Apr 14, 2008 06:41 am hahahaha, Ben Stein may be an entertainer, but he is FAR from an idiot.
You completely lost me as soon as you start calling somebody like him an idiot...sorry, man, you lose.
ben stein's new anti-evolution movie...
Posted on Apr 14, 2008 06:08 am
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
...is something you should ignore.
please, i beg you. this film is the biggest piece of crap i've yet heard of. it's pure propaganda, and an insult to us all. if you do see it, you need to know that dawkins and myers were literally tricked into appearing in it. they were told the film was to be called 'crossroads' and that it would be an impartial examination of the war between religion and science. but no, instead it was a big trick. selective edits and manipulation. you can read about that at richarddawkins.net and at sci am, which has devoted a series to picking apart this terrible movie.
a sci am article on it: www.sciam.com/article.cfm...iew-john-rennie
i know there are a lot of religious peeps on this board here, so in a gesture of goodwill, i'd like to recommend the top science books that i believe are both true and can bolster traditional religious feelings. i myself read pretty much every pop book about science. i think i know where the real 'cracks' are. religious people will therefore enjoy these top recommendations, which are not for people like me, but for people like you. if there is a god, you can best find him here intersecting with legitimate science.
just six numbers, martin rees.
www.amazon.com/Just-Six-N...e/dp/0465036732
rare earth: why complex life is uncommon in the universe
www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth...e/dp/0387987010
this one is less legit, but it at least tries: the privileged planet: how our placec in the cosmos is designed for discovery
www.amazon.com/Privileged...pd_bxgy_b_img_b
these last two books are written by people affiliated with the discovery institute, the people who want to get ID into our schools. i'm very against that. but i adhere to ward and brownlee's ideas nearly completely in their rare earth book. (for the moment, anyway.) that book strikes me as very important. it directly challenges carl sagan and the principle of mediocrity and the drake equation, and it succeeds in many ways, i think. it is among my top 'new idea' books for years now. if you think about space and are scientific, you need this book. if you are religious, you will also like this book.
the privileged planet book i cannot comment on, as i've only skimmed it in a bookstore once. but i recall that at the very least, it made a few interesting arguments and took a new tack.
the rees book is a real science book. i've only skimmed it, too, but i do know that it honestly discusses the problem of the physical constants, and how they're perfect to allow for complexity and for life, ultimately.
there are better things to fill your brain with than the ravings of idiot entertainer ben stein, and so i wanted to head this off before the movie premiers, and to offer a few real books that at the very least 'try,' for those who are more religiously inclined.
these are good places to start. there are ways to make decent argument for an intelligence behind the universe, and there are terrible ways to do it. ben stein is in the latter category, and he's a really terrible man for selling stupidity.
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Apr 14, 2008 06:41 am hahahaha, Ben Stein may be an entertainer, but he is FAR from an idiot.
You completely lost me as soon as you start calling somebody like him an idiot...sorry, man, you lose.
Apr 14, 2008 07:04 am seriously, read my books over ben stein, his movie is idiotic. you lose if you go with stein. it's pure propaganda. it gets the SUPPOSITIONS wrong in the debate.
i;m not jerking around here, this is food for fools. if you want real religious food, read the books i mentioned.
Apr 14, 2008 07:08 am stein reviews by people who actually understand the subject matter:
'no integrity displayed':
www.sciam.com/article.cfm...iew-john-rennie
no intelligence allowed:
www.sciam.com/article.cfm...rmer&page=4
lying for jesus:
richarddawkins.net/articl...Richard-Dawkins
seriously, it's as if your daugther wrote a book on car repair. sorry. there are correct things and there are non-correct things. a conservative should live by that. not every idea stands on equal footing.
i provided some good intelligent design books for you and put some thought into that post, and extended a hand there. i know what i'm talking about. there's a way to make an intelligent argument for a creator, and i gave you links for that. ben stein is not it. this movie will make you stupid.
Apr 14, 2008 07:28 am I am not saying this movie (which I had already heard about and plan to see) isn't propoganda and.or idiotic...what I am saying is that Ben Stein is not an idiot. he is one of the few people in Hollywood that actually has a brain...whether or not it's used in this particular movie I can't say...
If I had time to sit and read books, it wouldn't be those.
Apr 14, 2008 07:33 am ben stein!!!
(post edited to be slightly friendlier, by fortmile)
Apr 14, 2008 07:34 am (hey fortymile, we don't need this kind of drama here!)
Apr 14, 2008 07:38 am Quote:
if you buy it, i'm leaving your forum. this is for your own good.
Threat or promise ;-)
I also watched most of Michael Moore's movies, didn't buy them at all. In my mind a movie is a movie, that's it, entertainment.
Of course, I also watched Superbad this weekend, and that was barely even entertainment.
I'm also a very bitter man, but thanks to my God and my guns, I'll be OK.
Apr 14, 2008 07:39 am i better stop drinking. lol.
moore sucks too.
Apr 14, 2008 07:43 am :)
(i'm a bitter pennsylvanian. lehigh valley paper endorsements on the heels of the 'bitter' comment: www.nydailynews.com/news/...n_the_mark.html
Apr 14, 2008 08:35 am "Thanks to my God and my guns, I'll be OK"
Eh, I hope thats a joke.
Apr 14, 2008 08:37 am obviously JDOD didn't watch any political news this weekend, it's a goof on Barack Obama and his stupid statements, which, of course Hillary jumped on in the most humorous manner.
I am loving watching these two clowns beat each other up.
Hillary calling anyone elitist is like Osama bin Laden calling somebody else a terrorist.
Apr 14, 2008 08:41 am Yeah I dont get much U.S. politics in the UK, and if there was any on the BBC, I didn't see it, I was far to busy drinking wine this weekend. Was a great weekend though.
Apr 14, 2008 08:44 am I've just looked up Ben Stein. I'd not heard of him before.
He is, indeed, an idiot.
Apr 14, 2008 08:52 am You can dislike and disagree his position on subjects, but saying he is an idiot is simply wrong.
Apr 14, 2008 09:01 am Oh yea, watching those two clowns make fools of themselves and each other is great entertainment. What scares me is that the assumption is that the public will somehow respond favorably to their remarks. I feel compeled to believe this as I also believe that those remarks would never make the "stage" if the campaign teams didn't approve them. One thing I have figgured out. If either of them campaign in my neighborhood, I will not answer the door.
Apr 14, 2008 09:06 am Your right, I do disagree with his position on things but, his some of his views and more importantly, the way he presents his views, (wanton ignorance, cynical manipulation of facts, use of deciet, faith presented as science, scaremongering to garner support, disinformation to discredit others and many more) are idiotic.
Apr 14, 2008 09:06 am "You can dislike and disagree his position on subjects, but saying he is an idiot is simply wrong."
you can do more than that, though. benstein may be a good guy, an intelligent guy. but his intelligence cedes here, lays down, and dies.
when you get the very foundation of the argument wrong, that's idiotic or malicious. i don't go into churches and say that they're saying that jesus hails from iceland and is black and was an expert rodeo clown. that's basically what ben stein is doing with the basic ideas behind evolution in this movie.
really, really hardcore, too.
threat and promise.
Apr 14, 2008 09:07 am thank you, JDOD.
jdod is exactly correct on this issue., couldn't have said it better myself.
new rule: you don't get to play with the fact if you dont know the facts.
Apr 14, 2008 09:16 am hahaha
OK...
Of course it's ignorance when it's not your beliefs.
Oh, people just crack me up sometimes.
This thread provided me a good laugh this morning.
Apr 14, 2008 09:32 am dB, he is ignorant of evolution, doesn't fully understand it and then preceeds to pull it appart. That is ignorance - lack of understanding, fear of the unknown, so he just attacks it.
Much of the anti-evolution rhetoric you read is like this, poor understanding mockingly presenting a poor argument. Many proponents of the so called science of ID, refuse to try to understand proper scientific theory and scientific method properly then have the gall to call themselves scientists.
If you have an in depth understanding of something you can pick up specific points and question them or seek clarification on them.
So, no, I dont call him ignorant just cos he doesn't agree with me, I call him ignorant 'cos he doesn't bother to educate himself before spreading disinformation.
At least Martin Luther King had the guts to come right out and say that he was an enemy of science and that he though science was an enemy of faith.
Apr 14, 2008 09:35 am And of course you know he hasn't and simply came to different conclusions. Of course.
I have read a lot of evolutionist info at times, I find much of it as implausable as 100% creationist view...the truth lies somewhere in the middle...in my opinion, but then, I suppose I'm an idiot too...because, of course, you know full well what I've read and how I have lacked in educating myself. You are the all being master of knowing what everybody has done.
Apr 14, 2008 09:41 am I go with you dB. I have always mused at the humor surounding the word "fact". In the R&D center we would be working on some microbial growth and work up a report entailing how per X% of trials under x,y,z,... conditions these reactions were observed. We would hand it off the the marketing bubbleheads and next we got to read "IT'S A FACT!". Oh my....
Apr 14, 2008 09:45 am Its not a case of looking and the evidence and coming to a different conclusion. Thats not what science is about. Its about trying to discover fact, based on the evidence you are presented.
If you find any parts of evolutionary science implausible or difficult to understand look it up, or even ask me or fortymile. I know I'd be happy to help if its something I know the answer to, or if its a really complex one, I like to try and work it out.
Apr 14, 2008 09:49 am I think I read somewhere that Ben Stein had a 1560-something SAT score in high school. I know intelligence should not be judged on SAT scores alone, but it's pretty hard to get a score that high by random guessing alone. (besides, an incorrect guess loses you points anyway).
I agree with dB, Ben Stein is not a stupid man. Whether he agrees on evolution or not, Ben Stein is a very smart man.
I may not agree with what he believes in, but just because we disagree does not make him less intelligent.
Apr 14, 2008 09:49 am Thanks, but I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person and am fully capable of researching myself...the last people I would ask when I find something implausable would be people with an obvious bias...
In addition to that, ultimately, how the world came to being is not something I really give that much of a **** about. It's really only good for creating arguments, and changes nothing about anything in any way in my life or the lives of anyone.
