Bush endorses Intelligent Design. Or does he?

[TheEarl]

I didn't miss it earl. But you aren't saying keep it out, you are saying keep it out but mention it. ???? IN other words don't teach it but explain it? Or don't make it part of the cirriculum, but tell them about it? Or offer it as an alternative for consideration in an informal manner? What?

I'm saying keep it out of the lesson and keep atheism out as well. If a child asks, then straight bat the question with a "That's unsure, some people believe this, some people believe that, why don't you ask your RE teacher."

Now I'm out.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I'm saying keep it out of the lesson and keep atheism out as well. If a child asks, then straight bat the question with a "That's unsure, some people believe this, some people believe that, why don't you ask your RE teacher."

Now I'm out.

The Earl

Best I step out too. i'm eithr not understanding or missing the subtleties.

 

[NoJo]

Best I step out too. i'm eithr not understanding or missing the subtleties.

Hey, how'd you get the subtitles? I've been looking everywhere in the forum faq

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . I WANT TO KNOW, the rest of what he said! LOL

Bush: Intelligent Design Should Be Taught

Elsewhere in the article it was reported that:

“On other topics during the group interview, the president:

Refused to discuss the investigation into whether political aide Karl Rove or any other White House official leaked a CIA officer's identity. . . ”

So, apparently, there are some areas where his belief in exposing people to unlimited information is . . . er . . . limited.

 

[cantdog]

I don't even know what RE means, but I think I understand the definitions at the heart of the difficulty.

 

[shereads]

I used it out of ignorance. English words over three syllables is contexual guess-work for me most of the time.

It's not a theory. It's barely a hypothesis. It's a belief.

Believe it or not, I believe your belief, or something close: that there is a life-force in the universe, a creative force that compels the existence and evolution of life, and to which all life is connected. It's felt by sentient creatures as conscience and compassion and the love of art and music, which have no logical function in a world driven only by survival of the fittest.

Like you, I believe it - or he, if we need to imagine it as more like us - doesn't interfere in the physical world. Maybe he's apart from the physical and has no more power to change it than we do. Or maybe he could interfere, but doesn't because deciding which child to save from suffering, and which ones to ignore or condemn, would be an act of utter arrogance.

I like the idea that this being created the things that are beautiful or fascinating, and it's flattering to think of our species as one of his favorite projects. I like it a lot less if he created smallpox.

This might be where you and I begin to disagree, and where the religions I'm familiar with lose their credibility: the concept of a loving, all-powerful God. Loving; I think so. All-powerful, maybe. But not both. A loving father wouldn't invent ugly ways for his children to die. He'd allow the kind of suffering that goes on every hour of every day, to the guilty and the innocent, only if he knew he couldn't stop it without causing a bigger problem somewhere else. Ergo, there are some things he can't control.

I'm fine with that.

Carl Sagan described life as "the universe's way of being aware of itself." If there's a reason for God to create life, even knowing he didn't have the power to protect all living things from suffering, it's because he was alone. Awareness would be a curse if you were the only witness to all the amazing things that have ever happened and ever will. He willed other spiritual creatures into existence, so we could witness it too. When we rise above the body's need to survive and reproduce, and write symphonies instead, or give charity without the expectation of getting anything in return, we acknowledge the connection and make God less lonely.

It's nice to believe, and there's not a lick of evidence to support it, but as a friend of mine says, "Some things are worth believing just because they should be true."

My belief makes perfect sense to me, but I wouldn't inflict it on other people's children and call it a scientific theory. That would be arrogant, ignorant, and unconstitutional.

 

[Halo_n_horns]

This has been an interesting thread to read. I hope it keeps going.

When I started writing the Legacy of Judas storyline (see sig line for submitted chapters), I used the theory of intelligent design as one of my story's hooks. Though I never used the term "intelligent design," I did start writing the story over 10 years ago, so maybe these people have hijacked my theory? Hhhmmmmm...???

I find it hard to believe that people can't see intelligent design in their everyday lives. It's very simple to find.

