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Why Are Some Hell-Bent On Teaching Intelligent Design?
Funksaw writes "Here's an op-ed by first-time politician, long-time Slashdotter Brian Boyko, where he talks about his experiences testifying at the Texas Board of Education in favor of having real science in science textbooks. But beyond that, he also tries to examine, philosophically, why there is such hardened resistance to the idea of evolution in Texas. From the article: '[W]hat is true is that evolution tests faith. The fact of evolution is incontrovertible and supported by mounds of empirical evidence. Faith, on the other hand, is fragile. It is supported only by the strength of human will. And this is where it gets tricky. Because to many believers, faith, not works, is the only guarantee that one can pass God's litmus test and gain access to His divine kingdom. To lose one's faith is to literally damn oneself. So tests to that faith must be avoided at all costs. Better to be a philosophical coward than a theological failure.'"
As scientific knowledge advances, god shrinks.
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I don't know the real answer to a problem, so I'll just make something up and claim it solves it.
Da derp dee derp da teedly derpee derpee dum. Rated PG-13.
Check out Bob Altemeyer's - 'The Authoritarians' and his chapter about religious fundamentalist. It explains quite a bit about this strange ID movement - (and it is based on experiments and only theories) :
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
If God did create us, how bad an engineer do you have to be to put a sewage outlet right in the middle of a recreational area?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
The argument seems to go as follows:
If evolution is true, then Genesis is false
If Genesis is fals ethen the whole of the Bible is called into question.
If the Bible is called into question then it is no basis for morality.
If the Bible is no basis for morality then the ten commandments are invalid.
Therefore if evlution is true, there's no prohibition on murder.
Clearly we could play a game of spot the logical fallacy but this seems to be the issue creationists have with evolution.
Fundamentalist Christians. Seriously, this is not in need of a deep philosophical examination. Those that follow stone age mysticism get upset when science threatens & exposes their religious insecurities. When there's a lot of them, they will use legal means to enforce their superstitions. Like Texas.
Ummm... the way TFT(itle) is worded throws some gas over fire.
How's that for a believer: "If you believe in Inteligent Design, then you are bent by hell"?
How this way of framing the topic helps a civilized tone for a discussion?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
... it pretty much removes God from the whole picture. His place is then relegated to the creation of life in it's absolutely fundamental form, where evolution takes over. Personally, I think that abiogenesis is the better rational explanation. The people who want intelligent design (or, let's call it by name: "creationism") have a problem with God of the gaps, so they desperately try to cling to a gap that has been filled a long time ago. The remaining gaps (like the actual "first life" and the "big bang") seem too insignificant for their great Skydaddy's glory.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Hell and theists in the same context. Oh the pun...
If "God created everything in a week" was accurate and provable, then it would be knowledge. Fine, heaven might have an entrance quiz, but regurgitating facts isn't an exhibition of faith.
If there's nothing to test the view that you hold, it's simply not faith.
There should be more evolution taught to enhance the levels of faith that Christians can hold. Surely learning about evolution, picking up a PhD, topping it with a Nobel prize for presenting categoric evidence for evolution, chucking in the missing link, and proving Monkeys evolved from humans - and then turning around to say you never actually believed any of it. Surely that's got to get you high "faith marks".
People teach intelligent design because people want to learn it.
Pandering.
It also doesn't help that the scientific community uses the word "theory". The typical religious person thinks this means their view is just as valid. It also means every argument about evolution starts with "It's just a theory right? I just want my theory to be taught as well..." (which makes me start to twitch with the urge to slap these people and scream at them).
We need to retire the use of the phrase "theory" when used in the context of a scientific theory. Terminology needs to change and evolve to combat the fact that the mainstream interpretation of the word "theory" flies directly in the face what the scientific community wishes to convey.
Science for science's sake is pointless unless it can be communicated to others after learning something. Choosing and adapting terminology can seem silly and trivial when faced with what the subject matter is about, but can be just as important in combating ignorance.
That's the creationist side as seen by someone on the side of science, but it is not at all how the creationists view themselves. They aren't afraid of their faith being tested, because they believe their arguments are unbeatable and their faith secure - though they may worry about their children being lead astray.
The key to understanding creationists is to realise that it isn't about creationism itsself. They have, as they would proudly call it, a 'God-centered worldview.' Everything comes down in some manner to their religious beliefs. Not just creationism, but their moral and political views, their attachment to national identity, their community, and their general vision of how things 'should be' in the world. They view Christianity not just as another religion among many, but as a defining aspect of western civilisation and that element which makes it great and has brought such prosperity through the ages.
They also believe that Christianity and morality are one and the same. God is the standard of morality, the definition, and the source. Only Christians, as followers of the true God, know how to be moral people. Others might perform a reasonable immitation by following some social norms, but they are just denying that Christianity is their source. This is why they insist upon placing the ten commandments on public buildings: For them, 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' is the very reason murder is illegal: Had God not proclaimed that, and the faithful not kept it, then there would be no way for people to realise murder is an immoral act. Likewise for the theft thing.
So that which threatens the doctrine of creation is far more concerning than a scientific debate: It is nothing less than an existential threat to civilisation itsself. Their concern is that if the population in general lose belief in the bible as inerrant - not belief in Christianity in general, but belief in the rock-solid beyond-debate 'truth' of the bible - then they will lose all spiritual direction. The bible will become fuzzy, a document where people can dismiss bits they don't like (The irony of this is quite lost on them as they happily tuck into their pork sausages). Before you know it, homosexuality will be accepted, prayer will be illegal, everyone will be having casual sex and marriage will be a thing of the past. Then people will start worshiping pagan idols, gangs of violent atheists will start roaming the streets killing people for fun, and eventually God will abandon the country and send the communists to take over and punish everyone.
That's why they are so insistant. They believe the bible is the foundation for America and western civilisation in general. Take away the foundation, and the whole structure collapses. Creationism and patriotism are intertwined, almost inseperable.
Derren Brown did a TV special on religion as an exponent of the placebo effect. This video is, in my opinion, one of the best smackdowns on religion that I have seen. Aside from demonstrating how to brainwash an athiest into having religious belief using neuro-linguistic programming along with auditory and spatial anchors, he mentioned that religious belief was not necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ust-pJC-9j8
This is why, I think, that just about any kind of religious belief, or any crazy meme for that matter, if dressed up correctly can induce the Placebo Effect (yes, even Scientology).
Hanging on to faith, in absence of evidence, is the only thing that can keep the placebo effect going... but the truth is that religion need not be the placebo!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
or be both, which these Texans seem to be.
If god exists, then he does, end of. Therefore what is there to fear from facts?
I therefore strongly suspect those objecting to teaching evolution don't believe in god at all, really. They have another agenda.
Given that Boyko is so intent on the value of evidence to support theories, it might be nice if he had just a teensy bit of of evidence to support his claims about how Texans think. Evidence matters. Unless you're navel-gazing to invent straw men and pet "how they really think" theories about religious Texans, of course, in which case Slashdot'll vote up any old tosh you come up with.
I grew up in Texas and have lived here all of my life. The resistance to evolution can be summed up in one sentence:
"You can't tell me what to fuckin' believe!"
If some long haired city boy told them their face was on fire the'd refuse to believe it, basically.
Thats Correct! But What is it?
You cannot teach religion in school.
Not every religion believes in creationism, nor in intelligent design. Both are mainly espoused by only 4 religions.
All scientists believe in evolution. The facts are there to present in unbiased form.
Now, given how most parents seem to feel about education in schools, AND how they feel about their own religion, perhaps it is best not to teach creationism or ID in schools, but to let the parents tell their kids about their religion, take them to their pastors and preachers and ministers and rabbi, and what have you and let them explain it.
But make no mistake. It is teaching religion in schools to try and teach ID or Creationism. Flat out. Try to pass it and your federal bucks go bye bye.
Why are we even having this conversation?
I have read accounts like this of how Christian consider faith many times from New Atheist sources. From them, I have come to the conclusion that most "new atheists" never read outside of their own circles, and avoid reading primary sources like the plague. Mr. Boyko's account of how Christians consider faith, and the relationship between faith and works is a vast distance from any account of faith I have ever heard from any Christians, or read in any Christian book. I say that as someone who has been a church-planter, pastor, missionary and writer.
The basic conception of faith as essentially a leap in the dark, which is the more virtuous the more dark it is, is found pretty much exclusively in the canons of New Atheist writings. It's like Mr. Boyko is stuck in some enormous echo chamber. Since everyone who is rational, like himself, says that this is what the Christian teaching about faith is, therefore it is. It wouldn't be hard, though, if Mr. Boyko is truly interested in critical thought, to read some basic Christian literature, at any level, on these questions. But that might challenge his own prejudices, and lead him to question why the people in the echo chamber are so ill-informed about the things they critique so stridently.
David Anderson
this is as one-sided as you claim the other side is.. It (should be) embarrassing to see science hubris, and being as dismissive and shallow as the other side is supposed to be.. The dog-pile of anti-religion is just as onerous or more, than non-science, IMO, when arrogance and lack of empathy are combined.. The practice of science does not make one wise. Science is not the only story. Science does not have all of the answers.
Biblical creationists believe that evolution undermines the idea of divine creation, specifically the idea that man is created in God's image. This is a very important belief for them. Without it, their world crumbles.
When you present them with facts and evidence supporting evolution, they're not dispassionately evaluating the evidence, but desperately trying to avoid confronting it, to the point of profound intellectual dishonesty.
They are what used to be called neurotic, irrational and disturbed in one specific area or about one specific thing, but otherwise relatively functional human beings, able to work, raise families, etc, etc.
The answer to the question of why Biblical Creationists are like this is the same as the answer to the question of why some people are holocaust deniers, or Marxists, or followers of any other ideology or belief that is in obvious defiance of objective reality. They have invested their sense of self into this belief, and they cannot abandon that belief without sacrificing their sense of self along with it.
So they hold on to that belief, no matter what.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
If you are a philosophical coward and refuse to participate or even argue your position based on evidence based science in a open marketplace of ideas and instead unfairly suppress all other viewpoints, which includes intelligent and unintelligent causes for the universe, then you are well on your way to being some kind of tyrannical thought police, at the very least.
But the basic point of being salvation from faith, and not human will (see what I did there?) is correct. Basically Ill take God over Dawkins any day.
How does one teach Intelligent Design? "Here we have this thing that we thought shows signs of irreducible complexity although this claim was later teared apart by this and that." What else?
or be both, which these Texans seem to be.
If god exists, then he does, end of. Therefore what is there to fear from facts?
I therefore strongly suspect those objecting to teaching evolution don't believe in god at all, really. They have another agenda.
I think you are misunderstanding their motivation. Their motivation is not to prove/disprove the existence of God in any rigorous way, but to go to heaven. The Christian belief system says that the only way to do that is through faith, which in modern times is interpreted as belief. This means that it is best for them (and their children) to avoid any attempt at rigorous proof if it could end up with them seeing the alternative as a viable possibility. To them this is losing faith, which their god will punish with eternal torture. (OK for Christian pedants their god will allow them to be eternally tortured by someone else despite having the power to stop it).
In the end, it all boils down to this basic issue:
Fear of Death
So people will do everything they can to maximize their chances against it. And if it means believing in something against all odds, and the greater the odds, the greater your belief, the greater your chances, then so be it.
There's nothing more to it.
(Speaking as a Bible believing Christian)
You're ignoring the fundamental problem with Genesis 1 (and thus, creation: including animals). If Man did not exist yet, who was observing the creation? How did man come to know about it?
The obvious theological answer was that God and/or angels told someone about it between Adam and Moses (inclusive). The problem with many of Gods (OT) explanations is that they tend to be in dreams and visions, which aren't usually literal. If it was angels, then surely we got the simplified version. "Ooh, ooh! Tell me again about the divergence of Lorises and Pottos!" "Sigh. Listen, kid, he just made them, OK?"
All this arguing over evolution is silly. Faith does not need it, but that doesn't mean that it outright contradicts faith.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
The reason there are lots of politicians hell-bent on teaching Intelligent Design is really very similar to the reason the muslim world is currently the most fundamentalist on the planet: there is a perverse incentive in re-enforcing religious dogma. We will take Texas first because its easier, and for the most part, more familiar. Currently in large swaths of Texas "religious" is conflated with "good" and "moral". Therefore, anyone who wants power has to present themselves as being Christian, and thus "good" and "moral". Of course if you claim you are Gods warrior, anything you do in His name is justified, and thus you can plunder and steal as much as you want. Provided of course you are still rabidly defending "God". However if you start to weaken peoples fervent religious devotion and encourage them to think for themselves, well then they probably are a bit more likely to call you out for having your hand in the cookie jar, no matter how holy you claim to be.
The situation is very similar in the Islamic world as well, with the huge amount of oil money coming in perhaps even exacerbating it. A lot of people(chief among them hardcore Christians) point to Quranic verses etc as proof that Islam is unable to modernize, but in reality, with one important exception(which I will get to later), the rules between the Abrahamic religions are very similar. The only difference is that modern Muslims actually adhere to them, whereas very few Christians actually follow the bible with any sort of rigor.
The obvious question of course then is why? If the religions are fundamentally the same, why the discrepancy in how closely modern believers follow the rules? The answer again lies in perverse incentives. The fact that the industrial revolution was born in Europe gave Muslim leaders and interesting case study, what happens to religious leaders when society "modernizes"? The answer is that in most of the Western world(with the rural US pretty much being the only real exception) religious leaders went from the top of the social pyramid to near the bottom in a very short period of time. Muslim leaders like being at the top of the pyramid, especially since the aforementioned difference between the religions, the acceptance of polygamy by most Islamic societies, mean that being at the bottom of the social period means that you will have very few chances to get married(and in conservative societies, that often translates to very few opportunities to have sex). So you better believe that they will resist social modernization as much as possible.
Long story short, if someone is vilifying science and praising religion, they are doing it solely for the sake of their own pocket book(and perhaps marital bed)
Monstar L
If your faith cant stand a test. It wasn't very strong.
I still can't believe we don't treat religion as a mental illness. You go around tellin everyone an invisible guy watches you all the time and tells you what to do.... They lock you up. You call that invisible guy god... And that's just a ok fine. Here have some tax exempt status.
Religion is one of the major things holding back the human race. The faster we wise up the better.
As someone who views herself as a fundamental christian (and at one time parroted the creationism agenda), let me state that if God did choose to create via evolution, great! (When studying genetic algorithms way back, I imagined a sufficiently advanced "candidate solution" (read: self-aware, thinking, communicating) belittling another for believing in a "Programmer".) There are a few issues with creationist's explanation of Genesis that gloss over some obvious points in the text. There are also some problems with evolutionist's view of the evolution of homo sapiens, which may better be explained by the roughly 6000 years timespan given for the existence of Adam. (However, these issues themselves have a bearing on both traditional christian and contemporary political dogma, which explains why discussing them in a religious context would be avoided.)
My view of the typical american evangelical movement and it's copious output of media, is that it's largely a money-making business, where control over the consumers increases profits. It's often a materialistic theology, far removed from the spiritual. Unfortunately on the other hand there are some vocal scientists too with an anti-religious agenda, that is not really born out by science, only by sophistry.
Religion and science do not stand in opposition to each other, nor should one "find some balance/tradeoff" between the two. Both the study of creation (science) and the study of the Creator (religion) should be taken to it's fullest - only then can one arrive at the same answer for both.