Hows about spending all that time trying to fix something for tomorrow instead of worrying about such worthless things like whether Ben Stein is right.
Ya know what, this is not how I am going to spend my day. Everybody continue hating without me.
Apr 14, 2008 10:06 am Well the message Ben Stein is trying to convey is potentially damaging for the future as it is uniformed and intentionally devisive. In fact, the uninformed attacks on evolutionary science that are bourne out of fear have a lot in common with racism - Fear and ignorance.
You say that I have obivous bias, hmmm, not sure how you can say that really, my view is based on the evidence as I see it, I was mearly offering that I may be able to offer you a plausible solution to something you find implausible. I'm not going to lie to you.
Surely how the world came into being is interesting though? Natural human curiosity? Understand all you can - the more we understand about anything the more chance we have of solving problems in the future.
There are lots of scientific avenues that seem unimportant but you never know when a seemingly trivial scientific idea will form the basis for something far more substantial. Most really revolutionary science is based on something older that seemed unimportant at the time. Ask anyone who has done any scietific research. When you start something new you look up old papers, you'll generally find an old paper by someone (usually someone with a beard and cardigan) but you can takw what they've done as a starting point and take their work in a new direction that they would never have done.
Apr 14, 2008 10:10 am Quote:
my view is based on the evidence as I see it
Ding, ding, ding...there we have the magic words.
It's all relative.
Apr 14, 2008 10:13 am Ah, we're back to mocking sarcasm.
Apr 14, 2008 10:18 am nothing sarcastic at all there, you completely, 100% said exactly the keywords..."as I see it", thats been exactly my point the whole time.
Apr 14, 2008 10:27 am So, what? You go through life not taking into account anyone else's opinions.
All I was offering was to give you an answer if I know it, or give you my best guess based on my understanding of evolutionary science if I didn't.
So yes the evidence as I see it, I think you and me read that phrase (as I see it) differently. I mean I'll look at the evidence and try and work out the solution, I think you think I mean that I'll give you my point of veiw on the subject based on my predetermined point of view.
So what are the parts of Evolutionary Science that you find implausible, I'm interested 'cos I think they may be interesting.
Apr 14, 2008 10:36 am OK, so you can view things as you see it and it's all cool, but Mr. Stein views it as he sees it and he's an idiot...sorry man, that doesn't float with me, and is certainly not a characteristic of anyone I would go to for info, input or opinion on anything.
Like I said, I am not spending my day like this, I have work to do.
db out.
Apr 14, 2008 10:57 am Mr. Stein is not just viewing it how he sees it though is he. He's trying to convert peolpe to his way of thinking with information that is based on lies. Thats at best ignorant and at worst wantonly subversive.
You say you have questions about evolution, to get plausible answers you will have to speak to someone who knows evolutionary science in depth. If you dont want to hear it from me fair enough.
Apr 14, 2008 11:21 am Just to play Devil's advocate here (and you are all quite aware that I'm not a Christian).
"Facts" through the ages have turned out to be quite wrong given some time time and better understanding:
*The world is flat.
*People stop breathing if they travel over 15 mph.
*The Sun and planets revolve around the Earth.
*It's impossible to fly.
*The large sauropod dinosaurs had to live in water to support their weight.
*The New England Patriots don't cheat. (Sorry, couldn't resist).
dB-Wan made a comment above that he believes the truth is "somewhere between the two" (creationism and evolution). Even if I don't agree, I cannot ignore that he may have a point. There is a lot that we, as a species, do not understand properly. We might understand many things to a point, but we also don't have a solid knowledge of everything. We keep trying, and that's quite laudable, but we have the terrific arrogance that says, "Oh, we know ALL about that....." We don't.
Just keep an open mind, people. Calling people names because they don't agree with your point of view is wrong. Not big, not clever.
Ben Stein is not an idiot. This project, and his current belief might be misguided (I said, "might" - I have no opinion), but he is not an idiot.
Apr 14, 2008 03:27 pm there are strong opinions here about stein not being an idiot. that's fine, but that's missing the point. it's perfectly possible to be a very smart person and yet make an idiotic movie. that's what happened here. it's not a matter of stein having a 'different take,' it's a matter of ben using facts that are manifestly untrue. in a major theatrical release with a large marketing apparatus, then, you have a guy making false claims to an audience composed of people who won't have the ability to see those untruths. great. how about, instead: don't support crap?
evolutionary biologists make no claims about how life 'got started.' evolution is about what happened after. how life got started may be a good and important question (and it is) but evolution cannot answer it. it's like using the mastering engineer's handbook to explain the digestive system. this is not evolution's question to answer. the scientific answer to that question lies in completely different, separate disciplines. complexity theory, chemistry, and molecular biology. ben stein doesn't tell you this. in fact, the main commercial for the movie airing on TV right now has ben in the back of a classroom challenging his evolution instructor with this very question about how life got started. we then see the professor getting flustered, unable to answer. you simply can't use this tack as a way to attack evolution or natural selection. you do not have the ability or license to conflate them. that's what's called hiding key truths and facts to make any damn point you want to and thereby gain allies.
and here ya go. a large portion of the movie is aimed at linking 'darwinism,' (a term nobody uses anymore, as it's today just the foundation of a much larger group of ideas, a term that itself basically telegraphs ignorance) to the nazi regime, as if darwin's idea caused the holocaust. a moment's thought will show anyone that ideas can be misused, or used in service of ... whatever. in fact, the nazis, by misunderstanding what evolution was and what it meant and what it implied, found it easy to coopt the language and to use it to justify atrocious acts to themselves. evolution's fault? no, the moral weakness of nazis. like using a wrench to beat someone over the head rather than to fix cars. it's related to the kind of mistake being made currently in this thread. and it's related to the way that quantum physics is currently being used to suggest that ESP might be real, or that we can 'create any reality we want' merely by thinking it into existence. those books are very popular right now, and there are several movies about it. the big one is called 'what the bleep do we know now.' the big book is called 'the secret.' millions of people fall for these bent and damaged caricatures of what physics really has to say about the nature of reality as physics currently understands it. the facts don't stand in the way. how can they, when people don't get the facts, and don't know where to find them, or how to read them? there's a reason why harried housewives read 'the secret' but tend not to read the work of bohr or maxwell or schroedinger: it's hard. it can be tedious. it will take you years. but a guy taking on 'big science' like rocky against clubber lang? that's something anyone can understand, and that might actually be fun.
tallchap, you might think it's point of view, but it's perfectly reasonable to call a liar a bad name. ben stein lies, in the movie. or is woefully uninformed, which is a different sin. but i'm just as happy to call the movie a bad name, if that makes people feel better.
Apr 14, 2008 03:54 pm Largely, these types of propaganda don't change the minds of many people, with the exception of a few gullibles who are mostly inconsequential. This brand of tripe mainly just preaches to a choir of fools who already believe the same things. The film will be forgotten in a little while, just like Fahrenheit 9/11 and others of the ilk.
It's just a movie. And don't fret over my soul, forty. I'm a big boy.
Apr 14, 2008 04:24 pm i dunno about that; these movies attempt to affect policy. the goal is to get ID taught in science class. which is like teaching buddhism in math. it's wrong on a logical level. for the record, this is the trigger for atheists, this 'get off my turf' thing. ID doesn't belong in science class, as people would understand if they understood evolution, but they don't, so it happens and it must be set straight whenever it raises its head, because people are listening and trying to make this happen, and you can't slack with stepping up and saying 'no, these are two different things.'
Apr 14, 2008 04:38 pm "He's trying to convert people to his way of thinking with information that is based on lies."
(Not sure how to do a quote here...)
I worked for the majority of Christian faith since the bible was published...
It'll never change.
And for this thread, it got too negative too quick and people just stopped listening to what the other had to say. I know dB said he was bitter so that didn't help with the tone of the topic but forty shouldn't have started throwing mud either.
I like the idea, (that someone stated already) that we should just recess a little and get a full grasp on both sides of this "Theory."
Apr 14, 2008 05:06 pm Quote:
I know dB said he was bitter so that didn't help with the tone of the topic
Dude, that was a joke based on current events in US politics that apparently forty and I were the only people that got it...
I'm not bitter about anything, I am making a joke.
Apr 14, 2008 05:13 pm actually, this thread is all forty's fault. i thought about deleting it all last night but somehow didn't. we could totally do that, though. or lock it or something. just to be safe!
i made a mistake by blabbing about it. the topic gets my ire up, and usually divisive and polarized language comes into play when ire's up. and then people react to that, etc.
Apr 14, 2008 05:42 pm The thing that I find funny (or odd if you will), is that of all the things to get worked up about, this subject is one that consistently gets your goat, forty. There are so many things to get worked up over (for me anyways...), but I'm not sure this is the one I would choose. I'm just curious why this subject resonates so strongly with you forty?
Apr 14, 2008 05:57 pm anything science/religion debated gets forty all worked up...and anything that gets forty worked up usually gets me worked up in the opposite direction.
meaning, of course, I gotta go drinkin with forty some night so we can just get drunk and fight it out in a drunken rage.
:-D
Apr 14, 2008 06:21 pm oh, the other funny thing about this is, I didn't know this movie existed until this thread. Now, my interest is piqued, at least so I can know what other people are talking about.
Apr 14, 2008 06:25 pm The funny thing about this is that Al Gore made a propaganda film and got a Peace Prize. Maybe theres something to this after all.
Apr 14, 2008 06:26 pm same here coolo :)
Apr 14, 2008 07:18 pm I assume he's talking about "expelled: no intelligence allowed" which is something I totally want to see...even before this.
Apr 14, 2008 07:30 pm Here is the funniest part of all really..
Ben Stein is and always will be an entertainer. An intelligent man as well. Did anyone here give any thought to the fact that this is exactly what he intended that movie to do. Spark controversy, which it appears to have done. Brought out the masses to either defend him or point the finger and call him an idiot. It has done that, and he is sitting back reaping the rewards because people will read the rantings of others and go out to see what all the buzz is about.
Can any of us prove one way or the other that this IS what Ben believes? I sure as hell can't! And I highly doubt anyone else in this thread or mentioned in this thread can either.