On the other hand, I find it very hard to believe that people would blame or credit "intelligent design" on someone or something as finite as "God" or gods as described by man in the various books and writs.

I find it funny when the religious ones say that the theory of evolution is just that: a theory. Then they tell everyone to have "faith" in a man who supposedly lived approximately 2000-2500yrs ago, but has never been proven as to having lived at all. That goes for the other world religions as well. It seems to me that in these instances "faith" and "theory" are 100% interchangeable. This means that both sides are basically arguing about nothing.

From where I've been sitting, evolution and the various religions are thinking-within-the-box-with-blinders-on thought processes. Both types of thoughts are little more than a lot of puzzle pieces that have been mixed up between two different puzzles that both have the same conclusions, though vastly different beginnings.

Or I'm just blowing smoke out of my ass.

 

[thebullet]

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that evolution is not a theory, it is well-established science. It is rather easy to trace backwards the development of the various species of plants and animals through their predecessors. What is difficult to find is the 'missing link' stage that shows a smooth transition between species.

However, here is where 'theory' comes in. Darwin, among others, offered the theory of 'natural selection' as the driver of evolution. He DID NOT need to offer evolution as a theory. Many scientists have accepted natural selection in some form as the driver behind evoluton. A while back some scientists suggested that natural selection might work through what they called punctuated equilibriam (or something like that - it's difficult to remember at 4AM). That is to say that a species can remain essentially unchanging for a very long time, and then evolve into something else almost overnight (figuretively speaking of course).

The thing that drives evolution is environmental change or the availabilty of untapped ecological niches. Strangely, though environmental change is often the impetus that forces a species to evolve, it is also the factor that drives a species into extinction. Too rapid environmental change is why the majority of species that have lived on this planet no longer exist.

When a major environmental disaster occurs - the 'dinosaur killer' meteor/comet for example if it actually happened - a large number of species go extinct. Suddenly a wide variery of previously unavailable ecological niches are opened up. Those creatures that have survived the environmental disaster rush into the breech and before long (in geologic time) those niches are filled.

The mammals alive during the time of the dinosaurs were for the most part small, rodent-like, and nocturnal. Within a few million years of the dinosaur extinction, those small creatures had inherited the earth and all its niches, often growing into mega-mammals.

Sorry for rambling - I'm going back to bed.

But evolution is fact, not theory. How evolution works - that is where theory comes into it.

And Intelligent Design? It's just another way for the religious right to sneak in the back door and force their simplistic superstitions into the American classroom.

I remember seeing a bumper sticker: God said it, I believe it, that settles it.

The perfect expression of a closed (and very stupid) mind.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that evolution is not a theory, it is well-established science. It is rather easy to trace backwards the development of the various species of plants and animals through their predecessors. What is difficult to find is the 'missing link' stage that shows a smooth transition between species.

However, here is where 'theory' comes in. Darwin, among others, offered the theory of 'natural selection' as the driver of evolution. He DID NOT need to offer evolution as a theory. Many scientists have accepted natural selection in some form as the driver behind evoluton. A while back some scientists suggested that natural selection might work through what they called punctuated equilibriam (or something like that - it's difficult to remember at 4AM). That is to say that a species can remain essentially unchanging for a very long time, and then evolve into something else almost overnight (figuretively speaking of course).

The thing that drives evolution is environmental change or the availabilty of untapped ecological niches. Strangely, though environmental change is often the impetus that forces a species to evolve, it is also the factor that drives a species into extinction. Too rapid environmental change is why the majority of species that have lived on this planet no longer exist.

When a major environmental disaster occurs - the 'dinosaur killer' meteor/comet for example if it actually happened - a large number of species go extinct. Suddenly a wide variery of previously unavailable ecological niches are opened up. Those creatures that have survived the environmental disaster rush into the breech and before long (in geologic time) those niches are filled.

The mammals alive during the time of the dinosaurs were for the most part small, rodent-like, and nocturnal. Within a few million years of the dinosaur extinction, those small creatures had inherited the earth and all its niches, often growing into mega-mammals.