Although supported by a lot of empirical evidence, evolution is still far from being incontrovertible. In the strict sense I consider calling it a fact to be a fallacy. I respect people who believe evolution to be likely truth, but calling it an incontrovertible fact is often just a zealous logical fallacy to excuse oneself for not looking well into the subject matter. Just as "no God" is a good excuse for he free will to do sin.
What bothers me most, is that the arguments around evolution are no longer a real argument, but more like some people are trying to force their way of thinking onto others by unethically using such fallacies. This would not be a problem if fanatical intolerance (and also persecution) against persons disagreeing with their views would not ensue. But, of course, both sides of the argument are prone to such sins...
Do you feel the same way about, say, the theory of gravity?
We know more about how evolution works, than we know about how gravity works. How? Evolution is observable, gravity is invisible. And figuring out gravity is pretty hard, as it's a weak force, yet works over huge distances. Evolution, on the other hand, is simply the sum of two simple concepts: That children inherit some of each parent's traits without being true clones of their parents, plus survival of the fittest. Yet, we hear again and again how religious people refuse to acknowledge evolution, without ever arguing against either half.
Only if you stretch the word "faith" so far that it becomes meaningless. I have faith that 2+2=4, I believe it's true, but by your reasoning I cannot say that it's a fact because it is possible that I and everyone else simply have a brain aneurism every time we look at that equation and that's the only reason why we do not realize that it is wrong. There is the slightest opening for doubt about 2+2=4 if you really want to insist on it, so it's faith to make the jump past those reasons for doubt. In the rest of the world, that's now how we use the word faith. It's not even how religious people usually use the word faith, so I don't even know where you are coming from.
To the non-religious, "faith" is seen as "the choice to believe without evidence". To the religious, "faith" is seen as "trusting in God's goodness" (as opposed to God being a dick) - because religious people tend not to even worry about whether their god exists or not, so they have no use for concepts related to evidence about whether or not he exists. You appear to be a religious person using a non-religious definition of faith, which is somewhat bizarre.
> "To lose one's faith is to literally damn oneself."
That is a memeplex defense mechanism. Adopt a meme into a larger group of memes that to even question anything in the group will lead to failure, and that contrary evidence, no matter how well-proven, is the work of a sinister agent actively attempting to deceive you.
The scientific validity is thus irrelevant when it is fraudulent; e'en honest scientists are being deceived.
These things, by the way, are rampant in political narratives on the left as well as the right.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Electrons move around a nuclei the same way planets move around suns
If you believe that you'll believe anything. This model of atomic structure hasn't been valid for almost a century. If you're going to talk about science, at least try to keep up with it.
A false faith is fragile, but some will cling to it as if their lives depend upon it rather than moving on towards the unknown where a proper faith is to be found. My gripe with 'evolution' is not the principle, but the take that many biologists put upon it. The idea that evolution is something to do with biology rather than the necessary effect of feedback in a closed system (and as such follows from basic mathematical and physical principles that take effect way below the level of biological life). Proper faith is founded on a kind of intuitive abstract truth that can't be captured with simple logic, yet just like well tested physical principles, doesn't give way no matter what you throw at it. Proper spiritual faith looks like the faith a physicist has in the maths and physics that underlies their understanding of reality. The problem is that religions are generally propagated from proper teachings by masses who don't properly understand those teachings (like 'cargo cult science' whereby the superficial surface details are copied, known experiments are reproduced, but real progress doesn't happen because genuine understanding is lacking). For Christians, the gospel accounts should be sufficient to show that those who followed Jesus didn't really understand his teachings while Jesus was alive, hence one would expect the teachings of the church that followed to be less than exact when it came to continuing what the original Jesus taught. Words like 'inspiration' and 'holy spirit' and 'divine guidance' get bandied around as excuses for not seeing this, but really people should get past such thinking by their early teens. The problems like this that arose in the early church and persist to this day, however, are general problems due to human nature, and are beginning to happen with the understanding that modern science is giving to the world (in the sense that experts in one area tend to have a blind faith as to the correctness of other areas, and some do not even know their own area despite working in it). I could go on, but really there is nothing to say on the matter than has not already been said countless times, and ignored countless times.
John_Chalisque
> Electrons move around a nuclei the same way planets move around suns
Not even remotely. This idea was proposed back when humans had no understanding of subatomic behavior, and they were drawing assumptions based things they did know, like the solar system. If you want to actually know how electrons and nuclei behave, try to wrap your mind around quantum mechanics. It's almost impossible as it bears little resemblance to anything else you might be familiar with.
It's an interesting example, though, because it illustrates how whenever humans don't know what they're talking about, they fill in the gaps with things that are familiar. Like chariots carrying fire through the sky and an anthropomorphic God creating the universe.
From there your comment just goes further off the rails. Nobody thinks they're "smarter than everyone else". But observation and reason let us learn about the world, and we've learned over and over that mankind's notion of God is always several steps behind our observational understanding. Everything that has improved in the past two centuries has been at the hands of man. We're slowly figuring out ways to improve our lot in life. God's word was around for thousands of years before the enlightenment and didn't improve anything.
The universe is amazing, and every facet fills me with awe. But that doesn't mean there needs to be a personality behind it. I can take it for what it is without having to project my ideas of meaning onto it.
From the article: '[W]hat is true is that evolution tests faith. The fact of evolution is incontrovertible and supported by mounds of empirical evidence.
1. It is not a fact that human beings evolved from primordial goo. That would be an unsubstantiated assertion based on an extreme extrapolation of limited evidence of small-scale phenomena.
2. Therefore, "evolution" only tests misguided faith. In fact, even the idea that humans evolved from goo is not ultimately incompatible with faith in God or in intelligent design. This is because the point of ID/Creationism is not how God created, but that God created.
The idea that the Creation stories in Genesis are meant to literally describe how God created is another matter entirely, and it is the blind insistence upon this presupposition that results in so much hot air being expelled on both sides of the issue.
Faith, on the other hand, is fragile. It is supported only by the strength of human will. And this is where it gets tricky. Because to many believers, faith, not works, is the only guarantee that one can pass God's litmus test and gain access to His divine kingdom. To lose one's faith is to literally damn oneself.
That's because that's what Christ said. "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." Mk 16:16
So tests to that faith must be avoided at all costs. Better to be a philosophical coward than a theological failure.
Many people's faith is, sadly, based on fragile ideas like Creation stories being literal, or every word written in the Bible being intended literally. To those people, their faith would be quite jeopardized by atheists yelling loudly that there is no God, that the Bible is wrong, that we evolved from goo, etc.
Other people's faith may be based on rational thinking, such as the ideas that the universe or living beings are too complex to have happened randomly, or that the evidence of Christ's resurrection is strong. Such faith can handle Creation stories not necessarily being literal, and the idea of evolution, and the idea of the Bible being inspired by God yet composed by humans and therefore not literally perfect (or always literal).
It is a popular--and recent--misconception that faith and reasoning are incompatible. Many, if not most, of the great minds of the ages were believers in God or in other forms of religion. The idea that religious people are necessarily irrational fools is simply a lie; there are plenty of both religious and atheistic people who are irrational fools.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Why Are Some Hell-Bent On Teaching Intelligent Design?
Well, as you say, they are Hell-Bent. If you truly believe in God as the ultimate Truth, then you don't try to twist facts to fit your superstitions - because everything we can learn about the reality He has created will give us a greter understanding of Him.
The Bible, on the other hand, is just a collection of stories, told and retold by people to people and interpreted by people. How can it be anything but imperfect? Even if everything was directly inspired by God, it still had to be put into words of an imperfect language with a limited set of concepts. A person who really trusts God must by necessity see the Bible imperfect, even based on these simple considerations. Yes, it has its good points, and the stories about Jesus are inspirational, certainly; but to an open minded person, so is Harry Potter, to pick something at random.
So, the reason why some people chose to believe in the Bible rather than God, and try to twist reality to fit into a story about how the God of the Bible created everything in 7 days, must be because they are "Hell-Bent": they have bowed down to evil. What we call evil is so often about refusing to accept the plain truth in front of our eyes and the consequences of that refusal.
Anyway, that is my opinion, polished up and sprinkled with religion. Take the religion away and it is still true.
Intelligent Design isn't Young Earth Creationism. It's more sane than that. It's about pointing at gaps in naturalistic explanations. There's nothing wrong with pointing to gaps. That's what science is all about.
And there's nothing wrong with suggesting God as one candidate theory to explain a gap. All theories are allowed. Science can't work with untestable theories, but unfortunately that's not the same as proving them false. We could be unlucky. The truth might be beyond our testing. There's no harm in facing that possibility.
Just mention a few other candidates besides God to explain the gaps. And show some examples of what used to be gaps, that have now been filled in. Now you've got a science course, that covers everything that ID supporters can ask to cover.
You have hit on the point. THEORY of Gravity. Not Fact. THEORY of evolution. Not fact.
You may believe in both based on the evidence or feelings you experience. People believe in religion based on their experiences or feelings. So yes. this statement is correct : "the fairly desperate step of faith required to believe that very complex coincidences in nature 'just happened' is really only possible because there is perceived to be no alternative". The key difference here is a scientist will believe one thing until evidence shows that belief to be false. The same cannot easily be said about the deeply religious.
If an alien race turned up and said "WE MADE YOU" would you start flailing BUT NOOOOOO TEH FACTS SAY EVOLUTION as some Christians do? There's a infinitesimally slim chance of happening but it would test your faith in science as you have been taught it.
No, these are two entirely separate concepts.
Evolution would work fine in a universe that didn't originate from some sort of big bang. The only relation is that both are theories that best fit the available evidence. Separate evidence, that is. The theory of evolution is the theory that explain how the evolution we have observed in nature and in the lab works behind the scenes. The Big Bang theory, on the other hand, is based on the direction and speed of all the observable mass in the universe. Everything is moving away from a single point, and if you maintain the laws of physics, that an object that is moving will not change direction or speed unless acted on by an external force, you can work backwards to show that all observable matter must have come from this single point in space. How? We don't know. What caused it? We have no idea.
In this regard, the Big Bang theory is much further from complete than the theory of evolution. With the theory of evolution, we've mostly figured out how it works, and the causes of it working. We do however still lack knowledge about how evolution got started. Evolution needs something that grows and reproduces (for certain values of reproduces. E.g. something that grows, then splits in two, each of which will keep growing), and we still don't know a lot about how that happened.
If you want to stop ID then you must explain to religious people why ID is actually the work of Satan deceiving them into blasphemy. Since there is plenty of evidence of satan in human suffering this should not be a problem to accept but it's not a language either side of this fucking debate seems to understand.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The theory of evolution is actually under constant revision, as new data, timelines and theories are adopted by scientific consensus. Much like climate change. The interesting thing is how people, religious or not, pick and choose when to believe in science and when their own personal beliefs trumps science.
If one can't accept His creation in all it's glorious details and mechanisms and splendor then where is ones faith?
Just because He created something that is way beyond ones imagination, doesn't mean one should downplay His creation.
In His wisdom He choose to pass on a simpler tale to get us started. Like we do with kids in school.
It seems like you might have some interesting things to say, but...friend, please fix your Return key.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
The P believes in "facts" and thinks he follows science.
A man of faith is someone who accepts anything his religion tells him without question.
In other words a fecking idiot.
Go well
No evolutionary scientist claims that evolution is a fact. It's a theory, a scientific theory. - Wikipedia: A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.
So it's not a leap of faith, it's looking at the evidence and drawing a conclusion as to what is most likely. The undesire to not invoke a creator is probably a results of there being no (scientific-) proof/evidence what so ever that a creator exists.
There are quite a few of scientists that admits to accepting a divine creator if there were evidence, if I'm not mistaken even Richard Dawkins once admitted to that.
Now if you were to apply the description of a Scientific theory on creationism / ID you'd get into problems straight away since it's not "based on knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation". It's based on what was written in a book a few thousand years ago.
So no.. evolution is not faith. Faith is believing in something without proof. A scientific theory is quite the opposite.
Why are some hell bent on blowing them self up in suicide attacks?
I am an (unployed in the field) orthodox Jewish rabbi but I have spoken to many Christians.
Christians are very involved in the creation story as it along with the tree of knowledge of good and evil sin is key to their religion where it is not to ours.
Without the fall of man and original sin there is no need to manufacture a human-divine hybrid to sacrifice for the inherited sins of humanity, Jews are responsible for fixing our own mess among humans and forgiveness is something you get from G-d only for ritual sin.
Jews have had mild interest in creationism as evolution is seen as an outside concept by some. OTOH for at least 1000 years (since the Ramban) there is an esteric/kabalist view that the universe is around 15 billion years old with the pre human days of creation being measured differently on a logarithmic scale if I remember correctly.
WHen I am feeling rational but religious it seems that a greater feat would be for G-d to inject all of the information into an exploding singularity which would result in the universe unfolding as it has.
Our sages claim it a folly to see anything in the narrative of the Garden of Eden as literal, when at the time the energy state of reality was as close as I can understand like a super cool neon acid trip.
If you want to gonk on Jewish creation of the universe type stuff the former chief scientist at Tektronics, contributor to the Bluetooth standard, German Jewish Holocaust survivor, and rational orthodox Jew wrote a cool book, The Heavenly Time Machine by Morris Engelson
http://www.amazon.com/The-Heavenly-Time-Machine-Science/dp/0964287005/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379666062&sr=8-1&keywords=the+heavenly+time+machine
Even if you are not Jewish it still reads like interesting Sci-Fi not Sy-Fi
Created as a means for the select few (priests) to gain control and power over the believers. Look at the god and you will see the man.
yes...this is the answer to the questions posed by TFA
it's about money and dumbing people down to make them better consumers
in America today, one form it takes is fundmentalist religious people fighting science on religious grounds...
another form is the 'pink washing' of the breast cancer causes....we know now that certain plastic food containers cause breast cancer...so the companies that use those very plastics (which are not illegal) actually contribute to Susan G. Komen and get a little pink ribbon on their logo...
it's taking advantage of people's failings for profit
religion is just the vector in this case
Thank you Dave Raggett
You and the author of TFA take a mind-numbingly reductive framing of the issue and it just causes **more** arguments and solidifies the opposition harder...
Your first problem is that you take the word of an idiot.
These Texas book controversies...they **defy all logic**. You'd agree and so would TFA's author. People have written tomes on this very discussion thread that impressively elucidate the sub-moronic notions of these wackos...
Yet you just **assume** that their words can be taken at face value that they truly are describing their reasons for pushing these textbooks.
And it's about textbooks, and public education and society in general here...if these people just kept their mouth shut and let professionals write the text you'd have *no gripe* with their dumbness...
No...YOU are an idiot for **taking their stated reasons seriously**
You do exactly what they want, fall into the predictable opposition mode...
WHICH HELPS THEM SELL MORE FUCKING TEXTBOOKS
This really is about money pure and simple....there is a built-in market for these textbooks and in the greater sense suppressing science helps corporations avoid accountability on a host of issues...
religion is only a *vector* in this instance
stop playing their fool's game
Thank you Dave Raggett
Slashdotter here, who disbelieves evolution.
As for "evolution is incontrovertible" argument...
- "Entropy and Evolution" http://dx.doi.org/10.5048/BIO-C.2013.2 (Published)
- "A Second Look at the Second Law”, http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/AML_3497.pdf (Accepted, but withheld from publication “not because of any errors or
technical problems found by the reviewers or editors, but because the Editor-In-Chief subsequently concluded that the content was more philosophical
than mathematical,” according to the apology later published in the related journal.)