Think about what made Ben a recognizable star. SARCASIM was what got him were he is today. So is this maybe a very odd way to point out the way some people look at something.
And yes, he is taking one side over the other and throwing things way out of line. But isn't that controversial? I do believe it is, and we are all getting worked up over something he created to do just that.
Apr 14, 2008 10:17 pm Amen Noize! He's making money and damn good at it.
This is one laughable thread. The majority of people at the time the world was discovered round believed that is was flat; in and outside of any church. We catch a glimpse at how God accomplished something and now there is no God, because we can conceive some of his work?.... whatever. We still don't understand all of what Einstein has showed us, but that's ok. I guess he will cease to exist when we get a few more glimpses. Potentially dangerous because there seems to be some untruthfulness involved? Explain the Hillary Phenomena. Try being as honest as you can. People can't deal with it.
Apr 15, 2008 04:52 am "I like the idea that we should just recess a little and get a full grasp on both sides of this theory"
The problem with this is that both sides of the discussion are mutually exclusive. One side is based on scientific research and the other is based on faith.
You cant half believe in both of them, it just doesn't make sense, if one of them is true there is no need for the other.
Apr 15, 2008 06:28 am ben stein may be doing what noize suggests. but if you watch him on the talk shows, as i do by accident constantly, he makes a pretty good case for really believing in it. but supposing that this IS just an attempt to stir up controversy, then it's even worse. stein wouldn't be ignorant then, he'd be evil. but if the goal of the film is to dupe people into thinking that ID is real science, and if he really believes it isn't, then his real goal with the movie is simply to misinform people.
coolo: i dunno. it's a topic that never end, and it's just fun somehow. but it's hard to watch people failing to understand evolution and to draw the wrong conclusions because of those misunderstandings. there are detailed ways to believe in a god while actually using science, but most people never find those ways.
Apr 15, 2008 06:35 am Forty, I tried to email you yesterday using your email address that is listed on this site but it bounced back, is it correct? If you dont want any email dont worry about it though. I was just going to discuss what sources of information you've read.
Apr 15, 2008 07:03 am yeah that email is defunct for years now. i asked about the possibility of changing it a few times, but no one ever answered, and if i remember correctly i can't change the associated email in the settings page.
but yeah, you can email me. i don't know how, though. i'd rather not post any address on the forum itself.
*update: well that was super easy. i have no idea why i failed to do this earlier. address changed...
Apr 15, 2008 07:06 am just go in to your profile edit page and click the link to change your email address...
Apr 15, 2008 07:06 am yeah thanks. is that new? i dont remember being able to change it before
Apr 15, 2008 07:08 am I haven't messed with the profile pages for at least a year or more.
Way to pay attention ;-)
Apr 15, 2008 07:09 am well this doesn't make me look very good compared to ben stein now at all
Apr 15, 2008 07:50 am Cheers Forty. I'll update my profile at some point. Just found out I cant actually get gmail at work anymore. They've just banned it on the work server. I might have to set up a Brother Number One hotmail account or something.
Apr 15, 2008 08:04 am Gotta say guys good form. I was hoping to light some strings here. But alas hardly an ember. Kudos!
Apr 15, 2008 08:05 am Shut the **** up walt or I'll kick your *** right after I am done with forty and JDOD.
How's that? :-D
Apr 15, 2008 08:09 am Go **** yourself you bible bashing hick!
:o)
Apr 15, 2008 08:15 am Burn in hell, Heretic!
For the record, my belly isn't that big, my brick patio looks way nicer, and my front door is painted.
Apr 15, 2008 08:25 am Blahahahahahahaha! Now I feel accomplished! Ahhhh.... home sweet home!
Apr 15, 2008 08:55 am Now this bunch of twats really annoy me:
www.creationists.org/
Well I'm pretty sure its a joke, it must be, surely....
Apr 15, 2008 11:09 am Quote:
the goal is to get ID taught in science class. which is like teaching buddhism in math
ROFLMAO
www.venganza.org/
Personally I think ID is a bunch of twaddle. That said, I'd love for something to show me proof that it isn't. There's my big arguement....
Proof denies faith blah, blah.....
However, I will consider proof from either side. I'm rational and would love to be surprised.
An open mind.
Apr 15, 2008 11:09 am Hey, do you old HRCers remember the Net Authority thread? Turns out that site was a spoof site created by a 15-year-old kid, and it had a lot of us believing it was serious. Behold the power of satire.
www.netauthority.org/index.html
My stepsons know how this can backfire, too. I recorded their album Up With Fascism, which was supposed to be a jab against right-wing extremism, but nobody that they played it for got the joke, and everyone ended up thinking that they were right-wingers themselves..
So if that's what Stein is doing, he needs to step back and consider how it can be interpreted, or it'll backfire on him too. I, for one, have a lot of experience with being misinterpreted because of my delivery. Maybe this film should have a smiley icon in the corner of the screen, or they should put "LOL" at the beginning of the ending credits.
Apr 15, 2008 11:13 am Oh, no, Stein is one of the few right wingers in Hollywood, that said, if he honestly believes what I am reading about the last day or two, he's a bit further right than I am...
Quote:
However, I will consider proof from either side.
Ummmm, no, you won't...
To me it's not so much "proof" as it is common sense, I mean, look around you, holy ****...I believe things evolve, sure, but I just can't even fathom the idea that such an intricate, beautiful, interdependant system happened by accident...I mean seriously...
Like I said, I feel the truth lies between the two theories...
Apr 15, 2008 11:34 am I will, if confronted by anything factual. I can look around and say "gee, isn't God's creation wonderful...?" or someone can show me how anything suddenly appeared with form, and function.
I just ain't playing that someone decides it's true, and then tells us what to think.
Common sense?
"Poof, here's man....Tada!!!!"
Not common sense. That's magic...
I don't want to make light of anyone's faith, but the arguments for ID etc. have been terrible vague and/or dogmatic.
Maybe the 'truth' is somewhere between the two. I just want someone to show me the truth, not just tell me that it's true....
Apr 15, 2008 12:02 pm Thats your problem dB, you said in your above post about everything appearing by accident. Evolution isn't an accident, its just takes time for the statistics to stack up. when you have enough time accumulation of addaptation becomes a statistical likelihood.
When people say they believe in microevolution but not macroevolution, the real difference is the timescales which some people cant grasp. My job is in geology so I'm used to talking in millions and billions of years.
Apr 15, 2008 12:12 pm Hey, if I wanted to know what my problem is I'd go home and ask my wife.
It is an accident, it's thousands and thousands of accidents, or happenstance, until one works...and evolution goes on...
Apr 15, 2008 12:22 pm Quote:
Hey, if I wanted to know what my problem is I'd go home and ask my wife.
That made me laugh. Seriously.
Apr 15, 2008 12:41 pm Odd isn't it how right wing is getting confused with anti-evolution. Anyone else remember when right wing was associated with facism.
Apr 15, 2008 12:46 pm Proof of evolution is all around you...
Apr 15, 2008 02:10 pm Quote:
It is an accident, it's thousands and thousands of accidents, or happenstance, until one works...and evolution goes on...
That's pretty much Darwin's thoughts....
But ID would have us believe that the perfect example of any species can just appear. I can't swallow that.
Quote:
Anyone else remember when right wing was associated with facism.
Right, in a sense, but you're taking an extreme. Fascism is extreme right wing.
Soccer/Football is associated with hooliganism, but that doesn't mean that every football fan is a thug. Extremists exist in all walks of life.
John Lennon is dead. That doesn't mean that everyone who is dead is John Lennon. Flawed logic. Fascism is right wing, but that doesn't mean all right wingers are fascists.
There are some things that still baffle us with evolution, and we don't have all the answers. For example, baby camels are born with callouses on their knees. They've never knelt down, but they have the callouses. Not something that evolution could/would account for. A beak for eating a certain nut/seed is understandable, but not something like that. Maybe a bald spot, but not a callous. I'm not saying it's ID, but it's not evolution either. We really don't have ALL the answers.
As I mentioned before, I would entertain some solid evidence of ID, but it's yet to happen. When it comes, I'm more than willing to look at it.
Quote:
Thats your problem....
Probably not the most compelling point to any debate. IMHO. Like name calling, it's simply confrontational and doesn't add anything intellectual to the thread.
Also, someone called "Stein" is unlikely to be a fascist. Just a thought.
Apr 15, 2008 04:54 pm Look at tallchap coming in and being the "voice of reason". It's like my whole position has been usurped.
Apr 15, 2008 05:31 pm Quote:
I believe things evolve, sure, but I just can't even fathom the idea that such an intricate, beautiful, interdependant system happened by accident
that's not a good way to characterize it, though, as it makes the misconception that many people have about evolution seem central. everyone always wants to reduce either evolution or other aspects of the universe to 'accidents.' accidents are just one part of what evolution is. evolution itself is totally nonrandom. mutations create a feedstock of possibilities, and then selection, which is nonrandom, chooses and builds on them. besides that, there are other sources of variation that could not be called random. so it's a small (but important) part of it, but not the main process. and beyond that, there's complexity theory, which is something almost no civilian has even heard of, really. here's an introduction to self-organization, a phenomenon associated with complexity theory:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_organization
*snip*Self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.
when peeps want to talk about how life got started, they should be looking to areas such as this. stuart kauffman, at the santa fe institute, is a guy who is trying to bring complexity to bear on the origin of life, and he's also trying to bring it into evolution itself. here are two good articles by him.
www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/zd-Ch.20.html
www.edge.org/3rd_culture/...fman_index.html
and here's a picture, just because it's one of the best pictures i've ever seen.
