This may be the most ludicrous post I've seen at this site to date. Don't forget that it was scientists who exposed the Piltdown hoax. Science is inherently self-correcting.
I assume that your problem with current science is really about Darwin and global warming -- if you don't like the science, then it must be wrong, eh?
I would argue that science has made a few advances since 1850 -- including the very technology this site uses to propagandize the faithful.

Salve,

The most ludicrous? Really? I think I'll consider it a feather in the cap, then.

As for your observation: in our modern times, science is not at all self-correcting. It usually takes someone from outside science to show that some particular crackpot theory is twaddle...and even then, the proponents of science these days are like as not to just ignore the evidence...and that is the problem: the people who hold up science as the be-all and end-all of existence are not adhering to the basic need of science: the fearless and absolute adherence to truth at all times.

So, the Age of Science is dead...it died between about 1850 and 1950. Never again will such a man-centered construct, I think, be held up as a paradigm...and good riddance, if you ask me.

"What killed science was when its strongest advocates stopped telling the truth."
-a provocative statement to be sure.However dishonest.Science has always had its fringe elements and more than its share of "crackpots".These individuals could hardly be called science's "strongest advocates" however passionate or misguided they may be.What HAS changed is
a willingness on behalf of political and/or religious groups to openly attack "mainstream" science."Intelligent Design" BTW is nothing more than "Creationism"in a new package.

Mark-

You never cease to amaze... you proclaim the "Age of Science" is over, yet... if anything is going to protect us from terrorist attack... it's going to be science. (more on that later)

First of all, you are holding science (as an entity) to an unreasonable standard. You are saying that a few bad theories (compared to the good ones) completely destroyed an entire branch of human inquiry.

Let me tell you about some more crackpot theories:

The Earth is flat; the Earth is the center of the Universe; Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his liver eaten out by a bird everyday; bad feelings come from thetons (sad alien ghosts) in our bodies; the world, mountains, trees, and midgets were created by a giant spaghetti monster's noodly apendage; Muhammed ascended to heaven bodily on a winged horse; et cetera.

What do all of these "crackpot" theories have in common? These are all religious theories... does that mean that Religion is dead?

To tell the truth... there is no and wasn't ever any "age of science" (at least in this commentor's opinion). There was, however, an Age of Reason. We are still in that age, actually. When intelligent men started to look for answers to life in the world around them, instead of just looking at a book that was written a few hundred years ago.

This age wasn't only brought on by scientists, it was brought on by artists, philosophers (including "Christian Apologists"), mathematicians, historians, and pretty much everyone who wanted to explain their world using logic, reason, and empirical evidence.

In fact, I challenge anyone here to convince me of the truth of Christianity without using the Bible. (hint: use empirical evidence)

The Age of Reason will not go away until the philosophers, scientists, and historians stop their secular inquiry due to fears of divine retribution, and I will fight the onset of that time with all of my might.

About the war on terror...

God won't protect us from terrorist attacks merely because most of us are Christian (where was that guy on 9/11, anyways?)...

God won't step in if there is an anthrax attack in the Rose Garden... but a paramedic with a vaccine could help...

God won't jump in front of bullets when a soldier gets shot at in Iraq, but better body armor will absorb a lot of the damage...

To say that science is "dead" is to neglect all of the great things that scientists, many of whom are athiests, agnostics, or deists, have given and continue to give us.

I won't even get started on some cracked-out conservative-based pseudoscience...

Don't forsake what science has given you... unless you want to stop using those things... then again... it would be hard to write on this site if you did that...

Why did science stray from the path of truth? I think it is because we ceased educating the men of science with a knowledge of religion - a knowledge, that is, of genuine truth, genuine reason, and the relationship of man to creation, and his Creator.

Wow. Just...wow. There are so many things wrong/contradictory/silly with these two sentences, it boggles the mind. And that's not even getting into the rest of this post. I don't know that this is the most ludicrous post on this site to date, Salvelinus, but it certainly ranks near the top.

Gee...this was a silly post. As a creationist (who use to believe in evolution) I can say that "science is dead" is just as reasonable as saying "the earth orbits the moon."

Science is far from dead...its rather societies trust in evolutionistic science that has eroded.

Although I think evolution should be reclassified as a fable for grown ups, science will still be the basis on how we evaluate how the earth goes round.

The god of science is indeed dead.

Science itself is alive and kicking. Praise the Lord!

If you just started reading the posts here, and shake your head in amazement, don't feel alone.

Marks post is just another example of the "thinking" that goes on here.

"Science is dead". What more can be said?

How narrow minded. We are on the verge of breakthrough technology. Nanotechnology, stem cell research, advances in cold fusion, zero point energy, and on and on.

But, as Mark says: "science is dead".

So lets tie it all together, instead of fighting a no win war, (i.e. there will ALWAYS be terrorism, no?") and tieing up billions after billons in a deadend situation, we could invest all that money in the research to keep the U.S. at the top of the technology pyramid. But no...

We have WAR. Endless, endless WAR. Put progress on hold, there are terrorists out there who want to harm us. So advances in medicine, computer science, alternative fuel sources, all on hold. Besides, Jesus wouldn't like the advances we're writing about. He would condone the war though...
right?

Mark: "The prime rule of science was truth - everyone involved in science had to tell the truth to the best of their ability, and always be willing to correct one's views when new evidence called in to question previously held beliefs. What killed science was when its strongest advocates stopped telling the truth."

Actually, that's not true at all. Science does not require scientists to always tell the truth -- never has, never will. Although that would be nice, it's just not realistic. Scientists are just as human as everyone else. They have biases, they are driven by ego, they will even lie sometimes -- sometimes to the point of fabricating evidence (e.g, the Piltdown Man, and Haekle's embryos). What science DOES require is for scientists to provide hypotheses which are testable, and to provide evidence for them which are reproducible by other scientists.

As evidence accumulates, disagreements about what that evidence really implies is not a weakness in science, it is a weakness in the evidence. Weakness in the evidence is very much the sort of thing that propels science. That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Unfortunately, it does sometimes cause people to jump on one or another bandwagon prematurely, and to conclude that what appears to them to be fact really is fact. Many of the other examples you present are examples of the latter situation: that is, the situation wherein the available evidence is so incomplete that it could be interpreted to support more than one theory. Unfortunately, when such situations cross paths with policy and/or religion, they are politicized -- the science is "hijacked" if you will. But that's more a problem with politics, and people's misunderstanding of science, than it is a problem with science itself.

Another point is this: in some fields of science it is difficult or impossible to perform adequate tests. They are observational rather than experimental. Evolutionary biology is a good example of such a field. Theoretical astrophysics is another. Meteorology is a another. One could argue that many of the social sciences are as well in many ways. Experimental science allows you to make some fairly strong cause and effect statements relatively quickly because you can control variables, apply treatments, and measure outcomes. The observational sciences require a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. And as a result, those fields are slower to develop and more susceptible to misinterpretation.

"advances in cold fusion"???- raker13

Evidence, please.

"Put progress on hold, there are terrorists out there who want to harm us. So advances in medicine, computer science, alternative fuel sources, all on hold."-raker13

That's false. We are making advances in all of those fields and more, daily. Check out the latest online article in Popular Science: "Technology vs. Terrorism"

In the race to prevent future 9/11-style attacks—or worse—Washington has marshaled the U.S. science establishment on a scale not seen since Sputnik. Federal investment in homeland-defense research has swallowed nearly $4 billion since 2003, and that’s a mere drop of total security spending. (DHS’s budget this year alone is $40 billion.) More important, McCarthy suggests, is that the accelerated spending has brought together formerly disparate disciplines: Software engineers, epidemiologists and biologists have teamed up to produce technologies that protect air and food against bioterrorism. Nuclear physicists and bioforensics specialists now cooperate with the best brains in behavioral science to devise ways to reduce the threat of nuclear smuggling and suicide bombers.

Check out the photo gallery, too!

"advances in cold fusion"???- raker13

Evidence, please.

"Put progress on hold, there are terrorists out there who want to harm us. So advances in medicine, computer science, alternative fuel sources, all on hold."-raker13

That's false. We are making advances in all of those fields and more, daily. Check out the latest online article in Popular Science: "Technology vs. Terrorism"

In the race to prevent future 9/11-style attacks—or worse—Washington has marshaled the U.S. science establishment on a scale not seen since Sputnik. Federal investment in homeland-defense research has swallowed nearly $4 billion since 2003, and that’s a mere drop of total security spending. (DHS’s budget this year alone is $40 billion.) More important, McCarthy suggests, is that the accelerated spending has brought together formerly disparate disciplines: Software engineers, epidemiologists and biologists have teamed up to produce technologies that protect air and food against bioterrorism. Nuclear physicists and bioforensics specialists now cooperate with the best brains in behavioral science to devise ways to reduce the threat of nuclear smuggling and suicide bombers.

Check out the photo gallery, too!

The book of Genesis - Content - God uses his Word to speak all of creation into being. This creation is perfect until man sins by listening to Satan instead of trusting God and obeying his plan. This sin of Adam and Eve results in spiritual death and eventually leads to filling the world with hate, violence and disobedience. Finally, sin prevails until God uses a flood to destroy mankind, except righteous Noah and his family. Even after this, sin sweeps the land, and the people build the huge tower of Babel in defiance of God. God never stops loving man, however, and the last 39 chapters of Genesis reveal how God - through the family of of Abraham - directs history to establish the eary stages in his plan to save the people and mend their fellowship with him. The book closes with God's chosen people in Egypt.
..................................................

Man still to this day cannot figure why things work the way they do, He tries and tries different methods in an effort to dis-prove the one who created it ALL!
And so the more we stray from the truth the more lost we get!

But.......Inspite of everything that we do to go against the Will of Almighty God, He still loves us each and every one!!

To me - Science is good - It helps us to learn the different facets of creation. God has given man the knowledge to explore in the different medical fields, and it has saved millions of lives!

But........As long as man continues to try and prove God wrong, and tries to undermine everything that God has done - It's all in vain!

Here is what will happen to people who think they are wise, and try to undermine the wisdom of God!

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

God's wisdom
versus humanity's foolishness.

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influental; not many were of noble birth. BUT GOD CHOSE THE FOOLISH THINGS OF THE WORLD TO SHAME THE WISE; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, SO THAT NO ONE MAY BOAST BEFORE HIM. It is because of him that you are Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "LET HIM WHO BOASTS BOAST IN THE LORD""

"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"

Jeremiah

Jeremiah-

I can always count on you to write a lot and yet say absolutely nothing...

If I wanted a sermon, I would turn on the Jesus channel.

"I can always count on you to write a lot and yet say absolutely nothing..."

*chuckles*

You mean you could'nt even bother to address what I said?

*chuckles*

Jeremiah

Excellent post Georgia Frawg! Completely agree.This is a great topic. Thanks Mark!

"Jeremiah-

I can always count on you to write a lot and yet say absolutely nothing...

If I wanted a sermon, I would turn on the Jesus channel."

Completly agree again!

Georgia,

From what I understand, no educated person has held the world to be flat for at least 3,000 years...as that time frame includes all of Christianity, and therefor all educated Christians, we would have to say that never, not even once, has an educated Christian thought the world flat...meanwhile, the idea of the earth at the center of the universe was not at all religious, it was science...mistaken science, but science nonetheless. Ptolemy carefully made out all the mathematical calculations to prove the geo-centric view of the universe - and, uh, Ptolemy was a pagan. As for the rest of your litany, all except the story of Mohammed are fairy tales...and while I don't hold that Mohammed so ascended, devout Moslems do believe it and no matter how hard you try, you can't prove it didn't happen.

At any rate, when I speak of the death of science, I mean the death of that species of thought which figured that the whole of the universe would be fully explained by the processes of science...that sort of science, false in its initial premise, at least had the cachet of honesty...but it disintegrated after Darwin when one crackpot theory after another (including Darwin's) rolled over the scientific world and got people in to the habit of falling for any bit of nonsense as long as it was dressed up in scientific jargon. That killed the Age of Science.

Darwinism = "crackpot theory." Awesome. Well, we certainly don't see much evolution on this site, do we? After all, you'll "fall for any bit of nonsense as long as it was dressed up in" religious "jargon."

Good grief. What twaddle! Mark, Jeremiah, get a grip. Give your heads a shake. Come to your senses. What, you think the fable of Adam and Eve is closer to the truth than Darwin's theory? The debate is over!!! Adam and Eve and the rest Genesis are fables, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Science is not dead, your sense of reason is dead.

Mark: "but it disintegrated after Darwin when one crackpot theory after another (including Darwin's) rolled over the scientific world and got people in to the habit of falling for any bit of nonsense as long as it was dressed up in scientific jargon. That killed the Age of Science."

Perhaps the phenomenon you refer to would best be described as the Age of Pseudo-Science.

And Darwin's theory is crack-pot? How so?

Ricorun;

They have never found a single intermediary species in the 134 years since Darwin published his theory. It is all conjecture based on similarities between the species with no evidence to support it. How many years of zero evidence does it take before a theory is recognized as BS (crackpot)?

Good grief. What twaddle! Mark, Jeremiah, get a grip. Give your heads a shake. Come to your senses. What, you think the fable of Adam and Eve is closer to the truth than Darwin's theory? The debate is over!!! Adam and Eve and the rest Genesis are fables, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Science is not dead, your sense of reason is dead.

Posted by: Canuckguy at August 23, 2006 09:18 PM

Canuckguy,

Let Mart and Jeremiah stay in ignorance. Let them have thier "intelligent design" while we'll have the tecnology that helps humanity(in the hands of the right people).

Mark-

From Wikipedia's article on Galileo

Psalms 93:1 and Psalm 104:5, and Ecclesiastes 1:5 speak of the motion of celestial bodies and the suspended position of the earth. Galileo defended heliocentrism, and claimed it was not contrary to those Scripture passages. He took Augustine's position on Scripture: not to take every passage too literally, particularly when the scripture in question is a book of poetry and songs, not a book of instructions or history. The writers of the Scripture wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world, and from that vantage point the sun does rise and set. In fact, it is the earth's rotation which gives the impression of the sun in motion across the sky.

There definately was Church resistance to heliocentrism. Hey, it's in the bible... Anyways, you didn't really answer any of my points...

And Jeremiah-

Here's the problem I have with your post: you have to believe in the bible to garner anything from your arguments... and... I don't believe in the bible... so your posts really are meaningless to me.

Try using empirical evidence to make your point.

Mark: I had never thought about the death of science. Interesting - yes, your reasoning that lies did it makes sense. There is an "old" saying that you might be familiar with - "Oh what a wicked web we weave when we practice to deceive." I hope Darwinism does die totally. I still see Darwin fishies on folks cars,though. I think how one views from whence we came has a tremendous affect on our worldview. You either think you came from the primordial soup or from the dust of the earth (for man) and then for women, created from the rib of a man. I take the Adam and Eve account any day over primordial soup! :)

Jeremiah - Thanks for the scripture. It adds to the dialog a lot...Keep it up! The Word gives life. :) You are an encourager to those of us who have it tough out in this world, too.

Canuckguy - I know I can't convince you that the Bible is the Word of God and Adam and Eve really did happen. Yes, it does take faith to accept the Bible. I know that there have been men such as Josh McDowell, a well known author in today's Christian circles, who set out to disprove the Bible and he could not. He ended up believing in Jesus Christ as his Savior. Check out www.beyondbelief.com if you are interested.

Ricorun,

Darwin was a failure!

He never proved anything, but just that!

Any basis for science that proves the worlds existence as just a big happening out of no where, is just plain non-sense, without question!!

Evolution being the main culprit, this type of psycho-babble will continue and will not cease because it has nothing to fall on, no foundation!
That's why scientists keep going on trying to assert other explanations for humans existence!

Natural selection - is just plain balogney, Do you believe we came from monkeys? If so? Why are there still monkeys swinging from tree vines out there? If we came from monkeys? Then there should be no more monkeys! They would have all done evolved into humans! That's Just completely a BIG FARCE!!

Take the honeybee for instance! man has tried to figure out why the honeybee make it's comb in the shape of Hexagon, with six sides! and still can't figure out how they know what there doing!

You know why? because God created them in His own special way! Because He did'nt intend for man to know everything, He just wanted us to be able to marvel at what He created!

Canuck mentions lack of reason! GEESH! It's you guys who need to give your head a shake!

Because, "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God"

God gave us our knowledge to glorify Him who is already ALL knowing! and to do otherwise would be just to chase after the wind!

HEY!!That's a thought, how about the wind? Did you ever wonder why there are wind storms? Like tornadoes, Hurricanes, and just the wind in general! You can't see it!, But you know it's there, because you see it working! and you can feel it, moving around you!

How about the expanse of sky and stars? WOW! What a MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE!

Also, Think about the ocean and it's nightly tide! Ever wonder about that?
Ever wonder about the change in the planets tilt towards the sun in summer and away from it during winter?

And the little birds, They can't reason, but they know enough to go south in the winter!

All these things - Were put in place - in order that man might truly know that there is a God!

You see what I'm saying? A bright man will set his eyes on things ABOVE; not on things below!!

Jeremiah

Jeremiah,
You write:
"To me - Science is good - It helps us to learn the different facets of creation. God has given man the knowledge to explore in the different medical fields, and it has saved millions of lives!"

That's a great point. What's more, science is starting to prove that belief in God via a collaborative spiritual style (God is my co-pilot) is much more effective at dealing with crises than a self directing style that attempts to deal with crises without God. Also, psychology is beginning to attend again to the human quantum changes, formerly known as conversion experiences, that science has no context to explain. And research on the success of nonconscious decision making also suggests the failure of reason as compared to allowing ourselves to be inspired by that which is beyond our own explanations.

We live in a society in which depression and other mental health complaints continue to go through the roof, and we continue to teach in schools that God doesn't exist, even when it flies in the face of research on decision making, quantum change, and spiritual coping. What's unraveling science is that science is proving that reason and logic and the scientific method are failures when compared to relying on that which we can't explain. Only the laziness or cowardice of people to actually look at the evidence, and the corruption of those who benefit from keeping their sacred rationalist cows on dialysis, are keeping science alive as a description of the way the world is, absolutely, end of story. Science is one way to know the world, but the multicultural left isn't so multicultural when it comes to embracing that so many other cultures have different ways of knowing what is real.

Georgia;

Wikipedia's article is incorrect, Galileo very specifically stated that the sun being the center of the solar system proved that the bible and the church were wrong. The church had no problems with a heliocentric solar system, what they had issues with is using the fact that the bible contains conventional modes of expression i.e. sunrise & sunset, which are still in use to this day as evidence that the whole thing is false.

Mel,

There have been countless intermediary fossils found. Where do you get the idea that there haven't? How can you possibly call the Theory of Evolution crackpot when you’re not even aware of the basic facts and evidence related to it?

Jeremiah,

Humans evolved from an ape-like creature, not from monkeys. If you would take the time to actually learn about evolution, you would understand why monkeys still exist.

Mel Evenson: "They have never found a single intermediary species in the 134 years since Darwin published his theory. It is all conjecture based on similarities between the species with no evidence to support it. How many years of zero evidence does it take before a theory is recognized as BS (crackpot)?"

First of all, you have to understand that 134 years isn't a very long time in the grand speciation scheme of things -- even for very simple organisms. A lot is involved in a speciation event. Nonetheless, there are, in fact, several well-documented cases of true speciation: in numerous types of plants, both angiosperms and ferns, as well as many types of animals (houseflies, gall former flies, apple maggot flies, flour beetles, Nereis acuminata (a worm), mosquitoes, and various other insects; some types of green algae and bacteria; and apparently in mice.

In one sense, Mark is quite right.
Science, in essence, is the belief that there is absolute truth, an iron clad set of facts which remains the same no matter how much you argue against them. This blog has many times presented cases of anti-Science, where people refuse to believe in solid proof, and continue to espouse their party line.

And then there's Jeremiah. Hello, Jeremiah.

"Natural selection - is just plain balogney, Do you believe we came from monkeys? If so? Why are there still monkeys swinging from tree vines out there? If we came from monkeys? Then there should be no more monkeys! They would have all done evolved into humans! That's Just completely a BIG FARCE!!"

First of all, that is NOT what Natural Selection is about, as you would know if you actually read the theory.
Natural Selection states that living systems change and adapt. It doesn't say that individuals evolve. It doesn't say that species become more intelligent. It says that if you change the environment, species will change in order to better thrive within that environment.
So, no, monkeys do not turn into humans. (By the way, the monkeys into humans is one of the big lies told about Evolutionary theory. If anything, monkeys evolved from proto-humans.)
Yes, there are transition species. Just not large ones. Ever hear of resistant strains of bacteria? They are species of bacteria which have changed to thrive in a world of antibiotics. And yes, the pre-resistant "transition" strains still exist, have been analyzed, and been proven to be the forebearers of the resistant germs.

Not that this matters, Jeremiah. You don't listen to arguments. Your entire post was along the lines of "Why is the sky blue? Because God made it that way." Even Sunday School classes are more sophisticated nowadays.

God did more than give us five fingered hands and gravity. He gave us a mind and the senses we need to make use of it. The "foolishness" you speak of is yours - the superstitious nature of a peasant, accepting without interest or curiosity whatever they've been told. If you had not been raised to believe in the true God, I'm sure you'd have made a great Thor worshipper.
Or jihadist.

The only place that science is dead is in the minds of radical religious right wingnuts that dream of a return to the 1600's when witches were burnt at the stake beside heretics.

What is ultimately going to happen is that the US is going to be left behind on the rest of the world as you allow your radical right people to control your science and learning, so one day the rest of the world will move forward, the US backward to believing in spirits, ghosts and goblins.

Now is the time to step up and keep the crackpots in line before its too late.

Mark-

FromWikipedia (again)

The notion of a flat Earth refers to the idea that the inhabited surface of Earth is flat, rather than curved (see Spherical Earth). It is believed to have been prevalent up to and including early Classical Antiquity, and is evidenced in early Greek maps like those of Anaximander and Hecataeus. The first person known to have advocated a spherical shape of the Earth is Pythagoras (6th century BC).

From Mark:

From what I understand, no educated person has held the world to be flat for at least 3,000 years...as that time frame includes all of Christianity, and therefor all educated Christians, we would have to say that never, not even once, has an educated Christian thought the world flat

Now Mark... let's do some basic math here. 2006-3000=-994. In date terms, negative would be B.C.E, so given that the first person to say that the world was spherical said it in 6 B.C.E, you were about 986 years off.

