So you believe that the earth rotated slower during its first 6 days, but slowed its rotation dramatically on the 7th day? Keep in mind you just said god called the time when it was light "day" and when it was dark "night". Or is it that you postulate our solar system had more than one star illuminating earth on days 1 - 6? Science would reject such notions as inconsistent and not useful in explaining earth history, but you seem to want to play some other kind of game and put in in equivalency to science. Fine, just don't expect rational people to want to play the same game. There simply isn't any point to it. Its a useless exercise.
To quote J. B. S. Haldane, "If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles." Evidently, humans not so much.
With sanctimonious Santorum its not just Mormons, but Protestants as well, for example when he says "And the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is a shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."
E = mc^2, so if we have mass we have energy. You can't have one without the other. You may be confusing the concept of zero and the concepts of the conservation of energy. Perhaps, its time you took a course in physics.
There is no such thing as "before the beginning of time". The entire notion makes no sense. It is a statement without meaning.
One might reasonably ask does time have a starting point and if so when, but it makes no sense to ask about things that happened before the beginning of time, since for anything to happen it must have occurred and if it occurred then it must have taken place at a particular point in time, ie the time at which it occurred. To say that something happened before the beginning of time is the same as asking about something that hasn't happened.
If science has anything to say about morality, it will be a lot more credible than what religion has to say on the subject, since with science it will come with evidence that can be tested. With religion its just all about faith, so all morality is relative to whatever is your faith. Science will never have anything to say about god, since the entire concept is untestable and consequently irrelevant to science. If people reject science, they need not be forced to turn to religion. They can just as readily turn to insanity. Indeed, if one compares the "beliefs" of the insane and the religious, one would be hard pressed to distinguish between them. Take for example Rick Santorum's views on evolution by means of natural selection.
How could one even contemplate a notion as silly as "before the beginning of time". Obviously, if something came before, then time has to have already existed. You sound like your won delusion.
Makes one wonder how many other non-profits are using $100,000 anonymous donations to fund their activities. Someone at the IRS ought to take a good very hard look at their next filing. There may be money under the table here that could be unreported. Its not often most folks accept $100,000 anonymous donations for doing educational development for K-12. Heartland Institute seems to have a different set of standards.
" Her pieces make me much less certain that the document is real."
Then you are pretty easy to convince. The only real "evidence" she offers that they are fake is that the PDF headers have different dates. The PDF's could have been created and sent by anyone associated with Heartland anywhere. Why on earth that that give you confidence in McArdle's sleuthing skills? Why should all the documents have the same date on their headers? Do you change the System Clock on Your Machine to 1 Jan 1900 12:00 AM everytime you create a PDF?
Its fairly easy to substantiate that the contents of the memo are probably genuine, since the Heartland employee receiving the $200,000 would not be known to be doing what the memo says he is doing. More revealing will be whether now that this is in the open, whether the Heartland Institute will back off its "educational" plans. Surely, journalists in Chicago will have far more to say on that in the coming days.
Keep in mind the Koch donations are not secrets revealed in the memos nor are the activities described in the memos secret either. They just don't want them to be seen as stemming from internal memos.
It would be except for the fact that the Heartland employee identified in the letter has been doing precisely the kinds of things the memo indicates. Perhaps the memo is fake but the contents are true, even though they refuse to actually say so, only suggest that it is fake. No wonder the Heartland Institute is in such a tizzy.
When you consider how much money Koch Industries are paying them, its hard to imagine they can pay a blogger $44,000 to write fake science stories and still have enough money left over to by a $150 dollar scanner.
Yes, but this conveniently ignores the fact that the Heartland Institute itself has been crowing over its accomplishments in these respects elsewhere besides the internal memos, such as paying one blogger $44,000 to write anti-climate change misinformation. Most non-profits don't get this kind of money to through around "in the shadows" without some serious effort.
you will notice that there is nothing with regard to the Heartland Institutes ongoing activities cited in the memo that can not been verified by others sources.
Yes, but when have the Protocols of the Elders of Zion ever actually predicted anything?
Why would someone need to make up a document that only corroborates what can be easily substantiated from other sources? The more curious and pertinent question is why would the Heartland Institute try to deny it? They are a non-profit. Why should they be trying to hide their activities?
It will be pretty easy to see if its fake by whether or not the Heartland Institute tries to follow through with the disinformation campaign described in their document/non-document.
You can be sure donations and expenditures at the Heartland Institute are going to be under a lot more scrutiny than ever before.
That is their claim. However, it will now be a lot harder for them to fake whether or not Dr. David Wojick gets his $200,000 gift from the Anonymous Donor to Heartland Institute for his anti-science "modules" to be directed at elementary and high school students and their teachers. People are going to be watching.
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Francis Bacon is not the father of the scientific method. That honor goes back to the ancient Greeks and is largely implicit in the Socratic method.
So you believe that the earth rotated slower during its first 6 days, but slowed its rotation dramatically on the 7th day? Keep in mind you just said god called the time when it was light "day" and when it was dark "night". Or is it that you postulate our solar system had more than one star illuminating earth on days 1 - 6? Science would reject such notions as inconsistent and not useful in explaining earth history, but you seem to want to play some other kind of game and put in in equivalency to science. Fine, just don't expect rational people to want to play the same game. There simply isn't any point to it. Its a useless exercise.
