The battle between science and religion is shaping up to be an all-out war. A number of scientists at a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies issued a call to arms against religion.
“The world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief,” warned Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics. He added: “Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.”
The frustration of the scientists is understandable — especially by those of us who live in a state where science standards have been under siege. But their hostile, anti-religious rhetoric gives ammunition to fundamentalists who think science is anti-God.
Most Americans and most Christians are more in the middle, looking to science for the how and to religion for the why.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
452 Comments
the “pseudo-science” craze hasn’t helped the scientist of this country. With the law profession beating bs into the heads of those judging law suits, and the same believing it, we sure got a long way to go.
I don’t now whether or not the average person is as Phillipr says, but I do know they sometimes appear too lazy to learn the truth. If it wern’t true, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, religion or no religion.
What ‘pseudo-science’ are you referring to? It amazes me that some people cannot wrap their heads around people with psychiatric disorders. Is that what you are referring to?
I think at some point, we will be able to monitor brain chemical levels just like we do things like white cells in the blood. We just haven’t reached that point with technology yet. I think when that happens we’ll see a whole relabeling of mental disorders into true medical disorders.
To think we could have so many different known chemicals in the brain, and not think something can go wrong with them, considering how complex everything else in the body is…seems nearsighted to me. The brain is the most complex organ in our body.
And someday society will look back on our era as being so cruel to these disorders, just as the society once was for putting to death those with epilepsy for being possessed by the devil.
It appears that the graphic art in the Times article contains an error. On the left (religious side) it shows ?? (Delta Omega). Shouldn’t that be ?? (Alpha Omega, Revelation 22:13)?
PM, what the hell are you talking about? Pseudo-science is the garbage fed us by hucksters, lawyers and the like. As in: http://skepdic.com/tijunk.html
I said nothing about real science. But therein lies the problem: the average person seems to have a hard time differentiating between real and pseudo science. Point made.
In the Salk Institute symposium, we see the gloves coming off.
Richard Dawkins, the leading exponent of Darwininan behavioralism, has concluded that science is true and religion–all religion–is false.(His new book is titled “The God Delusion”.
That’s not the most important thing per se. The most important thing is that in his estimation, all social conventions, such as religions, are the product of natural processes.
What does this mean? It means that in the mind of Dawkins, and other brilliant atheist scientists, religion is a phenomenon of scientifically-explainable principles, which is to say that religion is not independent of science, but subordinate to science. Hence, if we deeply understand science, and have faith in it, then religion is shown to be something that arose from evolution, is counterproductive to our advancing-knowledge species’ interests, and must be terminated.
In all the “Creation vs. Evolution” and “ID vs. Evolution” lawsuits, judges either haven’t “gotten” this matter, or else they’ve consciously decided to support atheism. I think it is probably the first, for the most part.
But here is the thing about public childhood education in a democracy, or democratic republic. If 95% of Americans believe in God, i.e. they hold religious ideas, then teaching science courses that ultimately deny the validity of religion, which is what natural selection does, not only violates the Constitution’s First Amendment, it not only violates the seperation of church and state principle ( the teaching of natural selection excoriates and repudiates religious beliefs and traditions), it violates the sensibilities of the vast majority of Americans who are not atheists/agnostics. The last isn’t an important matter–except you can’t force 95% of the people to pay for an indoctrination that they don’t believe in.
So, we’re going to have some kind of “war”. When the 95% of Americans who hold religious beliefs realize what is happening, and in many cases insist on ID being taught, what are the courts going to do? Order the National Guard to be present in science classes to ensure the teaching of natural selection orthodoxy? The courts do not have this authority, which is to say the executive branch solely has the power to issue commands to the armed forces, it can ignore court orders, which is to say, if it is following the vast majority of the popular will, it will not be impeached and removed from office, and the legislative branch has the power to abolish such orders, by statute, or by inititiating constitutional referenda, or by impeachment of judges, if push comes to shove.
Most science doesn’t require a belief in natural selection. The Salk Institute’s symposium mentions no physicians or engineers giving their input–people who are applied scientists. Let’s see Richard Dawkins invent a drug to cure diabetes, or an alternative energy system, or a very lightweight jet.
Look at any high school in America. What do the top biology students want to become? Doctors. Doctors who find cures for diseases. They aren’t interested in proving natural selection and demolishing religion.
One mans opinion does not an argument make. I suppose the Salk institute is using religion in the sense religion has been shown more often than not to hold science back.
The greatest understanding religious groups could possibly come to is the fact most scientific discoveries point out the complexity and beauty of the world God created.
I seriously doubt that will ever happen, though as both sides seem content on disproving the other side regardless of “proof.”
To show just what scientists are up against, peruse the following link listing all the known religions of the world. Over 4200 and counting: http://adherents.com/
I am a scientist (PhD candidate in Physics), and I believe in God, in fact I am a devout Christian. The more I look at the bizarre nature of this world the less I think it can be held together on its own. It is amazing to look at the large picture (planets) and see very well defined rules that hold over millions of years. Then look again at the very small things that make up the planets and stars and say we haven’t a clue about why they do what they do. We can describe very well HOW they do what they do, but there is no explanation for the underlying cause of quantum mechanics. There is no accurate prediction of how any one particle will act. We can guess very well how a billion of them will behave, but not one.
Anyone who says they can give a full explanation of the universe without invoking God is a liar. There are no non-theological theories that are complete. There never have been. If you do not believe me, try to find someone (anyone) who can explain dark matter or dark energy – where it came from, what it does, how it interacts with other things and so on. Science often tries to appear as if it has all the answers, but there are very large gaping holes in it. (right now 95% of the universe is dark matter & dark energy – unexplained, plus much of the other 5%)
The most interesting thing about science to me is that it has always had just a couple of outstanding, i.e. unexplained problems. It has always seemed to be very close to solving everything, and probably will continue to look that way for the rest of civilization.
Yup, I’m with you Chad.
Scientists like Stephen Hawking strike me as a little arrogant with their superior atheism.
He can’t even explain the force of gravity. It can be measured of course and quantified in all kinds of ways, made into a constant etc.
But no one can explain WHY mass should have an gravitational force.
All of the scientific explanations only go so far and then they hit the inevitable–”that’s just the way it is.”
I guess Weinberg would rather believe the Universe started from some eternal spark of energy or some eternal piece of matter. If he doesn’t then, it means the universe came from nothingness.
At what point does nothingness start to do something to form energy or matter?
Since there are no dimensions attached to nothingness such as time, how could a starting point be calculated?
As far as evolution goes, why has the been no proof that a species has tranformed over time into a new species? i.e.; trilobyte to human or even primate to human.
Where is the missing link?
How did dinosaures with so-called microfeathers learn to fly and turn into birds? Did they suddenly flap their arms when jumping off a cliff and repeated jumping off a cliff over eons somehow turned the dinosaur into birds with feathers?
Maybe the scientists are just tired of being pushed around by the Bible thumpers and this is their way of fighting back?
And bottom line, it really doesn’t matter because religion cannot be explained – either you believe or your don’t. Science is at least explainable. it is up to the individual in which route they choose to go. And the majority of Americans are in the middle of both camps.
No–it is the religious that are sick and tired of being “pushed around” by scientists. Humans can not explain the complexity of our universe which leads many to conclude that there is a creator.
So, let me get this straight: we already know religion has held back science, in many times violent ways. Which makes any science/religion marriage immpossible? I mean, if a scientist, who is also an atheist, makes any kind of statement, it is automatically suspect due to his atheism? Or his lack of discovery is due to his atheism?
Someones lack of logic is flashing neon lights.
I find the “debate” between science and religion to be fascinating, as if science and religion are mutually exclusive. Science, in regard to evolution, provides a scientific theory for the origins of the species. The theory of evolution does not attempt to define the origins of the universe.
I see similar arguments regarding global warming. It never fails: someone will try to claim that the “weather” is proof that global warming does not exist, failing to understand that “climate” and “weather” are two different things. Weather is what is happening today, climate is what happens over an extended period of time.
Evolution cannot be observed in living matter because evolution occurs over generations based on a need, i.e.; survival of the fittest. Given the human life span, none of us will be able to actually see evolution at work.
Evolution is the best, and only, scientific explanation for the development of species. No other credible scientific theory has been proposes for peer review. Until one is proposed, it will be the only scientific theory.
Evolution does not attempt to address the basic fundamental question of how the universe originated. Scientific proposals exist, but they are not “testable” in a manner to qualify for theory status.
There are kooks on both sides of the scientific debate. Some choose to see evolution as “proof” that God does not exist. There are others that believe that the Earth is only six thousand years old, and the can name the time and date that God created the universe.
Personally, I think that God was playing with a chemistry set and an experiment went awry.
Religion cannot prove the existence of God anymore than science can disprove Her existence.
I believe in God and I believe in evolution.
I don’t believe in religion.
Dusty there are many on that list that you linked to that I do believe in. Facilitated Communication is one- I have actually seen that in use. And I have a child with autism who does not use FC, but I have a friend whose child does, and it is remarkable. He does it ON HIS OWN now, with no help from the outside.
I also believe in Multiple Personality Disorder. I have never seen it in real life, but I believe it exists.
As far as science and religion go, I would SO like to see religious groups STOP interfering with science, heck I’d like to see them stop interfering with other people’s lives. I’m with WSClark…I believe in God, I believe in science, but I don’t believe in Religion.
RELIGION produces more problems in this world than anything.
For sake of discussion only, the following paraphrased definition of religion is offered:
Religion is the attempt by man to explain occurences of natural phenomena which he has not the knowledge to otherwise explain.
This is from memory, presented by a speaker at a campus discussion I attended as an undergrad at KU, ca. 1971.
Assuming arguendo this definition has validity, then the search by scientists to provide natural explanations of occurences of such phenomena could be seen as threatening the existing dogma of various religious belief. To the extent that religions react to such threat in a hostile fashion, e.g., the threatened excommunication of Galileo for promoting the helio-centric nature of the solar system, then it is easy to apprehend the fears of the scientific community to religion, and the attempt to minimize or remove religious beliefs by some in explanation of said natural phenomena. These reactions then feed the thought that scientists are anti-God, setting up the confrontation that has bedeviled Western civilization, at least, through the centuries.
As has already been asserted, at some point, science reaches a point past which it cannot continue; thus, the “it’s always been this way” response to questions of why. In many areas of scientific inqiry, this point is being pushed back in time on a continuous basis.
I think it can be admitted that all science should be looking to explain as many natural phenomena as possible from the “how” perspective, and efforts in this regard should continue in a robust manner; however, I also think it should be admitted that so long as knowledge is incomplete, the “why” is not ascertainable by the human mind.
Chad suggests, at least implicitly, the great difficulty that physicists have in arriving at a grand unifying theory. Does this mean the effort should be abandoned; I am sure he would agree with me that it should not. However, I and those more qualified may disagree with him that “God” is the answer for that which cannot be currently explained. Does this constitute a war against religion? I don’t think so.
I agree with you PM, religion has been a pretty destructive force in the world since man walked upright. Too often it’s been used as a weapon to control and oppress others.Just because we can’t explain something about the universe, that doesn’t prove that there is a creator. I think trying to explain what God is or isn’t is just man’s attempt to explain what he doesn’t yet understand. Just think about how science is still in it’s infancy, look how far we’ve come in just a 100 yrs, then think about how much more we’ll know in 500 yrs.
PM, as far as mutiple personality disorder, I’ve been a psychiatric nurse for over 20 yrs and I’ve only seen it once. It’s a disassociative disorder, not schizophrenia. Most of the patients I’ve seen who claim to have multiple personality really have borderline personality disorder. That’s just my opinion, many of my peers would probably disagree with me.I think it’s very rare.
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, our’s was not that great. We were driving down Kellogg when two guys in a truck ran a red light and broadsided us. We were taking plates of food to some of my patients who are alone on Thanksgiving, so I got covered in turkey and creamed corn…when I entered the ER, I smelled really good! I’m fine, just a little bruised and sore. The guys who hit us took off, so if anyone sees a light blue truck with the front bashed in a little, let me know! My patients missed out on their turkey dinner, but my cats had a wonderful Thankgiving, I couldn’t stand the idea of all that food lying on the bottom of the car going to waste, so last night they ate turkey until they almost popped!Hope you all had a good one!
It’s impressive how Christians who claim to be scientists can turn off their brains when it comes to religion. There’s a self-proclaims physics major here who works towards his Ph.D. but concluded “God did it” for something he can’t understand. Is that based off of your conclusions or is it just something you pulled out of your ass?
It’s the same sort of thinking that kept the sun revolving around the earth, the earth flat, animals can’t experience pain because they don’t have souls, men have one less rib than women, and the earth is 6,000 years old.
If religion didn’t want to be criticized then they would have kept busy with the afterlife and left reality to the rest of us. Instead they wanted to get involved in the affairs of science. If science can be criticized through a religion lens then religion can be criticized through a scientific lens. Let’s just say religion won’t stand up when it comes to disproven beliefs like virgin births and souls.
Vaughn, Amen! You and I have the same thought and must have been writing at the same time, only you expressed it much more eloquently!
Right on, Doug!
Mary, thank you for your kind words.
I am glad you were not seriously injured in the hit and run incident on Thanksgiving day. Do you have a better description of the truck? Perhaps this discussion should be moved to open thread; but I will keep my eyes open.
There are things that science has come to the conclusion that it fundamentally cannot answer. Examples include the radioactive decay of nuclei and atomic excitations. We know how long they will stay in a certain state on average, but we have no way of predicting the solutions of a particular atom/particle. Science has come to the conclusion that this is the way it is and there is no explanation.I am not discussing a grand unified theory (GUT – the hypothetical theory to combine the 4 fundamental forces), this is something different. These quantum mechanical properties would still be unpredictable if we had a GUT. Science comes to brick walls that it admits it cannot pass.How long do you have to watch an excited atom in order for it to decay? Science cannot answer that.Does the unpredictable effects of quantum mechanics lead to consciousness and free will? Science cannot answer that.Why do each of us have a certain moral standard we consider to be “right”? Science cannot answer that. There might be some theories from sociology, but in order to have an absolute answer there has to be some ground up explanation for everything along the way, and if science cannot explain decay, it cannot explain randomness, it cannot explain choice, it cannot explain morals, it cannot explain religion. Religion has a base somewhere around choice that CANNOT be explained by science.There might be some good theories about where religion came from, but if it arose in a naturalistic (evolutionary) manner, then morals must have come first. Any true evolutionary theory or religion must begin with life->consciousness->morals->religion. We have no base for the first step, so any higher steps are flawed.Sorry if this is not linear enough, I am a little rushed for time right now.
Chad, could it be argued that religion came from the need to impose a set of “rules” on homo sapiens to allow the species to survive, carrying out its biological imperative?
I am of the thought that much which is given the label “morality” represents a set of constraints on individual behavior necessary for species survival, made necessary as our ancestors moved from the “hunter-gatherer” stage to the “agricultural” stage, etc. So, in a manner of speaking, choice is clearly involved; the choice of survival vs. the choice of becoming extinct.
“Let’s just say religion won’t stand up when it comes to disproven beliefs like virgin births and souls.”
Uh Doug, just how do you disprove the existence of souls??? I wanna hear this.
While you’re at it, same for a virgin birth?
How do you prove “souls” and “virgin births?”
OM Goodness Mary I’m so sorry you were in such an accident, and in the commission of such kindness too! I’m glad you’re ok.
Thanks for sharing about Multiple personality disorder. I think you might be right about the latter statement. However just because it’s not real MPD, doesn’t mean they’re not just as ill mentally.Obviously there is a big problem if one has to pretend they have a problem like that, ya know?
I had a patient once who would get abusive to the patients with Alzheimers. I asked him once why he was that way when they couldn’t help what they were doing (wandering into his room). He said because they were all making it up and if they’d only just snap out of it (by him being abusive), then they’d stop acting that way.
The man had fairly advanced Parkinson’s, and his mind was very clear. I told him if he felt that way, then he should just quit shaking and get up and walk, for his disability was all in his head too. LOL.
Just because you can’t verify it with some test or see it, doesn’t mean it’s not real. It wasn’t all that long ago when they found the tangled neurons in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients too.
Exactly. How do you prove or disprove? You can’t.
Outlander, while I believe I know this is not about what you are posting, see link below for a “simple” explanation of parthenogenisis (from the Greek for “virgin birth”):
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0837738.html
Exactly, as in religion is a personal belief system.
Atheism is also a personal belief system.
Evolution is a scientific theory.
The two should not mix as it relates to science.
Scientists can express their opnion on religion, but it carries no more weight than a layperson’s opinion, because it is a personal belief.
Science, on the other hand, is a discipline, defined by rules of evidence.
Personal belief systems cannot stand up to the evidentiary rules that govern scientific theory, therefore science and religion should nto mix as it relates to the teaching of science.
Most of us would agree that lying is wrong. Most of us would agree that stealing is wrong. Most of us would agree that adultery is wrong. Most of us would agree that if a child is in danger of being hit by a bus the right thing to do would be to run out in front of the bus and move the child.
However, all of these rules or limitations would tend to decrease my contribution to the gene pool. If I were really just trying to make the most offspring I would lie and steal and rape in order to make more babies. I would not be tied to one woman and I would not respect other women being tied to other men. I would leave another person’s baby to get hit by a bus, since that doesn’t help me reproduce. Moral standards tend to come up with things (marriage) that seem to contradict the “survival of the species” approach.
Also, why is science “good”? Who decided that we should teach “truth” anyway? Science can not explain that either. There is no reason that we should be “truth seekers,” since that does not advance the biological imperative.
Creamed corn?
Ewwwwww.
I am glad that you are otherwise ok Mary. I too will watch for the offending vehicle.
Science vs. religion?
Well….
I’ll take science. See? Science deals in facts and observation. Religion deals in some invisible, inscrutable, uaccoutable “god” who so far has revealed his existence……how?
Sorry folks. That 95% of Americans believe in god does not get god a pass from me. So far in ALL debates, god is a no show. Ya can’t debate an empty chair.
But moral beliefs (and thus religion) play a part in determination of what areas are appropriate for science to dabble in and what are not. A prime example is human cloning.
And scientific evidence is subject to interpretation and thus is not free of prejudice.
Chad, what about the “altruism” principle I recall discussed a few years ago by evolutionary biologists (among others)? As I recall, there is, in nature, among social animals, behavior that when examined in isolation appears to be contrary to the strict “survival of the fittest” construct, but which, when taken together with other behaviors, represents behavior which promotes better long term prospects for species survival.
On your hypothetical about rescuing a child, not of your own, from being struck by a bus: yes, in the short term, this seems counterintuitive to the survival of your genetic heritage; but, in a longer term view, this child you save could be a potential mate for you or your child; saving the child thus presents an opportunity for furthering your particular genetic heritage, and, not coincidentally, provide genetic diversity to allow strengthening the species as a whole.
I am not quite sure that I completely understand your point, Chad.
The point I was making was that the teaching of science belongs in science class, not the teaching of personal belief systems.
The teaching of “truth” as you have (I think) defined it belongs in another classroom.
“And scientific evidence is subject to interpretation and thus is not free of prejudice.”
Science is not free from prejudice, of course, but the insertion of religion into the equation does not further scientific progrssion.
PM, it’s true there is a lot to be learned about mental illness, and the studies show more of genetic predisposition to it just like diabetes or heart disease. People with mental illness can’t help that their minds don’t function in a “normal” way, it’s mostly chemical imbalances that cause the disease that leads to the abnormal behaviors. Medications that treat the imbalances that cause mood or thought disorders like schizophrenia, depression, bipolar, etc. have been a blessing to people who suffer, but we still have a long way to go into understanding mental illness and how to treat it effectively. Because the symptoms of the illness are behavioral, people don’t know what to do to help the severe and persistant mentally ill, that’s why so many end up on the streets and/or isolating themselves. It’s very sad how much they suffer and are misunderstood by others.Mental illness is one of those diseases where the victim gets blamed for his condition. The idea that someone can just “snap out of it” is ludicrous. You might as well tell them to go move a mountain with their bare hands. True, someone with chronic mental illness needs to take responsibility for himself and his treatment, just like someone with heart disease or diabetes needs to take their medication and watch their diet, but the mentally ill need a lot of support to access the system to get the right help, and that’s why so many of them fall through the cracks. We’re willing to give them blankets and food to help them exist on the streets, but the support they really need to access the system for help and treatment is totally inadequate.
See what I mean? It’s woefully obvious that “Pmom hater” hasn’t had much support to access the help he needs.
“Also, why is science “good”? Who decided that we should teach “truth” anyway? Science can not explain that either. There is no reason that we should be “truth seekers,” since that does not advance the biological imperative. ”
Gee, Chad, I hope you’re not a scientist for anything really important. Which religious group are you a scientist for?
Chad, if science had the answers for everything then there would be no need for scientific study. Religion provides no answers, science at least tries to find an answer. I certainly hope you don’t find a career in the scientific studies since whenever you come up with a problem you’ll just insert “god” into the equation and magically come up with a conclusion.
Another person wanted to know how to disprove the concept of virgin births and souls. Well, for a virgin to give birth to a male the Y chromosome would have to come from somewhere. It doesn’t come from the female because she doesn’t have any. It has to come from male gametes. The only way to get them is from sex unless you are suggesting that there was some matter of in vitro fertilization in the 1st century then that would be up to you to support.
Souls have been disproven time and time again, especially by the drug industry. If mind and body were separate then LSD would be useless, Phineas Gage wouldn’t have changed as a result of a railroad spike going through his noggin’ and medication could help remove the hallucinations religious nuts experience.
Have the religious community ever provided evidence for the existence of virgin births or souls? Nope. The two concepts are the basis of Christianity and without them your religion is another myth, like trying to look for a civilization of gods on top of Mt. Olympus, or a turtle residing underneath our planet. It’s just another myth like so many others.
The concept of “pairing”, e.g., “marriage” makes biological sense when one considers the nine month gestation period for humans, together with the fact that human infants, at birth, are not at a developmental stage comparable to other higher order mammals. I have read an explanation that due to the “big brain” of the human, the size of the pelvis in the female cannot be expanded further to allow similar development in utero, thus, humans are born with another year to two years of development necessary to “survive”. Thus, it becomes necessary for the mother to be away from food production, etc., to tend to the infant. The father, then, must have some connection to the mother and child to provide food, security, etc., during this period to ensure survival of the infant, and thus, his part of the genetic heritage, which then further allows for species survival. This, then, develops into monogamous relationships.
The prohibition against adultery, e.g., makes sense in that the species cannot have civil disorder existing among its members due to the need for some pair-bonding to allow for survival of the infants, and thus the species.
“Moral standards tend to come up with things (marriage) that seem to contradict the “survival of the species” approach.”
This is a naive belief that survival of the fittest must mean that someone looks out only for their interests. Clearly the study of evolution or zoology was not required in your schools. Many species are social species, like humans, vampire bats and zebras. They extend their possibilities for reproduction (and that’s the basis of survival of the fittest) by helping out those in the community. Zebras use others for camoflauge, bats feed others so they’ll be helped if they are low on food and humans do what humans do.
Humans have existed millions of years (regardless of what anti-scientific nutjobs might say) and their behavior is grounded in their genetic structure. Someone turns around and calls our DNA “morals derived from god” totally aloof to the fact that their might be another reason. Perhaps if religious mythology was tossed aside then the real answers could be found, not just some unsupported idea mentioned by a camel kisser.
“Who gives a flying dildo what you think political_mom? You are nothing but a stupid bitch! Get the fuck out of here!”
Way out of control, Nono (P Mom Hater)!
This is a blog for (reasonably) civil individuals.
Get back on your medicine, Nono, before those guys in the white jackets come for you.
What I was trying to say is that we seem to assume that we ought to teach science because science is true, and truth is good. Science itself never claims (and cannot claim) that it is “good” or “true” or that it “ought” to be taught. These are all judgments based on some standard of what “should” be rather than what necessarily is. We discuss the question of “which is better science or religion?” Many of you say science, but science cannot come up with any discussion of why it is good, or why it ought to be taught.
I live out a good portion of my life in the scientific realms, and I can see very well the areas that science cannot address. The Nazi’s performed many scientific experiments on their concentration camp prisoners. This furthered science, but was it the “right” thing to do? It gave us medical advances, but is it the path we “should” take? Or is this a case where scientific advancement “should” take a back seat to moralities? Science cannot answer that.
Clark, science itself is a personal belief system. Just read Humme if you disagree.
Outlander, perhaps myself or my offspring could mate with the child. However, it is by far in the interest of my own gene pool to keep it around rather than possibly give it up on the off chance that this kid might mate with myself or my children. If I save the kid I have a small chance of combining their genetic material with my own. If I fail both that child’s material and mine are lost. If I let the kid get hit, then I am still in a good shape, and my DNA doesn’t have to compete with hers. Which is the best option for my genetic material?
Well this might explain why Chad is so pro-religion, look at the words of where he got his schooling…
ACU, a private institution of higher education, is independently governed by a Board of Trustees consisting of members in good standing of congregations of Churches of Christ.
As a nationally recognized Christian university, our mission is to educate students for Christian service and leadership throughout the world. We integrate faith and learning throughout the curriculum, reflecting the theological perspective of the broad mainstream of Churches of Christ.
http://www.acu.edu/faith.html
Sounds like another Bob Jones University…where they are sending Christians into the world to discredit science.
“Clark, science itself is a personal belief system. Just read Humme if you disagree.”
Give me a hand with that one, Chad, “the Google” doesn’t help much when just referencing “Humme”
I am open to see other points of view, but cannot make the connection on that reference.
Thanks…….
WS, I wonder if he meant David Hume? Try “the Google” on that name.
Perhaps he means David Hume?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
There is not any conflict between science and religion.
I love science. I study science. I also believe in God.
I know many people who are doctors, chemists, biologists, physisists, and all other types of people who work in a particular field of science who are religious people and believe in God.
The idea that because I believe in God makes me someone who rejects science is retarded.
I am proud of my Christian heritage political mom. I am not out in the world to discredit science, far from it I am out to improve science. My current area of research is in superconductivity, especially studying magnetic properties via neutron scattering. I really don’t see how having faith in God makes you assume that I am trying to discredit science.
If you look back at my posts I have never tried to discredit science. I have said that there are questions like “should the world work this way?” and “how should I behave?” that science seems incapable of answering. Science cannot give a reasonable explanation for its own existence. There are limits on science, and that is not a discredit to the study, but an honest understanding of its limits.
Yes I graduated from ACU with a BS in physics in 2003, an acredited University, NOT like Bob Jones. I graduated from a public high school (Cooper High in Abilene Texas) in 2000. I am currently a graduate student at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville studying under Dr. Pengcheng Dai (an atheist). I took a year off between undergraduate studies and PhD studies, so I am currently in my third year, and will probably finish in the next year or two. That is a brief stating of my scientific background. What is yours political mom? I would like to know that if you are going to question my credentials you must have at least as much training as I do.
Yes, I did mean Hume. I apologize for the misspelling.
“Science cannot give a reasonable explanation for its own existence.”
What an incredibly stupid comment. Did you ever try asking Science. Science is sitting over in a Starbucks right now, go ahead and ask him.
Such statements make me ponder about the dumbing down of society.
Needless to say, Chad, it will take me more than a few minutes to read through David Hume, but we’ll get back to you on that one…
BTW – no one is questioning your creditials or intelligence, but a simple disagreement regarding religion and science.
As far as your education is concerned – you go now!
Education is a wonderful thing – we should all try it some time.
No hidden messages there, Chad….
Doug, does science explain the origin of species? Does science explain planetary motion? Does science explain cancer origins?
The statement “science cannot explain the origins of science” is no more stupid than the statement “science can explain the origin of species.”
Have you gone over to Starbucks and asked Science where species came from?
“Creditials” or “credentials” who’s to know – I majored in partying in college.
Clark, when I mentioned Hume I was referring specifically to his views of causality. One of the premises of scientific inquiry is repeatability. Hume questions causality quite well. His idea is that just because when I drop a pencil a thousand times it always falls down, that does not necessarily mean that it will the 1001th time.
I don’t believe science is some being that you can ask questions. Perhaps if you reframed your statement it may make some sense.
Scientists have explained the origin of species, planetary motion and the origin of cancer. Is that what you were trying to say? On the other hand preachers, Imans and prophets haven’t explained anything. They just make absurd statements with no empirical support. Why don’t you hold religion up the same standards as science?
So Doug, in other words, if you can’t measure something, like a soul, it is disproven? I don’t think so. That is an unscientific attitude. And mind and soul are not the same thing, so the head injury and LSD examples are not applicable.
If you believe in an all powerful God who created the universe, virgin birth is child’s play. If you don’t, well science has almost advanced to the point that it is possible by human (scientific) means. It looks like science is in the process of proving the possibility of a virgin birth.
Chad, the name of the poster appears beneath their posts.
You can’t measure things that don’t exist. If you think there’s a soul then you support it. I can’t disprove a negative. So prove your gods, souls, and virgin births.
“Sounds like another Bob Jones University…where they are sending Christians into the world to discredit science.”
Good catch, pmom.
Once again, late to the party, so I’m skimming again. Apologies if my post is redundant.
Unfotunately, Dawkins and Weinberg have a point (and that’s all we’re talking about here–read the article, folks). Newton could have done so much more if he didn’t stop at some point and offer obligatory credit to a supreme being. More recently, the Templeton Foundation has been trying to muddy the waters by giving awards to scientists who express theological views–as if that says anything for (or against) their scientific work.
This, of course, doesn’t even get into the more crass religious attacks on science we’ve seen.
Ultimately, though, as an atheist, civil libetarian and science supporter, I object the view that science has some obligation to somehow take on religion.
Granted, I don’t buy the late Steven Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” argument; when religion says the Earth is only 6000 years old, sorry, religion is wrong. Such conflicts will occasionally happen, but I don’t science would do well to pick unnecessary fights either–and not just for political reasons.
You see, science can no more address the “God question” than it can address, say, the “unicorn question.” We can be relatively certain there are no unicorns, but it’s possible one could be discovered somewhere. If science were a human being, its answer would be “I don’t know”. That, of course, is not the same as unknowable.
Religion for years has objected to the perception of science treading on their turf. In truth, science has not really done that. The reverse is true: religion makes specific claims about the natural world that can’t be backed up, and thus treads on science’s turf. It’s an easy problem to avoid: Want to talk about a non-consumed burning bush, and not just as metaphor? Call it a miracle. Miracles by definition can defy the laws of physics, and challenging one’s personal belief in miracles–while not out of the range of intellectually permissible pursuits–is not something that hard science–physics, biology, etc.–has any defensible basis to address.
There, of course, are those who will continue to attack science on behalf of a religious agenda (see heartlander’s pathetic post above), but scientific integrity is cheapened if the community responds in kind, and such an approach would be particularly disrespectful to the numerous scientists who have some type of religious beliefs.