On to the second part of your ridiculous assumption:

from wikipedia:

A few authors directly opposed the round Earth: * Lactantius (245–325) called it "folly" because people on a sphere would fall down. * Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (315–386) saw Earth as a firmament floating on water (though the relevant quotation is found in the course of a sermon to the newly baptized, and it is unclear whether he was speaking poetically or in a physical sense); * Saint John Chrysostom (344–408) saw a spherical Earth as contradictory to scripture; * Diodorus of Tarsus (d. 394) also argued for a flat Earth based on scriptures; however, Diodorus' opinion on the matter is known to us only by a criticism of it by Photius.[10]; * Severian, Bishop of Gabala (d. 408), wrote: "The earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall".[11] * The Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes (547) in his Topographia Christiana, where the Covenant Ark was meant to represent the whole universe, argued on theological grounds that the Earth was flat, a parallelogram enclosed by four oceans.

At least one early Christian writer, Basil of Caesarea (329–379), believed the matter to be theologically irrelevant.[12]

That was "late antiquity".

So... your statement is rendered completely false... hmmm...

"monkeys evolved from proto-humans"

FALSE!

monkeys DID NOT evolve from humans!

Humans DID NOT evolve from monkeys!

Jeremiah

Small Town hick,

Jeremiah has done nothing but present the truth, in a hard-core way. If you choose not to accept it, then fine and dandy. But there is no need to go making assumptions about him, and accusing him of things that you know nothing about.

Let me say something about the theory of evolution and natural selection, and all that jazz ...

Natural Selection is real, and it still happens today. If you took a set of miniature poodles out in the wild, and just left them there, then over time those poodles would grow to get bigger muscles in order to survive. These genes would pass on to the younger ones, and so on and so forth. You would eventually have a colony of just plain out, beefed up poodles. So yes, they would change to meet the needs of their survival according to the environment. And the arguement for natural selection ends there.

Now, where the real problem starts is that people want to add to the natural selection process by saying that things evolve (change species). Well, evolving and adapting are two different things, so I guess that the two have no correlation. But alas, some fool-hardy people wish to think that they do. I'll elaborate on that ...

In natural selection, things change physically in order to meet needs. In evolution, they are saying that species change species. We are not apes, apes are not humans, therefore, we can not come from apes, and apes can't come from humans. Dogs are not cats, cats are not dogs. AND FURTHERMORE you can't cross breed the two. I'll guarantee 1,000 to 1 if you took a male ape's semen and injected it into a female human, nothing would happen, and the woman would not concieve. It was setup this way, and that's just the way it is. I can't, to the life of me, see the reason why people wish to believe that we came from apes.

Now ... explain to me, why you think we evolved from apes. Apes have adapted relatively well enough to survive. They have no need to think or add or subtract, or multiply or divide. They have no need of highly sophisticated jobs ... now tell me, how in the world can we come from apes? It makes absolutely no sense. Furthermore, how could apes have came from us? That's even more bizarre.

Natural Selection and Evolution are so totally seperate and opposite that it's amazing, yet people still wish to continue in the thought process that they are similar or even exactly the same.

One last thought ... Apes have a relatively sophisticated language that they go by. It pales in comparison to our language, but still they can understand each other. They have very strong muscles, and are extremely nimble. They show some very strong characteristics .... Why would they need to change? I cannot, and will not, see the reasoning why people choose to believe evolution, it is an ignorant theory.

Lucas

Small Town hick,

Jeremiah has done nothing but present the truth, in a hard-core way. If you choose not to accept it, then fine and dandy. But there is no need to go making assumptions about him, and accusing him of things that you know nothing about.

Let me say something about the theory of evolution and natural selection, and all that jazz ...

Natural Selection is real, and it still happens today. If you took a set of miniature poodles out in the wild, and just left them there, then over time those poodles would grow to get bigger muscles in order to survive. These genes would pass on to the younger ones, and so on and so forth. You would eventually have a colony of just plain out, beefed up poodles. So yes, they would change to meet the needs of their survival according to the environment. And the arguement for natural selection ends there.

Now, where the real problem starts is that people want to add to the natural selection process by saying that things evolve (change species). Well, evolving and adapting are two different things, so I guess that the two have no correlation. But alas, some fool-hardy people wish to think that they do. I'll elaborate on that ...

In natural selection, things change physically in order to meet needs. In evolution, they are saying that species change species. We are not apes, apes are not humans, therefore, we can not come from apes, and apes can't come from humans. Dogs are not cats, cats are not dogs. AND FURTHERMORE you can't cross breed the two. I'll guarantee 1,000 to 1 if you took a male ape's semen and injected it into a female human, nothing would happen, and the woman would not concieve. It was setup this way, and that's just the way it is. I can't, to the life of me, see the reason why people wish to believe that we came from apes.

Now ... explain to me, why you think we evolved from apes. Apes have adapted relatively well enough to survive. They have no need to think or add or subtract, or multiply or divide. They have no need of highly sophisticated jobs ... now tell me, how in the world can we come from apes? It makes absolutely no sense. Furthermore, how could apes have came from us? That's even more bizarre.

Natural Selection and Evolution are so totally seperate and opposite that it's amazing, yet people still wish to continue in the thought process that they are similar or even exactly the same.

One last thought ... Apes have a relatively sophisticated language that they go by. It pales in comparison to our language, but still they can understand each other. They have very strong muscles, and are extremely nimble. They show some very strong characteristics .... Why would they need to change? I cannot, and will not, see the reasoning why people choose to believe evolution, it is an ignorant theory.

Lucas

Hmmm ... maybe we were on the same lines with the natural selection and evolution thing, Small Town hick. A hastiness on my part caused me to explain what you had already partly explained. My fault ... but, I did go on to explain that many people want to further natural selection with evolution. A stupid thing to do.

Jeremiah apologizes about earlier, again he was hasty himself in saying Natural Selection when he meant Evolution. Only a slight mix up, but one that he will avoid in the future.

Also ... sorry about the double post. Mark or Matt, if you would, please delete one of those. I hate having a double post up, lol.

One more thing ... please explain what you mean in saying "proto humans", small town. You're going in a direction that I have never been familiarized with ... yet. Also, that missing link thing is all a hoax in my honest opinion. They say there are thousands upon thousands out there, but they have yet to find one ... kinda funny, eh, thousands of them out there in the world and the millions of geologists that have roamed the Earth can't seem to find one, ha ha ha. Just goes to prove the folly of living a belief system based on science as "Iron Clad Truth".

Lucas.

"One last thought ... Apes have a relatively sophisticated language that they go by. It pales in comparison to our language, but still they can understand each other. They have very strong muscles, and are extremely nimble. They show some very strong characteristics .... Why would they need to change? I cannot, and will not, see the reasoning why people choose to believe evolution, it is an ignorant theory."

They needed to change so you could exist.

Really guys, the transition between monkey to man is very well detailed in text books, and a fossil record, how's that for truth. All your questions would be answered if you just cracked a book. Don't get all offended and have an identity crisis because your scared your a monkey because you have no concept of the time it took.

Keep traveling down that same road and next you'll be telling me dinosaurs didn't exist.

Well before I head home for tonight I thought I'd make a quick comment here. (Or not so quick who knows.)

Science is not dead, far from it. Nor does Mark or anyone else I've seen here seem to want to stop scientific progression. What I see Mark saying is that the idea that Science is the end all and be all of explaining things is dead. There was a time when we thought science would cure everything and explain everything "just around the next bend." We could fly, travel across the country in days and not months, and even contemplate space flight. Could nothing stop science?

Now it seems science has slowed. We're not getting "world changing" technologies as often anymore. Most new technologies are just refinements of exsisting technologies. How to talk over long distances quicker, how to move a car better, how to fly faster and farther. When was the last "big" scientific breakthrough you think?

Vaccines? X-rays? Trains? Cars? Airplanes? Telegraph? Telephone? Computers? Each of these things changed the world dramatically when they first came out, but what new technology has made us all go "wow, how did we ever survive before this?"

Will science continue on? Sure. Will certain areas of science be frowned upon because of relgion? Absolutely. Will that stop scientific progress? Heck no! Pandora's box has been opened, and we're never getting it back in the box again.

Ricorun,

Darwin's theory - at least as presented today - is twaddle because it presumes the impossible (ultimately, life from lifelessness) as well as insisting, in the face of all contrary evidence, that entirely new species have evolved out of other species. Darwinism just doesn't work - it can't work; the mechanism described cannot so much as explain plankton, let alone what I'm doing here typing on a computer.

How did life get here? Well, in my view, it was created - and the Creator has a purpose; a design, if you will. This makes vastly more sense - is vastly more reasonable - than the idea that some organic goo 5 billion years ago suddenly coalesced into self-replicating life.

The real destructiveness of the Darwinists comes in where they demand that nothing but Darwinism be taught, and that no questioning of Darwinism be allowed - this is a negation of science.

Ricorun,

Think of it in terms of Occam's razor - what is more likely:

That a Creator willed Nature in to existence and guides its development

or...

That Nature just "is" and by a vastly long and incredibly complex set of happy accidents, eventually produced a rational being?

Georgia,

Not at all - I was unware that a few intellectuals of late antiquity disputed the notion of a spherical earth. The last bit of your quote actually tells the tale - theologically, the shape of the earth in insiginificant. I've learned something new, but not something of much significance...the more important point on this particular debate is to point out that the concept that religion once held to a flat earth is just an anti-religious slander invented by the boosters of science as opposed to religion (rather than, as proper, the handmaid of religion). People in the mid-19th century wanted to denigrate all things religious, and they simply made up a series of lies about what religious people believed.

It is good to keep in mind, Georgia, that we're no smarter than the ancients - indeed, we may be less smart than they were. We know more because we've had a longer time to gather and transmit information, but we're no more clever than they are. Do you really think that they, looking up at the spherical Moon, couldn't conceive of a spherical earth?

SUSA,

I have cracked the books - my mother carefully looked at the theory and even wrote a book about it all - never published - about what she found. I grew up in a household where such matters were dinner table conversation subjects. That, along with physics, particle beam lasers, relativity...Mom was a physicist, Dad a mathematician...science was well represented.

Net result? Darwin's theory is fundamentally flawed - and you are quite mistaken if you believe that any of the books you have cracked actually detail the evolution of one species in to another. Such a thing has never been demonstrated anywhere.

What you have done is just accepted without question what has been told to you. Give it some thought - some real thought. There's no danger in questions...not at all.

TL,

You have a long journey in front of you.

Actually, there is a proof for evolution, the peppered moth.

(this proof is not 100% true, but one link below explains the shortcomings of this theory)
It is a british moth, which was originally white, and hid on some trees. When came the coal-industrial era, because of the pollution, trees became black. The white moth where exterminated by birds, because they couldn't hide.

Because of a random mutation, one(or more) moth was born black. Before industrialisation, it wouldn't have survived, but now it could survive much better than the white moths, so now you can only find black peppered moth.

here are some links:
(this one is best, it explains some mistakes in the original theory)
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

you only need to search for peppered moth on google to find these websites, it took me time to find the moth name (I studied it in Biology class, some 6 years ago)

I want to clarify natural selection. It is not adaptiveness, creatures growing bigger muscles or a third arm to deal with nature. It is nature selecting the most fit beings to survive in a particular environment. DNA recombination suggests that changes can happen at a genetic level that would make a being more likely to survive in a particular environment. But it would take a being with a brain bigger than a humans to know exactly what the environment is going to be in a couple of centuries, and it would take more power over themselves than humans currently have to make the genetic changes to survive in that environment. Using the term adapting suggests that beings are consciously, intentionally adapting, and that is not what natural selection says (it only says nature selects).

Also, any science presuming to describe the world as it actually is, end of story ignores as Bohm points out (another religious, science hating fanatic who came up with advances in high energy physics like Bohm diffusion) that science right now tells us we will never be able to know what happens at the subquantum level, and his work suggests that there are things happening at that level (read Wholeness and the Implicate order).

Brian & Ricorun;

This is not correct, there have been no intermediary species found as far as my research tells me. If you have different information please share it with me. Show me a single intermediate species and I'll revise my opinion. 134 years is a long time to look for evidence especially when you have a clear theory to guide you in your search.

Mark, as I've mentioned in the past, the fundamental precept that I believe most strongly is this: God created heaven and earth and everything in it. And in that creation he set down the natural order of things and the laws that govern them. Thus, by revealing the laws that govern the natural order of things one reveals God at the same time (whether one appreciates it or not).

So on the question of whether the Creator has a purpose, I would say yes. However, when you say that somehow negates the possibility that organic goo 5 billion years ago suddenly coalesced into self-replicating life, I disagree. I would say that it's quite possible it was all part of the plan. Even if scientists were able to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt how that ooze developed into self-replicating life, doing so wouldn't negate God. It just changes the assumptions a bit -- at least for some people. It wouldn't change anything for me, because I've already made that leap. To me it's not a question of choosing between religion and science. To me the two are complimentary, not conflicting. It is all part of God's work.

Concerning your comment: "The real destructiveness of the Darwinists comes in where they demand that nothing but Darwinism be taught, and that no questioning of Darwinism be allowed - this is a negation of science." It is not a question of "demanding Darwinism". It's a question of the adequacy of competing theories. Good theories are those that explain a given set of phenomenon most adequately and simply. A lot of people seem to think that "Intelligent Design" is a competing theory. But in order for it to compete it must be as good an explanation as the theory it competes with. And to me, ID doesn't add anything. In fact, it rather requires one to believe that God (or some space alien) occasionally intervenes to tweak the expression of natural laws that He already established. Personally, I don't see that as necessary. In fact, the theory all but requires a lack of curiosity rather than fosters it. The theory basically states that some natural structures are too complex to have been formed by gradual processes. But there is offered no prediction ahead of time as to what those structures might be or when they are likely to arise. They just happen. And they use holes in the fossil record as evidence. And if later it is demonstrated that there is a plausible, gradualistic explanation for the structure, that instance is simply eliminated from the body of evidence. It is, in effect, just a restatement of the null hypothesis: rather than "I don't know", it's "God did it". Of course God did it. The question is how.

However, if ID ever gets to the point where it can effectively predict when, where, and in what way "God's finger" occurs, then I'm all ears. And if your mom's book ever gets published, please let me know.

To me, faith is a process, not an end-point. And it will be continuously challenged along the way. But if, along the way, one willfully ignores one's intellect and common sense, one loses the challenge, IMO. As Galileo said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

Mel, in the citation I offered in my earlier post cited several primary sources on the subject of speciation. This is an even better one. Perhaps I didn't understand what you meant by "intermediate species"? To me an "intermediate species" is one which can breed with neighboring populations but not more distant ones -- even though it may be able to breed with a population that does breed with the more distant one. Perhaps you have another definition in mind.

Will someone tell me where cavemen fall in this whole debate? You know, Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, the fossilized remains of 'Lucy' in Africa? Was Adam a caveman? Did humans not evolve into different races? How about two different races mating and giving birth to a cross-breed? (That sounds kind of racist)Don't get me wrong I think mixed race people are some of the most beautiful and attractive people in the world. Halle Berry? Rowr!

I have no problem with the idea that God created all. I also have no problem that God may have started life and it evolved into what we see today. Who is to say God did not create evolution?

I have a problem believing that God created Adam out of nothing but had to borrow a rib to make Eve.

I think humans are evolving. You see it in the technological advancements, and there was a large boom in the advancements at the turn of the 20th century. Simple sticks and chipped stone to fire to copper to bronze to iron and gold. The wheel to carts to horse drawn carts to trains, planes and automobiles.

I'd like to have some proof that a Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, a burning bush could talk, or Noah could build an Ark large enough to house a pair of all of the animals of the world. Oh, and keep them separated so the one species won't eat the others.

To me, the Bible is a story to try to explain what happened back then, kind of like the Romans explaining lighting, cyclops, griffins, centaurs, and many other myths. Let's see where this takes us.

Mark,
You are dead wrong. While you were discussing Darwin around the dinner table; you should have passed "Origin" around.
Darwin makes no attempt whatsoever to explain the origin of life "life from lifelessness."
"The origin of species" is a book on that particular subject only. A remarkable work, especially when one considers that Darwin presented his theory without understanding the mechanism (mutation) involved.
I hate to set up examples -- but could you explain to me the diversity in salmonid species without mentioning that they demonstratively evolved over the last 10-40,000 years from a holarctic ancestor?
Oh wait, I know -- "hocus pocus; let there be three genera!"

Ricorun;

I wasn't talking about crossbreeding between sub-species but rather to missing links showing a clear chain of evolutionary change from one species to the next. By definition, if they can breed, they are of the same species. These missing links are what I mean by intermediate species, none of which, to my knowledge, have been found.

Better check again, Mel,
There are many examples of interspecific breeding -- that produce viable offspring (not subspecies; which by definition can always breed). These organisms are often infertile -- but not always.
On the other hand, Darwinian evolution is about speciation through mutation -- not cross breeding.
Also, there is an ever-expanding list of so-called "intermediate species" out there as well. If you'd stay off the creationist/ID websites and do some actual research you'd know that.

Darwin's theory - at least as presented today - is twaddle because it presumes the impossible (ultimately, life from lifelessness) as well as insisting, in the face of all contrary evidence, that entirely new species have evolved out of other species.

I guess you won't have a problem showing just one example of such contrary evidence?

Mel: "I wasn't talking about crossbreeding between sub-species but rather to missing links showing a clear chain of evolutionary change from one species to the next."

Okay, how about this one? If this doesn't do it for you, I don't know what you want. But I'm getting a sense that you're setting up a straw man argument where you will constantly come back with the argument that my argument isn't good enough.

But if you are actually inclined to read the paper, note the level of detail with which he treats the subject. He draws upon geological evidence to map changes in habitat that produce the selection pressures, morphological evidence that demonstrate the changes in populations, and genomic evidence to explain how they occurred. All of these things have to dove-tail. To the extent that they don't, the conclusions suffer. That doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong, it just means they're relatively weak. That's how science progresses.

But it seems to me that the alternative explanation you're implicitly offering is this: God did it and that's all there is to it. And frankly, I don't have a problem with the "God did it" part. I DO have a problem with the "that's all there is to it" part. It just doesn't add anything to the dialog. Ignorance may be bliss for some people, but not me.

ECCLESIASTES 1:12-18

Written by the teacher - son of David - King in Jerusalem. 940 - 935 B.C.

Wisdom is meaningless - "I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is twisted cannot be straightened; What is lacked cannot be counted."

I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of Wisdom and knowledge." Then I applied myself to the understanding of Wisdom." Then I applied myself to the understanding wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.(NIV)

What this means is - EVERTHING is meaningless -under the sun - without God!

Jeremiah

These missing links are what I mean by intermediate species, none of which, to my knowledge, have been found.

Sorry Mel, but we have an faq for that, too. See the evidence there. It is quite voluminous.

Mark: Your invocation of Occam's razor to me seems rather ill-advised. In the first place, Occam's Razor only applies to the choice between two theories of equal predictive or explanatory power. But the explanatory power of the naturalistic theory of evolution by natural selection is far greater than any divine creation theory I'm aware of, for the simple reason that the theory of natural selection is supported by a wealth of evidence, whereas any theory of intelligent design (or its cognates) is not. Evolutionary theory specifically explains the appearance of that evidence, whereas non-naturalistic theories do not. So, Occam's Razor isn't yet in the picture. But even assuming that I'm wrong and that divine creation theories are equally supported by the evidence, Occam's Razor would still favor the naturalistic theory. Expressed as the principle of parsimony, Occam's Razor dictates that we should postulate as only such entities as prove explanatorily necessary. Thus, if by hypothesis the naturalistic theory of evolution and the non-naturalistic theory of divine creation are equally well supported by the evidence, we should still prefer the former theory, because it achieves the same results without postulating any entities beyond those that we find in nature. Including God in a scientific theory of natural selection would simply be explanatorily superfluous.
Does that mean that belief in natural selection is incompatible with belief in God? No, of course not. What it means is that, according to our best science at present, we do not need to invoke God to explain the phenomena we observe, and accordingly, we don't. There is still room to believe that God is, as it were, behind stage, making sure the whole show goes according to plan, or writing the script (viz, the laws). But as far as our best science is concerned, God is not an actor on stage.
Of course, there's also room to say that the principle of parsimony and Occam's Razor are poor methodological principles, but the proof is in the pudding. The scientific method is still the greatest and most efficient epistemological instrument ever devised. The principle of parsimony is part of that methodological canon, and as long as it works, we're holding on to it.

As for the "death of science" in general, I would certainly advise holding onto those obituaries. The 'species of thought which figures that the whole of the universe will be fully explained by the processes of science' still, to my mind, has every reason to persist. The existence of pseudo-science or out-moded paradigms does nothing to refute the notion that virtually anything that exists in the universe can be studied scientifically (I mean, good grief, we just found evidence of the existence of dark matter: the stuff doesn't even interact with electromagnetic radiation and we can still measure it). It may be that some things are genuinely beyond our physical capacities to observe at present, but in each case, the limit is a practical, not a methodological one. Take this with a due grain of salt as the prognostication of a non-scientist, but I'm inclined to believe that whenever someone says, "science just can't explain x," where x is some observable phenomenon, they've just stepped on the wrong side of history. I suspect that science, like my own field of philosophy, will always bury its undertakers.

Salvenous;

From the Oxford dictionary;

species
/speesheez, -seez/

• noun (pl. same) 1 Biology a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. 2 before another noun denoting a plant belonging to a distinct species rather than to one of the many varieties produced by hybridization. 3 a kind or sort.

— ORIGIN Latin, ‘appearance, form, beauty’, from specere ‘to look’.

I don't visit creationist web sites, nice gratuitous insult though. I have examined these "so called" intermediate species and remained unimpressed/unconvinced. I love people who respond to calls for evidence with sweeping statements about "many examples" and 'ever-expanding" without actually providing any evidence.

Mel,
I assure you that I don't need a dictionary definition of "species" or "subspecies" for that matter.
As for examples; there are so many that I can't believe you would really need any -- how about the interspecific breeding and hybridization of virtually all of the N. American sunfishes (Lepomis spp.)? And yes, I'm aware that most, if not all, of these hybrids are infertile.
So wait, better yet, what about the the natural hybridization that DOES produce some fertile young; like the cross between brook (genus Salvelinus) charr and brown (genus Salmo) trout?
I refer you to an excellent little work by W.B. Willars -- "Trout Biology" which provides a table with probabilities of cross-breeding success and fertility of hybrids produced for nearly all common salmonid species (Willars was writing for the general public and requires little effort to follow). These are examples of Interspecific (and often intergenus)crosses.
As for the "intermediate species" that have so unimpressed you, I have one name I'm sure you'll recognize -- Archaeopteryx.
But there's no need to stop there; how about Eustenopheron and Icthyostegn? Certainly these two species would seem to be transitional between fishes and amphibians.
If you just Google some, you'll find plenty more.
Sorry about the lack of italics, I'm not sure how to post them.
If you really don't vist creationist/ID websites, my apologies.

Mel: "I love people who respond to calls for evidence with sweeping statements about "many examples" and 'ever-expanding" without actually providing any evidence."