- Generations past have accepted the sun as been the day's source of light, and the moon the night's. Are their identical sizes (identical as far as our eyes are concerned) a massive coincidence? Or evidence of design.
- If you saw a exponential decay curve (i.e. a long tail curve), with the tail quite apparently truncated at some point, would you assume an event likely caused the truncation?
One such curve is 'number of trees' (Y axis) versus 'tree-rings per tree' (X axis). The truncation is around 4800 tree-rings (X axis) - the number of rings in the oldest trees. If you allow for some trees adding more a ring a year (they do, but very rarely), this roughly coincides with the Biblical date for Noah's flood (4350 years ago), when the then-exant forest of the world would have been destroyed.
Another coincidence?
Why do you all persist in thinking that you can change the mind of a zealot? It doesn't matter whether that person is waving a bible or a Kalashnikov. As long as they think that "God" wants them to act a certain way, they are going to do so. Short of killing them there is very little you can do to stop them. Forget about convincing them not to kill all us infidels or stopping them from forcing their distorted world view upon everyone else.
There's nothing more dangerous than a religious zealot and a bomb. That fact holds true the world over and it doesn't matter where or how that person prays. Bombs are the chosen weapons of God.
Theories that humanity was "seeded" by aliens are a non-theological example of Intelligent Design theory.
In their 1966 book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" I.S. Shklovski and Carl Sagan present a good case for scientists and historians to consider the possibility of early contact between life on Earth and extraterrestrials. Intelligent Design is not a concept that is owned part and parcel by creationists.
That said... I have a problem with teaching Intelligent Design in public schools. I'm a creationist... I believe the truth of the Bible. I also don't believe it is the job of government to indoctrinate students in religion. Mine or anyone else's.
There was a time where teaching students of science the theory of Spontaneous Generation was perfectly legitimate. It was "good science" based on the best information that was available at the time that the theory was still viable. Evolution is the best scientific theory that explains the evidence as we have it right now. And so it should be the theory taught to science students. Perhaps one day evidence may arise to discredit evolution but that day has not come. If parents want to teach their children alternate views they are welcome to do so via religious education, private education or homeschooling. Presenting alternate views that have little or no hard evidence is unwarranted.
Not confronting the evidence for Evolution is intellectual dishonesty at best and intellectual sloth at worst.
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What? Evolution and big bang are totally different things. Evolution is the changes that happen to creatures and plants etc by the pressure of changing environment. Big bang is a theory on how this universe got started. Even if Darwin wrote about the big bang (i haven't read it), it's still a different thing.
This is exactly the problem with this whole thing. Evolution happends all the damn time. It can be quick or (mostly) slow, but it is not a theory how things got started.
Evolution is not a faith, it is collected facts about how changes to living things happen.
Don't mix big bang and evolution.
If we are going to split hairs... everything we think we know actually boils down to BELIEF. All of our observable evidence comes from observations on one tiny spot within the universe. We have yet to breach the surface of the available evidence that explains the universe and our place in it. However we have to function like those beliefs reflect reality. I believe that Einstein's theory of relativity is true... but even if I didn't believe it that doesn't make me fling off the planet. Gravity still keeps me tethered to the planet's surface. Maybe one day we'll discover a better theory than relativity... until then it's still the best we've got and so it's the theory that we should be teaching science students.
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I get chills when I see phrases like:
The fact of evolution is incontrovertible
I 100% believe the theory of evolution provides the best fit with the available data. But stating any theory is a "fact" and "incontrovertible" is just too far. One of the issues is that it is hard to experimentally falsify the thoery of evolution. Either we are scientists and honest about what we do, or we are not. Get off my lawn.
I have to be honest, the interesting thing to me is that there is always this pitting science against people of faith as they are mutually exclusive. The reality is, when pursuing truth, everyone must take leaps of faith to believe in what they feel is justified. Religious people choose to believe in their prophets through religious texts. They feel justified in their believes due to the traditions of historical method. However, scientists also have their prophets who proclaim truth and have their followers.
Both sides are often arrogant as they believe they have everything figured out absolutely. Yet, we must also remember that there have been faulty religions that have fallen but also faulty science that has fallen.
No matter what side you're on, you have chosen to have faith in someone or something. It is philosophical ignorance to believe that people who don't claim a particular religion don't have faith.
No real scientists, who is 'faithful' to his own profession, will claim that anything is an absolute and irrefutable fact. It's always religion that claims to know the ultimate truth about anything and everything. Science in itself is obligated to accept change, when there is a new and better concept, which allows better predictions for example. Most Religion however is very slow to accept any change to their doctrine, it only adopts new principles when there is no other way around it.
This whole theory-nonsense is just a futile attempt to drag scientific theories, based on logic, observation, tons of empirical evidence, that have been challenged again and again and didn't fail to the same level as crackpot theories. It's very similar to calling Atheism a religion.
The P believes in "facts" and thinks he follows science.
Ah, a Mr Gradgrind
I'm a Christian. It seems reasonable to me that the current thinking of the age of the universe (~14 billion years) and the earth (~4 billion years) is correct. It seems reasonable to me that the evolutionary theory is at least mostly correct. I believe God created everything, and this does not contradict the prior statements.
I really dislike young earth creationists expounding their views publicly. It gives people the false impression that one cannot be a Christian without thinking the Earth is 6017 years old, or whatever figure they're on these days.
That's not the point. Just as Pope Francis has recently expounded that the Catholics should concentrate on the love, mercy and salvation aspects of the Gospels rather than the continual harping on about homosexuality, birth control and abortion, so Christians in general should concentrate on the key message rather than getting swept up in an argument that is more likely to turn people away.
Sure, if you want to believe an alternate view of the age of the stuff around you, go for it, but please don't condemn others to missing out on their salvation by your stubborness.
Rant over. The Lord bless you and keep you all. :)
Ydco co
False. Evolution is the natural phenomenon we observe. The theory of evolution is the scientific explanation for it, which doesn't require a big bang. Hell - the universe could have been farted into existence and the theory would still hold water, as it is based on evidence, experimentation, predictions, and so forth. You clearly have no idea.
You all worry about believers when the Beliebers are the real problem of our generation. I say kill it with FIRE!
I believe the core issue that those such as the Texas board members struggle with isn't with scientific evidence of a particular theory, but rather the conclusions that some choose to draw from that evidence. A child's perception of God and Nature is necessarily challenged as she matures. Some resolve that struggle by denying God, some by denying what is discovered during study of God's creation. Some from the board have evidently taken the later course, which reminds me of a quote from Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in part:
"It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are."
Luke, help me take this mask off
You are confusing the layman's use of the word "theory" with the scientific meaning of the word. "Theory" in a scientific context means the best explanation available for which a preponderance of evidence exists. It does not mean "guess".
there is a basic concept in science that matter can not be lost or found. When God said let there be light and there was a big bang the universe was created from his energy which was converted to mass.
Question- where did the energy/mass come from to make god? Who observed the gods creation of things to verify god did this? If this is unnecessary then I will happily bow down to my block of fudge because at least its proven to be real (a massive step beyond a god). If we require a creator what is the process that created the creator?
I am smart enough to know I am not smart enough
Interesting problem. If your smart enough to know your not smart enough you obviously realise you dont have all the answers. So why do you think you have all the answers by praying to a god you cannot define in any way. No proof of existence. No information to base any fact from. All you have is one of the many man made books explaining a lack of understanding in terms of the unknowing. Why is your god more valid than the greek gods?
Whatever the creator of this reality is.. I call them God and pray they forgive me for my sins
I like this line. It is so close to the answer. You say whatever the creator is. What if the creator is a process? Not an intelligence, not something in our own image. But instead a physics reaction which has no ego, no caring, not taking attendance at man made buildings, not even aware. Do you pray to the heat caused by the chemical reaction in your gas oven as the physics convert matter into energy to cook your food? Do you worship the kinetic energy allowing your body to move? Or would that be daft because while it provides the way to sustain your life it is not caring nor even aware?
So why would an all powerful complicated being of high intelligence and power be more realistic than simple processes combining over a large space and time from which we are part of?
where I can see God in everything from the smallest quark .. to the cry of a child.. to the amazing world we still have left.. and the universe that surrounds us
And I see the universe, the actions/reactions, the reality which science seeks to understand to advance our knowledge and understanding. I see the reality. Personally I dont see the assumed existence of an unknown, unquantified, undefined, unproven entity. But if thats what you want to believe in that is your free choice. Everyone has their own beliefs. We share the reality.
If an alien race turned up and said "WE MADE YOU" would you start flailing BUT NOOOOOO TEH FACTS SAY EVOLUTION as some Christians do? There's a infinitesimally slim chance of happening but it would test your faith in science as you have been taught it.
What about your logic from before? You said that the key difference is that a scientist will believe one thing until evidence shows that believe to be false. If said alien race would have very convincing evidence, then they might as well be our creators.
Most scientists won't refute the possibility that, at some point in evolution, there was intervention, by something Christians might call Creator, because they are always external influences. They just don't believe that this mystical, omnipotent engineer, who came up with all these things all by himself, observes everything and pulls the strings, is a necessity to explain the existence of the universe and our own existence.
But the much bigger question is. Just because someone created you, do you have to obey them 'for ever and ever''?
Groups of people bind best if they have some external threat to bind against. It's not the only way to maintain group cohesion and loyalty, but it sure helps.
It used to be that the devil (an invention chiefly of the medieval church, who found him very handy) performed this role. However, it's getting harder to convince people that there's this evil creature running about the place doing evil through magic. So he's fallen out of favour, So either a substitute is required, or at the very least a proxy.
That's where evolutionary science comes in. It's an attack on everything that your society, family and faith is based on! We must fight it! Come to church!
What also helps bind groups together admirably is the suggestion that they are an oppressed minority. It certainly helps when you really are an oppressed minority, but if you aren't, claiming you are is the next best thing. Hence the idea that christianity is under siege, when in many places it is the dominant cultural force that is sometimes the oppressor, not the oppressed. So the suggestion that liberals/guv'ment/heathens are forcing evolution on their helpless children is a powerful way of keeping the faithful in line.
At the moment, anyway.
Show me the repeatable experiment where you go straight from the periodic table of elements to self-replicating life.
Which is not to say that I really think the Almighty trotted out the universe in 168 hours, either.
Let's just take comfort in the realization that no one "knows", put what is "known" out there, and let people grow in the knowledge that there is still plenty to sort out.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
1 - Religion is the belief that humans have souls, coupled with faith in a system souls exist as part of.
2 - Science is the belief in natural order, coupled with faith in our current understanding of it's rules.
These two concepts are not mutually exclusive. The issue is not and never has been about any incompatibility between science and religion.
The conflicts I've witnessed have been based on groups or individuals attempting to mislead for material or influential gain, an unwillingness to accept a personal misunderstanding, or an inability to comprehend the above fundamentals. Anyone promoting hate because of this issue has an agenda, something to learn or a need for compassion.
France just introduced a secular charter for schools, a rough English translation of which is here. Amongst other good things, it states quite plainly that there is no religious opt-out for religious belief and no exclusions from the teaching of knowledge and science. Simply put, kids get taught good science and if it offends their parent's religious sensibilities (or the teacher's) then TOUGH.
No, the model was righter than before. I wont' sugar coat my words, if you think that's bad, go and buy a religious-made computer to post your trisomic retarded bullshit next time.
Aside from the fact it's not necessarilly mutually exclusive, I'll just drop this quote here that both sides can use ad nauseam.
"Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Absolutely brimming over with Wrongability"
Use this on each other, and at least get a laugh out of it, possibly..
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
At least we don't have to do any jailbeaks to enjoy using our hardware as we wish.
I occasionally interact with people who are convinced that "evilution" is taught out of a desire to attack religion and make people into amoral monsters. And they will go on, at length, about their beliefs about the "motives" of scientists. And somehow, none of the motives they invent actually fit very well with anything I see when I talk to scientists. I mean, yes, I occasionally encounter people who really do seem to have those motives, but in general they're not particularly regarded well by the scientific community.
And I occasionally interact with people who have all sorts of really strange beliefs about the "motives" of religion, and similarly, what they say has very little to do with what I mostly encounter among religious people. Although I do occasionally encounter people who appear to have those motives, but they are not regarded well by the religious community.
It seems interesting to me how well these groups parallel each other, and how well each of them plays into the other's narrative of persecution or abuse. And how much both of them rely on the assumption that you can't ask people what they think, or why they think it. Slashdot tends to have more of the people who have a very naive view of what religious faith is, or why people have it, but I've hung around on other sites that tended towards the very naive view of science, and it was just as funny there.
So far as I can tell, in the real world, the majority of religious people have beliefs that are a lot more complicated, and a lot more coherent, than the strawmen that I mostly see attacked on Slashdot. But since they don't usually go around trying to get on TV news and insist that they are the only representatives of their faith, people are less aware of them. In general, most of the time if you know someone's religious beliefs, it's because they're jerks; the non-jerks won't generally get pushy about it and tell you all about it unless you actually ask what they think. And, of course, if you've made up your mind that they're all idiots and you don't want to know, then you're the jerk whose opinions they will take as representative of people who hold your beliefs. (This goes both ways.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
They believed that wrong model of the atom, and about a half-dozen other models (plum pudding, for example), until data existed that allowed them to figure out which one was right. The experiments which allowed them to trash those incorrect models are celebrated at some of science's greatest achievements.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I don't know what it is with you Americans, but you take nutjobbery to staggering heights. Every one of you has a 'religion', even the non-religious...and you are all giant gaping assholes about it.
Yes, you don't have a monopoly on this, yet.... but you are sure trying hard!
Just fucking relax!
(oh and remake your government, this one is broken.)
inferno
If you want to get down to it, 2+2=4 only works in a particular mathematical framework whose axioms are drawn from "common sense", i.e. socially and evolutionarily constructed heuristics. There's not many of those axioms, but if you change them - and there are plenty of branches of mathematics that do - you can indeed get 2+2 not equal to 4. No real point here, but it is an issue that has been addressed.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
...that there really *isn't* a god in the sky terrifies them.
Back in the 1800's, people with asthma were told to go to live in desert environments like Phoenix to avoid all the allergens that can trigger asthma attacks. Doctors told people to do this even into the 20th century. The result is a huge concentration of the genes for asthma (and people with asthma) in the Phoenix/Arizona area.
The whole US is similar. The US was founded by religious zealots who were driven out of European countries because they were too nutz and people couldn't stand them any more. The genes for that brand of nuttiness have been mixing and gaining strength in the US ever since.
I'd like to see gun nutz go off to live somewhere (maybe the Citadel?) where their genes can similarly gather strength away from the rest of civilization. By strengthening that gene the problem will eventually solve itself- sooner or later they'll start letting children (not adults with child-like mentality, but actual children) carry guns and then the'll kill each other off before they can reproduce and we will have finally cleared the American gene pool of that bit of pollution.
Science should be taught --- of course. But you'd be ignorant if you believed that design wasn't intelligent, and that we are the only beings in the universe. And probably equally as belligerent if you believed that it was impossible that we were actually designed, and that some people have an idea of what that might mean. Perhaps they are right --- perhaps they are wrong. But that doesn't mean that evolution shouldn't be taught as part of a science course, but that also doesn't mean you can excuse the idea that design is intelligent by virtue that the universe is a random collection of self-destructing nanobots, of which we have such a small understanding, as it stands.
