No, sir. "Undue" stress? If they're here unlawfully, then they're breaking the law. Yes, it's stressful to be caught breaking the law. Sorry.
The huge assumption you are making is that the law is necessarily reasonable. It isn't always. Deporting an otherwise productive member of society simply because he doesn't have the proper paperwork doesn't help anyone.
More often they're not. I understand how to add a column of 10 six-digit numbers. I can't, however, do it in my head. That doesn't make me bad at math.
Boy I just love the word "Um". I can see you do too!
It always proceed soemthing when people think they are super-intelligent, and figure you are not.
Or pointing out a blindingly obvious error like you have made.
I know you said you were wrong, but, just for posterity:
Let's do a few calculations. What is 40/3?
Why it is ~13.3!!
So how is 28 13.3?
Um (there's your favorite word again), 13.3 is the number of things in each third, not the dividing line. The line for the bottom third would be 40 - 13.3 = 26.7 ie. anything 27 or higher is in the bottom third. Or maybe you're having trouble with the concept of ranking where 1 = "the best" and 40 = "the worst" where 1 did better than 2 and 27 did better than 28.
think of it this way if you are still having issues, how can you be in the bottom third of ANYTHING when your rank sits above the halfway mark?
Even you should understand that to be ABOVE the halfway mark they would have to be less than 20 ( 40 / 2) which 28 is clearly more than.
My guess is that you are a math major, they always did have problems with things like this.
You might want to take a class in math before making smug claims like this. And, no, admitting you were wrong does not get you off the hook for being an asshole. Think, then type. This order shall not be reversed.
Way to be down on the US man, except you forgot one thing - 28th out of fourty just doesn't work out to being in the bottom third, no matter what country you are from!
Um,
28 / 40 = 70% 2 / 3 = 66%
70% > 66% (ie. more than 2/3 of the 40 are above the US at 28). The US is in the bottom third no matter what country you are from.
1. We rely on technology too much. How are we going to test a 15 year old on math questions when they have been punching calculator buttons since they were 5? We sell calculators to specifically calculate how to tip. Come on, it's either 15% or 20% of the bill, how fucking hard is that?
Arithmetic != math. If calculators are readily available, how important is it that people be able to do arithmetic in their heads? Starting at algebra and going up, the amount of actual arithmetic in math gets smaller and smaller. Calculators are not the problem. Understanding arithmetic is important. Being able to do it mentally isn't.
Incidentally, I found that my brother, who is a freshman in high school, learned multiplication several years ago in one messed-up way (I'm 13 years older than him). While we would simply write this:
137 x23...he was taught to break it down into:
137 x 20 + 137 x 3
While I have no problem with distributed equations in, say, algebra, this was a bad way of explaining it to someone new, I think. Hooray for public education.
I think you're missing something here. Continuing your example:
137 x 23 -----
411 <--- 137 x 3 2740 <--- 137 x 20 ----- 3151 <--- 137 x 3 + 137 x 20
All he's been taught is the reason why how you were taught to do it works. This is a good thing.
The 'opposing view' rightly cautions against false prophets and the seductive lure of imortality, but doesn't acknowledge that we know about a billion times more about aging than we did even 50 years ago.
But also points out that we know about one billionth of what we need to to extend lives to 1000 years. Considering the de Grey piece makes some pretty wild-ass claims with very little evidence to support it, I'm going with the opposing view...
As someone else already pointed out, junk snail mail doesn't cost the recipient anything.
The price of sending snail mail is a barrier to entry that spam does not have. Mail advertisers have to be more selective who their going to send their ads to and so it keeps it to managable levels.
I'd be perfectly fine with spam if they paid the entire cost of delivery and fraudulent ads were punished the way mail fraud is.
For symantics, I doubt that the readers or the reporter make any distinction between "science" as any effort to learn more about the world and "science" as limited by reproduceable physical experiment and extrapolation.
"Science" by definition, is learning about the world through the scientific method. If they aren't using the scientific method, they have no business calling it science. There's a reason so many people are claiming to have scientific evidence when they don't: science is very credible. When a reporter says "A new scientific study shows...," he's not talking about philosophy. And when he misrepresents the claims of that study, he's practicing bad science and misleading the people he's supposed to be informing.
To the common reader, "science" is something done by anyone in a lab coat. "Philosophy" is something done by bearded men with greek names a couple thousand years ago. Neither of these is accurate.
Of this there is no doubt. This is a problem with the common reader that can be solved very simply through education.
For experience, my undergraduate studies at state funded universities were spent among very educated people doing amazing research in the areas of animal science, muscle cell biology, and geology, by ardent creationists. I suspect from your tone though that your environment was overrun with an entirely different sort of creationist.
I never said there weren't scientists who believed in creationism. The "creationist camp" I mentioned before was specifically referring to people claiming to be doing scientific research into creationism and also claiming to have evidence proving it. They are not practicing science and are only interested in proving what they already believe.