If you look at the citations mentioned throughout this thread they cover evidence for microevolution (where traits are influenced by environmental variables, as in the case of the peppered moth), basic macroevolution (where the transition from one species to another is documented in considerable detail), macroevolutionary radiation (in the case of the ciclid fish, again in considerable detail), and transitional species during taxa radiation.

And yet you say no one has provided any evidence. So I guess you have something very specific in mind that you either can't or won't enunciate. I failed clairvoyance class, so you're going to have to tell us... (a) what exactly do you want, and (b) failing an adequate answer (again), what do you have to offer in its place? Because as far as I can tell, you haven't offered anything. You can't expect anyone to love that either.

Correction:
The work I cited had the author's name misspelled -- it should be:
Willers, W.B.: Trout Biology, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1981.
I see from on the Internet that it is still available -- but a little expensive.

Salvelinus,
How many years have you had that sobriquet while waiting for someone to bring up trout? And what's the fishy connection? Raise them, angel for them, sauté them?

"Darwin's theory - at least as presented today - is twaddle because it presumes the impossible (ultimately, life from lifelessness) as well as insisting, in the face of all contrary evidence, that entirely new species have evolved out of other species."

Isn't Life from Lifelessnes the basis of Genesis? Is Genesis twaddle?!

Willem,

In all of our collective experience, we've never seen something come from nothing...all of our experience indicates and uncreated Creator because that is the only way to explain why you're sitting there reading what I wrote.

Ricorun,

In 150 years, Darwinism has never shown how one species became another, and yet for ID to even be considered, it has to demonstrate conclusively how God created life?

Bit of an unfair advantage you give Darwin, if you ask me.

Maxime,

The Peppered Moth example was demonstrated to be just as fraudulent as Piltdown Man...it simply didn't happen.

Salve,

I don't have to - because you have no actual evidence that they did what you say they did...

Look, Salve, you can't even explain how the genetic mutations of blonde and brown hair came to be, or what Darwinist purpose different hair color in humans would have. You've got some bones and a pretty theory, and no evidence whatsoever.

I know, by the way, that Darwin didn't propose an explanation of how life got started, and had you taken just a smidge of care in reading what I wrote, you'd see that I prefaced my comment by nothing that the problem is with how modern Darwinists act...they demand that no alternate theory be brought in and that no discussion of how life - or, heck, even matter - came to be.

You and your Darwinists - a bunch of anti-intellectual obscuritanists...the very intellectual dregs of the dead Age of Science.

Ricorun & Salvelinus;

All I'm looking for is one concrete example of how one species evolved into another with a reasonable complete fossil record illustrating this transformation. Unless these changes happen overnight there should be transitional steps in the fossil record. What we seem to have is different fossils of animals or whatever that are similar except for one or more trait. Bigger or smaller beaks, claws, more or less fur, etc. These are taken as evidence of evolution. Let's take the example of the Archaeopteryx; where are the fossils showing the transformation from reptiles to them and where are the fossils showing the transformation from them to modern birds?

As for offering an alternative theory, this is not required to illustrate that evolution is not supported by the evidence.

Sunshine and Morris,

Thanks for the kind words!

Indeed! It is a tough world we live in - amongst a bunch of radical leftist atheist's.

Some day - When God returns, to those who live in dis-belief; He will prove that He truly is Creator and Master of Everything!

God bless!

Jeremiah

Isn't it funny how Mark accuses everyone else of being anti-intellectual obscuritanists when it's himself he's talking about.

Mel-

You said: "Let's take the example of the Archaeopteryx; where are the fossils showing the transformation from reptiles to them and where are the fossils showing the transformation from them to modern birds?"

That would be here. More particularly, Archaeopteryx was preceeded by Caudipteryx, Velociraptor and Sinovenator, among others, and followed by Hesperornis, Apsaravis, and Ichthyornis, among others.

You also said: "What we seem to have is different fossils of animals or whatever that are similar except for one or more trait.Bigger or smaller beaks, claws, more or less fur, etc. These are taken as evidence of evolution."

Well, no, it's a bit more complex than that. (And fossils, as a rule, don't preserve fur.) What we have is a gradual series of structural changes which show the progression from one anatomical arrangement to another, such as the development of mammalian jaws and ears from those of reptiles. Moreover, these transitional forms occur in various different rock strata, and/or have different chemical or radiological properties which allow us to assign them to different time periods. At the end of the day, there is a clear developmental progression - it's not the case that scientists are finding examples of the same variation you might find within any given species and building up a story of evolution where none exists.

The only thing that interests me in all this jibber jabber is Georgia Frawg's dismissal of the theory that the world, mountains, trees, and midgets were created by a giant spaghetti monster's noodly apendage(sic). Where can I learn more?

Noema,
You write:
"It may be that some things are genuinely beyond our physical capacities to observe at present, but in each case, the limit is a practical, not a methodological one."
Those limitations on measurement I wrote of above came from a scientist, a physicist responsible for some of the greatest advances in quantum research during the last century. The scary secret that makes the scientific approach so dangerous is that like doctors, they act as though they know exactly what's going on, they act as though there aren't disagreements among scientists. And that's not science, that's dogma.

Look at how bad they are at predicting hurricaine paths and numbers of them. They can often give a good idea of how many people out of 10,000 will come down with a medical condition or how many out of 10,000 will be helped by a specific medicine, but generally they have no idea which people those will be, and which ones will have antagonistic reactions (notice the presumption in the word choice, like it's the person's fault the medicine's bad for them instead of the scientists' failure to figure out a better way to help them).

Generally, conservatives don't object to the use of science to advance our understanding. What conservatives object to is when science claims to be able to explain the whole picture when, in cases like "evolution," they are woefully inadequate. Science has yet to explain what it was that created the big bang, or what it was that created the big crunch before the big bang. But they act like they're gods for figuring out that what survives is what nature selects to survive, and that survival may have something to do with the biology with which those beings were created.

And without reason they extrapolate from this that somehow the biology with which these beings were created is more responsible for these beings' existence, spurning anyone and creating a code of silence against those who'd ask the question, "What created those things that created those things?" Conservatives are happy to work with science, but scientists don't like to be questioned, perhaps because of a deeply ingrained insecurity, a family secret among scientists of which no one will speak, but everyone knows not to.

Many people don't want to see creationism or intelligent design taught in a science class. What they're objecting to is the idea that they might be wrong, they don't want to look at that. Our age has a compulsion to know and to be right, and it eases their anxiety to be validated by scientists who are all too happy to validate others and each other and themselves, easing their own anxiety. But it doesn't make it fact, and if a science class isn't big enough to answer those kinds of questions, perhaps students should have to take a class in metaphysics so that they might. If they are certain they're right, then it shouldn't bother them.

Look at Jeremiah, a man of great faith who continues in that faith in spite of those here who question it. Those who know they know the truth aren't afraid of those questions being asked. It is only human insecurities and the insecurities of other humans that don't want them to feel insecure that keeps that dialogue from taking place, because some people feel insecure when they aren't able to answer those questions on their own. The mystery of our world is a great gift, but scientists are so often too scared of what they don't know to appreciate it.

Jeremiah,
You're very welcome. God's already proved he's the master of my world, more times than I can remember, and though I had more than my share of doubts at the time, I've come to know it to be the blessing meant for me. It is also a blessing for me to hear the words of someone else who sees the world as a miracle, filled with endless miracles. So thankyou.

Mel,

The talkorigins web site lists a number of fossils of intermediary species. The following link shows examples of fish to amphibians:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#amph1

Here are reptiles to birds:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1b.html#bird

Here are reptiles to mammals:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1b.html#mamm

There have been fossils found of dinosaurs with feathers:

http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Evolution/Feathers/feathered_dinosaurs.htm

Mark,

Nobody is preventing any alternative theories from being taught or discussed. What scientists are opposed to, are different beliefs that have no evidence supporting them being taught as science. The Theory of Evolution has facts and evidence to support it. When an alternative theory comes along that actually has facts and evidence to support it, then the scientific community will be willing to discuss it and have it taught in school. So far this has never happened. Just stating that something was designed because “it looks like it was designed” is not a legitimate scientific theory.

There is a great deal of evidence supporting the Theory of Evolution including fossil evidence and observed instances. Here are some examples of observed instances of one species evolving into another:

Here is an example of Cichlid fish evolving into a new species:
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002551.html

Here’s an example of a mosquito evolving into a new species:
http://www.gene.ch/gentech/1998/Jul-Sep/msg00188.html

Bacteria have evolved the ability to ingest nylon.
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/050923_ID_science.html
In 1975, Japanese scientists reported the discovery of bacteria that could break down nylon, the material used to make pantyhose and parachutes. Bacteria are known to ingest all sorts of things, everything from crude oil to sulfur, so the discovery of one that could eat nylon would not have been very remarkable if not for one small detail: nylon is synthetic; it didn't exist anywhere in nature until 1935, when it was invented by an organic chemist at the chemical company Dupont.

Scientists have been able to modify the genes of birds to grow teeth just as their reptilian ancestors did:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060220/chicken_ani.html

What evidence do you have that evolution has not occurred or that all plants and animals were originally created in their present form?

First Cause in either case (Evolution OR Intelligent Design)is unprovable. Why do we argue this silliness?

Brian,

Evolution has no facts and no evidence - it has, as I said, bones and a pretty story. As soon as an evolutionary biologist can give me the steps between single and multi-cell life, then you'll have some evidence...but the evolutionists can't even do that...all they can tell us is that since there are multi-celled organisms, some single-celled organism in the past must have mutated and found that two cells were better than one for an organism (and if that doesn't make you stop and think for a second about your evolutionary assumptions, I don't know what will - what, precisely, is the advantage of going from one cell to two cells?).

As for my evidence - I'm not here to say that nothing ever did evolve from one thing to another: I'm only saying that you've got zero evidence that any such thing ever happened, and zero evidence that there was no Designer involved in any such change.

Once upon a time I believed the Darwinist fairy tale - right up to the point where I picked up sufficient understanding of rational thought to know that there simply can't be blind evolutionary forces dictating what I think (without a Designer, all of your thoughts are conditioned responses to outside stimuli...you couldn't possibly have an original thought if mere evolution produced you).

And all questioning of Darwinism is relentlessly suppressed - Darwinism has become a religion, and its high priests insist upon conformity. They don't want it discusses - it MUST be blind evolution, there CAN'T be a Designer. I don't know precisely why someone would want to think like that - after all, be the earth billions or thousands of years old, who really cares how, precisely, it came to be? Its really all academic discussion - unless you have an agenda of some sort.

Will,

Pretty much my point - when we are making time to pass out condoms and teach tolerance of homosexuality in elementary school, I can't see how a brief discussion of the origins of life - which would include discussing Design - is really taking all that much away from the whole educational experience...and yet, people of the Darwinist camp fight tooth and nail against any such discussion...

Ironic that you can reach millions of people in all the world to tell them that science is dead thanks to...science. Or did you think it was divine inspiration that created your computer? Is the complex and ever growing world wide web a miracle of God? Here's a deal for you, pledge to never vaccinate your child with any vaccine discovered after 1850. Also pledge to not give them any modern medical treatment, to not drive cars (or airplanes, trains are valid, but not high-speed!) or do anything that has been given to you because of SCIENCE!

Lynx,

You're not paying attention to the actual debate here - go back and re-read all the comments, and then try a post.

I have a problem with debating Religion vs. Science. In order to have a debate you need to have a common base, a set of core beliefs and methods. Debating whether re-districting is a corrupt process or not means nothing if you are communist and don't think voting should happen at all.

Religion and Science have a different core. One is faith, the other reason. Religion can't speak the language of science, that requires empirical data, that follows the scientific method. Science can't speak the language of religion, which requires unquestioning faith. That doesn't mean religious people can't debate evolutionary theory or that scientists can't debate theology, they just have to change languages when they do it. I, as a scientist, can never disprove the existence of God as there is no single experiment you can do to do that and because proving a negative requires proving a mutually exclusive positive (and what's the opposite of God?). No single scientific theory can be disproven with religion because science is only questioned with other science, "the bible says no" is not a valid scientific argument.

I find these debates interesting, but ultimately pointless, apples and oranges.

Imagine if: in one's role as a corporate executive, rather than presenting exhaustive research and scientific method to support a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign, one were to tell the board "God has spoken."

If, instead of presenting evidence and scientifically-derived illustrations asserting a person's guilt, a prosecutor need only say "God knows this man is guilty."

Two examples wherein science is of paramount importance; where even the most pious religious person might feel uncomfortable with the implications.

Darwinism is but one school of evolutionary theory -- but all are just that: theories. They seek not to deny God, but simply to make a mortal attempt at understanding our world and its goings on. A God fearing person can, and should, believe in science, while understanding that it is imperfect.

But creationism rather argues that we should NOT investigate, or postulate, once we have been told the Answer. After all, if creationism explains it all, what need have we then of research? All has been revealed, don't you see?

Here's the problem: you're asking us to accept the premise that all things appeared at the hand of God (poof!). End of theory. Evidence? "It is written." Method? "It is written." Peer review? "It is written." And so on.

If you feel that science is dead, then the real answer here is to stop teaching science in school, full stop. If you think science is not dead, then Creationism rightly does not belong in the science classroom (it's not science).

Questions of "why are we here" or "who put us here" a matter for the private home, or perhaps a philosophy or religion class. And they go on in the minds of the Believer and Atheist alike.

Mark: "Evolution has no facts and no evidence - it has, as I said, bones and a pretty story. As soon as an evolutionary biologist can give me the steps between single and multi-cell life, then you'll have some evidence...but the evolutionists can't even do that...all they can tell us is that since there are multi-celled organisms, some single-celled organism in the past must have mutated and found that two cells were better than one for an organism (and if that doesn't make you stop and think for a second about your evolutionary assumptions, I don't know what will - what, precisely, is the advantage of going from one cell to two cells?)."

From this article...
Boraas (1983) reported the induction of multicellularity in a strain of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (since reclassified as C. vulgaris) by predation. He was growing the unicellular green alga in the first stage of a two stage continuous culture system as for food for a flagellate predator, Ochromonas sp., that was growing in the second stage. Due to the failure of a pump, flagellates washed back into the first stage. Within five days a colonial form of the Chlorella appeared. It rapidly came to dominate the culture. The colony size ranged from 4 cells to 32 cells. Eventually it stabilized at 8 cells. This colonial form has persisted in culture for about a decade. The new form has been keyed out using a number of algal taxonomic keys. They key out now as being in the genus Coelosphaerium, which is in a different family from Chlorella.

This is an example of an observed transition not only from one species to another, but a transition of one species in one taxa to another -- from a unicellular organism to an organism that exists only in multicellular colonies. The selective force was predator avoidance.

That same article mentions work by Nakajima and Kurihara (1994. "Evolutionary changes of ecological traits of bacterial populations through predator-mediated competition." 1. Experimental analysis. Oikos. 71: 24-34.) in which they induced a previously single celled species of bacteria into a species that existed only in multicellular chains -- in order to avoid predation.

"And all questioning of Darwinism is relentlessly suppressed - Darwinism has become a religion, and its high priests insist upon conformity. They don't want it discusses - it MUST be blind evolution, there CAN'T be a Designer."

No one ever said there CAN'T be a Designer. Oh, maybe there are some people. And there are certainly some people who say there ISN'T a Designer. But they can't prove it. But let's assume there is a God (not a hard concept for me). Let's further assume that the fossil record is correct, that unicellular organisms occurred before multicellular ones. Why did God work it that way? I don't know. Maybe it was in preparation for developing a self-aware organism. Perhaps more importantly, HOW did God do it? To that question I would answer... evolution. And I would answer that way because there isn't as yet any better explanation. And it certainly doesn't negate God as the ultimate Designer. What it does do, though, is suggest that God is not a continuing instrument in the plan of life in a way that is inconsistent with the principles of evolution.

You, Mark, would have us believe that "all questioning of Darwinism is relentlessly suppressed". That may be true of certain individuals, but not of scientists in general. In general, scientists are always looking for better explanations than the ones they have. Prior to Darwin's time the commonly accepted theory of how organisms changed was the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics. That theory seemed to explain the facts as they existed at the time, and even competed with Darwin's theory of natural selection for some time before it was ultimately abandoned. Proponents of natural selection were few and far between when Darwin's theory hit the scientific community, and there were many people adamantly opposed to it. Opinions only shifted as the evidence mounted and natural selection turned out to be a better explanation.

Now there is the theory of Intelligent Design, which stipulates that species just pop up. But the only evidence that fits the theory is actually an absence of evidence. In other words, it relies on holes in the fossil record to make its case. In science there is a saying: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ID, on the other hand, relies on the assumption that the absence of evidence IS evidence of absence. That's a big difference, and an extraordinary claim.

There is also a saying in science that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claims that ID theory makes are extraordinary. But their evidence isn't. ID (at least as yet) provides no predictive power (i.e., it makes no predictions as to how and when species will arise that are inconsistent with evolution -- which is how you test between theories), and there is not one single documented case that a species just popped up in a way that is not consistent with the established principles of evolutionary theory. But if or when that happens, I will most definitely listen. THEN ID will become a viable theory. Until then, it's just a pretty story.

A while ago a friend of mine (he's a circadian biologist at USC) re-analyzed some of the data accumulated by the Mars Viking landers. He claimed that the gas changes observed in one of the experimental chambers designed for that purpose were difficult to ascribe to simple changes in the surrounding temperature. Thus, he concluded, they were evidence of respiration by some kind of organism in the soil sample. He was all excited, and he sent me a draft of the paper before he sent it to the publisher. And I reminded him that he was making an extraordinary claim -- and thus he required extraordinary evidence. Then I went through and picked apart his argument -- he was relying on temperature readings in the ambient environment, not in the chamber; the concentrations of different gases were sometimes consistent with expectations, but sometimes not, he did not know very much about the composition of the soil sample and thus its ability to trap different gases at different temperatures, and so on and so forth. He amended his draft, but did eventually submit it. It ultimately got published (in a minor journal) -- and it got hammered. And rightfully so, in my opinion. His data simply weren't very extraordinary.

The moral of the story is this: it's nothing personal against ID -- or any other theory put forth to compete against evolution. I for one would relish some really good data that supported ID, or some other theory. But it hasn't happened yet -- not even close. You, Mark, want to blame it on some kind of scientific conspiracy, as if all scientists are confirmed atheists and/or are somehow threatened by "the real truth" or something. Personally, it seems to me that the real problem is lack of evidence -- pure and simple.

"Science is dead."

Figured that out all by yourself, didja?

**shakes head, wanders back toward reality**

I find it sad we've reached the point where a topic like this has become debatable. Didn't we used to laugh as we dismissed these crackpots? Those were the days.

How did life get here? Well, in my view, it was created - and the Creator has a purpose; a design, if you will. This makes vastly more sense - is vastly more reasonable - than the idea that some organic goo 5 billion years ago suddenly coalesced into self-replicating life.

Did you ever stop to wonder then where GOD came from? Did God evolve from goo? Or perhaps there is another creator who created our creator...ah yes, that would make "vastly more sense".

I trust that the next time Noonan feels an unexpected pain he'll visit his local shaman (or Christian faith healer; same thing). I guess he'll arrange the appointment by postcard, since, what with science being untrustworthy and all, electronic communications are so unreliable.

(Ed Note: gratuitous insult against author of post removed)

sglover,

You, too, need to go back and read the actual post, and the comments - and once you've worked up the wit to understand what we are talking about, you may return to the discussion.

Ricorun,

No, that is not evolution...evolution is the development of one species out of another...in a slow progression over time...so, each change would be incremental...the DNA would slowly obtain new characteristics, or lose old characteristics...what you have described is adaptation within the existing genetic code, not the arising of a new species...remember, Darwin has to explain, with precision, how a one cell organism mutated to multi-cell, and why multi-cell would be superior for survivability. And that is letting you off the hook for figuring out how the single cell organism arose. I'm making this easy for you - and you can't do.

You won't be able to do it - Darwinism doesn't work. It can't work - the mechanism described would not do what it is supposed to do. We've got a world, Ricorun, which has whales...if emerging from the sea was an advance, and mammals are an advance over non-mammals, then why do we have mammals that live exclusively in the sea? And that live on plankton? Can you imagine the mathematical possibility of such a thing happening even once? But we've also got dolphins and manatees...so it happened more than once...this is impossible, no matter how long a time frame you put it in.

There aren't holes in the fossil record - they are gaping canyons...Darwin observed some adaptations within species and concluded that species all evolved from one in to another...modern Darwinists add to this dinosaur bones and weave a fairy tale about life from lifelessness leading to multi celled life, etc...call me skeptical, ok?

The world works, the universe exists - it had to come from something, and that something if it able to create a universe is also able to guide it.

Ricorun, thank you for that last par, which succintly sums it up for me. And for all those who believe God created the universe, surely you can believe God in his omnipotence could create the evolutionary process, which could carry far beyond our planet into the universe. Lastly, in my 16 years of Catholic schooling, no one could ever explain how mankind was propogated by Adam and Eve, and their 2 sons, without incest. Not like there were IVF clinics around.

Ryan,

The Creator of God would be God, right?

You can take it back and back and back, but ultimate there has to be something uncreated which is at the start of all things. There is no other way to explain the fact that anything exists at all...the non-existent cannot will itself in to existence, some one has to do it for it. To me, the concept of there being a God is a no-brainer...to say there isn't, one has to ignore common sense.

Now, what mechanism did God use for life to emerge and develope? Well, you'd have to check with God for a final answer on that, but I doubt much He's going to provide it, as it is really rather irrelevant to the discussion. The problem we've got here is how the so-called proponents of science - which is the pursuit of truth, if it is anything - are suppressing any discussion of origins if it has any reference whatsoever to a Creator. We, in the public square, are to be force-fed an asisine, half-assed view of the universe simply because some secular-progressive fanatics don't want anyone talking about God.

Wow, science is dead? I guess the internet is just a hallucination, then.

Zor,

Here we are, having a pleasant and rather fascinating discussion - and you come in as the third person, all of leftwing ideals, who just doesn't even get what we are talking about...please, stop: you're embarrassing yourself.

LiberalRepublican,

16 years of Catholic school and you never got around to this:

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

You might want to head back to school a bit...

David,

Which crackpots - the Darwinists or the Creationists? You have to define your nutters around here.

Mr. Noonan,

I just wanted to thank you for providing a revealing look at the intellect and thought processes of a Bush supporter.

No, Mark, sadly that part of Catholic teaching never came up in my theology classes. I'm glad the church is open to scientific discussion. Further testimony that science and spirituality are not mutually exclusive (hear that Sunshine Rose?). My Adam & Eve question was really directed at Jeremiah, Sunshine Rose and others who believe the whole of the Bible is literal - apparently even the Pope isn't claiming that. Science is alive and, like life on earth, constantly evolving.

To me, the concept of there being a God is a no-brainer...to say there isn't, one has to ignore common sense.