Now, if you believe that intelligent design is "the world was made in seven 24-hour days by an old deity with a white beard waving his hand and clapping at his puffy magical cake he just popped out of the sun" then I'll agree with you. That might go in a Sunday school class, but to be taught in an educational institution would be ludicrous.
What does "Eternal" mean? Is there anything or process which is "Eternal"? If not then how could anything come into existence without an external agency of some sort? If the stuff of the universe is eternal, without beginning or end, then the stuff should qualify as God. If the stuff of the universe was brought into existence by an external eternal agency then that agency should qualify as God. Classic 'chicken and egg' problem. If the stuff of the universe is eternal then it eventually creates a myth concerning a chicken. If the stuff of the universe is not eternal then we seem to be dealing with a pretty amazing chicken. A chicken like that ought to be able to bring me back from the dead, extend eternal life to me in a pretty snazzy environment, answer all my questions, give me a perfect understanding, and keep me from becoming bored forever and ever, Amen.
I don't know what X is supposed to be, but he spelled boycott wrong.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The very founders, maybe. Many of us are descendants of dreamers who dreamed of a better life, gamblers who took the risk of leaving their homeland, and maybe a smidgen of serial killers who fled before they were caught.
Why don't we make a compromise? Humans were created by evolution, but evolution was created by god :D
im pretty sure that "he" was a lesser god that was perhaps still in training
either that or this "god" didnt know what they were doing or maybe this "god" is a psychopath and enjoys the suffering that goes on in "his" world
i get the faith angle that some people have and it seems to really help them in thier day to day life
i even envy them somewhat --i wish i could give it all up to faith. i have tried and cant
even though i feel they are wrong i still envy thier faith in a spagetti monster in the sky
i wish i could believe in such utter nonsense
however i do believe that there are "good" and "bad" forces in the universe
the human mind is very complex
captcha=aborted
It's about constructing a story to fit the fact that are available. By contrast physics offers the possibility of repeatable experiments: I can experience gravity because I engage with it every day. Evolution is a story made up about facts, but is not testable like gravity. When the facts about 'garbage DNA' changed, evolutionists were immediately able to construct an explanation for why the new facts are consistent with evolution - as were the old facts. Evolution may or may not be true - but its claims on truth are on the level of history, not the level of chemistry
Other than dated manuscripts, there is no absolute road map for the design, just a rough idea. Yet science helps us understand that indeed a design is present. The Higgs Boson particle is a great example. Its spin shows that it is slightly unstable. When the time comes, all of this will disappear, that is amazing.
Let there be light, and BANG there it is. ( or the latest theory has a four dimensional universe creating ours through a Black Hole, fascinating )
I do not understand this war on ideas and thought from ANY party. The truth will come forward, just let it. If you are confident that your ides are sound, let it go forward for review by others. There seems to be too much wisdom in those old documents to simply ignore.
You could replace the entire summary with one link.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's a definite belief that nowhere in the universe is there an alien species that corresponds to the characteristics of a 'god'. It is a claim to certainty that is wholly unsustainable; noone's been able to look under every rock in this solar system, let alone the rest of the galaxy. Now agnosticism - that's at least honest...
Well golly gee. How terrible is that? Scientists use experiments to come up with models to test then when the model fails they update the model to reflect the new understanding. That's awful. They should really just have some random dude declare something, have some other random dude write it down then demand everyone else follow the "truth."
These scientists are really terrible people trying to understand things and not fighting every change in dogma.
I thought that this was well-established by now: It's so that the newborn can pick up some of his/her mother's digestive-tract bacteria. They need 'em.
The funny thing is, Darwinian Evolution is wrong.
It was one of the first things a professor of Population Genetics taught us upon entering his class. No, not a hush-hush "Here's the real truth" conspiracy revelation -- rather, it was wrong in the sense that it represented a simplified sub-set of modern understanding. Evolutionary Theory had moved so far forward from Darwin's time, that those in the field referred to the current body of work as Neo-Darwinian Evolution, incorporating modern insights and knowledge that fundamentally changed our understanding.
For instance, consider Kimura's Theory of Neutral Evolution. You probably learned in grade school that most mutations are bad, and a few are good, right? Kimura posited that instead, a few are bad, a very few are good, but most do not affect an organism's fitness, they are "neutral". It sounds like a trivial observation, but it has enormous consequences for genetics as a statistical science. For instance, it is one of the vital components that contribute to the genetic signature of Linkage Disequilibrium, which allows us to spot selection pressure on the genetic scale, with the practical application of drawing our attention to portions of the genome likely to be interesting.
A large segment of the public sees Evolution as being a field of dusty bones, with little more consequence and applicability than Kipling's Just-so Stories. On the contrary, without evolutionary theory, nothing in the statistics of genetics makes sense; understand it allows you to make predictions vital to new hypothesis-forming, and in some cases even test them. A dynamic, fascinating field of study is being ignored in the debate, and that's the real tragedy.
The answer is simple: Fear of change.
As I posted a few days ago:
[...] most people are really, really conservative at heart. Not in the political sense, necessarily. As a species, we hate change. Things that naturally change unsettle us. That's why for 99% of human history, things simply were. Fixed and eternal. You know, gods and their laws. Morality. Even today, just the idea that morals and ethics is something that changes and evolves is revolting. That fucking underage kids was perfectly fine in some ancient societies is not a topic for a polite dinner conversation, and the first instinct I bet almost everyone who just read that had was something along the lines of "what was wrong with them?".
It really is this simple: If the world is in continuous change, then the very idea of an unchanging, eternal god, good, truth, etc. is in doubt.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Despite all the tongue in cheek stuff here on /., I have to wonder aloud how could evolution work at all?
Let's say that in order to make the evolutional move from one species to another, we have to cross a chromosome boundary. Some animals have 22, we have 23, right? So if an animal with 22 mutated and was accidentally born with 23, it could not breed with it's brethren. Unless another animal was similarly mutated to have 23 chromosomes. What is the likelihood that two mutated animals would even live in close enough proximity to one another to successfully mate?
I tend to think that an intelligent being whom we know as God created successive and improved series of creatures. Sure there can be evolution by natural selection within a species, but not across the chromosome boundary. Of course I also tend to think that God is much more tangible than spiritual.
Of course we then have to wonder how God came into existence.
Really, teaching kids about "intelligent design" isn't so bad, depending on the teacher of course. My highschool biology teacher had an entire week where we compared evolution and intelligent designed (this was 20 years ago) and he didn't present either as fact. It was more of a "what do you guys think? argue your point!" type of exercise and I think it was great. It was one of few times in my highschool experience where everyone had an opinion and they were all interesting.
Keep up? They would have to be 120 to have not kept up. They just are plain ignorant. Call it like it is.
You may believe in both based on the evidence or feelings you experience. People believe in religion based on their experiences or feelings.
And do you spot the incredibly significant word which is present in your first sentence and missing from the second one? You've summed it up neatly - science is based on looking at the evidence, whilst religion is based on believing what you want to believe.
> Because to many believers, faith, not works, is the only guarantee that one can pass God's litmus test
This statement is actually a heresy, which is at the core of protestantism. In fact, Luther Martin invented this fallacy of "sola fide" because he was a very sinful and vile person, who had done few good deeds. In contrast, christian churches of apostolic continuity (e.g. catholic, orthodox, coptic, malabar, etc.) all teach that people who can act, must be active in good things for charity and for the greater good of his neighbours, in order to enter Heaven.
Those who neglect this work will not receive the gift of faith or the mercy of a favourable judgement. (Jesus Christ stated it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle, that for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. That is because the rich amassed wealth at the detriment at his neighbours and even refused to part with such wealth charitably. In contrast a young rich man was touched by Jesus's dignity and he immediately offered to distribute half of his wealth to the poor and Jesus welcomed him as a follower.)
Consequently, catholics and the orthodox have little problem if any with the method of biological evolution.
(Although honestly said, when I look at almost any politician, I need to deny both the theories of "evolution" and that of "intelligent" design. Otherwise, I would have to state that poticians are not part of the human race or even the animal kingdom...)
and assumed that stardust simply assembled itself to form us. After lots of thinking and reasoning, intelligent design is the only thing that makes sense to me, and there are interesting observations on our psychology, and that of the rest of the animals, that to me support this. But I can't attribute it to some deity or god in any traditional sense, I don't believe in these kinds of supernaturals.
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Why are those preaching evolution unable to show true change of kinds as Darwin was talking about?
because they can't.
Ok, I haven't lived in Texas for 2 decades now, but I was also born there, went to college there, etc..
A relatively small group of religious conservatives have somehow taken over the Board of Education.
Just how this happened, and why people put up with it, is something I cannot explain. Sure, Texas has it's share of religious whack jobs, but really no more than (and possibly fewer than) many other states a bit farther to the north and east.
What's worse is that Texas has also become the state that many other states look to, to set a baseline for what textbooks their schools will use.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
But a story about a 600 year old man and his sons building a boat with bronze age technology to hold every life form on the planet with sufficient genetic diversity to prevent inbreeding with a year of supplies, collecting them from every remote corner of the planet, and returning them all to their native habitat afterwards (which somehow wasn't destroyed by the flood) makes perfect sense. From polar bears to penguins, koalas and kangaroos to the Inaccessible Island rail, a flightless bird. Over 8000 species of ants alone. Don't forget the fresh water tanks for any aquatic life that wouldn't survive when salt water flooded their habitat. Returning all those fresh water life forms back to their home lakes and ponds all over the world afterwards must have been some trouble....
Honestly, I have an easier time believing a bearded man in a red suit comes down a billion chimneys on Christmas eve delivering toys.
My rights don't need management.
If you've lost the kind of faith described, then you presumably have no reason to accept that a "litmus test" is to be applied....
If humanity is over 100,000 years old, why did it take over 100,000 years to reach 7 billion people? If every family had 4 surviving kids, it wouldn't take much longer than 1000 years to have a society as big as today. In the 1800s, the number of children per US family was 7. Even if there was a high mortality rate, there should be billions of skeletons that are over 5000 years old. We should have no trouble finding large numbers of them, but these fossils are scarce. Statistics don't agree with the 100,000+ year old humanity. 4000+ years since Noah's flood fits the statistical model far better than evolution.
Thank you for the awesome reading!
Religion teaches a bad habit that is useful to the Powerful: Leaving it to God to deliver justice in the afterlife. By telling the masses that God will hold the high and mighty to His justice in the afterlife, the masses allow themselves to keep getting stepped on. They think the bad guys have it coming to them after they die.
Just imagine if the people demanded justice in this life? Heck, it would hardly be worth exploiting people anymore.
Just an idle thought I had...
What kind of theological cowardice is it to have a powerful God that managed to create billions of years of a perfectly consistent creation story in just under a week, and then refuse to study it?
Would anybody dare call himself a Shakespearean scholar who refuses to actually study what Shakespeare has written, because that's just paper while Shakespeare was of flesh and blood?
If somebody makes me a present of a jigsaw puzzle, what kind of favor am I doing him by saying "I am sure you knew what you did when creating all those pieces and am content with looking at them like that?"
Creationism is not a religion, it is a cheap excuse for intellectual and theological laziness. Find me a creationist who feels compelled by his world view of "only God's word counts" to learn Greek and Aramaic and study God's word in the original writings. They'll rather find any authority that tells them that they don't need to think or study for themselves.
If people want to practice artificial dumbness at home, that's their prerequisite. But that's not what schools are for. They are institutions for learning, not for refusing to learn.
It hasn't been about whether evolution is true or false for a very long time. It's about whose team you're on and how many points they're up by in the third quarter. Texans can't help themselves. They have to pick a side, and when they do they support it all the way.
Go to any small town in East Texas on a Friday night in September. Around 7PM, folks start streaming out of their houses and heading to stadiums whose size rivals that of some colleges' playing fields. They're there to rally their team on, violently if necessary.
Texans choose sides in ALL aspects of their lives. Ford vs. Chevy. Big Mac vs. the Whopper. Citizens vs. Illegals. Cattlemen vs. Farmers. Evolution vs. Creationism. Whatever the issue, no matter how weighty or how trivial, Texans can figure out a way to polarize it and turn it into a contest. And if it has team jerseys, all the better.
In some ways, this is Texas' greatest strength - that its citizens are willing to stake everything on the team they support, win, lose, or draw. In other ways, the stubborn unwillingness to give up, even in the face of overwhelming strength or indisputable argument can lead to, well I think we all remember the Alamo.
People tend to think of the idea of "teaching the controversy" as an insidious effort to get religion's foot in the door. In fact, it's one of the most amazing things that Team Texas Religion has ever done- offer a compromise. For a Texan to even admit that the other side's point of view EXISTS is jaw-droppingly astounding. To offer to teach it alongside their own is nothing short of miraculous.
The only way to resolve this conflict is to understand Texas and embrace its stubborn, contentious, headstrong culture. Ignoring it will only make the issue worse. The sooner people realize this, the better off we'll all be. Texas, as much as we hate to admit it East of the Mississippi, isn't all that different from the rest of the country.
The Parent Poster wasn't talking about the throat per se, but the location of the adams' apple which on humans, because they had EVOLVED from one that works fine higher up in animals like dogs (so they can dring water and breathe at the same time) it moved down and the location there meant better vocalisation and the societal benefit of group coortinate action overrode the occasional death from breathing food and drink.
The compromise would also not be necessary for a designer who created all life on earth. He managed all right with other animals, why fuck it up for his chosen special creation?
"It is a popular--and recent--misconception that faith and reasoning are incompatible. Many, if not most, of the great minds of the ages were believers in God or in other forms of religion. The idea that religious people are necessarily irrational fools is simply a lie; there are plenty of both religious and atheistic people who are irrational fools."
You appear to differentiate between religious and atheistic people. That's not always the case. Classical Buddhism is a famous example of an atheistic religion, although in popular versions of the religion Buddha is transformed into some sort of demigod. Some animistic religions could also be considered atheistic ("godless" or creator-less) if the believers consider supernatural beings as simply immortal essences, different but not superior to humans.
Agnostics deal in facts. Atheists deal in beliefs. Christians deal in beliefs. It's one of the cruel irony's of the world. An agnostic takes no issue with faith by his very nature. An atheist despises it and depicts Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc as ignorant, foolish, etc while simultaneously feeling good about how much smarter they are than all of those people.
I have every ounce of respect for Agnostics. Atheists in most cases are people with self-esteem issues.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
I don't have time to type up an entire paper on this or anything as I have got to run out the door for work, but. Evolutionist have faith also. For example, to overcome the delicate balance that is needed for life to exist evolutionist have invented the multiverse. We just happen to be one of an infinite number of universes out there that just happened to get all the combinations correct. Evolutionists are always saying something like "Show me your God." Well, I say show me one of these other universes. Oh, but you can't because there is even a get out of jail clause in the multiverse theory for the evolutionists that says something to the effect of, the universe is expanding faster then the speed of light therefor we will never be able to see one of the other universe despite have the best possible equipment at the time. At least I believe I will eventually see God, your theory says you will never get to see one of the other universes and just accept it on blind faith.
I feel it would be helpful to pause, step back... way back and draw some comparisons to another rather significant paradigm shift.
Today, grab someone of (Abrahamic) faith and ask them how they can believe in their holy text(s), nay how they can even have faith at all, given that we now know the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than other way around. With a very high degree of likelihood, this person will look at you like you're crazy. Indeed, how often have you heard folk clamoring that Epicycles be taught alongside Kepler? Why not? Why not teach both and let the children decide?