Sorry for rambling - I'm going back to bed.

But evolution is fact, not theory. How evolution works - that is where theory comes into it.

And Intelligent Design? It's just another way for the religious right to sneak in the back door and force their simplistic superstitions into the American classroom.

I remember seeing a bumper sticker: God said it, I believe it, that settles it.

The perfect expression of a closed (and very stupid) mind.

Evolution is not a fact. Neither the theory of nor mechanisims of are fully understood or proveable to the point of becoming a natural law, which is as close as any theory gets to being a fact. Exceptions and paradoxical anamolies still exist to which the theory has not been adapted to explain.

It is a working theory, that is to say, not the full explanation, but the best working explanation we have at present and like all theories it is, itself, still evolving. It is only in recent years that the theory has evolved to cover sudden evolutionary change brought about by cataclysic upheaval. For many years it had developed it's own sort of dogma that was wedded to evolutionary change requiring a large scale of time. Parts of the theory are still being challenged and it is being adapted to cover exceptions that other observers have noted. Like many Macro theories, it sometimes breaks down on the microscale, Ie the theory of gravity breaking down at the subatomic level and very possibly, breaking down on at the huge scale of interstellar distance.So too, evolution has some problems on the microbiological level that haven't been iorned out as well as some few problems on a planetwide basis, explaining for example the survival of certain species during planetary extinctions while similar species failed to survive.

Calling the theory a fact is placing in science the same dogmatic faith as the very religious place in it being a fraud. Neither position is supportable and both are extreme.

On ID however, you are quite correct. It is an attempt to reintroduce God into the classroom of America. An end run around the courts and the establishment clause, if you will.

 

[rgraham666]

Here's where dictatorship of the vocabulary slips in.

In everyday use the word theory is interchangeable with hypothesis. That is, it is an interesting guess loosely supported by currently observable phenomena.

In scientific use, theory is the highest accolade that can be given to a school of thought. A theory provides the best explanation, so far, of the vast majority of the observable phenomena that come under its purview.

So we have the Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Newton's Theory of Motion, Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

In their respective fields, these theories cover most of the bases.

And it gets up my nose, just a little, when people use theory when they mean hypothesis.

 

[thebullet]

Coleen, please allow me to disagree with you (something I've done from time to time in the past, I know). There is the theory of evolution, and the fact of evolution. The theory is the set of ideas that have been developed to explain the obsevable facts that we have discovered.

The use of the general term "theory" is what allows these right-wing ideologogs to claim that some other "theory" - say ID - could be just as valid. It sounds reasonable and because of that, a lot of gullible and easily led Americans buy into that argument. Hell, if they weren't so gullible and easily led, GW would be back in Texas where he belongs. fucking up his oil futures .

Stephen Jay Gould wrote the following:

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."

 

[Pure]

the bullet quoting Gould: Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Colly said,
Evolution is not a fact. Neither the theory of nor mechanisims of are fully understood or proveable to the point of becoming a natural law, which is as close as any theory gets to being a fact. Exceptions and paradoxical anamolies still exist to which the theory has not been adapted to explain.

-----
I think there is confusion of terminology. There are the basic data that Darwin or we look at. One sees development. Intermediate forms. There is an 'ancestor' of the horse which is only about a foot tall. But there are 'missing links', some of which are being found.

Hardly anyone disputes these data (except a few 'young earth' folks), including the ID folks. (These may be called 'facts.') But that isn't what colly's talking about (as I understand her). She's talking about the NeoDarwinian theory 'explaining' these data/facts. Further she asks (as I read her), in effect, "Is the theory a fact" meaning, Is it extremely well developed and supported.

I happen to agree it's not much of a theory. For example, take Bullet's summary:

However, here is where 'theory' comes in. Darwin, among others, offered the theory of 'natural selection' as the driver of evolution. He DID NOT need to offer evolution as a theory. Many scientists have accepted natural selection in some form as the driver behind evoluton. A while back some scientists suggested that natural selection might work through what they called punctuated equilibriam (or something like that - it's difficult to remember at 4AM). That is to say that a species can remain essentially unchanging for a very long time, and then evolve into something else almost overnight (figuretively speaking of course).