If we really want to maintain a distinction in the popular consciousnes between that research which limits itself as you define "science" and that which permits the inclusion of "soft" evidence and probability
Science uses soft evidence and probability all the time. It just isn't given the same weight as "hard" evidence.
we'll need new words for both, and a means to convince the reading public to adopt them.
We simply need to educate people what the words really mean.
Actually my point was that faith of some kind is required in order to accept either theory.
The difference in the leap of faith is the difference between stepping off my front porch and stepping off the top of the empire state building. I believe the science is correct simply because their standards for evidence are much, much higher than someone who believes something simply because they want to. I believe science because I see it work everyday. I believe science because they revise their beliefs based on the evidence produced through research. Put simply, the faith required to believe science is simply not the same faith required to believe religion. What you are suggesting is, because I have seen black crows and therefore believe them to exist, that I should also believe white crows exist even though I nor anyone else has ever seen one.
If memory serves, the original point of my comments was to illustrate the inherent bias in an accepted norm, and by inferrence the importance of a reporter covering multiple approaches to a question.
The article was specifically talking about claims without sufficient evidence to support them being reported as science. Go back and read it if you don't believe me. Your original claim was that scientists were prevented from researching things which agree with the church because they would lose their funding if they did. The implication being that these ideas would have scientific backing if only, somehow, they were allowed to research them. There is no philosophy discussion here and trying to turn it into one is disingenuous.
while job of the reporter is to report on a world which includes both.
But it is also the job of the reporter to not call a discussion based on philosophy "science". It is the job of the reporter to present the ideas claiming to be science with respect to the merit of their evidence. Balancing a scientific study on the effects of global warming with an industry funded report containing no scientific evidence as if it was equally valid does no one any good, except those who would profit from convincing the public otherwise. But we've been over this already.
Most readers will not limit what they can accept as true to those facts which can be demonstrated by the scientific method, noble though it may be.
The truth of a claim is not dependent on how many people believe it.
Quality research into the present mechanics of our world is strongly encouraged by both camps
I don't see this at all. I have yet to see any real research come out of the creationist camp and instead see only mistatements of evolutionary theory, flawed logic which attempts to equate discrediting evolution with proving creationism and, of course, statements based on faith rather than evidence. But then we're back to the argument of whether or not creationism can be supported through research. If it can't, it shouldn't claim to be able to. If it can, it should show good scientific evidence. There is no middle ground here. The truth is the creationists are motivated more by what they want to be true than knowing the actual truth.
reports including the creationist camp do not harm the secular science camp
Reports giving equal validity to flawed science are misleading. The fact that people believe "the jury is still out" on global warming and evolution show the harm that comes from reporting junk science.
If you want to see a real world example, take a look here. Pay specific attention to the number of people blaming CRT's for their poor eyesight. You'll also see a few claiming that their eyesight stopped deteriorating once they switched to an LCD. The study in question never mentions monitors at all, only "heavy computer use", and certainly doesn't distinguish between CRT's and LCD's. It only draws a weak correlation between heavy computer
You expected me to take the evidence of the bible on faith that it is real, but used the argument: "Nature does not presently seem to be making more complex critters. (More resistant to penecillin yes, but not more complex.) This is evidence, and it makes evolution, seem counter-intuitive at best." to suggest that because you can't see it happening, there's no reason to believe it is. You use faith as an argument in one case and discredit it in another. This is flawed reasoning and was my point. Whether or not you accept evolution does not interest me near as much as your varying requirements on what constitutes scientific evidence.
All in all, these sources do a good job of explaining the theory, and three out of the four expressly single out creationism as another possible theory.
Interpret it any way you like. The simple fact is that evolution is accepted as fact by the scientific community. It's about as proven as you can get in science. That they state creationism is possible only means they haven't ruled it out. It is not evidence supporting creationism. In fact, the AGI document goes to great lengths to state that evolutionary theory does not conflict with the idea of a creator. It just doesn't support it. That it is not shown to be false does not make it true.
perhaps it is best if we say that while science as it is presently practiced is unable to directly address the question of God, science is not the only source of useful knowledge.
I never claimed otherwise. But the article was specifically about reporting of science. Whether they present all sides of a philosophical or religious debate is not the subject of this discussion.
The journalist's job is to bring useful information to the reader (and sell advertising) and the inclusive approach does exactly this.
The original argument concerned scientific discussion. If you want to have a discussion on religion or philosophy. Fine, go for it. Just don't present it as science.
What kind of fact would you accept as evidence of gods who are by their nature utterly beyond human comprehension and perception?
It was you who claimed creationism had valid scientific evidence. If science cannot prove or disprove creationism, don't claim it can.
If you want a supporting argument for Genesis, it is easy enough to asser that the events in the time preceeding Adam were described to him by the almighty, recorded either orally or in writing, and finally made their way into the current text.
So you expect me to take on faith that Adam existed, spoke to god, and wrote it down and that this is the truth, but you won't except evolution because you can't see it happening. Sorry, doesn't fly. Claims are not evidence. Claiming to speak to god is not evidence that he did. And you can't hold my argument to a higher standard than you hold your own.
But the discussion is not one about creationism, rather it is one about what ideas should journalists present.