The funny thing is that this is exactly what was going on a few hundred years ago. We've been here before. Let me repeat that. It may seem ridiculous today. But this same sort of controversy raged over the sun and planets in much the same fashion. It's hard to draw too many parallels because of the differences in political, education and religious institutions. But you can BET if we'd just figured this out now, you absolutely would have the same patterns. So let's pause and think about the past...
It took about two hundred years to plod through this controversy to get to the point where nobody questioned things, nobody fought for Aristotle over Copernicus, nobody worried how to interpret Joshua 10 in light of our new understanding. TWO HUNDRED YEARS.
I would not be surprised if it takes this long for us to move beyond this controversy over Evolution. Furthermore, I fully expect the result to be largely the same. At some point Young Earth Creationism in all its forms will fade into a distant memory. The modern forces seem just to cancel themselves out. On the one hand, all relevant information is incredibly available. But on the other hand, the Internet fosters filter bubbles. Nonetheless, there are plenty of signs that we'll progress through this... eventually.
Will faith disappear? Will religions just fold up? Not at all. Again, looking back at the Copernican Revolution as a guide, everyone will just move on.
Ha ha - you linked to The Daily Mail, who have been demonstrated to misrepresent findings to bolster their peculiar take on science. Try again.
I am pretty sure we have "supported by mounds of empirical evidence" that suggest that it is far from fragile.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
(Playing Devil's Advocate here)
where did the energy/mass come from to make god?
Energy and mass (and also time) are phenomena associated with this universe. God isn't part of this universe. So your question isn't valid.
Some forms of Christianity like to emphasise the trancendence of God - he is unknowable and independent of the material universe. There is an abstract canopy above one of the altars at St Paul's Cathedral which is, apparently, supposed to remind us of this.
Having said that, Christianity also likes to emphasis God's immanence - a complete contradiction of the above. Still, if you can grok the Trinity, you can grok that contradiction too.
I'm sure they would argue that they are heaven-bent, but if you want to subscribe to religion, then keep your hell reference in there.
I find myself questioning the motives of those who would throw a symbolic bible, koran, or what ever, in my face. The "holyer than thou's" are by far the most sinister.
"[W]hat is true is that evolution tests faith."
If so then it is also true: "Faith Challenges evolution"
And though I absolutely agree with evolutionists that those dinosaur bones are indeed very old - yes, much older than 5,000 years, I have yet to find a place where a number of years is placed on the first verse of the Bible- the one where it says he created the heavens and the earth. In the original, verse two says it "became" without form and void, not "was". Something cataclysmic happened between v1 and v2. Day one through seven fixing the earth started after that."
To each his own choice of what to believe. And more power to you to have your own belief! But keep in mind Freedom of speech came about because many of the Colonies started when persecution of religeous 'heresy' forced people in Europe to come to America. Stagnant religeon politically connected tried to shut people up. They left. Again we see the same thing. IMO, Evolutionists sometimes show just as much venom about not permitting doctrinal 'heresy' in the schools. And I'll bet tax dollars from the Christians far exceed tax dollars from agnostics. Why not allow both? Let the kids debate and consider the merits and problems of both! Isn't that one thing our country has in its Constitution that is so excellent? "
Seriously, if evolution continues to be forced as teaching in the schools, "blow back" of one type or another may become the expected result. IMO, it doesn't have to be that way.
People tend to think of the idea of "teaching the controversy" as an insidious effort to get religion's foot in the door. In fact, it's one of the most amazing things that Team Texas Religion has ever done- offer a compromise. For a Texan to even admit that the other side's point of view EXISTS is jaw-droppingly astounding. To offer to teach it alongside their own is nothing short of miraculous.
I don't think it's amazing at all. Except for citizens vs illegals, in all your other examples the opposing sides are both "limited" to their state's borders and inconsequential to the rest of the country. With textbooks, for whatever reason their state controls the majority of the printing. If they outright tried excluding evolution from the textbooks they print, school boards in more enlightened areas *will* get alternatives, and then Texas loses their underserved pseudo-monopoly.
There you go.
THAT, in a nutshell, is the proof of the Big Bang.
That's the start. There have been arguments for a different interpretation of the evidence as to what that evidence is caused by if not a Big Bang, but these are, likewise, theories, and unlike the Big Bang, has no evidence for it, whereas there is evidence for the Big Bang discovered in the testing of ALL of these theories.
As evidence (e.g. proof) comes in that supports or precludes one of those theories, the only one which has not been falsified by the evidence is the Big Bang.
This is 180 degrees around from faith where, despite every single piece of "proof" for god has been proven to be done by something else or neither proves nor disproves any of the theories of god and not-god, the belief that there IS a god remains.
it was because religious folk like pushing their beliefs onto others and cannot stand that anyone would ever do the same, even if the latter is supported by fact and not faith.
I believe that the scientific evidence behind carbon dating, the fossil record, etc. etc. is sound. The science works in our world today and accomplishes things. This would lead me to believe that science is nigh infallible. Sort of.
Just for a moment, ponder the idea of a God who can literally do anything -- what Christians subscribe to. Is it beyond the realm of imagination to believe that a God that can do anything could make a world that appears to be older than it is? Why couldn't there have been an earth full of fossils when it was created, and stone that was composed of the right isotope ratios that would make it seem to be a few billion years old? If a God that can speak things into existence exists cannot create a world that is full of resources that would have otherwise taken billions of years to create, wouldn't that detract from the Biblical description? Likewise wouldn't it be just as likely that this God could create a world (or universe, for that matter) that, when trying to apply modern observations to the past, could be referring to a time that never really existed, but only appears to exist because of the way in which it was created?
--Sincerely not trying to flame. I understand abiotic genesis and evolution pretty thoroughly. I don't see them as being at all incompatible with religion, though.
There is a simple reason why Texans are opposed to evolution in schools. A majority of parents hold to a Theist Philosophy. They believe in some concept of a god or deity creator. In our nation a philisophical battle has been waged for many years between theists and their humanist counterparts. An argument can be made that humanism is religous due to the belief in man's reason as the highest authority and the replacement of the theistic idea of a savior deity with man himself: "No deity will save us; we will save ourselves" -Humanist Manifesto. Evolution is not incompatible with faith; it is merely incompatible with a theistic faith just as a deistic creation story or intelligent design is incompatible with a humanist faith. The religon verses science argument in this context has been often used by humanists to gain the upper hand over theists in the public arena. The truth is that both theists and humanists have faith in their underlying assumptions: there is a god or there isn't a god. These assumptions lead them to different conclusions in their scientific endeavors. Scientists dig up a bird fossil. Theists conclude that his was an extinct bird species and humanists conclude that this was a transitional form between reptiles and birds. So which is it? Is the scientific method even capable of deciding? Assumptions can kill you and perhaps having a variation of starting assumptions will lead to a broader, more diverse, and more effective scientific establishment than if we as a society say that the only valid starting assumption for science is that "There is no god."
Whether or not God created the the earth according to scripture, the evidence left behind is what science describes. The mechanisms of and evidence of evolution were created at that time.
Man's view of the world has changed over time as new evidence is discovered.
Christian organizations which understand that the Christian faith and evolution (or science in general, when practiced with integrity) are not at odds:
http://biologos.org/
http://truecreation.info/
http://asa3.org/
An excerpt from TrueCreation.info:
In general, the scientists who dissent from the basics of evolutionary theory are driven by ideological goals, usually based on faith, whether or not it is faith in the God of the Bible. In many cases, they do not hide the fact that they use presuppositional logic when formulating their “theories”; that is, they start by selecting their desired outcome and then seek only evidence that supports that outcome. They readily and openly admit that they sift facts through a filter, discarding any facts that do not fit with a literal interpretation of the Bible because they “simply cannot be true.” Presuppositional logic may be fine for understanding some foundational parts of the gospel message. It is of dubious value when used as an apologetic tool. But it fails miserably and completely as a scientific method. Let’s be clear — this is not science. If you seek answers to questions about the natural world using presuppositional logic, you will open yourself up to any number of incorrect answers. This goes a long way toward explaining why the results disseminated by the various “creation science” and “intelligent design” organizations rarely agree with each other! Which “Bible-based” outcome would you like? You can choose from many different ones, simply by believing the results from the various organizations I will describe below. I say “believe” rather than “accept”, because your reception of these results will be based on faith, not reason, nor trust in the practice of reason. Some evangelical Christian educators lambaste the teaching of evolution and “materialistic” science, claiming that it is an example of a heinous relativism that pervades the American educational system. They are encouraging relativism by using presuppositional logic.
Even extremely intelligent persons who are trained in the scientific method, with degrees from prestigious universities, may fall into the trap of thinking that yielding the scientific method to presuppositional logic is acceptable if done under the guise of Christian education. After all, the end justifies the means, right? Author Michael Hawley, in his book Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight, explains the psychology of this trap. In short, people will believe what they want to believe, and when they let this drive their approach to science, they will construct all sorts of flawed arguments to prove it to themselves. In many cases, they simply let themselves submit to the argument from incredulity. The human mind excels at both of these logical failings. Some will turn this around and say that this is exactly why scientists accept evolution and other theories; they want to “believe” in evolution. They completely miss the point of how and why the modern scientific method has been applied since its inception almost 200 years ago. When the scientific method is practiced using deductive and inductive logic with integrity, the impact of individual beliefs and human failings such as confirmation bias is minimized. When over 99% of scientists from different specialties and a variety of backgrounds (including many evangelical Christians) practice the scientific method with integrity and objective reasoning and come to agreement on a theory, you can trust that the theory is a solid one.
"The fact of evolution is incontrovertible and supported by mounds of empirical evidence."
This sounds eerily like proclamations that have been made for ages, including religious ones. And I am sure plenty of philosophers, even ones with little religious tendencies, will find ways to pick you apart. Rather than making the argument with religious fervor, and at the same time trying to destroy the spiritual beliefs of others, maybe a different strategy is necessary.
The funny thing is, Darwinian Evolution is wrong.
It was one of the first things a professor of Population Genetics taught us upon entering his class.
Your professor doesn't understand the meaning of wrong, and you repeat it. Why? Probably because it makes for more clickable subject lines.
http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relativity_of_Wrong
read the full thing.
You need to take some remedial science lessons before you start lecturing...
Your misuse of the word theory is like arguing "On the third day Jesus rose from the dead" is a false statement because a rose is a kind of flower and Jesus wasn't a flower.
As long as there are taxpayer-funded schools operated by bureaucrats, this debate will happen again and again. Abolish public schooling, let idiots send their kids to people who will teach them superstition, and smart people can send their kids to learn science.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
God created everything. Learn it, live it, love it.
And then teach it!
That's just .. sad .. can't some kind of Christian organization cough up money to pay missionaries to go to Texas and convert them to Christianity? That way they could do science *and* be assured they'd still go to Heaven after death.
On second thought, I'll click the "anonymous coward" option for this posting, as I don't want to get a Texan fatwa on my arse.
As scientific knowledge advances, god shrinks.
Wouldn't that make them Heaven-Bent instead of Hell-Bent?
Disclaimer: I'm an ex-Muslim
Disclaimer: There's lots of interpretations of Islam. I'm just telling you my history with it
However, the intelligent design stuff if very familiar to me. In Islam, we were always taught that there is no conflict between science and religion. This makes us different from Christianity. God made gravity. God made plants. If there's aliens, God made aliens. The sun and the moon all rotate perfectly because of God's amazing creation.
Whenever a new scientific fact came up, religious leaders rushed to find any kind of vague wording that would show that Islam thought of it first... or that it is perfectly compatible.
The key point here is that in my life with Islam, there was never a conflict between science and religion. All the science existed because God created the universe and all the rules and mysteries...
So why are people hell bent on teaching intelligent design? Well, at the core, it takes all the scientific facts of evolution... and then says... God guided it.
It tries to remove the grand inconsistency between science and religion.
Now, let me be clear, I understand the nuances of the differences. Intelligent design makes it's case on showing that gaps in the evolutionary history point to an intelligent designer. This is a huge point.
However, look at it another way. Intelligent design is basically evolution with a little disclaimer saying 'god did it'. It is certainly better to teach intelligent design than to teach creationism. At least you get some into the actual science of evolution, the fossils, the species, the mutations...
It helps the god-fearing folks to come into the world of science without losing their faith.
I think you really need to step back and look at the big picture.
Education is something that ultimately raises kids. You cannot separate education from values. This is why every tyrant, every political group, every parent, every culture... wants control of education. You control education, you control the kids.
In the case of evolution, sure, you might think it is all about science. But in terms of the greater social battle for our kids, you'd be naive to think it is just about teaching science. The schools are always a battle ground for the values in society. And it will be fought there.
I'm not saying, we shouldn't teach outright evolution in schools. I believe it to be absolutely true. I'm just trying to explain why it is such a threat and why intelligent design is to tempting to teach. You could even see it in a more structured way. That it is a way to bring a scientific concept to a religious community. It helps reduce social tensions and battles for the schools. It helps transition away from the view of pure creationism.
Value based changes take decades and often multiple generations. Let's not pretend otherwise or ignore that evidence.
Given that unborn babies are fed via the mother, that makes little sense - the desired bacteria can simply be provided via the same delivery system as food and other nutrients. Unless you specifically meant rectal/ anal bacteria, in which case carry on.
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
It's as if none of you think the Jewish, Muslim, and any other faith is not all based on a similar creation story.
Having spent a fair amount of time in Texas over the years I think can understand why there might be a certain degree of skepticism about evolution.
Evolution theory is shoddy pseudo-science; a mass of changing assumptions based on data that is not clearly understood. If you think the odds are that in evolution are good, you're probably expecting a MegaMillion lottery win every day for the rest of your life. I have yet to see how intelligent people can look at the assumptions made, see how often they change, see how slim the "facts" really are, and still believe in evolution. Spend some time with Ken Ham and the Creation Museum. Feel free to not believe, but be willing to have your "science" challenged. Go in with a scientific mind and let me know how good your science is afterwards.
In some ways, this is Texas' greatest strength - that its citizens are willing to stake everything on the team they support, win, lose, or draw. In other ways, the stubborn unwillingness to give up, even in the face of overwhelming strength or indisputable argument can lead to, well I think we all remember the Alamo.
Well that's the story they've been telling themselves. Texas was one of several Mexican territories that broke away and declared itself an independent Republic. That lasted for about ten years until the Mexican army started taking territory back. So Texans asked the United States to adopt the republic as a state so as to obtain the support of the US Army.
And Texas history has continued along those lines to this day. Fiercely independent, just as long as federal subsidies continue to flow in.
People tend to think of the idea of "teaching the controversy" as an insidious effort to get religion's foot in the door. In fact, it's one of the most amazing things that Team Texas Religion has ever done- offer a compromise.
The Supreme court ruled against teaching religious based doctrine in public schools. So its not so much Texas "offering a compromise". They are still weaseling around, trying to engineer a loophole in Federal law. They should take a page from their beloved football and accept the fact that the referee has made the call and that's all there is to it.
With this sort of attitude toward the US legal and judiciary process, I say we give them back to Mexico.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's funny you should say that. There was a comment earlier in the this thread about how Creationists, when presented with more evidence of Evolution, just move the goal posts and say "now there's two more gaps in the 'just a theory' of Evolution!"... My thought was: "Huh. Just like Global Climate Change 'skeptics'."
Ever notice the similarity? I have.
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This model of atomic structure hasn't been valid for almost a century.
That's a sugar-coated way of saying that this model was wrong, and scientists had been believing the wrong thing up until less than a century ago.
You scientists sure know your way around words.
