclude that the evidence is against you. Their science is informed by their atheism.
Until you factor in punctuated equilibrium. The traits aren't manifesting in a vacuum. The population, if the mutation is bebeficial with thrive and displace the other diversity that does not thrive as well. This is well-documented. For example, at one particular geologic period all trilobites had 12 eyes. Then a mutation developed making a 13th eye. This happened in what would become New York. That mutant bred and it's offspring displaced the geographic area, and spread out. Later in the fossil record, they are found in Texas, and eventually all over the world. The number of trilobites never increased, because of resource constraints. But the 12-eyed population fell because the 13s had a higher rate of survival. That's not exponential that's incremental. This best of breed ensures only working genes are selected for. It's not rolling 1000 dice, it's rolling dice over an entire population at once for random mutations, selecting, combining, and rolling the dice again. What does not work falls away, and what works is kept and spreads throughout the population.
If you don't believe in evolution, then just look at how a fetus evolves in the womb. Why would we get a tail then lose it during development. If we were intelligently designed, we'd forgo the tail in the womb. Some people are still born having tails because the genes to undo it were not active during development.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
To argue about whether this idea is part of a mystical belief system is to miss the point. The point is that it either is or is not an historic fact. What religionists do, say, or believe is totally irrelevent.
Funny, because you claim the opposite, that it is atheism that is the important factor. When you acknowledge my points for the opposite, you again repeat your claim and say religion doesn't matter.
[scientists looked at the evidence] That is what they assert. Now you have repeated this assertion. What is that worth to me?
Not less than your empty assertions are to me. If you want details of the assertion, fine, but I figured by now you've heard them.
It is not irrational to believe that superhumans created the world if there is evidence which tends to support such a view. It is not irrational to believe that these same superhumans communicated with man in the past if there are historical documents which attest to this.
And your evidence?
This does not mean that everyone has to believe that these evidences are reliable, but to say that those who do are behaving irrationally is dishonest.
When enough of the evidence accumulates, at some point you've either got your head in the sand or you're just clinging to mysticism for any number of reasons, and then trying to hide behind the cover of "reason", like the Discovery Institute.
I disbelieve them because when they are backed into a corner they make statements which sound like expresions of faith in Rationalism and argue on a philisophical rather than an evidentary basis. What little evidence they do cite is compatible with Evolutionary theory, but is also compatible with belief in a creator.
"Little" evidence? The fossil record and DNA record show evolution, not an intelligent designer. There's a clear progression from the simplest forms like bacteria to the more complicated forms. The genetic and fossil record show branching, which is what you would expect from evolution, but not creationism. An intelligent designer wouldn't limit themselves to branching, and would instead mix and match features arbitrarily.
They assert (likely truthfully) that they do not believe in creation and are certain that furthur research will clear up these little difficulties.
That's the way science operates. When the overwhelming evidence points in one way, "little difficulties" are acknowledged and worked on. Yet creationists focus on these little difficulties while accepting the huge flaws in their own theories. Mote, meet beam. Beam, meet mote.
And yet they call that a fallacy because all of what you know is not the entirety of what exists.
Basically this argument boils down to the assertion that because something could exist outside of the observable universe, it's appropriate to believe something exists outside of the observable universe. I don't subscribe to that notion. If it's outside of the observable universe, it cannot interact with the observable universe. Once it interacts with the observable universe, it becomes observable and we can learn something about it. Until then it's just mental masturbation and I have more interesting things to do with my life.
As soon as entity is classified as divine, its abilities would be beyond any limitation you would arbitrarily place on it.
I'm not quite sure I'm following. If I'm on the top of a building with a large rock in hand, and I'm intent on dropping it on someone's head, but a god is intent on preventing me, somehow, when I release that rock, something has to prevent it from reaching its target. Either His Divine Hand would knock the rock aside, or maybe the god will be sneaky about it and poof into existence a penny that causes a child to stop and pick it up, which causes my target to pause for a moment after I released the rock. But what if I plastered the city block with a million cameras and sensors? Surely I would observe the penny poofing into existence. Oh but gods are craftier than that, right? They'll just go back in time and create the penny before I put up all of my cameras. There's no way to win this argument. Either gods interact with the universe in ways that we can observe, or for some reason they want to be sneaky and avoid anyone claiming to be a scientist from ever seeing them.
Well, first, when did science decide it knew everything and we couldn't know more?
I think maybe this comes from my suggestion that if it ain't observable, it ain't knowable? I don't know how much that has to do with science per se, but for me, it's common sense. What's the point in trying to figure something out that's impossible to ever figure out? Either gods interact with the universe in ways we can study, or they don't. If they don't, they can never influence our lives, and so they essentially don't exist. "But you'll see!" implies that they'll interact with our universe sometime in the future. We can talk again when that happens.
You are the one insisting a set of rules exist that can never be broken despite it happening all around you on a quantum level.
I don't believe I'm insisting on anything of the kind. I suspect we have simply misunderstood each other. I agree that our understanding of the universe is incomplete. But I do know that the model we do have has no gods in it, and no evidence of gods exists that would invalidate those theories, so the theories stand as the most likely and most complete model of the universe. If you want to add some observations that disprove any of those models and point us in the direction of gods, please do so.
lol.. You where just saying the opposite.
Do you think it is more likely that I believe inconsistent things, or that I've failed to communicate my (internally consistent) position to you?
but you cannot say it "shuts down" any account of a creation.
I didn't say that. I suspect you're trying to argue with me about something an earlier poster said. Some literal accounts of creationism (which you've acknowledge were non-literal fables mixed in with the apparently otherwise historical records) can be easily disproven ("shut down") by observations (facts) of evolution. But of course you can't say that it's impossible. The difference is that I see no reason to believe something simply because it isn't impossible. There are effectively an infinite number of other possible explanations for the orig
Something has come out in recent years. The last pope officially recognised the theory of evolution as the best scientific explanation for the biodiversity we observe in nature. Did you also know you're now allowed to have recreational sex within a marriage, and also use a condom for the purpose of preventing the transmission of HIV? Talk about being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century. No word yet on how it's bad to rape little boys, but I'm sure they're working on it.
If you believe in a god that's indistinguishable from the workings of the natural universe, that's your fetish. We're talking about young earth creationists who believe both of the following propositions: 1. The universe is 6-10 thousand years old. 2. The very same equations that we use to build rockets, skyscrapers, and computers suddenly break down when we use them to determine the age of the universe
The belief in biblical creation is itself not the problem, but rather one of the most common causes of the problem. It would also be bad if they were taught to reject physics in defense of a geocentric flat earth story.
Exactly. I would go further, the main problem with creationism when it is disguised as science is that it needs to invalidate a great many, if not most, areas of real science. Creationists happily try to do that, this creates a scepticism to all things scientific that can never end well. Seriously, many of these guys outright try to ridicule established science in order to strengthen their pet myth. This is very sad, I would hope that we were finished with such bullshit sometime in the middle ages.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
I agree with you. You also hint at a potential limitation of science, itself: That we, as humans, may not even be capable of observing/measuring/verifying all things. --- What discipline, then, would any thing or phenomenon, falling outside of science's limitations, be encompassed by?
Whether it is appropriate to believe something or not is sort of beside the point. The point is that it is inappropriate categorically deny something because you didn't see it or do not understanding how it could happen.
lol.. So it would have to happen the exact way you think it would happen. What if the divine intervention was making someone pause and check their pockets for an article they needed and the penny fell out at that time? You see, divine intervention does not have to work outside the laws of physics, it can work well within them for the most part.