Here is someone saying there is a (or 'the') driving force behind evolution, namely natural selection. But then there should be continuous improvements (in the survivors). BUT WAIT. THERE AREN'T. As Bullet says, 'a species can remain essentially unchanging for a very long time [i.e., eons]'.

So the 'creative' reply, is that the continuous development is 'punctuated'. Sometimes it's happening, sometimes not. So 'natural selection' doesn't do much 'selecting' for 'very long times.' So sometimes creatures are being 'selected', sometimes not. That's the 'punctuation'.

Anyone can see this is just 'naming', not explaining.

This isn't just a question of meteors or comets hitting--that one could tolerate. There are unexplained data, as Colly says, as surely a 'theory of natural selection' has a serious, if not fatal defect if it says, "and n.s. operates sometimes, and sometime not, God knows why."

 

[rgraham666]

In evolution, there is no 'driving force'. Evolution has no goal. It is an unconscious reaction to the surrounding environment, natural selection.

One of the more interesting examples of evolution is at the bottom of the Galapagos Trench. The bottom of the food chain there is not photo-synthetic, but chemo-synthetic. The small plants and bacteria there use the heat and chemicals that flow from volcanic vents for energy. They are eaten by larger animals and so on up the chain.

The life there is very similar to life elsewhere, but well adapted to live in the very different environment at the bottom of the ocean.

And the horse evolutionary sequence is rather clearly defined. The major differences are in the jaw and legs. The jaw develops a more pronounced diastema (gap between nipping teeth and molars) at each step, making the animals more efficient grazers. And the toes disappear, becoming a hoof, and the cannon bone becomes more pronounced making the animal more fleet of foot.

Evolution is an observable fact. It is also a scientific theory used to explain the phenomena of species adapting to fit their environment.

 

[NoJo]

In any form of Darwinian theory, everything works by the supremely simple mechanism of random mutation and selection.

The word "random" is key: Although it would certainly be advantageous if the mutations weren't random, but were guided by some intelligence, it turns out that given the age of the world, it's simply unnessary to propose a "smarter" mechanism -- the world's been here for enough time for nature to become the way it is without a Helping Hand.

The theory of natural selection is powerful and simple. It also has applications far from Darwins field of interest in the evolution of animal and plant species.

In the field of neurology, for example, it turns out that the way very young babies learn to "wire themsleves up" for hand-eye coordination can be explained by them using a trial and error process that's just like the way evolution works. I remember seeing my own kids jerking their arms literally in a random direction when they first tried to reach for a toy, then after a few weeks, natural selection had settled them into controlling their arm movements more accurately.

Learning itself is clearly a very similar process than Natural Selection. This is the principle of how "Genetic Algorithms" work in programming problem solvers (e.g. Chess players). You make lots of "random" rival software components, and pitch them against each other to solve the problem. The selection process consists of deciding which components have made the best go of it, and then let them "breed" to produce new components that share some of the features of the ancestors. The process of "deciding" which components are doing best, and so eligible to breed, can itself be automated (in the Chess example you can simply using a standard Chess scoring method to decide).


Science itelf is subject to Natural Selection. If a better (more useful) theory comes along, for example one that leads to advances in technology or medicine, it will just as surely take over from Darwin's theory of evolution as mammals took over from dinosaurs, or as Darwin's Theory itself has taken over from the Biblical account of creation.

 

[BlackSnake]

Neat! This means that we can start teaching Satanism, Scientology and Smurf Cult as scientific too. Right? That's must be it. Georgie is a closet Smurfist, and this is all a populist charade to impose his REAL agenda.

#L

I do think that school kids need to be educated about about as many worldly things as possible. Only the ignorant fall for crap, and crap is what you decide it is.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Colly. You missed the first line of my post. The bit where I said that I didn't believe any beliefs should be brought into a science classroom. I think you're pushing against a door that's already open.