I think this comment succinctly sums up the differing frame of mind between faith and science.
With faith, the most fundamentally important thing that you can do it not change your mind. If new evidence arises that challenges your worldview, you are obligated to ignore it or discredit it or... anything but let it shake your worldview. Changing your mind is acceptance of having been wrong, which is the ultimate admission of failure.
Science, on the other hand, represents a dedication to discovering the truth. Being closer to correct now is more important than pretending that you knew the correct answer all along. If you find evidence that your previous model was wrong, you are obligated to change your model to fit all available data and be correct now. There's no shame in having been wrong in the past. There is shame in deliberately being wrong now.
The troll AC bring up science's greatest strength as a failure is a strong sign that there will not be a reconciling between people who are ruled by one mindset or the other.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I saw a blog article that tries to reconcile belief in God with known facts. It is called "On Defending God's Reputation From Brain-Washed Idiots". Maybe folks here will find it relevant.
Nothing more to say than that.
Is there something wrong with having both sides of a discussion represented? Fine you don't believe one side or the other, but what is with the constant personal attacks against someone that doesn't share your exact, precise, duplicate view on every single subject? Why does that have to mean that the person that doesn't agree with you is a bad person and has to be torn down and beaten to an emotional and physiological pulp? For groups that claim tolerance, I really don't see any.
Interesting point, though as even the Christian tradition uses the term 'god' of beings other than the 'prime mover', you're probably out of line with the common usage of the term. But of course the point does still stand; proving a negative is of course impossible, especially for such a being.
A brief saunter through the Oxford English Dictionary http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/161944?redirectedFrom=religion#eid seems to support your definition of 'religion' as having rites and worship associated with it. I guess it's more accurate to describe atheism as a 'personal belief' or 'faith'; thanks for making the point. And thanks for reminding me that the agnostic who lives as though there is no god is showing a faith in there not being one, and is, actually, therefore a 'weak atheist' rather than an agnostic; a true agnostic should probably try to propitiate ALL the gods anyone has ever reported!
http://www.evolutionvsgod.com/
Texans can't help themselves. They have to pick a side, and when they do they support it all the way.
Texans choose sides in ALL aspects of their lives. Ford vs. Chevy. Big Mac vs. the Whopper. Citizens vs. Illegals. Cattlemen vs. Farmers. Evolution vs. Creationism. Whatever the issue, no matter how weighty or how trivial, Texans can figure out a way to polarize it and turn it into a contest. And if it has team jerseys, all the better.
The only way to resolve this conflict is to understand Texas and embrace its stubborn, contentious, headstrong culture. Ignoring it will only make the issue worse. The sooner people realize this, the better off we'll all be. Texas, as much as we hate to admit it East of the Mississippi, isn't all that different from the rest of the country.
Parent -1 Troll?
I am 25, born and raised in a small town about halfway between Austin and San Antonio. Lived in Texas my whole life (I'd like to travel but have had personal reasons not to).
I have met *a handlful* of people who are the 'merica F yeah type (ie favor Mustangs, war, other --varies by person). I have never met anyone, not a single person, that would arbitrary pick a team mentality *in all or many* aspects of their life.
There is a popular radio station here, 101x, with two hosts Jason (native texan, longhorns fan) and Deb (British, couldn't care less about sports). Amusingly a week or so ago as Jason goes on about fantasy football stuff, how he thinks actual teams will rank, etc. he starts talking about the longhorns and problems he sees with them and ranks them less than a "True fan might" and how he made some monetary bet based on that. It was *Deb* criticizing him for this and saying he should support his team anyway, and still bet on them.
Some camaraderie is part of every human culture, you probably couldn't have society without it, but its almost always quite subdued in any given person. The vast majority of people don't act with this caricature of thought you described, and its such a small minority that do I don't understand how anyone bothers to even talk about it. This Texas culture bullshit you describe is an absurd stereotype, why not say we all wear cowboy hats and ride horses to work?
You are either insane or completely devoid of common sense or social intelligence.
Many Christians believe in the genesis myth, and the very important concept of first sin of Adam&Eve. This was the condition for Jesus sacrifice. Evolution disproves the concept of both the genesis and Adam&Eve and as such the first sin. Because of that Jesus sacrifice was pointless and thus science disproves the whole foundation of Christianity.
If someone wonders how evolution disproves genesis and Adam&Eve: evolution states that humans have evolved from a common ancestor. Everyone is an intermediate: Evolution proves that there was never a first human pair Adam&Eve. I am an intermediate between my children and my parent; my parents are an intermediate between me and my grandparents, and so on. If you go down your family tree, you will find the first branch of Chimpanzee and Homo, then a long long time ego the first branch of vertebrates fish and vertebrates amphibians.
Evolution is the first threat to the basic concept of Christianity: of Adam&Eve and the first sin for which Jesus sacrificed himself. That is why many are in denial of it and try to remove it from the curriculum.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
They believe the bible is the proof that their faith is correct. For their faith to be protected, the bible must be all true. That is why they cannot believe in evolution. If the bible isn't all true, then they feel they have no proof to back up their faith. The whole problem they face is that if you need proof of your beliefs, they you don't have any faith at all. So the Christians claiming intelligent design is the proof of their faith, it is actually proof that they have no faith at all. Faith means believing without proof. They can't seem to do that.
Don't forget Coke vs. Pepsi. Just kidding, Texans don't know what the fuck a Pepsi is.
When did the theory of evolution become the law of evolution?
When did video recording of the big bang actually happening come into existence?
If you treat science as more than merely a tool, it becomes the kind of religion where no one wants to admit it's a religion...
'She will be anoited in the holy waters of her many men, and then within her fertile mound they will plow their seeds again and again, watering frequently until her fields grow lush and ripe with life.' :)
Hey polyandry makes just as much sense in a low female market :)
Any large group has dregs. The Christian faith contains many types of people from geniuses to people who are almost fit to be in a shelter for the learning disabled. those that take every word in the Bible literally are the bottom of the waste basket in the faith. It does not even cross their minds that God could use evolution to create the universe and all that are in it. The faith is upheld by those able to understand what a wonderful, lovable, doctrine that was brought forth by Christian teachings. The New Testament is a radical departure from any prior faith or thought system. It is miraculous in its doctrines as well as a miracle in its linguistic construction. The NT may well be the highest use of language arts of any document in all of history. Portions of the Old Testament also demonstrate linguistic and philosophic sophistication never seen before or since its creation. The fruits of the Christian faith alone prove it to be of miraculous quality. Yet all the primitives can see are half sentences that they spew out of context.
Maybe he was aware of it's alternative uses? :D
Evolution only undermines faith if you read the bible literally. Which is the dumbest way to read it. It's classic literature with many levels of meaning, not the newspaper. A famous rabbi once said, "Reading Torah literally is akin to telling a person they are a marvelous cloak, as if the person is nothing more than he or she wears." That applies equally well to the rest of the bible too: the surface meaning is only one of many layers of information, especially if you consider the text historically with the benefit of modern psychology, sociology, comparative religion, science, etc.
The surface layer of meaning is all these fundamentalist numbskulls who support "intelligent design" can wrap their pea brains around. News flash: most religious people in this country are not fundamentalists, and we're sick of those fools giving the rest of us a bad name. My own rabbi once told my confirmation class that Genesis 1 and the theory of evolution describe the exact same events, just in different ways - Genesis describes (a possible view of) the spiritual processes at work, and the big bang theory describes the physical ones.
Galileo said, "I refuse to believe the same God who endowed us with sense and reason intended us to forgo their use." And like most scientists of his day (and today), he was a religious man. Most scientists aren't atheist any more than most believers are fundamentalist.
We'd have to actually go back in time to know for sure. Otherwise, it's just guesswork... educated though it may be, in the end we really just don't know... and we probably never will.
What falsifiable predictions does the "theory" of intelligent design make? How are they being tested? Has anything been published?
Here's the issue that no one talks about:
1. An alleged deity created us with brains and logic.
2. The same alleged deity created evidence of evolution, going back billions of years.
The funnymentalists feel that we should ignore that evidence, and believe their definition of the literal truth of the Bible.
No one seems to notice that if we *ignore* evidence, and believe, based on a book, that the evidence was created to lay a false trail for us to follow, either a) all of that stuff was created by their-definition Satan (except that the Christian Satan is not supposed to have the power to create), or b) that given that was all created to lay a false trail, their alleged deity is lying and trying to mislead us.
Given the lemma in a), b) is the only other choice. This, of course, would lead to the question of the difference between their alleged deity and their mythical Satan. Or maybe it's just that the funnymentalist evangelicals are, as shown by their deeds, Christian Satanists, twisting the truth to mislead everyone else.
mark
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." -Mark Twain
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The god that people follow is they god that they aspire to. Those people who are marching around with 'God hates fags' signs are people who want god to hate homosexuals because they hate homosexuals, and they want validation from a superior position that their fear is correct. People who preach about angry violent gods want there to be angry violent gods because they want to be angry and violent. Listen to the lies about religion that people tell you. There is no god, but you can understand a religious person's agenda by looking at the god they are preaching about.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Why teach all sorts of subjects when you can teach intelligence and design in one swift sweep?
"We have Adam (allegedly made by God), then God anesthetizes him to extract a rib to make Eve.(cloning?)" --- That's worse than incest.
" it is best for them (and their children) to avoid any attempt at rigorous proof"
The very definition of faith. Explaining this is fraught with uncertainty.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So they are basically taking Pascal's Wager, where the rest of the western world chooses a more rational perspective.
This is an interesting video Evolution vs God.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ
Look at how many people here -- intelligent people, educated people, privileged people -- who would never condone bullying someone on account of their race, culture, sexuality, or nationality ... are happy to do so to people's religious beliefs.
I'm just saying, if we're really against double standards, we need to be honest with ourselves, and more accepting of people of religious faith.
They believe the facts are on their side. And they just want all the facts to be taught in the classroom, not to leave out all the ones that are uncomfortable for evolutionists. If you want to stop misunderstanding their position, you could start here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Slashdotter 1: "Your religion is stupid and your god is all wrong!"
Slashdotter 2: "Good point, dude. I'll switch..."
Slashdotter 1: "Your distro is stupid and your display server is all wrong!"
Slashdotter 2: "DIE, DIE, DIE IN ETERNAL TORMENT!!!"
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
It has been my experience that many of those those who try to convince me that Creationism is false and Evolution is correct go blithely from evolution to creation, and intend to disprove Creationism in the process of proving evolution.
Yep, one does not prove the other. Mostly. Certainly evolution doesn't prove much about creation.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If they had a plausible explanation, I would have to consider it.
Since evolution creation, we risk mixing the two and causing all sorts of problems.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
As scientific knowledge advances, god shrinks.
I believe in God, but find the behavior of these "Christians" to be an embarrassment. My deceased father was the same way, feeling the flames of hell licking his feet, in the last few years of his life. He made our lives hell by forcing us to say the rosary each night otherwise we may be going to hell. I don't believe in a God that would knitpick every little thing you do, I believe in a God
with common sense. Yet many of these Christians believe if you drop a piece of paper on the ground and don't pick it up, God will damn you for that. If God is really like that, I'd rather my soul be destroyed than have to walk on eggshells around him for the rest of eternity in order not to spoil his perfection.
It kind of makes you wonder if this God shits. And if so, what does it do with it's sewage?
Holy shit. Literally.
I'm reasonably certain that this sub-thread has wandered off into specific areas of blasphemy. Faeces Dei.
Then again, since the Latin faex means "leavings, dregs", faeces Dei could conceivably mean humanity itself, depending on your point of view... and from that perspective, we have a possible answer to your question -- what does this god do with its sewage? It creates a universe.
Now, wishing someone "have a crappy day!" could instead be interpreted as a positive wish for an enriching holy experience. Hmm.
(I might have too much time on my hands.)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
It is the theory of evolution by natural selection. Natural selection is the theory. Evolution (in fossile record) is the observed fact. In fact when people fight the theory of "evolution" they are losing, they are fighting the part which is fact : evolution, compeltely ignoring that that natural selection is the theory.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
No need to change axioms either; 2 + 2 = 11 in trinary.
It's dickheads with huge egos that think they can put their words in God's mouth. "Intelligent Design" is about writing their own bits to add on to the Bible.
It has nothing at all to do with religion, it's just the age old story of people trying to get power over others by any means possible. To do it they pretend God does what he's told by them.
Race, gender, origin culture - those CANT be changed. Your beliefs and your actions are YOUR responsibility and they can be changed. It is NOT THE SAME. If you believe puberty defines adulthood and have sex with 12 year olds... are we imposing double standard by discriminating against your beliefs? You have the right to those beliefs but we don't have to let you act on them and we don't even have to leave you alone to your beliefs.
These religious bigots have made life miserable to all who don't think like they do throughout the history of mankind. The largely quiet minority of people without faith have not been treated fairly for just as long.
These fanatics who are acting up because their rigid delusions are at greater risk as science/education progresses forward and they NEED to be properly put into their place. They may have a legal right to their primitive beliefs but that doesn't mean we should be P.C. and let them be completely untouched. Just as we shouldn't fully accept those Nazi wannabees simply because they have the right to exist. We must be in their face at least as much as they are in ours... it's not like they are keeping to themselves in their compounds... and even if they were - isolation and ignorance (living in a bubble) doesn't help anybody in the long run (it increases intolerance - but yes, there are limits to tolerance and one can be tolerant while still trying to convert or educate them.)
We are becoming a society of cowardly wimps (if not already.) If you can't have your ideas questioned you can't learn and you're going to eventually have trouble with science and logic. The REAL problems these religious fanatics pose to society is their opposition to critical thinking in education - as the job market moves towards more thinking jobs it gets harder to simply train workers without making them think a little for themselves.
I'm so sick of this bullying PC crap going on today - it's being abused like it was a mild form of the word "terrorism." Adulthood involves facing bullies.
I think; therefore, I am dangerous.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
If Genesis is believed to be complete fiction, then why should anyone believe anything else in the bible?
Please read this entire post before commenting. The last part is especially important.
Modern discussions of Religion and Science are dominated by the 19th Century idea that the two are in conflict. This idea was created by two men, Draper and White, in two respective books they wrote. Those books had a powerful influence on the Culture, though their specific ideas were lost to a more basic Truism that Science and Religion are opposites. These books were themselves however based on faulty Historical analysis, and in many cases outright falsehood.
Modern Historians, as well as most Academics, have abandoned the Conflict Thesis, but due to its prevalence, as well as the resurgent Arguments made by the "New Atheism", which really just resurrects the 19th Century Freethought movement and the ideas of early 20th Century thinkers like Bertrand Russell, we've been conditioned to accept terms which aren't always True in this debate.
One such is that Faith is Fragile, and tests of Faith must be avoided. Says who? No the Bible, which Christians believe in.
Then again, Faith itself is often vilified, and is understood as the opposite of Reason. It's often defined in these debates as belief without evidence. However, this isn't what Faith has meant Historically nor is it what most Christians use the word to mean. Faith is actually another word for Trust, and often is built from Evidence.
Basically, to have Faith in God is not to believe in God's existence even though you have no evidence for it, and otherwise you got to Hell, rather, Faith is Trust in God's promises to you based on what he has already done both in your Life, and by the Finished work of Christ on the Cross.
That is how most Christians understand what Faith is, in terms of what Christians ask others to do or when speaking of their own commitment to their Faith.
It should also be noted that Evolution is not itself incompatible with Christianity. It's not like you must choose, between being a Christian and believing in Evolution, as plenty of Christians accept Evolutionary Theory.