True, it is a no-brainer in the sense that it doesn't take much brainpower to simply shrug, say, "God did it," and walk away.

You also seem to have different definitions for terms like "fact," "evidence," and "common sense" than the rest of the world. Which is probably why you insist on an asinine, half-assed, view of the world simply because you live in abject terror of your mythology of choice not lining up with reality. But at least you rush to embrace your status as a joke.

Deleted - Idiocy is not allowed

Mr Noonan

Science is the very spine of modern society . Even a child can understand that. I find it rather sad and unsettling that the ideology and obscurantism you spew has deprived you of a sense of shame as well as reason.

Mark-

No, that is not evolution...evolution is the development of one species out of another...in a slow progression over time...so, each change would be incremental...the DNA would slowly obtain new characteristics, or lose old characteristics...what you have described is adaptation within the existing genetic code, not the arising of a new species...remember, Darwin has to explain, with precision, how a one cell organism mutated to multi-cell, and why multi-cell would be superior for survivability. And that is letting you off the hook for figuring out how the single cell organism arose. I'm making this easy for you - and you can't do.

Mark, you're pretty much just embarrassing yourself here. The phrase "adaptation within the existing genetic code" is meaningless, because the thing that differentiates species is differences in their respective genetic code. If a creature's descendants have a substantially different genetic code, than those descendants are a different species - evolution has occurred.

Look, you keep harping on the fact that there is no "evidence"... but you dismiss fossil evidence as "just bones" and ignore the actual transitions that have been documented in the lab among bacteria and fruit flies. You asked for a reason that multi-cellular life would have an advantage over unicellular life, and got one - predator avoidance - but you selectively omit that too.

Your frustrated sputtering is just a cover for your basic intellectual dishonesty. Despite your claims to the contrary, there is evidence for evolution - quite a lot of it. If you were honest, you'd confront and engage with that evidence bit by bit, rather than repeatedly asserting that it doesn't exist at all. Or by falling back on your claims about how your physicist mother wrote a book (that none of us can actually read) which said evolution was wrong, so therefore it is, QED.

No, you don't have to believe in evolution, or any given piece of evidence for evolution. Nor do you have to believe in quantum mechanics, or global warming, or the theory of gravity. But, if your rejections basically fall back on dishonest arguments that ignore the good faith arguments that others are making, you're not engaging in anything approaching science or rational debate, and the rest of us are perfectly justified in dismissing you as a crank, and keeping you out of the classroom.

please, stop: you're embarrassing yourself.

LOL!

Cole was right, irony is indeed dead.

I'm glad the church is open to scientific discussion.

It sure is--except for when the good ol' Pope axes the head of the Vatican Observatory for the heinous crime of deviating from the party line on creationism and siding with the "twaddle" of Darwinism.

Kinda puts Noonan's absurd ramblings about how he's being "force-fed an asisine, half-assed view of the universe simply because some secular-progressive fanatics don't want anyone talking about God" when in fact his beloved church is doing exactly what he's trying to tar everybody else as doing.

Mark:

In all of our collective experience, we've never seen something come from nothing...all of our experience indicates and uncreated Creator because that is the only way to explain why you're sitting there reading what I wrote.

That's your "contrary evidence"?

First: where in the Theory of Evolution does it say that "something came from nothing"? ToE doesn't say that at all. On the contrary, Theory of Evolution is about common descent, different organisms having a common ancestor. It means that the TeO states that something came from something else. It's actually Creationists who believe that "something came from nothing" when God created the Universe.
You're confusing the Origin of Species with Origin of Life. The first has led to the Theory of Evolution, the second has only produced hypotheses, not theories.

Second: because something has not been observed, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. That's where you go wrong in asserting that an "uncreated Creator" is the cause of the Universe of for life on earth. Has it been observed?

So, again, where's the "contrary evidence" you told was available?

>It usually takes someone from outside science to show that some particular crackpot theory is twaddle

Could you provide 2 examples, please?

LiberalRepublican,

The Bible is Literal! Make NO mistake about it!!

Why? Because most if it, was spoken by God! Himself!

And All the many people who wrote the scriptures, Their words were directed by God!

And BELIEVE ME! Anything that is directed by and made by God - is nothing to be questioned!
God is TRUTH!

Because He says: "BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD"

So, Don't worry!, Be happy! :)

Enough said!

Jeremiah

"You can take it back and back and back, but ultimate there has to be something uncreated which is at the start of all things."

So if God is the Ultimate Creator, who created God? Where did God come from? You can say that God "always" existed, but that provides no more explanation than saying that everything arose out of nothing. To simply say that a Creator created everything, without providing an explanation for the existence of the Creator, is just another way of saying that you can't provide any rational explanation for why things exist. Granted, to say that everything arose out of "nothing" is not much better, but at least some of us are willing to admit that we have no explanation.

Lucas, your understanding of the concepts of "natural selection" and "evolution" is fatally flawed.

I'll try to be brief...

Natural selection is *not* about individual members of a species 'adapting' to their environment by changing to suit it better during their own lifetime, as you seem to indicate.

Natural selection is about how changes in the genetic structure from one generation to the next (genetic mutation) causes different individuals to be more or less able to survive and breed than others. Over several generations, the likelihood is that the more fit individuals have more offspring than less fit individuals. Thus, 'natural selection' works on the level of the population, not the individual organism.

As for evolution, it "merely" takes this concept and applies it to the real world, where the time-scales and amount of space available for such things to happen are far more vast than any of us can possibly imagine.

As for one species to change into another... The simplest example is how two populations of what is originally the same species are divided by some sort of event, and isolated from each other. Since the mutations each will be exposed to will be very different (mutations are utterly random, and there's a *lot* of DNA code for mutation to change), as well as the environment they exist in being different, they are likely to take differnt evolutionary paths. Over time, they may change so much that they are no longer able to interbreed (actually, with the great complexity of most breeding systems, this may happen quite quickly compared to any other *positive* change).

I have to point out, though, that neither of the two isolated species are likely to be the same as the original one. So it is not so much a case of humans being descended from the modern species of apes as it is of humans and apes sharing a single ancestor species. However, if we could look back at the species that eventually "turned into" both humans and modern apes, we would likely call them apes, and not humans.

I work in genetic programming, doing research on using the concepts of evolution to create computer programs automatically. I have seen evolution work.

Magnus,

And if that happened we'd have massive evidence, in the fossil record, of transitional species...the problem for Darwinism is that we don't have any...species have come and gone, but they have come and gone as is, with no line between the extinction of one and the rise of another...those nifty little trees of life? Pure conjecture dressed up as science.

Jack,

But if you assert that there is nothing at the back of all things, then you have abdicated the use of your reasoning faculties...it is a self-evident truth that we can't get something from nothing: there must be an ultimate Something, a Fact upon which all other facts are based. This ultimate Fact, by nature, would be un-created - ie, the one thing which is self-existent and dependent upon nothing else.

jack,

God says - " I am the ALPHA and the OMEGA"

Which translates into - The BEGINNING and the END!
THE FIRST AND THE LAST!

He also says: "There was NO ONE BEFORE ME, and there will be NO ONE AFTER ME!"

Because God - Is FOREVER AND EVER!!!! ETERNITY!

GOD IS EVERYTHING!

WE WERE CREATED IN HIS IMAGE!!

Get it?

Jeremiah

Mr. Noonan...

Could you give me a working definition of "transitional species", please?

The thing is, you see, that the ID and creationism crowd have this tendency, every time we show them a transitional species (i.e. a species showing structures (either genetic or anatomical) that are reasonably clearly at a point between two other known species), to insist that we haven't filled a gap, but merely created two new ones, one at each side of the transitional species. :)

Oh, and I love your next post, too. "Everything must have a creator. So obviously, this single thing must not have a creator."

Natural selection - is just plain balogney, Do you believe we came from monkeys? If so? Why are there still monkeys swinging from tree vines out there? If we came from monkeys? Then there should be no more monkeys! They would have all done evolved into humans! That's Just completely a BIG FARCE!!

Nautical migration - is just plain balogney, Do you believe a large portion of the US population came from Europeans? If so? Why are there still Europeans eating brie out there? If we came from Europeans? Then there should be no more Europeans? They would have **ALL** migrated to America!!! That's Just _completely_ A *BIG* **FARCE**!!!!!!

Willem,

Well, if you won't believe the evidence of your own eyes and common sense, then there's not much I can do for you...to believe in evolution, you have to believe in millions of highly improbable events...to not believe in it, I only need believe one unprovable thing...but that thing is consistent with common sense.

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Do you get it NOW Jack! Turtles! ALL!! THE!!! WAY!!!! DOWN!!!!! To Infinity, and Beyond!

jack,

God says - " I am the ALPHA and the OMEGA"

Which translates into - The BEGINNING and the END!
THE FIRST AND THE LAST!

He also says: "There was NO ONE BEFORE ME, and there will be NO ONE AFTER ME!"

Because God - Is FOREVER AND EVER!!!! ETERNITY!

GOD IS EVERYTHING!

WE WERE CREATED IN HIS IMAGE!!

Get it?

Jeremiah

And your point is.......?

But if you assert that there is nothing at the back of all things, then you have abdicated the use of your reasoning faculties...it is a self-evident truth that we can't get something from nothing: there must be an ultimate Something, a Fact upon which all other facts are based.

Ahh, nice use of "self-evident", which can be defined as:

"something I believe to be true but can't prove to be true -- so I'll accept it as an axiom, because faith makes me feel warm inside".

"And your point is.......?"

TL,

God created you, whether you like it or not!!

Take it or leave it!

Jeremiah

mark,

Self-evident, as in "we hold these truths to be self-evident"...you work with self-evident truths all day long...why the problem with one of them being a Creator?

In order to declare science dead you have to define what it is/was.
What science is is unbiased knowledge based on observation and experimentation. Now if your saying that it is dead you are also saying that empirical thougt(knowledge based on observation and experience) is also. An other intresting thing about science is that in it's purist form it is unbiased and skeptical. So are you(Mark) declaring knowledge derived from experience, skeptical thought and unbiased thought dead?

you work with self-evident truths all day long

No I don't. I'm an engineer. For example, Maxwell's equations (which supercede Genesis 1:3) are useful not because they were handed down by James Clerk Maxwell, but because they work.

we hold these truths to be self-evident

The truths to which that statement refer are called a "social contract", and are fundamental to Jeffersonian democracy, but are not fundamental to the universe as a whole. Similarly, the five axioms ("self-evident truths") of Euclidian geometry are fundamental to Euclidian geometry, not the mathematics as a whole.

Mark,

Fossils are evidence that evolution is true. The fossil record shows that the fossils of the oldest life forms found in the lowest levels of strata were the simplest and more complex life forms continue to appear as you go through higher levels of strata. This is exactly what you would expect to find if complex life forms evolved from simple life forms. There are fossil lines showing gradual changes of one species to another. There are fossil lines showing land mammals evolving into whales. It makes perfect sense that whales evolved from land mammals. Why do you think they have so much in common? The fact that whales and dolphins are so well suited to living in water shows that animals evolve to adapt to their environment. Mammals that spent a lot of time in the water pursuing food evolved to a form where they are well suited for living in water.

I already provided observed instances of evolution. Ricorun provided an example of an observed instance of single celled organisms evolving into multi-celled ones.

There is no suppression of any questioning of Darwinism. Church pastors do it all the time and nobody stops them. There are books written by creationists questioning evolution. Nobody is stopping these books from being published or distributed.

There is no need for a creator of the universe or anything to guide it. That is your opinion or belief. It is not a fact. Maybe there is one but there doesn’t have to be. Anyway it is irrelevant as to whether or not evolution is true. The Theory of Evolution does not state whether or not there is a creator only that life forms evolve.

Liberal Republican - nice to meet you! I never said that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive - there are plenty of reputable creationists out there who can scientifically talk about the origins of the universe. You don't have to be an evolutionist to claim that you have "science" in the bag. Also, you would not have science if you didn't have God. And yes, I do take the entire Bible as true and that it is God's Word to the world. It has helped me get through this life - as I get older, yes, life gets harder but better at the same time - it's difficult to explain - I can only say my faith in Christ keeps me going! :)

Mark:

then you have abdicated the use of your reasoning faculties...it is a self-evident truth that we can't get something from nothing: there must be an ultimate Something, a Fact upon which all other facts are based. This ultimate Fact, by nature, would be un-created - ie, the one thing which is self-existent and dependent upon nothing else.

No Mark, you have abdicated the use of your reasoning faculties. First you assert that "we can't get something from nothing", there must be an "ultimate Something". That "ultimate Something" however would be "uncreated" and "self-existent and dependent upon nothing else". So apparantly you belief there is Something that came into existence from Nothing.

What's it gonna be boy?

More importantly. What has the Origin of the Universe or the Origin of Life got to do with the Theory of Evolution?

Nothing. Theory of Evolution does not deal with these questions and does not even attempt to answer those questions.

If there is one certainty in this world, is that nobody posting here actually ever ever changes their mind even in the face of overwhelming facts or whatever arguements spewed forth.

This particular posting certainly generated a lot of mindless drivel from the literal believers of the bible.

Mark (not Noonan),
You write:
"Ahh, nice use of "self-evident", which can be defined as:
"something I believe to be true but can't prove to be true -- so I'll accept it as an axiom, because faith makes me feel warm inside".

I think you've really hit the nail on the head. The great distinction in the posts above is their tone. Jeremiah, Sunshine, myself, and for the most part Mark Noonan when he isn't beset on all sides, appear to have in common not specific beliefs about evolution, but a specific attitude. We're all pretty happy with the way we see the world, and I think that shows up in our posts.

I will be the first to admit that maybe nobody here will be convinced to leave behind their view that knowledge comes ultimately from God or science, and that should tell you something. It's all about interpretation, we have choices in whether we see God as great or science as greater. Neither group of us can convince the others on our own, right? So how smart are you if you want to be in the group that's angry and depressed, when you would be happier to be in the group that's...happy? The interpretation may be up to you. If you had a warm feeling inside that your purpose was true, why not believe it?

Mark:

Well, if you won't believe the evidence of your own eyes and common sense, then there's not much I can do for you

My eyes and my common sense tell me the sun goes up in the east and goes down in the west and that it moves across the sky during the day ...

"This particular posting certainly generated a lot of mindless drivel from the literal believers of the bible." -- Posted by Canuckguy

Well, you certainly added a lot to the conversation, and tell me, what other way is there to read the Bible than to read it and believe it literally? You either believe it, or you don't. There is no in-between.

Jesus even said, that he spews the luke-warm water out of his mouth. So, you can't straddle the fence there. The only exceptions of taking the Bible literally are the books of Revelation and Daniel, as they are both written in allegory the whole way through.

And just tell me, what are these "over-whelming facts" that you speak of. I know that deep down inside your referrencing to the Christian people as being blind oafs. No need to admit or deny, I can already see it. We have no need of that false garbage, that wants to say that we came from apes and the world was formed all by accident.

Well, this is the bottom line for me. You might have came from an ape, or any of the other liberal Anti-Christian, hard-core evolutionists might have, BUT I DID NOT! I was formed with the care and dilligence of one who has a plan for me and my life, and wants me to spend eternity with him in a place where suffering and despair do not exist. Don't like it? That's your problem, not mine. I can't force anyone to believe the way I do, nor can my brother Jeremiah or any of the others on here. All we can do is direct you towards the truth, of which there is significant evidence should you so choose to get up off your lazy hind-end and research it. But otherwise than that, we have our assurance, and we don't need people like you telling us that we're fools, because it isn't your call as to where we're going. If you feel satisfied in the fact of your belief that once you die, that's it, ka-poof .... hey great, I hope you can find a strong anti-depressant once you hit 70-80, because that's a scary thought. We don't have that problem, we have the assurance of a MUCH GREATER life ahead.

Now ... about that genetic mutation stuff that someone was spouting off about earlier. A genetic mutation is something that happens ONE TIME. It does not pass on to the off-spring, and it does not transfer to the female mate. I was fortunate enough to be a student during a highly informative study during Wednesday night Bible study by a 35+ year experience physician, who was also one of the first to graduate from the local Osteopathic School of Medicine. And also a graduate of one of the major Universities within our state ... needless to say, he knows what he's talking about. He is a good friend of the family, when I can I'll get some more information on the subject from him and post it.

At any rate ... I feel it's good to debate the issue, and get the opinions and facts out into the air. Even though not many minds are going to be changed, it's still nice to know that we can debate freely, and try to encourage one another while firing a retort back to the other side, lol. Even though I don't get to do this much I still enjoy it, and Jeremiah does too.

Lucas

Morris, Bohm based his theory on observable, repeatable evidence -- evidence that cannot be explained by any existing theory. I have no problem with that. Moreover, before his death I understand he had every intention of developing it to the point of making testable hypotheses. That would have been great, because until that happens all you really have are interesting conjectures. They are interesting though. Then again, so is string theory, which is also attempting to explain the same kinds of phenomena. By the way, have you read Carlos Casteneda? Back in college I spent a good couple of months trying to get my navel to light up. Lol! Ah, those were the days.

Anyway, back to the subject...

What I DO have a problem with is positing a theory on the basis of mere LACK of evidence. Do you see the difference? For example, the demonstration that subatomic particles can be mutually affected instantaneously regardless of the distance between them is an observable event that is difficult to reconcile with any known theory. But it is as it is. And because it is it begs an explanation. Noema's example of dark matter is another one. No one knows what it is, but at this point it's pretty clear it exists. But again it is an example of a demonstrable phenomenon in search of an explanation. Gamma ray bursts used to be in that category because they appeared to emit far more energy than could be explained. But it turns out they are highly focused, so everything's fine -- unless it turns out they aren't, lol!

To put speciation on the same plane as those phenomena, one would have to conclusively demonstrate the emergence of a species that could not be explained on the basis of a known theory -- evolution, in the present case. Mark, you offer the whale as an example of a species that cannot be explained on the basis of evolution. In so doing you argue that "if emerging from the sea was an advance, and mammals are an advance over non-mammals, then why do we have mammals that live exclusively in the sea?"

Before I answer that question, let me ask this: what's your answer to the same question? I presume that it is something akin to... "God did it". If so, we're on the same page on that score. But the next (and more important) question is... how? Did He just come down from heaven and say... "Let there be whale", or did He employ a more intricate mechanism -- evolution, for example? And if not evolution, then what? How do you explain the fact that you can trace -- (at minimum) both chronologically and phenotypically -- a gradual line of emergence from, say, Sinonyx (a wolf-sized derivative of ungulates from the order Condylarthra in the late Paleocene, about 60 million years ago, but which had teeth and an elongated snout to indicate it was a terrestrial animal that fed on fish), through Pakicetus (52 million years ago, with a lifestyle probably similar to a walrus or seal), through Ambulocetus (50 million years ago, also like a walrus), through Rodhocetus (46-7 million years ago), through Basilosaurus (35-45 million years ago, and probably the first truly aquatic cetacean), through Dorudon (about 40 million years ago)? Are you implying that there is a huge chasm between each one of those steps? Maybe that's it -- maybe you're suggesting that (a) God works through a mechanism that is similar to evolution, but one in which He takes bigger steps? Or, alternatively, (b) are you arguing that those steps didn't really exist? Let's examine the two possibilities separately...

(a) If it's the former (which I guess you could call the bigger step hypothesis), then I need to point out that I (and others on this thread) have presented many examples where speciation was closely observed to take place (that is TRUE speciation -- where a new population of reproductively isolated organisms was derived from another -- but apparently that wasn't good enough for you for whatever reason), EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM occurred over a series of gradual changes. So obviously that mechanism cannot be refuted. Moreover, what DIDN'T occur in any such closely observed situation was an abrupt change that defied the principles of evolution. Given that, I have to ask... why bother with the second concept it the first suffices? Noema brought up the notion of parsimony, which is one of the characteristics a good theory has. Why would we have to postulate a mechanism wherein speciation occurs one way some times and another way at other times if we have only actually observed incident that conform to one but not the other? Unless there is a compelling reason to do so, that violates the concept of parsimony.

ID proponents like to speak of the concept of "irreducible complexity", and they trot out a few examples that the fossil record has a hard time with (e.g., the modern mammalian eye and modern bacterial flagella). Of course, none of them have actually observed something like that actually arise under carefully observed conditions, they have simply proposed the possibility that something like that occurs. Not withstanding the fact that I don't see the necessity for doing so, let's assume they're correct for the moment... what does that imply about God's omnipotence? It seems to me that it implies that His original plan wasn't perfect to begin with, so He has to tweak it every once in a while to get it back on track. If you really think about it, I think you might agree that that's a concept that isn't tremendously satisfying in the grand scheme of things. It almost implies that Frawg was right -- there really is a giant spaghetti monster or some such intermediate entity pulling the strings. I mean if you do truly believe that God is perfect and all-powerful, yet suggest that His plan as originally conceived isn't, then... well? Where are you really at?

(b) If it's the latter (which I guess you could call the divine deception hypothesis), then it is incumbent upon you to explain why you think God would do such a thing. And why only in the fossil record? Or is it a really big conspiracy? If so, what does THAT imply? To use your word, Mark, how big a "nutter" are you?

Forgive me, but I really have a hard time figuring out what your argument really is, Mark. You seem to acknowledge the existence of a fossil record going back several hundred millions, even billions of years. You seem to acknowledge that there are fossils of animals that no longer exist. I might be making a leap here, but you even seem to acknowledge that in many cases, there is a fairly well defined lineage between one form and another. So what's the real issue?

You say of evolution that "It can't work - the mechanism described would not do what it is supposed to do." Why not? Is it possible you don't understand the mechanism? I suspect you don't. I don't mean to be uppity or anything, but I suspect not because you asked, "Can you imagine the mathematical possibility of such a thing happening even once? But we've also got dolphins and manatees...so it happened more than once...this is impossible, no matter how long a time frame you put it in." That would certainly be true if evolution relied on a long line of random variation, with each variation having an equal chance of success. But that's not what it posits. Rather, it posits that not every variation has an equal chance of success, and future variations are limited by what happened before. Evolution is, in other words, properly described as a chain of conditional probabilities, not a huge pile of simultaneous probabilities (the latter, by the way, is essentially what Dembsky posits in his principle of "specified complexity"). Let me see if I can explain that to you by way of an analogy...

For example, if 6 dice are thrown all at once, the likelihood of all of them coming up a 6 is exceedingly small (1/6 to the power of 6, or 1 in 46656). That's analogous to the situation that would exist if one were required to explain how a modern whale evolved from Sinonyx if no intermediate stages existed. However, if 5 sixes have already happened, then the probability of throwing that last one is only 1 in 6. The latter situation is more analogous to the situation of modern whales emerging from Dorudon, which is in a sense only one throw of the die away. I picked the dice analogy because I thought you might be able to understand it more than any other. A deck of cards would have equally sufficed -- or any other example of pure chance, no matter what it is, and no matter how many orders of magnitude of difference is involved. The fact is that evolution implies a chain of conditional probabilities, not simultaneous probabilities. And after each "throw of the die" the immediate environment determines which is the "correct" answer.