It was until you claimed creationism had valid scientific evidence to support it and failed to present any. But, you want to present both sides in a scientific discussion? Fine. Have some evidence. Mistating evolutionary theory is not evidence. Claims that it is possible is not evidence. "Ancient documents" whose very origin is dubious is not evidence. You've got no evidence, so that's what we'll present.
If you want a rational discussion, put some facts on the table.
I see little point since you can't even decide what constitutes valid scientific evidence. Anything that's possible is not probable. Just being possible is not evidence of it acutally happening. But, here's some light reading:
And I highly recommend: Evolution and the Fossil Record - published by the American Geology Institute. Not only is it informative but highly accessible to non-scientists.
Every model of the world devised to date has eventually been discredited,
This is a flat out lie. The earth is still round and still orbits the sun, for starters. Both ideas are older than Christ. Again, misrepresenting the facts to support your argument.
I never said I was a creationist.
Yet you are so willing to take "ancient documents" on faith but discredit evolution because you can't see it happening.
And my arguments are quite rational if one looks only at the facts.
Calling the most wild-ass ideas with no evidence to support them reasonable is not rational. Requiring faith to support your argument and having none to discredit mine is not rational. Believing that anything that is possible is just as likely to be true is not rational. And even if they were, rational is not evidence. I'd love to look at the facts, but you haven't supplied any.
Perhaps we should have a neutral party review the discussion.
First, good luck finding one. Second, I don't care anymore. The main problem here, which oddly enough goes back to the original discussion, is you have no idea what constitutes valid scientific evidence. Until you can resolve that, there is no point in discussing this any further. Feel free to write the whole episode off as my unwillingness to consider what goes against the status quo. You're going to anyway, regardless of what arguments I make because it's what you want to believe, so I don't see why I should bother.
And.... another dodge. Since your so reluctant to answer the question, I'll answer it for you: No one was there to witness genesis. They couldn't have been. It couldn't very well be the origin of life if life was there to witness it. So, your last shred of evidence, that these accounts were somehow first hand and therefore trustworthy, is gone.
I've spent much more time debating this than I ever intended to and you've provided nothing new. It was your claim that creationism had credible evidence and have provided none. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that I've been the victim of a rather elaborate troll. If so, congratulations. It truly is a work of art. You've managed to get someone who is self-admittedly easily riled, worked up over an issue that is the subject of many extremely heated debates. Good work. You should be proud of yourself. But, in the end, all you've done is add evidence to the ever growing stack supporting the idea that creationists can't argue in a reasonable or rational matter; rely on mistatements of evolution which, even if they were true, don't support the idea of creationism; and "ancient documents" whose very origin is dubious, claiming to be first hand accounts of an event that it was physically impossible for anyone to have witnessed, or third hand conversations with a being with not even the slightest evidence supporting the idea it even exists. And you wonder why creationism isn't accepted by science.
Nobody ever suggests these are new organisms, just ones we haven't named yet.
Viruses mutate. They are new organisms. It just happens much slower in more complex organisms. That you can't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't. I have never seen you breathe. Is that evidence that you don't breathe?
My example uses modern phenomena to predict past events, its logic is sound. A blanket denial proves nothing.
Your example only included the evidence which supported your argument ("We see a tendency in nature toward extinction") and ignored the evidence that didn't support your argument (other species survive). Otherwise known as "cherry picking". It is not sound logic and I refuted the point.
In your eyes perhaps,
And you dodge the question yet again. If these accounts you are so fond of are first hand accounts, who witnessed genesis? Who was there to see the beginning of all life?
1. I suggest listening to both sides, not ignoring one over they other as you seem to prefer.
I have listened to both sides. One has no merit. I do have an open mind, just not so open that my brains fall out. If we're not going to discount some theories as being unlikely, there's no point in researching anything. Why look for truth if you're not going to call some things false?
2. I challenge you to give me any set of facts purported to support a theory which are not subject to multiple, reasonable, interpretations.
I never claimed there weren't multiple resonable interpretations, only that creationism isn't one of them and that evolution best fits the evidence we have.
Newsflash: The poster never claimed that CRTs degraded his/her eyesight.
Yes he did. Learn to read:
I can only speak for my own experience, and I don't know whether this study differentiates between CRT and LCD users, but
when I first became a programmer using a CRT for 3 or 4 years straight, my eyesight deteriorated rapidly from 20 / 20 to needing glasses to read comfortably without getting headaches. Since switching to a dual LCD setup my prescription hasn't changed in about 2 years.
Your mileage may vary. But I'll never use a CRT again. 1[emphasis mine]
And in response to his evidence being anecdotal and confusing correlation with causation, he said:
This was the only period of my life where I experienced degradation in my eyesight.
Additionally, the eye strain and feeling of my eyes being hot stopped as soon as I switched to using LCD's.
For me the contrast between the two experiences is unmistakeable and signifigant.