“It looks like science is in the process of proving the possibility of a virgin birth.”
Where?
And why?
Doug,
I think you show your inability to hold a rationale and mature discussion when you say:
“They just make absurd statements with no empirical support.”
Sorry, did I miss the empirical support for gods, virgin births and souls? Leeemeeeee see here. Hmmmm, nope. So it looks like I’m still correct and your post has nothing to add so I’ll take it as another attempt by religious nuts to avoid actually supporting their position. It’s like when I asked for evidence for creationism and was just met by excuses. I expect the same here.
Doug, you ask for empirical support, but I don’t think that would be good enough for you. You would immediately discredit any claims of miracles as lies or hallucinations. Anything that could be done in a lab you would immediately assume has a natural cause.I think you are angry with some particular religious group for something in particular. If you are, then there is nothing anyone can say that would be good enough for you until that anger had been dealt with.Personally I would like to know what has you so upset.
“Anything that could be done in a lab you would immediately assume has a natural cause.”
Uhm. . .yeah. That’s what science is about (except, of course, at your alma mater).
Chad, why not start with some empirical support rather than making excuses or trying to make this personal. As I predicted you’d make excuses and you did. So I’ll expect you to progress no farther than whining.
Doug,
You said that they “just” make absurd…
They talk about many things which do not always directly pertain to support for God, virgin births, or souls.
I will never be able to proove to you that God exists. It is called faith for a reason.
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that you seem to be incapable of having a discussion without resorting to calling people religious nuts.
Rage, you probably were not a physics student at ACU, probably never went to ACU, and probably don’t know anybody who did. It is a bit conceited of you to claim to know how labs went at my school. Again, if you are going to attack my credentials please post your own. Otherwise your argument sounds something like “well, you’re wrong because you’re just a big dumb-dumb.” Attacking credentials is the lowest form of debate.
You missed the point anyway. What I was saying is that it doesn’t matter if there was empirical evidence. I don’t think Doug would not accept it in the lab or out of it, and I am curious as to why. If there is evidence he would accept, I would like to know what it is.
Once again another person presents excuses. That’s two down, anyone else? I’ll soon be leaving for work and I’ll come back in about nine hours. Do you think anyone will be able to present any evidence for gods, souls or virgin births in that time?
I’m thinking no.
Rage,
Science is a broad field of many different specialties.
Why don’t you move past the second grade rhetoric of insinuating that Chads school didn’t teach science.
“What I was saying is that it doesn’t matter if there was empirical evidence. I don’t think Doug would not accept it in the lab or out of it, and I am curious as to why. If there is evidence he would accept, I would like to know what it is.”
Gee, how about presenting that empirical evidence, for the benefit of everyone? Call his bluff!
(I won’t be holding my breath. . .)
Chad, you are concluding without actually presenting any empirical evidence. That might have flown at your alma mater but in the scientific realm that’s just dishonest.
Still waiting for that evidence you claim I’ll just deny.
Doug,
It is not an excuse. It is the truth. It is called faith.
There is no faith involved if there was some form of empirical proof of God.
You are acting like a pompous jerk. Of course no one will show you proof of the things you ask and yet you sit here acting indignant because they dont while you pretend like we are making excuses.
Grow up.
Nathan, Chad claimed to have empirical evidence, did he not?
Hey, folks, let’s not all get “Santiago” here – reasonable discussion – not insults.
Explain “nothingness.”
If “nothingness” exists, how can we explain something that has no boundaries, no matter nor energy.
How can something that is nothing exist?
Yet, everday we refer to somethings as nothing.
NO-THING
Does it deserve to be a word?
If an experiment fails to do anything; i.e. no change in states, does it do nothing?
How can we classify our experiment if nothing changed?
How can we put a measurement on it?
Doug: And we are still waiting for you to back up your claim that souls and the virgin birth do not exist.
And round and round we go…
Rage, in order to demonstrate something scientifically you have to know what arguments will be accepted. There are some scientists who will believe some data, others who will not believe the same data. What I am asking for is what type of data Doug wants. If he is unwilling to come up with anything that he would actually believe, then it is impossible for me to convince him. All I am asking is a form of evidence he would accept.
After he can come up with something acceptable to him, I will ask him to narrow that range to things he might expect an all powerful God to do for his creation. We are testing that hypothesis, so we would have to work inside those bounds. I cannot say I will only believe in elephants if I see one jump 10 feet, since that is not a reasonable expectation. Once he comes up with proof he would accept and might be expected for God to do for his creation we can move on from there. Otherwise there isn’t a point, is there?
Nathan you are using faith as an excuse. Faith is meaningless. It doesn’t mean your views can’t be criticized as having no evidence. You use that faith to criticize science and I’m using science to criticize your faith. A giant snake encircling the Earth is faith too but that doesn’t mean it’s real. Your faith is as mythological as Norse myths so don’t be upset that nobody believes your “faith” either.
Looking back, maybe Chad didn’t claim empirical support. In which case, it’s absurd to regard it as being within the domain of science. Or even relevant to the subject.
Chad, how about presenting your evidence rather than making excuses. If you actually had any evidence you would have presented it. Since you don’t you are merely being dishonest by keeping up this charade.
Don’t worry, I often expect this behavior from fundies.
Chad, why are you pretending it can be scientifically demonstrated? Doesn’t that strike you as wee bit absurd?
I would assume your physics curriculum did not include a lecture on “non-combustive burning.”
If you read my posts a little more closely, I have not made any statements about evidence I do or do not have. All I have done is ask what would be acceptable to you. If you cannot list anything that would be acceptable to you I have to assume that there is nothing that could convince you. A scientist has to know what he is looking for, and since you have not told me what you are looking for I have to assume you are not holding to a scientific process.
Repost – Looking for an answer…..
“It looks like science is in the process of proving the possibility of a virgin birth.”
Where?
And why?
Rage, you and Doug are trying to apply to scientific standards to an open discussion. This is not a scientific discussion. It is many faceted, including philosophy and faith. If your world does not include the spiritual, well you are missing out. And we have no common ground for a discussion.
Uhm, no, not really. If someone wants to believe that as a matter of faith, I’m not interested in pursuing the matter (see my first post).
You, however, are the author of the above scientific claim. Where is your evidence for it?
Doug,
>”Nathan you are using faith as an excuse.”
No I am not. Faith is exactly what it is. That is exactly what God asks from us, is for us to have faith in him. Either you do or you do not.
I choose to believe the history which is accounted for in the Bible. I choose to believe that Jesus died for my sins. I choose these things based upon personal experiences, history, and philosophy. It is no excuse.
“Faith is meaningless.”
Why? Because you say so? That is not very scientific of you. Seems to be more like your own personal disdain for faith. I am sorry you feel that way.
“It doesn’t mean your views can’t be criticized as having no evidence.”
There is evidence. You choose to not believe it. There is not any “empirical”, testable, repeat it in a lab evidence, but there is evidence.
“You use that faith to criticize science”
No I don’t. I have already stated that I love science. I study science. The particular scientific things I disagree with I do so not out of my faith alone.
“Your faith is as mythological as Norse myths so don’t be upset that nobody believes your “faith” either.”
I am not upset. There are many things which make my faith in God much more sensible than mere Norse myths.
The link below, which is to an essay on the “virgin birth” issue so important to some Christians, is offered for the review of all interested.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/virgin_b.htm
Rage: Have you heard of a process called cloning?
Doug, let me ask you a question. Why is science good? Why should we use a scientific mindset to view the world?Answer these questions with scientific evidence, and then maybe I will be able to see your point better.All I am asking for is exactly what you have asked of me in reverse.Why is science good?
The essence of the virgin birth is that Mary had not “known” a man. This would actually be possible today. Not in the sense, of course, that God “overshadowed” Mary. But invitro fertilization is an obvious method.
You want to have it both ways. To paraphrase, you say that science can explain anything, given time. Except the virgin birth. That is impossible. Disingenuous.
“You want to have it both ways. To paraphrase, you say that science can explain anything, given time. Except the virgin birth. That is impossible. Disingenuous.”
I don’t know what you are referring to, but I never came anywhere near saying that science can explain anything…. Nice try, though.
I did ask, who is trying to “prove” the virgin birth. Now the Bible doesn’t say anything about in vitro insemination, who is investigating the virgin birth.
And don’t put words in my mouth.
“Your faith is as mythological as Norse myths so don’t be upset that nobody believes your “faith” either.”
Nobody?76.5% of Americans catergorize themselves as “Christian” (44% born again/evangelical).
Less than 1% (.9) are catergorized as agnostic or atheist.100% of which I’m guessing blog. (sarcasm)
WSClark: I don’t think the virgin birth had anything to do with invitro. God did it. He is God.
I was giving that hypothetical to show the hypocrisy of saying that the virgin birth is impossible.
The problem with in-vitro is there needs to be a sperm donor (uh–do you really want to go there?–I don’t wanna get struck by lightning!).
Cloning produces a genetic duplicate.
Your overall point is well-taken. Perhaps someday genetically unique children can be scientifically produced.
But not the same thing as saying there’s “proof.”
WSClark: I was actually responding to Rage, although I see that you asked the question first. Thus the extraneous comments.
“I was giving that hypothetical to show the hypocrisy of saying that the virgin birth is impossible.”
I guess that I do not understand where you come off suggesting that I am a hypocrit – I never questioned your faith – I only stated that science belongs in the science class and religion belongs in a totally different classroom.
You might want to rethink the validity of calling me a hypocrit.
“I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries,suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion out of them!”
- Charles Darwin
Chad I’m very glad that you’re studying under an atheist, in my eyes, it gives the appearance of more credibility than someone who just came out of a strongly religious based institute.
I still have issue with your statement about truthseekers. There is nothing wrong with seeking truth. If more people did within their own religion, I’m afraid Religion would fall.
As for the virgin birth thing, it is POSSIBLE to have a virgin give birth…however it would involve a penis a man sperm and VERY close proximity of ejaculate to the vagina, and I don’t think that is what the bible had in mind.
To me it is far far far more likely that a rape occured (or premarital sex), and that is how the idea of virgin birth came to be.
Nice try, JM…..
Read the facts:
http://members.aol.com/mjsawyer/darwin.html
There is no proof that Darwin said such things, nor did he convert to Christianity……
…as if Christianity and evolution are mutally exclusive.
WSClark: Reread. No one called you a hypocrite.
“to show the hypocrisy”
Who “shows” hypocrisy other than a hypocrite?
Political mom, you imply that truth seeking is in and of itself a good thing. Why? There is no scientific explanation for why that would be good.I can think of good philosophical and religious reasons to question and seek the truth, but no scientific reasons. This is a limitation of science.Also, none of the journals I will be submitting articles to ask for my religious background. They don’t say “since you study under an atheist we will accept your work.” Religious background has no bearing on peer reviewed science in my arena of physics.
I think it was cosmologist Stephen Hawkins who said that BOTH science and religion have their place. As scientists we try to undersand “HOW”; but the “WHY is in the realm of philosophy/theology.
A question for me fellow scientists: Where did the Big Bang come from? Who lit the fuse?
A comment of religions as they stand today. Nobody has ever come up with anything actually “written by God”. Mormons claim that Smith translated some golden plates but those plates might not exists – nobody else has ever seen them. Jews, Christians, and Muslims claim that Moses got some stone tablets engraved with lightning by God (or something like that) – again the tablets are not available. All three Abrahaimic religions claim that their prophets were somehow ‘guided’ by God when they wrote their various Books. Add to the uncertainty there the possibility that so much is in parable form and we really don’t know what happened.
So, for example, the 7 days that Jews, Christians and Muslims see as the Creation? Was anyone there to witness it? Is the genesis story meant as a lab report or just a lesson that “Hey guys, there is something really big behind all this”?
A similar situation exists with other religions and their various creation stories. They all have similarities but far too many differences to all be correct. So, for me at least, I look to them as lessons but not as lab reports.
Remember, religion is man’s best attempt to understand that which is far greater than anything he can comprehend. Science is our attempts to understand HOW all this works. That is important because we interact with what is out there – our actions then effect what we live in. I cannot effect God; however I CAN effect His creation.
Belief in God is faith – Religion is just a man-made way to hold power over a group of people.
This is why I trust no churches, whatever their particular line of religion is. But I do trust my faith in God.
I don’t need a particular preacher to tell me what is right or wrong. God gave me a brain with which to reason things and he gave me a mouth with which I can tell these preachers to back off.
All the greatest minds in thru out history believed in God.God created what we today call thinking; back in the beginnings it was called the tree of knowledge.I never want to come to an absolute end of the journey of knowledge, I don’t want God to disappear nor do I want science to disappear, if I do come to the end of my journey I think that I would be absolute dead.I believe in God and Science at the same time but I do not like religions.I am not going to force an answer to everything when it is not revealed and clear.We are not done yet, so keep plugging at it.
I think it’s always a good thing to seek truth Chad. What good does it do to seek a falsehood or to believe a falsehood?
Truth, leads to other truths. For example, is it not truthful that a person’s lab comes back high for blood sugar, to know that the reason why a blood sugar is high is because of a lack of insulin? It’s really meaningless to know that a blood sugar is high unless you know why, and how to correct it.
Does it matter what perspective one comes from? Absolutely. During the Terry Schiavo fiasco, the right to life community sought out Doctors that sided with them based on faith rather than scientific facts. We all know how that ended, with the religious doctors looking rather profoundly foolish.
I’m late, but want to add to CapnAmerica’s morning post mentioning Steven Hawking. Hawking gives credit for his being alive now to his loving Christian wife. He doesn’t accept Christianity’s explanations, but he does accept its principles-for-living embodied in people like his spouse. Which is worth noting.
Charles Darwin’s wife was also a devout Christian. He was sick during and after his five year round-the-world voyage. He had somebody to nurse him daily, to keep him alive. Women may be the bulwark force preserving religion. Darwin considered women to be the inferior sex. Maybe he didn’t did not accurately grasp biological reality. Maybe he misunderstood a cornerstone principle, compared to which the theory of natural selection is a trifle.
I guess if you cannot refute the findings, you can always resort to saying the findings are not of any importance. A long line of biologists would disagree.
“You can believe what you want to believe,But you don’t have to live like a refugee.”Tom Petty – 1979
Sorry for the digression, what I was going to say is that scientists have felt attacked by the Bush administration. I think it is unwise to attack religion in retaliation – kind of like invading Iraq because you’ve been attacked by Al Qaida.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,62339-0.html
Welcome to WEBLog Chad, and keep following your pathway to enlightenment.
SD, the unfortunate thing is that evangelical Christians put their hope in a new political movement that would respect their values, and fell prey to con artists who, in pretending to respect these values, actually considered evangelicals to be “nuts” and they discredited evangelical Christianity.
Just an observational comment. You know this is an important topic to people, because its postings number dwarfs the rest of WEBlog threads.
Dusty, thanks for this link – it provides a great deal of useful information. I am going to repost it here, in case some of the latecomers may have missed it.
http://skepdic.com/tijunk.html
Thanks, again…..
heartlander,On the evangelicals being exploited, you are absolutely correct. I sure hope they have not been discredited for falling victim to Rove lies. But, if they have been, the rest of America is going to need to join them in their disgrace.
I agree, Dusty, I enjoyed the skeptic.com link. I also think that dissociative identity disorder (the new label for multiple personality) is indeed rare. Extending on what Mary C. said, if you call a borderline MPD, that person will be your patient for life – and will get much worse in the process. And, the therapist’s life won’t be worth living either. Not from personal experience, but what I had the misfortune to witness a few times.
Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend.
religion has been a pretty destructive force in the world since man walked upright. Too often it’s been used as a weapon to control and oppress others.
How does a RELIGION oppress people?People oppress people. Religion oppresses no one.
Religion is first and foremost an outreach of man’s intellect due to his self awareness. Animals are not possess self awareness, that is why you don’t see animals congregating for religious purposes.
I find it fascinating that people who presume to be intelligent continuously fall back on blaming an abstract idea (like religion) rather than understanding that human beings are moral agents who determine their own actions irregardless of their religious affiliation. Such people only blame the idea of a religion for the inequities of human beings out of emotional rather than rational reasons. Do they need prof that religion is not to blame but human beings are?
Ok. There are over 1 billion Muslims in the world. If every Muslim thought exactly like Osama Bin Laden, there’d be a full scale war between all Muslims and non-Muslims. So have your Muslim neighbors shot at you yet? If religion is to blame, then every Muslim must be an absolutist jihaddist. Since Muslims are moral agents, they CHOOSE not to kill your non-Muslim ass.
Prove me wrong!
Doug,
If all you rely on is empirical knowledge, then you surely protest the following mathematical formula:
1 + 1 = 2
:)
I’m a lapsed agnostic; I’m not sure what it is I don’t believe in.
It seems to me that religion exists to explain the inexplicable. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the good die young? Why is there injustice? Why do some things sometimes somehow work out?
Thing is, a long time ago, there were a lot more things that humans hadn’t figured out a way to explain. And we humans are cursed with wanting answers. If we don’t have answers we tend to make up answers. There’s truth in myths and lessons in fables; truth in made-up answers.
Science came along and decided to look for answers that weren’t made up. Scientists took the earth out of the center of the universe and shattered a lot of other myths over the years but didn’t necessarily take the underlying truth away from myths and fables. We all appreciate the lesson of The Tortoise and the Hare, even if there wasn’t an actual race; we understand the tragic implications of indecision even if there never was a real-life Hamlet; whether there really was a Job and God and Satan sat back and yanked his chain, we understand (or, at least contemplate) the point of the story.
I can understand people who need to think that a wise and good man might have been unjustly executed 2,000 years ago and that his spirit and love (in the form of his teachings and examples and parables…metaphors) live beyond the tomb. I can appreciate how Siddhartha Gautama might have discovered and taught and lived enough universal truth to become the Buddha. God or fate or happenstance or something might have pulled the Hebrews’ fat out of the fire often enough for some people to pay attention. The bottom-line Truth therein remains inexplicable, and that’s why there’s religion.
If there is a God, I kinda figure He’d work his miracles on a larger scope than, say, Tinkerbelle. If a moment is like a thousand years to the omniscient, omnipotent, everlasting universal “god,” digging the Grand Canyon is something He could do over his lunch hour, not with a wave of His magic wand.
And maybe, just perhaps, science is a systematic method to understand how His magic wand really works.
There’s a recent report that the human genome project has discovered that humans and chimpanzees do *not* share 99% of their genetic codes; maybe only 96%. I’m bracing myself for the wave of faithful who’ll cite this discovery as an “admission” that science doesn’t know all it thinks it does.
That’s the difference between religion and science: religion has the answers, science has the questions.
Religions cling to “answers,” while science continues to ask questions. Scientists are humanity’s Three-Year-Old, constantly asking, “Why?” We all know how annoying three-year-olds can be. Religionists are the good-but-frustrated parents who stop and say, “Because I said so.”
I suspect Neanderthals thought they’d achieved the height of human understanding, what with their mastery of fire and ability to look at the sun and figure the mastedons were migrating this way. I suspect that every generation of humans tends to think *they* have achieved all there is to know. The only people who won’t will be scientists, the damn little three-year-olds who persist on asking “Why?”
Science deals with immediate principles, religion deals with ultimate principles.
Will, people USE religion as a weapon to persecute others. Just look at the Klu Klux Klan or Fred Phelps. The Spanish burned people at the stake for refusing to convert to Christianity.Humans can justify anything by insisting it’s God’s will, that way they don’t have to take responsibility for their hatred or intolerance.
Mary,The fact that people use ideas as an excuse to kill people, and that religion is certainly an idea, is not lost on me. Compare Hitler to Bin Laden and they are identical in principle, except one used a religious idea to justify killing people, the other used an ethnocentric idea to justify killing people.
Will – good observations. And good additions Mary C.
I would add that the difference between a “regious person” and a “religionist” is important. I know many Jews, Christians, Muslims, and a few Hindu and Buddhists. They are religious and follow their respective faiths. However, I would not call them “religionist”: they do not try to prevent me from eating pork or other meat for example. Many are scientits, the rest know that I am a scientist. We have no conflict with that.
There are extremists on both sides who woul want to eliminate the other side. However, in my observation, most of us can live together and in many cases we are the same people.
An abstract idea can not be blamed because an abstract idea (religion) is not endowed with a consciousness to choose between right and wrong, neither does an idea (religion) possess a free will to carry out it’s actions. In other words, it is not a moral agent.
Religion is indeed the most contentious issue for the posters at WEblog.
The 4 most posted threads in WEblog history all had something to do with religion.
1. Terry Fox thread part12. Terry Fox thread part23. Rush Limbaugh/Michael J Fox stem cell thread.4. Flying spaghetti monster thread
Will, why are so many in Darfur being slaughtered? Why are the Palestinians and Jews always blowing themselves up and shooting missiles at each other?Why did Osama’s group fly planes into the WTC? Why did Hitler kill Jews and those against him?
Religion, religion, religion, religion. If you can’t see the pull of religion in the world, I do not know what to tell ya man.
People kill themselves for religion. People kill others for religion. Are there other reasons, sure, but that’s the main driving force for it.
Jerusalem is a good example. Do you think if that land wasn’t considered sacred, that we’d have this many people for centuries dying over an awful strip of barren land?
Ben,
What you call a “religionist” is simply one who imposes his beliefs on others. This is of course, a form of domination. However, since such a person tries to impose his will on someone else, the latter is equipped with a free will to either affirm or deny aggressive proselytizing. Funny thing, this free will, we can only be dominated if we allow ourselves to be.
MonkeyHawk, you’ve hit the nail on my head. I was one of those persistent “Why” asking children. Given a statement by an adult who wanted to be an authority, I was always trying to figure out what lay behind it. This drove a lot of adults nuts.
Very true will. However, I would add that the “ist” seeks to legislate his version of religion.
Peemom,
You seem to think that if one is affiliated with a particular religion, that such a person is predetermined to act in absolutist ways. Pardon me for asking, but if religion is the underlying cause for all the suffering and death in your examples, then why is it that Jews and Muslims can live together in New York City without ripping each other’s throats out?
If you can’t understand that religious people are human beings who are completely capable of making their own decisions, then I don’t know what to tell ya, woman.:)
Ben,
What would you consider me?
Probably religious but not ‘ist’ – but I’d have to know you a bit better.
Well, if Muslim people want to live under their religious law (Sharia law) then more power to em! If everyone in a country is a Muslim, then none of them could be oppressed because it is their own choice to live under the law which they believe to be moral, good, and right. Such a legal system would never work in countries which have very diverse religious groups (like USA) that is why we have a way of running things that favors no single religion. That is why the law of our land is “secular” so as not to oppress any particular group in our country. That fact certainly will not stop the Christian majority from complaining about the laws!:)
Will – I suspect we are not very far apart. One disagreement however:
“Well, if Muslim people want to live under their religious law (Sharia law) then more power to em! If everyone in a country is a Muslim, then none of them could be oppressed because it is their own choice to live under the law which they believe to be moral, good, and right.”
Even if everyone is Muslim they still have a variety of interpretations of their religion and its laws (just as different Christians do; could you picture Phelps as the Christian leader?)
One problem I have with bringing together church and state is actually from the opposite side: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I count on Church to be the thorn in the side of the State. If they are merged then who is the watchdog?
My family’s Priest is a wonderful gentle man of God. But I definitely do not want him (or Bishop Jackels) running the government)
I count on Church to be the thorn in the side of the State. If they are merged then who is the watchdog?
The church (organized religions) do not have ANY power over the secular government. It isn’t the church’s role in being a watchdog anyway. After all, that’s what we have you liberals for!:)
Religion is a personal choice, one that should be made as it relates to one’s own life. Where it gets complicated is when people of any religion attempt to impose their own religious beliefs on the rest of society.
Every society has it’s own moral code and most are remarkably similar. To understand some Christian fundamentalists, the American moral code is based on the Ten Commandments. It has to be noted, however, that only two of the Commandments are actually law, those being prohibitations against murder and stealing.
Those are also against the moral code and laws of virtually any society.
Christian fundamentalists may rail all they want against various segments of our society, but the fact remains that they are merely trying to impose their personal moral/religious codes on the rest of us.
The case in point would be the campaign against gay marriage. If you believe, contrary to scientific evidence, that being gay is a choice, then a ban on gay marriage makes sense.
If you believe, consistant with scientific/medical evidence, that being gay is predetermined at birth, then a ban on gay marriage is totally unjust.
Religion has it’s place – in the church of your choice. When your religion wanders beyond those walls, then we will have a problem.
The basic moral codes are the same for every society – don’t kill your neighbor or steal from him or her.
Beyond that, your religion needs to stay out of the public domain.
Well here I am, back from work and what do I see? Rather what don’t I see? I don’t see scientific evidence for souls, gods, or virgin births. Not like I expected to. When it comes to medicine people will want scientific evidence before putting a drug into their body. If they buy a car they’ll want to know that the car has been tested for safety. But when it comes to religion they make no demands they just trust some uneducated preacher who doesn’t back up his statements with any evidence.
You might as well just believe the used car salesman when he sells you a lemon telling you it’s practically new. Hey, just trust him, he has faith it’s not a lemon so we should never question that.
Hey, Doug, don’t hold your breath wanting for answers to questions that will never come.
Just as creationsts can never come up with scientific proof, you’ll never get an answer to questions of virgin births or burning bushes.
I wonder if there is a connection between burning bushes and virgin births – we’ll never know.
I am still waiting for an answer as to why “outlander” called me a hypcrite.
That would be “hypocrite” as opposed to “hypcrite.”
Also it should be noted that Rush Limbaugh is a hippocrite, which is different from…..
Oh, well……
A scientist can show me.
A religious person can only tell me.
I’ll stick with science unless and until god chooses to prove its existence.
My personal opinion is that when it comes to this issue, religions are doing disservice by usurping the role of God. The battle is not between science and God, but against those who’s misusing the Name of God for their own vanity.
An aside: Some may bristle to the notion that human being shared ancestors with the “lowly” apes. But I think Bible is even harsher, saying that we’re merely dust, and to dust we shall return. So let’s hear it for those ancient hominids whom we owe our DNA’s!
Posted by: heartlander | November 24, 2006 at 06:58 AM : “…teaching science courses that ultimately deny the validity of religion, which is what natural selection does…”. Does it really? Then so much for the validity of the religion in question.
Posted by: chad bircher | November 24, 2006 at 08:59 AM : – “who can explain dark matter or dark energy – where it came from, what it does, how it interacts with other things and so on. Science often tries to appear as if it has all the answers, but there are very large gaping holes in it. (right now 95% of the universe is dark matter & dark energy – unexplained, plus much of the other 5%)”
Neither am I an atheist; but your argument, above, is weak. As a PhD, you know well enough that, whilst many aspects of the material universe have yet to be fathomed by science, there is no grounds for certainty that they won’t be, given time – the physical world is the realm of science. It’s the spiritual realm that lies outside the scope of science, and which is the province of religion. Where each steps on the others toes, therein lies the conflict.
Here’s a thought about religion and science debate. The religious folk dispute science every time because they don’t want to lose their power over people.
If things are explained by sciencde in a logical manner – where will that leave the religious folks’ power? What will they use to fill up their pockets with all the wealth from their sheeple?
This debate is about who rules the sheeple and nothing else.
Belief in God is a personal choice and science is there for the learning by those who choose to pursue that route.
Can’t we all just get along?
Redewenur, my argument was not to prove religion, but rather to show that science does not have all the answers. In fact, what it claims to be able to answer (the physical universe) is somewhere around 99% unexplained.
Doug, you ask for proof of God’s existence, but you never say what kind of proof would be sufficient to persuade you, and also reasonable to expect from a God. Until you can outline those bounds your call for proof is disingenuous. It is something like me asking for proof of the big bang, and settling for nothing less than being there to watch it happen. You believe in evolution not because you have seen it happen, but rather because you have read reports of other men who make claims that you believe are rational. It is hypocritical for you to hold science to a different standard than religion. You believe all sorts of claims made by scientists without ever putting your hands on the apparatus used for producing, measuring, or calculating the results.
Political mom, you again made the statement that seeking the truth is good. I agree with you, but I can only make that claim on a philosophical/religious ground. It is impossible to call something “good” or “bad” on a scientific ground. This is the arena where science utterly fails. Perhaps scientific inquiries will eventually describe the entire universe (I personally find that highly unlikely). However, even at that point the questions of good and bad, right and wrong will have to be answered somewhere else.
Finally, I am a little tired of all the wars in history being blamed on religion. Hitler was (if not an atheist) not a religious man. Stalin was an atheist. Mao was an atheist. These are the men who have racked up more deaths at their hands than any other. (approximately 27 million in WWII) The atheists have at least as much blood on their hands as the Christians. If we include in this argument that most of the wars after the 1600’s, and before the 500’s were either political, or did not involve Christians, atheists have a LOT more blood on their hands.
Please stop laying all the blame for the world’s wars on the hands of religious people.
Chad………..Science has all of the answers that really matter. Religon has no answers. Match, game, set!
Apophis, if science has all the answers that really matter, answer one question for me, scientifically.
Is there any purpose to keep a prison system in place? In other words, why should we keep convicts alive? In some way we have decided that they are no longer allowed to be participants in society as a whole, why should we spend the resources to keep them alive? Or should the entire group be euthanased?(remember, no religious answers, only science)
Also, I am a Stargate fan, and I like you name.
Your question(s) have nothing to do with science Chad. What you are talking about is really philosophy. Philosophy is much closer to religion because it invokes a belief system. Again, this is not science.
Apophis, your statement was that science has all the answers that really matter. I am just putting that statement to the test. Either:1) your claim is false (there are some questions that matter that cannot be answered by science)2) your statement is correct (and there is a scientific answer to this question)3) or this is a question that doesn’t matter (the people in prison might disagree with you on that)
Which of the three is it?My claim is that there are questions (like the one above) to which there are no satisfying scientific answers. If you believe I am wrong, please show me.
This is a pathetic attempt to try to “dis-credit” science. It is obvious that you do not know what science actually is. Here is a rather simplistic definition, see if you can comprehend it:
“Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research.”
None of your 3 scenarios really fits into the above framework, therefore you are not referring to science.
Sorry for being late on this argument, but I just got back in town from a Thanksgiving picnic (thank god for global warming).
One major problem with the argument that since something is currently unknown, it must prove the existence of god, is that the more we come to know, the smaller god gets. Surely you don’t mean to infer a constantly shrinking deity?Your argument also seems to depend on what is currently unknown (the beginnings of the universe, the shape of space and time, the nature of consciousness etc.) also being unknowable. Recent experience would seem to refute that. Much that seemed unknowable even a decade ago is now understood.If you assume the god of the unknown, you need to prepare for his eventual death!
Well said Jed.