I don't think this article on Intelligent Design accurately represents those who want it taught in Schools. I have spoken to proponents of Intelligent Design, and while it is True that some do see Evolution as a way of replacing God, they don't see it as a Test of Faith. Rather, those who understand it as a threat to Christian Faith do so based on the idea that Evolution is necessarily godless, or at least that the Schools will teach only a godless version of it and insist that God does not exist. That isn't the same kind of concern as Evolution leading one away from Faith.
There are also proponents of ID who don't so much think Evolution will lead to Atheism, but simply note that if you teach ID, you must acknowledge a Creator and thus make it easier to introduce God to people by using that as an example. In that sense, Intelligent Design is a sort of Missionary idea, which paves the way for acceptance of Christianity by acknowledging God exists. Thus, rather than Evolution being explicitly Atheistic, its more about Evolution being compatible with Atheism.
However, the majority of Intelligent Design proponents don't think either way. Most simply think Intelligent Design is True. They want it Taught because thy believe in it.
That may be hard for people to understand who are adamant that ID is Religion and not Science and hide behind the idea of Science and Religion as totally alien to each other, and who need an excuse to explain how Religious people think and why they'd deny the obvious Facts of Science. It ties into teh idea of Faith as belief without evidence and the hinge on which Religion, especially Christianity, hangs. But, is it an hindmost assessment?
While I accept Evolutionary Theory, I can't say that those who don't accept it are simply ignoring the evidence or choosing Faith over Science. Many use to believe in Evolution, and now don’t because of evidence and questions they had. Many more may have ch
And Texas God sayeth, "Thou Shalt Be Ignorant"
Table-ized A.I.
Don't confuse Micro- and Macro- Evolution
while one (micro) can empirically be proven (therefore evidence for "evolution") , the other (macro) can not and never will be able to be proven because of the nature of the idea.
To believe in MacroEvolution you need even more faith than you need to believe in God.
And most of all if you have no understanding of the Bible - don't blatantly spit out assumptions about other peoples beliefs - it only shows how complacent you are.
So tests to that faith must be avoided at all costs.
So, anyone who fails to test their faith has no faith in their faith and therefore fails the test of faith.
I think we are missing the point here. Take for example the "Game of Life". Evolution proponents look at its...well, evolution and base their claim. But that does not mean that proponents of Intelligent Being design (i.e. God) are not right, it does not mean that someone. somewhere, a long long time ago, did not design "us" so that we then "evolve intelligently".
Republicans have been trying to kill public education since the Reagan administration. They want to push science out of the public school curriculum, so their privately educated kids will have a huge advantage for the jobs of the future. Whipping people up into a frenzy about evolution only furthers their cause.
As a scientist, I am not convinced that evolution disproves the existence of God. That doesn't mean that "intelligent design" is correct either, only that there is far more that we don't know about our universe.
Anyone who believes science explains even a small fraction of our universe is deluded. We haven't even traveled outside our own solar system and have no way of knowing what lies in other galaxies. Who are we to consider ourselves in possession of all the knowledge there is to know?
One who has their mind closed to even the possibility of God simply isn't paying attention.
If people start believing in evolution, they might start believing in global warming and in the failure of trickle-down economics, too...
Calling the evidence for evolution "incontrovertible" is ridiculous.
Using the embryos of chickens for evidence of evolution in high school scientific text books is not incontrovertible evidence.
It takes one year to fossilize a dog, so much for the theory.
Recorded history is about 5000 years, maybe 10,000, so it is much less a theory than a hypothesis.
Intelligent design is being discredited, because if it were true, so much for the chicken in the high school text book "theory".
"The fact of evolution is incontrovertible..."
Alright, stop right there. I thought we were talking about science here, not a deeply held belief that shall not be challenged under any circumstances. Science is supposed to be at least as much about disproving things as it is proving things.
Evolution -- as the sole explanation for the original spontaneous generation of living beings and subsequent radical transformation of those beings into other forms through the dual, opposing forces of random, beneficial genetic mutation and the environment-based genetic focusing of natural selection -- is at best a historical science. Even if beneficial genetic mutation, rapid natural selection, and spontaneous transformation of inorganic material into organic material was readily and frequently observable in perfect, laboratory conditions, this would not constitute scientific proof that evolution DID occur at some unobserved specific point in the past. It would only count as strong evidence that it had occurred.
As for why people strongly resist its teaching in some schools, I think it's to some degree religiously driven. I also think it's partially a reaction to the very strong, often hysterical, interests that insist evolution MUST be taught to everyone in every school under all contexts. Evolution, as a study, does not add much to the practical usefulness of biological study. The ability to classify animals in one way (a tree of relatives) versus some other way is a matter of semantics. Genetics, breeding, DNA, cellular structure, the chemical processes of life, etc., can be taught and retain its full practical value without having to know where it all came from originally. Whether a specific biologist believes evolution, intelligent design, some other origin, or simply leaves the question hanging is largely irrelevant to nearly all of the study and practical applications of biology and its subject matters.
For comparison, as a computer scientist and software developer, I have exactly zero need for formal computer history in my day to day software development. Small amounts of historical knowledge of how software, computer systems, and design patterns once were is sometimes helpful, but only in the sense of explaining why things are they way they are (usually in relation to something not working correctly or appearing foolishly designed). Not caring about the why, I wouldn't use that knowledge at all, though it may be interesting to know.
ooooooor, they develop as a super race of warriors who then rape, pillage, and kill their way through the rest of the world, subjugating everyone to their dictatorial fetishes. In fact, this seems much more likely than your fantasy scenario.
You should begin preparing to welcome your new super-breed of gun toting overlords.
ID postulates that life was too complex to have evolved on it's own, so it must have been Created by some unnamed Higher Power.
Just because it's not Adam and Eve and Steve from Genesis doesn't mean that it's not creationism.
Most Prostestant churches view the Apocrapha as having some value as a secondary source, but do not consider it to be equal to the Bible. The "Book of Mormon", on the other hand, is considered heresy.
Unless you're a Mormon.
That's the problem with faith. Let's assume I suddenly wanted to be a Christian. I suddenly have a heart full of faith.
Which one do I choose?
Faith is belief without proof. And all religions have no proof. So how do you choose?
Same problem you describe with the bible. These books are in, these ones are out. These guys add this part in and these guys leave it out. Everyone thinks differently and everyone thinks they're correct. That's the "bug" with faith. No proof means you can reach any conclusion you wish, since no proof is required.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The whole point is that faith is belief in something untrue.
Anyone can believe something true - believing something demonstrably false proves you have faith.
I'm a Christian. Here are list of things that many Christians believe but that I do NOT.
1. The world was created in 6 days
2. That you're born guilty because your earliest ancestors ate from a tree which they were instructed not to eat from
3. God flooded the world and killed all but one family
4. Jonah survived days in the belly of a sea creature
5. God sent plagues to punish the Egyptians for the decision of the Pharaoh to keep Hebrews enslaved
6. The Red Sea parted to allow Hebrews to escape the Egyptians
7. God told his chosen people to kill all the inhabitants of a land that he wanted to give them
8. God instructed his people to stone other people to death as a punishment for breaking his rules
9. That there is such a place as hell
10. Jesus was born to a virgin and Zoroastrian magi brought gifts from Persia
11. That Jesus was the son of God (any more so than any other man is)
12. Jesus walked on water or turned water into wine
13. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead
14. Jesus was himself raised from the dead
15. That Judas Iscariot or Pontius Pilate are cursed because of the role each of them played in Jesus' crucifixion
16. Paul was temporarily struck blind on the road to Damascus
And many other things that others who call themselves Christians usually believe but that I, as a Christian, do not.
I, as a Christian believe in a God guided creation via evolution. I find these views to be reconcilable, and pleasingly consistent.
The reason most Christians are not even open to looking at this view is that Atheists have clung to Evolution as the anti-proof for Christianity. To Christians like myself , our relationship to God is the one thing that maters. Too many people have told Christians to believe evolution and while they are at it deny God. In doing this they take something that some Christians could have accepted and make it something they will all abhor.
So if you want other Christians to get on board with evolutionary thinking you must do two things.
1. NEVER try to use evolution as an anti-proof for God. It is not one, and anyone who claims it is will be an eternal enemy of the church. Science can only make inference to things that can be observed or tested, and God is neither of these things.
2. Make amends for the past by emphasizing the possibility for God's work in evolution. Note how evolution is set up in such a way to allow the development and general thriving of life on this world. I don't believe this occurred merely by chance.
I'd like to know why you can only have one or the other. If you don't want to believe in a creator then you could still do better than believing in evolution. To call it "incontrovertible" is a joke.and the so called "empirical evidence" is just a huge pile of assumptions supported only by ego and hubris. Darwin himself doubted his own theory because of the lack of a fossil record to back it up. We now have an extensive fossil record that still fails to back it up. There's way too many unanswered questions. If you're willing to just have faith in science to explain it some day, you might as well just have faith that god will explain it some day...
What if people could question science without the only alternative being spiritual. Isn't that how science is supposed to work anyways?
"You can't tell me what to fuckin' believe!"
Well I wish they would let that apply to other groups then.
Twinstiq, game news
The Republicans have learned that saying they're against evolution gets them the votes and campaign contributions from a large chunk of people who don't believe in evolution, and they want to perpetuate that block of voters. Doing anti-evolution textbooks doesn't just get them a lot of the kids, it gets the support of their parents.
And if you sell people on being anti-science about evolution, you can sell them on being anti-science about climate change. The party's Corporate Sponsors really care about that, because lots of them are in businesses that cause bad changes to climate, and they don't want laws interfering with them.
It's also about affecting how history is taught, particularly about race relations. My father was born in Texas, and moved a few times when he was a kid; he had to relearn the history of the War Between The States when he'd move, because it was different in different states. Texas still wants you to see it Texas's way. And there are other social issues, like gun rights, where the right-wingers have been pushing their views into textbooks as well, just as left-wingers have done.
Bill Stewart
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Science it has no place at all. Religion has no place in reality.
Humans wrote the bible... while God wrote the rocks. I am going with what God wrote!
That's the beautiful thing about the scientific method. It is, by design, intended to adjust our explanations as more information becomes available. Science provides a method to *refine* our understanding of our world whereas most religious beliefs attempt to avoid new information in favor of preserving the established explanation. So think of it this way: science accepts evidence and throws out old explanations in favor of getting closer to the truth whereas religion throws out new evidence in favor of preserving old established explanations.
Coexist much?
As someone who has done Biblical translations... [...] What has been found is that the "Old Testament" was kept very rigorlessly and was virtually unchanged after centuries.
Far be it from me to criticize someone who tries to write things that are rigorlessly accurate... :p
In a K-12 educational system you could exclude teaching evolution without any real repercussions. There are a lot of other things to focus on in Biology instead of the theory of evolution. It's like wasting time in Physics discussing the big bang theory...
Wait, so factual information regardless of source is "misrepresenting" something? If one thing doesn't change with partisan hacks, it's "attack the messenger" and "flail uselessly" when faced with something they don't like. And since that's the standard M/O for the global warming movement, I shouldn't be surprised at a comment like that.
Om, nomnomnom...
Yes, I did specifically mean that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora#Acquisition_of_gut_flora_in_human_infants
The part I've never understood is that God is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent and does things than humanity is incapable of understanding, and yet this all powerful God is only able to create a static system, and not a dynamic one? The two are only arbitrarily incompatible.
I think I'm pretty well designed over-all... : )
I'm the apex predator on this planet, as long as I use common-sense and arm myself accordingly to take on gorilla, shark, lion, tigers, bears, elephant etc.
But for the OP: Religions pushing intelligent design are trying to maintain relevancy under the onslaught of evolutionary science, which while a "theory" has not been disproven in any way and makes perfect sense in many ways to describe how we evolved to be here. It's an acceptance of evolution by religious types in many cases if you like, but with the stipulation that God made it happen, by designing us accordingly. I know the Jehovas are big on I.D as they featured it in Watchtower and came around to speak on it a few times.
I'm actually OK with such theories, as long as the science is left alone, and is sound, and it will attract more people back to a spiritual / religious way of life.
Science has yet to disprove the theory of a creative being/force in or outside the known Universe. Of course the Atheist set will say the onus is not on them to prove the existence, but I think it is if you want to deny something outright, and many scientists do not discard the idea of a God-like being or at least an initial unexplained creative force that set things in motion.
As for the Bible, it's a very interesting work, and seems to contradict itself on many levels. I think you need to interpret it, to get any value out of it, as taking it literally will often lead to confusion and contradiction.
Essentially the case brought up by many is this: teach both. In my studies of the topic, I've found that there's evidence that seems to support both sides of the issue. The hard fact is, we don’t have proof of either theory, we just have data, which is always open to interpretation. We cannot observe the events that led to/created life, we just have archaeological data. What schools should teach, then, is not the conclusions, but the raw data. Teach students to analyze that data and fairly teach both theories (both the good and the bad), and let them decide which theory they think best fits. If Evolution better fits the facts, then let them make that decision. If Intelligent Design does, then leave that up to the student. The point is, when there are valid cases made for two sides of an argument, it is intellectually dishonest to only teach one side. That doesn't teach kids how to reason and use logic, it teaches them to blindly believe whatever they're taught. It's the same reason so many math classes stress proofs.
What I see is many from each side afraid of the other side being taught, but they shouldn't be. If their theory fits the facts, it should hold its own. I have to say that I see the intelligent design side faring better in this aspect, as most don't want evolution NOT taught, just their side taught as well, whereas most people on the evolution side are adamantly opposed to Intelligent Design being taught.
It's perfectly clear. God created the earth, but made it to appear as though it were billions of years old with a fossil history, etc. That way those who fall for the evidence can be condemned as disbelievers and condemned to Hell and eternal torment. Nice catch, God!!
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
These groups work together, convinced they are doing what is right, to indoctrinate young minds that secular education has been taken over by atheists like Aldous Huxley and Richard Dawkins, hellbent on disproving the notion that the Bible is a historically and scientifically accurate document. Like most advocates of pseudoscience they also claim the rigors of scientific method prevent one from having an open mind. They also claim that our current scientific process keeps out sound alternative theories like Creationism, both unintentionally and by an intentional conspiracy.
The main problem, as I see it, is that both the students and the teachers are instructed that they must not question their narrow interpretation of the King James Bible and all the contradictions and mental contortions that belief system requires. To doubt the "Word of God" is to invite eternal damnation. Unlike most modern Christians, who have morphed their religious thinking into a kind of fuzzy deism, where anything truly awful in the Bible is an allegory or a misunderstanding, the strict King James Version believer must not question, and indeed has a moral obligation to force God's word and God's law on this nation, which is clearly a Christian oasis created by and watched over by the Christian God. Following this mandate, only that which affirms that the Earth is a few thousand years old and that a flood wiped out everything that wasn't on Noah's Ark is the truth.
And it just gets crazier from there, unfortunately, but I won't delve into that topic since it deviates from the OP.
Since most people misunderstand what science is, this large percentage of Christian Americans see this movement as proof of a conspiracy that atheism is trying to remove truth from the educational system and other areas of society, because that truth is religious in nature. They perceive science as a debate that can be won, and science class as a conspiracy that is attempting to undermine truth and morality. And as a result, those of who are not willfully ignorant are destined to spend a great deal of time, energy and money keeping religious dogma out of science books.