Apr 15, 2008 06:02 pm also, when thinking about this stuff, i sometimes have to admit to a really deep bias, and it's one that everybody has, and we can't help having it. it sounds very strange but i can see so no way around it:
we assume that 'nothing' is the default state of reality, generally.
that is, we assume that 'something' must come from somewhere, must emerge from a nothing. we assume that a nothing comes first and THEN that something is brought forward and then it exists.
but that might be a bias. that's how the world looks to us based on our 'size' and because of the way we experience time and the way the world in which we live looks to us. it's all we know, but it might not be right.
because there's a problem. if you believe in god, you have to say he has always existed. otherwise, you get into the problem of who created god, and then who created the entity which created god, etc. and if you do not believe in god, then you have to ask where the universe came from, and then what caused that preceding state, etc. it's the same problem no matter which side you're on. believing that things must have a 'source' means that eternal regression is a question with no possible final answer.
carl sagan once said if people assume that god has always existed, then why not just save a step and say that the universe has always existed, instead? it's saying the same thing. no matter which side you're on, what you see around you 'caused itself' somehow. there can't be a beginning, no matter what you believe.
so the way around the bias is to assume that 'something' is actually the default state of reality itself. that counterintuitively, (to us), it is illogical for there to have ever been a 'nothing,' no matter if you're religious or not.
there are rumblings in physics about 'retrocausality,' the idea that the future can have a hand in causing the past. a lot of physicists now believe that the way we think about time is fundamentally wrong, and that the future is actually 'out there' already, somehow, that it's a real time/place that we just can't access from where we sit. this notion is called 'block time,' and it's a consequence of einstein's notion that any frame of reference is relative. different times, therefore, are valid for different observers. from this you get the idea that our present moment is not 'the' present but just 'a' present. there are some theories which suggest that at the quantum level, information is being exchanged forwards and backwards across time. john cramer and his transactional interpretation of quantum physics comes to mind. retrocausality could very well turn out to be real. when you look at some of the problems with making sense of quantum physics, you're always forced to conclude one of about five crazy, totally nutso things. either you choose continuously branching parallel universes, information flow backwards and forwards in time, or moments as individual and locked-off universes. at root, there is nothing but magic. any final scientific theory of the cosmos is going to sound nuts. some have said that that's one of the best clues we're on the right track.
anyway, suffice it to say that i find it interesting that god, somewhere in the bible, when asked his name says 'I AM.'
in a non-serious way, i like to point that out while throwing retrocausality on the table.
Apr 15, 2008 07:48 pm Sorry Coolo, had a moment of lucidity. I'll go back to chaos and mayhem.
We are stardust....
Apr 15, 2008 09:39 pm Ah...
I like you guys so I'm staying out of this, as I'm sure I'd step on quite a few peoples toes.
Apr 16, 2008 12:48 am hmmm...evolution is no more "proven" then creationism. No one just knows what happened. They only "believe" to know what happened.
My giant question of the day is this:
If God didn't create the universe, then what did? Where did the so called, infinitely small dot of everything come from, before it supposedly exploded into "The Big Bang?"
Just food for thought. Won't prove anything to anyone though. But that's ok.
Apr 16, 2008 03:29 am evolution has reams and reams of valid evidence waiting for you to discover it, valid. in fact, evolution is literally proven. in the same way that a murder is proven when you find a guy who's got clothes in his hamper stained with the blood and dna of the victim, a gun in the house which forensics proves matches the bullet fired, a purchase receipt and credit card record of the gun itself in the guy's name two days ago, a cell phone record that indicates he made a call from outside the victim's house 50 miles away from his own home on a weeknight at 4 am, and the man's fingerprints on the windowsill.
if that's not good enough for you, then i dunno.
kind of makes me wonder how a god would feel, seeing all these people literally turn the other cheek away from his handiwork, choosing instead to worship something like a graven image, a caricature of his true power, a thing which he specifically forbade in the bible.
if your primary supposition is that there IS a god, then the incredible evidence for evolution must be an elaborate lie and a trick perpetrated by god for reasons that are a little silly to contemplate. you could instead choose to believe that there is a god and that he's left clues as to his methods all over the place. looking at things from a scientific perspective can be, like, the closest you can really get to god.
either god is tricking you, or your definition of god could be deeper. one of the reasons i recommend (in nice ways, sometimes) that religious people add science to their mix is because it's spiritual too, in a different way. when you accept the evidence, it's like turning god back into what he probably should be: a very mysterious question you can never quite answer. most religions, on the other hand, package god into a very small container, telling you 'this is what he is.' with science, if you happen to be religious, it can be like you're in a dialogue with god. god as a question instead of an answer seems to mesh better with the definition of spirituality.
Apr 16, 2008 04:09 am TallChap, I wasn't trying to say that all the religious are facists or even that all the right wing are facists. I was just saying that its odd that religion is now associated with the right wing (the way I worded my other post probably came accross as flipant), I know lots of religous people who are not right wing, many of them are quite liberal, however it has become associated with the political right which is both odd and bad 'cos I dont think religion and politics mix very well.
Apr 16, 2008 04:20 am Oh, the camel thing can be explained. Think about how it could be a competative advantage...
Apr 16, 2008 04:59 am [quote]
Oh, the camel thing can be explained. Think about how it could be a competative advantage...[/quote]
that, and maybe more than that, too. there are rumblings about some new ideas. i still have to explore them. but you know, one thing that's true is that the genes you have are preferentially active or inactive, depending on what your situation at any given time is. because i smoke, certain genes of mine, which might not otherwise be expressed, are at the moment. i may have permanently rewired my pleasure center. there are some rumblings about the possibility of one narrow kind of lamarckism. JDOD, if you're heard anything about it, let me know, because i don't know where to look into it. it has to do with sperm. unlike eggs, they're created every day. i remember seeing something recently i meant to look back into, about how gene expression based on environmental experience could possibly be carried over into the sperm.
there are also additional questions about whether the genome is generally more 'reactive' to the environment. whether it listens to it and has a conversation with it. whether or not a cold environment, for instance, might actually signal a section of a gene to relax its proofreading process, allowing for increased mutation rate. so as to basically open the door to the chance for quick fur to arise. i have no idea what that mechanism would be but it sounds interesting.
i haven't looked into either of these things. they remain rumors to me.
Apr 16, 2008 05:16 am Interesting idea - basically you've heard that the geonome will actively encourage additional mutation in a certain area to speed up the evolution?
That is a probability although possibly unessessary, as the section powers of the environment would make that decision quick enough if it was necessary. The only time I could imagine it coming into play would be at the brink of (natural) extinction; where the environment has changed and the species can no longer cope at all and the mutation rate is not high enough to come up with a solution to the problem. There are still mutations though so I think it unlikely.
Details of which genes are switched on and off being transfered to sperm? Not sure about that, True Lamarkism cant really exist as thats not far from saying that the scar under my eye and my haircut can be transfered (genetically) to my offspring. The might be something in genetically transfering a liking for nicotine on to your kids due to you switching on a few genes that make you like it etc, but that is clouded by the fact that kids of smokers are always more likely to be smokers themselves due to social reasons.
Apr 16, 2008 05:36 am This is from the wiki on Lamarkism in the Neo-Lamarkism section
"Unlike neo-Darwinism, the term neo-Lamarckism refers more to a loose grouping of largely heterodoxical theories and mechanisms that emerged after Lamarck's time, than to any coherent body of theoretical work.
In the 1920s, Harvard University researcher William McDougall studied the abilities of rats to correctly solve mazes. He found that children of rats that had learned the maze were able to run it faster. The first rats would get it wrong 165 times before being able to run it perfectly each time, but after a few generations it was down to 20. McDougall attributed this to some sort of Lamarckian evolutionary process.[citation needed] At around the same time, Ivan Pavlov, who was also a Lamarckist, claimed to have observed a similar phenomena in animals being subject to conditioned reflex experiments. He claimed that with each generation, the animals became easier to condition. Neither McDougall or Pavlov suggested a mechanism to explain their observations."
Interesting but doesn't really prove anything. The could be a traditional evolutionary proceedure at work there to do with the way the mice were treated and stored at other times that when they were running through the maze, e.g food being at the exit so that the better mice get to run it more so get more food and are more competative etc. I'm not saying thats the reason, it could be one of many, I dont know about the experiment and what controls they had in place. One thing is certain though is that our understanding of selective pressures and factors that influence them is much better now than it was then and as such we would be in a far better place to control them.
It would be interesting though if there was a mechanism for aquired characteristics to be passed on.
Apr 16, 2008 08:16 am these are two areas i have yet to find info on. i know the dangers of lamarckism, but the sperm idea gets around it (if true). that would just be about gene expression. the smoking thing is a good illustration, but the scar tissue or haircut wouldn't be. the scar tissue is in reaction to a specific event and has little if anything to do with genes. the haircut is just a haircut. the knee tissue is i think different, or could be. (i've never heard of that, by the way, but i don't doubt it). a scar tissue that is active and replenished (and not an 'injury fossil' or artifact of a past event) might be different. also, genetic changes for this sort of thing might occur in deeper places in the genome. hox genes? i dunno. an eye scar is like an artifact to me. but four knee alterations smacks of something deeper.
i know nothing about this. i just flag things i mean to look into eventually. 'gene expression,' which is a newer idea, offers a new mechanism for a dead and discredited idea. i'll stay open to it until it's shut down, which it very well may be (or might have been already).
the other thing--the proofreading thing--sounded like such a good idea that i simply wanted it to be true. it could possibly explain certain puzzles. on the other hand, 'lurking' variability in a population's genome might be sufficient on its own.
Apr 16, 2008 07:15 pm Your explanation of the proof of evolution does not prove anything. It's like saying evolution is proven because carrots are orange. (which is true, but does mean evolution is.)
Evolution is not "literally proven." It is only a theory. As is creationism. It is not proven fact.
The only thing that is proven is that species can adapt and change to suit their environment. Evolution of one species completely into another is not proven.
The world was flat once my friend. Also we were in "global cooling" (I guess they were wrong) in the 70's. Theories are just that. Theories. Nothing is proven.
Also, you give me no proof of evolution. And my question was not answered. And it can't be...
because there is no answer.
I'm not trying to change your mind. I don't care what you believe, because that's what you want to believe. I'm just making the point that evolution is not proven just because a bunch of "experts" tell you it is. No scientist has ever proven the theory correct, just as no preacher has ever proven God created all of it.
There is no proof. Only faith in what you believe.