I am not discrediting science Apophis. There are many scientific/technological advances that I believe are wonderful (penicillin, MRI, printing press, fire, wheel, plow, fertilizer, air conditioning, etc). You made the claim that science has all the answers. If that is so, answer the question. If it is not so, then your statement is false. I have not claimed that my question is scientific, rather I am claiming the exact opposite. I am claiming that my answer is fundamentally non-scientific, and that science lacks not only an answer, but the tools necessary to answer it.
You seem to agree with me that science cannot answer this question, and that we must rely on something else. You have said that we must approach philosophy or religion to answer the question, and I agree with you.
Science does not hold all the answers.Also, resorting to insinuations of idiocy only weakens your case.
Just admit it Chad………..you are “religon” person who does not believe in evolution and/or global warming. Am I correct?
I have no “case” I have to prove Chad………….science is a system that proves, or disproves itself. Is that a concept you can’t handle?
I am assuming a God that made a well formed universe, and a creation with the curiosity and intelligence to probe that universe. There might be parts that will always remain unknown, there might be the eventuality that we will come to understand the entire thing. However, understanding the universe actually makes absolutely no claims on the existence or non-existence of a deity.
However, the unknown does at least point to our limitations in this universe. Philosophical questions point to the limitations of science in ever understanding this universe. We might have a better understanding in 100 years, but we cannot argue based on what we might know at some point in the future, we must work with what we have now.
Science is a philosophy. It is a philosophy in which the scientist believes just because something has happened the same way a hundred times before it will happen that way again. It is a very good and useful philosophy, but still a philosophy.Also, your assumptions about me are wrong. I am a religious person. I believe in evolution and global warming.Science cannot prove itself. If you believe otherwise, please give me an experiment where you can “prove” science.
Chad,Try typing on your computer and clicking “Post.”
Sorry Chad you are deluded. Science is NOT philosophy. Your views about science are obviously tainted by your belief that an unknown, unseeing sky god has the answer to everything. Sorry Chad, it the natural world doesn’t work that way.
Hume has shown pretty conclusively that causality is a philosophical belief. He has done that much better than I. I suggest you read some of his work, and then come up with a better refutation than “you’re deluded.”
Honestly I think science is a correct philosophy, but belief in science is fundamentally a belief in causality.
Also, any attempt to show me that atheism is a better way must include showing me that it pragmatically works in your life. If you can’t act kinder than me, or more civilized then your points will always be lost. Please act more mature than accusations of delusions and insults.
Sticks and stones Chad. Typical of the anti-science crowd. You cannot discredit science so you attack its proponents. It IS time to take off the kid gloves in defending science. If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the fire Chad.
FYI Chad………I have never made claim of being an aetheist either. You are the one making illogical inferences.
I have never attempted to discredit science. I am most certainly not anti-science (otherwise I would not be in grad school for physics). I have not attacked you personally, I have just asked you to hold a more mature conversation. I believe you have never answered my question about prisons, and so I must assume your are not serious about your statement that science has all the answers.
Finally, your snide comments about “an unknown, unseeing sky god has the answer to everything,” and “religion has no answers,” condescendingly referring to me as a “religion” person who must automatically disbelieve evolution and global warming have led me to believe you are an atheist. This was an inference, but not an illogical one based on your obvious antagonism towards religion. Perhaps you are a self-professed spiritual person, but I find that unlikely.
I will go ahead an ignore any further of your comments if you cannot converse civilly. You can take this as a “victory” if you choose, however you should know that I am not intimidated by your logic, or lack thereof. I am simply choosing not to enter a juvenile name calling match. I will leave that to you, I hope you enjoy.
1. There is no point trying answering the prison question. It would be an answer based on philosophy, not science.2. We only have your word that you are actually a “physics grad student”. I feel I do carry on mature conversations, sorry if you can’t keep up with me. Your feeling that I made “snide” or condescending comments……..well, that’s just your biased perception. You “religious” people need to get over your smug superiority. It really isn’t becoming of a purported “Christian”.3. I claim no victory, the victory is solely for science. If you choose to not converse with me further, so be it. I won’t lose any sleep from it Chad.
Apophis, we know that in attending teachers college to become trained to teach middle-school physical science your science education was comprised of lower-division standardized textbook-information-based coursework, with a few junior-level courses, which is to say you have a bit more than a community-college level education in science. You didn’t get to spend 1000 hours doing research under a KU geology professor. You got a master’s in a school of education program, not a science department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Chad is working on a physics Ph.D. at U Tennessee, which has a respected physics research program stemming from the Oak Ridge Laboratory’s presence in that state. Chad has done a lot more science than you, which is to say he is involved in advancing mankind’s scientific knowledge. Your job is to teach textbook subject matter understandable to generally not-scientifically-inclined 13-14 year olds.
I’ve encouraged you to do a sabbatical to actually learn science research by doing it. You said you can’t leave the classroom, which is either narcissistic, in thinking nobody else could take your place for a year, or an indictment of poverty the system you work in, insofar as you are truly the only person in your school who could reasonably teach physical science.
I suggested teaching in Alaska for a couple years, where the geology is much more complex than in Kansas, as is the biology. No, you don’t want to do that either.
I suggested spending summer periods in geologically amazing places. Then you could learn things you don’t know, and not interrupt your regular teaching. No response to that. Maybe your silence means I’ve given you an idea to munch on, but you don’t want to admit it. Or maybe you’ve rejected that proposal too.
You’re a middle-school or 9th grade science teacher. That’s very different from being a scientist. There are scientists teaching K-12, but get real. You’re not in California, North Carolina, New York, Chicago or other places that have science-based economies that need strong science education. You’re in south central Kansas. If you were a scientist, you’d have left this science-benighted area long ago.
heartlander………….I knew it was only a matter of time before you bloviated in on this thread.
Stop while you are ahead………….you have NO IDEA what my academic credentials really are. You are making assumptions again and frankly, you are making an ass out of yourself again.
Hell, heartlander ought to be nominated as Education commissioner replacing Bob Corkins. He thinks he knows everything. I find it interesting that he constantly degrades Kansas, its people and especially its education system………..yet, he remains in KANSAS. Could it be because he can’t find a job as a “doctor” elsewhere?
You’ve shown your lightweight-science-education ignorance in stating that science is not philosophical. There are courses and graduate programs in philosophy of science at Cambridge, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, University of California and Columbia, as well as other world-leading scientific-research institutions. Of course, you never got outside of Kansas K-12 teachers college, nobody ever told you about this fact.
For the record heartlander..I REJECT EVERYTHING you say as typical elitist nonsense.
Do you have self esteem issues heartlander? I might suggest seeking professional help.
I’d just like to see Kansas do better. Unfortunately, people like you who have half-knowledgeable opinions that pontificate as experts are holding the state back. You’re problem is, you have a psychological need to feel self-important, i.e. an authority. But without the knowledge that can only be gained from getting “outside the box”, taking risks, and learning from them, you are simply a run-of-the-mill authoritarian-personality promoter of orthodoxy.
Heartlander it’s really presumptuous of you to ask someone else to go and do something when you have no idea what Apophis has or has not done, nor what his situation is now.
There is a saying in AA, ‘keep it simple, stupid’.
This is very very simple. Religion and Science should not be mixed.
Chad obviously has great knowledge in science that I cannot possibly contend with. However, in order for him to be successful and reputable, he’s going to have to realize that often Religion is disproven by science. And at some point, changing religious policy to fit the scientific reality. Chad works with the minute elements of life.
Just remember, Chad, at one point, scientists were laughed at by the myths of bacterium causing diseases. I hope you aren’t one who is limited by your own convictions, nor do I hope you ever have to stand against religion with some new discovery you make.
Lots of big words there heartlander. You just think you know more than the rest of us because you are an elitist. Those who truly know me would never describe me as a “run-of-the-mill authoritarian-personality promoter of orthodoxy.” In fact, I am known for being just the opposite.
What you can’t handle heartlander is that I for one will not worship every word you type as god’s truth because you say it it so. Talk about feelings of self importance.
political_mom……….thanks for the defense. I learned long ago to just ignore heartlander’s rants and raves. What you have said makes absolute sense to me as well.
You cannot discredit science so you attack its proponents.
and how many times have we seen people attempting to discredit religion by attacking ITS PROPONENTS!?
Your “side” is just as culpable for what you are complaining about!
Please……………..this isn’t about “attacking religion”. This is the typical religious right persecution complex. Your side won’t be happy until this nation is a theocracy. Stop denying reality, science is reality folks.
Apophis,
Philosophy is just as methodological as any of the applied sciences. The existence of a priori knowledge is a reality. Considering your past assertion that “science answers all the questions that matter” it would be prudent to remember that the lack of evidence of a given thing is NOT proof that such a thing does not exist.
pm, science disproving religion? Take the sun-and-stars-revolve-around-the-earth hypothesis. This is what SCIENTISTS thought, and promoted, in pre-Christian Babylonia and Greece, and independently in Meso-America. At the time, they applied the law of parsimony, which is to say they theorized events according to their observations in the most-simplifying way.
Let’s consider the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and California. Established by the Catholic and Protestant churches. I could name many more, such as the Midwest’s top-reputation universities, i.e. Chicago (founded by Baptist John Rockefeller), Washington (originally a seminary) and Northwestern (Methodist). Not to overlook KU, WSU and Washburn (founded by Congregationalists), or KSU (founded by Methodists).
Hi! Wake up to history.
It’s true that the Catholics didn’t do much here in Kansas. But the top master’s university in our region is Creighton, in Omaha, a Jesuit university.
This has everything to do with attacking religion. Or have you completely ignored the topic of this thread? I haven’t seen any religious people blaming all the wars and sufferings of the human race on the scientific community, have you? But if you scroll upthread, you will see exactly that from those on your “side.”
You wanna blame people for death and destruction? Ok! Let’s look at the Manhattan Project. You know, those SCIENTISTS who developed the ATOM BOMB. What about the SCIENTISTS who developed NUCLEAR WARHEADS, CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS, ARMS MANUFACTURERS WHO CREATE MODERN VEHICLES AND GUNS SPECIFICALLY ON THE INTENT ON CAUSING THE MOST HUMAN CASUALTIES POSSIBLE!!!
Yeah, those bad old Buddhist Monks, Trappist Friars, Jewish Rabbis, and Muslim Imams are really the problem here!Riiiiigghhht!!!
How does one blame a nuclear holocaust on religion while completely exonerating those SCIENTISTS who BUILT THOSE WEAPONS!?
But I guess since MORALITY is beyond the scope of science, (As Apophis claims!!!) Then you really can’t blame the Scientists for HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI can you!?
But if you scroll upthread, you will see exactly that from those on your “side.”…………
A rather broad generalization, Will. Try reading some of my posts and tell me how I am attacking religion.
THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH NUCLEAR FIREPOWER TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE SURFACE OF THE WORLD SEVERAL TIMES!!!
I guess it’s the priests fault!
WSClark,Have I accused you specifically?No.
But take a gander at this:
As far as science and religion go, I would SO like to see religious groups STOP interfering with science, heck I’d like to see them stop interfering with other people’s lives. I’m with WSClark…I believe in God, I believe in science, but I don’t believe in Religion.
RELIGION produces more problems in this world than anything.
Posted by: political_mom | November 24, 2006 at 10:15 AM
Peemom, staunch advocate of the “can do no wrong” scientific community!
The Manhattan project was proposed and directed by FDR in response to the development of extreme weaponry by the Nazi’s and Imperial Japan. The scientists that worked on the project did not order the bomb to be dropped on Japan – that was Truman.
The behavior of the scientists in question has nothing to do with the science and religion debate.
As I said, Will, it was a broad generalization, directed at those on the “science” side.
That would include me.
Richard Dawkins ascribes all social behavior to materialistic natural selection principles. This would include religion, as a survival-seeking phenomenon. Even Christian martyrdom can be ascribed to Homo sapiens protecting altruistic behavior. Dawkins makes an amazing argument, that makes compelling sense to the pre-conditioned mind. This is a metaphysical argument. Dawkins speaks as a philospher. He has reached the logical conclusion, within his materialistic philosophy, that religion must be abolished.
Unfortunately, Dawkins’ philosophy holds that if somebody invades your house, kills all the inhabitants, and plunders its material goods, that’s not WRONG.
If mankind destroys our environment, so that only ancient blue-green bacteria survive, that’s not wrong. It’s evolution.
Without a moral compass, that beyond-materialism religion supplies, whatever happens is whatever happens. If, as a scientist, I am resigned to the world’s regressing to a blue-green algae world, what’s the argument against it? Nothing in Richard Dawkins’ philosphy. But if, in holding a religious view that holds humanity to be special, and I disagree with this outcome, does that make me an unscientific person? I suppose it depends upon how you define science.
WSClark,
No, they did not give the order, but they did have a hand in killing millions of Japanese men women and children by giving the US the means to annihilate them. It’s pretty simple really; if the scientists didnt make the atom bomb, then we couldn’t have dropped it on them. So yeah, the scientists too are at fault.Also, the ethical behavior of scientists has EVERYTHING to do with the debate on science and religion. You can’t only praise the good while ignoring the bad! You can’t pat yourselves on the back with all the achievements you’ve made while ignoring the development of weapons of mass destruction! For the scientific community to do so is to be disingenuous!!!
How exactly is the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction considered PROGRESS FOR HUMANITY!?
btw, how does it feel to be on the defensive?
Why is it that the scientific community is so fixated under the Pontius Pilate mentality? Your “side” makes moral judgments on religious people everyday, yet your “side” is responsible for giving mankind the ability to completely annihilate themselves!!!
“btw, how does it feel to be on the defensive?”
You may consider me to be on the defense, Will, but I certainly don’t.
This was my comment:
“Religion cannot prove the existence of God anymore than science can disprove Her existence.”
So just how am I on the defensive?
BTW – I will resist the temptation to list all the good that has come out of science – especially medical science.
I will also resist the temptation to list all of the bad that has come from religion – especially bin Laden, Phelps, et al.
I am not on the defensive, Will, you’re just on a rant.
WSClark,I may be ranting, but you can not deny the truth of what I rant about! I question the SANITY of a group of people who make great progress in medicine but make equally regressive achievements in destroying human life!
I’ll take the word of a 2,000 year old rabbi over such a group of people any day!
An interesting debate point…..
The liberal, me, is defended the use of an atomic bomb on Imperial Japan, and act that ended WW II. The bomb killed 250-300 thousand Japanese, but may have saved more than a million lives had the US had to invade the Japanese homeland.
The conservative, Will, is claiming that the scientists that developed the bomb are guilty of genocide.
An interesting debate point – one that has nothing to do with the debate of science v. religion.
But what the heck, Will says that I am on the defensive…..
Jesus wasn’t a rabbi. As a member of the working class in ancient Israel, he wasn’t even allowed into the inter sactum of the temple.
But it is interesting – you question the SANITY of scientists, but feel that the undocumented (Jesus never wrote anything that has been found) word of a Palestinian Jew is unquestionable?
Just how is it that you feel scientists are lacking in sanity?
WSClark, you aren’t playing the game the way they (the religious right) wants it to be played.
Wait a few minutes and watch heartlander try to take another personal swipe at me.
Apophis, I like your stuff, and agree with most.
I just wonder how someone (not you, damn it!)can condemn the “scientists” that developed the atomic bomb without alos giving credit to the scientists that made medical (etc) breakthroughs.
Interesting debate point – selective at best.
But see WSClark, they don’t want to debate the reality of science. They want to tie science to materialism and its alleged evils. They want to feel persecuted so they have a reason to pursue their theocratic agenda. They want to selectively choose the topics of conversation, one that advances their agenda.
I just hope they don’t try to begin a debate on the Bible; I was raised in a very religious Christian home and can quote scripture with the best fundamentalist.
But being selective is a benchmark of the RR.
“Apophis, I like your stuff, and agree with most.”
PSSSSSSST – I had to say that I just agreed with most, otherwise they would accuse us of being in LIBERAL lockstep.
Don’t tell anybody…..
I understand WSClark…………that evil, materistic, liberal conspiracy.
LOL
I understand WSClark…………that evil, materialistic, liberal conspiracy.
LOL
deja vu!
I guess our audience has headed for the hills!
I guess so. They’re probably at Saturday night services praying for our souls. LOL
ROFL!
Halftime – The USC Pagans 21 – the Notre Dame Drunken Catholics 10.
yep, I’ve been watching that game too.What would Jesus think about this game?
Go Trojans!
Anyone other than the bloody papists!
All of you, Stop!1. First and foremost, science does not purport to deal with religion, only with the observable! Science will never prove the existence or nonexistence of god or gods simply because it doesn’t address that which is not observable.2. Metaphysics is not a recognized branch of science, and never will be.3. Science is not philosophy, regardless of how many philosophy of science courses you’ve taken. Science is simply the body of accumulated facts built up over centuries of observation, classified in ways that for the time being seem useful.
“All of you, Stop!”
So, I take it that you fall on the religious side of the argument.
Hey Chad, I know you are in the business of making excuses for not presenting any information, does your university have the same sort of requirements? I have to wonder how pathetic your thesis will be.
So you are presented with the option of providing evidence for gods, souls or virgin births. Your response is that no matter what you present I won’t accept. Of course that’s just a cop-out because of either one of these reasons:1) You don’t have any evidence2) You are intellectually lazy
How about I make it easier for you. Since your Bible describes hell as a physical place located inside a volcano then why don’t you provide evidence for your hell?
That’s now four options for you to chicken out of. Oh wait, did I say evidence for a 6,000 year old Earth? Probably not, but I’ll toss that in for five options.
My two favorite college football teams – Michigan and who ever is playing Notre Dame.
USC 31 – Notre Dame 17.
Fourth Quarter
Sorry Doug, I was just waiting for the RR to come back after watching ND get their Catholic butts kicked.
WSClark, perhaps you could explain something to me because I don’t think Chad has an idea. I’m asking for scientific evidence of certain things and Chad responds by asking me what sort of scientific evidence I’ll accept. I wasn’t aware there were different types of science. There’s science, pseudoscience (magnet therapy), and myth (creationism). Is there some sort of magic science or faith based science that I’m not aware of that Chad might be trying to use?
LOL looks like Will is having a nuclear meltdown.
The atom bomb ended the worst war in history. So one evil ended another evil. At least our evil stopped there.
Well, Doug, I guess the concept of fact or supportable theory is difficult for some people to understand.
You know, evolution is JUST a theory – a SWAG, right?
Forget about the thousands of documented pieces of evidence to support the theory, evolution is just an “age old fairy tale.”
And gravity is just another half-baked theory, too.
WS,”So, I take it that you fall on the religious side of the argument.”Not at all; I am saying that since science will neither confirm or deny religion, and religion cannot confirm or deny science, the whole argument of science vs. religion is not only useless, it will end up,if taken to the extreme it seems headed toward, destroying both!Further, no amount of proven fact will ever convince a true believer, and no amount of quoted scripture will persuade a knowledgeable scientist. Yet each side continues to argue past the other, presumably in hopes of winning the vote of the ignorant, when neither side would consent to putting their particular vocation up for a vote!
Ok now I got to the end of the thread and HOW FUNNY OMG!
Does Will often blow a gasket like that over something so silly?
Well Jed, it would be a moot point except the religious right seems intent on imposing their religious beliefs on society in general.
The basic point is – don’t use my tax dollars to teach your religion in public schools and don’t use my tax dollars to support your religion in the public square.
Your religion is your business – keep it out of my business.
I could give a good goddamn what part of the populous is Christian – Christianity belongs in church, science belongs in the classroom.
How about a compromise. They keep religion out of science and we’ll keep thinking outside their churches.
Will blew a gasket so badly that he is now in the garage for repairs.
“How about a compromise. They keep religion out of science and we’ll keep thinking outside their churches.”
Amen?
Yew Haw!!!!!!!!!!
“pm, science disproving religion? Take the sun-and-stars-revolve-around-the-earth hypothesis. This is what SCIENTISTS thought, and promoted, in pre-Christian Babylonia and Greece, and independently in Meso-America. At the time, they applied the law of parsimony, which is to say they theorized events according to their observations in the most-simplifying way.”
Fine, i’ll accept that as fact, even though I don’t know that it is, but can you tell me did the scientists threaten to jail, torture and kill people for refusing to believe it?
The scripture being infallible defense is used so often by Christians, that it just has been hard to believe with all the proven wrongs. The bible deals with only the facts that were prevalent in the time it was written. Had it discussed the matters that might be important today, then maybe it would be more believeable.
Like atoms, and atomic bombs, and disease cures, and stem cell research.
I know, theologans try to explain that it did talk about those things in some encrypted fashion, but I don’t buy it.
The USC Pagans 44 – the Notre Dame Drunken Irish 24.
Let’s here it for the Pagans!!!
Before you all get flaming, I am part Irish and part drunk…..
Just kidding……….
LOL looks like Will is having a nuclear meltdown.
The atom bomb ended the worst war in history. So one evil ended another evil. At least our evil stopped there.
Peemom,If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of an atomic bomb, I suspect you’d be singing a very different tune!
Don’t complain when we are all obliterated by our own devices! Of course, you can’t count on the scientific community to exercise any form of responsibility, that’s why we have to be afraid of a bunch of idiots from using our own nuclear warheads… um… I mean “technological achievements” against us!
Well Will tell ya what, if we get nuked after causing a bunch of wars, I know who I’ll be blaming- the nuts who supported Heir Bush into invading countries on false pretenses.
But you’ll probably be singing praises as ‘God’s rapture” is upon us.
Oh I’m sorry, Will is Catholic, right? He doesn’t believe in the Rapture. Sorry, got my endtimes nutty religions confused.
What? You obviously think it was okay for us to use it on the Japs, but it’s not okay for anyone else to do the same to us?
One rule for us, and another for the rest of the world eh?
I see where you’re coming from.
Will perhaps you should re-read my post.
Did you know that there is no mention of the pyramids in the Bible, even though the Jews were supposedly slaves in Egypt?
Did you know that cats are not mentioned in the Bible?
Did you know that there was no census taken by the Romans at the time of Jesus’ birth?
Did you know that Jesus was most likely born in Nazareth, since, according to the custom of the time, he would have been known as Jesus of Bethlehem had he been born in Bethlehem?
Did you know that “Jesus” is an incorrect translation? The correct translation from the ancient Aramaic is “Joshua.”
Did you know that the Apostles that supposedly wrote the scriptures were all illiterate?
Did you know that they myth of a Messiah rising from the dead after three days is an ancient Greek story? Coincidently, the Apostle Saul/Paul was a Turkish Jew that traveled extensively in Greece.
Did you know that Christmas is actually a pagan holiday?
Did you know that the Nag Hammandi scriptures make no mention of Jesus’ resurection? The Gnostic scriptures are the only untranslated documents from the earliest Christian era (300 CE).
I guess that’s your scientific Amorality in action!
Will, I see that your gasket has been repaired, so what is your preoccupation on nuclear weapons?
For God’s sake, that is not all that science has accomplished.
For all that were killed by the dropping of the atomic bomb, there have been a thousandfold killed in religious wars.
So what’s your point?
WSClark,
Oh! So now the blog scientist thinks himself an expert on religion and history too! Here’s some advice: don’t presume to know everything if you are ignorant of something. It will prevent you from looking like a fool.
The point is that scientists who make weapons capable of destroying the entire human race have absolutely NO BUSINESS making moral judgments on others, especially on religions that in essence preach brotherhood, unity, and peace. In my opinion, religion far superior than any system of thought that makes weapons that are for the sole purpose of ending human life.
Hey that’s ok Will, God says he’ll destroy the world singlehandedly. So I guess GOD trumps all the scientists on mass destruction.
For all that were killed by the dropping of the atomic bomb, there have been a thousandfold killed in religious wars.
Oh! How typically athiestic of you! Blaming an inanimate, abstract idea for the actions of murderers. I am still waiting for your explanation on how nuclear weapons are the Dalai Lama’s fault!
Well, it’s like this, Will, after the inital development of nuclear weaponry by scientists, most of the work done for construction of WMD has been done by engineers.
So now are you going to go on a wild rant about engineers?
I think, Will, you might be more comfortable living in 800 BCE, when science and engineering were in their earliser stages and your life expectancy would be about 35 years.
PS: Work on your punctuation; your lack thereof makes reading your sentences difficult.
BTW – I never suggested that I was the blog scientist – that was Chad – he’s on your side.
BTW – Will, I am not an atheist. If you take a minute from your rant to read I said that I believe in God, but I do not believe in religion.
You don’t beleive in his God, so you’re the same as an Atheist.
I would be more comfortable living in a world in which the scientific community displayed sanity while destroying all nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. However, your “side” thinks we ought to keep em around!
Yes, I definitely see this as progress! (sarcasm off)
“You don’t beleive in his God”
Good one, P Mom!
BTW – The points I noted regarding history are fact, Will, you might want to look them up….
Jesus, Will, what is your facination with nuclear weapons? Can you see NOTHING else that science has done?
Peemom,Just because I don’t share your moral relativism doesn’t mean that I feel superior to you or anyone else. Why can’t you just stick to the issue without projecting your warped ideas of what it means to be Catholic? Ah but you are the type to CONGRATULATE WSClark for studying in under an athiest and not by a religious person. It is obvious that you are incapable of discarding your bias against religious people!
Scientists may have did the research that led to the nuclear bomb. Men may have regretted using the bomb. However it is the religious who find it morally justifiable to kill with the bomb.
Should thousands of bombs fall it is the religious who will see a silver lining because it brings Jesus one step closer to returning to Earth. That’s your religious morality for you.
“CONGRATULATE WSClark for studying in under an athiest and not by a religious person.”
Can we get an English translation, please?
What is my fascination with nuclear weapons? Are you braindead? Have you ever seen what a nuclear missle can do? Are you aware of the fact that human beings are capable of destroying the entire planet by the sheer numbers of nuclear arms proliferated during the Cold War? I think the better question to ask is:
WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS?
Oh I forgot, morality is beyond the scope of science. I guess that excuses scientists from any and all forms of ethical responsibility!
Doug,
Your pathetic attempt at exonerating the brains that brought us nuclear weapons is noted!
What did I tell ya? Pontius Pilate mentality!
I think you are slipping a bit here, Will. Somehow you have managed to ASSUME that people that believe in the value of science also believe in the arbitrary use of nuclear weapons. I am not sure where or how you made that particular leap of logic, but it is totally false.
Can you kindly return to the original point – which is religion at war with science.
The question is – why should your religion trump science?
Your side seems to think that all religious people are bloodthirsty sociopaths! I am only giving you a taste of your own medicine! I never said religion trumps science. But when ignorant folk like those on your side say that “Science has all the answers that matters, and Religion has no answers.” I get a little pissed off.
And if those scientists who made nuclear weapons didn’t make them with the intent of being used, then WHY DID THEY MAKE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Will you REALLY need to learn to read more carefully. It’s not WSclark who is studying under an atheist, it’s Chad, the religious guy.
Please, put the drink DOWN. We know you Catholics can’t hold your liquor.
And I don’t advocate using nuclear weapons, I’m a liberal for crying out loud…I think that by default means I’m anti- world annhialation (sp). Even by God.
I just think that it was justified for us to use it in WW2.
Compare that to the MANY good Christians I’ve read saying “just drop a few nukes and turn the sandni**ers(I hate that word) into glass.
The STORY is that Hitler had the plan to make the bomb first.
And our job was to beat him to it.
At least that is how history is written. I have yet to see any real evidence that they were indeed working to build the bomb. Our own facilities to do it were HUGE. They never found anything like that in Germany.
But HAD Hitler come up with the bomb, we all would be saying ‘mein fuhrer” right now.
Will, could you kindly return to the subject without blowing all your gaskets? You called me a fool; now who is being foolish? You have conveniently ignored all of the points I have made, while ranting about nuclear weapons. I think that most reasonable individuals are opposed to nuclear proliferation, but that point seems to be lost on you.
Now that we have determined that Enrico Fermi is going to spend eternity in Dante’ Nineth Ring of Hell and all the engineers in the world are going to die a horrible death, can you cut the insults (I am not ignorant)and get back to the point at hand.
Religion v. Science.
I don’t feel like reading through everythign right now, but I will say what I have said once more:
Religion is not at war with science. Christians value science as many are scientists or are in fields of medicine, chemistry, biology, mathmatics, and physics.
There is not any conflict with science and religion.
Do certain scientific studies and theories clash with religion? Sure.
There are disagreements not with “science” but with particular fields within science.
Most of which are argued with logical well thought points.
It is not as simple as saying well God said so or the Bible says like many of you seem to think here.
Any disagreements I have with certain fields of study or theories I argue with facts and logic and so do most other Christians.
Will, science is done for the pursuit of knowledge. If you have your way books will be burned, universities torn down and brilliant minds will be shuttered just so you can live in your blissful world of ignorance.
The problem you’ll realize, is that ignorance kills, knowledge enlightens. That’s why religious nuts like you hate knowledge, it frees us from your world of ignorance, doom and death.
So there you go, Will doesn’t have an issue with stem cell research! Great, now lets get on it.
Woops, sorry that was Nathan.
Political mom and WS.
Without going into it? Suffice it to say that Will is…..
Well I’ll use his own words.
“A troubled young man.”
We credit Will with the blogs only death threat. TOO he once spent half the night insulting mine and Rage’s mother with “your mama”jokes.
Bottom line is that Will is nuts.
Political_Mom,
I do have a problem with stem-cell research.
I believe that an unborn human being is a life worthy of protecting.
When you start using the unborn to do research it is unethical and immoral in my mind.
That is not based on my faith in Christ or on what the Bible says either.
unborn and a few cells, not quite the same thing Nathan. It’s not even an embryo yet.
Stem cell research uses cells, not human beings. Or Nathan, do you think that when you scratch your nose little flakes of living human beings fall the floor?
Thanks for providing another argument why religion should stay out of the realm of science and rational thought.
I go to bed and look at all of the fun that I missed.
I lay claim to the statement “Science has all the answers that matters, and Religion has no answers.” I stand by my statement and it makes me very happy that this caused such a meltdown in the religious right crowd. After all, this is war. The war between the religious right (the aggressors) and science. I’m sure heartlander will have some elitist remark personally degrading me because I only hold a Bachelor’s degree and a Masters in Science (not from a “College of Education”). I wish when I grow up some day I can hold 14 doctorates and study with Nobel-winning scientists like heartlander. When I do, I can type on the WEBlog and be an authority on EVERYTHING as he claims. ROFL
Isn’t science in many ways (certainly those outside of medical research) about trying to prove the existence or rather disprove the existence of God?
Really what do you expect from believers except to defend our faith?
unborn and a few cells, not quite the same thing Nathan. It’s not even an embryo yet.
Posted by: political_mom | November 26, 2006 at 01:10 AM
I’m not meaning this to be a personal attack on you PM, but isn’t this a complete contradiction to evolutionists?If man can evolve from basically pond scum over millions of years, how does life not begin at conception?
heartlander:”Richard Dawkins ascribes all social behavior to materialistic natural selection principles. This would include religion, as a survival-seeking phenomenon. Even Christian martyrdom can be ascribed to Homo sapiens protecting altruistic behavior. Dawkins makes an amazing argument, that makes compelling sense to the pre-conditioned mind. This is a metaphysical argument. Dawkins speaks as a philospher. He has reached the logical conclusion, within his materialistic philosophy, that religion must be abolished.”