Maybe it's just me, but to me the beauty of the overall process is truly awe-inspiring. And I truly don't understand why believers want to imply that God didn't get it right in the first place -- at least without absolutely having to. Although it would be exceedingly interesting if it became necessary to postulate that God is required to come down and periodically tweak His own plan from time to time, it still seems to me that such a necessity would call into question God's omnipotence. Thus, I am not at all interested in doing so unless I absolutely have to.

As far as the first origins of life go, I can honestly say I don't know. I'm quite sure "God did it." But that in no way explains how. Neither does evolution for that matter. As Oranje correctly stated, evolution is an attempt to explain the origin of species, not the origin of life. There is no reason to believe the two are intricately related. Anyway, however it turns out, my faith in God will not be shaken. I don't need God's preternatural fingers involved to prove to me He exists. For proof of that I just have to examine my soul. And in that regard, by the way, I fully agree with what you (Mark) wrote about the views of Pope Pious XII. And maybe that's my connect with Morris as well. At any rate, I fully appreciate that there is a distinction between body (the corporeal being) and soul (the spiritual being). Nonetheless, I also appreciate that they are integrated on some level. And part of my own personal quest is gaining a more robust understanding of how they interact and to what extent.

One thing is for sure though, I will never claim my faith in God justifies my lack of intellectual or spiritual curiosity. I guess you could say that's one thing Jeremiah and I don't seem to have in common.

Willem,

True enough - but the modern proponents of Darwinism are insistent that origins not be discussed at all...the reason for that, of course, is that any discussion of origins would immediately undermine modern Darwinism...

mark,

You might want to look up what "self-evident" means...you're missing it entirely.

Morris,

Good point - it is clear that most of those on the other side of this issue are ANGRY that we believe as we do, and have brought up the subject. Why someone should get upset over something that they say happened billions of years ago is quite beyond me...fundamentally, it doesn't really matter...and yet the Darwinists fight against ID as if ID were going to destroy us all...

Ricorun,

But how many times did evolution have to come up sixes in order to move the nose of a whale from the front to the top of its head? The chances of it happening once are astronomical against - and to happen more than once, as close to impossible as it is possible for us to reckon.

As for why God should have to interfere with His creation - quite simple: He made us creatures of free will, and in order to instruct us properly, the Teacher is going to have to get directly involved from time to time. Had He made Nature as something which would self-educate the human species, then we would be automatons and not able to really choose between one thing and the other.

But how many times did evolution have to come up sixes in order to move the nose of a whale from the front to the top of its head? The chances of it happening once are astronomical against -

Is there some actual difficulty with this or did it just occur to you suddenly? Sure, the chance that a whale with its nose in front would have a massive mutation moving all the bones out of the way and creating a blowhole on top is astronomically unlikely, but evolution never asks for that kind of thing to occur. It just asks for the muzzle to lengthen bit by bit as it makes the whale better at catching fish, and the upper jaw to telescope backwards and out of the way, taking the nostrils with it. That's a mere positional change, not even requiring the development of any complex organs. As long as each step toward the top of the head made it easier for a whale to breathe without coming fully out of the water, the whale only had to roll one 6 at a time.

I forgot to mention that in whale embryos, the nose does start out at the front of the skull, like in other mammals, and then moves up during development. So evolution didn't even have to roll any sixes remaking the basic body plan, it just adapted it a little.

I forgot to mention that in whale embryos, the nose does start out at the front of the skull, like in other mammals, and then moves up during development. So evolution didn't even have to roll any sixes remaking the basic body plan, it just adapted it a little.

There are no gods, there is no God. You offer your opinions as facts in an attempt to prove your god exists. Natural selection is a proven fact.

This article is PROOF POSITIVE that the science of evolution is faulty. NO ONE could believe that ANYONE COULD BE THIS STUPID after so many years of evolution.

We're in for one hell of a ride with these Bible thumpers folks, hold onto your hats.

I will support every person who denies Evolution.
You need to stop trusting every advance that is based on this bogus 'science' of evolution.
First and foremost, STOP TAKING ALL Vaccines. Vaccines are developed and redeveloped because Scientists falsely assume that pathogens adapt and mutate and that stronger varieties of pathogens become dominant (like those fictional anti-biotic resistant bacteria).

Show the world that you really do believe in God and that you reject evolution. Refuse to vaccinate your children or yourselves! Take a stand! Refuse any new anti-biotics! The old ones work fine, bacteria strains don't adapt! Show them, show them all!

God is dead.

Organized religion is for the weak masses.

Who wants to engage in sprituality where you are told what to think, how to act etc.

If anything, Kierkegaard had it right. Belief should be personal. A "leap of faith" without any objective proof.

Mak Noonan is either completly mad, or a deliberate liar.

Take your pick

I always seem to find it odd that Darwinists are forced to "prove" it while creationists tend to spout off about what the bible says and it is supposed to be taken at face value with basically no evidence to support it. The "cause God did it" arguement shouldnt even be allowed in a scientific discussion.

I have no problem with someone believing in God or Christianity, but when they basically try to make their religon part of science it does not seem to work. Your death of science seems to be because scientists seem to only search for things practical and can only build upon previous discoveries. You seem to not be looking at the big picture. Science is made in small steps that basically build upon previous theories and discoveries. All huge scientific breakthruoughs have basically been made off of previous smaller scientific discoveries.

Ricorun stated:

"They have never found a single intermediary species in the 134 years since Darwin published his theory."

So wrong!

Just google "Tiktaalik" for the latest amazing find or just visit this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/science/05cnd-fossil.html?ex=1301889600&en=c43e5d13b1dd0cb2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Intermediary fossils are found on regular basis. Just to name a few series where we have intermediaries; horses, camels, and whales. Go visit the American Museum of Natuiral History and you'll find several great examples on display.

If you've got Noonan's mindset you'll probably just dismiss them all as fakes.

Mark:

True enough - but the modern proponents of Darwinism are insistent that origins not be discussed at all...the reason for that, of course, is that any discussion of origins would immediately undermine modern Darwinism...

On the contrary, there are fierce battles and debates amongst evolutionists about the specifics of origins.

A few quick questions:

1. Name one technology that has benefited and improved the physical existance of mankind that finds the source of said technology in the Bible or any other religeous treatise.

2. How does posting on web site, using computers, cell phones, color TVs - all using global satellite technology underline the death of science? How are satellites possible with a flat earth?

3. Have there been "irreducably complex" systems in the past that have been quantized? As an example the human genome was thought to be so less than twenty years ago.

4. If the Bible is the basis for ID, does that make the world flat and donkeys talk? Please direct me to peer-reviewed articles suporting any talking animals.

5. Even if science was dead, wouldn't common sense apply to the evidence before us. Does common sense support talking donkeys?

Thanks for letting me post.

Greg Forest

-Greg Forest

Mark--your "German intellectual" was a Fascist, not a Communist, and considering that both movements eventually became decidedly anti-intellectual, I don't think that's probably the best euphemism for him. Get your facts straight before you go around waving Hitler in everybody's face, okay?

Thank you for writing this piece. As a scientist, I find it hard to explain to laymen, the serious damage to society and institutions of knowledge that has occurred under this government. The concern is not about what the policymakers think, but how they think. You have provided a textbook case - something editors should consider. You could be the next Phineas Gage!

Really has to be one of the more ignorant posts I've read online and I've read a lot of post. If science were to ever be "killed" it would only come in a world ruled by people who think like this author's post. Science filtered through a religious lens would definitely destroy science!

Bill Maher: "I say it’s time for the United States to sever it’s ties with science all together and withdraw from the solar system"

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/RealTImePlutoNewRule.mov

>>It usually takes someone from outside science to show that some particular crackpot theory is twaddle

>Could you provide 2 examples, please?

I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. Since you assert that it is _usually_ someone from outside science who disproves some theory, it shoud be _trivial_ to come up with a few examples. Or are you implicitly retracting this claim?

You can take it back and back and back, but ultimate there has to be something uncreated which is at the start of all things. There is no other way to explain the fact that anything exists at all...the non-existent cannot will itself in to existence, some one has to do it for it. To me, the concept of there being a God is a no-brainer...to say there isn't, one has to ignore common sense.

Now, what mechanism did God use for life to emerge and develope? Well, you'd have to check with God for a final answer on that, but I doubt much He's going to provide it, as it is really rather irrelevant to the discussion. The problem we've got here is how the so-called proponents of science - which is the pursuit of truth, if it is anything - are suppressing any discussion of origins if it has any reference whatsoever to a Creator. We, in the public square, are to be force-fed an asisine, half-assed view of the universe simply because some secular-progressive fanatics don't want anyone talking about God.

Let's rephrase:

You can take it back and back and back, but ultimate there has to be something uncreated which is at the start of all things. There is no other way to explain the fact that anything exists at all...the non-existent cannot will itself in to existence, some one has to do it for it. To me, the concept of there being a universe is a no-brainer...to say there isn't, one has to ignore common sense.

Now, what mechanism did the universe use for life to emerge and develope? (natural selection) Well, you'd have to check with the universe for a final answer on that (it's called science), but I doubt much it's going to provide it (you'd be wrong), as it is really rather irrelevant to the discussion (yet it's not).

Not too long ago the blogosphere was rocking with the great debate of Intelligent Design vs Darwinism. It was an interesting debate, though I doubt much that anyone had their mind changed. Be that as it may, the whole thing got me thinking, and today it occured to me: religion is dead. We have reached the end of the Age of Religion - what will come after, I don't know, but I don't think that we'll ever again have a time when Religion is enshrined as some sort of god-like arbiter of right and wrong. The question now: what killed religion?

A lot of different factors - but the main thing was that religion could only thrive as it did from its begining until 1850 when everyone agreed on the rules. The prime rule of religion was truth - everyone involved in religion had to believe in the truth to the best of their ability, and be faithful when new evidence called in to question previously held beliefs. What killed religion was when its strongest advocates stopped telling the truth.

It was, after all, religion and its enthusiasts which fell for theThe Earth is flat, the Earth is the center of the Universe, Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his liver eaten out by a bird everyday, bad feelings come from thetons (sad alien ghosts) in our bodies , Muhammed ascended to heaven bodily on a winged horse , etc, etc, etc. So many bogus theories, dressed up as religion, and greeted by the believers in religion as the be-all and end-all of existence. After a while, it was bound to errode the foundations of religion - and now it has. Religion is now so intertwined with myth and political gamesmanship that whatever judgements are pronounced under the cover of religion are immediately suspect - everyone who hears such things wonders when some future religion will completely refute what is held as rock-solid religion today.

Why did religion stray from the path of truth? I think it is because we educated the men of religion with a knowledge of science - a knowledge, that is, of genuine truth and genuine reason. When religion became a narrowly forcused search for something immediately practical, it was bound to eventually be hijacked by people who wanted to use the cover of religion for very impractical efforts. Keep in mind that http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_what_makes_a_terrorist.html, once upon a time, was considered irrefutable because it was supposedly divine judgement about the human condition and destiny - the crackpot theories of an out of touch religious intellectuals were peddled as if they were on par with the theory of gravity.

The truth will out - and that means that the quest for the truth will continue, and that will mean that efforts in religion will continue to yield results...but the Age of Religion is over, killed off by lies. I don't regret its passing - hopefully we will soon start to really educate people, so that even as they pursue religion, they keep it in perspective, and in relation to the real human condition.

lol

I love this debate, cuz everyone firmly believes one way or another. But, in fact, there is no absolute proof for either position. Sure, actual evidence supports the idea of evolution, while no real evidence exists for the 'God Bang' theory. But, what's wrong with not knowing the answer, and waiting for more evidence before deciding? That is truly what science is about, unlike religion which demands faith without evidence.

Science is not dead. Most scientists and other high school graduates believe that the physical world that surrounds them does follow physical laws. Science has and will continue to provide the best explanations of our physical realm. Religion in this country, however, is attempting to halt scientific progress. Therefore, science may die in this country, but not a natural death. Rather, the death will be a result of biblical hardliners crushing science out of a fear that it will eventually destroy the foundations of their belief.

So, religious fanatics, just stop worrying. Through your faith, trust that you are right, and nothing scientists do can change your belief that God exists and created everything. Scientists are not out to prove you all wrong, and they never can. Issues such as God's existence and Creation are not scientifically testable ideas.

But, in the long run, the right approach is continual curiosity and a willingness to say "I don't know". This is the scientific approach, and if it is dying, dark times await.

Mark, did you copy that post from “The Onion”? If not you should send it to them – it’s brilliant satire.

"One thing is for sure though, I will never claim my faith in God justifies my lack of intellectual or spiritual curiosity."

Why worry? When God already knows exactly what your going to say next, and already knows what your going to do next year or even 15 years from now!

Either way you choose Ricorun, your intellectual curiosity ... whether you choose to believe God made everything perfect in the beginning(I know I do!) or not!, will never be justified unless God makes that decision, which I think was made pretty clear in - 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.

God's Word - is all the proof you need!

I question your faith, because you say your faith in God does not justify your intellectuality, That is a HUGE understatement, to say the least!

Make no mistake! We were programmed even before birth! because you see, God knows everything - God is Everything - God made it ALL!

Genesis"
"and God saw that it was GOOD"

There was NO ONE on earth before Him - and there will be NO ONE on earth after Him! Because He says He will destroy the earth with fire, everlasting! and all atheists will have their part!

You can go on and on and on about it all day long, But the answer is right in from of your nose, If you would just take a minute to look at it!

Take care! :)

Jeremiah

Canuckguy - Happy Saturday to you....a midst my busy day of "mindless drivel" thought I would share with you that in my life of believing the Bible to be literal and true, there is one huge lesson I have learned: you can't change anyone's mind. We can discuss and debate issues but I have given up trying to convince folks of anything; which means giving up "control." That has been a huge shift in my thinking, too, and quite liberating as well. I'm certain that you have heard the familiar phrase "Let go, and Let God..." Well, that's what I have done when discussing/debating issues and really in all aspects of life.

Morris - Thanks for your comments - yes Attitude is everything! :)

Canuckguy - Happy Saturday to you....a midst my busy day of "mindless drivel" thought I would share with you that in my life of believing the Bible to be literal and true, there is one huge lesson I have learned: you can't change anyone's mind. We can discuss and debate issues but I have given up trying to convince folks of anything; which means giving up "control." That has been a huge shift in my thinking, too, and quite liberating as well. I'm certain that you have heard the familiar phrase "Let go, and Let God..." Well, that's what I have done when discussing/debating issues and really in all aspects of life.

Morris - Thanks for your comments - yes Attitude is everything! :)

I don't know about science but your brain is most certainly one dead parrot.

Give me a break. A bunch of yokels forged the Piltdown man and it was the *scientists* that brought the fraud to light. But it is cute to declare things "dead" that we don't understand and don't like. So, in that vein, Republican Fascism is also dead. Hooray!

Mark, your little ditty of an essay reveals you to be startingly ignorant, capable only of offering an argument that is, in the words of John Jones, author of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover opinion, "breathtakingly inane." There isn't a university in this country where you could submit piece like that, except for Regent's, Liberty or Bob Jones, where it would earn a grade other than F. And I'm a life long Republican who views the products of science, like all working scientists, with skepticism.

Oh. My. Gawd. You guys are just plain nuts. I just showed this to my wife and my father. Well, we've had a few good belly laughs out of this. Regardless of what side of this debate your on, most people here don't seem to understand the pratice of science. Did anyone listen to their science teacher in high school? Or are some of you leaving things out to prove your point?

Who was the guy above who said "Darwin never proved anything?" He's right! A scientist never proves anything, they just come up with ideas that other scientists must try to prove wrong. If you can't prove something to be wrong, then what is it? The idea might be true! It could also mean that you haven't come up with experiments good enough to prove something wrong. That's why we thought Newton had everything right for so long. Einstein's ideas came around, but we weren't smart enough to come up with experiments to prove that Einstein's theories on special relativity came closer to explaining planetary movement and space than Newton.

By the way - could all of you PLEASE read up on the practice of science and learn that it is not possible to prove something to be true. This is where most scientists stop taking you seriously start calling you a bunch of inbred mouth breathing morons.

Someone up above was talking about society losing their belief in evolution, etc. I would just correct everyone and say many AMERICANS are losing their belief in evolution. Most of the rest of the world is chugging right along with their belief in evolution.


Personally, I'd say that all this blind faith in the bible as the only "truth" is making the lesser among us lose their intellectual curiousity.

Before anyone gets foaming-at-the-mouth mad at that last sentence read it again. Yes, I'm calling some of you morons, but by no means all.

It's one thing to say that AN animal or living organism can evolve and adapt over time through natural selection. It's one thing to say that ONE species of birds can evolve through natural selection to another sub-species. It's quite another to say that ALL life on Earth evolved from bacteria which SPONTANEOUSLY sprang to life; or to say that ALL organisms, plants, and animals evolved from another organism through natural selection; or that ALL abilities and complex functions which did not exist and which were not needed in one animal suddenly evolved and spontaneously appeared through natural selection ALONE -- and it ALL happened by accident and random chance!

It's one thing to say that an animal can, through natural selection, becomes larger, smaller, stronger, more intelligent, or a different color. It's quite another to say that a one celled organism which reproduces by cell division suddenly evolves into an animal with arms, legs, eyes, ears, nerves, bones, muscles, and organs -- with all of the parts, tissues, hormones, and functions required for sexual reproduction and laying eggs -- and from that to a mammal bearing live young -- and it ALL happened by accident and random chance!

What science has not explained, can not explain, and does not know, are the vast multitude of individual and specific changes that would have needed to occur, by random chance, from the millions upon millions of possible combinations, in just the right sequence, for one organism to evolve into a completely different organism. One can not consider only changes in features like physical characteristics, color, and size, but must also consider the millions of changes that would be required internally and within the various cells, including genes, proteins, hormones, enzymes, tissues, organs, bones, nerves, structure, and everything else within the organism for it to "evolve" into another totally different one. We must look at the billions of combinations from which natural selection "supposedly" chose just the right combination by random chance to create ALL organisms, plants, and animals that exist or that have ever existed. We must look at the infinitesimally remote, and essentially non-existent chance that these changes could have occurred solely by random chance alone.

The fact that AN organism, plant, or animal can evolve and adapt to its changing surroundings and environment over time, through natural selection, does not prove that ALL organisms, plants, and animals were created by natural selection. It does not disprove Creationism or Intelligent Design -- whether by God or space aliens (depending on one's own beliefs). In fact, the ability to evolve and adapt to changing surroundings and conditions is exactly the ability a Creator or God would also include to sustain His creations!

It's time that our public schools teach Creationism and Intelligent Design along with the "theory" of evolution in all of our public schools. It's time we demand the schools teach all three, and if not, all parents should be issued school vouchers so they can send their children to schools that do!

The fact is, science CAN NOT DISPROVE Creationism or Intelligent Design!

AAR

I AGREE with AAR! It's time our schools taught alternative, equally valid theories alongside Evolution. That's why it's time for Pastafarianism to be embraced and taught in our schools along with Intelligent Design and Evolution. While I could bore you with all of the details of Pastafarianism, I suggest that you read for yourself at http://www.venganza.org where you will discover the myriad ways in which the Flying Spaghetti Monster (who created a mountain, a tree, and a midget on the first Day) influences our lives in a positive way. It's time that the Creator of all things was acknowledged in our schools.

Have YOU been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

Not sure if you are a Luddite or a Flat Earther. Doesn't really matter though, as both have no future.

This is all irony right, the guy who posted this is trying to make a funny right.....if not those of you on the conservative side, are much, much, scarier then I orginally thought.
Concerned Canadian

I have to agree with Noonan on one thing. When the King James version of the Bible becomes the sole arbiter of what is and is not science, then yes, science really is dead.

Noonan laments that, "Science is now so intertwined with myth and political gamesmanship that whatever judgements are pronounced under the cover of science are immediately suspect". Yet to fix that he proposes that we must teach "the men of science" about "the relationship of man to creation, and his Creator."

Doesn't that sound a bit ironic? That the cure for intertwining science with myth and politics is to teach our children that science must be ultimately subservient to myth and politics?

Jeremiah (et al),
Pay close attention now, because you seem to have missed a very basic point.

No one ever claimed that man descended from apes, or monkeys. That's like saying that you are descended from your cousin. Man and apes and monkeys descended from a common ancestor (which is now extinct), just like you and your cousin descended from your grandmother (who is now dead).

How do we know this? How do we know that you and your cousin had an ancestor who was grandmother to both of you? She's dead now, remember? We can't ask her any more. Statements from you, your cousin, or your parents are only hearsay. How do we know that one of you wasn't adopted? Or Specially Created? How can we *prove* that you and your cousin had a common grandmother?

First we assume that you and your cousin each have a female ancestor twice removed. Second, we note that children have genes that are very closely related to their parents. Then we can show that you and your cousin have genes that are more closely related than you and your next door neighbor from Montana, or anyone else that is not in your close family.

If we're really really lucky, maybe we can accidentally discover where your grandmother was buried millions of seconds ago. Maybe we can even recover some DNA from her hardened bones. Maybe we can show that your DNA and that of your cousin are more closely related to your grandmother's DNA than to anyone else we've ever found in the ground.

If we can't find those bones, your supposed grandmother is just a missing link that might have connected you to your cousin. But that's okay. We don't need to find that missing link. We still have the DNA from you and your cousin, which is enough for science to prove that you and your cousin are closely related, and not Specially Created.

My Adam & Eve question was really directed at Jeremiah, Sunshine Rose and others who believe the whole of the Bible is literal

Posted by: LiberalRepublican at August 25, 2006 03:13 PM

Oh, Jeremiah...

I don't think you responded to LiberalRepublican's
question of how you feel about God's decision to condone an incestuous relationship between Adam, Eve & sons. Care to share your thoughts?

It's one thing to say that AN animal or living organism can evolve and adapt over time through natural selection.

And a strange thing to say, indeed! Natural selection allows for evolution across generations, not within them. Evolution is cumulation of changes in the genome due to the greater reproductive success of "fit" individuals. Not change or adaptation by a particular organism.

It's quite another to say that ALL life on Earth evolved from bacteria which SPONTANEOUSLY sprang to life...