There is a story about a flood coming and a preacher not leaving saying god will take care of him. As the town was evacuating, several people stopped and asked the preacher if he wanted a ride, he said no, god will take care of me. The river swelled past the banks and flooded the last road out of town and someone on a boat came by and said, hop in preacher, I'll get you to safety. The preacher said, that's ok, the lord with take care of me. Finally, the town is flooded and the preacher is sitting on a roof top and a helicopter came by. It lowered a rope and a guy who said put this harness on, well will fly you to safety. The preacher said, that's ok, god will take care of me. Later that night, the preacher went to sleep and fell off the roof and into the flood waters and died. He gets to heaven and asks why god didn't take care of him. The reply was, he sent the town folks to help you and the preacher denied that, he sent a boat to fetch you to safety and the preacher rejected that, he even sent a helicopter to help him and the preacher refused that. What more did the preacher expect to be done.
Whether you want to believe that any of those attempts to get the preacher to safety was divine intervention or not is beside the point that the intervention does not need to be some elaborate work of smoke and magic in order to happen.
But this is a bit beyond the concept of creationism though.
I am an electrical engineer, a programmer, and a reasonably intelligent voter. I have huge issues with any so-called scientist (he is a celebrity now, not a true scientist) who chooses to raise a theory to the level of a scientific law without repeatable observable proof (impossible in this case). I am not saying his faith is wrong (and yes to unconditionally believe in the un-provable is an act of faith, not reason). I am saying ignoring other possible (I said nothing about being probable) theories is against the very meaning of science. His given statements are no better than the statements and actions of the Catholic Church towards Galileo and other abused scientists of their time. Luckily, he has no true power to start enforcing the pogrom he seems to desire. For now I will ignore the ravings of this d-list star and e-list scientist, and hope he retakes an introductory science class. One that will reteach him the difference between a theory and a law, and why we differentiate between the two.
The alternative is not that your memory is always wrong but that it is unreliable. Geeks and their false binaries!
*sigh*. I don't know how to classify this. You just changed the argument right there. We know that memory is unreliable! (If we assume that it is, of course it is. If you assume that it isn't absolutely unreliable, once you get to neuroscience, you conclude that it is unreliable, eliminating contradictions even). I stated this already. So I guess I don't have "faith" in my memory being reliable because, well, I don't claim that it is.
What are we discussing, if not truth?
Moving the goalposts much? Your original question wasn't about truth.
Evolution goes in wildly different directions and only the sustainable will survive.
So it's only logic successful engineering projects follow the same design principles.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Every Scientist needs to start assuming
In The Beginning [GOD|BANG]
and then go from there.
(oh and some sort of Plasma explosion can in no way shape or form prove that a Big Bang Occurred)
There is no proof that there has been any Beginning. Ever. If there ever was, then what before that? Of course the thought of there not being Beginning nor End hurts our brain just as much.
I don't recall scientist making a claim that Big Bang was beginning of everything and that there wasn't anything before.
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> The fact that evolution works does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of a creator.
It does, however, obviate the need for a creator as the immediate progenitor of Man.
> A person can easily have a hard time believing that "humans evolved from ooze", yet still be able to easily comprehend and work with genetic algorthms.
And yet, to comprehend genetic algorithms, you also have to comprehend the enormous difference in the probability of finding any given fitness solution that a genetic algorithm represents, as compared with random chance. Additionally, if you genuinely understand the topic, it gives you insights into the natural operation of evolution that you might otherwise have lacked.
Oh, and, it should really make you wonder why DNA is present in organisms from single celled creatures all the way up to us, if you were otherwise predisposed to find God in your gaps de jour...
a digital code that is analogous to a computer's source code.
I don't think that there's any evidence for this statement. And it would be dangerous to extrapolate from it to any theories about how much change is required from a DNA point of view to effect change from an organism point of view.
In any case, maybe we should remember that knowledge about the structure and function of DNA is relatively recent compared to the history of the theory of evolution.
You don't have to look far into, say, the fossil record, to observe that life has increased in complexity over time. Darwin's theory was that this was driven by creatures attempting to out-compete each other, and this led him to the theory of natural selection.
Genetics showed us how this is possible, from a biochemical standpoint. So that how an organism's characteristics might be passed on from one generation to the next is no longer complete mystery.
However a great deal of mystery remains. Scientists are often identifying such-and-such a 'gene', and how it relates to such-and-such a characteristic of the final organism. But I suspect that this may be misleading, in the sense that we actually know very little about how a full complement of DNA leads to the final creature. It's probably also worth remembering that DNA isn't enough to create a creature, you also need a functioning developmental environment (such as a womb, or an egg) before you can get a creature at all. The complexity of a life-form's developmental pathway is mind-boggling. Suggesting that the code contained in DNA is analogous to computer source code is probably a huge over-simplification.
An enormous amount of evidence clearly points to life evolving over billions of years from single-celled organisms to the diversity we see today. Is your point then that what little we understand about genetics is insufficient to support the notion that this development came about through natural means? Do you concede that this development took place?
I'd be perfectly astonished if your objects weren't very well known. What I understand about the theory of evolution has completely satisfied me, in the sense that it seems believable and rational and plausible. You obviously feel differently, and I'd encourage you to ask these questions somewhere other than slashdot - which is mostly frequented by IT professionals - perhaps you could even take an undergrad course in developmental biology (if such a thing exists - the course that is, not the subject).
I wonder too if you entertain similar scepticism about other branches of scientific endeavour. There's plenty of out-there theories about all sorts of matters. Take particle physics, the evidence for the existence of things like quarks and such is far harder to grasp than the evidence for evolution. And the notion that the entire universe is made up of things with properties as peculiar as spin, and entanglement, and wave-particle-duality, and true randomness, and so-on - well, these notions seem far less likely to me than natural selection. What about that experiment where the photons appear to be in some sense aware of being observed? I'm not trying to get off-topic, I'm just asking why it is that evolution seems to get all the flack, when there's far weirder stuff out there.
Whether it is appropriate to believe something or not is sort of beside the point.
I disagree; I think it's exactly the point. To teach your children facts (that evolution occurs), and that the logical inference from those facts (a scientific theory of our evolutionary origins) is wrong only because it disagrees with your religion's holy book, which must be correct for all sorts of reasons logical fallacies, prevents your children from understanding, utilizing and trusting the scientific method.
The point is that it is inappropriate categorically deny something because you didn't see it or do not understanding how it could happen.
Perhaps there is a fine line between categorically denying something, and categorically refusing to accept something. I feel I'm doing the latter, not the former.
What if the divine intervention was making someone pause and check their pockets
Between the time a god considers intervening, and the time someone decides to pause and check their pockets, something must have happened to the person's mind to make them change their behavior. Absent intervention, they wouldn't have paused and checked their pockets, right? The mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system bound by exactly the same laws of physics everything else appears to be bound by. So something physical must have happened in the brain of this person to cause them to change their behavior.
Or would you turn around and say that the mind is magical and, like gods, not bound by the physical universe?
But you do not get to tell others they can't believe something, or they have to think like you, or they have to dismiss their religion and supplant it with what you feel is better
If this were the right attitude, we'd still be burning witches and imprisoning anyone that suggested the earth was round, or that the sun doesn't revolve around it. At some point you have to take a stand and call ignorance what it is. Thinking about the last few hundred years, are you really of the opinion that the world would be a better place if religion were always allowed to trump science?
Historically, science has always ultimately prevailed, and what once were absolute religious truths are now fables and moral tales. "We know better now." Do you believe that that trend has somehow stopped in 2012? Surely by now we've figured out what parts of the bible are just bedtime stories, and which parts were historically accurate? In 2112, everything that people believe is historically accurate in the Christian bible will continue to be considered historically accurate?
