Polynomial time approximate, probabilistic or special case solutions to NP problems are wide spread
That's not saying much. Exact, general case, deterministic, polynomial time solutions to NP problems are even more wide spread. A problem is in NP if its answer is verifiable in polynomial time. Thus, any problem in P is also in NP. You're confusing NP with NP-Complete.
Truly critical analysis of evolution requires a thorough understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, and mathematics at the graduate level or above. There is absolutely no point in saying "some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't" because it imparts absolutely nothing to a child's education. They have no way to grasp the arguments on both sides, and simply have to trust one side or the other without evidence of which can present the stronger argument.
This perfectly illustrates my viewpoint. Evolution, as it is widely taught in schools, is simply taught to students as fact. Unfortunately, as you stated, the students do not have the graduate level understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, or mathematics. They are unable to discern for themselves and, as you stated, simply have to trust one side or the other. Where I disagree with you is that there is "no point in saying 'some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't'" Because the students can not yet rigorously discern for themselves, they should at least know that it is not fact, and that some scientists disagree.
It would be akin to teaching history by saying "here, read all these personal diaries, anecdotes, pamphlets, and advertisements from a long time ago and try to figure out what was really going on. By the way, we're not going to tell you what the majority of historians think actually happened."
I am not saying that we cannot say what the "majority of historians think actually happened", but on an issue as controversial as evolution, I think that teachers should be allowed to say that there is another viewpoint. That evolution is not certain -- and it isn't! I think that teachers should be allowed to point out that there are many important questions concerning evolution that are unanswered and possibly unanswerable. The thing is, evolution has more holes and unexplained mechanisms than any other field of science that is taught in high school or below (which is what we are talking about here). I know people are going to hate me saying that, so let me give some examples:
(1) The mechanisms necessary for evolution to occur as it is claimed have never been demonstrated. I'm not talking about natural selection or speciation. Those are perfectly good science. They are observable, testable, and repeatable, with predictive power. But we have never observed large changes. We have never observed something like ape to human evolution. And neither is this in the scope of observational science. These alleged changes take millions of years. The claim that speciation and natural selection can be responsible for changes of this magnitude is simply not testable. The fossil record fails to be convincing here as well; see articles here and here. While it is a nice theory, it is simply not supported by data. The problem lies in presuppositions. When an evolution-believing scientist finds a fossil, he asks the question: "How can this be explained in light of evolution?" But this may be the wrong question to ask. I submit that he should instead ask "How can the past be explained in light of this fossil?". The first question tries to make sense of data given a theory, and the second question tries to make sense of a theory given data.
(2) This is related to (1). I fail to see by what mechanism the ordering and increasing of information occurs. This has not been observed. See this paper. It's a bit long, but I would recommend skimming through it.
(3) Evolution as it is taught in schools is almost always coupled with abiogenesis. At the very least, I would request that this be removed from schools. This has never been observed, and any ideas about how it could have happened are
Its pretty sad what the "scientific" community is coming to. Why are so many "free thinkers" so opposed to allowing critical analysis of evolution in schools? Would you have children preprogrammed to accept evolution without question? Science, without questions, is dead. I am also quite bored of the tired and ridiculous argument that it is impossible to understand or do good science while not believing in evolution:
End result will be that the children will grow up not knowing what makes the light work
Interesting. And what would Newton, a devout Christian and the father of Calculus say about that? He did quite a bit of work on light himself.
I don't have time to reply to each of your arguments, but if you read my reply to lgw it addresses most of them (if not all, all of the significant ones).
like most people who don't have a damn clue what they're talking about, you lump BIOGENESIS in with evolution I don't believe I did lump biogenesis in with evolution. I simply said that it is something evolutionists have to have faith in. They either have to have faith that everything came about through natural means, or they have to believe that everything came about through supernatural means (intelligent design, gasp!). I suppose some evolutionists say they don't know. But if they don't know, then why are they so avidly opposed to teaching intelligent design in schools? I know biogenesis is not formally a part of evolution theory, but it is absolutely relevant. Read my reply to lgw for more information on this; I don't have the time to go through it again.
Doubting evolution, like doubting gravity, does not help make useful predictions. Try telling that to Einstein. Einstein turned Newtonian physics, including universal gravitation, on its head. And someday someone will do the same with Einstein's theories. Einstein himself said: "[Thermodynamics] is the only physical theory of universal content that, within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts, will never be overthrown." (Albert Einstein, "Autobiographical Notes", 1949).