Yeah, it is another topic, called abiogenesis, separate from the evolution of species. Since we have our plates full with the latter topic, why broach the former, especially since that would involve unpackaging "spontaneous" springing to life into a complex process taking place over hundred of millions of years.

or to say that ALL organisms, plants, and animals evolved from another organism through natural selection

Ah! Finally, the topic we've been looking for! This---and not the other things you mention---is evolution.

or that ALL abilities and complex functions which did not exist and which were not needed in one animal suddenly evolved and spontaneously appeared through natural selection ALONE -- and it ALL happened by accident and random chance

The only theory proposed in science for explaining how such complex abilities could arise from simpler organism is evolution. You should read about it before you comment on it. (Hint: natural selection is not "random" or "accidental", but indeed a way to mechanically pull order out of the diversity produced by random mutations. Also, evolution is gradual, in the sense of involving millions of cumulative steps, and so it is the very least spontaneous process I can think of.)

It's quite another to say that a one celled organism which reproduces by cell division suddenly evolves into an animal with arms, legs, eyes, ears, nerves, bones, muscles, and organs -- with all of the parts, tissues, hormones, and functions required for sexual reproduction and laying eggs -- and from that to a mammal bearing live young -- and it ALL happened by accident and random chance!

There is that word "sudden" again. I think you confuse the creationist account---sudden emergence of complex organisms from the nothing, or dust, or "God"---with the gradual, step-wise evolutionary account. You sound quite ready to be convinced for the latter---indeed, clamoring for it!

What science has not explained, can not explain, and does not know, are the vast multitude of individual and specific changes that would have needed to occur, by random chance, from the millions upon millions of possible combinations, in just the right sequence, for one organism to evolve into a completely different organism.

Ah, you have Dembski's disease; my condolences. Evolution has no target; it's not trying to evolve a specific species B from existing species A. Instead, over time, selection in a harsh environment among members of species A naturally leads to changes in the gene pool of species A which, given enough time, might lead to a markedly different species B that couldn't, say, reproduce with members of the original species A. And yes, that takes millions of steps in some cases. But the destination---the place those steps lead---is not predetermined, and could come out very differently if history were "re-run" (in Gould's phrase).

The nifty part is that natural selection preserves fitness at every step, thus ruling out the paths that lead to simply unworkable organisms. Instead, it's just a question of which species you end up with.

The fact is, science CAN NOT DISPROVE Creationism or Intelligent Design!

We have a winner! That's just what scientists say, and it's the reason they refuse to teach either viewpoint in their classrooms. For a theory to be part of science, it must be testable. It must be possible, in principle, to gather evidence supporting or falsifying that theory. If neither is possible, the theory is not scientific. You can believe it on faith, if you choose. It could even be true. But it's impossible for science to contribute directly to the discussion.

On the other hand, science can propose, and support with evidence, alternative, scientific views like evolution by natural selection. As the evidence for those theories mounts, the unsupported---and unsupportable/unfalsifiable---ideas of religious believes look, to many people, less persuasive.

Like the way it's hard to believe in Santa Claus, or Zeus, or the Boogeyman.

Methodological naturalism is the desire to pursue evidence-based theories of the world. It has brought us out of the dark ages and into a rich but challenging new world. I wouldn't turn back for anything.

It's one thing to say that AN animal or living organism can evolve and adapt over time through natural selection.

And a strange thing to say, indeed! Natural selection allows for evolution across generations, not within them. Evolution is cumulation of changes in the genome due to the greater reproductive success of "fit" individuals. Not change or adaptation by a particular organism.

It's quite another to say that ALL life on Earth evolved from bacteria which SPONTANEOUSLY sprang to life...

Yeah, it is another topic, called abiogenesis, separate from the evolution of species. Since we have our plates full with the latter topic, why broach the former, especially since that would involve unpackaging "spontaneous" springing to life into a complex process taking place over hundred of millions of years.

or to say that ALL organisms, plants, and animals evolved from another organism through natural selection

Ah! Finally, the topic we've been looking for! This---and not the other things you mention---is evolution.

or that ALL abilities and complex functions which did not exist and which were not needed in one animal suddenly evolved and spontaneously appeared through natural selection ALONE -- and it ALL happened by accident and random chance

The only theory proposed in science for explaining how such complex abilities could arise from simpler organism is evolution. You should read about it before you comment on it. (Hint: natural selection is not "random" or "accidental", but indeed a way to mechanically pull order out of the diversity produced by random mutations. Also, evolution is gradual, in the sense of involving millions of cumulative steps, and so it is the very least spontaneous process I can think of.)

It's quite another to say that a one celled organism which reproduces by cell division suddenly evolves into an animal with arms, legs, eyes, ears, nerves, bones, muscles, and organs -- with all of the parts, tissues, hormones, and functions required for sexual reproduction and laying eggs -- and from that to a mammal bearing live young -- and it ALL happened by accident and random chance!

There is that word "sudden" again. I think you confuse the creationist account---sudden emergence of complex organisms from the nothing, or dust, or "God"---with the gradual, step-wise evolutionary account. You sound quite ready to be convinced for the latter---indeed, clamoring for it!

What science has not explained, can not explain, and does not know, are the vast multitude of individual and specific changes that would have needed to occur, by random chance, from the millions upon millions of possible combinations, in just the right sequence, for one organism to evolve into a completely different organism.

Ah, you have Dembski's disease; my condolences. Evolution has no target; it's not trying to evolve a specific species B from existing species A. Instead, over time, selection in a harsh environment among members of species A naturally leads to changes in the gene pool of species A which, given enough time, might lead to a markedly different species B that couldn't, say, reproduce with members of the original species A. And yes, that takes millions of steps in some cases. But the destination---the place those steps lead---is not predetermined, and could come out very differently if history were "re-run" (in Gould's phrase).

The nifty part is that natural selection preserves fitness at every step, thus ruling out the paths that lead to simply unworkable organisms. Instead, it's just a question of which species you end up with.

The fact is, science CAN NOT DISPROVE Creationism or Intelligent Design!

We have a winner! That's just what scientists say, and it's the reason they refuse to teach either viewpoint in their classrooms. For a theory to be part of science, it must be testable. It must be possible, in principle, to gather evidence supporting or falsifying that theory. If neither is possible, the theory is not scientific. You can believe it on faith, if you choose. It could even be true. But it's impossible for science to contribute directly to the discussion.

On the other hand, science can propose, and support with evidence, alternative, scientific views like evolution by natural selection. As the evidence for those theories mounts, the unsupported---and unsupportable/unfalsifiable, as you admit---ideas of religious believes look, to many people, less persuasive.

Like the way it's hard to believe in Santa Claus, or Zeus, or the Boogeyman.

Methodological naturalism is the desire to pursue evidence-based theories of the world. It has brought us out of the dark ages and into a rich but challenging new world. I wouldn't turn back for anything.

This is the most ignorant screed since the Middle Ages. Does the author know the literal meaning of the word "science"? "To know". Does he grasp that "faith", therefore, would actually be called "science" if it offered knowledge as opposed to speculation and hope that cannot EVER be proven?

Well, God bless him when he enters a hospital. Or does he eschew such an institution and those who practice therein, being a man of principle?

No, I thought not.

But hey! Any time he wants to tell Bush to cut the funding for the boondoggle that is NASA, go for it!

50 % of the american people believe we were created by a troll (God). The other 50 % believe in science, but they actually take the troll-believers serious enough to start a debate with them.

You americans are all stupid.

We were created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Holy Smokes, Mark, have you ever even taken a science class?

AAR, your concluding statement “science CAN NOT DISPROVE Creationism or Intelligent Design!” is absolutely irrelevant to your point and illustrates with clarity that you understand very, very little about science. Science is all about the study—the effort to know and understand—the natural world. Intelligent design and creationism (IDC) are all about the supernatural. To the supernatural one can ascribe any behavior, phenomenon, or trait one wants. The supernatural by definition follows no rules and is not predictable. Science, on the contrary, exams the natural world. The very nature of science is making predictions about the natural world that can be tested and either validated or invalidated. The supernatural, e.g., IDC, imposes no such test. IDC is whatever its believers want it to be. Ergo, IDC isn’t science or scientific no matter how one tries to stretch the definition.

In that vein and contrary to the misunderstanding of the majority of Americans, science has nothing to say about the existence or non-existence of one God or many gods. And the reasons are as hinted above: The supernatural is impossible to examine as a natural phenomenon. The very word supernatural means it’s beyond nature and therefore not capable of being examined or tested under the rubrics of science.

You’re little screed is also mistaken on a raft of other points, too many to touch on here, so let me address just one: Your statement: “What science has not explained, can not explain, and does not know, are the vast multitude of individual and specific changes that would have needed to occur, by random chance, from the millions upon millions of possible combinations, in just the right sequence, for one organism to evolve into a completely different organism.”

No, evolutionary biology cannot explain every last one of the countless changes that have occurred in the evolutionary unfolding of life on Earth. And geography, botany and zoology have not mapped, catalogued or described the organisms that live in every square millimeter of the Amazon Basin of Brazil. But those geographers, botanists and zoologists can describe in intimate detail the overall scope and paint a copiously detailed picture of the Amazon Basin, enough that science has a remarkably accurate understanding of its nature. Similarly evolutionary biology and related fields know the overall nature of the history of evolution to appreciate its validity and explanatory power. Evolutionary biology, probably the most active field of biology today, if not all of science, is filling in the details at a remarkable rate.
As for one species evolving from another species in recent years, paleontologists have uncovered via a string of fossils from Pakistan the evolutionary path that led from four-legged terrestrial animals, ancestral to both cetaceans and hippopotamuses, to modern ocean-dwelling whales. We knew from their DNA that hippos and whales were closely related, but now we know from the morphology of their ancestors as well.

Science has also recently uncovered a transitional fossil species Tiktaalik on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic that bridges the gap between aquatic fish and four-legged terrestrial vertebrates, displaying characteristics of both. Many more such discoveries lie in the near future.

And science has on many occasions actually witnessed the evolution of one species from another. TalkOrigins, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#speciations, a science website devoted to detailed discussion of evolution reports:

“Speciation of numerous plants, both angiosperms and ferns (such as hemp nettle, primrose, radish and cabbage, and various fern species) has been seen via hybridization and polyploidization since the early 20th century. Several speciation events in plants have been observed that did not involve hybridization or polyploidization (such as maize and S. malheurensis).

“Some of the most studied organisms in all of genetics are the Drosophila species, which are commonly known as fruitflies. Many Drosophila speciation events have been extensively documented since the seventies. Speciation in Drosophila has occurred by spatial separation, by habitat specialization in the same location, by change in courtship behavior, by disruptive natural selection, and by bottlenecking populations (founder-flush experiments), among other mechanisms.

“Several speciation events have also been seen in laboratory populations of houseflies, gall former flies, apple maggot flies, flour beetles, Nereis acuminata (a worm), mosquitoes, and various other insects. Green algae and bacteria have been classified as speciated due to change from unicellularity to multicellularity and due to morphological changes from short rods to long rods, all the result of selection pressures.”

“Speciation has also been observed in mammals. Six instances of speciation in house mice on Madeira within the past 500 years have been the consequence of only geographic isolation, genetic drift, and chromosomal fusions.”

Noonan’s little treatise and your amen chorus must emanate from the same White House staffer whom Ron Suskind quoted bragging “…we create our own reality.” Since that quote, it’s become increasingly apparent that reality and the one Noonan and you would like to advance both rest on fantasy and faith, with no relationship to reality. The most charitable way to describe both Noonans’ point and your chorus (with due credit to Mark Twain, that noted American atheist),

“…the death of science has been greatly exaggerated.”

Science isn't dead, but science education may be in its death throes, as Mark Noonan has amply proved with this ridiculous post. This is why American universities have to import their research scholars.

Thank God for science. If not for His gift of science we would still be burning witches and torturing heretics. Thank God for giving us the ability to cure sickness that was once thought to be the work of the devil.

Ya know, if I were a science teacher and had students in my class who believed the Bible was a 100% correct history of the world, do you know what I would do?

I would assign a paper to them asking them to give a scientifically valid reason why ALL fish survived Noah's flood. How about it fundies? How did both saltwater and freshwater fish survive? Remember, a SCIENTIFIC reason.

While your at it, please explain, in light of the Tower of Babel story, why it was possible to land men on the moon.

One more thing. What kind of god would condone what is in Numbers 31:1-20?

And you talk about crackpot theories.

"They have never found a single intermediary species in the 134 years since Darwin published his theory." GAWD I find the stupidity by choice of Creation/Christo/Facist American Taliban wack jobs like yourselves amusing. "Theory of Evolution just that...a theory!" Yeah, just like the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima don't believe "Atomic Theory" or the people on the ground floor of the World Trade center don't believe in the "Theory of Gravity" I suppose if you looked REAL hard you could find a more pathetic bunch of superstition believing morons, maybe in the White House right now, but it would be difficult. All I can say to you superstitionists is if you have ANY integrity at all, the next time you have an infection refuse any medication, like ANTIBIOTICS in a series, that is based on the "THEORY" ofevolutionary biology, PLEASE.

Mark-

Your insightful statements reveal a true depth of understanding...about how to crib from Ann Coulter.

All your examples of "science gone wild" were lifted from Coulter's book "Godless." It is not surprising then that you included so many "etcs" at the end of the list, having run out of material to pilfer

Next time, rather than tossing around subjects such as "Haekel's embryos" as if you knew what they were before you breezed through some Amazon review of Ann's book, you might consider, I dunno...having an opinion of your own?

Canadian Observer,

Take hint: [God gave man over to his sin}

Marriage was demonized!

God gave man the choice to listen to Him or to listen to Satan! Ultimately, tragically, man gave into to satans lie! and so, Demonic powers were in the drivers seat!

The Godly Sethites sized up the ungodly cainite women...thus, resulting in destruction of marriage!

another hint: [fallen angels]

Therefore, understanding that "the sons of God" are angels (In Genesis 6), and also understanding that angels are sexless and cannot marry and procreate (Luke 20:34-36), what we must have here in "the sons of God" marrying "the daughters of man" is fallen angels (demons) commandeering the souls of men (demon - possession, in modern parlance), and these demonized men marrying the daughters of other men. It is these same angelic lowlifes whom Peter and Jude reference as having been imprisoned at the time of the flood and as now being kept in dungeons for ultimate judgement. Unbelievable? I think not. As the highly respected Old Testament Scholar Gordon Wenham has said, "If the modern reader finds this story incredible, that reflects a materialism that tends to doubt the existence of Spirits, good or ill. But those who Believe that the creator could unite himself to human nature in the Virgin's womb..[hint:Jesus was born by miracle] ... will not find this story intrinsically beyond belief."

So, CO, It's like this: When Adam came to Eve in the garden of Eden, It wasn't the apple he was looking at when he partook of the forbidden fruit!

Guess what? It was Eve he was looking at, he was thinking more of her than he was the apple, he cared nothing about the apple, he wanted to please Eve, and so ... here we are today ... THE GREAT FALL!

Jeremiah

This is possibly the both the funniest blog post I've read in several weeks and the biggest load of neo-GOP of crap I've seen since the last time I made the mistake of tuning into Neocon Central (In the conservative legacy of avoiding all accountability and responsibility for one's own choices, I fully blame PZ Myers).

LOL... An article about the death of science only made possible by packets of electrons and photons chasing each other through metal veins, optical pipes, and semiconductor organs of the world wide web, resonating and dancing to the beat of quantum mechanics and classical physics. Damn that's hilarious. Just keep clear of the serious stuff, let the adults handle that, OK?

But here's a sincere critique: The US is utterly dependent on technology for our safety and security, for our health and food and shelter. That applies to each and every one of us, from Blastocyte Americans to senior citizens ... see, Here's a challnge for the crack pot author, stop screwing around with what makes America great and go prove your point by sleeping naked in the dirt for the rest of your short, painful, life. Then I'll at leats believe you really believe this pile of nonsense.

CO,

One more thing!

I forgot to tell you how God feels about this depravity of marriage.

Here is how God feels about this:

As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-39)

So just like God swept the dis-believers away in the Great Flood, So He will do at His last returning, ALL UN-BELIEVERS will be swept away by FIRE!!!!!!

Jeremiah

Mark,

Wherever it was you got that education, man, you need to ask for your money back.

mss,

Well let's see if we can sort through all of your smoke and condense your dissertation (most of which I disagree with) to the bottom line!

RE: "The fact is, science CAN NOT DISPROVE Creationism or Intelligent Design!"

As you say: "We have a winner!"

As such, it's time that Creationism, Intelligent Design, and "evolution" are all taught in the public schools as differing opinions, beliefs, or theories on how life began and changed or evolved over time. It's time liberals stop teaching their "theory" as the sole opinion, and stop tossing out the beliefs, theories, and opinions of others which they cannot disprove.

It's time we get the issue back before some objective judges, with knowledgeable scientists who can testify that they cannot disprove Creationism or Intelligent Design. It's time we get some knowledgeable attorneys who can ask the right questions and force "evolutionists" to admit that they cannot identify all of the detailed steps in evolution, and they cannot prove that a higher intelligence or Creator was not involved in the process.

AAR

"So, CO, It's like this: When Adam came to Eve in the garden of Eden, It wasn't the apple he was looking at when he partook of the forbidden fruit!

Guess what? It was Eve he was looking at, he was thinking more of her than he was the apple, he cared nothing about the apple, he wanted to please Eve, and so ... here we are today ... THE GREAT FALL!"

Jeremiah

You are a card, that's for sure! This blog would be pretty dull without your comic relief. Thank you so much.

Riocrun writes "Another point is this: in some fields of science it is difficult or impossible to perform adequate tests. They are observational rather than experimental. Evolutionary biology is a good example of such a field. Theoretical astrophysics is another. Meteorology is a another. One could argue that many of the social sciences are as well in many ways. Experimental science allows you to make some fairly strong cause and effect statements relatively quickly because you can control variables, apply treatments, and measure outcomes. The observational sciences require a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. And as a result, those fields are slower to develop and more susceptible to misinterpretation. "

This is overstated. Experimentation is not the sine qua non aspect of science you think it is. Testing a theory does not require a lab experiment.

You can test a theory with observations. Chandraseakhar made a prediction regarding the upper limit for the mass of white dwarfs, the Chandrasaekhar limit.

If we find a white dwarf with 2 solar masses, this aspect of astrophysics is falsified. No lab experiment required.

Observations can provide as firm tests of theories as lab experiments.

So just like God swept the dis-believers away in the Great Flood, So He will do at His last returning, ALL UN-BELIEVERS will be swept away by FIRE!!!!!!

Jeremiah,

I swear, the only difference between radical Islam and radical Christianity is the fact that you guys live on opposite ends of the earth.

Otherwise, you religious nutjobs are one in the same.

Anything which cannot be tested is not science.

Unless intelligent design produces a testable hypothesis, and predicts the outcome of those tests with accuracy, it is not science.

To say Science cannot disprove intelligent design is precisely like saying Science cannot disprove the existence of Unicorns which grant the power of mindreading to anyone who knows the correct number of sugar cubes it takes in its tea.

This is because we can't test whether the Unicorns will grant us mindreading powers when we feed them tea with sugar cubes--and that's because we can't find any Unicorns.

Oh, and you can't redefine words like Truth, and expect to get away with it. The very notion "True" requires quite a bit of objective logic.

And by the way, I'm religious. It just so happens that my religion is not at odds with Science. That means my religion is testable, with hypotheses and predictable outcomes. There are several such religions, all of which ask that you take care of your neighbor with as much care as you would yourself.

This is not a hateful rebuke, merely a caring nudge: stop hating eachother, stop hurting yourselves, open your eyes to what is really happening when you act the way you do.

Stop it.

"You are a card, that's for sure! This blog would be pretty dull without your comic relief. Thank you so much."

CO,

I as well as many others here, we take Creation seriously, So, Why bring your foolishness to the table!! I mean, Why shame yourself by being a fool!
..................................................

"I swear, the only difference between radical Islam and radical Christianity is the fact that you guys live on opposite ends of the earth."

and poor little ol TL,

Buddy or Missy, You have'nt added one thing to this discussion but your HATE!

Don't you know anything? Like, God loves you!

I mean really that would be a start, but, If you so choose to follow the path of ignorance, so be it!

Jeremiah

A lot of the discontent with the theory of evolution seems to revolve around the mistaken concept of the term "random" as meaning "undirected." In reality we can't tell.
For example, why do some homes out here on the plains get destroyed by a tornado, while the home next door is untouched? We have no problem calling that "dumb luck" or "random." Why did some people in New Orleans survive Hurricane Katrina, while others didn't? I doubt that you would say that the unlucky ones deserved to die.
Or our soldiers in Iraq - do the unlucky ones deserve their wounds? No, we have no problem calling that "bad luck" or "random fate."
Or, how did the one sperm of your father's win out over the tens of millions of others to fertilize your mom's ovum? We can't say whether that was completely random or not, but we CAN say that, as far as science can tell, it appears to be random. In fact, some Intelligent Designer may or may not have used some undetectable method to direct it, but we can't tell.
The same is true for evolution. As far as we can tell, the mutations that occur in every generation appear to occur randomly. That simply means that there is no way that we can determine whether they were caused on purpose or not.
And once the mutations occur, whether or not they survive to replicate is NOT random.

So, did God cause it or did God simply create the physical laws of the universe that created you, or did the universe cause itself, or did Ganesh cause it all? We have no way to tell. And since we have no way to test this, it's simply NOT science.

So please don't use the term "random" as if it somehow implied the non-existence of God.

We DO have the ability to disprove young-earth Creationism, which makes the scientifically testable claim that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. This claim is simply inconsistent with geological and astronomical evidence (our state school board in '99 tried to ban teaching that the speed of light is constant, because there are stars more than 10,000 light-years distant).

But Intelligent Design makes NO scientifically testable claims. That doesn't mean that God does or does not exist, but this question is outside of science. So are the concept of beauty and the concept of morality. They may be correct, but they're not provable by science. And therefore don't belong in high school science class.

In shorthand, you can think of religion or morality as telling us the answer of "Why?" while science answers the question "How?" "How did the universe come to be?" vs. "Why does it exist?"

What we CAN show is the history of life since the beginning of it. And what it shows is, so far, consistent with what is predicted by the Theory of Evolution (e.g. the Human Genome Project showed that human DNA is related to chimp DNA - including genes that have been inactivated - in just the fashion predicted by evolution).
SO: There may or may not be an Intelligent Designer, but if He exists, the evidence is pretty clear that He used the processes of evolution to create us.

(Blue Screen)

"We've got a world, Ricorun, which has whales...if emerging from the sea was an advance, and mammals are an advance over non-mammals, then why do we have mammals that live exclusively in the sea?" --Noonan

This is broken.

All it takes is a small subset of organisms to propagate changes in a local environment. For instance, consider a hypothetical: some low-hanging food over a waterway. All the fish needed to do was jump a little to get the food. They forgot how to eat anything else, because this environment had been so convenient for so long.

Then the water receeded more quickly than the branches grew over the water--the environment changed. The few fish which _randomly_ had the _mutations_ for greater agility out of water (which by the way had previously no use whatsoever) were now the only ones who could survive in that locale.