Certainly, Dawkins is an aggressive anti-theist, and I strongly disagree with that. However, what you say following, heartlander, is not justified, and indicates that you really haven’t understood Dawkin’s MOTIVATIONS for being an anti-theist.
“Unfortunately, Dawkins’ philosophy holds that if somebody invades your house, kills all the inhabitants, and plunders its material goods, that’s not WRONG. ”
That’s entirely incorrect. One of the great misunderstandings of self described atheists by theists is that the lack of metaphysical or transcendent basis for morality, or for that matter a self-acknowledged subjective basis for morality, results in a lack of basis for morality. That is not true.
“If mankind destroys our environment, so that only ancient blue-green bacteria survive, that’s not wrong. It’s evolution.
Without a moral compass, that beyond-materialism religion supplies, whatever happens is whatever happens. If, as a scientist, I am resigned to the world’s regressing to a blue-green algae world, what’s the argument against it? Nothing in Richard Dawkins’ philosphy.”
This is blantantly incorrect. Dawkins doesn’t assume a cosmic injustice if humanity destroys the environment, but he would see a great human injustice in such a thing happening. For that matter, he would see a great injustice in such a thing happening to other creatures that share the environment with us. Extinction may be as inevitable as death, but just as hastening the death of people is murder, so is hastening the extinction of other species similarly wrong. It is wrong from the point of view of every person who values human and other beings.
To understand Dawkins, it is important to understand that his is in fact a MORAL crusade. He believes that religion causes human misery and prevents humans from helping one another, and pollutes human motivations. And he gives plenty of examples of how it does so. He is not wrong, but I think his view is very incomplete. He is clearly uncomfortable (as is Sam Harris, the other anti-theistic evangelical atheist) with non-dogmatic theists (and in fact, they both tend to accuse such people of intellectual dishonesty).
Personally, I think the more important continuum in this debate is fundamentalism, anti-atheism (and boy, is there such a thing, see the recent disturbing results of a study from the University of Minnesota) or anti-theism verses apatheism. Yes, a number of natural scientists are becoming impatient with not only fundamentalism, but the assumptions of theism that seem to undermine the public’s perception of the natural sciences (in particular, that there is a scientific debate about the validity of evolution when there is not). The top tier among natural scientists tend not to be theists by about the same proportion as the general population in the US tend to be theists. But, that doesn’t mean that there are not excellent scientific minds who are not theists, or that scientists are free from biases or even irrational dedication to other philosphies. Two of the best scientific minds I have ever met were and are devout theists, and I have met some atheists who are irrationally devoted to other philosophies unrelated to beliefs in deities (such as Randian anarcho capitalism or even particular forms of music to the exclusion of others).
The real world, including the philosophical make-ups of people, is greyer than we’d all like to suppose.
Well Kia, I appreciate the question, but you wouldn’t feel bad for using pond scum cells for lifesaving research, now would you?
They’re cells, not even formed into any sort of semblence of a baby at all.
Lets put it this way…most people have no problem with organ transplantation. Is it NOT the same thing? The cells of the human donor are going to die anyway. We artificially prolong the physical body in order to salvage the organs, tissues, eyes, etc. And we even do it on babies that die at birth. So why not when they’re just cells too?
ksag, you express well-considered, thoughtful points as usual.
Here is my problem. Dawkins postulated the selfishness of genes, which is to say some inexplicable self-possessed drive to replicate in order to perpetuate, or at least prolong, their existence. But from whence does this self-actuating drive arise?
Why should there even be a survival impetus? You cannot say, the impetus exists, and therefore it is manifest as so. That is a metaphysical proposition. You cannot adduce the supposition purely from scientific observations of material evidence.
But it is worth noting that selfishness, or the will to self-empowerment over others, was recognized by the ancients, as it is described repeatedly in the Old Testament, for example, and for that matter the Ten Commandments represent an effort to constrain it.
The dietary restrictions given in Leviticus may go much deeper than preventing human disease. I personally see in them the purpose of maintaining a sustainable ecology by prohibiting the destruction of species that are essential to nutrient processing, including recycling that enables an astounding wealth of speciation to exist. We know that Proverbs describes the worker ant as a female. Why not say “it”, rather than “she”? Of course, modern science established that worker ants are indeed females.
The Bible isn’t a library. It is a very limited collection of knowledge. We can’t explain Jacob’s method of selectively propagating strong spotted goats, given the description in Genesis. Maybe it is completely false. But we know that he wanted to take leave of his father-in-law, and have the means to live independently.
Joseph was put into a well by jealous brothers. Does this ring true? I think so. Does Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers ring true? I think so. How about Joseph’s dream interpretations and prophecy of future events? Interesting. I’m willing to believe this is possible.
I find it interesting that religious people find unborn life in the cells if they are to be used for stem-cell research but yet these same cells are scheduled to be disposed in these fertility clinics and these same religious people do not find anything wrong with the disposal of those very same cells with unborn life in them.
Why? Isn’t this life a life in either situation?
So, you’re argument that you are fighting for unborn life just doesn’t wash with me – it is not logical that throwing them in the garbage is okay and using them for research is not okay with your God.
Another bulls-eye, ksagnostic. And thank you–It would have taken hours for me (hours I don’t have) to have even come close.
“Here is my problem. Dawkins postulated the selfishness of genes, which is to say some inexplicable self-possessed drive to replicate in order to perpetuate, or at least prolong, their existence. But from whence does this self-actuating drive arise?”
heart, what does a simple metaphor have to do with all of that? There is no “self-actuating drive”; replicators replicate. Double helix, ya know?
heart, I get the funny feeling that you not only haven’t read “The Selfish Gene,” but haven’t even read Dawkins’ explanation of it.
Lets put it this way…most people have no problem with organ transplantation. Is it NOT the same thing?Posted by: political_mom | November 26, 2006 at 12:10 PM
To that I’d say no. You are taking from a life that is ended, not beginning.
I know that it is redundant to ask, but I still would like to know why the RR was a problem with stem cell research but does NOT have a problem with those same cells being thrown in the trash.
How does that thought process work?
WS
“How does that thought process work?”
Well….. it doesn’t.Every single person who is against stem cell research must by default be against fertility clinics. There is no way in logic around it.
I don’t know anyone who has a fundamental problem with the research and use of cells that are headed for the trash bin.The problem I have is in the creation of for the use of research and nothing else. It is akin to cloning as far as I’m concerned at that point.
In response to Mr. KIA’s comment, can anyone tell me if there are restrictions on fertility clinics to donate their excess products to research labs?
Rage, not a convincing rejoindre.
“Replicators replicate.”
I read Dawkins and social scientists’ commentaries on the selfish gene three decades ago. Maybe I misunderstood the matter then, or maybe my recollection is faulty (which I know it is, alas, in many things).
Anyway, I am going to leave this discussion. I intend to read The God Delusion. May report back on it when an appropriate thread arises.
“ksag, you express well-considered, thoughtful points as usual.
Here is my problem. Dawkins postulated the selfishness of genes, which is to say some inexplicable self-possessed drive to replicate in order to perpetuate, or at least prolong, their existence. But from whence does this self-actuating drive arise?”
That’s NOT what Dawkins postulated actually. What he did is use the ANALOGY of “selfish” genes to indicate that natural selection acts on a genetic level as well as an individual, famililial, population, and species level. Dawkins uses a similar analogy when he came up with “memes”, kind of an analogy between beliefs/concepts/behavioral templates and genes. Genes that code for traits and behavioral dispositions can be “selfish” in that the traits they encode for successfully result in the gene being replicated. That doesn’t mean that Dawkins actually attributes “selfishness” to genes, and certainly doesn’t mean that they have some “inexplicable, self possessed drive”.
This is similar to your running mischaracterization of Darwin’s theory of natural selection as a theory that assumes selfishness and self centeredness. Any trait, including selflessness, can by and large result in leaving more offspring under the right circumstances (such as selflessness in a community of closely related individuals such as ant sisters). The motivation may arise (and does among relatively large brained and long lived creatures) from a generic tendency to bond and have emotional attachments, but that doesn’t make such a trait any less successful under most reproductive circumstances the creatures find themselves in.
“Any trait, including selflessness, can by and large result in leaving more offspring under the right circumstances (such as selflessness in a community of closely related individuals such as ant sisters). ”
While we’re on the subject. . .http://www.amazon.com/Good-Natured-Origins-Humans-Animals/dp/0674356616/ref=pd_sim_b_2/105-3328485-2502844
Frans de Waal is an incredible writer. I strongly recommend all of his books, starting with Chimpanzee Politics.
Been revisiting The Selfish Gene. Dawkins argues that genes don’t think or have motives, but natural selection selects the “fittest” for greater replication than “less fit” genes. But, as I recalled correctly, the academic research underlying the book, and its reception, focused strongly on social behavior, which relates to brains, and which in the case of higher-level species, demonstrate what we may call motives, such as survival and propagation (in service to the unmotivated gene).
The God Delusion, which I am reading now, is insightful. It is quite funny in places, which Dawkins intended (he dedicated it to Douglas Adams).
Dawkins asserts that religious propositions, and even fundamental beliefs, are subject to scientific investigation, and in his opinion science disproves traditional religion, if not absolutely, then at least on a highly probabilistic basis. Dawkins considers himself and many other scientists to be “religious”, but in a completely different way than that normally understood by the general populace.
He cites Einstein’s definition of religion as the embodiment of his own. I perused this matter in Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” this morning, including a presentation the physicist made to a group of liberal theologians in 1951, upon reading Dawkins’ explanation of Einstein’s personal “religion”, as essentially atheistic. But Einstein, unlike Dawkins, supported others’ rights to their own beliefs, and commended the Jewish-Christian religion. I don’t think he did this cynically.
Dawkins repeatedly raises the issue, “If God intelligently designed, the universe, then who intelligently designed God?” I remember grappling with this matter at the age of 9 or 10, as well as the inherent conflict between science and religion. Since I wanted to concentrate on learning science, I let these matters go.
Dawkins, thus far in my reading, fails to deal with a fundamental principle that traditional believers in God /YHWH/ Allah know that his existence cannot be proved, which is to say, this is why belief in him is called faith.
He uses some patently unsound heuristic devices, such as Russell’s orbiting teapot, the unicorn and Oregon physics grad student Bobby Henderson’s Flying Spaghetti Monster to try to convince the reader that belief in something that cannot be disproved does not mean is real, which would on its face of course be true for the examples pers se, but he then uses this to discredit hundreds of millions of Christians’, Muslims’ and Jews’ faith in an unprovable God, by analogy. This is sophistry. No one believes in orbiting teapots or flying spaghetti monsters, and there is no evidence there was ever even a tiny cult whose belief system incorporated unicorns as an essential element of that system.
Of critical importance, Dawkins lambastes the late Stephen Jay Gould’s and other scientists’ and theologians’ contention that science and religion deal with two different, both valid, realms.
This reflects Dawkins’ premise that because natural selection alone creates all biological phenomenon, including human ideas (memes), ideas of God per se represent natural selection, in this case one of natural selection’s mistakes.
One can understand why athiestic evolutionary scientists are reluctant to publicly side with Dawkins’ contention, at least in America, because they can surely remember the Robert Maplethorpe incident and the National Endowment for the Arts funding flap. Most of the scientists rely on taxpayer funding for their livelihoods. The American Society of Athiests isn’t exactly prepared to pony up tens of millions of dollars annually to enable athiest scientists to perform god-disproving research. So the scientists have good reason to play a clever game of fence-sitting, at least for public observation. (In The Selfish Gene Dawkins states that deception is intrinsic to life, as a universal natural selection mechanism.)
But of course it isn’t Americans’ obligation to pay for the advancement of ideologies they hold to be repugnant, which the scientists at least acknowledge to be a politically inarguable fact. Tolerance is not the same as paying hard-earned family dollars for such ideologies’ promotion.
If natural selection is truly incompatible with religion, then perhaps the best solution is vouchers for the public funding of education, because you cannot use public facilities to proselytize, particularly facilities in which attendance is compelled by the state. You can have voucher-funded private schools that teach natural selection, and thus promote athiesm (if natural selection is inherently only compatible with athiesm, as Dawkins concludes after much deliberation) on such a basis as there exists a natural-selection-market for it. That might be a very small market in Kansas, but very large in California. It might grow in Kansas over time, or it might shrink.
heartlander…………………. give it up on the vouchers. It will never be right to put public tax dollars in to private schools for ANY reason.
Apophis, let’s do what thoughtful debators do, and try to get to the core of our differences.
Do you oppose Pell and/or veterans-benefit grants (originally popularly referred to as “GI Bill of Rights” benefits) being used to pay students’ tuition costs at private colleges and universities?
If you object to either or both of the above, please state your reasons.
Apples and Oranges heartlander.
May we infer that your terse metaphorical response reflects an approval of federal funding for “oranges” i.e. private tertiary education?
heartlander, you stated that “it isn’t Americans’ obligation to pay for the advancement of ideologies they hold to be repugnant” Do you known anyone who agrees with *every* budget decision of our government?
It seems to boil down to yet another power issue: who should decide what gets taught in public schools?
Parents? Experts in each respective field?
You stated, “if natural selection is truly incompatible with religion . . . ” Do you accept the fact that natural selection occurs? If so, then how can one argue against having that fact taught in public school science classes?
(Oh, I forgot. According to you, science teachers seem to be little more than pond scum in terms of IQ. And, *anyone* who’s attended public school is automatically an expert in education.)
Some religions have also viewed germ theory as bogus. Lightning rods were opposed because they interfered with God’s will. Should germ theory and the study of lightning have been avoided because of their apparent conflict with certain religious sects’ beliefs? Nope – and it’s unconstitutional to *avoid* teaching required curriculum because of religious considerations.
IMHO, Dawkins is just as much a fundamentalist as the IDcreationism proponents. They’re ascribing more power to science than it can ever have – that we can disprove or prove God’s existence by looking up the backside of a flagellum. Or via the anthropocentric outlook – that a puddle, waking one morning, delights in the fact that the hole was made just the right size and shape for it.
Most of us believe in a God much bigger than that, one who can work through RMNS to accomplish whatever goals He has in mind.
“Holy Scripture was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” – Cardinal Baronius
csa, nice try, but sophistry doesn’t work with me.
Dawkins speaks for a lot of atheist social scientists who have invented constructs such as, natural selection is truth, and so, the true natural selection faithful can posit that religious beliefs represent natural selection, the imperfect side of it.
Dawkins gives the example of a moth that flies into a candle-flame. It’s not trying to self-sacrifice, it has an eye mechanism that has, through natural selection, been designed to deal with parallel-light-beam stars and moon. It cannot correctly process information from a nearby splayed-light candle. He doesn’t talk about nocturnal flying insects gathering around outdoor lights, but he could. The scientific explanation, i.e. the physics of light-data processing, does not require invoking natural selection.
Anyway, Dawkins cites other social scientists on the matter of religion’s representing mal-information-processing. To wit, children’s accepting adults’ lessons as truth is self-protecting, but the insertion of religious ideas causing young, gullible people to accept adults’ false religious lessons, is an error.
Dawkins, at age 9, heard a chaplain give a lesson about some soldiers ordered to cross a railroad track. The sargeant lost attention, and somesoldiers, trained to follow orders, walked to their deaths in front of a train. And Dawkins believed this story. And at that age, he accepted the point: follow orders.
I’m sorry, but at age 9, I was a skeptic. I would not have believed the story that Dawkins did. Any conscious person would have either jumped over the track before the train crossed, or else waited until it passed. The rails were only 5 feet wide.
I’m sorry that Dawkins was subjected to total falsity as a child, and believed it, but this indicates an information-processing deficit on his part.
Basically, and some of you won’t get this, Darwinism is Mercantilism hijacks Biology.
Dawkins spent two years as an assistant professor in the UC Berkeley zoology department. He wanted a promotion to tenured associate-professor level, but was denied it. According to Berkeley biology faculty-promotion standards, he just wasn’t a great, originally-thinking young biologist who merited tenure acceleration.
No heartlander, you may not make inferences. You do that way too often and as a result have become the blog buffoon when it comes to public education matters. I will not engage you in a “debate” on your terms.
heartlander………….who are these “people” you have forwarded my posts to, more of your elitist crowd?
I think it was CSA who put it best: You think any and all public school science teachers are “pond scum”. You make assumptions that none have us has never done any really science. You know what they say about people like you who make ass-umptions.
My comment about “apples and oranges” is about your attempt to couple public education funding with the GI Bill and similar federal government initiatives. It IS apples and oranges.
The stupidest thing you posted today was the assertion that: “You’re [Apophis] a toady of the right-wing Anglo-American capitalists.” Look in a mirror heartlander, I think you are describing yourself.
Vouchers have little to do with choice. Every parent currently has the choice to send their children to any school they choose. That sounds like your “FREEDOM FOR PEOPLE TO CHOOSE” mantra. What I oppose is using public tax dollars for non-public education (that would include Charter schools that are exempt from the same requirements as public schools).
Finally, heartlander, the readers and contributers here see who and what you are. You are an elitist who thinks he is an expert on everything by virtue that you claim to hold a doctorate and once lived in California. So what?
Now how did my post to heartlander get posted before his? My computer clock says 8:48 pm when his post is posted at 9:11 pm. Whatever, my post was typed after I read his.
Aophis, I’ve forwarded our interactions to other people. Smart people. I did this because I thought, “Maybe I’m wrong.” They said, I was wrong–to engage with you, because you don’t want to debate. They told me that you just want to propagandize.
For example, on my question about supporting or not supporting government funding of private tertiary education, you said “Apples and Oranges”. But you failed to clarify if you supported federal funding for one or the other.
Don’t worry about not debating me. Heads-up readers will recognize the difference between us. I’ve done scientific research from the age of 5. You haven’t. You think it’s possible to be a “science teacher” without having actually DONE science, which is an oxymoron, something many WEBlog readers here can discern. You just pass on textbook orthodoxy, because that was what you were trained to do.
You don’t want to make a statement condemning public financing of private-college education, because you know that your position would be totally skewerable, in facts like most of our nation’s Nobel Laureates and a large proportion of National Academy of Sciences members received federal funding for their private-institution tertiary educations.
You don’t want to make a statement supporting public funding of private tertiary education, because then you’d have to face arguments about public funding for sub-tertiary private education as well.
You know you cannot win in a fact-examination debate. This is the reason you won’t debate. Unfortunately, people like you are torpedoing public schools. You’re a toady of the right-wing Anglo-American capitalists. Who do you think created public education? I mean COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE FOR THE COMMONERS public education. In a system that rewarded students who were susceptible to indoctrination, and punished those who were not susceptible.
You don’t want vouchers because they would mean FREEDOM FOR PEOPLE TO CHOOSE. You don’t want choice, do you. Really, you should admit it here, because if you don’t, readers here will see that Apophis just wants coercive state indoctrination.
Hello heartlander,
Interesting that you label my comments as sophistry . . . but you’re still avoiding some questions.
Do you accept that natural selection occurs?
Why should public monies pay for vouchers for private religious instruction?
Why shouldn’t charter schools be held to the same standards for admission and accountability as public schools?
Most parents in KS are able to send their kids to any public school they choose in their district. In states like Ohio, this choice is extended to public schools in contiguous districts. How is this NOT freedom of choice?
What is Darwinism, and where is it taught?
Happy winter!
“Been revisiting The Selfish Gene. Dawkins argues that genes don’t think or have motives, but natural selection selects the “fittest” for greater replication than “less fit” genes. But, as I recalled correctly, the academic research underlying the book, and its reception, focused strongly on social behavior, which relates to brains, and which in the case of higher-level species, demonstrate what we may call motives, such as survival and propagation (in service to the unmotivated gene). ”
But you seem to miss the point that MOTIVES do not equal REASONS why a behavior or set of behaviors has reproductive value. For example, tendencies for empathy or social bonding among ourselves, our closest primate relatives, and other intelligent social animals would generally favor genetic kin, but that doesn’t mean that it would always favor genetic kin or even members of our own species.
“The God Delusion, which I am reading now, is insightful. It is quite funny in places, which Dawkins intended (he dedicated it to Douglas Adams).
Dawkins asserts that religious propositions, and even fundamental beliefs, are subject to scientific investigation, and in his opinion science disproves traditional religion, if not absolutely, then at least on a highly probabilistic basis. Dawkins considers himself and many other scientists to be “religious”, but in a completely different way than that normally understood by the general populace.”
I haven’t read Dawkins’ latest book yet. I probably will eventually, but I suspect that it will be an expansion of arguments he has been making for years. Interestingly, although metaphysically I probably agree with much of what he has written (I no more assume the existence of the Christian God than he does) I do strongly disagree with him in two respects:
1) That science disproves any sort of god, particularly any sort of theistic god. I do think that any anthropomorphic god worshipped by human beings is equally improbable. However, even a theistic god, one who might interfere in the workings of a universe it created, is while extremely unlikely not impossible. I do not think metaphysical naturalism disproves the existence of such a being, even though I see no reason or evidence that such a being exists or is required to exist.
2) Given my first disagreement with him, I also disagree with Dawkins that acceptance of natural selection in particular leads to atheism. I have read the recent debate between Dawkins and Francis Collins, but while I agree with Dawkins on most of the specifics, the elephant in the room is that…there is a debate taking place between Dawkins and Collins. Both accept evolution as a historical reality biologically speaking, in large part because both of their work and the work of others in their respecitive fields has provided nothing but evidence that is consistent with that viewpoint. But they don’t agree on the existence of God. What that indicates is that scientists are perfectly able to function in methodological naturalistic fields regardless of whether they are atheists or theists or whether they are metaphysical naturalists. My disagreement with people like Dawkins, Harris, or Pigliucci is that theism is different from any other form of philosophical absolutism, which can be found among both atheists or theists.
“He cites Einstein’s definition of religion as the embodiment of his own. I perused this matter in Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” this morning, including a presentation the physicist made to a group of liberal theologians in 1951, upon reading Dawkins’ explanation of Einstein’s personal “religion”, as essentially atheistic. But Einstein, unlike Dawkins, supported others’ rights to their own beliefs, and commended the Jewish-Christian religion. I don’t think he did this cynically.”
You misread Dawkins if you assume that he does not support others’ rights to their own beliefs, what he argues is that people do not have the “right” to hold to those beliefs without criticism. Dawkins is a fierce criticism of theism and religion, to be sure, but he is not out to coerce people away from their faiths.
“One can understand why athiestic evolutionary scientists are reluctant to publicly side with Dawkins’ contention, at least in America, because they can surely remember the Robert Maplethorpe incident and the National Endowment for the Arts funding flap. Most of the scientists rely on taxpayer funding for their livelihoods. The American Society of Athiests isn’t exactly prepared to pony up tens of millions of dollars annually to enable athiest scientists to perform god-disproving research. So the scientists have good reason to play a clever game of fence-sitting, at least for public observation. (In The Selfish Gene Dawkins states that deception is intrinsic to life, as a universal natural selection mechanism.)”
Here’s the thing that Dawkins doesn’t get; so, as a matter of fact, do a number of other evangelical atheists (anti-theist in their beliefs although not necessarily anti-people who are theists):
There are a number of people who are atheists, perhaps because of their workings in methodological naturalistic fields, perhaps because of other reasons, who do not see theism or atheism as relevant. I am philosophically an agnostic in the sense of Thomas Huxley’s original definition. I also qualify as an atheist, but I really don’t think that is particularly important except when I take umbrage on the broad based offensive and incorrect assumptions about atheists as held by a lot of people in this country. Rejection of theism is not a natural or inevitable consequence of the acceptance of evolution as the underlying basis for a multitude of scientific fields. Thus, what he and you see as deception and fence sitting is actually something far simpler. Dawkins and I are both atheists, but he cares about whether people should be atheists or theists, I don’t. He is therefore anti-theistic (philosophically speaking) while I am apatheistic (although I am not apathetic about apatheism). Dawkins and may of those sympathetic with his viewpoint are clearly uncomfortable with apatheism among atheists and even moreso among theists.
“But of course it isn’t Americans’ obligation to pay for the advancement of ideologies they hold to be repugnant, which the scientists at least acknowledge to be a politically inarguable fact. Tolerance is not the same as paying hard-earned family dollars for such ideologies’ promotion.”
Wrong. In particular, it is wrong because natural selection is NOT an IDEOLOGY. The fact that the idea is repugnant to the holders of some ideologies is irrelevent.
“If natural selection is truly incompatible with religion, then perhaps the best solution is vouchers for the public funding of education, because you cannot use public facilities to proselytize, particularly facilities in which attendance is compelled by the state. You can have voucher-funded private schools that teach natural selection, and thus promote athiesm (if natural selection is inherently only compatible with athiesm, as Dawkins concludes after much deliberation) on such a basis as there exists a natural-selection-market for it. That might be a very small market in Kansas, but very large in California. It might grow in Kansas over time, or it might shrink.”
Even assuming the truth of the above claim, which of course I just said that I do not, the above is still extremely bad logic. The ONLY consideration that should govern what is presented in science classes is does the information represent the best practices and best supported information within the fields being studied. The information’s compatibility with prevailing theologies is an irrelevant consideration (for example, there are religious beliefs that are incompatible with the germ theory of disease). There are a lot of theists as well as atheists who understand that. There are even personal creationists who understand that (which amazed me, I didn’t really learn of the existence of this POV until I worked in a school district that both takes a top dollar competetive education very seriously while also being a bastion of social and religious conservatism)! Any science that is taught should reflect the best available information within the relevant fields, and evolution (defined in this case as the common descent of living organisms) is truly the only game in town scientifically speaking, regardless of how it is perceived by SOME theists or even atheists.
Now, it’s time to be blunt.
“Basically, and some of you won’t get this, Darwinism is Mercantilism hijacks Biology.”
I get it. It’s bullshit, pure and simple. The fact that you seem to be able to read some of the source material and still come to this conclusion is representative of your assumptions, nothing more. The elephant in the room in your discussions of evolution is the fact that it has been supported by multiple lines of evidence from multiple fields, that the validity of evolution is the beyond majority position of practitioners in all relevant biological fields, and that deconstructing Darwin or Dawkins (incorrectly by the way) in no way contradicts the validity of evolution.
“Dawkins spent two years as an assistant professor in the UC Berkeley zoology department. He wanted a promotion to tenured associate-professor level, but was denied it. According to Berkeley biology faculty-promotion standards, he just wasn’t a great, originally-thinking young biologist who merited tenure acceleration.”
What a pathetic innuendo with regards to Dawkins’ skills as a scientist! What university employs Dawkins now as a full professor?
Sorry I have been away for so long. I do have a couple of (I believe) relevant points to add. Almost high energy physicists believe in the Higgs particle, and almost all gravitational physicists believe in the graviton. There is absolutely no scientific evidence for either of these particles at this point, but people are trying to think of ways to determine if they exist. This is much the same as the state of the neutrino until it was discovered in 1956 and antimatter until the 90’s. These had never been discovered before those experiments because nobody had developed a method of testing for them. There are many theorists that believe the fundamental nature of the universe is based on strings vibrating in 10 dimensions. This theory is not only untested, but appears to be untestable, yet many scientists at very high levels believe this is true, not from a shred of evidence, but because that is the best theory they can come up with.
My point? Just because something hasn’t been tested (or is untestable) does not make it scientifically unsound.
In response to early questions/attacks on me I will clarify something. I work with superconductors, and one of the most important properties to nail down is the temperatures at which they are superconducting. This can be done several ways including:1) direct measurement of resistivity2) measurement of the dc susceptibility of the sample3) spin flip ratio of polarized neutrons penetrating the sampleI mention this because I asked specifically what evidence you wanted, and I was mocked by people who implied that there is only one type of evidence for any particular property. I would expect this of non-scientists, but that came from some of you claiming to understand scientific methods. I will politely drop that subject completely until someone proposes an experiment, or at least lists the evidence that would prove God (and still be reasonable).
I still assert that Apophis is wrong in his original statement that science has all the answers. I assert this because I posed a question and he admitted that science cannot answer that question (prisoners) and he still claims science has all the answers. Please either answer the question I asked or at least explain how your argument is consistent.
Finally, Apophis I am interested in your credentials. There are others here who seem to know a bit more about you. Where did you study, who did you study under, what scholarly articles have you written, where have you done subsequent research, what activities are you in now, what conferences have you been invited to and so on.
ksagnostic,
Last question answered first. Oxford.
You have to understand the cultural milieu that gave rise to the Wallace-Darwin theory, i.e. natural selection. For example, it’s not even generally called the Wallace-Darwin theory. You don’t see Alfred Wallace’s visage on the UK 10-pound note. Why? Because Alfred Wallace was a “nobody” in British society. Charles Darwin was a member of the wealthy Wedgwood family. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Wallace first propounded natural selection. He corresponded with Darwin. Had he not done this, but instead corrresponded with the Royal Society Secretary, many scholars feel that his manuscript would have been rejected. Nobody knew him, except Darwin. But in corresponding with Darwin, Darwin asserted that Wallace’s ideas were Darwin’s very own, not quite crystallized.
I’m sorry, this is shoddy “science”. The elitestole the credit from the commoner.
Now, Victorian English aristocracy had problems. The common people in England, Scotland and Ireland were starving. England was raping the resources of India and China. How to justify this?Natural selection. Darwin, let’s not forget, in The Descent of Man, held Africans to be in a lower state of evolution than whites. Poorer whites were in a lower state of evolution than richer whites.
How convenient! A scientific theory that legitimized avaricious wealth and privilege in defense against the dirty, primitive, unwashed masses.
There isn’t a bio on Dawkins. The Guardian did a short piece on him two years ago. He was born into a family of colonial forest officers in Kenya. Kenya, as we recall, was one of the many outposts of natural-resource exploitation of the British Empire. The aboriginals weren’t “using” the land, at least not in the profit-generating methods the British conquerors deemed worthwhile. Do you know what theft is? If burglars break into your house, kill you and move in, that’s a crime. If a powerful, heavily armed capitalist nation invades a small country whose inhabitants live within their own ecology, that’s called “a natural right of superiority”.
Let’s see, a member of a gang of thieves gives us “science”. Gee, call me skeptical, i.e. there’s an ulterior motive to his pontifications.
The Guardian article says, “…Dr Richard Dawkins’s lavish Oxford home.” Do you know what lavish means?
” He is also an unashamed elitist..” The Guardian calls Dawkins an elitist. Apophis calls me an elitist. Excuse me? The Guardian has access to a, lot more information about a celebrity than Apophis has about me.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1268687,00.html
This is why I have called Apophis a toady for capitalists. He needs the capitalist-invented public education system to personally take crumbs from. I don’t.