Religion and science can coexist perfectly well together and even conflict with each other as long as people understand one is religion and one is science.
I think I agree with this. The trick is in how you handle the situation where they contradict each other. You can either apply critical thinking skills, and maybe learn something, or you can be ignorant. One of these advances mankind's understanding of the universe and improves the standard of living across the globe. The other makes you feel warm and fuzzy and occasionally results in your neighbor being persecuted.
The historocity of the bible is well founded.
The "historocity" of the bible is changing all the time.
But you ask why believe in it,- because you can.
Sorry, but that is unconvincing. There are many things that I could choose to believe in simply because I can. There are many other religions that are far older than Christianity that I could choose to believe in, just because I can. There are things that I can make up and start believing in. I see nothing about any one of these fantasies and mythologies that encourage me to "believe".
just that religion has a r
What was the word used to describe people who go around asking questions such as "can an omnipotent god create a rock so large it can't lift it" again? And I don't mean "jackass", even though very appropriate ;)
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Oh Good, for a while there we sounded confused. My point was exactly that. But you're missing a key point, bacteria did not have the ability to metabolize citrate. You're ignoring that completely new structures developed in the cell to make the process possible, apparently because you just don't like the implication.
Do a search for "citrate" on this page: http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/answers-in-genesis-on-ecoli-and-citrate.html
This is a guy countering an anti-evolution article on this very subject - notice that he does not dispute that E Coli can metabolize citrate under specific conditions, and even cites a study that describes the process.
Your claim that E Coli completely evolved a new ability from scratch seems to be sadly mistaken. It seems to be more like the various types of antiobiotic resistances documented - there are existing structures within the bacterium that can be slightly modified for different effects. (For citrate E Coli, seems to be an existing metabolic pathway repurposed) Modifying existing structures is not the same as evolving a completely new structure. You cannot accomplish every aspect of evolution by minor tweaks (prove this claim wrong).
Citrate metabolizing E Coli is not slamdunk evidence for evolution, especially since you have not accounted for an alternative explanation - bacterium were designed to be robust and adaptible organisms. It'd also be worth testing how well the new functionality sticks around in the population within a competitive environment. Just because a lucky break happened doesn't mean it stuck.
You continue to conflate abiogenesis (the beginning of life) with evolution (the development of life), and you seem to do it in places that only serve to help your argument. This leads to fairly deep misunderstand about the requirements and processes of evolution because everytime I point out something you try a "NO TRUE SCOTTSMAN!" fallacy. So this conversation isn't getting very far.
You're the one who brought up, "once something's started". _If_ something is started, then you may indeed iterate upon it. It's a very big "if" that you insist that evolution may take for granted. That's all I had to say about your assumption - "If" - I was skeptical, but discussing it wasn't important to my point.
You're trying too hard to put all of my objections into the categories of "common evolutionary misunderstandings". I'm not bringing up abiogenesis - I'm pointing out how hard it is for a bacterium to evolve into a mammal. You're the one who took a single word - "If" - to mean that I'm conflating "abiogenesis" with "evolution".
Last try: Your claim was 'evolutionary processes CANNOT create new information'. Or more specifically it was: 'Random bit flips + filter can't create new information'.
...
Ultimately you've already acknowledging the process CAN create information. You've also acknowledge in previous responses to others that the environment qualifies as a filter, and mutations qualify as random bit flips. My contention is that you've already acknowledged evolution and are either trolling or have such irrational resistance to the word 'evolution' that you cannot think clearly.
It is not that it is perfectly impossible, but that it is practically improbable. Can a random string generator create a bestseller novel? A best seller novel (like Twilight, or LotR) is certain a possible outcome of a random string generator, but it is practically impossible for the random string generator to write a readable novel, let alone a best seller. Using a dictionary and grammar filter on the output and iterating isn't likely to help you any - were awl familiar wit automated spill cheek fails. The most likely outcome of a random string generator, even with generous filters, is junk - garbage in, garb
I'll read up on the trilobites if you'd like to provide a link.
If you don't believe in evolution, then just look at how a fetus evolves in the womb. Why would we get a tail then lose it during development. If we were intelligently designed, we'd forgo the tail in the womb. Some people are still born having tails because the genes to undo it were not active during development.
You're talking about recapituation theory (baby organism "replays" evolutionary history). By Wiki, that's "defunct". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory#Modern_status
Note that for things ike "gills" on a fetus - those are not actually functional gills - they are structures that look like gills. For an alternative explanation why those structures exist - perhaps that is an efficient way to build up the body structure from an undifferentiated clump of cells.
To disprove this alternative, you'd have to show that the existing process is wasteful and unnecessary, such that there is no logical reason to do it that way. This is a very difficult claim to disprove. If we look at human created processes, there are many that may seem quite wasteful - but that is the only way to do it with our current technology and available resources - wastefulness in of itself does not prove lack of intelligent design.
but taking that and then saying that from these results we can be sure that a single cell lifeform can evolve into a complex, multi-organ creature is what I call into question. That is what we cannot directly test and observe,...
I've been following this discussion far longer than I had ever intended.
I have been impressed by your rational and reasonable, polite replies. It's a welcome sight for such a hot button issue. :-)
One thing that caught my attention, is the 'That is what we cannot directly test and observe,...' statement.
While you may be partially correct[1], do try to keep in mind that most, if not all, evidence in evolution suggests that the changes you are labeling 'macro evolution' usually take longer than mankind had anything resembling modern science.
[1] It depends on what your parameters are for the definitions of 'directly test and observe' are.
We have fossil evidence, backed up by radiological dating, we have observed speciation in the wild....all something to take into account.
If you are talking 'running this in a lab' over the weekend, then no, you will not observe 'macro evolution' happening. Think millennial, epochs, ages, whatever. The experiment required to test 'macro evolution' would need to run thousands of years for any useful amount of data, forget it in your lifetime.
If I have mistaken your POV, I am sorry, and humbly will accept correction.
I do not mean to question your faith, only point out that evolution needs to be viewed from a time perspective that makes no real sense to equate to a human life, or even a double handful of current human generations, and that seems to be hard for us to accept. YMMV.....
signed,
rts008, on a Public Terminal, and strange keyboard...*sigh*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Questions like that are good to ask those who believe in some omnipotent god, and are good to offer to militant atheists who think that god can be disproven by logic.
It may help both to accept that, if such god exists, it must exist outside of logic.
I'm not going to address the whole thing, but to disabuse you of your misunderstanding of words...
To use a car analogy, a "reliable" car doesn't work always and forever. Otherwise I'd have said something like "perfect memory" - but that would be daft, because everyone with a memory is aware that memory isn't perfect (long before scientific study).
Read "sufficiently reliable", if you really want, in the sense that you have to assume that your memory is sufficiently reliable to reason.
Moving the goalposts much? Your original question wasn't about truth.
My OP asked for a proof of some aspect of the real world. That's a question seeking truth, not utility.
Read "sufficiently reliable", if you really want, in the sense that you have to assume that your memory is sufficiently reliable to reason.
Crap. And you are unable to infer from my position from the rest of the posts that that is precisely what I was saying all along. Come on, honestly, cant you figure out that given the context, "if I assume that all my memories are wrong" doesn't mean anything more than "extremely unreliable"? Otherwise the statement wouldn't make any sense.
My OP asked for a proof of some aspect of the real world. That's a question seeking truth, not utility.