Over time, these fish were the only ones who passed their genes on in that locale. Over time, those genes, coupled with the continued changing of the environment, combined to mechanically, forcefully, decide which fish lived to pass on their genes.

And so on. It's a hypothetical, but that's how it works. Locally, and in tiny increments. It doesn't require the entire population, nor could it possibly happen that way.

Thinking that the entire class of sea-dweller would all of a sudden become land-walker is as much as saying "it has no cause". Which is very unscientific.

Buddy or Missy, You have'nt added one thing to this discussion but your HATE!

first off, it's buddy.

second, you're half right. I LOATH radical nutjobs like you. You people(radical Christains)are a pimple on the a** of humanity, and need to be ignored at ALL times.

And that goes for ALL religious frauds who use religion to advance thier agenda.

You hate freaks have turned Christianity, a religion that pracitced peace and tolerance towards ALL men, into a religion of hate and hypocrisy.

But it doesn't matter to you sickos. As long as you can shove your religion down everybody's throat, it's all good.

I have nothing but the deepest disgust for Christian facists like you.

Well let's see if we can sort through all of your smoke and condense your dissertation (most of which I disagree with) to the bottom line!

How typical of a creationist to ignore the substance of science in favor of sweeping, unsupported generalities. In science, we don't get to "reject" views we don't like out of hand. When Behe tried to do that in the Dover case---by dismissing, without giving any reason, a stack of scientific articles providing evidence against his claims---he destroyed his credibility.

As such, it's time that Creationism, Intelligent Design, and "evolution" are all taught in the public schools as differing opinions, beliefs, or theories on how life began and changed or evolved over time. It's time liberals stop teaching their "theory" as the sole opinion, and stop tossing out the beliefs, theories, and opinions of others which they cannot disprove.

Evolution is not a "liberal" theory. Full stop. Science is non-partisan. Liberalism as an ideology preceeded Darwin by a century or more, and does not depend on evolution in any way. Evolution, as a factual description of the tree of life, has few if any implications for political philosophy.

It's time we get the issue back before some objective judges, with knowledgeable scientists who can testify that they cannot disprove Creationism or Intelligent Design.

No scientist---and I mean *no* scientist---would give any weight to this point. Science does not "prove" or "disprove". It gathers evidence, and weighs it. More evidence could always come in, changing or refining our conclusions. No scientific theory can be ultimately proven or disproven. The *worst* thing a real scientist will say about a theory is that it has no supporting evidence.

That's what the vast majority of scientists say about ID and creationism. Most scientists would agree that these cannot be disproven. They would also say the following claims cannot be disproven either:

1. Ghosts
2. The Greek Gods
3. The Norse Gods (...you get the idea)
4. All of known existence is just a computer simulation in a higher reality
5. The Easter Bunny
6. Buddhism is true, and the world is an illusion
7. There is no God
8. Ronald Reagan was possessed by the devil
9. Jesus was a lunatic and a fraud
10. Only Mormons go to heaven

All of these claims have as much support as ID and Creation. None can be scientifically disproven.

Should we teach them in school? Our curriculum would get infinitely large if we had to include all unprovable claims.

How about adding the creation myths of every culture? Shinto beliefs, Buddhist beliefs, Native American beliefs, Islamic beliefs.

I'll make you a deal. I'll agree that ID and Creationism may be taught in public schools, as long as they are given equal weight and respect in the curriculum with every creation story listed on this page:

Creation myths

Or, we can follow the practice of all working scientists, and consider only hypotheses which we could gather evidence for or against (which would exclude these stories, as well as ID and Creationism).

Deal?

The electric eel.

Q.

What is the force behind the shock wave created by it?

A.

The exact mechanism remains largely unknown.

Hmmmmmm? Wonder why?

I know!

John 1:1-4

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Notice that last verse "but the darkness has not understood it". Notice it says "darkness"

What does it mean? It means ALL those who live in darkness. Who lives in darkness? All those who have NOT accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior i,e. - cowardly atheists.

Point of truth - No darkness(sin) can enter the light. And only those who ACCEPT Jesus Christ will see the light!

[Note: John the baptist was a witness to the light of Christ]

Other scripture verses as witness to Creation.

Colossians 1:16

"For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through Him and for Him"

Revelation 4:11

"Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created"

Jeremiah

My favorite part is where Lucas says that genetic mutations aren't passed on to offspring.

How do you people remember to breathe?

What does it mean? It means ALL those who live in darkness. Who lives in darkness? All those who have NOT accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior i,e. - cowardly atheists.

This is the reason why I HATE the Religious Right.
It's the stupid argument that anyone who doesn't accept Christ(including those who practice another religion)will forever burn in Hell.

Does it really matter what faith you believe in or what religion you practice?

"Does it really matter what faith you believe in or what religion you practice?"

No, That's your choice, But there is ONLY ONE who can satisfy!

Jeremiah

"Methodological naturalism is the desire to pursue evidence-based theories of the world. It has brought us out of the dark ages and into a rich but challenging new world. I wouldn't turn back for anything."

MSS,
Let's assume Rico's point that everything may be measurable, and we just do not yet have the capacity to measure all things, even thought there's a slew of methodological problems there right now. What would a methodological naturalist of an ancient Pacific tribe say if someone came to them fifty years ago and said they saw something shiny moving across the sky in a straight line, leaving a white trail behind it, but not moving like a bird? The methodolocial naturalist would likely set out to measure this outrageous phenomenon, and he could go outside and look for the plane one day, then the next, then the next, and after a couple of moons he could with all methodological certainty attest to the members of his tribe that he had performed an experiment, and the phenomenon described by his fellow tribesman was not supported by evidence, to your words, the worst thing he could say about the phenomenon. Little would he know at that time that airplanes were common over urban areas, because he can't see, and more importantly, can't measure them with the tools he uses.

Experiments by Loran Nordgren, Dijksterhuis, and Lewicki have shown that human nonconscious processes are much more effective at processing and organizing information than consciously deliberate processes. Yet science continues to disregard the testimony of billions on this earth who sense there is more there than what we can see with our eyes. We have the instument, our nonconscious minds, by which we can measure this phenomenon. Science simply has not been able to measure how it is we measure this phenomenon in a conscious, deliberate way, and says about our sense of the unseen the worst thing it can say, that there is no evidence, when in fact billions of people on earth who believe in an unseen force to which they give different names would argue that they have measured it. Science's insecurity about its own power turns methodological naturalism into a methodological narcissism by which they deny that evidence which is not their own.

"Methodological naturalism is the desire to pursue evidence-based theories of the world. It has brought us out of the dark ages and into a rich but challenging new world. I wouldn't turn back for anything."

MSS,
Let's assume Rico's point that everything may be measurable, and we just do not yet have the capacity to measure all things, even thought there's a slew of methodological problems there right now. What would a methodological naturalist of an ancient Pacific tribe say if someone came to them fifty years ago and said they saw something shiny moving across the sky in a straight line, leaving a white trail behind it, but not moving like a bird? The methodolocial naturalist would likely set out to measure this outrageous phenomenon, and he could go outside and look for the plane one day, then the next, then the next, and after a couple of moons he could with all methodological certainty attest to the members of his tribe that he had performed an experiment, and the phenomenon described by his fellow tribesman was not supported by evidence, to your words, the worst thing he could say about the phenomenon. Little would he know at that time that airplanes were common over urban areas, because he can't see, and more importantly, can't measure them with the tools he uses.

Experiments by Loran Nordgren, Dijksterhuis, and Lewicki have shown that human nonconscious processes are much more effective at processing and organizing information than consciously deliberate processes. Yet science continues to disregard the testimony of billions on this earth who sense there is more there than what we can see with our eyes. We have the instument, our nonconscious minds, by which we can measure this phenomenon. Science simply has not been able to measure how it is we measure this phenomenon in a conscious, deliberate way, and says about our sense of the unseen the worst thing it can say, that there is no evidence, when in fact billions of people on earth who believe in an unseen force to which they give different names would argue that they have measured it. Science's insecurity about its own power turns methodological naturalism into a methodological narcissism by which they deny that evidence which is not their own.

Giggle,

It is hypothetical, but that is how it works...you don't realise how silly that sounds? We can't teach ID in schools because we can't prove it by experiment, and yet the highly hypothetical theory of evolution is taught as if it were the revealed word of God?

mss,

Nope. Absolutely not!

You are totally blind to any possibilities other than what you believe. You have ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF that all life evolved through evolution and natural selection alone. You can't even give me the complete and total sequence of all events and changes, yet you expect everyone else to believe as you do. Considering the complexity of life, it is not unreasonable at all to consider the possibility that a Creator or higher intelligence was involved at some or multiple points.

Well, not everyone believes as you do, and those who don't are tired of you trying to force your version of evolution on everyone else, and using our schools to teach only your version. And I hardly consider Intelligent Design to be in the same category as the Easter Bunny, but if that's what you believe...!

Go back through the history of science. See how many things were believed to be scientific fact until they were later proven wrong.

Science is not the answer to everything nor does science know all of the answers! If you want to believe in only those things that science tells you to believe, that's your choice, but based on past history, I can guarantee you will be ultimately be proven wrong on many "truths"!

AAR

This is by far the stupidest thing I've read in BsFB.....

Jason,

I didn't realise that ALAR was discussed in Ms. Coulter's recent book - but, if you wish:

How about Rooter, archeoraptor, DDT, horse evolution, Tasaday tribe, Kinsey Report, Global 2000, Burt's IQ scandal, various dihydrogen monoxide hoaxes....want me to go on?

farmer,

I was diligently taught evolution in the California public school system - it was free, and you get what you pay for.

Truth be told, I wasn't buying it even when it was presented as fact in high school biology...perhaps it is just some influence of my statistician father, but I could easily see that the probability of Darwinist evolution producing anything - let alone a rational being who could think up Darwinism - was so small as to be as close to impossible as you can get without it ever happening.

Farmer,

But, if it makes you feel any better, my "more Catholic than the Pope" father does believe in evolution...he's just not dumb enough to believe that it all happened via happy accident.

Skeptic,

Have to say that I'm a bit skeptical about that...but, then again, we true skeptics are skeptical of everything, including skepticism.

TL,

Once again - do your liberal parents teach your any manners at all?

That aside, if we are to be ignored, then what the heck are you doing here?

Going through the posts, once thing really strikes me - a lot of people are really, reall mad that I wrote this piece...the other thing I notice is that most of those complaining about what I wrote are not actually addressing the issues I raised.

Ah, well - what do we expect from people who believe Darwinist fairy tales?

Mark, was your father a mathematician or a statistician? They are not the same: if he was either he might have mentioned that. Many mathematicians have argued that mathematics is not a science. Statistics is, though: the great statistician RA Fisher laid the theoretical foundations that harmonized genetics with natural selection.

Noonan wrote:

We can't teach ID in schools because we can't prove it by experiment, and yet the highly hypothetical theory of evolution is taught as if it were the revealed word of God

No, we can't teach ID in science class because it's not science; we teach evolution in science class because it is. And that's how it should be taught.

High on the list of the ID advocates' many deceptions is the contention that ID proponents have acutally carry out science in support of ID. They haven't. Even the suposed luminary of ID, Michael Behe, hasn't done one experiment, or published one scientific research paper, in support of ID. And it's not that he's been rejected: he just hasn't tried.

If you want ID to be taught, do it in comparative religion classes.

Rico,
As to your idea about Bohm making his ideas testable, he suggests something different in Wholeness:
“One might then suggest that in intelligent perception, the brain and nervous system respond directly to an order in the universal and unknown flux that cannot be reduced to anything that could be defined in terms of knowable structures.”
I'm sure he could test aspects of his theory, after all his theory was based on his previous tests, but I think he was quite skeptical about all of it being testable, hence calling it an implicate rather than explicate theory.

By the way, Castaneda's Don Juan had similar views, so it's interesting you bring him up:
“[The shamans] maintain that human cognition can be temporarily interrupted, since it is merely a taxonomical system, in which responses have been classified along with the interpretation of sensory data. When this interruption occurs, sorcerers claim that energy can be perceived directly as it flows from the universe…. If energy flows in a certain way, to follow the flow of energy is, for them, being functional.”

Morris, this is very simple:

If a batter strikes out in his first at bat, will he be a poor player for the rest of his career? Maybe. Maybe not.

If a batter strikes out in his first ten thousand at bats consecutively, will he be a bad player for the rest of his career? Almost without doubt.

To be more explicit, your airplane observation example provides as useful way to think about the scientific method.

1. Real-world experience, hunches, or past studies suggest a hypothesis: "Silver objects pass through followed by white trails."

2. The scientist sets out to gather evidence for the hypothesis using the best tools he has available.

3. Limited, but repeated observation provides no evidence for the phenomenon.

4. The scientist remains skeptical, but admits he may yet be wrong.

So far so good. But this is just one study, with a limited set of observations. Perhaps the silver streak phenomenon is just really rare. More study is needed.

So far, we're in agreement. The difference with our evolution example is that we've had centuries and tens of thousands of studies to seek out evidence of divine intervention, and what we find instead, again and again, are observations which can be explained by evolution through natural selection. These studies have used varied and ever-improving tools, and the mountain of evidence for evolution has grown to be as impressive as that behind any claim made by scientists in history. Against that, still no evidence for divine intervention or Genesis. So the skepticism of scientists has deepened. And the probability that evolution "may be wrong" keeps dropping. It can never hit zero, but it keeps getting closer.

That's why "no evidence" is the worst criticism a scientist can make of a theory. It just gets a lot worse the more the theory strikes out.

(One quick pedantic point: the Pacific Island scientist in your example is *not* conducting an experiment. He is conducting an observational study. There are many important differences between these two approaches.)

I think you are badly mis-applying Nordgren, Dijksterhuis, and Lewicki. Those authors appear, based on an admittedly cursory reading, to be contrasting the quality of first impressions against more contemplative thought. An interesting comparison, but not relevant to our discussion, because science is neither---science is a process with many thinkers, testing and retesting claims, theories and evidence. It is not just one person's cognition, but the effort of many. It has been more often right---and more often self-correcting---than any other way of knowing ever proposed. And evolution has passed thousands upon thousands of re-tests, including those by honest skeptics.

There are many known flaws in human cognition, especially of the casual, "think fast" variety. Without "doing the math", people tend to get, say, probability problems wrong (see Kahneman and Tversky, who won a Nobel Prize for the finding)---and correct application of probability is crucial in evolutionary theory.

Common sense just isn't perfect. But perhaps you believe in ESP, or alien abductions, or near death experiences, or telepathy---all phenomena which could be "supported" by people's gut instincts.

Mark,
It's funny how they can't see their own assumption: They all think science (a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules) should be taught in schools, but they don't think metaphysics (a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules) should be taught. With their blind faith and acceptance of the use of deliberate, disprovable hypotheses as the only way in which to know something, I'd almost think that God told them that was how they should do it. But in truth it was the NEA. That's scarier than the shuttle being built by the lowest bidder.

Mark,
It's funny how they can't see their own assumption: They all think science (a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules) should be taught in schools, but they don't think metaphysics (a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules) should be taught. With their blind faith and acceptance of the use of deliberate, disprovable hypotheses as the only way in which to know something, I'd almost think that God told them that was how they should do it. But in truth it was the NEA. That's scarier than the shuttle being built by the lowest bidder.

Biotech,

Dad is both - a mathematician who buttered his bread using statistics. He's one of those rocket-science types...his last project before retirement was working on the F-117.

In biology class, we can cut open a frog and describe its internal organs and how they work; we can can examine flowers and see how they grow and reproduce; we can put a single celled organism under the microscope and see it divide...but we can't demonstrate either evolution or ID...but, to you, one is science and the other is not.

Rather strange, if you ask me.

AAR, since you refuse to answer my specific points, I'll make this simple for you. Just one question:

Give me *one* piece of evidence in favor of ID.

Not an argument against evolution. Not a piece of sophistry. Evidence of design by a (non-human) intelligent being in any species.

Until you do, then I stand by my statement that ID is as poorly supported as the existence of the Easter Bunny.

We get no where by labelling each other crackpots. 'The right' disagrees with 'the left' abd 'the left' get angry with 'the right' and so on and so forth. Some things will never be agreed upon. If people choose to be religious then that is their right. You can not explain religion with science; it is not a science, it is a belief system and a faith. Just because some things are not able to be explained by science does not mean that science is dead. Many people over the years have unfortunatley held up science to the position ofa religion which is wrong. This however, is no longer science. There are stull people doing it the right way, using actual scientific method. Science is a great tool; it is just not the be all and end all.

Once again - do your liberal parents teach your any manners at all?

Yes.

That aside, if we are to be ignored, then what the heck are you doing here?

I said radical Chirstains like Jeremiah needed to be ignored, I didn't mean you.

Just a heads up: you're rant on the 'death' of science made you famous on some of the liberal blogs.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/26/mikes-blog-round-up-302/

http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2006/08/science-is-dead.html

Congrats, Mark!

Ah, well - what do we expect from people who believe Darwinist fairy tales?

Alright. So tell me: how did we, and all life for that matter, evolve over time?

Morris: It seems to be a general theme of recent psychological research that our unconscious minds are far more capable than we may ordinarily take them to be. I haven't read enough of the research to comment on it in any depth, but, I don't think it actually helps your case much. The reason is, in order for an observation or experiment or other means-of-measurement to count as scientifically viable, it has to be transparent: i.e., other people have to be able to inspect what you did or what situation you observed, in such a way that they could reproduce the conditions of observation and determine whether they are led to the same conclusion. Observations that are arrived at unconsciously just aren't going to give you that: because they're unconscious, non-deliberate, we don't have a credible way of finding out how they came about. In the absence of that kind of transparency, there isn't any room for evaluation, methodological critique, or reproduction of the results. If you want your opinion to be scientifically viable, you had better be able to describe in exact detail how you came to the conclusions that you did. If people who claim to be aware of 'the unseen' cannot describe how they came to be aware of it in such a way that anyone can access the evidence for the belief, their claim just isn't part of science.
I take it that it is reasonably important that we can turn the tools of science on science itself: that is, we can actually study the processes of observation and rational action (involved in measurement) and see how they work. Science, after all, is something that happens in the natural world. And when we do that kind of science, we discover definite pathways by which scientists (and other observers) learn about the world. I'm quite doubtful that we would discover some parallel pathway by which ordinary observers become aware of the unseen-- especially since I take it the phenomenon is not only unseen but unheard, untouched, unsmelled, untasted, etc. Unless some other sensory modality is in the offing, I don't hold out much hope for the unseen being vindicated scientifically.
I'm also unsure that you would want science to be able to measure 'the unseen': if it were able to, then God would simply be reduced to another feature of the natural world like gravity or electromagnetism, which could be measured and understood mathematically. In other words, God wouldn't really be God, in the proper sense. Hence, the strategy I would recommend would be that, if you grant that everything in nature is measurable, you leave God out of nature-- that is, out of the causally closed space-time continuum. I suspect that this is more fair to theists but also less favorable to some of their beliefs-- in particular, the one that posits God as a causally efficient agent who intervenes in ordinary spatiotemporal phenomena.

Mark-- how exactly can you be skeptical of skepticism? Perhaps you can be suspicious of a skeptics motives for adopting skepticism: that I'll grant. You can also be flat-footed and demand that a skeptic motivate her skepticism. In neither case are you being skeptical of skepticism. I understand [modern] skepticism as, typically, the attitude of casting/attempt to cast doubt on certain beliefs or means of belief-fixation. In other words, I can be skeptical about your belief that the sky is blue. You might then reply that you know that the sky is blue because you see it. I (being a skeptic) might rejoin that your sense of sight is deceptive in x, y, or z ways. This is a very, very familiar trope in philosophy-- the point is: you can be skeptical about a belief, or a means of acquiring a belief (like sensation). You can't really be skeptical about skepticism, because it is neither. Skepticism is not a doctrine; it is an attitude toward a doctrine. There are plenty of ways of resisting that attitude, but adopting skepticism is (in point of fact) not one of them. It might seem as though I'm nitpicking, but the point is, being skeptical is, to some extent, a virtue. Resisting the attitude of skepticism is not another way of exemplifying that virtue. Generally, it's just being dogmatic in one form or another. That's not a hopeless thing though: certain forms of dogmatism can be sophisticated, compelling, even preferable to further skepticism (viz. too much skepticism can be a bad thing). But that case has to be evaluated on the strength of the dogma in question.

Morris' second post: So, I study metaphysics (I'm a doctoral student in philosophy after all), and I would emphatically not call it "a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules." First of all, as far as I can tell, there really aren't "rules" in metaphysics (no-one has agreed on any, to my knowledge), and there certainly isn't any evidence of "knowing" going on since metaphysics has never established any results whatsoever. Moreover, I don't believe ID belong in a metaphysics class, because the question of the origin of life, or the development of it, isn't metaphysical... it's (in the first place anyway) just plain physical. Maybe if we wanted to discuss what it meant to say that the question was physical (i.e. if we started to talk about ontology [the study of existence in its various modes]), we could call that metaphysics. So far, though, we're still within the purview of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. If you're looking for a discipline in which you're free to mention God, maybe metaphysics in a very, very loose sense is your game-- but these days that sort of discussion would more properly be called theology, or at the very least, philosophy of religion. These days, "metaphysics" refers to discussions of the problem of universals and property instantiation, the interpretation of the modalities (necessity and possibility), the reality of time and change, the problem of free will, and the like.
As a general rule, if the word "metaphysics" appears in discourse introduced by someone who hasn't studied quite a bit of philosophy, you can bet that what will follow involves some considerable stretching of the language.
As a final point, metaphysics should emphatically not be taught in schools because, aside from being totally useless, it is also very, very, very hard to do.

Marvelous troll! Lots of traffic I see.

I think tomorrow you should explain why Apple Computer will go out of business within 30 days. That'll really get the numbers up.

Other than that, there's nothing really to say, but perhaps a joint chorus of "When the world is running down" lead by String?

Mark, you keep writing that evolution has no evidence, when scientists have accumulated countless layers of evidence for evolution, and many, many predictions of conditions for falsifiability. Evolution is far more than your absurd conention that it is just "bones and a pretty story".

Like the age of the earth, the historical fact of common descent is not demonstrated by a single line of evidence, but by congruence of multiple lines. Here's just one example.

A prediction of evolution (common descent) is that life is arranged on a tree, an idea dating back to the only figure in the Origin of Species, and even further to Linnaeus. Any multivariate data set can be arranged on a tree, but most of the time the arrangement is a convenience, as is cluster analysis or classification. In an evolutionary tree -- a phylogeny -- the structure should represent an approximation of actual evolutionary relationships. A corollary is that phylogenetic trees constructed using totally independent data types will give similar structures. Note: this is a prediction only for "objective" phylogenies, where an actual tree structure is expected, as in evolution by common descent.