Liar: The single light sensitive cell itself is billions upon billions to one, but we'll buy that as a single event. That means out of billions and billions of creatures, one of them has a light sensitive cell. It's doing nothing for it at the moment and it is just as likely to die as any of the others. So let's assume it does die.

Now we need another coincidence, billions upon billions to one for another creature to have a light sensitive patch. Maybe this one lives and breeds. However, mutations sometimes do not pass to the children and there's a good chance that the light sensitive cell is a recessive gene. Therefore our little creature dies and none of its offspring inherit its genetic treasure trove.

Another coincidence, billions upon billions upon billions to one, where we get a creature with the cell, which then goes on to survive, breed and turn out little creatures with the same light-sensitive cell. Assuming that these little ones survive (which they're not guaranteed to as this cell is not offering them any advantage as yet, but let's assume for the sake of things), they can breed and pass on their gene.

Due to the preponderence of normal genes, it is more than likely that we will still end up with only a small number of creatures with this cell for years and years to come as it offers them no advantage.

Now we've got to calculate those odds and then add them to the odds of a creature with a panic button in its head surviving, a creature with the linkages surviving and the billions upon billions upon billions upon billions to one shot that these three coincidental traits come together in one creature to form somethign which actually gives it an evolutionary advantage.

Unfortunately that creature gets eaten when it's young. And we have to start all over again. Even over billions of years with millions of creatures, that's strange odds to pay off.

I can't say that it couldn't happen without God, as that would be clearly risible. I cannot even offer a probability of God. All I can offer is my belief and I think it's something I cannot argue any further, so I think I'll duck out of this thread.

The Earl

Uh, Earl...two responses: fruit fly and bacteria. Billions upon billions upon billions to one is like a week's worth of work. And unicellular and multicellular asexual organisms have a simply fantastic mutation rate. Plus there is punctuated equilibrium which can favor an entirely new species in 1-2 generations. You kill all the blind rats and in two generations almost all the rats can see from one single action possibly stemming from only 1 or a handful of "lucky" evolvees. The odds aren't actually as mind-boggling.

You could very well be right, but just not for the reasons given.

And bullet, despite Gould being a man I greatly admire and respect, I mislike his definition of fact. I know why he used it and what he's trying to say (that it is a dataset that one can use regardless of theory), but he does it in such a way that it weakens the idea behind a theory (previously stated so many times in this thread that I won't bring it up again). He also leaves things open for misinterpretation and use of fact's other conotation and meaning in further discussion. Evolution is not fact (as in set in stone and beyond any shreds of doubt, flaw, or inaccuracy). Nothing is fact. It is however both a reliable dataset (without any religious or areligious conotation) and a strong working theory (which still needs work much like Newton's and Einstein's theories need work).

Furthermore, Earl I am sorry you were taught a slanted version of evolution, however since I went through 2 regular life science/biology classes where they cancelled the section on evolution due to "pressure from parents" and the only way I was taught it before college was by teaching my Advanced Biology class while the teacher was on a year-long jolly, forgive me if I don't sound more sympathetic. Hell, even the college profs got a little scared at that point of the lecture.

And I essentially agree with rgraham, Colly, and SubJoe. What's true at the end of the day isn't what's at stake here (we could all be mutant squirrels attached to a Matrix like world simulator for all we know), but what is scientific and what is quintessential to that discipline. There's already enough borderline crap from the psuedo-science fuckwits, we don't need this as well.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I do think that school kids need to be educated about about as many worldly things as possible. Only the ignorant fall for crap, and crap is what you decide it is.

I've always thought that it would be great if one of the things taught in school instead of "critical thinking" (think what I think or suffer the consequences) was how to think for one's own self and make their own value judgements and opinions free from outside influence. But then, how would you teach that in something as regimented and grade-focused as a school? It's an interesting paradox.

 

[shereads]

What is difficult to find is the 'missing link' stage that shows a smooth transition between species.

Eohippus.

There's a fossil exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science in New York that shows a clear progression from an animal the size of a cat to the modern horse. A child looking at that, who has never heard of Charles Darwin, can't help but see that the horse is descended from eohippus.