Holy shit. You are really good at this [trolling thing]. No, your question asked for proof. That's seeking proof, not truth nor utility. Just proof. Even assuming that you asked for truth (I'll grant you that if you want), your question was malformed, and so was your answer: you can't prove anything through faith. I stated that before. I merely answer the next question that comes to mind, which is how to behave, and that is a question of utility, not truth. My bad for giving a useful answer.
Really, my bad. I think there is only one way of dealing with you. Reboot. Ask the question again with a precise definitions of all your terms, and I shall answer that and only that, so that you don't get "confused" (clearly on purpose) about what we are talking about. At this point, I have no idea of what you are asking. Proceed under that assumption.
I don't think that there's any evidence for this statement. And it would be dangerous to extrapolate from it to any theories about how much change is required from a DNA point of view to effect change from an organism point of view.
There are 4 possible discrete values for each position in a "string" of DNA. DNA is decoded by proteins as 3-digit "words". It's digital because there are discrete values. It's a code because it's decoded as a sequence to create proteins and whatever else DNA is responsible for. (I suspect as we study it more, we'll discover that parts of DNA act as control code - showing that it is a programming language)
It's a digital code by definition. It is not dangerous to recognize comparable points between different systems. It's highly valuable to use the simple system to gain understanding of the more complex system - this is the entire basis of modeling and simulation!
For my examples, I have used the "simple" computers to provide a lower limit of the complexity of the lifeforms that exist and which we are one of. We know where computers come from and how much work is needed to iterate improvements - is it not absurd to claim computers could be improved by random chance? Yet we are to accept that the more difficult task (life) did so!
You don't have to look far into, say, the fossil record, to observe that life has increased in complexity over time. Darwin's theory was that this was driven by creatures attempting to out-compete each other, and this led him to the theory of natural selection.
If you wish to shift to this line of argument, then we are no longer discussing (operational) science, but history. The rules of evidence to apply are different. If you rely on historical evidence to "prove" evolution, then you are conceding the mechanical evidence for evolution isn't airtight enough to stand on its own.
I would also like to note that there are competing historical claims that also fit the same evidence. Evolution is not the only possible theory that accounts for the fossil record.
Genetics showed us how this is possible, from a biochemical standpoint. So that how an organism's characteristics might be passed on from one generation to the next is no longer complete mystery.
My analysis disputes this on the basis of information theory. That's my entire argument - it's not possible, even though proponents of evolution continuously assert it is.
An enormous amount of evidence clearly points to life evolving over billions of years from single-celled organisms to the diversity we see today. Is your point then that what little we understand about genetics is insufficient to support the notion that this development came about through natural means? Do you concede that this development took place?
My understanding of the current set of evidence for evolution, and my experience from working with information systems (computer programming and designing systems) is that the great body of evidence you cite is flimsy.
I'd be perfectly astonished if your objects weren't very well known. What I understand about the theory of evolution has completely satisfied me, in the sense that it seems believable and rational and plausible. You obviously feel differently, and I'd encourage you to ask these questions somewhere other than slashdot - which is mostly frequented by IT professionals - perhaps you could even take an undergrad course in developmental biology (if such a thing exists - the course that is, not the subject).
They may be well known, but I have yet to find an answer. You yourself do not have any - perhaps you will have some the next time you run into these objections.
I am unsatisfied with evolution as an explanation, and those who are, are more likely to insult my intelligence than attempt to address my points.
I wonder too
You imply that big bang theory claims "The Bang" happened "all or a sudden" without any reason - no such claim.
Religious lunatics are the best when it comes to bashing scientific theories on not even having a clue of what the actual theory is.
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Thank you for your kind and thoughtful response! I very much appreciate polite exchanges of thoughts on issues, as you seem to :)
I think what I was trying to point out with the fact that we can't observe full-blown evolution in the lab within a human life (or even many) is that because of the timescale required we can never be absolutely certain of evolution - just as we cannot travel back in time to observe the big bang, or a more recent creation event by God. Thus none of us as humans can ever be 100% certain in the scientific sense of any of these things... and yet some people argue so hard that evolution is for-sure, with no alternative but insanity.
Now you are right that there are a lot of evidences we can look at to give us ideas as to what happened in the past, and to back up theories we may come up with. The problem here is that the way we look at those things - fossils, ratios of radioactive isotopes, sedimentary layers, etc - all depend on the world view with which we approach them. For the evolutionist, they all look like great proofs of the belief in an ancient universe... but for someone like myself, they look like great evidence for a world-wide, cataclysmic flood. We can't observe either theory directly, because they require scales beyond our human ability (time for evolution, and planetary-level destruction for something like observing a Biblical flood) which we therefore cannot recreate.
Likewise, the ideas behind radiometric dating hinge on decay rates being constant (which it looks like may not be the case, though so far observations are only showing minute deviation) and that we can properly estimate the ratios of isotopes in the original environments - which, again, cannot be directly observed.
Because of these things, it seems to me that it is very possible to be a productive, thinking individual in society - no matter whether one believes in evolution or not. That is the issue I took with Bill Nye's video: he paints with a very broad, and I believe inaccurate, brush. I like his style of teaching, and loved his show as a kid, but I think that if he really cares about the future of education and the sciences in America then there are other things he could do that would be much more productive than trying to squash competing origin theories :)
William George
lol.. I never said teaching kids about evolution was wrong, I said denying them creation or anything else because you insist evolution is the only true way was wrong. As I previously said, kids can easily approach things from separate paths as is easily demonstrated with their ability to play the game games on vastly different interfaces. Kids are not a static only one way will ever work.
That's fine and all if it is you and the kids you have a valid right to interact with. But don't try to force your beliefs onto anyone else- especially through the government who is supposed to not take any sides whatsoever at all on religion because of the Constitution.
But you have to think about some things too. Have you ever stopped to realize that a good majority of kids who claim something about creationism are just rebelling against what they think is the accepted norm for the sake of pissing you off? I used to do that in high school biology class all the time. I even claimed to be a Buddhist for 3 weeks to frustrate the teacher come time to dissect a frog. I dared him to give me bad grades or punish me for my religious beliefs. I then became a born again Christian right before becoming an evangelical Atheist because I didn't like the way he treated a friend of mine. 25 years later and I'm here playing devils advocate with you over the insistence that kids only learn that their religion, their parents religion, is wrong when forced to attend a government mandated education course.
So you are saying that if a supernatural being existed that was capable of doing something to impact our universe, he would have to do it in some spectacular way that is directly obvious to you and anyone else you think needs to know or understand it and no other way is possible? On what grounds to you base this necessity for some mind blowing interaction setting off seismographs and radar defense system that can only happen how you insist it must happen?
The point of my statement was to show how simple and subtle the interaction could possibly be and how difficult it might be to understand it or detect it.
Your strawman is bordering a false dichotomy. Burning witches and claiming the earth is flat is not something directly or even indirectly supported by
I guess I'm just more willing to accept a scientific theory than another explanation in this case. :-)
IMHO, you have presented reasoned points, and while I may not fully agree, I respect your viewpoint.
Something all sides of a disagreement seem to often forget in the heat of the argument: the diversity and differing viewpoints of mankind seems to be one of our greater strengths as a species.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
There are two theories that I know of that fit the historical record. These are evolution, and intelligent design. Given that intelligent design would fit any historical record, I'm rather disinclined to entertain it. If there is a third, I'd love to hear about it.
Your objection to evolution is more or less the statement that "information cannot be created". This is a false statement, and there is no evidence for it. There is plenty of evidence that information is created all the time, from genetic algorithms to the spontaneous appearance of complex carbohydrates in interstellar clouds.