Science is about making useful predictions. To some extent this is true, but that is not precisely what science is about. Perhaps that is what makes science useful, but science, at its heart, is about a quest for knowledge about the nature of things. This is often accomplished through the testability and falsifiability of its claims, but I submit that testability is not always possible. Should we immediately disregard something that may be true, just because it does not meet our testability criteria? With this being said, I do believe that intelligent design is at least somewhat testable. To test it, we simply need to disallow the cop-out arguments of the "God put evolutionary evidence there to test us" nature. And I do believe that intelligent design contends nicely.
Intelligent Design is not science period. It does not make falsifiable claims, which is another way of saying it does not make useful predictions. It should not be taught in science class (except as an example of what science isn't) purely on that basis. Try and be objective for a moment. There is plenty taught in schools that is no more falsifiable than intelligent design. One example is naturalism. When evolution is taught in schools, it is almost always taught from a naturalistic standpoint. That is, the first life is taught to have arisen through exclusively natural phenomena. Is this a falsifiable claim? Since life must have begun through either supernatural (intelligent design) or natural means (it must be one or the other), the only way to falsify this claim is to prove that life begun supernaturally. You see, using this reasoning, we can effectively reduce the falsifiability of naturalism to the provability of intelligent design. Likewise, the falsifiability of intelligent design can be reduced to the provability of naturalism. So why should we favor one over the other in schools? These two theories are merely functions of their presuppositions. Given scientific observation, naturalism actually seems less likely to me. There is not a shred of solid theoretical backing for the first life spontaneously occurring. It has repeatedly been failed to be demonstrated (by Stanley Miller and others). You also might consider the work on irreducible complexity by Behe.
I'm not saying we should take evolution out of schools. I am saying that we should stop teaching it as fact, because it is not. (Please don't give me a bunch of crap about scientific theory being basically fact, because I really don't want to regurgitate everything I've written in this post and my previous one). As far as I am concerned, it's not even solid theory. I think we should teach intelligent design right along side it, because like it or not, it is a feasible explanation for life (and in my opinion, it is the only feasible explanation). Thanks for reading.
Evolution has plenty of holes and problems.
In short, there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place
First of all, no one (not even fundies) is disputing that natural selection occurs. That natural selection occurs to the extent that evolutionists purport is where the dispute lies. You have perfectly illustrated a huge problem with the way evolution is taught in schools. If you say that there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place, and you teach it this way, then my friend, you have just departed from science. Science needs questions and questioners. Science absolutely needs to be questioned. A science classroom that forgets this, that refuses to consider alternate explanations, does need to be banned. I absolutely think that evolution should be taught in schools. But not as fact! I personally don't believe in evolution, and I think that intelligent design should be taught alongside it, also not as fact.
Now, here are the main counter-arguments that people might give, and their respective rebuttals:
(1) Intelligent Design is not good science, because it is presupposes supernatural forces.
It's true: Intelligent Design presupposes some supernatural creator. Evolution presupposes no creator. But, in interest of the quest for knowledge, we should allow ourselves to be open-minded about our presuppositions. Certainly, we should not restrict our children's understanding by teaching a theory (that is a product of one set of presuppositions) as absolute fact. Why is one set of presuppositions better than another? If you think that good science can't be performed with the presupposition (I know, this is a tired word) that a creator created the universe, then consider Newton, the father of Calculus and traditional Physics.
(2) Religion has no place in schools, so intelligent design should not be taught in schools.
What makes intelligent design religion? Note that it is a superset of fundamental Christian beliefs, not a subset. Why not call evolution religion? When I read comments that there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place, I see a person talking about faith (or ignorance), but not science. Evolution needs plenty of faith. How did the first organism come into existence?
what would wii be like without the wii remote?
Why is that a relevant question? Why don't you ask what would the PS3 be like without a graphics card?
what if microsoft and sony were to develop a wiimote clone?
Well, personally, I don't think it would take. If they did develop some kind of wiimote clone, would everyone buy it? Would every game support it/require it? If so, everyone would have to buy it.
all else being equal, do graphics matter?
Absolutely, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, graphics do matter. The problem is, all else is NOT equal. The Wii has the gameplay, an amazing controller, and the right pricepoint.
does price really matter to an avid gamer?
Absolutely price matters. To anybody. Avid gamer or no. Even so, regardless of price, if the PS3 and Wii were the same price, I would still buy the Wii. What's the point of playing games? To have fun. And that's what the Wii does. It lets you have fun.
The things you have faith in are things you THINK are true. The things that science has shown are things everyone KNOWS to be true. You can have faith all day long but refusing to accept the findings of science is not ignorance, it is utter stupidity.