Dawkins calls human beings machines, even robots. Not himself, necessarily, but the mass of humanity. Who here doesn’t believe that is a capitalist-industrialist construct? If you don’t, you need to read late-19th-century/early-20th-century European and American history. Maybe some of you don’t get it, but millions of Europeans were recruited to America to become human machines. How do you think the coal and iron mines and factories worked? Why don’t you watch Charlie Chaplin’s classic film “Modern Times”?
Dawkins’ thinking has been labeled “19th century”, according to his own appraisal in “The God Delusion”. Wake up, it IS 19th century.
Dawkins is on his THIRD marriage. Of course he hates religion, because it would cramp his lifestyle. Like staying with one woman violates “Natural Selection”. Not actually, because in The God Delusion, he talks about monogamy as a natural-selection-driven phenomenon. So he is personally ABOVE natural selection himself. But it’s nice money-making propaganda. (His personal riches aren’t likely to increase his daughter’s procreation potential. His wealth is way beyond that.)
I have been accused of misunderstanding natural selection in calling it chance-based.
The modern theory is based on, among other things, the principle of Mendelian inheritance. Let’s put it this way. You copulate. The spermatozoa have different gene complements, based on chance events like point mutations, DNA-crossovers, and the shuffling of chromosomes. Same for the ova. Which sperm gets to fertilize which egg? It’s a matter of chance. Some spermatozoa may be defective, but millions are fully functional.
In the open ocean, a tuna nails an anchovie. Is the anchovie less fit than its counterparts? No. It’s just a matter of luck who gets eaten and who doesn’t.
A cheetah hunts a gazelle herd. It goes after the young, and catches one. Does that mean the prey is less fit? No, it means that the cheetah would have caught a different one had it happened upon the other side of the herd. That’s chance. Or a cheetah or lion catches an old doe that is beyond her reproductive years and is limping around.
Or a mussel releases larvae. They’re plankton. A plankton feeder sucks thousands in. Some get away. Are the survivors more genetically adapt at survival? No. Some larvae then attach to a rock. Later larvae with virtually the exact same genes can’t find a space, or do, but the older mussels suck off the nutrients, and the later arrivals die. On other rocks, the new generation with the same genetics finds a foothold and reproduces. This is chance.Below this we have chemical events. Which according to science are matters of chance. Where is an electron in this atom? We don’t know exactly, but we can envision a probability space. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents absolute measurement. Life is based on atomic events.
To say that natural selection doesn’t rest on chance is to state one’s ignorance.
How amazingly predictable! When you can’t attack the idea, you attack the person who had it.Well over a century ago, Thomas Paine, who wrote much that has been incorporated into the American ideal, was castigated as a “filthy little atheist, an alcoholic who,” as the story went, “had a futile deathbed conversion as the flames of Hell rose up to consume him!” All documented and everything.The famous Republican agnostic and orator, Robert Ingersoll worked for some years and disproved those lies and exposed the people who fabricated the accounts and spread them as gospel truth.Several years ago, I listened as televangelist Pat Robertson repeated the exact same story about Ingersoll, as if it were gospel!It never ends!
Dawkins, the child of elitists, was also sent to boarding school. My spouse and I could have done this with our children, and we considered it as a way to give them a strong formal education. But boarding school inflicts costs, such as inflicting hurt on children. They can’t understand why their parents don’t want them. Or else, if they consider it to be better than staying with their parents, they come from very dysfunctional families. So which is it, for Dr. Clinton Richard Dawkins? Did he suffer alienation going to boarding school, or was it an improvement over his life with his parents?
I’m sorry for some of you who don’t get it, but familial pathology is not a sound foundation for science. Some of you may say “it’s irrelevant”, but it very relevant.
I’ve been asked, do I believe in natural selection, or not. That’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is pro-natural-selection adherents going to court and testifying that religion, i.e. Christianity and Judaism, are a phenomenon of natural selection, gone awry. If the natural selection witnesses have intellectual honesty, and do this, you know precisely what will happen. The judges will rule that ID should be allowed, because judges are political calculators.
“You have to understand the cultural milieu that gave rise to the Wallace-Darwin theory, i.e. natural selection. For example, it’s not even generally called the Wallace-Darwin theory. You don’t see Alfred Wallace’s visage on the UK 10-pound note. Why? Because Alfred Wallace was a “nobody” in British society. Charles Darwin was a member of the wealthy Wedgwood family. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Wallace first propounded natural selection. He corresponded with Darwin. Had he not done this, but instead corrresponded with the Royal Society Secretary, many scholars feel that his manuscript would have been rejected. Nobody knew him, except Darwin. But in corresponding with Darwin, Darwin asserted that Wallace’s ideas were Darwin’s very own, not quite crystallized.
I’m sorry, this is shoddy “science”. The elitestole the credit from the commoner.”
The history between Wallace and Darwin, and the meticulous records kept by Darwin, dating back to 1839, strongly contradict your version of these events. Darwin was able to recount how he came to this theory, and he was very above board in his dealings with Wallace. Both of their works were presented together in 1857 to the Linnean Society.
“Now, Victorian English aristocracy had problems. The common people in England, Scotland and Ireland were starving. England was raping the resources of India and China. How to justify this?Natural selection. Darwin, let’s not forget, in The Descent of Man, held Africans to be in a lower state of evolution than whites. Poorer whites were in a lower state of evolution than richer whites.
“How convenient! A scientific theory that legitimized avaricious wealth and privilege in defense against the dirty, primitive, unwashed masses.”
What an incalculably stupid argument! Or has it missed your attention that the very hotbed of American slavery was the American South, a bastion then as now of religious fundamentalism? Do you realize that one of the reasons that evolution was widely opposed in the American South was that many fundamentalist Christians at the time asserted that human “races”, like other animals, were seperate creations? You really think that Darwin came up with evolution to justify colonialism?? Or that such a theory was needed to justify such colonialism??? In the face of what? Fitzroy, the fundamentalist Captain of the Beagle, was a dedicated colonialist and became very angry at Darwin for his objection to slavery. You appear to hold Darwin’s prejudices, which unfortunarely were typical of the time, against him and yet ignore the fact that they were indeed typical of the time. You seem to be channeling William Jennings Bryan.
“There isn’t a bio on Dawkins. The Guardian did a short piece on him two years ago. He was born into a family of colonial forest officers in Kenya. Kenya, as we recall, was one of the many outposts of natural-resource exploitation of the British Empire. The aboriginals weren’t “using” the land, at least not in the profit-generating methods the British conquerors deemed worthwhile. Do you know what theft is? If burglars break into your house, kill you and move in, that’s a crime. If a powerful, heavily armed capitalist nation invades a small country whose inhabitants live within their own ecology, that’s called “a natural right of superiority”.
Let’s see, a member of a gang of thieves gives us “science”. Gee, call me skeptical, i.e. there’s an ulterior motive to his pontifications.”
We are descendents of the same sort of colonial conquering presumptions. Ask the native americans. You’re not skeptical heartlander, you’re ranting. You have nothing really to contradict the validity of evolutionary science, so you attack it on the basis of innuendo about social theory. And you still are completely ignoring the elephant in the room.
” ‘He is also an unashamed elitist..’ The Guardian calls Dawkins an elitist. Apophis calls me an elitist. Excuse me? The Guardian has access to a lot more information about a celebrity than Apophis has about me.”
Or that you have about Apophis for that matter, other than the fact that he teaches in a public school and you have expressed a disdain for the level of education of public school teachers in this very thread. Are you really this ironically challenged?
“This is why I have called Apophis a toady for capitalists. He needs the capitalist-invented public education system to personally take crumbs from. I don’t.”
See above about you chiding Apophis to making assumptions about you while you make assumptions about him.
“Dawkins is on his THIRD marriage. Of course he hates religion, because it would cramp his lifestyle. Like staying with one woman violates “Natural Selection”. Not actually, because in The God Delusion, he talks about monogamy as a natural-selection-driven phenomenon. So he is personally ABOVE natural selection himself. But it’s nice money-making propaganda. (His personal riches aren’t likely to increase his daughter’s procreation potential. His wealth is way beyond that.)”
I have already pointed out to you multiple times that your attacks on Darwin and Dawkins are irrelevant with regards to the fact the evolution (common descent among species) is widely accepted by the overwhelmingly vast majority of practioners of relevant fields. You continue blithely on attacking Dawkins and Darwin for their “elitist” backgrounds as if that entirely explains their reasoning and reasons for developing theories of evolution and their advocacy for same. This last is nothing more than a ad hominum red herring. You have officially melted down heartlander. Your personal attack on Dawkins’ personal life is nothing less than pathetic. Or do you think that people who serially marry or have affairs or whatever need to attack religion to justify their behavior, or that religion keeps them from such behavior. Never mind the fact that Darwin was a self professed agnostic who was extremely faithful and considerate to his wife Emma for many years.
For that matter, as you can see, I myself am a passionate defender of the concept of evolution. I am an agnostic and an atheist. I was married to a wonderful woman who was also an atheist for 17 years before she died, and I am going to marry another wonderful woman who is an atheist. We both work with students in schools that most people would see as difficult, and that some of the most heartless economic theorists would consider unworthy of survival under social Darwinism (which, by the way, was not Darwin’s idea and in fact probably would have horrified him). You use what you see as Dawkins personal flaws to attack his viewpoints and reasoning for those viewpoints. In doing so, you communicate very nasty assumptions about others who would agree with at least some of Dawkins’ viewpoints, which includes me and mine. Hard not to take it personally.
Your latest comments on this thread are totally unworthy of respect. You’re embarrassing yourself, you clearly don’t know what you are talking about. Please stop.
http://www.life.umd.edu/emeritus/reveal/pbio/darwin/dw01.html
Correction:
The presentation of both Darwin’s and Huxley’s work took place in 1858.
KSagnostic,Could you please explain how you are both an agnostic and an atheist? I don’t quite see how that works. Thank you
CSA, I would like to chime in on the vouchers for school issue. The money is not public. There is no magical pot of money the government pulls from, they tax us and use that money to set up schools. All vouchers do is let us decide for ourselves where the tax money we are giving actually goes.
Also, Congress is not allowed to pass any law prohibiting the free practice of religion. Cutting off religious schools from funds provided non-religious schools is a law discriminating based on religion. How is discrimination based on religion any different than passing a law prohibiting the practice of religion?
This is not public money used for public schools. This is money taken from private individuals used for public schools. Personally I think we ought to be able to choose how to use the social part of our taxes. Let me plan my own retirement, health care, and education.
That being said, I will try to post on the given topic in the future.
“KSagnostic,Could you please explain how you are both an agnostic and an atheist? I don’t quite see how that works. Thank you”
From Thomas Huxley’s reply to Henry Wace on the subject of agnosticism:
“Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, “Try all things, hold fast by that which is good”; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.”
I particularly take the negatively expressed principle to heart. I require a considerable degree of evidence to believe in something. I figure that something is or is not, regardless of what be believe about it, or how passionately we believe about it.
That being said, I see personally see no evidence for an anthropomorphic Christian God, and I see plenty of historical evidence that the Christian faith is as historically and geographically contingent as any other faith. Thus, I am no more inclined to believe it than I am to believe in Zeus. I tell you this not to challenge your own faith, but to simply explain my own point of view.
As to whether the universe is an intelligent artifact, I see no reason that it necessarily must be one. Doesn’t mean that it isn’t, but no evidence has been discovered that I would find convincing. But if such a being does exist, my skepticism has no effect on its existence.
I am therefore, by definition, also an atheist because I lack a belief in god or gods, except maybe in the most pantheistic sense. However, I really don’t assign much importance to my being an atheist any more than I assign much importance to my being an abigfootist. And I try not to assume anything else about a person who expresses a strong theistic belief. That makes me an apatheist.
Despire what you might have heard, atheism does not necessarily describe an active disbelief in any god. A person who doesn’t believe in any gods because s/he hasn’t been convinced of their existence also qualifies as an atheist.
“Also, Congress is not allowed to pass any law prohibiting the free practice of religion. Cutting off religious schools from funds provided non-religious schools is a law discriminating based on religion. How is discrimination based on religion any different than passing a law prohibiting the practice of religion?”
I think you’re confusing secularism with opposition to religion. It’s not. Providing funds for public schools, which are available to all citizens regardless of their faith, and requiring no expression of faith, is not the same thing as providing funds for private schools that represent specific religious viewpoints, and require support for those viewpoints from families, faculty, and students. If members of some faiths are uncomfortable with the pluralism of public schools, finding such pluralism contradictory to their own faiths is their issue, and not accomodating that discomfort is not the same as discriminating against them.
You did quote Descartes. I am just wondering what you think of his deconstruction. Do you think his deconstruction is complete? If so, how do you go about reconstructing? If it is not complete, where do you think his flaw is?This might appear unrelated, but you made the statement that you require a considerable amount of evidence to believe in something. What evidence proves to you that your senses are valid? That is, how can you prove there is no “evil genius” in Descartes’ view, or in more modern terms, how can you believe we are not in the matrix? What proof do you have that you are not schizophrenic, other than evidence that a schizophrenic could create in their own mind?
I guess what I don’t get is how can you have an honest world view without believing in things that haven’t been proven? (like your lack of schizophrenia and the validity of your senses)
Just to clarify I am not accusing you of being schizophrenic, I am just asking how can you prove that to yourself? It seems any proof you might introduce a schizophrenic person would believe in their own mind as well.
But if the federal government blocked funds to groups that taught things like social equality between different races most atheists would be very upset (with good cause). The idea that races deserve equal treatment under the law is a social idea, but one that we believe ought to be taught in public schools. We do not hold that belief because of scientific research, but rather just because an overwhelming majority of Americans agree.
Why would we never allow blocking of funds to a group that preaches social equality, but allow blocking funds for a group that preaches Jesus?
Chad……….my credentials are really none of your business.
You quickly earning a place in the “heartlander melt-down club”. Your vision of the world is so tainted by you personal religious beliefs that that cannot see clearly.
I guess from a social Darwinian point of view I don’t see how the two are different. Each is a set of beliefs that man has come up with to try to improve his social condition, or at least the perception thereof.
I am not stating this as my personal belief, I believe there is a huge difference between Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus, but if you do not believe in any sort of divine entity, how can you say one world view can be funded but not another? How is a secular world view different from a religious one?
I see a difference, but I am asking for a difference from a non-religious argument.
should read: “that you cannot see clearly”
“Why would we never allow blocking of funds to a group that preaches social equality, but allow blocking funds for a group that preaches Jesus?”
Social equality is good for society.
Preaching Jesus is based only in the beliefs of some.
Apophis, I asked for your credentials since you seem to make a game out of attacking mine. I assume you must not have any decent credentials, and will approach you in the future as if you have no understanding of science.
If you don’t believe I understand the subject please first show that the accreditation system for undergraduate schools in Texas is flawed, along with the accreditation system for graduate schools in Tennessee.
Your vision of the world is so tainted by your personal antagonism towards religion that you cannot see clearly.
JR
They just don’t get it. These nut cases are blinded by their superiority complex.
J R, social equality is based only in the beliefs of some, examples would include Ghandi and King. For most of history there have been very few who believe social equality is a good thing. Many of those would argue that social equality degrades society. I personally don’t believe that, but that is all it is – a personal belief.
For the record Chad, I do not ever remember attacking your credentials. I have questioned your religious bias. I have a very good understanding of science, without a religious bias. I guess that is difficult for you to understand.
For the record, I only have a problem with religon when it is shoved down my throat. Most people do.
I have been looking back, and you are correct, it was not you who was attacking my credentials, and I apologize for projecting others actions on you. That was my mistake. You never attacked my schools or credentials, you have only ever attacked me personally with accusations of blindness, delusion, and stupidity. I realize now you are above attacking credentials and I will do the same. I will not ask for your again as long as you are not attacking mine.
You do need to correct a statement you made. You stated that you only have a problem with religion when it is being shoved down your throat. Come on, that’s not what you meant. I would be willing to wager you would have a huge problem if a teacher in the room next to you was preaching to his class. You have a problem with anyone evangelizing (a big church word for sharing the gospel, in your words shoving religion down someone’s throat) anywhere any time.
Please be honest, at least with what it is that bugs you.
Careful Chad, you’re trying to twist my words around. I meant exactly what I said. Religion has NO place in a classroom other than a comparative religion class or something similar. Teaching any of the pseudoscience that the ID/creationists peddle in a Science class is just wrong. Believe in what you want, but try to sell it to me as real science.
Heartlander, Ted Haggard gave blow jobs to male prostitutes while on meth. Therefore, using your logic, Ted rejects science because it would cramp his social lifestyle.
This is how fundamentalists debate science, they criticize the scientists, not the science. That’s why none of you have ever presented evidence for souls, virgin births, gods, or a 6,000 year old Earth.
On the other hand a new species of lionfish was found to have evolved in the Red Sea. Perhaps more scientists are Atheist because fundamentalists preach nonsense like you can’t accept the fact of evolution and still believe in a god. Clearly since evolution is true and creationism has no empirical, scientific support it’s easier to side with science than believe in fundamentalism.
Doug………you’re going to cause heartlander to have a major meltdown! ROFL
Remember, he claims to be an MD so he must be much more intelligent than WE are.
Again I apologize for twisting your words. Please explain to me how the following statements are not personal attacks. I must have misunderstood, and I would love for you to clarify.”These nut cases are blinded by their superiority complex.”"Sorry Chad you are deluded.”"I guess that is difficult for you to understand.”
On to the subject…I agree that ID is not pure science, it is merely an interpretation of the data. There are some serious scientists who seem to believe that the layout of the universe seems to point to a creator. This is interpretation just as surely as the Copenhagen interpretation is an interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (the idea that observing an event collapses its wavefunction).
However, all that is taught in most biology classes is interpretation. “Germs exist,” “dogs are carnivores,” “evolution occurs,” and so on are all interpretations of data. Granted, some interpretations (conclusions) seem to fit the data much better, but fundamentally they are all interpretations. Students are not frequently given the raw data that led scientists to come to the conclusions. Perhaps the best way to approach ID in the classroom is to discuss the data (cosmic background radiation, fundamental constants of the universe, complexity of life, apparent origins, and so on) and the possible conclusions. Then maybe we should let the students come to their own conclusions.
What is wrong with presenting the data, and the conclusions that many scientists have come to on either side?
Not to get caught in the crossfire, Chad, but where is there ANY scientific evidence of ID/Creationism?
I have asked this question of others numerous times and have yet to get an answer.
If there is no scientific evidence, then it can’t be taught in science class.
BTW – Life is too complex, yada yada, is not scientific evidence.
The idea is that ID is an interpretation. Life is too complex is an interpretation of data. Finding bones is data, assuming there was an animal is an interpretation. Having a bone is not the same as having an animal. Looking at pollen particles vibrating is not the same as “seeing” atoms (Brownian motion), atoms are only an interpretation of the data. Complexity of life is data, ID is an interpretation. If we are going to throw out interpretations there are many things we have to get rid of, including evolution. Bones are data, evolution is an interpretation.
Chad, you try to make it sound so simplistic……..”What is wrong with presenting the data, and the conclusions that many scientists have come to on either side?” This is just a warping of logic in order to back door ID into the classroom. The Dover decision stated that ID is clearly creationism. Creationism in the public school classroom as science violates the Establishment Clause in the 1st amendment. you need to stop trying to insert your religion into science, it isn’t going to happen no matter how much you try to twist things around. Ask Connie Morris about her bashing of science as “an age-old fairy tale”.
“Finding bones is data, assuming there was an animal is an interpretation.”
If the bones are not evidence of an animal, then what could they be? I am sure that “they were planted by the Devil” is not a reasonable interpretation.
Evolution does not presume to answer the question of the origins of the universe, it merely explains, scientifically, the progress of the species over time on Earth.
WSClark, do you ever feel like your banging your head against a wall trying to get through to the anti-evolution crowd?
Every day, Apophis, unfortunately, every day….
“…if a teacher in the room next to you was preaching to his class. You have a problem with anyone evangelizing….”
The former is quite properly illegal. The latter is just annoying.
I don’t believe in your god. Even if I did, I don’t get the whole worship and offering up praises thing. What? God needs reaffirmation?Oh yeah, the “thou shalt have no gods before me” bit DOES speak to ego issues.No I’d require that he answer some questions and make with the blessings.
Science I trust. Science I can hold in my hands.
I will concede the Dover decision occurred. However, since when have the courts decided what is scientifically valid? Doesn’t that sound like the middle ages Catholic Church deciding? Who gave a political entity the authority to decide science? I believe we were discussing science&religion originally. The Dover decision stands, but does that make it right? “Separate but equal” stood for quite a while, but did that make it right? Was it somehow magically wrong when Topeka vs. Board of education came through?
I still hold that ID is an interpretation held by many scientists just as gravitons and the Higgs particle is an interpretation held by many scientists.
I also hold that science does not have the answer to all the important questions in life.
I also hold that science depends fundamentally on the philosophy of causality.
I am headed out, and will not be able to write again until tomorrow.
Clark, I never claimed that some interpretations were obvious while others were less obvious. However, that does not change the fact that supposing an animal is still an interpretation.JR, your point is a good one, and one I would love to discuss at length. However, you say you can hold science in your hands at the risk of upsetting Doug. He has jumped on everyone so far who speaks of science as an actual thing or person. Just a warning.
The Dover decision was fundamentally correct per our Constitution. Is there anything more that needs to be said? You have the freedom to believe in whatever deity you wish, but that freedom does not extend to pushing your belief system off onto someone else under the guise of “interpretation of scientific data”. The sounds straight from the mouth of that idiot from the ID network who came to Wichita last July to spread his garbage around right before the KS BOE primary election.
“However, that does not change the fact that supposing an animal is still an interpretation. ”
I have some turkey “bones” in my ‘fridge – should I consider the “possibility” that they are not from an actual turkey?
Chad, judges don’t decide what is scientifically valid. They quite properly leave that up to the consensus of the scientific community – like the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, as well as the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association of Physics Teachers and the National Association of Biology Teachers. None of these entities support the teaching of ID as science in public high schools. Who are *you* – or anybody else in this discussion – to know better than these tens of thousands of experts?
(All of whom, coincidentally, blasted the 2005 KS science standards which seem to parallel your views. Don’t feel bad though – the Discovery Institute and the Institute for Creation Research *loved* them!)
What the judges decide is whether a school system is in violation of the constitution by promoting or endorsing religious views. All evidence – so delightfully explicated in the Dover decision – points to ID as just an evolved form of creationism, so it was ruled out of bounds for teaching as science in public schools.
Bottom line? The Discovery Institute (ID’s think tank where no actual scientific research is performed) has relied on influencing school boards and legislatures around the nation to get ID/’teach the controversy’/'controversial issues template’ taught as science. The reaction to the Dover decision is a case of sour grapes; the plan to get school boards and legislatures to stamp ID as science failed, and ID supporters are whining because a federal judge saw through their PR machine.
I want to retract my statement about the British in Africa. They were not thieves. They were heroes who fought valiantly to free the land and end the oppression of black people who were scandalously abusing it.
Howdy, heartlander!
Do you accept that natural selection occurs?
Why should public monies pay for vouchers for private religious instruction?
Why shouldn’t charter schools be held to the same standards for admission and accountability as public schools?
Most parents in KS are able to send their kids to any public school they choose in their district. In states like Ohio, this choice is extended to public schools in contiguous districts. How is this NOT freedom of choice?
What is Darwinism, and where is it taught?
Ta!
He won’t (more correctly “can’t”) answer your questions CSA. heartlander claims he is an MD and clearly above us on the IQ scale. ROFL
Will ANYONE on the side of ID/Creationism please come up with some scientific evidence??????
I cannot understand why this is such a difficult point – if it is science, well, show us the scienctific evidence.
If there is NO evidence, then keep ID/Creationism out of the science classroom.
Seems simple to me……..
Chad, I’m supposing you would be in favor of teaching things like the Holocaust never happened, the Sun revolves around the Earth, lizard aliens are among us posing as humans and other nonsense and just let the kids decide what is really true.
I’m all in favor of teaching the science the supports creationism. Problem is there isn’t any. In the Dover case the creationists were given ample opportunity to present the scientific evidence for creationism and they admitted they had none. So if you are advocating teaching nothing that supports creationism then I agree with you, there is nothing to teach. Therefore I have to wonder why you are babbling about absolutely nothing.
Of course if there is scientific evidence for creationism I’m sure you’ll present that evidence like you have with all of your other scientific positions concerning virgin births, souls, a 6,000 year old Earth, gods and I’ll throw in the creationist claim that the Sun revolves around the Earth.
The IDer’s remind me of the folks that I see on the road today that scrape off a six inch square on their windshields then hit the roads like they have full vision.
Life is easy if you ignore facts.
Here’s one of those nasty little scientific facts supporting evolution:
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=922
Now if you have fully grown humans popping into existence out of nothing then that would be support for creationism. However, that will happen about as soon as Chad actually presents some scientific evidence.
Some of you seek enlightenment by exposing yourself to a broad variety of ideas may benefit from reading the works of an atheist Oxford fellow who converted to Christianity, and later was awarded with a new department to build, in medieval and renaissance literature by the University of Cambridge. As he was Irish, his writing is wonderfully lyrical and rich in allegorical imagery.
He only married once, to an American divorcee of Jewish heritage. She died within a few years of the wedding of bone cancer.
Her husband, the scholar/writer, adopted her two sons by her first marriage, and raised them on his own, exercising a love and altruism that selfish-gene proponents can not understand, and certainly cannot explain through natural-selection, no matter how contorted and tortuous the argument.
The scholar/writer’s name is Clive Staple Lewis.
Heartlander, that earns you a big “so what?” comment.
I think heartlander needs his meds adjusted.
“Her husband, the scholar/writer, adopted her two sons by her first marriage, and raised them on his own, exercising a love and altruism that selfish-gene proponents can not understand, and certainly cannot explain through natural-selection, no matter how contorted and tortuous the argument.”
That tears it.
You really have nothing except and hominum arguments and an appeal to the basest form of bigotry, don’t you? You hold C.S. Lewis up to be a good and altrustic man in contrast to your sliming Dawkins as a self centered son-of-a-bitch. You won’t argue the science except to extoll your personal credentials, when your documented distortions of evolutionary thought and theory are pointed out to you, you simply move on to personally attacking the source as if that would prove your point.
And then you conclude with the statement that people who try to explain altruism and morality through natural means can not understand such altruism. Such a statement is not only blatantly false, it is bigotry of the most appalling sort. I know atheists who have dedicated their lives to Hospice and to the care of people with developmental disabilities. I know atheists who have taken divorced inlaws into their home after the Hurricane Katrina. And I stayed with my wife too, or am I supposed to feel guilty about falling in love with and marrying someone five years later?
You seem to have the quite disturbing ability to read people’s words and yet resolutely interpret what they say through the prism of your pre-existing prejudices and suppositions.
And by the way, the elephant in the room is still untouched.
Finally, as I already pointed out, the colonization of Africa and other parts of the world by European powers was done mainly by creationists who obviously didn’t need evolution to justify their actions or their racism.
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/cg_science_of_racism.htm
“You did quote Descartes. I am just wondering what you think of his deconstruction. Do you think his deconstruction is complete? If so, how do you go about reconstructing? If it is not complete, where do you think his flaw is?This might appear unrelated, but you made the statement that you require a considerable amount of evidence to believe in something. What evidence proves to you that your senses are valid? That is, how can you prove there is no “evil genius” in Descartes’ view, or in more modern terms, how can you believe we are not in the matrix? What proof do you have that you are not schizophrenic, other than evidence that a schizophrenic could create in their own mind?”
I didn’t quote Descartes, I quoted Huxley who referenced Descartes. One of the things about the process of science (as you should know) is that there is a clear attempt to compensate for multiple viewpoints. I myself require different sorts of evidence before I believe something based on how extraordinary the claims appear to be. Is someone says “I saw Joe today”, I have no reason to demand a picture of Joe and the person who told he she saw him together next to a newspaper in a machine dated with today’s date to believe such a statement to be true. However, if that same someone claims with all apparent sincerity that she was attacked by a pack of wolf riding eleves in Town East Mall, I’m going to require a much greater amount of evidence to believe it. And I freely acknowledge all the way that my belief or lack of belief does not affect the reality or unreality of both claims.
Anti-evolutionists created a useless conundrum for themselves in asserting as a problem gaps in the evolutionary record.
The reality is, gaps can be filled to varying degrees. The real problem is that fossil digs themselves generate misleading information. Fossil formation requires certain limiting environmental conditions. Where has most terrestrial life lived? In rain forests. No current biome approaches the species diversity of the wet tropics. In the temperate zone, rain forests have higher-diversity biomes than temperate grasslands and moderate-rainfall woods. But it is impossible to perform accurate reconstructions of past rainforest biomes, due to rapid natural destruction of evidence. Rainforests are supreme at recycling. It is also very hard to work in muck.
Unfortunately, paleontology is distorted gravely by the fact that the best, longest preservation occurs in dry conditions. Where have all the landmark oldest hominid specimens been found? In Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, particularly the Awash River Valley. This is desert.
You also need catastrophic floods which capture animals (and people) carry large volumes of silt and sand that bury specimens, which is why river valleys are prime dig sites. (There are also formations such as bogs in which low-oxygenicity and mud are preservative, albeit on much shorter timescales. You also have rare open tar pits that wonderfully preserve bones, such as the La Brea Tar Pit in Los Angeles, albeit on less than 100,000 year timescales.)
Suppose somebody buried the Mona Lisa in Louisiana at a depth of five feet, and 100 years later, somebody recovered it. You might only have the frame. If somebody instead threw it into the Bayou, you wouldn’t even have the frame after 100 years. What could archeologists learn about the painting? Nothing. At best, they might learn something about the frame, but examiners would learn nothing about Leonardo da Vinci’s talent.
Where life is richest, and has been rich for aeons, you can’t study its distant biological past. Now, if scientists have to nibble at margins, without ever being able to get to the center, that should pose a note of caution regarding their speculations. We know that 19th century physicists had well-thought-out notions regarding the essential nature(s) of matter, but it was not until they developed the means to probe atoms that accurate understanding occurred.
Science also requires experimental verification. The scientists who deduced the nature of atomic energy, created a mini artificial sun. (H-bomb.) Had their theories about atomic structures and forces been wrong, they would have built a total dud.
Evolutionary biologists aren’t even close to having identified the genetic mechanisms of macroevolution, after 100 years of research, in genetics.
Numerous plausible origin-of-life mechanisms have been posited. At least they were plausible until tested, where they failed to pan out. Totally. Artificially synthesizing small organic molecules is easy. Making polymers under plausible early-earth conditions has proved impossible, much less self-replicating polymers.