Apr 16, 2008 07:47 pm Valid you took the words right out of my mouth. I was raised by an Atheist father and a Christian mother, they laid their belief out for me and allowed for me to come to my own conclusions so please understand that I am now completely crazy. Neither side of the argument has the definitive proof. Actually I have a bit of pity for anyone who has a closed mind to religion and that puts all of their faith in science. The things that people of a scientific mind know to be factual and true today will tomorrow be proven wrong and in 100 years be laughable. At one time we knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. I just watched a documentary last night that mentioned that we gave Meth to our troops to fight fatigue in WWII.
By all means believe what you will but I think that knowing our fallible human history of science that you would be better served to keep an open mind.
Apr 16, 2008 07:51 pm P.S. my little rant was not directed at anyone in particular. Just adding my .02 worth.
Apr 17, 2008 12:45 am valid and diemusic are wrong. where's JDOD, i don't think i have the patience to explain how messed up those last two posts are. it's irritating when people who don't understand what they're talking about think that they do and turn the tables.
sorry, sometimes you gotta be harsh. incorrect posts, guys. evolution's not your thing, so you don't have to subscribe to it. but don't walk around telling experts what's so.
Apr 17, 2008 12:47 am new scientist cover story this week. evolution: 24 myths and miconceptions.
www.newscientist.com/chan...0misconceptions
If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it
It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.
Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.
And yet despite an ever-growing mountain of evidence, most people around the world are not taught the truth about evolution, if they are taught about it at all. Even in the UK, the birthplace of Darwin with an educated and increasingly secular population, one recent poll suggests less than half the population accepts evolution.
For those who have never had the opportunity to find out about biology or science, claims made by those who believe in supernatural alternatives to evolutionary theory can appear convincing. Meanwhile, even among those who accept evolution, misconceptions abound.
Most of us are happy to admit that we do not understand, say, the string theory in physics, yet we are all convinced we understand evolution. In fact, as biologists are discovering, its consequences can be stranger than we ever imagined. Evolution must be the best-known yet worst-understood of all scientific theories.
So here is New Scientist's guide to some of the most common myths and misconceptions about evolution.
***
get readin'.
Apr 17, 2008 12:51 am and for the last time, believing in evolution does not preclude believing in god, so stop putting words in my mouth. the point is that at this stage in history, there are certain facts which, if you deny them, indicate that...well never mind, but it's not a good thing.
accepting evolution does not necessarily mean you must abandon god.
Apr 17, 2008 01:51 am "it's irritating when people who don't understand what they're talking about think that they do and turn the tables"
How can you possibly say a thing like that? Please tell me that we never thought the world was flat, that the Earth was the center of the universe or that mankind would never be able to fly. How about that less than 200 years ago surgery pretty much consisted of whiskey and a hack saw. The people who accepted all of those thoughts and theories where the brilliant minds of their day and thought they had all of the proof and answers too.
If you read my post again you will find that I am able to accept science and religion just fine. All that I am suggesting is that you keep an open mind too because in another 50 years or so your "mountain of evidence" could very well be proven to be yet another "fact" that fallible human minds misunderstood.
I understand perfectly well what I am talking about. I have never said that evolution was not possible. All that I am saying is that we are not a perfect race and even with our amazing advances and discoveries we get it wrong some times even when we "know" we are right.
Apr 17, 2008 03:46 am Calm down guys. Lets keep this friendly
Apr 17, 2008 03:53 am Sorry, Fortymile, I was asleep, I'm 8 hours ahead of some of you guys.
There's no point in aguing with that lot mate.
I dont agree with a lot of what dB says but at least he takes the time to think about what he writes and construct a coherant argument.
There's nothing wrong with being ignorant of a point if you have a will to learn about it, the information is out there, you just have to search. (I was ignorant of the Koran till recently, read it and think its bollocks but at least now I can say that with confidence). Unfounded opinion based on wanton ignorace is, in my opinion stupidity.
Its been a long time since Evolution was a theory. If you look at all my previous posts I call it Evolutionary Science. A science based on evidence and experiment.
The good thing about science and scientists is that they are happy to be proved wrong and say "wow, I never thought of that" And more often than not science does stand the test of time. Newton's Laws of Motion, Archamede's Principal, and countless others. Some things are just correct.
You've mentioned the Earth being flat. I think thats a pretty good scientific supposition when your average human never walked more than 100miles from his birthplace, dont you?
The Earth being the centre and everything revolving around it? Again a valid hypothesis for a primative man based on what he could see, although when Galileo proved that wrong the church locked him up.
Apr 17, 2008 06:08 am JDOD, by your own admission the earth being flat and the center of the universe were both reasonable conclusions to come to with the available information and technology at the time. Yet you guys aren't willing to admit that your "Evolutionary Science" while being a possible valid conclusion to come to from the available information and technology of our time could also be just as wrong as those earlier ideas?
Apr 17, 2008 06:32 am Quote:
it's irritating when people who don't understand what they're talking about think that they do and turn the tables
It's also irratating when people who do think they know everything shove and shove and shove their point of view.
People even dare mention reiligion aat all, they are accused of being Bible bangers and "shoving it down people's throats...any other subject can get crammed and crammed and it's just
"presenting the facts" or some such ****, and is to be presumed much less annoying.
Apr 17, 2008 06:55 am Diemusik, being a scientist. I'd be more than willing to except that Evolutionary Science is wrong if someone actually manages to find a problem with it and suggests a credible alternative.
Apr 17, 2008 07:19 am sometimes i'm surprised i'm still allowed on the board.
i debate strongly, and i hope that peeps can take what i say with a grain of salt. on myspace, i've often told people, look: that last post is not an indictment of you personally, even if it sounds that way: i am responding to ideas, not people. i think that's gotta be the way you have a debate, so let me say that hrc has been a good place for them. there are wild differences between people on this board, and somehow, because of the cool management, things never get out of hand. my last post could be construed as rude or inciting. yet again, though, HRC members have risen to the challenge by being sober about things.
ol' fortymile is a little bit of a wild gun, though, so there's my justification.
responding to points selectively...
db sez that "It's also irratating when people who do think they know everything shove and shove and shove their point of viewv", and i will say, to that, no doubt. but if i'm irritating, that is a side effect of the fact that i'm a bonafide armchair expert on evolution. the closest you can get without a degree. you get this way by reading books on the subject. it is true that most people do not read books on the subject. and there is literally cartloads of information. anyone who really wanted to understand it would not simply be able to read a few books in a few months (although that would help) but would really have to develop a sincere interest in it and would have to explore it for years. it's that in-depth. i don't say this to toot my own horn. but those of you who have more knowledge than i do--about how to use compression or how to use multiband compression, or anything else--already know what i'm getting to. it took years for you to develop that knowledge. evolution is even deeper. you've simply got to be interested in it to know what it's all about. there's a reason why books on the subject are often 500-pages long. it's a simple idea that is wildly complex and specific in its details. and that this much knowledge could be produced on the subject says something about the strength of the idea. you don't get that amount of data by repeatedly being wrong.
annoyance is not the issue. the truth is. your god, whoever he is, is in league with the truth, so he wants you to know it. when he's speaking to you in hard facts, it might not be a good idea to ignore his voice. let's assume that there is a god. what if he's talking to you and you're turning the other cheek, ignoring him, discounting what he's *really* saying, beyond the simple stories? it may be a fact that there is a god. if this is true, then the facts that WE know, are a part of his factual story. this is what annoys me about those who would discount things that are now known beyond a shadow of a doubt. you're ignoring your god and ignoring scientific facts in the same breath.
i have no objection to god. but god is either a scientist or liar, and you must decide which, or you are being self-deceptive. time and time again, i see people pegging god as a liar. god plants fossils, makes potassium-argon dating 'look real' (while really it isn't, thinks god, while snickering into his handkercheif) and creates an elaborately detailed web of scientific 'lies' coming from about thirty directions at the same time--all mutually supportive--to test you.
that is a juvenile interpretation of god. your real god is standing there begging to be seen for real.
i would like to report that it's quite possible for a scientist to believe in jesus christ. that's fine. it is quite possible that we can't see what's really going on and that at one point in the past, physical laws were suspended and a child was born of a virgin, and he walked on water, and rose from the dead. what is wrong to do, though, is to cast away the evidence before you, which should be taken as the 'real' word of god. evolution: god's process. when you deny it, you ridicule god. and let's face it, people, the fact of the universe is ******* miracle. the universe hangs here against all odds. when you examine it, you're face to face with the most stunning mystery you could ever imagine. a true miracle, and one for which there's no good and 'real' and 'satisfying' explanation for -- other than that it's a pure miracle, an impossibility. is that container not the biggest possible container for a true god?
some people like to think that science is about pegging down the answers and turning away. they see science as a way to make the universe less miraculous than it could be. if you feel that way, you never really understood it at all. when you ask a question and get a swift answer, that's the end of the process. 'god' is a period. science is a question mark. science is perhaps THE way to know god. because in the end, this is a miracle, this universe. and scientists do not claim to know it completely. they just keep reaching back, and the process may never end.
i think that's a suitable metaphor for god. what makes you think you can know what the supreme creator is really 'like?' is it like politics? do you want to have a beer with him? is that your criterion? you can have a beer with him. you will get an answer, and it may be enough to make you feel stable and good and at peace. you can also, though, stand here startled by the mystery, and try to get closer and closer, as the answer runs from you forever. total mystery, total holiness. total inscrutability. peeling back the layers of the onion, and never finding the core.
if you do that, your spiritual quest will never end, will never calcify. you'll be asking god questions for the rest of your life. if you listen to the silence, you will grow.
Apr 17, 2008 07:27 am I wish I could toot my own horn.
Apr 17, 2008 07:37 am I find scientists (not necessarily science itself) humorous because most of them are simply wasting our tax money.
One person finds, say a jawbone, and the whole community rushes to build an entire society around it...then all the rest go "yeah, yeah, what he said", then, 10 years later they find a skull, the say "oh, no, this is how it's done", and the "yeah, yeah" continues...
Then, they have the audacity to say things like "if you don't agree you don't understand" which is the most arrogant, condescending thing I've ever heard. If I don't believe what you believe I just don't get it? I don't think so...