Hmmm... This is news to me. I'm pretty sure that the things you have faith in are things you BELIEVE are true. The things that science has shown are things that everyone THINKS to be true. If you KNOW something in science is true, then you're not talking about science any more. You're following a religion. People like you, who discourage free thinking, are the people who are destroying science. To say that it is "utter stupidity" to not accept the findings of science goes against the very essence of science itself! What if Newton followed your principles? "Oh, I'm pretty sure Galileo had it down," he would have said.
When did it become OK to blindly follow in science? When did skepticism become so taboo? It was when "scientists" became priests, and Darwin the pope.
I am extremely skeptical of evolution, because I am not convinced that science has given it a fair trial. Too many "scientists" cling to evolution as their religion (a very desirable one at that, with no commandments or rules). Too many "scientists" are too invested in it to be objective.
Slashdot Mirror
Polynomial time approximate, probabilistic or special case solutions to NP problems are wide spread
That's not saying much. Exact, general case, deterministic, polynomial time solutions to NP problems are even more wide spread. A problem is in NP if its answer is verifiable in polynomial time. Thus, any problem in P is also in NP. You're confusing NP with NP-Complete.
Truly critical analysis of evolution requires a thorough understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, and mathematics at the graduate level or above. There is absolutely no point in saying "some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't" because it imparts absolutely nothing to a child's education. They have no way to grasp the arguments on both sides, and simply have to trust one side or the other without evidence of which can present the stronger argument.
This perfectly illustrates my viewpoint. Evolution, as it is widely taught in schools, is simply taught to students as fact. Unfortunately, as you stated, the students do not have the graduate level understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, or mathematics. They are unable to discern for themselves and, as you stated, simply have to trust one side or the other. Where I disagree with you is that there is "no point in saying 'some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't'" Because the students can not yet rigorously discern for themselves, they should at least know that it is not fact, and that some scientists disagree.
It would be akin to teaching history by saying "here, read all these personal diaries, anecdotes, pamphlets, and advertisements from a long time ago and try to figure out what was really going on. By the way, we're not going to tell you what the majority of historians think actually happened."
I am not saying that we cannot say what the "majority of historians think actually happened", but on an issue as controversial as evolution, I think that teachers should be allowed to say that there is another viewpoint. That evolution is not certain -- and it isn't! I think that teachers should be allowed to point out that there are many important questions concerning evolution that are unanswered and possibly unanswerable. The thing is, evolution has more holes and unexplained mechanisms than any other field of science that is taught in high school or below (which is what we are talking about here). I know people are going to hate me saying that, so let me give some examples:
(1) The mechanisms necessary for evolution to occur as it is claimed have never been demonstrated. I'm not talking about natural selection or speciation. Those are perfectly good science. They are observable, testable, and repeatable, with predictive power. But we have never observed large changes. We have never observed something like ape to human evolution. And neither is this in the scope of observational science. These alleged changes take millions of years. The claim that speciation and natural selection can be responsible for changes of this magnitude is simply not testable. The fossil record fails to be convincing here as well; see articles here and here. While it is a nice theory, it is simply not supported by data. The problem lies in presuppositions. When an evolution-believing scientist finds a fossil, he asks the question: "How can this be explained in light of evolution?" But this may be the wrong question to ask. I submit that he should instead ask "How can the past be explained in light of this fossil?". The first question tries to make sense of data given a theory, and the second question tries to make sense of a theory given data.
(2) This is related to (1). I fail to see by what mechanism the ordering and increasing of information occurs. This has not been observed. See this paper. It's a bit long, but I would recommend skimming through it.
(3) Evolution as it is taught in schools is almost always coupled with abiogenesis. At the very least, I would request that this be removed from schools. This has never been observed, and any ideas about how it could have happened are
End result will be that the children will grow up not knowing what makes the light work
Interesting. And what would Newton, a devout Christian and the father of Calculus say about that? He did quite a bit of work on light himself.
I don't have time to reply to each of your arguments, but if you read my reply to lgw it addresses most of them (if not all, all of the significant ones).
Science is about making useful predictions. To some extent this is true, but that is not precisely what science is about. Perhaps that is what makes science useful, but science, at its heart, is about a quest for knowledge about the nature of things. This is often accomplished through the testability and falsifiability of its claims, but I submit that testability is not always possible. Should we immediately disregard something that may be true, just because it does not meet our testability criteria? With this being said, I do believe that intelligent design is at least somewhat testable. To test it, we simply need to disallow the cop-out arguments of the "God put evolutionary evidence there to test us" nature. And I do believe that intelligent design contends nicely.