The notion that time periods of enormous length can overcome entropy appeals to the propagandist, but has no scientific foundation. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins talked about 1 out of a billion events (10^-9 probability) leading to molecular self replication. That’s nice, but if the real probability is 10^-2000, or even 10^-200, then life didn’t spontaneously erupt here.
Dawkins places the natural selection theory on an altar. The theory is right, in his mind, so things like molecular-reaction probabilities must conform. But unfortunately real molecular reaction probabilities do not conform to thetheory.
How to deal with this? Now, we have an answer: a multitude of universes. If there are infinitely large numbers of universes, either a process of repeated Big Bangs, or alternate dimensions, or universes spacially beyond ours then life can come into being without an intelligent cause, by rewriting probability equations. Is there evidence that we live in the 10^200 Big Bang iteration? No. How about infinite co-existing universes? Sorry, no evidence there either.
You see, the natural selectionists originally utilized an infinite-age steady-state universe. That was sensible, until astrophysicists proved that this premise was utterly false.
In essence, if the only way to overcome a 10^-2000 power improbability is to invent 10^infinity universes, we are talking about metaphysics. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
The theory requires deep speculation without compelling material evidence, and that evidence can never be discovered. Even if a meteor with bacteria were discovered, that would only prove the existence of life elsewhere, but say nothing about the discovered life-form’s ultimate origin.
ksag, are you saying that the Romans were creationists? Greed is greed. The desire of cunning schemers to control resources, to have cheap laborers do the dirty work of producing food, mining gold, building palaces, etc. is not a religious proposition.
Dawkins treats natural selection like a scientifically supported fact because it is a scientifically supported fact. Your belief that it may one day be refuted because of wishful thinking is just that, wishful thinking.
Some of you don’t get the difference between supposition and fact, or premise versus conclusion.
When I lived in the desert, English sparrows had lost some of their original deep chestnut brown head and shoulder plumage. That would possibly be in accord with natural selection to a natural selectionist who would posit that the birds became more “camouflaged”. On the other hand, pigeons (rock doves) maintained a variety of colors and patterns. Native desert quail were quite colorful. Native roadrunners’ umber color didn’t match the environment. Red-headed black and white bodied woodpeckers’ colors certainly didn’t.
So for the colorful birds, the natural selectionists say that it’s more effective for attracting mates, even though it makes them more vulnerable to predators.
That’s the wonderful, whacky looniness of natural selection. You just create ad-hoc rationalizations to cover every discrepancy between sub-theories and facts. This is the hallmark of pathological science: evidence disproves the theoretical propositions, so ever more speculative and mutually inconsistent ad hoc explanations are created. Or as Ira Gershwin said, “It’s nice work, if you can get it.”
We could also delve into the matter of leading natural selectionists having preexisting beefs with religion, which a rational observer would find to be prejudicial.
Well the theory of natural selection has been observed in a natural setting and has been observed in a laboratory setting. The fact that natural selection is backed with with scientific research, and a lot of scientific research at that, makes it a scientific fact.
Or does even the concept of gravity keep you up at night?
“ksag, are you saying that the Romans were creationists? Greed is greed. The desire of cunning schemers to control resources, to have cheap laborers do the dirty work of producing food, mining gold, building palaces, etc. is not a religious proposition.”
Excuse me heartlander, YOU are the person who introduced the absurd claim that evolution was introduced to “justify” raping the resources of India, China, and presumably Africa, remember?
“England was raping the resources of India and China. How to justify this?Natural selection. Darwin, let’s not forget, in The Descent of Man, held Africans to be in a lower state of evolution than whites. Poorer whites were in a lower state of evolution than richer whites.
“How convenient! A scientific theory that legitimized avaricious wealth and privilege in defense against the dirty, primitive, unwashed masses.”
Or are you saying that the ROMANS were natural selectionists? What I said was the nations that practiced colonialism, exploitation, and slavery hardly needed the Theory of Natural Selection to justify their behavior. Religion was and is ROUTINBLY used to justify inequalities, and the fact that economic factors also obviously figure in does not change this. YOU are the one who made the claim about natural selection being used to “justify” colonialism and exploitation. When I demonstrated was that creationism has also been used to justify colonialism, exploitation, and slavery, you reply to me as if I was saying that creationism CAUSED these conditions. This simply confirms that you are flailing about responding to the last thing said without regard to the original context which you yourself provided with your previous comments.
Your claim has been that natural selection and evolution were the products of economic elitism and were and are used to justify such elitism. The fact that such elitism has existed long before the Theory of Natural Selection was developed, and was very much prevalent in societies that strongly resisted even discussion of evolution and natural selection, clearly contradicts your bullshit claim. Belief in natural selection was and is not necessary to justify “elitist” behavior.
“Some of you don’t get the difference between supposition and fact, or premise versus conclusion.”
Considering the source, this is the funniest thing I’ve read all day. All you’ve done today is to try to pigeonhole random factoids according to your premises into predetermined conclusions.
You’re simply flailing aimlessly about now, heartlander. You bounced back and forth between attacks on the personal characters of Dawkins and Darwin (and by extension, anyone who agrees with them), economic and racial theories for why they came up with and defended natural selection, typical straw man creationist arguments about evolution, and now incoherent ramblings about the steady state theory being used by “natural selectionists” (which is the first time I’ve seen that used as a noun to describe people). This is exactly the sort of behavior Harry Frankfurt described in his classic book:
http://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122946/sr=8-1/qid=1164954007/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-0749882-6905219?ie=UTF8&s=books
In other words, this is just another version of the “throw crap against the wall and see what sticks” strategy.
And you are still ignoring the elephant in the room (that evolution is accepted by the beyond vast majority of scientists who practice in relevant fields, regardless of their own personal ideologies).
You have wasted enough of my time with your intellectual dishonesty. Good night, sir.
“You’re simply flailing aimlessly about now, heartlander.”
That about sums it up.
Thank you, heartlander, for finally laying bare the full impoverishment of your non-argument against natural selection. This is one for the ages.
Thank you, ksagnostic, for so eloquently, logically and doggedly pursuing the matter long after I would have lost patience. It was well worth it, and I will link to this infamous thread when the subject inevitably arises again.
I’m just trying to give you different ideas to mull.For example, Dawkins argues that religion stems from a useful survival trait, children’s trusting, absolutely, parents’ instructions and warnings, but represents a mal-development per se of this trait. The God Delusion cites psychologists who have advanced this idea.
Dawkins does a pretty good job of demolishing the separate-domains thesis, giving religion independent space, and natural selection independent space, to coexist.
There are a lot of “ignorant” Americans who could not articulate this matter, but intuitively sensed it long ago, and still do. Their little computers are a lot smarter than the scientists have given them credit for.
Natural selection philosophers, like Dawkins, view humans to be machines, even “robots” [sic] evolved to serve the propagation of genes.
Maybe you want to adhere to this philosophic construct. But most of us–greatly outnumbering you–don’t view ourselves as machines, and those of us who take time to consider the thesis view this to be an obvious industrial-age concept, i.e. Age of Machines concept. We’re now entering the postindustrial, post-mechanical age.
The bottom line is that a courts become forced to acknowledge that natural selection is fundamentally incompatible with religion, because it subordinates religion, the forced teaching of natural selection will be ultimately determined to violate the First Amendment. It got a free pass when evolutionists, whether sincerely, or disingenously persuaded the courts that religion and natural selection were matters of separate, simultaneously coexistable domains. But Dawkins has masterfully demonstrated they are not–if you accept his lucid arguments.
So those of you who want natural selection taught in American schools have a difficult choice. Are you willing to repudiate Dawkins’ views? Can you logically disprove them, or scientifically invalidate them. If not, you will eventually lose in court. “The God Delusion” is one of history’s ice-breakers. As long as the purely atheistic position was advanced solely in the ivory halls of higher academia, it was off the public’s radar screen. But now, in an effort to inform “everybody” of what natural selection truly doctrinally is, not to mention make some more millions for himself, Dawkins is inciting confrontation in K-12 education. In Europe, where most people are agnostic, and church attendance is both low, and largely a social-gathering phenomenon, Dawkins’ book may not incite much disturbance. But it will here.
The Mississippi river dumps somewhere around 230 million tons of silt into the Louisiana’s delta and the Gulf of Mexico. However, the delta region has not extended further into the gulf, rather it has retreated over time. This means the 230 million tons of material actually empty into the Gulf of Mexico. If we include the other major rivers of North America the number moves up to 436 million tons annually. If we assume the density of the dry silt is 1430 kg/m^3, then this is somewhere around .277 km^3 annually. This might not sound like much, but North America would lose a kilometer of altitude over 88 million years. I can not seem to find the average altitude of North America, but I find it difficult to believe the average altitude is over 1km, which means over the last 90 million years the volume of North America would have to have cut in half.
For South America considering only the Amazon River, and ignoring all other rivers the time frame is 23.4 million years.
There are a couple possible solutions.1) Volcanic action brings materials up from the core in order to replace the material lost.Problem-this only works if there is more volcanic action above the ocean than below, otherwise the ocean rises as fast as land. If we consider that ~75% of the earth is covered in ocean it seems logical that there is more volcanic action under water than above.
2) Biomass replaces the lossesProblem-436 million tons of carbon dioxide would have to be captured each year by plants.Problem – Only very recently has the USA started pumping that amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, but look at the effects on the environment. If plants were really absorbing that much CO2 we would not be warming the planet, we would be keeping it constant.
3) It is possible that the silt deposits from rivers has increased over the last few millennia.Problem – If the globe was a warmer wetter world in prehistoric times, how can we honestly believe the increased rain carried less silt?
All of this neglects wave action on beaches, it is only material carried by rivers. If global warning models are correct, a warmer globe leads to much stronger and more frequent monsoons and hurricanes, and look what Katrina did to the coast. If that was an annual event in prehistoric warmer times that would have to be corrected for as well.
Pangea supposedly broke up about 400 million years ago, so these events should have been occuring for about that long. How could that happen if South America would have to have an average altitude 16 km higher than it has today? (That is like raising the entire continent 1.5 times the height of Mt. Everest)
I have not had a chance to look at the rivers in Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia, but that will be interesting when I get a chance.
I admit at this point that I am not a geologist. If there are any geologists in the audience that have a good answer for this I would love to hear it.
It doesn’t take being a geologist to answer your inquiry.
Two problems are that you seem to be entirely ignoring the effects of continental drift on altitude, and secondly sea level itself is not constant, and that is how altitude has been measured.
Surely Chad, you are not questioning an old earth and universe, are you (and I am not sure if I get the point of your most recent post)?
Here a few websites with the information I used:
Silt deposits of USA rivers:http://co.water.usgs.gov/sediment/conc.frame.html
Silt deposits of Amazon river:http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v278/n5700/abs/278161a0.html
Silt density:http://www.soils.wisc.edu/~ss322/notes/bulkdensity.pdf
The silt density is probably the weakest article, but they cannot be off by more than a factor of 2 (granite is only twice as dense as the silt calculations) which would still cause problems in both North and South America.
Land mass of North & South AmericaBoth available on Wikipedia
Continental tends to cause an increase in altitude at mountain ranges, and when one continent slips under another. This could account for a rising at the Rockies, the Andes, the Appalachians, and where the pacific shelf slides under the North American shelf.
However, rising mountains are not “new” land, they are “old” land that has been wrinkled. The volume is not replaced by mountain production.
In addition, when the Pacific plate drops under the North American plate, only that edge rises (west of the Rockies). This does not offset the erosion created by the Mississippi river (east of the Rockies).
The sea level is not constant, but I have ignored wave effects, and the land can only be replaced by a lower sea level if the planet’s temperature drops continuously, and more water turns into glaciers.
My purpose is to give a response to people asking for evidence for any evidence for a younger earth. I am not stating how old I believe the earth is, I am just posting data.
Sorry, the first sentence should read:”Continental drift tends…”
“However, rising mountains are not “new” land, they are “old” land that has been wrinkled. The volume is not replaced by mountain production.”
“New” and “old land” are incoherent concepts. “Land” is crust which underlies the oceans as well. When crust is pushed up above sea level, it becomes “land”. Of course, there is such a thing as new and old crust, but that is not the same thing as “new” and “old” land.
“In addition, when the Pacific plate drops under the North American plate, only that edge rises (west of the Rockies). This does not offset the erosion created by the Mississippi river (east of the Rockies).”
The Rockies and the eastern plateau were created by the Pacific Plate dropping under the North American plate (I believe). Western Kansas is substantially higher than Eastern Kansas, and this is throughout the state (we in Wichita are higher than, say, Topeka or even Manhattan Kansas).
Chad, I may have missed this but I wasn’t under the impression that your faith was dependent upon Young Earth creationism. If it is, as a physicist you must have a higher level of cognitive dissonance than most.
My faith is not at all contingent on a young earth theory.
Yes, I do realize there there really isn’t such a thing as “new” and “old” land, which is why I placed those in italics. My point was that the land that forms into mountains is already on the North American (or South American or whatever continent) plate, and this does not actually replace the land lost to erosion. It can be argued that the land forced into mountains can come from an altitude below sea level, however for that to occur the edges of the continent must retract. This means the increased volume of the mountains is offset by the retreat, giving no real increase in the volume of land above sea level.
Current understanding holds that the Rockies were created approximately 70 million years ago. The cause is unknown, but guessed at on pages like the following.http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/parks/province/rockymtn.html
KSagnostic, I have to say I do enjoy discussing this with you. You address the issues asked with a high level of tact. Even your statements like “If it is, as a physicist you must have a higher level of cognitive dissonance than most,” are civil and I understand your point without feeling personally attacked.
Honestly I raise this particular point because I have never heard an adequate answer. I understand there are plate tectonics at work, along with plant conversion of the atmosphere, and other possible events. However, it seems none of these events compensates for river erosion, much less coastal erosion. I do not have the data for that at hand, but wave action on non-rocky beaches must have an enormous effect. Hurricanes hit the US every year causing massive erosion, and yet Florida is still there.
A lot of Kansas used to be under water, hence the presence of fish fossils from millions of years ago. Chad, your figures rely on consistency but the geological events weren’t constant, that’s why Kansans don’t need scuba gear.
Using events that happened millions of years ago doesn’t really support the creationist notion that the Earth is 6,000 years old. Perhaps you ought to move onto virgin births now.
Geological events were not constant, but there is a theorem of thermodynamics that states measuring the behavior of a large number of particles for a short time is the same as measuring for a long time. In more technical terms, the ensemble average of a system can be measured just as accurately by determining the average at one instant as by measuring fewer states for a longer period of time.
My post addresses the issue of above sea level land creation compared to its erosion. Currently globally there is much more erosion going on then land production. There are possible variances over long periods of time, but if we can measure what is happening everywhere now that gives us a good idea of what has happened on average in the past. Sure there are areas like Mt. Saint Helens that are producing land right now, and forests raising their levels by production of biomass. However the global average is bent towards erosion.
A million years ago the Mississippi might not have carried near as much silt as it does today. However, that silt would have moved through another stream. If you are going to dispute the projections I have made please post data rather than just a claim, “geological events weren’t constant” does not address the fact that erosion should have removed all land mass from North America in the last 90 million years, and South America in the last 23 million years. Your claim “it was different” is just as valid as any claim of “God did it.”
Really I’m just wondering what it actually has to do with the thread.
The thread is whether science and religion are headed to war. I believe they are not, since the most important questions of religion are fundamentally non-scientific (why am I here, how should I behave, what is the purpose of my life, and so on). When I have tried to make this point in the past (the prison question) it has been either blown off or ignored. You have asked for any evidence of anything like the Bible. After getting frustrated with a lack of response to the philosophical questions, I have decided to meet your request. However, you seem predisposed to ignoring this one or blowing it off. If that is the case, please allow KSagnostic and I to have a meaningful discussion. Given his previous threads I am sure he is actually considering my posts and coming up with a coherent appropriate response which I look forward to reading.
So you’ve decided that you can’t support the absurd claims of your religion so you’ve completely switched to talking about scientific matters. I agree, there is no defense for the unscientific myths of the Bible.
Doug, you are avoiding the question. You avoided the philosophy, and now you are avoiding the science.
I’m avoiding the science you never presented? Mmmmmmkay. Or did you want me to debate the issue of erosion? To that I say, “why?” Erosion happens, accumulation of biomass happens, continential drift happens, so why should I bother debating these issues? What doesn’t happen is virgins given birth to boys, a 6,000 year old Earth, talking donkeys, souls and other nonsense you may believe in.
My posit is that it seems the entire continent of South America would empty out of the mouth of the Amazon every 23 million years. I presented the data. Please either refute the data scientifically, or show how it is consistent with South America being a part of Pangea ~200 million years ago.
So the fact that the Amazon gets billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere during that time to develop more land mass doesn’t concern you?
Frankly, I don’t see how this is a confict between religion and science unless your religion argues something else.
Doug, extrapolate how many tons the Amazon would have to absorb over 200 million years to keep up 1.2 billion tons of silt every year. So that is somewhere around 2*10^17 tons of CO2 absorbed by the Amazon since the breakup of Pangea. Since increasing the amount of CO2 in the air warms up the planet, how hot do you think Earth was? We have only released somewhere in the tens of billions of tons from burning fossil fuels.
It’s just one source of biomass, others have already been pointed out to you. I don’t even think your argument that the rates are consistent is accurate. The study you reference measured for 20 years, and you are simply assuming this rate was the same for millions of years. You might as well take the human population growth rate of the industrial revolution and assume that rate has been the same for the past 180,000 years.
The fact is that the Amazon has been experiencing increases in deforestation. The plants which hold the soil in place and keep moisture in the soil are no longer there increasing the potential for soil erosion. Therefore it’s absurd to assume that for millions of years humans were around creating the conditions that have existed for the past 20 years.
You are just assuming too much from the data presented so there isn’t much need to debate your unsupported position.
According to MIT deforested Amazon rain-forests have less runoff per day than forested areas.
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2006/final/threats/threat_deforest.html
Hate to say it Chad but you are definately cherry picking with that statement coupled with that set of data.
Those of us who decided to become scientists did so to connect to tangible things. Things we could directly observe. We didn’t relate to authority-handed-down ideologies. Like church doctrine.
On the natural selection issue, it’s very reductionist. Dawkins has elected to prove that religion is a defective expression of natural selection. But I don’t see him deconstructing art as a natural selection phenomenon. Or explaining why people like my spouse and myself worked at 3 AM to save other people’s lives. Or explaining, according to natural selection principles, why Bill Gates is spending billions of dollars to try to better-educate African Americans and find effective treatments for diseases such as malaria and AIDS that are devastating Africans.
So what has Richard Dawkins done to roll up his sleeves, donate his substantial treasure, and benefit his fellow human beings? He might say, “That’s a waste of time and resources. Let natural selection pursue its course.” But Bill Gates is far smarter than Dr. Dawkins. His vision far exceeds that of Dr. Dawkins. In fact, Bill Gates’ vision made his employee Charles Simonyi a hectomillionare. Simonyi created the endowed Oxford chair that Dawkins enjoys. Gates is a Congregationalist. This means he is a Christian. Which is why he is trying to help others, even though this has no bearing on his own genes’ replication: his wife is beyond the age-band of procreation, and he’s not philandering.
If some of you, such as Doug and Apophis, were smarter, you’d be compiling grant proposals to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to bring more things to your classes than you have now.
I suggested to Apophis that he figure out how to get funding to take a sabbatical, or failing that, study geology in the summer. Not interested. He’s not a natural scientist, because what a natural scientist is, is a person who wants to study nature, and learn things he or she doesn’t already know, and a person who doesn’t submit to absorbing the ideas of “authorities” in his or her den, but gets out and explores the natural world.
Chad is working in cutting-edge physics. He’s experimenting, and observing real material phenomena. It is not just interesting, but illuminating, that his critics aren’t putting their educational and scientific-research experiences on the table. You want mine? National Merit Finalist. Worked in electron microscopy, USDA Crops Research Station, age 19. A.B. Biochemistry, with High Honors, U.C. Berkeley. Performed t-RNA research under Edward Penhoet, co-founder of Chiron. Invented a blood substitute prototype, bonding pyridoxal-phospate to the alpha chain of hemoglobin, to make a cell-free molecule that took up oxygen in the lungs, and released it in tissues that Baxter Pharmaceuticals took up and put $10 million to further study. M.D., University of California, San Diego. Lecturer in organ physiology/pharmacology, UC San Diego. Visiting resident, Harvard University. Offered, after completing the visiting residency, a postdoctoral fellowship and clinical instructorship, Harvard University. Offered, admission to Stanford University’s environmental engineering program.
Apophis, I know you don’t want to put up your credentials, saying they don’t matter. But if you examine KU, KSU’s or any other research university’s websites, you will find scientist faculty’s CV’s posted. These things matter to scientists. Since they don’t matter to you, it means your aren’t a scientist. You can howl at the moon, but it doesn’t change the fact that when science-research opportunities were available, you didn’t qualify.
Chad qualified. I qualified. Somebody criticized Chad’ Christian university UG program. But he isn’t in a Christian Ph.D. program now, is he? Doug and Apophis, do you have scientific research experiences? Put em up, shut up, or just keep bloviating.
Bloviating? That is what YOU do heartlander. Maybe the “credentials” you cite are valid, maybe they are not. You have no way to prove they ARE on a blog. The fact of the matter is that few really care what you CLAIM to be. I am what I am, a science educator. Just because you propose a situation to me (the sabbatical BS) doesn’t mean it is a valid use of my time. You are showing your elitist colors again heartlander. YOU do NOT set the standards for the qualifications of science educators for this state or any others. You are an O’Reilly caliber bloviator, nothing more. You really know nothing of the educational process and would be better served if you’d just keep your trap shut.
Bring it on heartlander!
Do you need CSA, Doug, WSClark, Will or myself to hand you your ass 20 or 30 more times to be convinced that you do not know 1% of what you think you know?
“Gates is a Congregationalist. This means he is a Christian. Which is why he is trying to help others, even though this has no bearing on his own genes’ replication: his wife is beyond the age-band of procreation, and he’s not philandering.”
http://www.nndb.com/people/435/000022369/#FN1
http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Bill_Gates
http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=649
http://marriage.about.com/od/entrepreneurs/p/billgates.htm
I sincerely congratulate you on your accomplishments, heartlander, and yet as impressive as they are they are not lending weight to your performance in this discussion. You attempt to broadside Dawkins yet again as a self serving, uncaring tool because of his positions on evolution and religion, and of all people you chose Bill Gates to contrast with him. A man who, contrary to what you said, is not a Christian. A man’s whose positions on the validity of religion is…well…apparently closer to Dawkins’ than your own (although I think he is much more of an apatheist than Dawkins).
And you still ignore the elephant in the room. You are still also clearly ignoring the fact that your error regarding belief in natural selection not being contradictory to selflessness.
Apophis, so you are saying that an effective middle-school or 9th grade physical science teacher doesn’t have to do actual scientific research? You’ve just demonstrated why K-12 “science” is not really science, but is second-hand propaganda. I can’t help it if Chad and I were chosen by scientists to engage in research, and you weren’t. I am sorry you were rejected by natural selection.
How is it “elitist” for me to encourage you to go out and personally examine geologic formations?I guess this means you are saying scientific exploration is “elitist”. You don’t have a problem following the elitist Richard Dawkins. This is why you don’t have credibility. You don’t want to post your credentials, which is sad. I gave you mine, which are absolutely true. If I gave false information, it could be discovered and discredit me. You give nothing about your own education and experience, which indicates you have an inferiority complex.
You are attempting to put words in my mouth again heartlander. Shame on YOU! I never said anything remotely similar to what you claim.
Chosen? Actually prove YOU were chosen for anything. While you’re at it prove I have not been chosen. You can’t.
heartlander, I have no inferiority complex. My credentials are sound, to those who actually matter. Obviously YOU do not matter. You are an elitist who makes claims he cannot substantiate. Sorry, typing a bunch of crap on a blog doesn’t not ratify your “credibility”. Give it up heartlander, you have been beaten down so often on this blog you have become truly a joke. ROFL
Apophis,
“My credentials are sound, to those who actually matter”.
Okay, there are parents who want to look at the USD 259 website and choose schools based on teachers’ credentials. So are yours posted, or are you saying that “those who actually matter” aren’t parents and their children? Identify the website, or concede that “those who actually matter” aren’t parents and children.
heartlander, you’ve repeatedly failed to answer the question “do you accept that natural selection occurs,” although you’ve danced around the issue enough that Arthur Murray would be personally proud of you.
One can only infer from your discourse that, contrary to the vast majority of the world’s scientists, you do *not* accept that natural selection occurs.
From wikipedia: “Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with unfavorable traits.” Note, also, that natural selection is not synonymous with evolution.
Before your opinion can be taught as science in public schools, though, you have some work to do.
You posed an interesting proposition to Apophis – to get out and do some current science research.
Why not show us the way? Use your impressive science background and research skills to show the mainstream science community that natural selection DOES NOT occur. Go for it!
Get the data that shows natural selection is entirely bogus. Convince the world-wide community of scientists that they’re wrong, wrong, wrong by using the data. Get them to replicate your experiments and review your work.
Then – and only then – you can suggest that your now-accepted, data-driven ideas be taught in public school science class.
Well? What are you waiting for? Get busy! Show the world that natural selection doesn’t occur!
Sorry heartlander, parents don’t get to actually choose their schools. students are assigned to particular buildings based on where they leave. I’m sorry if you can’t understand a “plan”. I do not work for parents directly, I work for a school district. Public education is not a “market economy” function. There is no reason now, nor in the future to post teachers credentials for public viewing on a web page. State statute leaves the verification of public education credentials with the State Department of Education and the local districts. Sorry, again you cannot conceive a “plan”.
Besides heartlander, many parents are doing all they can to get their kids into my school. We have a highly qualified staff that produce well educated children. Is that too difficult to understand?
While you’re at it heartlander, why don’t you actually answer CSA’s questions instead of irrationally attempting to bash me?
Well, I’m off for the night. I have to get up early to drive up to KU to attend an Evolution workshop sponsored by that terrible organization, the National Science Foundation.
“Doug and Apophis, do you have scientific research experiences?”
I have a M.S. in Experimental Psychology for my credentials.
Chad, this was in the second paragraph of the link you referenced:”Deforestation causes increases in erosion and flooding. The land of the Amazon Rainforest is naturally nutrient-deficient because most of the nutrients are stored within the aboveground biomass of the vegetation. Tree root systems hold the soil together to slow the rate of flooding and reduce erosion.”
I’m wondering if you actually read the article you referenced. Erosion was lessened a bit only because the rainfall was decreased as well. However when you compare the loss of rainfall to the loss in erosion it isn’t equal because there is no canopy to prevent evaporation.
After taking a few (60) minutes reading over this thread, I am struck by how the anti-science folks have steadfastly refused to answer the basic question as to how creationism should be taught in school. It’s not science (ID), but they still want it to be taught as if it was a supportable theory.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the thread was about science v. religion – particularly as to how science is taught in public schools.
Now I am a little slow (partially African American, you know, just ask Ian) but I am still looking for that apparently elusive scientific evidence of ID.
I hate to be the one to piss in anyone’s oatmeal, but I am still HUNGRY for an answer.
Now all these ID folks can throw up (not literally) all the data they want, but I am still waiting for a GODDAMN answer.
Just answer the freakin’ question – what or where is the SCIENTIFIC evidence for ID?
Come on, now, this should be an easy question to answer.
Shouldn’t it?
I said:”And you still ignore the elephant in the room. You are still also clearly ignoring the fact that your error regarding belief in natural selection not being contradictory to selflessness.”
That should have been: “And you still ignore the elephant in the room. You are still also clearly ignoring the fact that natural selection does not contradict selflessness.”
I worked on one sentence, tried to change it to different, shorter, sentence, and stopped halfway through.
The major reason for decreased rainfall in large deforested areas relative to intact forests is that living plants continually release water through evapotranspiration. Where botanomass is sufficiently widespread and dense, as in Amazonia, locally-generated water-vaporization and condensation occurs, which is different from the convective mass transport of ocean-source vapor and precipitation at cold-warm air mass boundaries that we Kansans experience.
One of the major risks of massive deforestation is the substantial possibility that without the locally-generated rainfall mechanism, semi-desertification may occur, rendering the land useless for anything but cattle-grazing.
I love to study interesting issues. Do I believe in natural selection? I believe it is a very interesting construct.
Because it operates at a molecular level, I think it is much more complicated than many of you appreciate. For example, it doesn’t operate at the level of selecting individual genes, but rather gene complexes, whose individual members aren’t even generally located on the same chromosomes. Even more astoundingly, these complexes in any individual or species “fit” with different gene complexes in other species in the same ecosystem, so natural selection operates within an extremely complex milieu.
This has profound ramifications. Take overfishing. We don’t just maintain an otherwise identical ecosystem to the one having a lot more fish, the entire ecosystem changes, and based on what has been observed thus far, there has been a widespread loss of higher-order animals and plants, and replacement by (massive ovegrowth) of simple algaes, which once established, tend to deoxygenate the water, in some cases produce neurotoxins, and create near-lifelessness except for themselves. The LA Times had a great, albeit scary, multimedia presentation on this, which may still be available.
Now, can middle school and high school biology students understand, or intuitively appreciate the complexity of natural selection? I don’t think so. They haven’t even studied genetics, much less molecular genetics, at that point.
In “The God Delusion”, which is a worthwhile read for members of this audience, Dawkins goes into substantial detail in describing cargo cults, a spontaneously-arising religion on several South Pacific Islands. Essentially, natives observed whites performing rituals that seemed to bring cargo magically to the islands. So they tried to emulate the rituals, such as building non-functional “radio”-appearance apparati, and clearing jungle for “air strips”. They imputed supernatural events, or as Arthur C. Clark said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology appears to be magic.”
Dawkins gives a fascinating discourse on this.
But, when you try to teach natural selection to unsophisticated young students, you’re essentially teaching “magic”, i.e. something they cannot really understand. So this is indistinguishable from religious indoctrination. The children can neither disprove or prove the proposition, or even conceive of how to potentially address the matter. This is why I favor postponing the matter, and instead focusing on teaching kids how to explore and experiment.
On credentials, they DO matter. For example, students who major in geology at Berkeley receive a different level of education than those who major in it in Kansas. California was established by one thing: the discovery of huge gold reserves. At first it was obtained by simple river panning, followed by more complex sluicing. Eventually deep mines were bored and rivers walls were hydraulically demolished.
It didn’t take long for other metals and compounds to be targeted, and that required geologic expertise. As did oil exploration and exraction. (California for a time had the world’s largest discovered oil reserves, and Stanford had the world’s leading petroleum engineering program for the first three quarters of the 20th century.) Californians had to figure out how to build roads and railroads over mountains. They figured out how to build dams for irrigation and power. These efforts required knowledge of geology, to prevent disaster. California pioneered aquifer tapping for irrigation.