My ex, an agnostic, has a fundamentalist Christian cousin who insists that evolution is a lie, for two reasons: extinction of animals before the existence of man serves no purpose in God's plan, which gave Adam and Eve dominion over all of the beasts; based on the "begats" in the Old Testament, the earth is only a few thousand years old.

When he showed her the eohippus exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, she shrugged it off as a test of our faith.

What an insult to the concept of God: a creator who so petty and insecure, He booby-trapped the earth with fake fossils and other evidence that would appear to contradict the facts he provided in His autobiography, the Old Testament. Presumably, anyone who looks at the growing body of evidence, draws the logical conclusion and fails to reject it, fails the test of faith. Like Galileo.

What an insult to the concept of a Supreme Being.

Instead of hiding these little Easter-eggs of deception all over the planet to confuse the weak, why didn't He carve His initials in the Jurassic layer? Either one is a fun trick to play on the grandkids, but the latter might have saved some of us agnostics instead of putting us on the fast-track to hell. Horses the size of rodents! Lizards the size of Sherman tanks! Now that we know the fossil record is a divine prank, it does seem pretty silly.

Intelligent Design is more sophisticated than creationism, and it's easy to google up facts in its favor, just as it is easy to prove that global warming is a myth - provided you're willing to ignore 9 out of 10 googles representing the vast body of evidence to the contrary.

School boards and state boards of education determine the content of textbooks the way any government entity chooses its suppliers, but unlike Congress, they have to live among the public. The recent upsurge in the popularity of Intelligent Design coincides nicely with the embarrassing backlash against creationism as public school curriculum.

Hopping aboard the ID bandwagon is an ideal political solution. It allows textbook committees to backtrack on creationism, throw a bone to religious interests, and not upset a lot of people. Creationists win in the long run. Because the inclusion of ID alongside evolution theory changes the definition of science to one that makes no distinction between hypothosis and theory.

If the content of public school textbooks had to be approved by experts in a particular field, and not by political bodies, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The Eddication Presidunt would be entitled to his opinion on what makes good learnin' but it wouldn't be newsworthy. There would be no way to keep the process free of hidden agendas, but it could be done a damn sight better. Put the names of university geologists in the hat with a proportional number of geologists connected to Mobil Oil; throw in one from Bob Jones University for fairness, if you can confirm that he didn't buy his degree online. Draw a dozen names, guarantee each participant an anonymous vote, and let them have at it. If the result is a paragraph about Intelligent Design, it will be by way of background in a chapter explaining the difference between a hypothesis and a theory. If there's a mention of creationism, it won't be validated as "theory," which it is not.

Reason will prevail over politics and religion when freezing conditons occur in Hell, that pit of fire where people like me spend eternity as punishment for heresy. I'll let you guys know if it freezes during my shift.

Meanwhile, on behalf of Secular Humanists, Constitutional Separationists, Ivy League Jewish Liberals, Athiests, Agnostis, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians who interpret the Old Testament as parable, and other tax-paying heretics, I'd like to suggest a compromise:

Print your alternatives to evolution theory, provided you can demonstrate that they are theories, not hypotheses or religious beliefs. You can skip that step, if you can provide evidence that the Old Testament is the irrefutable word of God.

If you can do that, most of us who can read will convert. Except for a few stubborn holdouts, who will cling to their faith in science despite your evidence.

 

[shereads]

I've always thought that it would be great if one of the things taught in school instead of "critical thinking" (think what I think or suffer the consequences) was how to think for one's own self and make their own value judgements and opinions free from outside influence. But then, how would you teach that in something as regimented and grade-focused as a school? It's an interesting paradox.

I think it could work.

Continue to measure and reward student progress in the usual way. Except for random days when, without warning, you reverse the rules. Substitute an F for an A, and vice-versa. Give a bonus to kids who skipped class that morning, and record those present as absent.

The next day, return to the normal regimen.

A few years of that should inspire some independent thinking.

That's also how researchers induce the symptoms of depression in laboratory rats, so the experiment might need to be tweaked a bit.