There is no point arguing that the information that appears in genetic algorithms is somehow not information, or that the information wasn't created but was already present in the selection criteria. Neither of these objections hold water. Before the genetic algorithm was run, there was no information on the final working solution, afterwards there is. Information is created.
Further the distinction between 'information' and 'noise' in purely in the eye of the beholder. In the context of genetic change, both the genetic 'information' and the mutations (noise), are information. The outcome is new information, which is then selected for if it turns out to be advantageous.
Before I sign off this argument, because I do have other things to be getting on with, I'd like to address this throw-away point:
Is it not absurd to claim computers could be improved by random chance?
No, it is not absurd. If we had billions of years, and trillions of little reproducing computer components, and didn't much care what the resulting computer did, as long as it did something - then no. It's not absurd. It's just not very efficient.
You are mistaken if you believe that scientists are not following the evidence with respect to evolution. Of course they are, and in their thousands. It seems to only be in the US that the belief that evolution comprises a semi-religious stance is prevalent. I wonder how many evolutionary biologists you've actually encountered, and of them how many demand your 'belief' in evolution. You may have run into 'proponents', amongst whom I presume you would count me, who argue for the theory. But proponents are not scientists. And I don't demand your belief, I just think you're wrong about the nature of information.
Your main objection has been answered, both inexpertly by me, and much more expertly by much smarter people than I. Since you are very interested in the topic, I presume you have already thoroughly read the talkorigins website (http://www.talkorigins.org/), and in particular the extensive article on information theoretic objections to evolution. I hope you find answers to your objections there.
To argue about whether this idea is part of a mystical belief system is to miss the point. The point is that it either is or is not an historic fact. What religionists do, say, or believe is totally irrelevent.
Funny, because you claim the opposite, that it is atheism that is the important factor. When you acknowledge my points for the opposite, you again repeat your claim and say religion doesn't matter.
The difference is that in one case there is a causal relationship, in the other a causal relationship is impossible because the supposed effect proceeds the cause chronologically. A particular scientist is an atheist. This causes him to reach the conclusion that Evolution explains the origin of specials. A religionist has irrational beliefs about the creator and the process of creation. This cannot cause Creation not to have occured millions of years before he was born.
It is not irrational to believe that superhumans created the world if there is evidence which tends to support such a view. It is not irrational to believe that these same superhumans communicated with man in the past if there are historical documents which attest to this.
And your evidence?
It seems to me that at this point reasonable persons can interpret the physical evidence either way. The historical documents are contained in the Bible. There have been numberous arguments advanced to discredit it, but I find them about as convincing as conspiracy theories about the destruction of the World Trade Center. They are structured along the same lines of "questioning the official story" and "I don't understand this, therefor something sneeky is going on".
If you cannot respect such a point of view, discussion is pointless.
"Little" evidence? The fossil record and DNA record show evolution, not an intelligent designer. There's a clear progression from the simplest forms like bacteria to the more complicated forms. The genetic and fossil record show branching, which is what you would expect from evolution, but not creationism. An intelligent designer wouldn't limit themselves to branching, and would instead mix and match features arbitrarily.
Again, this is a question about which reasonable persons can disagree. Is the branching really due to common descent, or is it the inevitable result of any attempt to classify a large body of work? After all, we can classify computers in much the same way, but they don't even reproduce.
Nor is the progression clear. First of all, there are aknowledged gaps. Entire careers are devoted to trying to figure out why the intermediate forms 'didn't find their way into the fossile record'. Second, trees derived from the fossile record often fail to match trees derived from genetic analysis.
With the tree in doubt, it is hard to assert that features were not mixed and matched. In fact, I seem to recall that there are seeming examples of mixing and matching. These are cases where identical or highly similiar features seem to have evolved more than once. (There are of course theories to explain this this away. But, there always are.)
They assert (likely truthfully) that they do not believe in creation and are certain that furthur research will clear up these little difficulties.
That's the way science operates. When the overwhelming evidence points in one way, "little difficulties" are acknowledged and worked on. Yet creationists focus on these little difficulties while accepting the huge flaws in their own theories. Mote, meet beam. Beam, meet mote.
It is the Evolutionists who are calling these questions "little difficulties". In reality we are talking here about holes you could drive a truck through. We are talking about the fact that new kinds appear in the fossil record suddenly and remain for millions of years virtual unchanged before becoming extinct. We are talking about the way
The sorting paper: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.52.7331&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Trilobites: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Punctuated_equilibria (see references)
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lol.. I never said teaching kids about evolution was wrong, I said denying them creation or anything else because you insist evolution is the only true way was wrong.
Where did I say that you said teaching kids about evolution was wrong? I'm talking about taking facts, and using critical thinking, logic and reason to arrive at theory. These are the skills that we need to teach our children. When you subvert the "critical thinking" part and tell children that their reasoning is wrong because it disagrees with a special book, they don't learn this lesson. They don't learn to think critically ("don't ask why this book is special, just accept that it is") and they don't learn to trust logic and reason (it's wrong here, so it's not trustworthy), and by extension, the scientific method.
These children will be at an enormous disadvantage in fields that require correct application of the scientific method, because they will accept things as dogma, and will confuse dogma with science.
The evolution debate is just the classic example of this. You may feel you have a good handle on the limits of science and the limits of religion, but kids aren't learning about the evolution debate that way.
So you are saying that if a supernatural being existed that was capable of doing something to impact our universe, he would have to do it in some spectacular way that is directly obvious
You say spectacularly obvious, and I say observable. Advances in technology and our ability to model physics in computers allows us to "spy" on realms of the universe we couldn't even imagine a few generations ago. The wiggle room for a god to mess with us in a way we can't detect gets smaller and smaller with every advance.
To be honest, this sounds like the earlier argument: you can never rule out that gods are just being craftier than we are at trying to observe their actions, no matter how good we get at observing the universe. They're gods, right? We'll never be able to perfectly model the entire universe (the simulation would be larger than the universe itself, which obviously can't happen), so we'll never be able to rule this out.
Your strawman is bordering a false dichotomy. Burning witches and claiming the earth is flat is not something directly or even indirectly supported by scripture.
You're right, sorry.
But the scripture does say very specific things about the act of creation that are provably false. A few hundred years ago, most people would claim those things were factual. Today, those things are now considered allegories.
I'm calling bullshit. What science has prevailed against was early dogma or otherwise known as mans attempt to understand and explain the universe. ... it has addressed where man has taken figurative language as literal and shown it not to be practical or possible but it has never proved anything to be wrong in it.
I think you and I have different ideas about what it means to prove something wrong. If a group of people say X is true, and you demonstrate that X can't really be true, you've proved it wrong. The fact is that there are many stories in the Christian bible that were accepted as absolute truth just a few generations ago, and now they are commonly held to be allegories. The Christian bible is changing in the sense that what we accept and take from it is changing. For someone to say that it is an inviolate source of literal truth, except for the parts that w
Wow.. There are so many things wrong here it's funny. Kids are not binary switched that either presume A or B and are incapable of knowing A and B or C,D,E,F either. They in fact can possess and process both evolution and creation and can in fact separate them for their uses as needed. The only reason a child would say evolution is incorrect is when someone either told them that, or someone told them that it makes the bible incorrect. As I previously stated, all you have to do is say science uses this and finds it useful when doing science and there is no conflict at all. The answer is not to restrict one or the other but to actually place them as they are- science and religion.
How about another earlier argument, just because you don't know about it or it doesn't work the way you expect doesn't mean it doesn't exist, didn't exist, or never existed (remember the black sheep). By the lack of information or evidence, the best you can say is I see no evidence to support that claim from a scientific standpoint. There is a reason why you couldn't purchase a flat screen TV in 1920.. It's because out technology has not advanced far enough to make it possible at the time. However, that does not mean it could never be possible.