Of course, California is seismically unstable, and volcanically active (Mt. Lassen erupted in 1914).It once had inland seas teeming with life, now salt flats, and the Imperial Valley was once part of the Sea of Cortez. Although I am not aware of any dinosaur finds, California is a treasure-trove of ancient marine species and terrestrial mammals. ( I collected mullusk shells imbedded in sedementary rock at age 10. Kept them until I went to college, then my mom discarded them in my absence, as she later did to my Mad Magazine collection, oy ve!)
Californians also study ocean geology. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography is the world-leading institution in physical oceanography.A Scripps professor, Roger Revell, (father of greenhouse-gas warming theory) was one of the lead-organizers of the 1957-59 International Geophysical Year.
So, there are many more geologists in Californa, per capita population, than in Kansas. California has 31 senior-level (generally age 55 or older) members of the National Academy of Sciences, Geology Section, and 32 geophysics members. These are preeminent researchers in the geological sciences. Kansas has zero. Am I putting down Kansas? No. If it had the vast diversity of geology, and a humongous variety of earth resources that merited tapping, it too would have a strong geology research and education infrastructure.
Classes taught in leading research universities are different from those taught in Kansas. For example, except for lower-division courses, textbooks aren’t generally used. Berkeley profs don’t write many textbooks, even though they are world-renowned experts. This is because their writing is in the realm of research journal articles, and monographs written for other experts’ reading.
So students learn how to go to the library and dig up and read, and discuss journal articles. The more ambitious hook up with profs and DO cutting-edge research. When did you readers first hear about “good” and “bad” cholesterol? Medical tests for measuring high-density and low-density lipoproteins came out in the 1980’s, at which time pharmaceutical research in the field started up. Scientists at Berkeley’s Donner Lab were working on the matter in the 1950’s. One of my professors Harry Rubin was the first to propose that viruses could have RNA, not DNA, because that is what he found in the lab. A disbelieving community of virologists and molecular biologists accused him of “poor technique” and denounced his claim. Why? Because at that time, the field was still trying to figure out DNA–the genetic code had not then been discovered–and it couldn’t absorb this proposal. His theory has long-since been confirmed, and important viruses, such as influenza and HIV are RNA viruses.
So I learned how scientific orthodoxy can be wrong, sometimes badly wrong, because scientists are not truly open-minded. Scientists have prejudices, as people do in any other milieu.
BTW, studying in a leading research university is REALLY HARD, from the students’ perspective.
I decided to home-educate, because I knew the rigors of Berkeley-level study, but this rigor wasn’t understood in my kids’ school, which had been founded by small-business-owner parents. They thought multitasking routines were most important, which was true for them. But that’s not a regimen for training scientists and other deep-thinking problem-solvers.
I got the Bill Gates Congregationalist info from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Church_of_Christ
Wikipedia is not 100% accurate, but it’s generally reliable. Or it may refer to earlier years, and now be outdated. Gates was raised in a Congregationalist family, and he says that he believes in the moral values of religion. (Whereas Dawkins belittles them as defective outgrowths of survival-aiding intellectual functioning.)Gates said, “I’m not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis.” This implies, under normal semantic interpretation, that he does attend SOMETIMES. If somebody NEVER goes to church they say, “I’m not somebody who goes to church.”
Melinda is a regular-church-attending Catholic, and apparently their children are being raised as Catholics.
The Gates Foundation has reportedly given money to the Discovery Institute, as cited by horsesass.org, which criticized the donation.
“The other counterattack against my critique was to accuse me of being “illiberal” in demanding that the Gates Foundation pull its million dollar a year funding of Discovery, including the $50,000 it pays of Chapman’s $141,000 annual salary.”
http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=941
Maybe this is Melinda’s doing. As I said sometime earlier, women tend to be more religious than men, and where would Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawkings have been without devout Christian wives? How about it, some of you atheist male bloggers: are your wives atheists too?
And there you have it.
In the Harry Frank sense, heartlander is employing a truly bullshit strategy. And this is where his bullshit strategy has gotten him:
Heartlander is now arguing that a theory first developed in the 19th century is so dependent upon 21st century genetics to explain it that trying to teach it to unsophisticated high school students (by supposedly scientifically illiterate science teachers one presumes) is akin to trying to teach students magic, and is therefore no better than teaching them propoganda.
Reread this several times if you must to appreciate the truly breathtakingly self-contradictory nature of the above statement. Incredible, in the truest sense of the word.
You truly have wasted enough of my time heartlander.
Heartlander, just remember:”Those who can do. Those who can’t…”
Here is some more accurate information for you. This is according to msnbc. Admittedly this is not a scientific page, and they do not post their references, but I believe the information is accurate, it certainly is current.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15993162/page/2/
If we use the information from Wikipedia, (I took the land area of North America and % of total land it covers) the global land area is 510208333.3 km. If we assume a constant 5 billion tons of erosion a year it would take just over 160 million years to erode all the land mass of the entire globe. Again I believe they are ignoring wave effects, but not sure since they don’t discuss their methods. This also takes the lowest time as the average. If we assume 10 billion tons (the average between the Phanerozoic eon and the Pliocene epoch) it decreases to 80 million years. These are global averages, before human intervention. Again, volcanism likely adds land slower than raises the sea level, since there are probably more active volcanoes on the sea floor than on land. Plate collisions do not add any land to one plate, they just “wrinkle” the plate. If plants had removed that much CO2 from the air, how hot would the planet have been? Likely too hot to support life.
Chad, your complete lack of understanding of articles you reference show your inability to adapt to new information. Your points have been refuted yet you continue to argue the same point over and over again. It’s clear you are beyond help.
What is your point exactly? Your rates show to you that the rate of erosion means the Amazonian land mass shouldn’t be there. It is still there. So either your calculations are wrong, you are only looking at one set of data, or the Amazon really doesn’t exist.
Scientific theories have to be developed to cover all the data. If there is are important data points that do not fit the model the model must be either altered or discarded. The data are from a reliable source, and go back to a time before human intervention. If the data are wrong, please bring up better data. If there is a better model please bring up the model. Otherwise please admit that the theory is incomplete.
I have posted data, you have not. You refute my data with nothing. Your position is one of ignorance and stubbornness. Please FOR ONCE counter with actual data, rather than a childish “no it’s not, because you’re a big stupid head.”
Also, if you assert my calculations are wrong, gather the data yourself and check the calculation. Do this independently than my work and then you can state my calculations are wrong.
“Plate collisions do not add any land to one plate, they just “wrinkle” the plate.”
That is actually not true. The crust varies enormously in thickness, and in fact areas where plate collisions between relatively high velocity plates add to the thickness of the crust at the bottom (by accretion of upper mantle into the crust), so it is very misleading to consider it like a wrinkling where as height increases, area decreases.
http://quake.usgs.gov/research/structure/CrustalStructure/india/index.html
http://quake.usgs.gov/research/structure/CrustalStructure/china/index.html
Also, from your own link from MSNBC.
“Natural erosion occurs at the planet’s highest elevations. Wilkinson said about 83 percent of the global river sediment comes from the highest 10 percent of the Earth’s surface.
Human-induced erosion, by contrast, occurs in the lower elevations. Eighty-three percent of this erosion occurs at the lower 65 percent of land surfaces.”
So historically and prehistorically speaking, erosion from the upper elevations would tend to “move land” from upper to lower elevations more than move “land” to sea.
I have to wonder honestly, Chad, what is your point is here? Either the world is very old, and multiple lines of evidence indicate that it is, or it is not. While Pangea was in existence, the land I am typing over was part of a shallow sea floor in the southern hemisphere. Obviously, land was “added” after that time to what became the North American continent. In all probability, none of the rivers that are in existence now existed at that time. If an imbalance between erosion and crustal creation and thickening was such a huge problem for geologists, one presumes that it would dominate the discussions of geologists. I have seen no evidence of such discussion. That being the case, your “erosion problem” seems to be something of a red herring.
Some you seem to harbor several unfortunate prejudices.
One has to do with educational choice, and consent. In private education, the Catholic schools tend to operate autocratically. I’m not knowledgeable about fundamentalist schools, but it would not surprise me if most are autocratic too.But most private schools mold themselves to what parents want. In smaller, moderate-cost private schools, this often means they meet the perceived needs of the majority of parents, as my kids experienced in an Episcopal school whose majority of parents were small business owners. In very high priced schools (>$20,000 tuition), a larger variety of parental goals for their children’s education are often met.
The vast majority of Ph.D. biologists hold natural selection to be a cornerstone of biology. (We’ll not get into the position of the vast majority of doctors, most of whom today are also expert biologists, because nobody has sought their opinion, which is a glaring omission.)
At any rate, does this mean natural selection should be taught to 12-14 year olds? Not at all. Quantum mechanics is a cornerstone of chemistry. But it isn’t taught in middle and high school. Statistical mechanics is also a cornerstone of chemistry. That is not taught either. Because these theories are wrong? No because they are too difficult for teenagers to grasp.
In biology classes, DNA and RNA are mentioned. Do high school students know what these are? Absolutely not. If one of you is a high school biology teacher, do you explain the molecular difference between deoxyribonucleic acid, and ribonucleic acid? Do you teach students the transcription initiation and termination codons in bacteria, and eukaryotes? DNA normally exists as two intertwined spirals. Topologically, as mitosis involves separating the strands and replicating each strand’s complementary base pairs, this creates knotting. What enzymes are used to “release” the knotting by breaking the DNA strands, and then reannealing them?
In two complementary strands of DNA, for any given exon, one strand codes for RNA transcription, which leads to protein synthesis, the other doesn’t. How do the transcription moities “recognize” only the corrrect strand?
Those of you who teach biology, have you ever isolated DNA? Have you ever operated a preparative or analytical ultracentrifuge? Do you know the difference between a cesium and sucrose gradient is, and have you ever prepared either? Have you ever gotten to do polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis or high-performance chromatography to isolate genetic material? Have you ever diamond-blade microtomed a tissue sample, subjected it to osmium coating, and marveled at seeing translation-moiety ribosomes? Have you ever actually gotten your hands into studying genetic material? Those of you here who have, speak up.
Call me a skeptic, because I’ve always been one, but I sincerely doubt that high school biology is teaching these things, anymore than it is teaching quantum mechanics, or the physics of the Big Bang theory or universal expansion. Whenever you teach Big Ideas, without explaining mechanisms, I submit that this isn’t teaching science, but rather, it’s indoctrination, particularly because the vast majority of students will never get to the actual-understanding part. This in essence represents something not unlike teaching religion. Some of you don’t “get” this, because you yourselves were indoctrinated in educator-preparation orthodoxy, without ever being able to engage in scientific research.
Science learning is about students’ being able to personally test scientific concepts taught. If they can’t do this, it isn’t science. It’s indistinguishable from metaphysics. Some of you need to think about the difference.
Chad, the references you present often show something other than what you are claiming they show. I’m merely refuting you with the links that you provide. Don’t blame me because your reading comprehension is poor.
Apophis said,
“Sorry heartlander, parents don’t get to actually choose their schools. students are assigned to particular buildings based on where they leave. I’m sorry if you can’t understand a “plan”. I do not work for parents directly, I work for a school district. Public education is not a “market economy” function. There is no reason now, nor in the future to post teachers credentials for public viewing on a web page. State statute leaves the verification of public education credentials with the State Department of Education and the local districts. Sorry, again you cannot conceive a “plan”.
Besides heartlander, many parents are doing all they can to get their kids into my school. We have a highly qualified staff that produce well educated children. Is that too difficult to understand?”
So let me see if I understand this. Most kids, in the absence of vouchers or parental affluence, or major financial sacrifice, have to attend public schools where they leave (which I think actually means “live”–we all make typos–unless this is a Freudian slip). But then Apophis claims that parents vie to get their kids into Apophis’s school. He’s contradicted himself. He can’t be claiming that parents, based on where they live, are clamoring to get their kids into Apophis’s school, because if attendance is based upon where families live, the middle school in their locality must take all locality-dwelling children.
The reality is, with a magnet construct, admission is not based on where students live, is it? And Apophis, you know this, so you misrepresented fact. Did you intentionally prevaricate, or just make a blunder-headed mistake? Which is it?
Apophis, suppose that you work in a magnet school, and suppose it is true that smart parents vie to get their children into your school. Suppose that your school rejects many applicants. Does that mean you work in an anti-democratic “elitist” school? Yes it does. You work in a stratifying insttution, don’t you? If your school is in a white-predominant subdistrict area, do you take all students who live in this subdistrict? If your school is in a black-predominant do you take all students who live in this subdistrict?If parents are doing all they can to get their kids enrolled in your school, your school is NOT actually enrolling kids according to where they live, unless you mean sub-city quotas. But even here, you would agree that interventional selectivity is being applied, correct? I mean, if 2000 families apply for 500 of their children to be admitted to your school, they’re not randomly chosen, are they? Are you saying nobody in the USD 259 central office looks at your middle schools applicants’ academic records? Are you sure you are saying the enrollment decisionmakers don’t exercise academic-record selectivity?
If you aren’t working for parents directly, you’re a toady for capitalists’ interests. You have indicated you don’t work for parents, so who are you working for Your boss, the superindent got a major pay-boost from private-businesss owners. Do you disagree? Say Ribett, Mr. Toad.
Let’s define what we are talking about here:
Micro-evolution, or the fact that a species can adapt to its environment, can be witnessed and tested. The theory has been proven – a species can adapt to its environment. But it works like this: A bird has a beak, which can get thin and long, or short and thick, based upon the way it eats its food. Its genetic makeup includes this ability from the start. But a species whose genetic makeup does not include the cells to create beaks can not grow beaks, short or long, no matter what way they choose to eat.
MACRO-evolution, or the idea that a species can become entirely NEW types of species if given enough time, has NOT been proven – it in fact, cannot even be tested. By definition, it does not even qualify to be a theory, but just a model. Because, according to the “theory”, it takes millions of years for this change to take place, it cannot be witnessed or tested at all, and therefore the absolute belief in MACRO evolution requires just as much faith as believing that an Intelligent Designer (or intelligent designer, for that matter) created the world.
Many people believe that a Creator USED evolution to create the world, and many secular scientists admit that the world is too perfectly designed to have all evolved at the same time. There has to have been SOMETHING that told the different types of cells to do what they needed to do.
The greatest of the evolutionary scholars – including Darwin -questioned why there is no fossil proof in existence that clearly identifies as a transitional species, or a species that is in the process of evolving into another species. They are as yet unable to find even ONE transitional species in the fossil record.
Lastly, one might hope that if man could evolve into something better, we might choose to do so. Are we really, then, the most evolved of all of these creations?
(Sorry, accidentally copied my last post…)
My Dear Confused Christian Conservative:
The question of micro vs macro. Accumulated micro WILL amount to significant fraction of macro. As for time scale, let’s find something which works in a time scale that humans can deal with, something like virus, protozoa, etc., which has a much shorter time scale than the millions of years.
As for “transitional fossil” I feel like there is great misunderstanding involved. Transition requires minimum of two endpoints, and if the endpoints are both exist only in the recent history, e.g., your notion of cats and dogs, there can be NO WAY that transition would exist in the past. Try “Eohippus” and “Equus” instead.
Ever heard of a “special transfer” heartlander?That concept has NOTHING to do with the “Magnet school” system, which by the way I think is a big joke.
If you want to start playing the grammar and spelling game, I’d love to get into that war with you too. From what I see, your alleged MD doesn’t make you perfect in that area either.(like your “superindent got a major pay-boost from private-businesss”, by my count to misspellings in this bloviation alone!)
I also do not agree with Winston getting the extra money from outside sources, but there is little I can do about that. Besides, that arrangement is no longer in effect making it an invalid point of discussion.
Your next attempt to discredit me and make yourself look like a fool heartlander?
two*
heartlander argues that since high school students aren’t expected to master graduate-level intricacies of DNA, they shouldn’t learn that natural selection occurs.
Likewise, most high school students aren’t taught spherical geometry. Does this mean they shouldn’t be expected to know basic planar geometry?
Physicists are still investigating the finer points of gravity. According to heartlander’s reasoning, high school students shouldn’t be taught anything about gravity because doing so would be indoctrination, not education.
heartlander, you need to figure out the differences between theory (evolution), fact (natural selection), and belief (creationism).
CSA…………..you know heartlander will never respond to your post. Instead, he will direct his frustration toward me like the class (Blog) bully always does.You see, heartlander is such an arrogant elitist that he will never answer any real questions. He makes ignorant inferences like, “But then Apophis claims that parents vie to get their kids into Apophis’s school. He’s contradicted himself. He can’t be claiming that parents, based on where they live, are clamoring to get their kids into Apophis’s school, because if attendance is based upon where families live, the middle school in their locality must take all locality-dwelling children.”. Obviously heartlander has never heard of “special transfers and the reality that some schools may already be holding the MAXIMUM number of students allowed by the safety standards. It is typical of his kind to take the simple things and try to make them complicated. ROFL
Oh, Apophis, I’m under no illusion that heartlander deems my questions worthy of his time.
But I’ve lurked here for a couple of years without posting, so I figure there are other lurkers who might benefit from exposing the question-avoidance so common to heartlander and his ideological buddies.
I don’t think that heartlander takes simple things and tries to make them more complicated. He’s addicted to verbiage, yes, but his writing is much more fluent than that of the average anti-evolution person. Instead, what heartlander does is to veer off course, hoping we won’t notice he hasn’t addressed the issues. You know – the ‘baffle ‘em with bullshit’ ploy.
Anyway, I’m satisfied that heartlander doesn’t think that natural selection (individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with unfavorable traits) should be taught in schools, despite its acceptance by most of the world’s scientists. He also conflates the fact of natural selection with the theory of evolution.
Next up : “What is Darwinism, and where is it taught?”
Let me “veer” back to a previous matter that may be the elephant in the parlor. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins paints for the reader a wonderfully imaginative picture of the origin of life. He speaks of molecules, unspecified as to type, spontaneously forming, and a few of them becoming large and self-replicating. Once that happens, then life was off to the races.
Unfortunately, the laws of thermodynamics tend to argue against this happening, for the reason that the free energy of small molecules is less than that of large molecules. For example, you can put a DNA sample that is absolutely sterile on a room-temperature shelf, and it degrades rapidly into smaller-than-parent polymers, trimers, dimers and nucleosides.
One can talk about other moieties such as RNA, and the problem still holds. This is why hypotheses such as adherence/stabilizing substrate binding (e.g. peptide nucleic acids) have been proposed. But they haven’t panned out. BTW, peptide nucleic acids and Rebek’s self-assembling molecules are beautifully intelligently designed, the products of human genius, but there is zero evidence of their existence in nature, anymore than there are naturally occurring gasoline wells or teflon deposits.
Until the Big Bang theory, it was possible to posit an infinite-age universe, such that extremely unlikely polymerization and replication events could occur: they only had to happen once, and the universe had forever for this to occur. That’s a beautiful thing about infinity. But now, we have a finite-age universe.
Then it was speculated the universe was formed and would collapse and reform, ad infinitim. We really need that infinity phenomenon. But now it appears that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. Goodbye infinitely-repeating Big Bangs, apparently.
So the theory of panspermia has been proposed, exogenesis. But let’s do a calculation. Assume life arose elsewhere in the universe’s first 10 billion years, and through some kind of collision, a planet was blown to bits carrying some organisms.
Or planet moves at 90,000 miles per hour around the sun and our solar system is traveling at 600,000 mph revolving around the galaxy.
Let’s take as a post-collision planetary particle dispersion speed 100,000 mph. That’s a maximum reasonable speed, give or take, because A) two bodies’ collision reduces their original velocities, B) too high a speed, and life-seeding-potential meteors would liquify and vaporize themselves on impact.
The nearest planet outside the solar system is 50 LY distant from us (51 Pegasi). At 100,000 mph, it would take about 330,000 years for a 50 LY transit. So, in the first 10 billion years of the universe (13.5 B universe age – 3.5 B first earth life appearance), there would be an opportunity for 30,000 such transits. Expanding this to more-distant planetary systems, we might posit 1 million potential transits. However, how many of these would carry life? How many planet-sized body collisions resulting in the dispersal of high numbers of chunks would occur? How many collisions would result in planet-chunk dispersal that could escape the gravitational force of their own stars? The ultimate number of life-containing chunks that escaped their solar system would per force be small. The number reaching earth, as opposed to just flying through our solar system, or else being captured into an earth-indepent orbit would be extremely small. The number surviving impact, with life intact would be smaller still.
The odds are higher for this scenario if life is abundant in the universe, than if it is rare. But a purely physicochemical postulate for the origin of life would mean it is rare.
Now the atheist natural selectionist dismisses these with a nice wave-of-the-hand contention: life arose spontaneously, according to Darwin’s musings, and since life is here, even though the odds of this occurring, were mathematically, physically and chemically extremely unlikely, they happened.
That’s not science. It’s religion. It is holding a postulate that life arose without God, and gosh darn we’ll prove it scientifically, but the physical, chemical and mathematical sciences all but totally refutes the postulate, revealing it so implausible that one has to be an evangelical fanaticist to accept and promote it.
Niall Ferguson has a new book “War of the World”. Ferguson, like Dawkins, and Richard Leaky, was born in Kenya. Ferguson, unlike the latter two men, openly acknowledges being raised in an imperial colony.
You see, the Roman generals who captured lands distant from Rome were not theists. They were pragmatic warriors. They dispensed land to their troops, share-sizes being according to rank and contribution to conquest. Their descendants, however, who wanted to retain the riches gained by their forefathers, colluded with the Church to invent “the divine right of kings”, i.e. God has chosen me to rule you.
This thesis broke down, starting in the Netherlands, a pragmatic nation of traders which openly accepted Jewish victims of the Spanish Inquisition and free thinkers, and spreading to Scotland and England. Read John Locke. Wealth was enormously available in the exploitation of the New World, as well as the Orient. Without the divine right of kings, a new religion had to be developed to justify conquest, enslavement and pillaging of the New World and Orient. Natural selection provided the justification. Some people are evolutionarily superior to other people. It’s a nice routine for the greedy. If God’s chosing you is the explanation for the control of other people and the earth’s resources, you win. If natural selection is the explanation, you win.
Apophis has called me an “elitist”. What a conniver he is.
I have argued for the Sedgwick arena tax to be used to build a 21st century research center at WSU. It would create new businesses and tens of thousands of new jobs. It would train Kansas-native students in research thinking and productivity.
I have alternatively proposed, maintaining the sales tax, after arena construction, to fund the research center, and training programs in the Vo-Tech field. Maybe I am missing something, but how do these ideas make me an “elitist”?
Apophis says I am anti-public education. I pay $3600 in property tax. My home is almost certainly over-valued by the county appraisor’s office , but that’s okay. Every Christmas season, kids come here selling stuff I don’t need, to help their public school. Guess who buys it?
Some of you say, “I’m not willing to pay my tax dollars for vouchers.” I could quibble and argue that as public employees your salaries, and tax payments, come from the private sector. But I won’t do this. There is no such thing as a purely private economy.
Suppose we had a law that enabled every Kansan to check off on their tax property tax form, “I want my payment to support vouchers,” “I don’t want my payment to support vouchers”. That’s completely democratic, isn’t it? Then based on vote tabulations and the voters’ property tax payments, some money would go for vouchers and some money would not. If you don’t support this proposal, you’re for non-democracy.
The crap those kids sell tends to go back to the company, not to the school. The school is required to sell a certain amount then they get what’s left over. So the school can end up losing money or 90% of the money raised goes back to the corporation. Also, you can always appeal any increase in your property tax. My friend’s dad does that every year because the yuppies on the East side are moving into the farmland areas and increasing their property value trying to drive him out. He appeals and hasn’t had to pay higher property taxes.
As for vouchers, that just deprives public schools of funding which is sent to private schools. In my home state my ex-girlfriend went to the Catholic school. The state provides each resident about a $1000 each year to spend on whatever. Even with that check she still had to pay a lot to go to the school so vouchers wouldn’t help those who can’t already afford to go.
Vouchers are unnecessary. Public education is already available to everyone. If you want to go somewhere not public then you pay for it. I don’t ask the government to give me a voucher for my car because I don’t want to ride the bus.
It’s against the Kansas and federal Constitution to use taxpayer money to fund your religious education. If you want to have your children become little Muslim fanatics don’t expect everyone to subsidize their brainwashing.
KSagnostic, thank you for your response. I will try to take some time soon to look at the accretion zones of the earth and decide whether I think this is an adequate explanation of the land that has to be replaced by erosion.I did notice the difference of man-made and natural erosion. Don’t you think it is odd that at several billion tons (5-16) annually, and most of it (4-12 billion tons) from high altitudes that we have high altitudes at all? It seems that those areas really should have eroded down long ago, and we should have a flatter planet with less natural erosion rather than more.Anyway, thank you for answering. Not sure if the answer is adequate for now, but I will look at the numbers when I can.
Interesting that Heartlander is being accused of avoidance when I asked Doug specifically to answer with data, and his response was:”Don’t blame me because your reading comprehension is poor.”
If it is poor and I am doing the math wrong show it. If my data are flawed, produce better data. If my interpretation of the data is wrong, provide an alternate interpretation. You avoid every issue I bring up. Apophis resorts to name calling. Again, KSagnostic thank you for intelligent conversation.
ah, Chad…………why are you dragging me into your conflict with KSagnostic? What “name-calling” are you referring to? My use of “elitist” in reference to heartlander? Anyone who acts like heartlander to a large extent and you to a lesser are rightfully called elitists. If you don’t like that….well, too bad, so sad. You do NOT want to get into a pissing contest with me Chad.
Oh Chadikins, I already presented information why your arguments are flawed, you just chose not to read them. So far you are making the argument from ignorance and you are in the habit of making logical errors. You claimed I had to show you data to show why you are wrong. That’s like refuting a cold fusion study by having to produce hot fusion. Are you really a scientist because you don’t appear to understand the workings of peer review and you can’t even look at a scientific paper correctly.
How about you come back when you get your Ph.D. because you don’t have any credibility with me.
heartlander, you said “If you don’t support this proposal, you’re for non-democracy.”
How ’bout a check-off on all tax returns that enables us to pick and choose where any tax monies are spent? For instance, Wichita has some streets I rarely use – gimme back my share of the money that’s going toward their maintenance and repair. The majority of the US doesn’t support the war in Iraq – let’s get that ever-exploding sum back! Doug’s analogy of riding a bus v expecting to be paid to drive your car was spot-on.
heartlander, you can do better than this – labeling those who disagree with you as undemocratic – use of rhetoric over reason. You’ve written some concise, well-reasoned posts in the past, and I’m disappointed.
You continue to misapply natural selection – this time, with origin of life.
You’ve not provided any justification for why vouchers should be used for private religious instruction. Or why charter schools shouldn’t be held to the same standards as public schools for admission and assessment.
You’ve used the term “darwinism” in the past, but haven’t explained what it is or where it’s taught. I have two kids who’re enrolled in physics in public school this year – one freshman honors, the other senior-level. Should I worry that they’re being taught Newtonism?
Could you explain again why your scientific opinion is more valid than the peer-reviewed conclusions of the vast majority of scientists worldwide?
Doug, you have presented no information. If my interpretation is flawed, please read the articles and give a better interpretation. You have yet to do that.
Apophis, the name calling refers specifically to the accusations of blindness and delusion.
Vouchers are probably the least elitist proposal there is. That is the only proposal by which the very poorest students could go to schools with the richest kids. Kids from the ghettos could then go to schools funded by the property taxes of the wealthiest.
I already presented the information why you were wrong. The point that I have to repeat myself just shows that you are either incapable of reading the information, or you just don’t want to. Do you have your Ph.D. yet? I didn’t think so. Come back when you have some credibility because you still haven’t presented any information on souls, virgin births, gods, or a 6,000 year old Earth.
All bloggers on this thread: 416 contributions. I haven’t been keeping a total running count, but if this thread isn’t #1 in contributions, I’ll eat my hat.
There have been a lot of very thoughtful contributions here, on both sides. Some of you don’t know my “M O”, but here it is: I love hearty debate. If schools were exclusively teaching creationism, I’d argue for non-creationism. Basically, I distrust orthodoxy, which is to say I have an antipathy to propagandizing that doesn’t give people the opportunity to challenge it by teaching them how to think for themselves.
I disagree with Apophis. Not because I am against him as a person, but because I truly believe if he would take-up geology research opportunities outside of Kansas, his life would be deeply enriched. I can donate something to this, not enough to pay for the entire expense, but $2000 to show my goodwill. He needs to figure out how to raise the rest. He’s a smart guy. Let him find out for himself how devoted to real science he really is. Let him find out how much real science he wants to learn. If it’s evolutionary/natural science that’s fine. Cuz it probably will be. But let him touch the earth, and take back to his classes his awe.
Doug, if you were to buy a hybrid vehicle, or a gasoline or diesel vehicle that gets more than 40 mpg, you should receive a voucher, i.e. a tax credit–not a reduction of your taxable income, but a total cash-value tax-payment reduction.
Chad is seeking understanding. He’s studying under an atheist. As I did. Atheists who are driven, not to create more progeny than those who believe in a god, but who are trying to live much better than most people, materially speaking, are not to be trusted. If they are Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, charismatic fundamentalist or atheist, consider their teachings, but ultimately look at their material rewards here on earth. If they are amassing a lot here-and-now, and you’re not, you need to be skeptical about their personal agendas.
When I was in Fiji, I brought up a 100+ pound Tridacna giant clam. The island tribe loved it, as a feastful delicacy. I also brought up a few top mullusks, which I thought had beautiful shells. I violated taboo. How was I to know? I was just a scuba-diving scrounger.
OMG heartlander…………….a whole $2000? How long could my family live on that?
I said it’s a minor-cost-share but not insignificant contribution to help you achieve a goal, if you are desirous of pursuing it. When I give money to universities for scholarship support, I can’t afford to pay full scholarships, but every little bit helps, as other people do the same thing. If eight middle-class donors contributions pay for one student, that’s helpful to that one student, no?
My spouse and I received $500 scholarships and $1500 scholarships/graduate fellowships. One time, some wonderful friends gave us $200 to help us in a time of need while we were struggling to get through school, but they had graduated and were working full-time. In our own past experience, every little bit helped.
I’m just trying to help you realize that life has possibilities that you may not have previously considered. Some of them are really worth pursuing. You might spend 4 weeks in Yellowstone or Grand Teton, and come back to school really energized to share your personal discoveries with your students.
My best science teacher was in fourth grade. He borrowed a bioscope (projection microscope) and showed us paramecia, amoeba, and other pond life. He brought in his own home-made 8-inch Newtonian refractor scope for a back-to-school night. He launched a home-made hot-air balloon in class one day. Showed us 8 mm movies of his sailplanes (he was a prominent glider builder and pilot, later an experimental aircraft designer–one time he flew a reenactment of the Wright Bros. first flight). He made orange-lens thermal-hunting sunglasses for students who brought in cheap regular sunglasses. He had an epoxy-block with a tarantula as a paperweight on his desk–he made that too, and held an after-school science club that imbedded beetles and butterflies, and we built model sailplanes. Took us to the museum of science and industry where we saw dynamic displays of wing lift and drag in a mini wind tunnel, a twenty-foot high van de Graaf generator throwing 10-foot long sparks, a hyperbolic cone with marbles revolving, showing how planets close to the sun revolve rapidly, while those farther away revolve more slowly, and how friction caused all the marbles’ trajectories to decay into the “gravity well”.