When you look at the design of a CRT, with a stream of electrons and radiation being shot directly at a peice of glass with your eyeballs directly on the other side, is it so hard to believe it could cause damage to the eyes?2[emphasis mine]
What part of this is not claiming CRT's damaged his eyes? Besides that, the study he didn't bother to read didn't say anything about monitors at all and only mentioned "computer use".
See? And I didn't have to jump the poster's shit to say that!
Nope, you just stuck your nose in the middle of a thread and jumped my shit without bothering to read it first. Good for you!
But then, this is/., and no one knows what the fuck they are talking about anyway
We see a tendency in nature toward extinction rather than evolution as the end result of stress on an organism.
We see some species dying and some surviving. That is the nature of evolution. Biologists discover new species of organisms every day.
This would suggest that things do not evolve, they just die.
No, it doesn't.
We have written records which purport to be cotemporaneous with the origin of all things.
Not even you can believe that the people who wrote these accounts existed at the dawn of life. Wouldn't that necessarily mean it wasn't the dawn of life? You dodged this question earlier so I ask it again: Who witnessed genesis?
And take these at the credibility of their authors.
Which is zero.
What you seem to be asking me is to accept only the second unequivocally, and not to demand some hard, reproducable experiment that can demonstrate evolution. Rather, I should accept that it happens because one interpretation of the evidence supports it. This is intellectually dishonest.
Now you're just trolling. The evidence you question the interpretation of is consistent. This interpretation has been arrived at by many different and independent means. Astronomy, geology, biology, anthropology, archeology and many others all come to the same conclusion: man was not put here in his present form. But you would rather ignore that evidence and trust writings of dubious origin claiming, without any supporting evidence, to have witnessed what they could not have. Now who's being intellectually dishonest?
Actually, the rules of evidence in most civilized jurisdictions permit the introduction of "ancient documents" as proof of the matter asserted simply because when written, there was no contemplation of the present dispute, no other reason for the author to be biased, and no other cotemporaneous evidence.
Maybe in law, not in science. That someone says it is so does not make it so.
What, am I just supposed to take it on faith that it will happen?
Evolution happens over millions of years. You are not going to notice anything in your lifetime. That doesn't invalidate the theory.
Reasonable inferrences are permitted to make the connetion.
Reasonable, yes. These aren't reasonble.
Nature cannot be observed as presently making organisms that are either more or less complex than their predecessors. It is perfectly reasonable to infer from this that nature did not do this in the past.
No, it isn't. There is plenty of evidence to suggest it has. That you can't see it happening is not evidence against it.
This is the same reasoning we use to support dating of artifacts from the decay of carbon-14 into carbon-12. We see Carbon 14 decay at a certain rate now, and we infer that it always decays at this rate. Thus, assuming we know the initial quantity of carbon-12 we can estimate the age of an object.
Carbon-14 is an inanimate chemical that has no means of reproducing biologically nor passing on genetic information. Applying the decay of carbon-14 dating to evolution is no more reasonable than comparing apples to the internal combustion engine. The comparison is severely flawed.
Because we see a certain thing happen now, we infer that it happens in the past.
But not seeing it now is not evidence that it did not happen in the past.
First, the documents many religions swear by purport to include witnesses,
Witnesses who cannot be questioned, or even reliably identified, or could not have possibly been there in the time recounted. Nor any affidavits declaring it to be a representation of the truth rather than a work of fiction. I have stacks of books on my shelves which all tell interesting stories, but I don't believe any one of the ever really happened.
direct conversations with the divine
Hearsay at best. If your going to claim that a conversation with the divine is evidence at all you'd better be ready to show the divine actually exists.
While the credibility if such testimony is easily debated, it is evidence nonetheless.
It isn't credible evidence and that's the bloody point.
But even more than this, evolution asserts that organisms become more complex over time.
No, it doesn't. Evolution is responsible for organisms becoming more complex in the past but there is nothing that says it has to continue. If survival is enhanced by being simpler, organisms will become simpler.
Nature does not presently seem to be making more complex critters.
You're just not waiting long enough.
This is evidence,
No it isn't. It's a misrepresentation of the theory.
...do you say this because you have access to research that refutes their theories? Or do you say this because you don't like their conclusion, and are thus inclined to dismiss their work with the Cudgel of Correlation Is Not Causation?
I have read the article and the study makes no claim of causation, only a relatively weak claim of correlation.
From the article:
These limitations indicate the need for further studies to confirm our findings.
It, in fact, does not even claim that more heavy computer users have glaucoma, only that they show indications of being at higher risk.
But, from the article summary:
Maybe we should have listened to our parents and gone outside instead of playing video games.
In other words, if we didn't play video games our eyesight wouldn't be as bad. Clearly not what the study says at all.
It is not the study which is confusing correlation with causation, it is the people reporting it. Maybe they should have payed attention to this.
There are plenty of things to damage eyesight, from genetic predisposition to plenty of environmental factors.
That is exactly the point. That you experienced degraded eyesight at the approximate time you started using a CRT monitor does not mean the monitor caused your eyesight to degrade. There are any number of environmental factors which may have contributed which you have not isolated. Your claim that the monitor hurt your eyesight is in no way more valid than my claim that it helped mine.