In the words of coolo..."where'd ya find a saddle to fit that high horse".
Get over yourselves, it's all guesses.
Apr 17, 2008 07:41 am "its all guesses"
Eh? No it not.
Apr 17, 2008 07:46 am i'll respond to diemusik, and will monitor myself. that last sentence in that last post of mine, i'm aware, looks grandiose. but i believe in it strongly.
Quote:
How can you possibly say a thing like that? Please tell me that we never thought the world was flat, that the Earth was the center of the universe or that mankind would never be able to fly. How about that less than 200 years ago surgery pretty much consisted of whiskey and a hack saw. The people who accepted all of those thoughts and theories where the brilliant minds of their day and thought they had all of the proof and answers too.
i like the whiskey and hacksaw thing, because that is an excellent line, and it's true, too. but you have to accept that knowledge builds. there are kinds of knowledge which, once known, do not change. i've said it before: before eintein, newton was king. but newton was right, within his frame of reference. when einstein redefined things, newton's ideas didn't die; in fact, we still use them them when we send robots to other worlds in this solar system. newton is more useful for that. einstein just saw a bigger picture. within it was newton's smaller picture. it did not perish, and it never will. you have to develop the ability to identify which kinds of knowledge are incomplete. which pieces. plenty of room for that in evolution. when i mentioned those two contentious items to JDOD, that's exactly what i was doing. that's a place where there are real cracks. because i'm interested in this stufff, i know where the legitimate cracks are. most people do not, because most people don't care. forgive me, but if you don't care, you don't know where the real cracks are, and you're not really qualified to object to stone-set facts. they're easily indentifiable. the way you find them is this: look for confirmation coming from disparate and unrelated fields. there's no shortcut. when you READ, you see them. that is what you must do if you are to have an opinion. and that is why you would have known, when einstein was a baby (if you happened to be alive then) that newton was simply right, and could not be wrong. you can't have legitimate opinions on things you don't understand. einstein did, though. and, lo and behold, his theories 'contain' newton, while not smashing him. einstein knew that newton's ideas would remain true. so he knew where to look to discover what he discovered. without the ability to sort the legitimately known from the legitimately unknown, you're lost. we know which facts 'can't' change. the problem is that you don't. you need to know what's solved and what's not.. when something is solved, confirmation comes from many directions at once--different people in different fields-- and then you conclude that it's a fact, and that the next fact will include or modify--but not smash and reject--the first fact. that doesn't happen. the facts that you think have been overturned were never facts in the first place. these were facts assumed to be true without real evidence. we're beyond that now.
jeez people, have faith. you like to think of yourselves as small little humans, but that's not what you are. you're the universe learning to perceive itself. knowledge grows. the universe--not you--figured out GPS and compression and the internet. stop thinking of yourselves as small and instead attach yourself to the big. it's not small, what we did. we perceived the structure of spacetime. we learned rocketry and went to the moon. extreme conservatives love to say that liberals 'hate' america. but you can also make this case: conservatives tend to discount humanity. this is no small thing, what we did here. how far we've come. but people just looooove to make it look small. huh-uh. the universe, through us and our brains, learned how to 'do ****' and understand itself in extreeeemely ******* precise ways.
so stop writing yourselves off. you're not as small as you think you are. you're the vanguard of intelligence. things are now known, and knowledge is not relative, and it is your freakin' DUTY to know what's known and what's not, and to stop mistaking the two.
because those are specious arguments, diemusik, and it pains me to not be able to explain why.
Apr 17, 2008 08:03 am all i really want is chicken, by the way. fried or buffalo wings. none of this stuff really matters when you refocus on chicken.
Apr 17, 2008 08:06 am actually, none of it really matters period...
I spend my time learning things that help me provide for my family and all that...spending time studying the merits of ID and evolution, for me and my life, is a 100% waste of time.
If it's another persons hobby, good for them, but for me, it's pointless...if it's another persons career, and you are funded by gov't grants, well, I hate you.
Apr 17, 2008 08:15 am Why do you dislike science so much dB? Would you prefer to live in a cave rubbing yourself down with your own **** and piss to keep warm
Apr 17, 2008 08:18 am I didn't say I hated it, some of it is quite interesting, it's just a waste of my time to spend any real effort on it.
...and for the record, you can take the second part of your statement and shove it right straight up your ***...I can promise you you wouldn't be that big of an ******* to my face, toughguy.
If your two choices are spending all my time studying science or that, well, then you are a complete bafoon.
Apr 17, 2008 08:24 am lol, i know not know this thread goes on.
*hands out marshmallow peeps to all*
Apr 17, 2008 08:38 am It's titalizing in a like manner to other active thread, Dumbest things done while drunk.
Apr 17, 2008 09:03 am Fookin'ell! I was only taking teh piss.
Well, yes, lots of science is funded by goverment grants, but lots of that science is responsible for teh nice comfy society we live in with all the mod cons etc.
Apr 17, 2008 08:14 pm LOL...the only thing "proven" here is my point...
People keep saying no it's not a theory, there is proof...bla, bla, bla..
Yet you offer no such proof. There is no proof of evolution. There is not proof that God created everything. It would seem that there is no proof that there is a God. But there is also no proof that there is not. These theories cannot be proven. You will not admit to evolution as being a theory because you are afraid to be open minded. No one said you had to believe in creationism, or God for that matter.
If I evolved from a monkey, fine. If God created me, fine. If something else happened, fine. My point is this: No one was there to see what happened, so nothing is proven. PERIOD. IT - IS - ALL - SPECULATION. You can scream at me all day and say there is proof and I will still call bull-crap. Show me absolute definitive PROOF. - You can't.
And by the same token, I can prove nothing to you. I don't care.
Yes JDOD, some things are just right. And the reason being: they were PROVEN. Evolution still has NOT been. Just because Newton's gravity theories were proven means nothing to this subject.
On another subject,
I'm sure I speak for many when I say:
I grow annoyed at people who attempt to convert people to atheism with words posted on a forum... wow...stupidity, hypocrisy...
Yet these same people would assume they have any kind of right to be irritated at a non-atheist for doing the same to them for the other point of view. As if their atheistic belief system is righteous and perfect. FOOLS. Nothing is perfect.
Forgive me. I am just going on a rant here. I'm not pointing fingers.
But...if this post makes anyone angry with me, well, I guess you would fit into that "FOOLS" category. Atheist or not.
Apr 17, 2008 08:16 pm Valid's point is ... valid ...
... depending on the definition of "proof".
Apr 17, 2008 08:28 pm Also, I'd like to add here. I never said I didn't believe in the evolution theory...
"so stop putting words in my mouth."
Apr 17, 2008 09:29 pm "Diemusik, being a scientist. I'd be more than willing to except that Evolutionary Science is wrong if someone actually manages to find a problem with it and suggests a credible alternative."
JDOD I appreciate you giving me that point. I was never trying to say that you guys are wrong or trying to trick you into a corner, I was only suggesting that we have to keep an open mind in order to move forward. Keeping an open mind also means that while everything may look convincing on the surface there very well may be giant holes in the concept that we have yet to even discover.
Forty, while reading your last few post I get the feeling that we either share similar thoughts on the concept regarding evolution and god/religion or you are giving those of us with spiritual beliefs a bit of latitude. My personal view on the subject is like what dB said early on in this thread that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I do not deny that evolution is entirely plausible but I think there is more to the story. The problem I have is that there are so very few in the scientific world who are willing to explore the possibility of a god or that a higher being could have had a hand in the process of evolution that I fear we will never have all of the pieces to the puzzle. It astounds me that science is always so ready to just completely disregard religion or spirituality without even the slightest ounce of evidence. I think its just as foolish not to entertain the idea as it would be to think there no possibility of life on other planets. Yet many in the scientific world embrace the thought of little green men.
I assure both of you the while I am admittedly not nearly as knowledgeable on the subject as either of you are that I am far from being ignorant. I may have difficulty expressing my thoughts and ideas and I will get frustrated at your inability to read my mind but I am a moderately intelligent guy just the same.
Now can I have some of those chicken wings you mentioned forty?
Apr 17, 2008 09:37 pm Also I stumbled on this right after my post here.
Apr 17, 2008 09:39 pm I do recall them saying that you and I were wrong though... how presumptuous.
Apr 17, 2008 09:56 pm You're right, they did. To be honest I'm ok with that though. The truth is that after all of the arguing, researching, name calling and finger pointing I still wake up every morning a human being. I was an human being when my mother told me that God created me and I was a human being when my father said I came from monkeys. I was even a human being when he said I was the mail-mans son but thats another story. Where we come from, while being important, is not a fraction as important as where we are going. That is also just my personal opinion that is subject to ridicule and resentment.
Apr 17, 2008 11:11 pm From a psychological standpoint this thread is a stich. It has gone from muddling with impass, to strength in numbers, to a need to be right that transends the origional postulate. The posts become longer on average as the thread continues, indicating a attempt to dominate the dialog. It's exactly the same progression pattern my wife sees in her special ed. class. I for one am hoping it goes on for awhile, or mutates and resurfaces in another thread. Impass demands escalation. It should qualify for a good sitcom soon.
Apr 18, 2008 03:16 am Diemusik, I think the reason that so many in the scientific world so readily discount god/creationism is that they are an analytical sort of people and there is no evidence to support it. Its not that they are disregarding it without any evidence that it isn't true, its being diregarded because there is no evidence that it is true.
There is a mountain of evidence to support evolution at the moment and there are no points that it has fallen down on yet.