He taught us that weightlessness in spacecraft wasn’t due to a lack of gravity, but to the effect of orbital free-fall. (This was the era of the Mercury program. We watched John Glenn in space, live, on a special video feed.)
He showed us that science is truly amazing, and in the process inspired many students over the years to pursue careers in science and technology.
Heartlander, I own a hybrid but I don’t get a “voucher” for it, it’s a used car. Your argument falls flat because your analogy would have to give vouchers for every car.
However, to continue the analogy we already have subsidized public transportation. What you’d like to do is cut those subsidies thereby increasing the cost of public transportation so those, who already have cars, would have to pay a tiny bit less. The end result is there would be fewer bus lines or higher fares to deal with the reduction in subsidy. So those who can’t afford the cars may not be able to afford public transport or they’d have to travel farther because of fewer services.
So in both the real world and the analogy the only people who benefit are those who can already afford their own car or private schools.
Doug, your accusation that I’d like to cut transportation subsidies has no foundation–zero, nada, zip, zilch. There is nothing I have said that would suggest this.
I’ve ridden light-rail /subway systems in California and Massachusetts innumerable times, such as going to work. I’ve taken innumerable city bus and streetcar rides to go shopping, see sports events, concerts et al. If Wichita had frequent bus service outside the city core, I’d take the bus today, particularly if buses had bike racks. But I’m not in charge of transportation-system planning or tax allocations.
I’ve lived in places with a strong commitment to mass transit, such as where a quarter gets you 15 minutes of metered street parking, and full-day multilevel garage parking is $20. These conditions incentivize mass transit use as a far less expensive proposition.
I didn’t create the exurban sprawl and a car-favoring transportation-planning paradigm here.
As far as buying a used hybrid is concerned, the state could give an annual registration credit (cost reduction) to all hybrid owners, or else a point of purchase tax credit to all buyers.
For example, if you buy a used house, it doesn’t disqualify you from getting a mortgage-interest deduction.
The rebate is worked into the price of the used car.For example, let’s say the taxpayers pay for 90% of your car. Well, when you go to sell you car that cost you $3k instead of $30k are you really going to sell it for $15k after 4 years, or are you going to have to compete with all the people selling for $1,500?
A $2000 rebate works exactly the same way, just on a smaller scale.
When you sell a subsidized product the subsidy is built in.
Also, gasoline is heavily taxed. When you buy a hybrid you buy less gasoline, and pay fewer taxes on the gasoline. This is a good thing, since you are paying your city less for every mile you travel than your neighbor with his gas-guzzling Suburban is. This is another tax break you are getting.
CSA,
Thank you for helping me to see how teaching spherical geometry to 8th-9th graders and Newtonian mechanics vis-a-vis gravity to elementary students represent real science teaching.
I’m in a fifth grade class. I have two kids each grab the end of a 24″ spring requiring about 5 pounds of force to stretch it about 12″. I then give them another spring, same length, requiring 10 pounds of force to achieve the same stretch. Then another one, but requiring 20 pounds of force. We pair up all the kids and let them do the experiment.
Then, I say, we call this effort that you all had to make to stretch the spring a FORCE.
Then we take three identical boxes, one weighing 1 pound, another weighing 5 pounds, and another weighing 10 pounds. Have the kids lift them. We discuss this, and agree that lifting requires a force. We then drop a box, and watch it fall. It hits the floor. Something is pulling the box down. It makes it go to the floor when we drop it, and the floor stops its travel. So this is what we call gravity. It exerts a force on material objects, like your pencil when it rolls off your desk.
Now we take the boxes and weigh them on a spring scale. We show how the spring stretches greater lengths for heavier objects, and shorter lengths for lighter objects. The objects don’t go to the floor: the spring stops them. It must be exerting a force opposite to gravity when it stretches.
We then do experiments with objects that have the same weight, but clearly different sizes. So then we introduce the concept of mass. We can put a piece of styrofoam on a spring scale, a piece of wood of the same weight, and a piece of lead of the same weight, and say, these all have the same mass. Gravity is exerting the same force on them. Even though the objects are very different in size.
We can take a pan balance and two graduated cylinders, one for each pan. We fill one with cooking oil. We start filling the second with water, and voila! the pans come into balance even though the second cylinder isn’t filled. We then put them on a numerical-readout scale that shows them to have the same weight. Therefore they must have the same mass. But they have different densities. We then mix the oil and water in a bottle, and watch the oil and water separate.We say that water has a higher density than oil.
We drop objects of different weights simultaneously, and show that they appear to fall at the same speed. So gravity doesn’t pull objects at different speeds.
We then drop small weights onto kids hands, say 3 inches, and 6 feet. We do this a few times for each child. Then eyes-closed we do the drops and ask, “high or low”? We then explain that gravity makes things fall faster and faster the farther they fall. This is why it hurts your feet to jump down from five feet, but not from 5 inches.
So, we are teaching by doing. Kids can actually measure gravity’s effects.
For spherical geometry, using styrofoam balls of different sizes, which have a uniform density, you can weigh them on an electronic high-accuracy scale, and use a dial caliper to find their diameters, and thin wire to find their circumferences. (Or put a paint dot on each, and carefully roll it in a straight line, and measure the distances between paint marks on the rolled surface.)
You then calculate radii as half the diameters measured.
Weights of the different sized balls are recorded, and we impute the weight ratios to volume-ratios.
It’s quite easy to show through this that spheres’ circumference/radius ratio is the same as that for circles, C=2 pi r and that spheres’ volume/radius is 4/3 pi r^3. (This is an upper-middle/high school exercise, presuming algebra proficiency for the calculations.)
There are other exercises. Geometry textbooks describe mathematically slicing spheres into discs to estimate the volume formula, and the surface area formula. For a fourth-quarter geometry class, some solid geometry introduction is straightforward.
These tangible, hands on, test-the-theory-out-yourself exercises, are completely different from teaching evolution. For example, even if you had students bring in their different pets, and said, “These animals’ differences are due to evolution,” or they gather tree leaves from different speices, calling this a direct-observational exercise, it is not, because the evolution hypothesis is not testable by the students. It isn’t even suggested by the evidence, except to the pre-conditioned mind.
Am I saying evolution doesn’t occur? No, I’m saying that some of you don’t appreciate the difference between experiment-based science teaching and science-orthodoxy indoctrination. They are two very different things.
Finally, the kind of science that makes it possible to extend human lifespans, communicate instantaneously around the globe, travel across America and to Europe to see our ancestors’ homelands, and be productive in the late-afternoon heat of Midwestern and Southern summers, are the products of adult scientists and engineers who learned how to do hands-on science as kids.
This is the kind of science I learned, and have confidence in.
CSA, he did it again. heartlander goes blah, blah, blah for about 20 minutes then digresses from the actual question you challenged him to answer.This is my favorite quote from his last post: “No, I’m saying that some of you don’t appreciate the difference between experiment-based science teaching and science-orthodoxy indoctrination.” This sounds like a load of horse shit if ever I heard any. heartlander truly does not get it.
Let me see if I understand you correctly, heartlander.
You & I agree that the constructivist method of teaching science – having students figure out not just what they know, but how they know it – is most effective. The examples you cite are oldies-but-goodies in classrooms, from what I’ve gathered from pros in the field. (And, yes, heartlander, pro teachers *do* exist in education, despite your all-too-obvious disdain of the profession.)
Problem is, this type of instruction requires a *lot* of time, and focused interactions between a teacher a very few students. Unfortunately, most science assessments across the country follow the ‘inch deep mile wide’ teaching philosophy, and its those assessments that drive the curriculum. Likewise, truly effective hands-on minds-on learning requires a very small student-teacher ratio, which is an expensive proposition. (But, oh, remove those limitations, and watch those kids learn!)
In essence, though, you’re saying that if it can’t be replicated by the learner, that it shouldn’t be taught at all. For example, how about atomic theory? Few students will have the opportunity to actually run Rutherford’s scattering experiment; should they learn that the nucleus is just a hypothetical construct? (Before you dismiss this as ridiculous, I know a science teacher who does just that!)
You keep confusing the *fact of natural selection* with the *theory of evolution,* though; just as Einstein’s theory of relativity encompasses Newton’s law of gravity, a theory is used to explain the facts and laws we’ve observed. A theory isn’t some wild-ass guess, and it needs have a lot of data to support it before it ceases being simply an interesting hypothesis.
Later!
Hey Apophis – have you seen “People Acting Like Alpha Particles?” Check out http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3736556590151314279&q=rutherford+gold&hl=en .
Don’t lose sleep over heartlander. His teaching philosophy reminds me of creationist Ken Ham’s favorite line – “Were you THEEEEERE?” If it wasn’t directly witnessed by humans, it didn’t happen.
“His teaching philosophy reminds me of creationist Ken Ham’s favorite line – “Were you THEEEEERE?” If it wasn’t directly witnessed by humans, it didn’t happen.”
CSA…This is definately a Ken Ham favorite quote, but a totally inaccurate assessment of what it means. What it really means is if it wasn’t directly witnessed by humans, then we are never 100% sure of how it happened or what caused it to happen.
CSA, I don’t think I am confused. Perhaps you are confused.
Evolution and natural selection are not fungible, according to the current paradigm.
A mutation occurs in DNA. It may be a point mutation, a recombination mutation, a frame-shift mutation.
The mutation is either disadvantageous to the organism, neutral, or advantageous for survival and reproduction. Disadvantageous mutations may be followed by advantageous subsequent mutations, or the environment may change, making the currently disadvantageous mutation favorable for replication in the future, if it is not eliminated from the gene pool before these events can happen. Neutral mutations may stay neutral, or become disadvantageous or advantageous with secondary mutations, and/or changes in the environment. Advantageous mutations would, under the theory of natural selection, replicate at higher frequencies than the other two types, unless and until changing environment render them non-advantageous. These processes spur evolution.
I’m not confused. At Berkeley, I was the only lower-division student in an upper-division molecular biology class. Later I was the only undergraduate student in graduate MoBi courses.
I’ve been studying biology for a half-century.
Why would I have a knack for biology? Well, I spent my earliest years living on the Aransas Wildlife Refuge–the whooping crane winter residence site. My father was a biologist. My mother remembers, “I’d put you on the lawn when I hung out the laundry to dry, and snakes crawled over you.” I used to catch snakes and terrorize other kids. I loved snakes, they feared snakes. My dad caught rattlesnakes and showed how fast they could strike.
He bought me Golden Nature Guides in the 50’s. I read about evolution, in these guides, and looked at their evolutionary tree diagrams starting at age 6.
At age 9, I used my Christmas money to buy a microscope, when most kids would have chosen something like a baseball glove. That was shortly after my 4th grade teacher showed us pondwater organisms on a projector- bioscope.
I decided to go into medicine for complex reasons. One was that I was a wizard in the lab, but my advisor was an administrator, which he had to be to successfully get grants. So were most of his colleagues. I was a hands-on person. I also wanted to explore a wider range of human biology. Isolating and analyzing nucleic acid from Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cell line was really interesting at first, but grew old.
I learned a lot of cutting-edge analytical technology. Not all that I wanted. For example, I was not allowed to run the ultracentrifuge. Why? Because a ditzle-brained grad student had loaded unbalanced tubes into one, and “walked the ultracentrifuge over the floor”, causing expensive damage to the machine. I would not have made that error. If my advisor was in the lab more, he could have checked me out, and approved my competence. Instead, I had to suffer for someone else’s incompetence, i.e. inattention to detail.
My grades were marginal for med school. Med schools were GPA-focused. They didn’t give grade-modifying credit for concept-based physics for scientists and engineers vs. fact-and-formula-memorization physics for biology students, or for O chem for chem/chem engineering students, or mathematics beyond calculus. Plus, the med school application time window was supposed to be July 1 to October 31, and I THOUGHT my app submitted on August 18 should be fine, but later learned that 70% of applications were submitted in July, and 95% of places were offered to the July submitters. (totally different from Ph.D. programs’ schedule)
So, I didn’t get in. I decided to use my forte, lab research, and developed a new blood-substitute prototype, on my own initiative. This got me compelling rec letters from my superiors.
I was a top student in my first two years. I answered questions nobody else could, such as “What is the only mammal that secretes uric acid, rather than urea in its urine?” Answer: the dalmation dog. Natural selectionists cannot figure out how one single breed of dog has reptile/bird metabolic/renal physiology.
My answer was so unexpected, that the professor, a co-discoverer of pantothenic acid, who was used to upstaging his students, based on their ignorance, having heard my answer, to a question he had asked many times previously, started to give the answer, and then stopped, and said, “That’s right!” I was in the back row of the class. EVERY ONE of my classmates turned around, and looked at me: Who IS this guy?
Later my classmates gave me the “Most Likely to Succeed in Roundsmanship” award. Which I didn’t get to vote on, because I was body surfing when they took the vote. (You want to understand wave phenomena? Experimentally try to figure out macro-waves, and learn to ride them. Then you’ll truly understand wave mechanics.)
UCSD asked me to teach a pre-matriculation course in Organ Physiology and Pharmacology to minority students. The original proposal was to have regular lecturers each teach a specific topic. They instead decided to give me the entire multi-topic course. I was, and am a knowledge assimilator.
My third year of medical school was absolutely torturous. My spouse was a physician in training. We had a youngster whom I had to co-care for. Bad combination of circumstances. I got through. I could have–arguably should have–done an M.D./ Ph.D. program, and gotten more sleep.
As a doctor, I enjoyed some amazing experiences, ranging from treating a Popeye-armed middle-of-the-night drunk rattlesnake collector, to delivering babies, to letting parents deliver anesthesia to their children in an operating room that never previously even allowed parents to be present. I was one of the group of people whom sleep deprivation severely adversely affected. Was I the first doctor in the world to do the last? Almost certainly. I broke universal “rules”. But “rules” are supposed to be functional. If your child is going to have surgery, and you’re a parent, you have a RIGHT to be there, at least while your child is awake. You really don’t want your child to be scared shitless by masked “assailants”. With expert guidance, you can put your child “to sleep”. Think you can’t do it? Yeah, you can.
I did other things. I was the first doctor in the world to give an tracheally-intubated adult a “Speak and Spell” that enabled gave her the ability to communicate in writing even though she could not write notes (1983). It wasn’t just good for her medical care, it enabled her to express her fears, and wishes.I taught nurse anesthetists how to give epidural analgesia, in the good old US of A, who otherwise had to go to Mexico to gain a skill that was denied them here. Today they can learn here, but not in 1986.
Apophis says that I claim I am a doctor. It’s sad that his personal experience is so narrow. It’s sad that kids have to learn “science” from somebody who was not a self-driven science learner. I offered him funding assitance
Some of you want natural selection to be taught to preadolescents and young adolescents. That’s a rule. Is it a useful rule? Yes, certainly to people who want to live on the high side of the hog, just like their church-authority progenitors. Is it the best rule for society’s benefit? I’m dubious.
Richard Dawkins recounts accepting without skepticism a boarding-school teacher’s story of British soldiers crossing a railroad track and some of them being annihilated for following orders. Me, I would have thought independently, and concluded, “That’s a very bizarre” story. I would have asked, ” When and where did this event exactly occur?”
I mean I know that people do stupid things. But given a bunch of human beings, wouldn’t they either quickly jump over the narrow track, or else wait for the train to pass before attempting the transit? Look, there are suicidal people. But what are the odds that several of them are in a line of soldiers, and they all thus commit suicide? It’s just not a plausible story. Even a 9 year old should have been able to figure that out, unlesss his brain was not working too well. Has it gone from dysfunction to function?
“Apophis says that I claim I am a doctor. It’s sad that his personal experience is so narrow. It’s sad that kids have to learn “science” from somebody who was not a self-driven science learner. I offered him funding assitance”………….How do you know whether or not I am a “self-driven science learner” or not heartlander? Typical, make assinine assumptions.
You are a FAKE heatlander!
Apophis, I don’t know if you realize it, but you are discrediting yourself to the reasoning members of this audience. I’m not going to apologize for doing things that are inconceivable to you. I attribute things in my life to beyond-science-measurable beneficent intercessions that I can’t comprehend. I’m sorry you haven’t had many of these, or you failed to recognize them and benefit.
Many times I have tried to do things I didn’t know how to do right, and I did them wrong. But I persisted until I did them right. I chose extraordinary challenges, because I wanted to learn what my ultimate capabilities were, if I didn’t give up. You should read last month’s National Geographic (a very pro-evolution/natural selection magazine). Go beyond the cover article on the oldest hominid child, and read Reinhold Messner’s bio. I relate to his life story. His accomplishments are quite different from mine, but I relate to his doing really, really hard things that other people can’t conceive of doing themselves. The segment on his brother Gunther’s death really moved me. A brother who was always subordinated to support duties, heroically soloed one of the hardest climbs in the world, chasing after Reinhold, and outpaced his sibling to get to the top. But in so doing, he overextended himself into utter exhaustion, and couldn’t keep up on the return journey with Reinhold. He was killed by an avalanche.
I pursued many adventures when I was young. I took risks. Like when I decided to go to med school, a Ph.D. who had failed in his own med-education quest, asked me, “What’s your backup plan if you don’t get in?” I responded, “I’m not thinking about that. I want to go to med school, I failed the first time, but I still believe I can do it.” And I did, by doing seminal medical research. Also by sending my AMCAS application special delivery on June 30, so it would arrive on July 1, the opening application date (too-early arriving apps were sent back to senders). So my app number was 500, not 33,000 like the first time (with only 13,000 national admissions slots). It was like my high school football coach said: “Everyone makes mistakes. Don’t make the same mistakes twice.”
Due to my apps being in the first-arrival group, I did interviews about the same time in August that my previous app arrived at the AMCAS office. I got into two med schools on the first admission round in January.
CSA mentioned particle physics. My former math tutee got to attend a prestigious physics summer program, and at age 13, spent a day at Fermilab, learning about its superconducting tevatron. Apophis, you probably don’t know what Fermilab is, but until the CERN
Large Hadron Collider opens, the Fermilab tevatron collider is the most powerful accelerator/collider device in the world. My student was the only middle-schooler in Kansas to get to do this.I decided to become his teacher because he has extraordinary talent. He had to work extraordinarily hard to get there. Such as doing math problems during Thanksgiving holiday (only 2 days, which gave him 3 days off) and Christmas vacation (5 out of 15 days).
When I went to school we had 185 instructional days, with our regular teachers present in all those classrom days except for a few sick-leave days. That’s less than half the year’s days, not great, but compare it to today. Today, instructional days with regular teachers present is under 170.
People like you, Apophis, have shortened the school year by three weeks. Or maybe Kansas has always had an undereducation short-calendar regimen, I don’t know, I didn’t grow up here. But I can tell you this: 12 years x (185 – 170) amounts to a full school year reduction by the time of graduation.
That’s one of the reasons that Kansas’s 21.6 ACT average (21 median) among students who take the ACT because they want to go to 4-year college and have been advised they are qualified, is a high school subject-remediation score.
Mymath student scored, in 7th grade, a 26 on the ACT Math. That’s about the median score for East High’s IB diploma-recipients’ 11th graders. He scored a 13 on an old-test shortly after I started teaching him in 6th grade, a 10 being the average of pure-guessing. In late 6th grade he scored an 18. With 6 months more teaching he got a 26.
Which is to conclude, I know how to teach algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Yesterday we did some complex number problems.
Apophis, try this one: (3 + 2i)(4 -i)(3 – 2i)=. i^12 =? These are not hard problems a for adults who are expert in science: modern science rests on mathematics. Call me a skeptic, but I have doubts that more than 1 or 2, if any, of your students can solve these problems. If you disbelieve, give them the forgoing two problems, and see what happens. I sent a 13 year old to Fermilab, because I operate in a different realm than you. You teach to an average. I teach to the extraordinary. People like you make extraordinarily talented young people into underachievers, because they can do more than you can fathom, and you can’t teach what you personally don’t know.
Let me point out another matter: how many of your students get to keep their textbooks after they finish your course? Zero? You can say, “That would be too expensive.” Yes it is, to someone who is compromising young people’s education, but is too ignorant to realize it. You are adhering to a dumbing-down paradigm, but you are in denial of this reality.
You are rambling aimlessly again heartlander. I think all of the Blog readers by now can clearly see that you get your jollies by trying to bash on me personally when you know nothing about me in the real world. All you do is to make assumptions and frankly they make you look like an ass.
Let’s look at your claims critically: if your ideas are so damned good, why haven’t they been implemented nationwide? Is it that ole’ Apophis has that much power to deter these wonderful innovations from being implemented? I think there is a more obvious reason…………your ideas just don’t work in the REAL world. heartlander, your elitist mindset will not allow you to see the current reality in public education. CSA has attempted to point out these realities to you in the past few days, as Have I and others. You just don’t get it. Do you really think very many of the readers are impressed by your claims?
How exactly did I shorten the school year by three weeks? I know I have considerable influence, but not near that much.
Apophis, do you even know what the public education system is?
It’s a HUMAN INVENTION. It’s a constellation of inventions. According to numerous independent evaluators, American tertiary public education is the best in the world. It attracts the some of the smartest people from America and the rest of the world as graduate students and faculty.
As you are know doubt aware, public university faculty and administrators feel that K-12 is not doing its job preparing kids. Costs are being shifted from taxpayer-funded K-12 to taxpayer-and-student-funded public higher education. In short: at the university level parents and their children have to pay out-of-pocket for remedial coursework that K-12 ostensibly teaches, but doesn’t actually.
You deny cutting back the school year. But you work in the system. Did you TRY TO DO ANYTHING to STOP THE EROSION? You think of yourself as an education expert. Right? Did it ever occur to you Mr. Education Expert, that deleting a full year of class instructional time during the span of a child’s K-12 experience just MIGHT reduce his or her LEARNING?
You can pass blame on to other people as is your wont. But if YOU aren’t standing up for fundamental principles, such as less instructional time = less learning, and if you fail to stop this erosion, WHAT DO YOU STAND UP FOR?
Did you and your colleagues send home notices for parents to read, “The district is cutting back class days, and it’s going to hurt your kids. We need you to write letters to the newspaper, march in front of the district and state DOE offices, and the state capitol, and demand 185 days of instruction, because the fewer days we teach your children, the less they are going to learn?” Did you ever do this? Why not?
Do you have any idea what is happening in public universities? A half century ago, most offered no regular-year classes in summer. A quarter-century ago, they offered a few dozen. Today, they offer most lower-division courses, and many upper-division courses. Many allow high school students to take courses among university students.
How many USD 259 students took summer algebra after 6th grade? How many took geometry in 7th grade, then Algebra II the following summer? How many are taking precalculus as 8th graders, then AP calculus AB the following summer?
Okay, let me put it this way: how many USD 259 kids have 99th percentile math abilities in 6th grade. Isn’t it 40-50 per year?
Let’s consider enrolling 95th-98th percentile ability students in algebra I in 7th grade, geometry the following summer, algebra II in 8th grade, precalc in summer after 8th, and AP Calculus AB in 9th grade. You have 160-200 students who can do this.
You have 200-250 students per year, at 90th-94th percentile ability, who could be taking AP Calculus AB in 10th grade.
You could be thinking, “Let’s optimize mathematical talent development, here, we have the requisite talent base.” But you don’t think this way.
Apophis, you teach physical science to 8th or 9th graders. Have you ever thought about the possibility of teaching it to classes of 9, 10 and 11 year olds? It is achievable. At least based on their knowledge-absorbing talents.
Holly shit, that’s a lot to get through.
To return to the concept of public education’s being a human invention, why would any smart person want to be locked into a 19th century invention, when the 21st century to reinvent, extraordinarily expands possibilities? Why not be a reinventor?
CSA mentioned a high school teacher who runs a Rutherford alpha-particle deflection/rebound apparatus. Some of you don’t know what he’s talking about, but if you did, and if you love science, you’d say, “That’s so cool.”
I don’t know if CSA’s teacher allows students to look through a microscope to see a zinc sulfide screen’s alpha-particle bombardment’sphosphorescence, because alpha particles that mis the screen and microscope lens elements will intercept observers’ eye or brai tissues, but you can today use charge coupled devices to record light photons and display them on a video screeen. Maybe we should let really science-interested kids take the risk of direct observation.
Jesus F****** Christ heartlander……………..you ARE losing it. “Did you and your colleagues send home notices for parents to read, “The district is cutting back class days, and it’s going to hurt your kids. We need you to write letters to the newspaper, march in front of the district and state DOE offices, and the state capitol, and demand 185 days of instruction, because the fewer days we teach your children, the less they are going to learn?” Did you ever do this? Why not?” This is just stupid stuff heartlander, plain stupid.
You need you anti-psychotic meds adjusted and SOON.
heartlander, I think you misread me. I most certainly did NOT mention any high school class running the Rutherford experiment.
My question to you was, how can you justify teaching atomic theory to anyone who hasn’t actually followed in the footsteps of Geiger & Marsden?
You’d proposed that all science learning be based on experiments that the students do themselves, and to teach anything else was promoting dogma.
Are we to teach that the nucleus is just some hypothetical construct?
Apophis, I remember that in my local school district, during those years when the state legislature ignored the public school funding issue, the district cut back on days (and benefits) instead of providing raises.
Fat lot of good that did! The kids still had to perform well on the state assessments, which meant the teachers had to get the job done in less time. Hellerish!
heartlander, you’ve proposed some solutions that are interesting, like a longer school year and letting kids keep their textbooks. You’ve had the great good fortune to tutor a few willing students, and so you realize that the more one-on-one help a teacher can provide, the more students can achieve. You also realize the value of high expectations, at least for those you deem worthy of your attention.
I’m assuming, then, that you’ve lobbied strongly for the increased funding necessary to accomplish these goals? And, yes, it would take more money; despite your oft-expressed contempt for teachers, they’re smart enough to not work an extended year without commensurate pay. Likewise for providing texts for students to keep (perhaps remedied by online sources, though the digital divide would still need bridging), and for the small (1:4) teacher:student ratio for each and every classroom.
Heartlander, apparently you haven’t heard of the concept of an analogy. Apparently our education system has failed heartlander so he wants to remove funds from public education so everyone can be equally as clueless.
Oh, and heartlander?
If you’re truly pursuing perfection – or even correctness – I’m a ’she,’ not a ‘he.’
Your biases are showing . . . ;-)
Here’s a funny one; heartlander bashed on me last summer for actively lobbying for further education funding form the state. I guess he sees more money for schools being a BAD thing! ROFLSeriously, maybe the state BOE should consider hiring heartlander to replace Corky. Just another fool who says he is for education but his actions show otherwise.
I’d like to see Apophis swim in 20 foot ocean swells, or take a 12,000 foot mountain hike, or free dive 50 feet in the ocean and see what’s down there on a lungful of air.
Ask Apophis if he had ever done something like any of these thingws. Because he does not challenge himself to test his own limits in explorig the natural world, he has no clue what science is, Science is exploring beyond estabished idea, and Apophis hasn’t done this. So he’s a “science” teacher who hasn’t done scientific exploration. To those of you who are sentient beings, that means Appohis is a scientinfic FAKE.
It just eats heartlander up that he really doesn’t really know anything concrete about me. He just makes assinine assumptions. Do you actually know I have never done any of things YOU claim I have never done heartlander? How do you know I have never done the scientific research you claim I have never done?
IT’S PRETTY OBVIOUS YOU THE FAKE IS HERE heartlander………….YOU!
I have been doing some reading in the history of science. It’s kindof a hobby of mine to look into things most people don’t know.
Like some people, such as Richard Dawkins, think religious belief is a natural-selection error, and that religion can be subsumed under “science”, atheistic “science”.
Some anti-Christian readers here have, in past threads pilloried the Catholic Church for promoting an earth-centered (geocentric) universe. Actually the Alexandrian Ptolemy promoted this view, quashing others’ arguments that the earth revolved around the sun. There is no evidence extant that Ptolemy was a Christian.
Who first propounded compelling arguments that the planets, including earth, revolved around the sun, arguments that were seminal in the Scientific Revolution? Nicholaus Copernicus. An ardent anti-church free-thinker to be sure? Oops, not quite. Copernicus was a Catholic PRIEST, actually.
On Apophis and me, I haven’t given my name because it’s in the telephone directory, and I don’t want late night rocks thrown at my windows. And Apophis shouldn’t subject himself to such torments either. But I have given my history to you all. Why are Apophis and I different? Because he hasn’t. But we can still glean things about him. He’s said that he concentrated in geology as an undergrad, and earned a science, not education master’s degree. He has said he teaches physical science, which places him in a middle school because he said that some of his students became engineers and doctors. Ninth grader future engineers and doctors don’t take physical science–that’s a general ed course in high school for students who are really weak in science.
Students who are really weak in science get crappy science teachers. So, I’m going to posite you teach middle school science. Apophis, if I’m wrong, just say it.
Apophis hasn’t said, “Here’s where I did my undegrad studies, and here’s my degree.” It can’t be a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences geology degree, because that per se doesn’t qualify for state teacher licensure. To receive state licensure, you have to take a slew of education courses. The vast majority of middle school science teachers-to-be take a College/School of education program that leads to an COE/SOE degree, with a “major” in the science. If you get a CLAS (science department) degree, you have to earn either a college/school of education minor, or a dual-degree, or an MAT master’s degree.
Apophis, which do you have: a CLAS, or COE /SOE bachelor’s degree? Or a double degree? Just be honest, and tell the people here what you earned.
Taking some nasty swipes today aren’t we heartlander? Is your self esteem a little low this fine morning? Hey jackass, everyone who reads this blog as well as I actually knows you cannot prove any of the claims you make about yourself. Maybe they are true, maybe they aren’t. The fact is that you can’t prove a damned thing. LOL
I see no point in divulging my credentials to the INTERNET, especially just because YOU think I should. Sorry, you’re not near that important. What really matters is that many local, state and national organizations think I am a pretty damned good teacher. My services are in much demand. Sorry, you’ll just have to take my word on that. Ask NE Heartbreak the next time he chimes in. He has actually observed me in my classroom, at my invitation. Worry not, an invitation will never be extended to you. I do not want your anti-public education slime to contaminate my students.
Any educated reader is going to see you for what you are heartlander; an anti-public education elitist who can only bash on a teacher who DARES stand up to you. Do us all a favor and just bugger off. ROFLMAO
Bash away the rest of the weekend on me, I won’t be around much.I look forward to seeing your next psychotic episode heartlander.