I happen to consider extended CRT use to be one environmental factor that increased the speed and severity of the degredation of eyesight.
That you consider it to be true does not affect whether or not it is.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought that had already been debunked to death.
The corollary to my sig: Never let the facts interfere with what you want to believe.
No, sir. "Undue" stress? If they're here unlawfully, then they're breaking the law. Yes, it's stressful to be caught breaking the law. Sorry.
The huge assumption you are making is that the law is necessarily reasonable. It isn't always. Deporting an otherwise productive member of society simply because he doesn't have the proper paperwork doesn't help anyone.
The two are often the same.
More often they're not. I understand how to add a column of 10 six-digit numbers. I can't, however, do it in my head. That doesn't make me bad at math.
Boy I just love the word "Um". I can see you do too!
It always proceed soemthing when people think they are super-intelligent, and figure you are not.
Or pointing out a blindingly obvious error like you have made.
I know you said you were wrong, but, just for posterity:
Let's do a few calculations. What is 40/3?
Why it is ~13.3!!
So how is 28 13.3?
Um (there's your favorite word again), 13.3 is the number of things in each third, not the dividing line. The line for the bottom third would be 40 - 13.3 = 26.7 ie. anything 27 or higher is in the bottom third. Or maybe you're having trouble with the concept of ranking where 1 = "the best" and 40 = "the worst" where 1 did better than 2 and 27 did better than 28.
think of it this way if you are still having issues, how can you be in the bottom third of ANYTHING when your rank sits above the halfway mark?
Even you should understand that to be ABOVE the halfway mark they would have to be less than 20 ( 40 / 2) which 28 is clearly more than.
My guess is that you are a math major, they always did have problems with things like this.
You might want to take a class in math before making smug claims like this. And, no, admitting you were wrong does not get you off the hook for being an asshole. Think, then type. This order shall not be reversed.
Way to be down on the US man, except you forgot one thing - 28th out of fourty just doesn't work out to being in the bottom third, no matter what country you are from!
Um,
28 / 40 = 70%
2 / 3 = 66%
70% > 66% (ie. more than 2/3 of the 40 are above the US at 28). The US is in the bottom third no matter what country you are from.
Just one point:
1. We rely on technology too much. How are we going to test a 15 year old on math questions when they have been punching calculator buttons since they were 5? We sell calculators to specifically calculate how to tip. Come on, it's either 15% or 20% of the bill, how fucking hard is that?
Arithmetic != math. If calculators are readily available, how important is it that people be able to do arithmetic in their heads? Starting at algebra and going up, the amount of actual arithmetic in math gets smaller and smaller. Calculators are not the problem. Understanding arithmetic is important. Being able to do it mentally isn't.
Incidentally, I found that my brother, who is a freshman in high school, learned multiplication several years ago in one messed-up way (I'm 13 years older than him). While we would simply write this:
...he was taught to break it down into:
137
x23
137 x 20 + 137 x 3
While I have no problem with distributed equations in, say, algebra, this was a bad way of explaining it to someone new, I think. Hooray for public education.
I think you're missing something here. Continuing your example:
137
x 23
-----
411 <--- 137 x 3
2740 <--- 137 x 20
-----
3151 <--- 137 x 3 + 137 x 20
All he's been taught is the reason why how you were taught to do it works. This is a good thing.
The point is the de Grey article had little to no evidence to support the claim. It was little more than an opinion piece.
Could it happen? Sure. But it's a little early to be claiming that it will happen in 10 years.
The 'opposing view' rightly cautions against false prophets and the seductive lure of imortality, but doesn't acknowledge that we know about a billion times more about aging than we did even 50 years ago.
But also points out that we know about one billionth of what we need to to extend lives to 1000 years. Considering the de Grey piece makes some pretty wild-ass claims with very little evidence to support it, I'm going with the opposing view...
As someone else already pointed out, junk snail mail doesn't cost the recipient anything.
The price of sending snail mail is a barrier to entry that spam does not have. Mail advertisers have to be more selective who their going to send their ads to and so it keeps it to managable levels.
I'd be perfectly fine with spam if they paid the entire cost of delivery and fraudulent ads were punished the way mail fraud is.
There is no magic bullet for spam. Simply because it doesn't stop all spam doesn't mean it won't help.
Do you lie awake at night wondering if anal retentive is hyphenated?
He's taking steps to keep from getting the disease so he won't have to treat it.
For symantics, I doubt that the readers or the reporter make any distinction between "science" as any effort to learn more about the world and "science" as limited by reproduceable physical experiment and extrapolation.
"Science" by definition, is learning about the world through the scientific method. If they aren't using the scientific method, they have no business calling it science. There's a reason so many people are claiming to have scientific evidence when they don't: science is very credible. When a reporter says "A new scientific study shows...," he's not talking about philosophy. And when he misrepresents the claims of that study, he's practicing bad science and misleading the people he's supposed to be informing.
To the common reader, "science" is something done by anyone in a lab coat. "Philosophy" is something done by bearded men with greek names a couple thousand years ago. Neither of these is accurate.