 

[cantdog]

I happen to agree it's not much of a theory. For example, take Bullet's summary:

However, here is where 'theory' comes in. Darwin, among others, offered the theory of 'natural selection' as the driver of evolution. He DID NOT need to offer evolution as a theory. Many scientists have accepted natural selection in some form as the driver behind evoluton. A while back some scientists suggested that natural selection might work through what they called punctuated equilibriam (or something like that - it's difficult to remember at 4AM). That is to say that a species can remain essentially unchanging for a very long time, and then evolve into something else almost overnight (figuretively speaking of course).

Here is someone saying there is a (or 'the') driving force behind evolution, namely natural selection. But then there should be continuous improvements (in the survivors). BUT WAIT. THERE AREN'T. As Bullet says, 'a species can remain essentially unchanging for a very long time [i.e., eons]'.

So the 'creative' reply, is that the continuous development is 'punctuated'. Sometimes it's happening, sometimes not. So 'natural selection' doesn't do much 'selecting' for 'very long times.' So sometimes creatures are being 'selected', sometimes not. That's the 'punctuation'.

Anyone can see this is just 'naming', not explaining.

This isn't just a question of meteors or comets hitting--that one could tolerate. There are unexplained data, as Colly says, as surely a 'theory of natural selection' has a serious, if not fatal defect if it says, "and n.s. operates sometimes, and sometime not, God knows why."

You are unfamiliar with the discussions of punctuated equilibrium, perhaps. In general, species do not improve continuously. Animals live and eat and breed, and have no agenda for self-improvement. To look at the thing as a continuous improvement is a teleological view of life.

If indeed many different freshwater mussels in different bloodlines wind up with variations by the throw of the genetic dice, for example, and if some variations make them more resistant to salinity changes or temperature changes, or less so, it'll still make no difference unless something happens to the population of mussels. If the temperature stays roughly the same, or the range of the mussels is big enough to leave most of them in their bonanza range for temperatures, then there is no advantage to a temperature-change-resistant gene. Only if there's an environmental challenge along those lines can selection about that particular trait occur. Trilobites did change over the millions of years, but only subtly and trivially, until a large environmental change occurred, for instance. Whereas, as bullet said, Darwin's finches seem to have adapted to the Galapagos Islands' niches in a geological twinkling. The case of those finches, and the birds of New Zealand, and many another such case, all show us that not necessarily all evolutionary changes are geologically slow.

The general picture is little change (under little challenge) or quick adaptation (under acute challenge). The mechanism can respond faster than was previously imagined, and doesn't bother if life is good. The "competition" model of modern businesses, which are goal-driven and cutthroat in a way life seems not to be, or modern empires-- these have always been poor analogies for the "competition" of species with one another for food and niche space.

Similarly, science is indeed aiming at continuous improvement. But life is aiming at perpetuation.

 

[TheEarl]

To the people who say that evolution is a fact due to the evidence: People used to think the sun went around the Earth. Look at it - it moves across the sky, from one side to another. Any schoolchild looking at that can realise that the sun moves and the Earth stays still.

I believe in evolution, don't think that I don't, but it's presumptuous to say "Well, it must be true because it fits the facts." What you should say is that it's likely to be ture, as it fits all of the facts we have so far.

Personally, I believe the universe was created 5 minutes ago, along with all memories and records. I've held this belief for about 4 and a half minutes.

The Earl

 

[thebullet]

Pure:
Please refer to Cantdog's explanation of punctuated equilibrium. Sorry if I used the short hand version by calling it by the name given it by its developers (including Gould).

Punctuated Equilibrium is a fully developed explanation of how some forms of evolution can occur. Pure calls this "naming not explaining".

Well EXCUSE ME!! I was tired and I merely threw in my two cents because it angers me to hear uninformed people talk about evolution as a theory that tomorrow could be replaced by some other theory.