" Even though it hasn't so far..."
Which is it, statistics or the rabbits foot?
To quote J. B. S. Haldane, "If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles." Evidently, humans not so much.
With sanctimonious Santorum its not just Mormons, but Protestants as well, for example when he says "And the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is a shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."
E = mc^2, so if we have mass we have energy. You can't have one without the other. You may be confusing the concept of zero and the concepts of the conservation of energy. Perhaps, its time you took a course in physics.
There is no such thing as "before the beginning of time". The entire notion makes no sense. It is a statement without meaning.
One might reasonably ask does time have a starting point and if so when, but it makes no sense to ask about things that happened before the beginning of time, since for anything to happen it must have occurred and if it occurred then it must have taken place at a particular point in time, ie the time at which it occurred. To say that something happened before the beginning of time is the same as asking about something that hasn't happened.
Not true. You can argue all you want. You just can't reasonably conclude anything.
If science has anything to say about morality, it will be a lot more credible than what religion has to say on the subject, since with science it will come with evidence that can be tested. With religion its just all about faith, so all morality is relative to whatever is your faith. Science will never have anything to say about god, since the entire concept is untestable and consequently irrelevant to science. If people reject science, they need not be forced to turn to religion. They can just as readily turn to insanity. Indeed, if one compares the "beliefs" of the insane and the religious, one would be hard pressed to distinguish between them. Take for example Rick Santorum's views on evolution by means of natural selection.
"You don't know what you are talking about. I'm not trying to use Bible verses to prove anything scientific."
Maybe not, but Rick Santorum sure is. Santorum knows nothing about biology, so he can't even begin to talk about it in any meaningful way.
"The result of most religions is to stabilize society by teaching morality. "
I guess that explains why christians and muslims the world over see eye to eye on all great questions where morality is involved.
If there is no evidence, then there is nothing for science to say. You can't have science without evidence.
How could one even contemplate a notion as silly as "before the beginning of time". Obviously, if something came before, then time has to have already existed. You sound like your won delusion.
Makes one wonder how many other non-profits are using $100,000 anonymous donations to fund their activities. Someone at the IRS ought to take a good very hard look at their next filing. There may be money under the table here that could be unreported. Its not often most folks accept $100,000 anonymous donations for doing educational development for K-12. Heartland Institute seems to have a different set of standards.
See above.
" Her pieces make me much less certain that the document is real."
Then you are pretty easy to convince. The only real "evidence" she offers that they are fake is that the PDF headers have different dates. The PDF's could have been created and sent by anyone associated with Heartland anywhere. Why on earth that that give you confidence in McArdle's sleuthing skills? Why should all the documents have the same date on their headers? Do you change the System Clock on Your Machine to 1 Jan 1900 12:00 AM everytime you create a PDF?
Its fairly easy to substantiate that the contents of the memo are probably genuine, since the Heartland employee receiving the $200,000 would not be known to be doing what the memo says he is doing. More revealing will be whether now that this is in the open, whether the Heartland Institute will back off its "educational" plans. Surely, journalists in Chicago will have far more to say on that in the coming days.
Keep in mind the Koch donations are not secrets revealed in the memos nor are the activities described in the memos secret either. They just don't want them to be seen as stemming from internal memos.
It would be except for the fact that the Heartland employee identified in the letter has been doing precisely the kinds of things the memo indicates. Perhaps the memo is fake but the contents are true, even though they refuse to actually say so, only suggest that it is fake. No wonder the Heartland Institute is in such a tizzy.
When you consider how much money Koch Industries are paying them, its hard to imagine they can pay a blogger $44,000 to write fake science stories and still have enough money left over to by a $150 dollar scanner.
Yes, but this conveniently ignores the fact that the Heartland Institute itself has been crowing over its accomplishments in these respects elsewhere besides the internal memos, such as paying one blogger $44,000 to write anti-climate change misinformation. Most non-profits don't get this kind of money to through around "in the shadows" without some serious effort.
If you read the memo: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/heartland_k-12_curriculum.jpg
you will notice that there is nothing with regard to the Heartland Institutes ongoing activities cited in the memo that can not been verified by others sources.
If there is, which one is it?
Yes, but when have the Protocols of the Elders of Zion ever actually predicted anything?
Why would someone need to make up a document that only corroborates what can be easily substantiated from other sources? The more curious and pertinent question is why would the Heartland Institute try to deny it? They are a non-profit. Why should they be trying to hide their activities?
It will be pretty easy to see if its fake by whether or not the Heartland Institute tries to follow through with the disinformation campaign described in their document/non-document.
You can be sure donations and expenditures at the Heartland Institute are going to be under a lot more scrutiny than ever before.
That is their claim. However, it will now be a lot harder for them to fake whether or not Dr. David Wojick gets his $200,000 gift from the Anonymous Donor to Heartland Institute for his anti-science "modules" to be directed at elementary and high school students and their teachers. People are going to be watching.