Of this there is no doubt. This is a problem with the common reader that can be solved very simply through education.
For experience, my undergraduate studies at state funded universities were spent among very educated people doing amazing research in the areas of animal science, muscle cell biology, and geology, by ardent creationists. I suspect from your tone though that your environment was overrun with an entirely different sort of creationist.
I never said there weren't scientists who believed in creationism. The "creationist camp" I mentioned before was specifically referring to people claiming to be doing scientific research into creationism and also claiming to have evidence proving it. They are not practicing science and are only interested in proving what they already believe.
If we really want to maintain a distinction in the popular consciousnes between that research which limits itself as you define "science" and that which permits the inclusion of "soft" evidence and probability
Science uses soft evidence and probability all the time. It just isn't given the same weight as "hard" evidence.
we'll need new words for both, and a means to convince the reading public to adopt them.
We simply need to educate people what the words really mean.
Actually my point was that faith of some kind is required in order to accept either theory.
The difference in the leap of faith is the difference between stepping off my front porch and stepping off the top of the empire state building. I believe the science is correct simply because their standards for evidence are much, much higher than someone who believes something simply because they want to. I believe science because I see it work everyday. I believe science because they revise their beliefs based on the evidence produced through research. Put simply, the faith required to believe science is simply not the same faith required to believe religion. What you are suggesting is, because I have seen black crows and therefore believe them to exist, that I should also believe white crows exist even though I nor anyone else has ever seen one.
If memory serves, the original point of my comments was to illustrate the inherent bias in an accepted norm, and by inferrence the importance of a reporter covering multiple approaches to a question.
The article was specifically talking about claims without sufficient evidence to support them being reported as science. Go back and read it if you don't believe me. Your original claim was that scientists were prevented from researching things which agree with the church because they would lose their funding if they did. The implication being that these ideas would have scientific backing if only, somehow, they were allowed to research them. There is no philosophy discussion here and trying to turn it into one is disingenuous.
while job of the reporter is to report on a world which includes both.
But it is also the job of the reporter to not call a discussion based on philosophy "science". It is the job of the reporter to present the ideas claiming to be science with respect to the merit of their evidence. Balancing a scientific study on the effects of global warming with an industry funded report containing no scientific evidence as if it was equally valid does no one any good, except those who would profit from convincing the public otherwise. But we've been over this already.
Most readers will not limit what they can accept as true to those facts which can be demonstrated by the scientific method, noble though it may be.
The truth of a claim is not dependent on how many people believe it.
Quality research into the present mechanics of our world is strongly encouraged by both camps
I don't see this at all. I have yet to see any real research come out of the creationist camp and instead see only mistatements of evolutionary theory, flawed logic which attempts to equate discrediting evolution with proving creationism and, of course, statements based on faith rather than evidence. But then we're back to the argument of whether or not creationism can be supported through research. If it can't, it shouldn't claim to be able to. If it can, it should show good scientific evidence. There is no middle ground here. The truth is the creationists are motivated more by what they want to be true than knowing the actual truth.
reports including the creationist camp do not harm the secular science camp
Reports giving equal validity to flawed science are misleading. The fact that people believe "the jury is still out" on global warming and evolution show the harm that comes from reporting junk science.
If you want to see a real world example, take a look here. Pay specific attention to the number of people blaming CRT's for their poor eyesight. You'll also see a few claiming that their eyesight stopped deteriorating once they switched to an LCD. The study in question never mentions monitors at all, only "heavy computer use", and certainly doesn't distinguish between CRT's and LCD's. It only draws a weak correlation between heavy computer
I've never said I don't accept evolution.
You expected me to take the evidence of the bible on faith that it is real, but used the argument: "Nature does not presently seem to be making more complex critters. (More resistant to penecillin yes, but not more complex.) This is evidence, and it makes evolution, seem counter-intuitive at best." to suggest that because you can't see it happening, there's no reason to believe it is. You use faith as an argument in one case and discredit it in another. This is flawed reasoning and was my point. Whether or not you accept evolution does not interest me near as much as your varying requirements on what constitutes scientific evidence.
All in all, these sources do a good job of explaining the theory, and three out of the four expressly single out creationism as another possible theory.
Interpret it any way you like. The simple fact is that evolution is accepted as fact by the scientific community. It's about as proven as you can get in science. That they state creationism is possible only means they haven't ruled it out. It is not evidence supporting creationism. In fact, the AGI document goes to great lengths to state that evolutionary theory does not conflict with the idea of a creator. It just doesn't support it. That it is not shown to be false does not make it true.
perhaps it is best if we say that while science as it is presently practiced is unable to directly address the question of God, science is not the only source of useful knowledge.
I never claimed otherwise. But the article was specifically about reporting of science. Whether they present all sides of a philosophical or religious debate is not the subject of this discussion.
The journalist's job is to bring useful information to the reader (and sell advertising) and the inclusive approach does exactly this.
The original argument concerned scientific discussion. If you want to have a discussion on religion or philosophy. Fine, go for it. Just don't present it as science.