Again: there is the 'fact' of evolution - as has been shown by Shereads and others from Darwin thru Leakey, Johanson, White, Gould, and beyond; there is an Everest of evidence establishing the 'fact' of evolution. And there is the 'theory' of how evolution works. The use of the term 'theory' is what these right wing assholes latch on to so that people like Pure can fall for their lies.

Evolution IS. We can argue about what causes it, but we can't argue about its existence unless we are slaves to superstition.

That makes it a fact.

 

[thebullet]

Earl said:
but it's presumptuous to say "Well, it must be true because it fits the facts."

Is it presumptuous to talk about a "Law of Gravity" because the observable phenomena fit the facts?

Again you have bought into the old 'theory of evolution' tag line. Evolution is an established fact. Mamby-pampby pussies like you are who allow these religious zealots to control the argument.

They have no facts, only lies and misrepresentations. They understand the use of propaganda and people like The Earl weakly roll over and take it up the ass.

To people in England this is merely an intellectual exercise. In America we are fighting for the future of our children.

When an ignoramous like George W Bush can inject himself into this discussion and using the power of the Presidency advocate the teaching of Intelligent Design in American schools - well what the fuck. Kiss freedom of thought goodbye.

One by one the red states are going to degenerate into increasing ignorance and superstition.

It's time for the blue states to go their own way or we'll be dragged down with them.

 

[erise]

Again: there is the 'fact' of evolution - as has been shown by Shereads and others from Darwin thru Leakey, Johanson, White, Gould, and beyond; there is an Everest of evidence establishing the 'fact' of evolution. And there is the 'theory' of how evolution works. The use of the term 'theory' is what these right wing assholes latch on to so that people like Pure can fall for their lies.

Evolution IS. We can argue about what causes it, but we can't argue about its existence unless we are slaves to superstition.

That makes it a fact.

I get you. Like mountains. We can observe that they exist. We can also observe that duck billed platypi exists. Explaining why they exist is the theory of evolution. BUT... evolution, or at least the building blocks of the process, have been scientifically observed too. Evolution is is a process and therefore not as tangible as a mountain, so it's easy to dismiss it as not being a factual thing. But it's as much a fact as the existance of, for instance, erosion.

 

[TheEarl]

Is it presumptuous to talk about a "Law of Gravity" because the observable phenomena fit the facts?

Again you have bought into the old 'theory of evolution' tag line. Evolution is an established fact. Mamby-pampby pussies like you are who allow these religious zealots to control the argument.

They have no facts, only lies and misrepresentations. They understand the use of propaganda and people like The Earl weakly roll over and take it up the ass.

To people in England this is merely an intellectual exercise. In America we are fighting for the future of our children.

When an ignoramous like George W Bush can inject himself into this discussion and using the power of the Presidency advocate the teaching of Intelligent Design in American schools - well what the fuck. Kiss freedom of thought goodbye.

One by one the red states are going to degenerate into increasing ignorance and superstition.

It's time for the blue states to go their own way or we'll be dragged down with them.

<laughing> You are a strange and obsessive man.

All I said is that you cannot regard evolution as a fact. It cannot be scientifically proven tothe extent where you can categorically say that it must be true. It's a very good theory, but then so was the one that the world was flat until they discovered that people couldn't sail off the edge. To say that mankind has found the answer and that, no matter what might be learned in the future, that answer is uncorruptable is no less arrogant that the religious right that you are so petrified of.

And yes - gravity is a theory. There are things which don't fit with the theory of gravity, especially on the sub-atomic level and therefore it will need tweaking when further advances are made. That's why it's called the march of science; it's not going to a destination where everything is correct, it's a trek ever onwards, discovering that we were wrong before.

I'm not advocating that anyone should 'roll over and take it up the ass' and I'm certainly not suggesting that religion should be taught in American science classes. All I'm saying is that you are being an arrogant, self-obsessed cock whose sheer arrogance in assuming that he knows 'the facts' is risible. You seem to take the attitude that anyone who disagrees is to be pitied, because they don't know the truth like you do.

Godbothering religious fanatics take the same attitude.

The animals looked from the men to the pigs and not one among them could tell the difference.

The Earl