Probably because unintelligent design results in crappy products
Sure, it's a political thing, the whole teaching of the ID "debate", but if there is a failing in the teaching of Evolution Theory, that failing is the WAY it's always been taught in public schools.
It really isn't until you go into college and are exposed to a variety of disciplines that the history of HOW Evolution is flushed-out, and it is a fascinating history, intertwined with the history of the era it was developed in.
A HS education is a very limited and skeletal education. Very rarely in HS are you exposed to the depth and breadth of how interrelated the development of scientific method is with the era and personalities it emerged within. In HS, so much of what you are taught is over-simplified and disconnected from the reality, is it any wonder people are prone to misunderstanding and fall prey to the need for their natural doubts borne out of simple ignorance to be assuaged ?
Political battles are ultimately social battles; manipulating people who lack the education and awareness of history are relatively easy to wage.
The solution is to teach more history, and how the process of discovery has brought us here from there. The best HS history classes I had where the classes we watched James Burke's "Connections" series.
You don't win a debate based on ignorance and faith by demanding more faith in science; you win it by simple education of human history, and by teaching people the difference between belief that's based more on tradition and assumption, vs. understanding based on simple discovery.
Making this entire thing out as a political battle and resorting to what amounts to scientism is just keeping it political, and keeping things polarized, and preventing the educational process from fulfilling it's potential.
Just stop it.
In answer to what Funksaw wrote and what was Posted by samzenpus on Friday September 20, 2013 @03:00AM...
Just consider this fact of the brain:
Human brain: Modern computers are a product of intensive research and careful engineering. They did not “just happen.” What about the human brain? Unlike the brain of any animal, the brain of a human infant triples in size during its first year. How it functions is still largely a mystery to scientists. In humans, there is the built-in capacity to learn complex languages, to appreciate beauty, to compose music, to contemplate the origin and meaning of life. Said brain surgeon Robert White: “I am left with no choice but to acknowledge the existence of a Superior Intellect, responsible for the design and development of the incredible brain-mind relationship—something far beyond man’s capacity to understand.” (The Reader’s Digest, September 1978, p. 99) The development of this marvel begins from a tiny fertilized cell in the womb. With remarkable insight, the Bible writer David said to Jehovah: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware.”—Ps. 139:14.
‘When there is solid evidence proving something, that is what we should all believe, isn’t it? ... I recall in my school textbooks that pictures of fossils were provided to support evolution. But since then I have read some very interesting comments by scientists concerning the fossil record. I have some of them here. ... have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution.” (The Origin of Species, New York, 1902, Part Two, p. 83) Does the evidence indicate that “numerous species” came into existence at the same time, or does it point to gradual development, as evolution holds? ... the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.”—January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 22,23.
What view does the fossil record support?
Darwin acknowledged: “If numerous species
Have sufficient fossils been found to draw a sound conclusion?
Smithsonian Institution scientist Porter Kier says: “There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.” (New Scientist, January 15,1981, p. 129) A Guide to Earth History adds: “By the aid of fossils palaeontologists can now give us an excellent picture of the life of past ages.”—(New York, 1956), Richard Carrington, Mentor edition, p. 48.
What does the fossil record actually show?
The Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History pointed out: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true.
A View of Life states: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.”—(California, 1981), Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, p. 649.
Paleontologist Alfred Romer wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times.”—Natural History, October 1959, p. 467.
Zoologist Harold Coffin states: “If progressive evolution from simple to complex is correct, the a
There's nothing remotely scientific about the so-called theory of evolution. At best, it's pseudo-scientific speculation about the possibilities.
It's always convenient when your ideas actually have the weight of EVIDENCE behind them, which evolution certainly does not have. Which leaves, what?
Actually, it is quite interesting how gods word wasn't around much during the dark ages. The priests only allowed other priests to read it. Kept it in Latin, a language most didn't speek.
Then there was the Reformation, when the word of God was spread again, and the industrial revolution followed immediately after the reformation.
In fact, in every nation you can see a cycle. The word of god is spread, a nation improves and grows, then they stop believing in God, then they collapse. It is a cycle. It is repeatable. You can find evidence in almost every nation throughout history of this.
I for one, hope that we can realize that we humble enough to realize that God could exist, he could have created us, even if the theory of evolution is proven. Currently it is still just a theory with a lot of evidence. Although it still doesn't account for the actual moment of creation, we at least can see masses of evidence of how it works after creation.
Also, for any of you coders out there, DNA is code. While sharing DNA code between two species does provide evidence to support the theory of evolution, it also provides evidence to support the theory of code reuse by someone intelligent enough.
Until proven, evolution and intelligent designs are theories. A good scientist will suggest that all theories be taught until one is proven.
Evolution has no "factual evidence." To be a fact, something must have been observed, or known to have happened, and which is confirmed or validated. No true scientist can be consistent and call evolution a fact. http://www.evolutionvsgod.com/
If one really takes an unbiased look at the debate one would realize that they are not mutually exclusive!
science is not always correct. religion is wrong where it doesn't agree with the bible (regarding hell, death, sabbath, etc...).
but the bible is always right, whether or not science or religion understand it correctly.
proof that the bible is right:
1. calendar. "2013" counts from the approximate time of Jesus birth.
2. chinese classics show meaning of chinese word "first born" related to "cruel", bible says Cain killed Abel.
3. chinese classics and many other history books of other countries talk about a flood / Noah kind of story.
4. history follows prophecy (daniel 2, babylon, medo-persia, greece, rome, europe-divisions, and the future)
5. archeology debunks evolution
6. carbon dating is unreliable (wikipedia)
7. the countries that hate christianity are syria, north korea, afghanistan, somalia, etc... they are following the story of france (they once declared that God does not exist, resulting in national ruin).
so if you're gonna choose a religion, better be objective, and logical.
check http://www.amazingfacts.org/
The point of faith seems to be to join God's divine kingdom. The question we must ask ourselves why join God's divine Kingdom?
In the words of Groucho Marx : "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member"
Given that 'theism' is the belief that there is a god who does intervene in the world, (Deism being the belief that a god set the world going but now is no longer involved) atheism is a belief that there is NOT a god who can or has intervened in the world. It's a belief in a negative, which every logician will tell you is unprovable. Atheism, on the strict definition, is therefore illogical. Claiming a seat on the 'end of the fence' and labelling it 'atheism' won't actually do - it's a piece of Humpty-Dumptyism, making words mean what you want them to, not what they are defined as meaning. On the subject of alien, I'm suggesting that since it's obvious that any 'god' will be external to this world in some sense, it can therefore be argued to be alien. Actually it's possible to translate 'holy' as 'alien'... But it's not an important point; the core point is that there can be no certainty that there isn't something out there that matches the features of a 'god'.
People who really believe in religion and other forms of spirituality are not threatened by science. The findings of science do not shake their belief in whatever unknowns they believe are out there.
Creationism and Intelligent Design, as used by many of the Christians asking for legislatures to pass laws for enforce their religion and theology, are rhetorical positions that defend the most vulnerable elements of their religion and social thinking, for most perhaps all of these people are also social conservatives. By being conservatives they believe that they are better than their fellows perhaps in holding the beliefs defended by the rhetorical positions, such as their reading of Scripture that is as subjective and open to dispute as they insist that Scripture in inerrant. This is the clue to the real motive behind such people. it is to win moral arguments by force and that motive is supported by arrogance and entitlement, much as supports the Tea Parties in the House of Representatives.
A rhetorical position is a delaying tactic, a distraction, to steer the discussion away from a weak justification for a prejudiced position. It might be necessary to defend school curriculum in Texas from this attack, but ultimately if the political will is to allow such a travistry in Texas and other states, such as mostly in the Midwest and South, we can react by moving the innovative parts of society out of those places that don't want it in order to accept the sham pushed by some of these Christian congregations, and on the general matter of politics, whether social conservativism or movements like the Tea Parties, other more enlightened places in the nation can seek to separate themselves from these backward or self-interested places, for energy policy and the self interest of carbon fuel producing interests in Texas, and other states, who have funded the extreme conservatives in these states and the Congress, can be removed from the commonwealth, or thse other places separate themselves from them.
Having gone to an Orthodox temple for awhile* where the rabbi was a staunch Creationist (Young Earth, not less) and very anti-science, I can attest that one big reason is that science is scary to these people. You see, they like the comfort of "knowing" what is going on in the world. How was the world created? Read Genesis and find out. Genesis hasn't changed in a thousand years and likely won't change in the next thousand. Meanwhile, science is saying one thing today and then something different tomorrow. Science changes with every new discovery.
Now, you and I might say "but that's science's greatest strength" and we would be right. But to creationists, a "how did it happen" story that changes isn't comforting. Instead, the certainty of "In the beginning...." is touted as a strength and the changing nature of science is put forward as a weakness. (Much in the same way that a politician who changes his view when new information is brought to light might be painted as "flip flopping" for daring to change positions.)
So the answer to "Why do they keep pushing Intelligent Design" is that they want to prevent science by all means necessary and return to a world where the answer to everything was just "pray harder**."
* I went to that temple only because I was living with my parents at the time and they were members there so I got membership for free. My tongue paid for the membership, though, every time I bit it when the rabbi went on a "science is weak for changing" rant. That wasn't the time or place for an argument... especially since many of the congregants believed the same thing. I'd have a better chance of changing a person's mind by posting "Why Windows is superior to Linux" on Slashdot!
** Note that they also believe that "pray harder" only works if you adopt THEIR religion's god. And not just their religion's god, but the particular sect of their religion's god. Any variation, no matter how slight, will render "pray harder" ineffective (in their minds). Of course, this can be applied after the fact. You tried to pray away your sickness and you got worse so obviously that means that you didn't accept their god properly and fully. Shame on you!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Come on, we all know Lisa Simpson is the creator and Bart is the devil. Besides, George W. is the obvious answer as to why Texas thinks as it does. I think they are also too close to the equator. The Deep South, like Australia's Deep North (Queensland especially", always seems more stupid than those areas further away from the equator. The Middle East also supports this. Maybe, like Queensland, Texas has a limited gene pool in the past and it will take another few generations to breed this ignorance out of its population.
Just my theories.
Roy
Caboolshit, Banania, Aust.
To the contrary the Bible says quiet the opposite at Proverbs 5:18, 19:
Let your water source prove to be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth,a lovable hind and a charming mountain goat. Let her own breasts intoxicate you at all times. With her love may you be in an ecstasy constantly.
That sound like more than just mindless procreation, so the next time some bible thumper insists on ridiculous ideas (such as sex is only for procreation) ask them for scriptural proof because at John 17:17 Jesus said; "... your word is truth," so anyone who speaks truth will have sound scriptural support from God's word; the Bible, to back up their claims (2nd Timothy 2:15).
Wait, that quote scans a bit odd, don't you think? I mean, does "her breasts" and "her love" refer to the charming mountain goat? Or... Surely not the hind, lovable though it may be? Or is it the wife who is being metaphorically referred to as both a goat and a hind? And then there's the literal but clearly wrong (I sure hope!) reading, which is that the "wife of your youth" was in fact literally a hind! Or a goat! Or possibly both at once... It's all so confusing.
You see, this is why I no longer read the bible, it's so filled with contradictions and mistranslations and double meanings. On the other hand, I certainly don't trust the clergy to explain it all and give us the One True Meaning, that's precisely how things like a celibate priesthood and the idea that sex is strictly for procreation crept into Christianity to begin with.
Frankly, it's much easier to just worship Cthulhu. You can be sure He knows what sex is for!
They used to teach that to be fact, a theory had to be testable and observable. I guess that's gone by the wayside. Convenient for those who don't want to deal with their responsibilities to the Designer.
People have no problem believing what they want, but have to learn science. Belief has been ingrained for centuries so it's a bit hard to overcome. Take Islam where they pray and virtually recite litanies many times a day. It doesn't take long at all to create believers. Start with children in the formative years and they are bound for life. All Religions do this to some extent. Using this approach: Some teach peace, some teach creation, Some teach that all others must be destroyed, most teach they are the only correct way, but it's very difficult for a true believer to stray from orthodox teachings when they conflict, or even appear to conflict with science. It's simple human nature. It's how I quit smoking 2 1/2 packs of unfiltered Camels a day with no after effects. Practiced on a small scale, it's simple rote memory, but when repeated often, on schedule, many times a day for many days, weeks, months, or years, it becomes ingrained..You could even call it Brain Washing and not be far off. Call it what you want, affirmations, prayers, or litanies. If they are repeated many times a day, and particularly on a schedule, they are very effective even at the subconscious level.
The planetary model, or analogy is still used in basic teaching of atomic structure because it approximates the way things appear to behave and it's easy to learn.
factual information
That would be nice, as opposed to the drivel you linked to. Go gather some information from credible sources, backed up with verifiable citations (of comparable credibility as the original source) and we can go from there, if you're interested in an actual discussion, rather than you flinging crap in all directions hoping it'll stick to something.
Really, you should try harder. The level you're at right now hasn't aged well.
One needs to have been raised around Bible Thumpers to understand their commitment to beliefs. Facts have no place in their mind.
The FACT is that evolution (i.e. Macro-Evolution) is NOT incontrovertible. While micro-evolutionary changes within species is well documented, there is no evidence whatsoever that a new species can arise from genetic mutation. The vast majority of mutations are either deleterious or inconsequential. The mathematical probability that a mutation will be so beneficial to an organism that it will give rise to a totally new species is so insignificant as to be indistinguishable from zero. The Universe at roughly 14 billion years old is not NEARLY old enough to account for the variety and complexity of life from purely natural processes. Intelligent design is obvious. To force schools to exclude it as a viable scientific explanation is nothing short of unconstitutional censorship and a jack-booted gestapo attempt to silence all those who oppose YOUR distorted world view. Present BOTH views in a purely scientific context and let the students decide which one is true.
That would be nice, as opposed to the drivel you linked to.
Gee, maybe the LA times would be more up your alley.
Damn that factual information...I guess DM did get it right huh?
Om, nomnomnom...
From the article: '[W]hat is true is that evolution tests faith.'
So: the whole article is based on a false premise. You only need one counterexample to disprove Boyko's blanket statement, and that counterexample is me. Evolution doesn't test my faith, it enhances it. Evolution is a process at work in our universe. That the Creator was clever enough to incorporate this process in His creation -- basically letting it do almost all of the work of creating new biochemicals, anatomical structures, and species for Him -- should impress the heck out of all of us. (As you know, laziness is one of the great virtues of a programmer.)
(The Creator is not of any particular gender, so "It" would be a more accurate pronoun than "He," but "It" would offend some people, so whatever, I'm down with using "He.")
We are Sims. And this is all a huge simulation. Creationism and Science can get along just fine if we look at the universe(s) in this way.
I think literacy and global communication will put deity-based religions into some kind of big decline, (Thanks, Joseph Campbell.)
although I could be very wrong about this.
Faith in Capitalism is becoming scarier to me than the mob of religious believers.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Until proven, evolution and intelligent designs are theories. A good scientist will suggest that all theories be taught until one is proven.
"Intelligent design" is not a theory; it is an untestable/non-falsifiable hypothesis. It is unscientific, thus no scientist worthy of the name would touch it with a bargepole. It is a creation myth with zero utility in the advancement of our species.
according to the bible,God gave us free will to do with as we please(u could do good deeds,or, u could do bad deeds, and God wont interfere with your decision, but u must pay the consequences for your actions) God also gave us science, and, evolution,as a way to help us understand the universe,and its inhabitants that he made. In other words: we re on our own in this life, and we will be judged on our actions in the next.