What kind of fact would you accept as evidence of gods who are by their nature utterly beyond human comprehension and perception?
It was you who claimed creationism had valid scientific evidence. If science cannot prove or disprove creationism, don't claim it can.
If you want a supporting argument for Genesis, it is easy enough to asser that the events in the time preceeding Adam were described to him by the almighty, recorded either orally or in writing, and finally made their way into the current text.
So you expect me to take on faith that Adam existed, spoke to god, and wrote it down and that this is the truth, but you won't except evolution because you can't see it happening. Sorry, doesn't fly. Claims are not evidence. Claiming to speak to god is not evidence that he did. And you can't hold my argument to a higher standard than you hold your own.
But the discussion is not one about creationism, rather it is one about what ideas should journalists present.
It was until you claimed creationism had valid scientific evidence to support it and failed to present any. But, you want to present both sides in a scientific discussion? Fine. Have some evidence. Mistating evolutionary theory is not evidence. Claims that it is possible is not evidence. "Ancient documents" whose very origin is dubious is not evidence. You've got no evidence, so that's what we'll present.
If you want a rational discussion, put some facts on the table.
I see little point since you can't even decide what constitutes valid scientific evidence. Anything that's possible is not probable. Just being possible is not evidence of it acutally happening. But, here's some light reading:
"Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin - the father of modern evolutionary theory. Explains in detail the concept of natural selection among others.
Strength and tempo of directional selection in the wild - a scientific study on the effects of natural selction in the wild.
Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes as Evidence for Common Ancestry - in fact, quite a bit at this site is useful.
And I highly recommend:
Evolution and the Fossil Record - published by the American Geology Institute. Not only is it informative but highly accessible to non-scientists.
Every model of the world devised to date has eventually been discredited,
This is a flat out lie. The earth is still round and still orbits the sun, for starters. Both ideas are older than Christ. Again, misrepresenting the facts to support your argument.
I never said I was a creationist.
Yet you are so willing to take "ancient documents" on faith but discredit evolution because you can't see it happening.
And my arguments are quite rational if one looks only at the facts.
Calling the most wild-ass ideas with no evidence to support them reasonable is not rational. Requiring faith to support your argument and having none to discredit mine is not rational. Believing that anything that is possible is just as likely to be true is not rational. And even if they were, rational is not evidence. I'd love to look at the facts, but you haven't supplied any.
Perhaps we should have a neutral party review the discussion.
First, good luck finding one. Second, I don't care anymore. The main problem here, which oddly enough goes back to the original discussion, is you have no idea what constitutes valid scientific evidence. Until you can resolve that, there is no point in discussing this any further. Feel free to write the whole episode off as my unwillingness to consider what goes against the status quo. You're going to anyway, regardless of what arguments I make because it's what you want to believe, so I don't see why I should bother.
And.... another dodge. Since your so reluctant to answer the question, I'll answer it for you: No one was there to witness genesis. They couldn't have been. It couldn't very well be the origin of life if life was there to witness it. So, your last shred of evidence, that these accounts were somehow first hand and therefore trustworthy, is gone.
I've spent much more time debating this than I ever intended to and you've provided nothing new. It was your claim that creationism had credible evidence and have provided none. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that I've been the victim of a rather elaborate troll. If so, congratulations. It truly is a work of art. You've managed to get someone who is self-admittedly easily riled, worked up over an issue that is the subject of many extremely heated debates. Good work. You should be proud of yourself. But, in the end, all you've done is add evidence to the ever growing stack supporting the idea that creationists can't argue in a reasonable or rational matter; rely on mistatements of evolution which, even if they were true, don't support the idea of creationism; and "ancient documents" whose very origin is dubious, claiming to be first hand accounts of an event that it was physically impossible for anyone to have witnessed, or third hand conversations with a being with not even the slightest evidence supporting the idea it even exists. And you wonder why creationism isn't accepted by science.
Nobody ever suggests these are new organisms, just ones we haven't named yet.
Viruses mutate. They are new organisms. It just happens much slower in more complex organisms. That you can't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't. I have never seen you breathe. Is that evidence that you don't breathe?
My example uses modern phenomena to predict past events, its logic is sound. A blanket denial proves nothing.
Your example only included the evidence which supported your argument ("We see a tendency in nature toward extinction") and ignored the evidence that didn't support your argument (other species survive). Otherwise known as "cherry picking". It is not sound logic and I refuted the point.
In your eyes perhaps,
And you dodge the question yet again. If these accounts you are so fond of are first hand accounts, who witnessed genesis? Who was there to see the beginning of all life?
1. I suggest listening to both sides, not ignoring one over they other as you seem to prefer.
I have listened to both sides. One has no merit. I do have an open mind, just not so open that my brains fall out. If we're not going to discount some theories as being unlikely, there's no point in researching anything. Why look for truth if you're not going to call some things false?
2. I challenge you to give me any set of facts purported to support a theory which are not subject to multiple, reasonable, interpretations.
I never claimed there weren't multiple resonable interpretations, only that creationism isn't one of them and that evolution best fits the evidence we have.