Actually, they are not provably false. What you seem to refuse to understand is that what you know and see today can be the direct result of a creation event in the past. The dating of the rocks, the universe, all that can be because of something happening with the creation. All you have is a provable and reliable alternatives to any creation story.
Given that intelligent design would fit any historical record, I'm rather disinclined to entertain it. If there is a third, I'd love to hear about it.
That's not a good reason to dismiss a valid explanation. If we were to assign probabilities - a 0.1% chance doesn't mean that it's automatically false - but can you honestly assign a low probability to intelligent design of universe + life?
Especially since evolution has the same "problem". It fits any historical record. No fossils? Hard to find and create. Fossils exist, but not in expected order? Catastrophe created a strange setup, or maybe it's time to rewrite the evolutionary timelines. Human history claiming creation? Fairy tales.
It's just the two, if you want to abstract it to that - random, or non-random. Random isn't a very good explanation at all, when we consider what is needed for life to continue its existence (let alone begin to exist!).
Further the distinction between 'information' and 'noise' in purely in the eye of the beholder.
The difference between a working system, and a non-working system is not at all subjective. For life to exist, you need the information that defines a working biological system to be maintained within a certain range. Introducing noise into the information of the design works against that.
Now, a certain part of information is arbitrary. There's no reason why "asdf" can't mean "cat". But in the context of English, asdf does not mean cat, it is noise. In the context of genetics and life (self replicating biological systems), there is plenty of noise, and not that much information. (Every genetic sequence that cannot be decoding into a viable lifeform is noise)
Your objection to evolution is more or less the statement that "information cannot be created". This is a false statement, and there is no evidence for it. There is plenty of evidence that information is created all the time, from genetic algorithms to the spontaneous appearance of complex carbohydrates in interstellar clouds.
Genetic algorithms are created by intelligences. Not a proof for random noise->information. A block of matter, such as carbohydrates, is not in of itself information. Contrast that pile of carboyhydrates to a bacterium - systems for movement, sensors, self-maintenance, replication, adaptatation. The bacterium is a system with parts. The pile of carbohydrates? It just exists, and maybe forms a neat looking crystalline structure if formed under certain conditions.
Is it not absurd to claim computers could be improved by random chance?
No, it is not absurd. If we had billions of years, and trillions of little reproducing computer components, and didn't much care what the resulting computer did, as long as it did something - then no. It's not absurd. It's just not very efficient.
Look how many "ifs" you used in that statement. Without those prerequisites, your honest answer to my question is "no".
Your point is basically this: a low probability event can happen if you throw enough chances at it.
Errr, yes, that's how probability works. But for something to be likely to happen, you must have *enough* chances relative to the probability. Evolution doesn't, because the target (life) is that difficult of a problem, requiring an extremely rare configuration amidst a vast lifeless solution space.
Which makes every accusation of "anti-science" from an evolutionary proponent all the more absurd. It's not about beliefs (conclusions), it's about process (repeatable proofs).
Anyways, since we seem to be wrapping up the discussion, thanks for the dialogue.
Your sorting paper is rather disappointing compared to what you said it did. To recap:
Show me the world's fastest sorting algorithm. I'll give you a hint it sorts 6 values using 5 comparisons. This was found using genetic algorithms.
... In this case, an algorithm for sorting that does not make any logical sense. But it works. So we start at randomness and create order. Very efficient order. And there;s the thing, since it does not make "sense", no "intelligent" designer would have designed it. It appears as random swaps. Generally you only orderly swap things if they are out of order.
Key claims - 6 item sorter, genetic algorithms used to dervive it. Algorithm does not make sense, so no intelligence would have designed it.
So what does your paper say? It's talking about sorting networks, which are "more efficient for sorting small numbers of items". It's only the "world's fastest" for a subset of sorting problems.
Next, the genetic algorithm studied in the paper was for sorting 7 items, not 6 items. The paper uses references from 1997, so it must have come after 1997; the paper points out that the results "has the same number of steps as the 7-sorter that was devised by Floyd and Knuth ... described in Knuth 1973". A solution derived by human intelligences 24 years prior was used to confirm the results of the genetic algorithm.
And one very key point to the genetic algorithm that confirms what I said with no knowledge of which paper you were referring to: "Before applying genetic programming to a problem, the user must perform six major prepatory steps ..." (p.3) - if you look at the six steps, you'll notice keywords such as identifying, creating, choosing, determining ... Heavy amounts of human intelligence must be invested in order to make a genetic algorithm applicable to the problem. This is not even close to being a proof of mindless mutation having creative power.
Tangentially, for the 6 sorter, wiki says nothing of genetic algorithms being used to find it, but does tell us that the optimal number of steps is 12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_network P.The trilobite link doesn't tell me anything useful. Some people attempt to explain away trilobites "staying the same" with an evolutionary perspective; that's not really science - no experiments can be devised to test the claims.
Actually, I did bait and switch on you, I couldn't find the paper I wanted, so I found a similar paper. Which is still a problem for you. It's a problem because evolution created the same thing as intelligent design did, which proves that evolution, witht he same process as biological (genes are just information), is capable of optimizing and creating complexity from randomness. That's all I needed to show to prove my point. This would also create a problem for you in that if evolution can create the structure, how intelligent does "intelligent" design have to be? It certainly lowers the bar a bit doesn't it?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
To argue about whether this idea is part of a mystical belief system is to miss the point. The point is that it either is or is not an historic fact. What religionists do, say, or believe is totally irrelevent.
Funny, because you claim the opposite, that it is atheism that is the important factor. When you acknowledge my points for the opposite, you again repeat your claim and say religion doesn't matter.
I think I misunderstood your point and made an unhelpful reply yesterday. Let me try again.
I believe my position is consistent. The fact that millions of persons with absurd religious beliefs believe in Creation does not make it false. Nor does the the fact that atheists believe in Evolution make it false.
However, what a person believes does affect how he views ambiguous evidence. When a person known for his public advocacy of atheism says that there is "overwhelming evidence for Evolution" we should ask whether that is really the opinion of a dispationate scientist.
Conversely, when a person (such as myself) who believes the Bible is a historical document claims that there is overwhelming evidence of creation, we should understand his conclusion in the context of his beliefs.
To accept the evidence which favours one's position and to label the contradictory evidence as "areas which will no doubt be clarified by new evidence and furthur research" is not a valid basis for telling others what they must believe. Nor is it how science is supposed to work.
[Note: I'm going to pull in quotes from your other post to keep this down to one reply.]
A particular scientist is an atheist. This causes him to reach the conclusion that Evolution explains the origin of specials.
You keep on repeating this, but it doesn't make it true. I argue instead that science reaches the conclusion of evolution, and it leads to atheism. That's true from my personal perspective, and that's also what history shows. Early scientists were religious, even greats like Isaac Newton. As science progressed, and especially with the science of evolution, religious belief among scientists went way down.
The reason is obvious, and you already agreed with the basic point: "Rational thinking and the scientific method dispels mysticism." Now the challenge for you is to prove the Bible isn't Hebrew mythology when looked at under a scientific and rational lens, as that is what drives a large percentage of creationist thinking, and is particularly true in your case.
The historical documents are contained in the Bible. There have been numberous arguments advanced to discredit it, but I find them about as convincing as conspiracy theories about the destruction of the World Trade Center. [..] If you cannot respect such a point of view, discussion is pointless.