Apr 18, 2008 06:27 am i couldn't revisit this thread today because i was afraid of it. i don't like the long posts and i find it troubling that language and and and--posts--are such a poor container for these ideas. if you want to make one point or the other, you almost need to write a book. that is the danger with this debate. there's so much to it, that any insufficiently complete post--on either side--is open to ridicule. simply because you can't cover what you want to cover in three paragraphs.
i often wrestle with whether or not to delete these posts of mine. but at the same time, **** man, i just did all that work, so they tend to stand for a little while anyway.
valid says we don't offer any proof. in this thread, that is true, although we certainly could offer tons of it. we would refrain from doing so, though, unless the other side appears willing to hear it. there is proof, tons of it: that part of valid's statement is simply invalid. we just haven't put the proof in the thread. there is more than a little risk here that it will be misunderstood, given the nature of valid's posts, for instance. no, this thread is mostly a call to action. it could become bogged down in specifics, if you want it to. do you? i don't think you do. i'd rather not. valid has closed his mind on it. so it's sometimes more expedient and even more useful to talk about the bigger ideas behind an argument. so that's what we're doing. it would simply hurt to see valid reject set facts with a sense of self-righteousness as he does it. that's something that really gets the goat of people who know this subject inside and out. the rest of you appear to know what's up to some degree. db says that he believes in evolution to some degree, even some of the other people against evolution in this thread are willing to admit certain things.
but lies are not good enough.
let's list valid's invalid statements without responding to them (at least until he himself shows a willingness to understand):
valid's demonstrably untrue statements from his last post there:
1. There is no proof of evolution
2. You will not admit to evolution as being a theory because you are afraid to be open minded.
3. My point is this: No one was there to see what happened, so nothing is proven.
4. PERIOD. IT - IS - ALL - SPECULATION.
5. Show me absolute definitive PROOF. - You can't.
6. Evolution still has NOT been [proven]. Just because Newton's gravity theories were proven means nothing to this subject.
these above statements are actually incorrect, and can be proven to be wrong. it's hard to make yourself do that when the target is so closed minded and hostile, though. all the time you'd put in explaining interesting things, only to have it not amount to anything.
finally, this: "I grow annoyed at people who attempt to convert people to atheism with words posted on a forum... wow...stupidity, hypocrisy..."
--i'm not trying to convert anyone to atheism. i think it's bad for humanity when people remain uneducated about evolution. that's all.
Apr 18, 2008 11:33 am "I think it's bad for humanity when people remain uneducated about evolution. that's all."
Forty, brother, I promise I'm not trying to be difficult just for the sake of argument but I just don't see it. I think if I person decides to believe they come from a platypus born of a leprechaun egg sprinkled with pixie dust that their day to day life will be no more impacted than if they believe in either evolution or creationism. Were talking about things that happened millions of years ago and we are not likely to be going back there. Tell them you have a brilliant new advance in fuel technology, tell them you have an advance in medicine or tell them you know of a way to never again lose their car keys and you have something that will matter to them. Like I said in my post above, every day that I wake up I'm human and thats not going to change tomorrow morning. So knowing that I just don't follow your line of thought.
Apr 18, 2008 11:36 am I think it's bad for humanity that people care that incredibly much about something that 100% does not affect our lives or society at all...
Whether evolved or created or a mix somewhere in the middle, does not affect one single solitary thing in everyday life.
Apr 18, 2008 01:28 pm Quote:
It's like saying evolution is proven because carrots are orange. (which is true, but does mean evolution is.)
Actually, carrots were originally white, the orange is a result of years of farming and crossing.....
<POKE>
Apr 18, 2008 01:51 pm I thought carrots were actually originally purple. But years of selective breeding forced them to becoming orange. There's an evolutionary experiment right there.
People decided that orange carrots were more desirable, so they put a artificial selective pressure on the carrot so that only orange carrots could breed. Now most of the carrot population is orange and you rarely see other colours.
Thats an artificial pressure, it could just have easily been a natural selective pressure, take for example a lightly fur coated animal, if there was a drop in average global temperature, the animals with slightly thicker fur that others would have had a slightly greater chance of suviving to adulthood and breeding, as such more of the next generation of animals will have slightly thicker fur and so on.
Look at what species were round at the start of the last ice age, you'll find they were all either hairyer or dead by the end of the ice age.
Apr 18, 2008 01:53 pm Actually, just thinking about it, you've only got to look at the differences in indigious races of people across the globe to see it happening. OK, these days were are all getting a mit intermixed, which is probably a good thing, but its still there.
Apr 18, 2008 09:17 pm Quote:
Forty, brother, I promise I'm not trying to be difficult just for the sake of argument but I just don't see it. I think if I person decides to believe they come from a platypus born of a leprechaun egg sprinkled with pixie dust that their day to day life will be no more impacted than if they believe in either evolution or creationism.
but you're doing it again. this is not about what you believe or don't believe. it's getting the facts right when you talk about it. spreading ignorance about something that's very well understood at this late date in history is not a good thing. at the end of the day, you can still believe in god. just don't tread on science, and don't vie to get ID taught in science class, because it is not science.
this is a political issue because of the ID movement's attempt to get itself taught in science class, db, and that's one reason it affects you, and everyone. that's why it's essential.
also if people can't think logically through this and stop making absolutely glaring mistakes, that bodes poorly for them in their future. opens them up to being taken advantage of. stop selling the 'debate,' i say, because there isn't one. god may be real, but ID is not science and therefore does not belong in science class.
people get upset when you tread on their turf. there was a time not too long ago at all when science was silent on the topic of religion. this all started when scientifically ignorant people started to attack science.
Apr 18, 2008 09:19 pm Quote:
Actually, just thinking about it, you've only got to look at the differences in indigious races of people across the globe to see it happening. OK, these days were are all getting a mit intermixed, which is probably a good thing, but its still there.
dawkins says that the human races are likely the result of a speciation event that stalled out before completing. his explanation of why is fascinating. it's in the ancestor's tale.
Apr 18, 2008 10:02 pm ...not surprisingly, I really wouldn't mind I.D. being taught...so no, it's not an issue with me...school is already teachings things I object to, I.D. would be a refreshing break.
Teaching the creationist theory, along with the evidence used to support the theories is as logical to me as teaching evolutionist theories and the evidence used to support those theories...I can understand where "science class" may not be the right place to talk about, I understand that argument, but it's the only class that could teach the two theories side by side, with each bits of evidence, and the opposing sides arguments to that evidence.
Them let the students draw their own conclusions.
Teaching kids to accept the fact little Billy has two mommies, while refusing to accept some people theorize I.D. as a method of the beginning of life is just...
...oh, never mind...
Apr 18, 2008 11:21 pm Science, and all things derived from its research, are to be taught in schools.
Concepts derived from dogmatic teachings and religion should be taught at home.
Why is that so frucking hard?
I'm a slow typist. Shame on you for making me spend so much time pounding the common sense into you.
Now leave it ALONE! NO ONE WINS!
Ferfuxake.
Apr 19, 2008 06:06 am Quote:
...not surprisingly, I really wouldn't mind I.D. being taught...so no, it's not an issue with me...school is already teachings things I object to, I.D. would be a refreshing break.
just to reiterate, tho, ID is not scientific. it literally is n-o-t related to science. this is something that is not understood by a great many people, but it's true. so how do you feel if i insist that evolution--or laveyan satanism--be taught alongside the bible in sunday school? imagine there was a huge campaign afoot to do just that. imagine that it was real. how exactly would that make you feel? how would it make you feel if there was a real and popular movement to teach holocaust denial in history class?
if i'm talking to conservatives or religious people here, this is similar in a way to ACLU stuff. you know how conservatives get pissed off at that organization because they see the aclu as seeking to make everything 'relative' and to undermine and erode values? that's what the ID crowd is doing to science. science in this analogy is equivalent to the constitution. a set of rules that are very clear and sacred. only, now you have the mirror image of 'liberal wackos' and 'activist judges' coming into science's house and trying to totally subvert it.
i think the problem is that since people don't understand how evolution really works, they see no problem in teaching ID in science class. but this has nothing to do with preferences. this has to do with ID not being science.
Quote:
I can understand where "science class" may not be the right place to talk about, I understand that argument, but it's the only class that could teach the two theories side by side, with each bits of evidence, and the opposing sides arguments to that evidence.
that's a better point than i usually hear, so thanks for taking the time to grant at least some validity to the core idea here. i appreciate that. my argument would be that few people understand it that way, and that doing this would render it impossible for students to draw their own conclusions, as they will be forced to listen to something and to grant credence to something that's literally 'pretending to be science.' kids will get an incorrect idea about science IS if ID is taught in science class. if ID is taught in science class--if the IDers win--then what i would then petition for is for the right of the science teacher to relentlessly smash it apart and to tell the kids why it's not science. that would be necessary, according to the rules of science. you can simply not ask or expect science to hold its tongue on this. if ID crashes the gate, expect thrown beer bottles. ID would have to be taught in a criticism of science class (which i actually think is a great idea for a class: there are books about this. books about the problem of inductive reasoning itself) and it should be a college class, end of story. until that age, there should be nothing wrong with giving kids religion in their churches and teaching them what science is the class that's devoted to that: science class. otherwise, you're hurting kids by failing to prepare them for their future. science is important today, economically. if a young person attends that one 'bible college' that dawkins rails against constantly, and if that young person intends to be a scientist, that person has a strike against him. the scientific community rightfully looks skeptically at a person who studied science at a school which taught that evolution is 'just a theory.' start doing that at younger and younger ages, and you're setting up kids to be *unable* to decide for themselves when they're old enough. the best course, then, would seem to be a two-worlds style of teaching. there's church, and there's science. kids don't really start wondering about the conflicts there until they're in high school anyway, for the most part. i think it's better to nurture both sides (if religion is important to you) rather than to cripple their ability to critically analyze things--a skill they'll need later in life--by deliberately misteaching science early.
Quote:
Teaching kids to accept the fact little Billy has two mommies, while refusing to accept some people theorize I.D. as a method of the beginning of life is just...
wow that's cool. i wrote that ACLU thing before even reading this. thank you. i don't want little billy taught that, either. it's very similar. both things are...
e n c r o a c h m e n t
Apr 19, 2008 09:31 am There is enough compelling scientific evidence that supports some aspects of creation that it would be worthy to at least be brushed on in science class...
That said, I said my piece, my feelings are not unknown, so it's not worth going over and over again.
[later edit] - ya know, come to think of it, given some of the stories of creation, the great flood and other such biblical events, are in other culture's beliefs, legends, stories and whatnot, beyond just bible-based Christianity, perhaps social studies or similar classes would be a place to deal with the non-scientific aspects, and still be related to the subject at hand, that being the study of society and cultures.