Yes he did. Learn to read:
And in response to his evidence being anecdotal and confusing correlation with causation, he said:
What part of this is not claiming CRT's damaged his eyes? Besides that, the study he didn't bother to read didn't say anything about monitors at all and only mentioned "computer use".
See? And I didn't have to jump the poster's shit to say that!
Nope, you just stuck your nose in the middle of a thread and jumped my shit without bothering to read it first. Good for you!
But then, this is
Especially you, apparently.
We see a tendency in nature toward extinction rather than evolution as the end result of stress on an organism.
We see some species dying and some surviving. That is the nature of evolution. Biologists discover new species of organisms every day.
This would suggest that things do not evolve, they just die.
No, it doesn't.
We have written records which purport to be cotemporaneous with the origin of all things.
Not even you can believe that the people who wrote these accounts existed at the dawn of life. Wouldn't that necessarily mean it wasn't the dawn of life? You dodged this question earlier so I ask it again: Who witnessed genesis?
And take these at the credibility of their authors.
Which is zero.
What you seem to be asking me is to accept only the second unequivocally, and not to demand some hard, reproducable experiment that can demonstrate evolution. Rather, I should accept that it happens because one interpretation of the evidence supports it. This is intellectually dishonest.
Now you're just trolling. The evidence you question the interpretation of is consistent. This interpretation has been arrived at by many different and independent means. Astronomy, geology, biology, anthropology, archeology and many others all come to the same conclusion: man was not put here in his present form. But you would rather ignore that evidence and trust writings of dubious origin claiming, without any supporting evidence, to have witnessed what they could not have. Now who's being intellectually dishonest?
Actually, the rules of evidence in most civilized jurisdictions permit the introduction of "ancient documents" as proof of the matter asserted simply because when written, there was no contemplation of the present dispute, no other reason for the author to be biased, and no other cotemporaneous evidence.
Maybe in law, not in science. That someone says it is so does not make it so.
What, am I just supposed to take it on faith that it will happen?
Evolution happens over millions of years. You are not going to notice anything in your lifetime. That doesn't invalidate the theory.
Reasonable inferrences are permitted to make the connetion.
Reasonable, yes. These aren't reasonble.
Nature cannot be observed as presently making organisms that are either more or less complex than their predecessors. It is perfectly reasonable to infer from this that nature did not do this in the past.
No, it isn't. There is plenty of evidence to suggest it has. That you can't see it happening is not evidence against it.
This is the same reasoning we use to support dating of artifacts from the decay of carbon-14 into carbon-12. We see Carbon 14 decay at a certain rate now, and we infer that it always decays at this rate. Thus, assuming we know the initial quantity of carbon-12 we can estimate the age of an object.
Carbon-14 is an inanimate chemical that has no means of reproducing biologically nor passing on genetic information. Applying the decay of carbon-14 dating to evolution is no more reasonable than comparing apples to the internal combustion engine. The comparison is severely flawed.
Because we see a certain thing happen now, we infer that it happens in the past.
But not seeing it now is not evidence that it did not happen in the past.
(I really should figure out the italics switch)
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First, the documents many religions swear by purport to include witnesses,
Witnesses who cannot be questioned, or even reliably identified, or could not have possibly been there in the time recounted. Nor any affidavits declaring it to be a representation of the truth rather than a work of fiction. I have stacks of books on my shelves which all tell interesting stories, but I don't believe any one of the ever really happened.
direct conversations with the divine
Hearsay at best. If your going to claim that a conversation with the divine is evidence at all you'd better be ready to show the divine actually exists.
While the credibility if such testimony is easily debated, it is evidence nonetheless.
It isn't credible evidence and that's the bloody point.
But even more than this, evolution asserts that organisms become more complex over time.
No, it doesn't. Evolution is responsible for organisms becoming more complex in the past but there is nothing that says it has to continue. If survival is enhanced by being simpler, organisms will become simpler.
Nature does not presently seem to be making more complex critters.
You're just not waiting long enough.
This is evidence,
No it isn't. It's a misrepresentation of the theory.
I have read the article and the study makes no claim of causation, only a relatively weak claim of correlation.
From the article:
It, in fact, does not even claim that more heavy computer users have glaucoma, only that they show indications of being at higher risk.
But, from the article summary:
In other words, if we didn't play video games our eyesight wouldn't be as bad. Clearly not what the study says at all.
It is not the study which is confusing correlation with causation, it is the people reporting it. Maybe they should have payed attention to this.
Let me guess, your right palm is hairy?
Nope. I'm left handed.
There are plenty of things to damage eyesight, from genetic predisposition to plenty of environmental factors.
That is exactly the point. That you experienced degraded eyesight at the approximate time you started using a CRT monitor does not mean the monitor caused your eyesight to degrade. There are any number of environmental factors which may have contributed which you have not isolated. Your claim that the monitor hurt your eyesight is in no way more valid than my claim that it helped mine.
I happen to consider extended CRT use to be one environmental factor that increased the speed and severity of the degredation of eyesight.
That you consider it to be true does not affect whether or not it is.