Ridiculous. On the one hand you talk dismissively about fringe conspiracy theories, and on the other hand you ask for respect for your belief in ancient Hebrew mythology. Discussion is worthwhile if sincere arguments are being made. Respect for viewpoints doesn't have to be part of the picture.
Again, this is a question about which reasonable persons can disagree. Is the branching really due to common descent, or is it the inevitable result of any attempt to classify a large body of work? After all, we can classify computers in much the same way, but they don't even reproduce.
Why limit yourself to computers? We're talking about the tree of life, so to make an accurate comparison you should talk about all of technology, the basis for intelligent design. There you see mixing and matching everywhere. All kinds of devices contain clocks (cars, microwaves, coffee makers, cell phones, etc.), yet you wouldn't classify them as a tree that inherited the clock feature.
That's just one example, and there are countless other innovations like plastic, metals, semiconductors, integrated circuits, etc. I defy you to come up with a tree classification for technology that doesn't have a pervasive mixing and matching across branches unlike anything seen in the tree of life.
With the tree in doubt, it is hard to assert that features were not mixed and matched. In fact, I seem to recall that there are seeming examples of mixing and matching. These are cases where identical or highly similiar features seem to have evolved more than once. (There are of course theories to explain this this away. But, there always are.)
It's a matter of scope. Of course it's possible for something to be evolved multiple times, as a simple probability argument will tell you. Yet while you might find some examples, the tree isn't pervasive with them. Also, in some cases that naively suggest mixing and matching, we still find evidence for common descent, as in the whale.
Nor is the progression clear. First of all, there are aknowledged gaps. Entire careers are devoted to trying to figure out why the intermediate forms 'didn't find their way into the fossile record'. Second, trees derived from the fossile record often fail to match trees derived from genetic analysis.
I'll grant you it's an uncertain science, and there are bound to be misclassifications, yet the overall structure is there. Also, while creationists will harp on gaps, history has shown that they are continually filled in as more discoveries are made in the fossil record.
We are talking about the fact th
The two can coexist even when they contradict and children are completely capable of doing it. Your problem seems to be that you do not want them to know their religion.
The two concepts can coexist, for some definition of coexist.
For children to be successful in a field that requires the correct application of logic, reason, or even the scientific method, they must trust logic, reason and possibly the scientific method. When you teach them that logic and reason sometimes "don't work" because they lead you to conclusions that disagree with a religion's holy book, the child grows up believing in logical fallacies (most importantly, appeal to authority and appeal to majority), and their education (and future ability to succeed in one of these roles) is impacted negatively.
Do you disagree with this, or just that it's appropriate for someone to point it out as something we should stop doing?
Actually, I did bait and switch on you, I couldn't find the paper I wanted, so I found a similar paper. Which is still a problem for you. It's a problem because evolution created the same thing as intelligent design did, which proves that evolution, witht he same process as biological (genes are just information), is capable of optimizing and creating complexity from randomness. That's all I needed to show to prove my point. This would also create a problem for you in that if evolution can create the structure, how intelligent does "intelligent" design have to be? It certainly lowers the bar a bit doesn't it?
The paper you wanted to cite does not exist, because the optimal number of steps for a 6-sorter is 12, not 5 as you claimed. Additionally, since the sorting network has an optimal solution, it is nonsensical to claim that any optimal sorting network found is "illogical" and wouldn't have been designed by an intelligence. The intelligence looking for an optimal solution would have found it (by brute force computing if need be), proven it was optimal, and would have every logical reason to retain the solution for future reference.
As for the "problem" your genetic algorithm created for me - did you even read the paper? 6 major preparatory steps - your genetic algorithm is an intelligently designed system that does a clever search through randomized parameters, using a process optimized for the computing hardware it ran on. Evolution has to start from scratch. Not even close. "No fair, that's abiogenesis!", you might say. Then take an abacus and evolve it into a Core i7. No pathway, you say? Same problem for evolution - even if you get to cheat and start with a "simple" bacterium.
Yes, a random search might find the "right answer" (optimal sorting network). But then you have to pay attention to the probabilities - what is the solution space, and what is the chance of stumbling upon correct solutions? What is the chance of stumbling upon a good solution, and from there making continuous incremental improvements to yield an optimal solution? Are the solutions continuous? Evolution claims them to be so, but has not proven it. Evolution has not really addressed any of these questions, but proponents love to mis-cite the existence of genetic algorithms as if it bypasses all of these problems.
Why might you ask? Well, since pretty much every (state and federal) government for the last 50 years has put in policies that claim to promote in education the mythical high paying science/engineering pathway. In reality such programs have been consistently cut or left to exist as a hodge podge of disparate islands clinging on hoping they can maintain some sort of funding to survive another year.
Saying you value something and then vanishing the money and support for it is the norm. Nye is dreaming if he thinks Democrats or Republicans and for that matter the American people care about stuff from the land of STEM.
Why do you not pay attention? Is it because it doesn't agree with what you want to believe or something? That does not need to happen as I already stated that the current Scientific understanding can easily be the direct result of creation and science can not prove it wrong because it is untestable. Does that upset you or something insomuch that you cannot recognize it? Here, let me put it in other words, the child will think science is there because God wants him to use it and take advantage of. There will be no "sometimes logic" or "sometimes reason", it will be pressing the A and B button on one game controller and the right shift and space bar on the computer to play the same damn games and figure out the same damn puzzles.
If the child extends the logic and reason to their religion, they might enter your holy grail of atheism and decide religion isn't real, they might not. They might enter it without ever applying logic or reason and insist that things can only be one way to be all rosy or if there is another way it will somehow rape your computer, kick your wife and steal you dog from you.
This entire controversy between science and religion is purely manufactured by people who have grudges against each other over religious beliefs. You certainly seem to fail the reason test that you proclaim to be the high and mighty- at least in your dealings with me on the topic. But let me reiterate, religion and science can easily coexist.
They actually admitted in the emails that they tried to Jew out the people requesting the data by deleting it, discussed the illegality of deleting it, and deleted it anyway, despite it being illegal, in order to thwart possible criticism of eir shoddy research.
It's pretty clear that you haven't got a fucking clue about Climategate. It's almost unbearable to read your ill-informed posts on the matter. But, go ahead and trust them - they are your new god. Have faith in them.
Why do you not pay attention?
You're not answering my question, and I feel like I'm talking to a wall that responds with ad hominems.
You seem to think that kids can grow up safely isolating their "sciency" sides from their "religious" sides. I don't feel the two are so easily separated. A parent can't teach their child to think critically while simultaneously smacking them on the head when they think critically about their religion. The child isn't going to learn to trust in reason when you have a minder following up and saying, "Good job thinking rationally. Unfortunately you're wrong because a bunch of people believe something different, and they are many and you are one, so you must be the one that's wrong. Also, please don't look up 'appeal to majority' or 'appeal to authority' on the Internet." The child will be less effective trying to understand the world around him if he's been raised to accept "God did it" as an acceptable and satisfying conclusion for anything he doesn't understand. The child will be less successful in a research role, where the strictest application of logic and reason is needed, if he doesn't trust that logic and reason will work, because it's clearly wrong for things that his religion teaches him.
Note that I never said the child will be ineffective, or will fail completely, just that this belief system will undermine his education.
There are really two ways I think to fully reconcile a belief in both science and religion. Either someone must redefine logic and reason so as to accept religion as a rational belief, or they accept that their religions beliefs are irrational. Nobody has to stop believing something, just because it's irrational, but this delusion that a religious mythology (again, at the exclusion of all other religions) must be correct, for logical reasons that have been considered critically, suggests to me that logic, reason, and critical thinking mean something very different to this person than it does to me. And how can you have a meaningful conversation about something if you can't even agree on what it is that you're talking about?