Intelligent Design is not science period. It does not make falsifiable claims, which is another way of saying it does not make useful predictions. It should not be taught in science class (except as an example of what science isn't) purely on that basis. Try and be objective for a moment. There is plenty taught in schools that is no more falsifiable than intelligent design. One example is naturalism. When evolution is taught in schools, it is almost always taught from a naturalistic standpoint. That is, the first life is taught to have arisen through exclusively natural phenomena. Is this a falsifiable claim? Since life must have begun through either supernatural (intelligent design) or natural means (it must be one or the other), the only way to falsify this claim is to prove that life begun supernaturally. You see, using this reasoning, we can effectively reduce the falsifiability of naturalism to the provability of intelligent design. Likewise, the falsifiability of intelligent design can be reduced to the provability of naturalism. So why should we favor one over the other in schools? These two theories are merely functions of their presuppositions. Given scientific observation, naturalism actually seems less likely to me. There is not a shred of solid theoretical backing for the first life spontaneously occurring. It has repeatedly been failed to be demonstrated (by Stanley Miller and others). You also might consider the work on irreducible complexity by Behe.
I'm not saying we should take evolution out of schools. I am saying that we should stop teaching it as fact, because it is not. (Please don't give me a bunch of crap about scientific theory being basically fact, because I really don't want to regurgitate everything I've written in this post and my previous one). As far as I am concerned, it's not even solid theory. I think we should teach intelligent design right along side it, because like it or not, it is a feasible explanation for life (and in my opinion, it is the only feasible explanation). Thanks for reading.
Evolution has plenty of holes and problems.
First of all, no one (not even fundies) is disputing that natural selection occurs. That natural selection occurs to the extent that evolutionists purport is where the dispute lies. You have perfectly illustrated a huge problem with the way evolution is taught in schools. If you say that there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place, and you teach it this way, then my friend, you have just departed from science. Science needs questions and questioners. Science absolutely needs to be questioned. A science classroom that forgets this, that refuses to consider alternate explanations, does need to be banned. I absolutely think that evolution should be taught in schools. But not as fact! I personally don't believe in evolution, and I think that intelligent design should be taught alongside it, also not as fact.
Now, here are the main counter-arguments that people might give, and their respective rebuttals:
(1) Intelligent Design is not good science, because it is presupposes supernatural forces.
It's true: Intelligent Design presupposes some supernatural creator. Evolution presupposes no creator. But, in interest of the quest for knowledge, we should allow ourselves to be open-minded about our presuppositions. Certainly, we should not restrict our children's understanding by teaching a theory (that is a product of one set of presuppositions) as absolute fact. Why is one set of presuppositions better than another? If you think that good science can't be performed with the presupposition (I know, this is a tired word) that a creator created the universe, then consider Newton, the father of Calculus and traditional Physics.
(2) Religion has no place in schools, so intelligent design should not be taught in schools.
What makes intelligent design religion? Note that it is a superset of fundamental Christian beliefs, not a subset. Why not call evolution religion? When I read comments that there is no question--none whatsoever--that evolution takes place, I see a person talking about faith (or ignorance), but not science. Evolution needs plenty of faith. How did the first organism come into existence?
what would wii be like without the wii remote?
Why is that a relevant question? Why don't you ask what would the PS3 be like without a graphics card?
what if microsoft and sony were to develop a wiimote clone?
Well, personally, I don't think it would take. If they did develop some kind of wiimote clone, would everyone buy it? Would every game support it/require it? If so, everyone would have to buy it.
all else being equal, do graphics matter?
Absolutely, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, graphics do matter. The problem is, all else is NOT equal. The Wii has the gameplay, an amazing controller, and the right pricepoint.
does price really matter to an avid gamer?
Absolutely price matters. To anybody. Avid gamer or no. Even so, regardless of price, if the PS3 and Wii were the same price, I would still buy the Wii. What's the point of playing games? To have fun. And that's what the Wii does. It lets you have fun.
Hmmm... This is news to me. I'm pretty sure that the things you have faith in are things you BELIEVE are true. The things that science has shown are things that everyone THINKS to be true. If you KNOW something in science is true, then you're not talking about science any more. You're following a religion. People like you, who discourage free thinking, are the people who are destroying science. To say that it is "utter stupidity" to not accept the findings of science goes against the very essence of science itself! What if Newton followed your principles? "Oh, I'm pretty sure Galileo had it down," he would have said.
When did it become OK to blindly follow in science? When did skepticism become so taboo? It was when "scientists" became priests, and Darwin the pope.
I am extremely skeptical of evolution, because I am not convinced that science has given it a fair trial. Too many "scientists" cling to evolution as their religion (a very desirable one at that, with no commandments or rules). Too many "scientists" are too invested in it to be objective.