I dunno, just a thought that crossed my mind, but you even mention Christianity in school, in any capacity, even if only to teach or inform, not "preach" people freak out...but somehow they think they teach tolerance for everybody else.
Quote:
so how do you feel if i insist that evolution--or laveyan satanism--be taught alongside the bible in sunday school?
With all due respect, forty, that is a completely invalid comparison...so much so I am stunned you even tried it...you're smarter than that.
Apr 19, 2008 05:02 pm Quote:
ya know, come to think of it, given some of the stories of creation, the great flood and other such biblical events, are in other culture's beliefs, legends, stories and whatnot, beyond just bible-based Christianity, perhaps social studies or similar classes would be a place to deal with the non-scientific aspects, and still be related to the subject at hand, that being the study of society and cultures.
I like that. But yessir, the mere mention of religion in a public school is likely to send some PTA members into apoplexy. Such is the state of modern misunderstanding.....
Apr 19, 2008 05:54 pm db, go with the holocaust denial thing then if you don't like that analogy. there's an analogy in there somewhere, but they may be hard for me to find when drinking.
teaching ID in any relevant class but science is fine with me. this is because there can't be, as you say, compelling *scientific* evidence for creation. there isn't any. all there are are questions we don't have answers to yet. you can fill those gaps with god if you want, but it's essentially just saying 'we don't know, so god must have done it.' that is just not how science is done. the problem here is that science assumes there's a natural explanation for everything, but that god is assumed to be supernatural, beyond nature. so the two things don't fit together. the idea of a supernatural god goes against science's fundamental assumption.
if there *were* some real evidence that was found which seemed to point to a supernatural god, it would say 'there seems to be something supernatural going on here, so that's not our domain, but yeah, we see it, so we'll just keep on working on the processes we can figure out instead.'
Apr 19, 2008 06:42 pm We had 'Religous Education' in school. Science was for sodium and water.
$NZ.02
Apr 21, 2008 11:37 am Just something amusing that was emailed to me over the weekend
"The inescapable conclusion is that if indeed life were designed, the designer was lazy and incompetent at best, or cruel at worst."
Apr 21, 2008 12:12 pm Lenny Bruce: "If something about the human body disgusts you, the fault lies with the manufacturer."
Apr 21, 2008 12:13 pm often time the fault lies with the maintenece crew...
Apr 21, 2008 12:16 pm Yeah. I'm fixing to fire mine.
Apr 21, 2008 12:18 pm Mine's back on duty...I am spending this week getting my legs stretched back out and some conditioning, then next week it's back to MuayThai Kickboxing classes...my knees feel great, so hopefully I can get back to some exercising.
Apr 21, 2008 02:44 pm What happened to your bike?
Dammit, I couldn't resist. Sorry.
Apr 21, 2008 02:46 pm funny guy, funny guy...
for the record, no more glasses...ah, the beauty of Lasik.
Apr 21, 2008 04:18 pm Quote:
We had 'Religous Education' in school.
I did too, but I objected ("Oh, no surprise there, Ian" I hear you saying...). However, I objected because the class was taught by a devout Catholic. He taught Christian Bible studies, and nothing else. I wanted to learn about Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc. etc. etc. You know, er....religions???? No luck with this guy. If you call a class "Religious Education" and just teach Christianity, it should be called "Bible Studies". BTW it wasn't a Catholic school (where I'd kind of expect that kind of thing).
There lies my problem with ID. It is a solely Christian idea. If we are going to teach things like that in schools (and not in Science class....), then we need equal billing to the doctrines of other religions. There's my big beef in a nutshell.
Forty: The 'satanism' thing. Satan is straight out of the Bible. So all the early learning about Satan is in Sunday School already.
Walt: Love the Quixote pic.
dB-Wan: Quote:
often time the fault lies with the maintenece crew... Right on!!!!
Apr 21, 2008 04:38 pm I'll jump in... I haven't really looked at ID but.. my recollection of science class was it alway included a lot of science history... which creation falls into... therefore it should be taught.
If at least to drive home the idea that we don't know anything... it used to be big bang was the be all end all... then M Theory came along but schools are still teaching big bang as "It."
Look at any psychology class...we still ingrain Freud of all people... why? because it's important history in the field.
Apr 21, 2008 06:15 pm tallchap, regarding satan...
satan is in the bible, just like creation is part of the early history of science. gregor mendel, who discovered the laws of inheritance, was a christian monk of some kind. pierre teilhard de chardin was a jesuit paleontologist. the founders of this country were largely deists. jefferson was a scientist who was either at heart an atheist, or else a guy who believed that god created the universe and then left it to run naturally. the list of early scientists/believers goes on and on. so what would happen if sunday school classes 'stopped' in the middle and said 'now we're going to discuss whether we should possibly ally ourselves with satan instead of with god. some people think that we should do just that. it's a valid possibility, a valid prescription, and you should be free to choose.'
i'd rather not stick with that anology because the holocaust denial analogy seems better. but still, it's not hard to get at the essential 'pissed offedness' quality of this satan-in-sunday school thing, which is the point. a transgression and an intrusion of one idea into a space where it just doesn't belong at all.
zek says creation is part of science's history. i can see that. so i would say intelligent design could be taught in science class *as long as* it is allowed to be mercilessly attacked and discredited by science. that would be the job of a science class if ID must appear in that class. the subject would be raised, but equal time would not be given. instead there'd be a discussion that would in the end lead inevitably to an increased understanding of why ID is garbage based on flawed and unscientific ideas. what IDer wants that?
the big bang and m-theory go hand in hand. if mm-theory is true, it says nothing about the big bang. in m-theory, the big bang resulted from the collision of 'branes.' i hate m-theory, for the record. i think it's going to turn out to be wrong.
freud was wrong with his basic theories, but he did label a few things that will be always be with us. defense mechanisms, for example. freud today is sometimes used as an example of the wrong way of thinking in psych classes. as neuroscience brings more and more 'real answers' to the table, freud is sometimes dropped in and then chuckled at. want to see a great example? off topic now, just for fun:
at 3:00 ramachandran starts talking about the 'capgras delusion,' a syndrome in which some people become convinced that their mother or their dog or their friend is an imposter. at 3:35 he gives a typical freudian explanation. after that he tells how he found the real answer by thinking about the wiring of the brain. an example of how a wrong and quasi-scientific idea gets passed around for a while and then how it's found to be wrong as soon as the real evidence is in.
ramachandran is a very interesting, cool guy, so it's a fun watch.
anyway, what peeps have to do is to develop a feel for what constitutes 'real evidence.' like here, with rama. people like to talk about how so many people were 'wrong' in the past about scientific matters, but that's not a real argument. almost all--if not all--'scientific' knowledge suffered from that in the beginning. from the fact that it was just simply wrong. then we started discovering facts which do not change. the more of those we have, the more we can have. there comes a point where if you know that w, x, and y are indisputably true, then so is z. we know a lot of those w x and ys now. you know 'em from the cross chatter. when paleontology confirms evolution and so does molecular biology and geology and the fossil record, evolution's a fact. dawkins likes to point out that evolution is a fact while our theory of how it happens is in flux.
so you could actually talk about ID in science. can't teach the controversy, though, because there isn't one. gotta be prepared for the Final Rebuttal on each and every point ID raises.
Apr 21, 2008 06:50 pm Only slightly off subject but while I was stumbling around the net last night I somehow landed on Queen guitarists, Brian May's home page. Much to my surprise I discovered that the man was now a PhD in Astrophysics and co author of a book related to our debated topic at hand. www.banguniverse.com/
Apr 21, 2008 08:18 pm Yeah thats pretty much the reaction I had. After more digging it turns out that this was the path he was on before Queen, "In 2007, after a 30-year break pursuing his musical career, Brian returned to Imperial College, London, to sign up to complete his Doctoral Thesis in Astrophysics, and after one year, successfully submitted the new version of his thesis on Interplanetary Dust."
Apr 21, 2008 08:37 pm That is impressive. Think of all the time he must have spent studying Mercury.
Apr 22, 2008 09:20 am geez what a thread eh?
I love this stuff...
we are all just slaves to the way it plays out.
infinite variables...1 answer?
Apr 22, 2008 10:50 am Ah, Deon, the answer is what we're looking for. Many roads to one goal.
42, apparently. But who can trust the mice.
Apr 22, 2008 12:52 pm I just wanna throw this out.
I would have never even known this movie existed. But thanks to fourtymile I will probably end up seeing it.
Just to see if it was worth all of this drama.
Apr 22, 2008 12:54 pm of course it's not worth the drama, it's a movie
Apr 22, 2008 03:52 pm ...a movie whose stated goal is to cause huge real-life drama.
Apr 23, 2008 11:58 pm 
My dad theorized that some people would argue with a sign post. Thought it might be a good time to see if he was right.
Apr 24, 2008 01:24 am There is plenty of evidence to support that the sign post in question did not evolve and was in fact created.
Apr 24, 2008 01:39 am but diemusik, you need to understand that creation involves thought. thought, by itself, is creation. when considering evolution, thought appears in the equation.
bob spasmeier www.spasmeier.com, has proven on many occasions that the route to spasmoity is interwoven with the teachings of carl odashid www.carlodashid.com, whose learned philosophy regarding plasmicity and ainyerism, are some of the most widely respected beliefs in the field of garnsdom.
you should immediately check out these highly regarded works of plarnsy; they could change the hoinybeln in which you live.
Apr 24, 2008 08:05 am OMG, I own him an appology!
Apr 24, 2008 01:43 pm More fuel for the fire. Yoko is has filed a lawsuit against the producers of the movie this thread was started about.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ono accuses the producers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" of suggesting to viewers that those who guard John Lennon's legacy somehow authorized or sponsored the film.
www.dailypress.com/news/l...0,5805575.story
Apr 25, 2008 10:33 pm It figures that she would jump out of the woodwork to pull this on out. Or should we say its the money grubbers making cash of his hard work and convincing her to jump on this.
Or is it just another bit of controversy to keep this thing rolling along?
Either way it is a load of tripe.
So did anyone ever think Yoko was a hotty?
No, really?
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