If you agree that a religious belief is irrational, the rest of the discussion falls into place: If faith in the irrational in any way compromises faith in the rational, teaching the irrational is at the expense of the rational, and in a world where performance of the rational is more important to success and progress, this child will be less successful.
Your question has been repeatedly answered all through this thread. Just because you do not like the answer does not mean you get to ignore it in favor of waiting until you get one what you want to see.
Here is your problem. A parent does not teach a child to discover everything the parent thinks they should know. Can you imagine how insanely stupid it would be for a parent to say what happens when you touch that hot stove instead of don't touch that, it is hot and will hurt you? Can you imagine a parent saying cross the street to see what happens and hope they use logic and reason to discover the importance of looking both ways before a they jot out in front of a car and get killed? No, they tell them not to play in the street and they tell them to look both ways. Parents tell children the story of the boogerman and other tales to make them afraid to venture off without them at night when everyone is asleep. Should the parents just say ignore that and see what happens when their child runs out and joins crack alley while mom tries to get some sleep?
Children need to learn facts and behavior. Teaching them religion is not in any way detrimental to thinking critically or logic and reason. This concept you keep insisting is nothing but a fabrication that exists in your mind because of your disdain for religion.
Not any more then memorizing the 50 states or the capitol of those states will. Not any more then reading comic books or playing fictional games will. Are you suggesting they do not do that either? I happen to know that some of the smartest geeks and scientists, probably the very same ones you aspire to, were heavily invested in video games that did not follow your version of scientific reality or comic books. They probably do more harm to critical thinking then any religion could do because they actually expect you to work through puzzles and anticipate what comes next without following the laws of nature. Religion basically says, this is what happened and this is why we worship. It is literally memorizing states and capitols compared to comics and video games.
No!! there is not only two ways. Please start using this logic and reasoning, this critical thinking you keep claiming is so important.
Please stop putting your religious (or bigoted to be more accurate) beliefs in front of logic and reason. You are worse then a jehovas witness with this shit.
Or you are really bad at your jobs and just rationalize what you do, like this unprovable supernatural thing in the sky you worship.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"A belief in god does not have to make you stupid. "
But it does, unless you believe out of fear of living without someone to help you in the afterlife.
"There are radicals on BOTH sides of the issue and they (i.e. YOU) are the problem."
Nonsense. Religion is the problem for the planet.
But don't you worry, there are so many scared people on the planet that religion will probably win.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"I will teach my kids whatever I want to teach them."
And that is the problem. Just because you are able to have offspring (which all animals are) doesn't mean you are a good teacher.
Most wars and death and destruction came about because the children were indoctrinated by their parents and then grew up with those beliefs.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
A canny reader might have noticed that Leviticus is just absolutely full to the brim with sins, and a canny observer of human behavior might surmise that virtually no one can live their whole lives without indulging in at least a couple of the Big 7 (envy, lust, wrath, greed, sloth, gluttony, pride)... especially since the sin in each of those is simply experiencing the thought or emotion. If you're ever been upset because someone else ate the last scallop wrapped in bacon, you've committed at least four to five sins right there.
Beyond that, the Original Sin was a willful violation of God's instruction. The details are illustrative, but hardly necessary for the message to resonate. Evolution, in any event, does nothing to contradict that part of Genesis... it posits that Eve was not likely made from Adam's rib, but has very little to say regarding whether or not she ate an apple.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Here is your problem. A parent does not teach a child to discover everything the parent thinks they should know. Can you imagine how insanely stupid it would be for a parent to say what happens when you touch that hot stove instead of don't touch that, it is hot and will hurt you?
That's interesting, and I think this highlights a fundamental difference between us that might explain why communicating is so difficult.
I actually believe strongly that you should teach the child this way. You shouldn't actually allow your child to get burned, but if you let them touch the stove before it's actually dangerous, or quickly enough that they can feel the heat without getting burned, they'll learn much better than if you just tell them not to do something.
Teaching a child to simply accept what you tell them, without allowing the child to understand why, through their own curiosity, experimentation, and their own thought processes, creates a child that is dependent upon other people telling them what's true. And that's how they'll live the rest of their life. No curiosity, and no ability to actually reason through what they're experiencing and draw their own conclusions, because they never learned to do it.
Children need to learn facts and behavior. Teaching them religion is not in any way detrimental to thinking critically or logic and reason.
It is when you tell them not to think critically or apply logic and reason to the things you're teaching them. Telling a child to accept something simply because you've told them it's true actually precludes critical thinking, right?
However, I totally accept that it is possible to teach a child about a religion's creation stories, provided the storytelling doesn't come with any "you must accept this as literal truth without questioning it" baggage. Children should learn to question things. That's really the crux of the issue, isn't it? You can tell them the creation stories, just like you can tell them the facts that underpin evolutionary theory. Teach them never to accept things blindly, whether the ideas come from religion or science. Teach them to think, not simply accept.
Everything in religion that conflicts with science can be rationally explained as God created all of science
This is irrational when you consider that:
1. Other religions proclaim things in direct contradiction to each other, and your own religion. Since the same argument could be applied to every religion, that means each religion's claims about creation are equally rational and (presumably) all equally on the same footing as scientific consensus. With no rational differentiation between them, adherence to one at the exclusion of all others is inherently irrational.
2. I could just make shit up that meets your requirements. I can claim that we are all elements of the imagination of a giant space lizard. This magic space lizard just made the entire universe to look like what it is, invented science and Al Gore. We can't see the lizard or test that he exists because he's outside our universe, thinking all of this up. You can't prove he doesn't exist, therefore I am rational believing he does.
"But I have this book!" is an argument rooted firmly in a logical fallacy. By definition, logical fallacies cannot contribute to a rational argument.
All your objections claimed to date can be rationally explained away and it is your own irrational thoughts clinging onto your insistence that you are somehow right and everyone else is wrong.
Here is where I think we really do just disagree on what it means to be rational. Naturally we aren't going to come to any sort of agreement if we don't agree on the thing we're even talking about.
You are worse then a jehovas witness with this shit.
...and, this will be my last response.
That would be foolish. Even if we ignore all the dangers out there that could simply kill the child, if it takes them 20 years to discover that 2+2=4 or 2*2+4 some other bit of knowledge, they could easily be way more retarded in their mental development then any understanding of any religious theory could possibly lead to under your insistence that they are incapable of segregating it from other things such as science. Instead, you impart what they need to know to be safe, you impart what they need to know to learn, and when they are capable of figuring it out on their own, they will do so. It does not make anyone independent on someone else to tell them everything the rest of their life unless there is a mental issue preventing them from learning which would negate your concept anyways,.
It is not more irrational then saying Usian Bolt runs faster then you do. It is no more irrational then pluto being a planet for 50+ years then all the sudden there being only 8 planets in the solar system,.
I think you are forgetting that before there is scientific consensus there is hypothesis and testing that can be incorrect. If you expect everyone not to understand or believe something is true before there is a consensus, then all scientific advancement will stop at the point of consensus and never move forward again. But you are also forgetting a very simple example that is very logical, if the answer is 4, is it because 2+2 was the question or was it because 2*2 was the question or was it because 2n-2 where n=3 was the question. We already have fields of study that posit multiple ways of achieving the same answers and expect the child to competently learn and understand the differences. They are even expected to segregate the usage depending on the situation and environment. Your contention is completely over blown and lacks reason.
And how is that any different then a child ready or watching a Harry Potter book/movie then getting on the computer and using the knowledge learned to play and complete a game? Quite a bit if the people w