This prediction was made before the first molecular phylogenies were constructed, so it really is a prediction. And as it turns out, completely independent trees, calculated from completely independent lines of data, match to a level of statistical agreement with a combined significance (p-value) less than 10e-300. If you want to bring up Occam's razor, common descent -- which predicts such a structure -- is the only explanation put forward for it. ID has offered nothing.

It's hard to tell how much of your view is based in ignorance (passive or willful) or whether you are just refractory to argument. But I'm beginning to think from your commnts that it's a combination.

Mark, you keep writing that evolution has no evidence, when scientists have accumulated countless layers of evidence for evolution, and many, many predictions of conditions for falsifiability. Evolution is far more than your absurd conention that it is just "bones and a pretty story".

Like the age of the earth, the historical fact of common descent is not demonstrated by a single line of evidence, but by congruence of multiple lines. Here's just one example.

A prediction of evolution (common descent) is that life is arranged on a tree, an idea dating back to the only figure in the Origin of Species, and even further to Linnaeus. Any multivariate data set can be arranged on a tree, but most of the time the arrangement is a convenience, as is cluster analysis or classification. In an evolutionary tree -- a phylogeny -- the structure should represent an approximation of actual evolutionary relationships. A corollary is that phylogenetic trees constructed using totally independent data types will give similar structures. Note: this is a prediction only for "objective" phylogenies, where an actual tree structure is expected, as in evolution by common descent.

This prediction was made before the first molecular phylogenies were constructed, so it really is a prediction. And as it turns out, completely independent trees, calculated from completely independent lines of data, match to a level of statistical agreement with a combined significance (p-value) less than 10e-300. If you want to bring up Occam's razor, common descent -- which predicts such a structure -- is the only explanation put forward for it. ID has offered nothing.

It's hard to tell how much of your view is based in ignorance (passive or willful) or whether you are just refractory to argument. But I'm beginning to think from your commnts that it's a combination.

I don't know if people are mad you wrote this piece, so much as astonished. You write at the top "truth be told, we on the right are having fun with this, while most of the lefties are having fits over it". What makes you think the people who object are leftists? While I know don't know any liberals who are anti-evolutionists, I know plenty of conservatives who find creationism (including intelligent design) absurd.

noema: I love your point about metaphysics not being what it sounds like (to my surprise, it sounds a lot like a logic course I once took). As a social scientist, I get riled when people say ID should be kicked over into our courses. Why would anyone think it belonged in a social studies course?

Biotech Expat: I'm pretty sure this debate would be over (with the honest participants) if we could explain cluster analysis to the other side. Sigh. The strength of results on the tree of life make me weep. Would that my field had any predictions that rock solid.

The Death of Science (Bumped)?

This stuff scares me more than the half of the world that's angry with US right now. Mark, it appears that you would have loved the teachings of Mao Tse-Tung. Your thesis appears to have been recycled propaganda straight out of the Cultural Revolution.

"Criticism should be organized of typical bourgeois representatives who have wormed their way into the party and typical reactionary bourgeois academic 'authorities', and this should include criticism of various kinds of reactionary views in philosophy, history, political economy and education, in works and theories of literature and art, in theories of natural science, and in other fields."

"The period of schooling should be shortened. Courses should be fewer and better. The teaching material should be thoroughly transformed, in some cases beginning with simplifying complicated material. While their main task is to study, students should also learn other things. That is to say, in addition to their studies they should also learn industrial work, farming and military affairs, and take part in the struggles of the Cultural Revolution as they occur to criticize the bourgeoisie."

"As regards scientists, technicians and ordinary members of working staffs, as long as they are patriotic, work energetically, are not against the party and socialism, and maintain no illicit relation with any foreign country, we should in the present movement continue to apply the policy of 'unity, criticism, unity'. Special care should be taken of those scientists and scientific and technical personnel who have made contributions. Efforts should be made to help them gradually transform their world outlook and their style of work."

"Party committees at all levels must abide by the directions given by Chairman Mao over the years, namely that they should thoroughly apply the mass line of 'from the masses and to the masses' and that they should be pupils before they become teachers. They should try to avoid being one-sided or narrow. They should foster materialist dialectics and oppose metaphysics and scholasticism."

--Exerpts from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum

Science is far from dead. However in many sectors it has been hijacked to advance political agendas. The global warming controversy is just one example of this. Much if this is motivated by a symbiotic relationship between scientists and political activists. Pressures to publish and the find funding have forced some scientist to fake data to get research funds. This sometimes involves publishing results in controversial areas to generate support from political activists. The Korean cloning fiasco is an example of this. Consensus science is also detrimental to the advancement of truth. This is a phenomenon which is not just recent, but has existed from the beginings of scientific discourse. It can be traced from Galileo all the way to today's controversies on cloning, global warming, hurricanes, etc.

In the long term science does correct itself. This normally takes place only within the scientific community without the public discourse which really adds nothing but smoke and very little light to the issues.

However given the fact that much of the funding comes from tax monies of the people, publi discourse is necessary, and has become much more heated.

It always amazes that the same people who decry the science of evolution or global warming have no trouble accepting it when boarding an airplane.

Religious bigots, ineed.

Congratulations on making it to the big leagues, Mark. I was very surprised to see your post referenced on Kos this morning. That must explain why you got more than your usual 30 comments.

I hope a lot of those folks come to see what's going on here, in spite of Kos's warning not to actually read your post. They should make themselves aware of how radical and out of the mainstream the true Bush supporters really are.

You might want to do an update to reinforce the seriousness of your science post - they think you're kidding over there at Kos.

Congratulations on making it to the big leagues, Mark. I was very surprised to see your post referenced on Kos this morning. That must explain why you got more than your usual 30 comments.

I hope a lot of those folks come to see what's going on here, in spite of Kos's warning not to actually read your post. They should make themselves aware of how radical and out of the mainstream the true Bush supporters really are.

You might want to do an update to reinforce the seriousness of your science post - they think you're kidding over there at Kos.

mss,

You keep wanting to work at the macro level where people can say and see that a chicken looks similar to a dinosaur. We need to get down into the details at the genome level and look at the complexity of life and mathematical probabilities -- or improbabilities -- that all of these DNA pairs just happened to arrange themselves, in just the right sequence, and in just the right combinations to create all of the varied and complex life on Earth.

The human genome contains about 3 billion (that's 3,000,000,000) DNA base pairs. Estimates vary, but the last I read, the human genome is estimated to contain 25,000 to 30,000 genes, but genes represent only about 2% of the human genome. The remainder consists of regions whose functions may include providing chromosomal structural integrity and regulating where, when, and in what quantity proteins are made.

Most of the discussions are about genes, but the large complex proteins perform most life functions and make up the majority of cellular structures. The mix and make-up of proteins within the cells changes from minute to minute in response to tens of thousands of intra- and extracellular environmental signals. A protein’s chemistry and behavior are specified by the gene sequence and by the number and identities of other proteins made in the same cell at the same time and with which it associates and reacts.

I'll leave it to a mathematician to work out the details, but the various combinations would be astronomical to say the least -- and by the science of mathematics -- improbable! A computer programmer can't even write much, much smaller computer programs without making numerous errors, but nature through accident, random chance, and natural selection got it right -- and one misplaced or bad gene or protein and the organism sickens or dies! Anything is possible, but when we begin to look at life from the most detailed levels, there's a greater likelihood that a Creator, Intelligent Being, or space aliens were involved than the "perfect accident of nature"!

RE: "...(Hint: natural selection is not 'random' or 'accidental', but indeed a way to mechanically pull order out of the diversity produced by random mutations. Also, evolution is gradual, in the sense of involving millions of cumulative steps, and so it is the very least spontaneous process I can think of.)

Natural selection is in itself somewhat random because an organism has only so many available "partners" from which to choose or mate at that moment in time. There may be billions of that species or type of organism on the Earth, but each one does not have access to all of those billions from which to choose a mate.

Then there are those changes which may be perpetuated, enhanced, strengthened, or suppressed through the process of natural selection. Those changes or mutations are random, accidental occurrences. What are the chances that just the right two organisms out of those billions will mate and advance a particular genetic trait or mutation?

You say "evolution is the accumulation of changes in the genome due to the greater reproductive success of 'fit' individuals." You say that evolution is [very] gradual, involving millions [perhaps billions] of cumulative steps -- the least spontaneous process I can think of. So does that mean that the genetic changes just accumulate until one day we have a new animal, a new organ, a new ability, a new capability? Is that how sexual reproduction occurred? Changing from an organism that reproduces by division... to one that lays eggs... to one whose young start out life and develop within the mother certainly requires many more than one or two gene changes. Since you agree those changes occur over millions of years, did the required changes just accumulate over time until one day asexual division was out and sexual reproduction was in!

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? The sperm or the egg? The ovary or the testes? The male sex organs or the female sex organs? The physical organs themselves, or all of the hormones (and organs to produce them), tissues, blood vessels, nerves, tubes, components, and cycles that make them work? Or, did all of the internal structures and body parts needed to make them function just happen at the same time? If sexual reproduction did not exist to begin with, how did the changes occur and accumulate to permit sexual reproduction? How did the bodies of the organisms know to produce sex organs for sexual reproduction if sexual reproduction did not exist? Did males, females, and all of the hormones, eggs, sperm, tubing, and everything that's required for sexual reproduction develop at once, in one big evolutionary leap, or did it evolve slowly over time? If all of the components did not spontaneously happen at once, what happened first? Why would the body have created individual parts of something it did not have and did not know it needed and would not need until all of the component parts finished evolving millions of years in the future? How did the body of mammals know to evolve breasts and milk to feed their babies when it hadn't been done before? What did their babies eat before there was milk, and if they were eating, why did milk evolve?

Which came first? The eye or the nerves that feed the image to the brain? The eye ball or the muscles or the blood vessels that make it work? The lens or the retina or the iris? The portion of the brain that interprets vision or the eye ball or the optic nerve? Did the eye develop first and then grow a nerve to the brain, or did the brain grow a nerve to the eye and then create an eyeball? How did the brain know to grow an eyeball if there weren't any images coming to the brain to tell it to grow a nerve and an eye ball? How did the eye know to grow a lens and the muscles to make it work? How did the body know to grow the lens out of the clear substance rather than bone, muscle, or other tissue if there wasn't a lens to start with? If there wasn't a lens in the beginning, how did the body know it needed one and then know to grow the muscles that make it work? How did...

Perhaps you can give us all of the steps, gene by gene, structure by structure, change by change, organism by organism that you believe led from a soupy mix of inorganic, lifeless molecules up to the first reptile?

If that's too complicated, perhaps you can give us the genetic sequence, gene by gene, protein by protein, and all of the structural, tissue, organ, hormonal, cellular, and other changes that occurred to permit a single celled animal and mammal to evolve the ability to reproduce sexually? Why did those steps occur? Did they occur all at once, or incrementally? If an organism does not have the ability to reproduce sexually, how would it know it needed to develop that capability?

Apparently you do agree that neither you, nor science, nor anyone else can prove that ALL life on Earth "evolved" (or whatever you want to call it) by natural selection and random chance.

And, neither you, nor science, nor anyone else can prove that God, a Creator, or space aliens have not intervened at various points in time to introduce new organisms, plants, and animals with completely new structures and abilities from those that existed before it!

AAR

This may be the most ludicrous post I've seen at this site to date.

Yet you insist on coming back, time-and-time again, Sally. And I disagree--most of your posts are far more lidicrous than anything else I've ever read here.

Why don't you frequent the "reality-show based" blogs, where logic reigns? You know, Daily Kos, DU, and Pandagon. You'll find your kooky arse far more welcome there...

I would assign a paper to them asking them to give a scientifically valid reason why ALL fish survived Noah's flood. How about it fundies? How did both saltwater and freshwater fish survive? Remember, a SCIENTIFIC reason.

EvoMan: Don't do what so many creationists do and assume one smartass question ("...then why are there still monkeys?") can bring your opponents' worldview crashing down. Here's an Answers in Genesis consideration of that question that at least gives some food for thought.

"I think you are badly mis-applying Nordgren, Dijksterhuis, and Lewicki. Those authors appear, based on an admittedly cursory reading, to be contrasting the quality of first impressions against more contemplative thought....
There are many known flaws in human cognition, especially of the casual, "think fast" variety. Without "doing the math", people tend to get, say, probability problems wrong (see Kahneman and Tversky, who won a Nobel Prize for the finding)---and correct application of probability is crucial in evolutionary theory."

MSS,
You've done some reading, but it sounds like you stopped at the titles, a great weakness of your nobel prize winner. You see, he calls first impressions intuition, a definition most people on this planet would disagree with, and which the authors I cited would probably distinguish as immediate conscious thought. It's conscious because it's in awareness, that is he asks people direct questions about something--so that means they're aware of it in their working memory--and gets their immediate response. I wouldn't call that intuition, and it's perhaps Kahneman's greatest weakness that he does so, because then people like yourself scan the article for the high points, and don't see his methodological flaw.

However, Kahneman's research into Prospect Theory is on point. He's done experiments into how people's economic decisions are irrational, based on their frame of reference in a way that's not consistent. This is a flaw of conscious decision making, that the conscious mind biases based on previous information, filters out later information if it doesn't fit the picture already in the conscious mind, even when that information would be enough for a truly rational person to change their mind. It is a conscious frame of reference that does this biasing, and if you read Nordgren and Dijksterhuis's Unconscious Thought Theory, you'd see experimental evidence of the way nonconscious processes are better at organizing information.

It's true that Nordgren and Dijksterhuis do contrast first impressions with more contemplative thought, but they also contrast deliberate conscious thought with nonconscious incubation of information while the working memory is busy with another task, and the evidence is quite clear. Most people make a better decision after doing something else, then coming back to a decision, rather than focusing on that decision. They suggest reasons for this such as conscious processing being capable of 45 to 60 bits of information a second, with nonconscious processes going through 11 million bits of information. The filtering, biasing effects of deliberate conscious thought are also a problem because they attach to specific values within a decision (since conscious thought generally doesn't hold even ten pieces of information in its attention at a time, it filters out what isn't consistent with its immediate conclusion), and these specific values tend to change.

Thus, based on their scientific experiments, the conclusion that can be applied and extended here is that using our conscious minds to study our nonconscious minds is like trying to copy a Van Gogh with an etch-a-sketch. Yet science still insists on the rational, deliberate approach, despite the more sophisticated instruments pointing somewhere else by the millions. You'd rather bite the finger than look where it's pointing.

"It is hypothetical, but that is how it works...you don't realise how silly that sounds?" --Noonan

A minor correction: You'll note that I said "And so on. It's a hypothetical, but that's how it works." I was referring specifically to my example, which was a hypothetical one about how moving onto land from the sea might happen, and that it is indicative of how evolution by natural selection works.

Science is the collection of the world's Best Guesses--as reviewed, scrutinized and revised in a very rigid and logical manner. Call it opinion if you must, but at least concede that Science represents the most well-informed opinion you can have. (And of course the response is "God is the best informant to have, upon which you can base your opinion.")

"You can take it back and back and back, but ultimate there has to be something uncreated which is at the start of all things. There is no other way to explain the fact that anything exists at all." --Noonan

And an inconvenient bit of logic since you brought it up: An uncaused thing is by definition unchanging. An unchanging thing, because it never changes, is powerless to produce anything, or 'behave' in any way--this includes being observed. A changing thing is by definition produced, and vice versa. Therefore God "the First Thing" is either unchanging and completely unable to do anything, or God "the Creator" is changing and was therefore produced, and therefore not "causeless" or "first" or however you would like to say "Prime Mover". That means there was no first thing which led to the rest of creation, because once you have "found" that "first thing", it in turn had to have been produced by something before it. Logically, there is no End to the Beginning.

But that is another way to explain the fact that anything exists at all: it was produced. "But what about the thing that produced it?" Yeah, that was produced as well. And so on. So simple.

Noema,
I like the way William James says it:
“Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the religious attitude of the soul.
...the absence of definite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in all religions as the sine qua non of a successful orison, or contemplation of the higher divine truths. Such contemplations are expected (and abundantly verify the expectation…) to influence the believer’s subsequent attitude very powerfully for good.”

Just because teaching metaphysics is hard doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, in fact it means that if we don't we're bound to have people without a knowledge of what is or is not universal making decisions that affect our survival and the future of our country. I'm not sure how your textbook defined metaphysics, but look at the word. It's the physics (the order of the world in which we live) of physics (the order of the world in which we live). It's the context for our context.

As far as the "set of rules," I think you're looking at this in a linear manner rather than a figure and ground way. The figure is science, it's what we see, what can be easily replicated. The ground is the unseen, that which isn't replicated for each person in the same way. This is the metaphysics we need to teach: if we can teach the seen, why can't we teach perspectives on the unseen. It's not so different from teaching ground in art class, it's an aesthetic sense.

I disagree with your idea that it will become known, measurable, and no longer God. You can certainly call it the unseen, that which we cannot measure. But to teach our sense of the seen and not mention our sense of the unseen ignores the recursive relationship between them. It is our perspective on the unseen, the ground, that is our context for the seen. How much and where the ground is changes the way we see the figure. They're both there, even if our schools don't teach them.

As far as different sense models, the Zen Buddhist sense model is very different from our own five sense model. That in itself acknowledges that our human perception is not some fixed thing in which certain senses count and others do not count. The acceptance of our five sense model only acknowledges our cultural and experiential encapsulation which is nurtured by schools that do not acknowledge other human perceptions.

Just because we will not all agree on one perspective of the unseen doesn't mean we can't acknowledge its presence. And just because something isn't replicable in a way we can understand doesn't mean it isn't real. It just means we haven't figured it out yet. You don't have to understand thermodynamics to take your hand out of the fire.

This post is by someone who hasn't done their homework. However, one point is correct, science has no concept of absolute truth, unlike the revealed religions, whose followers intuitively know that the revelation is True. By Popper's definition of science, any scientific statement must in principle be revisable. Likewise, science has no concept of "proof," which is, rather, a mathematical idea.
Maybe the best approach for those who want something simple they can hang their hat on is to acknowledge that science really has nothing to say about religious ideas (with the possible exception of the more extreme interpretations of Bohm) and likewise religion has nothing useful to say to science.
Perhaps we can agree on some ethical principles.

So... a conservative's idea of having a good time with something is when something makes them look like an idiot? That explains a lot, actually.

Mark,

Please. Do. Not. Reproduce.

One more thing. If you layer a large amount of freshwater over saltwater, not only will you cut off light, you will also cut off oxygen. Since the layers are separate, there will be next to no diffusion of oxygen to the saltwater layer. Everything that requires oxygen in that deep saltwater layer will die in the dark.

So, basically, you're out of luck. It never happened. What did happen was the Black Sea Flood. Google it.

"We seem to be having a lot of fun with this one - well, truth be told, we on the right are having fun with this, while most of the lefties are having fits over it - so I've bumped it in to Sunday so we can keep it going - MN"

A lot of ignorant people find being that way is fun.

But its really sad that you have found science to be a left/right divide. That should have been what clued you in to the fact that you're wrong.

"We can't teach ID in schools because we can't prove it by experiment, and yet the highly hypothetical theory of evolution is taught as if it were the revealed word of God?"

Actually its not taught as if it were the revelead word of god. That's establishment of religion.

Please tell me you are kidding. Do you have any concept of what science actually is: a process of questioning, testing, and revising hypotheses. OF COURSE "facts" will change over time as this process proves some ideas false and forces us to develop new hypotheses to explain results. Intelligent Design has NO viable hypotheses with predictive power which are testable. Evolution does. ID is based on belief. It is not science. Teach ID in your religion classes. Leave science classes with science.

OK. The original poster (Mark noonan) has found the time to reply to lots of other posters, but apparently is unable to supply a just a few examples of something that he asserted is commonplace (he said it was the "usual" scenario). I can only conclude that he cannot support this point.

>>>It usually takes someone from outside science to show that some particular crackpot theory is twaddle

>>Could you provide 2 examples, please?

>I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. Since you assert that it is _usually_ someone from outside science who disproves some theory, it shoud be _trivial_ to come up with a few examples. Or are you implicitly retracting this claim?

Hello from Down Under! Thanks for showing me just how delusional large tracts of the US public are. Keep it up and you'll advance your country right back to the middle ages.

OTOH, I feel sorry for the real scientists among you. It must suck to know your fellow countrymen and countrywomen would rather cling to a supernatural being who allows them to avoid responsibility for confronting their existential fears.

It's like Leonard Cohen wrote: America is "the land of the best / And of the worst"

We seem to be having a lot of fun with this one - well, truth be told, we on the right are having fun with this, while most of the lefties are having fits over it - so I've bumped it in to Sunday so we can keep it going - MN"

A lot of ignorant people find being that way is fun.

But its really sad that you have found science to be a left/right divide. That should have been what clued you in to the fact that you're wrong.

Posted by: shortz at August 27, 2006 01:02 PM

Hmmmmmmm...........and what science Shortz do you have to prove that we are the ones that are wrong huh!

"Hmmmmmmm...........and what science Shortz do you have to prove that we are the ones that are wrong huh!"

Basically the non-science argument that you believe that science is a left-right divide. Thats wrong, and kind of sad, really.

As for scientific arguments, check out the talk-origins faq or even the ruling by the PA district court judge in the ID case.

Scott,

The spectacle of DNA is much greater in number than your mind could ever fathom!

The vast universe was shaped by his thought and will, as was each of the trillions of cells in our body, each cell's nucleus containing a coded database larger in information content than all thirty volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica!

God made it all with such ease. A "mere" utterance.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

(vv. 26,27)

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

SEE? No such thing as evolution!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeremiah

Discrediting science is hard -- you have to understand science to refute scientific arguments.

Discrediting scientists is much easier -- you just have to argue that they are untrustworthy, areligious heathens. If that argument is accepted, you don't have to deal with their science at all.

A classic ad hominem attack. This one won't work any better than the others.

We're all pretty happy with the way we see the world, and I think that shows up in our posts.

I love it that Morris actually used--and Noonan actually cosigned--the "ignorance is bliss" argument on himself and doesn't even realize it. Man, this thread is freakin' awesome--the dearth of right-wing intellect held up for all to see.

(blue screen)

"The spectacle of DNA is much greater in number than your mind could ever fathom!"

Jeremiah, go take a course in molecular biology, because it always helps to know what you are talking about. DNA is fairly easy to understand, if you put forth the effort. And, the mechanism for copying it is faulty. See, that's one of the reason there is such a thing as evolution!

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

SEE? No such thing as evolution!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's your proof? A passage from the Bible?
Jeremiah brings a new meaning to the term "bible-thumper".

>>[Morris]"They all think science (a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules) should be taught in schools, but they don't think metaphysics (a way of knowing according to a certain set of rules) should be taught."

Finally, someone who admits that ID is metaphysics. Great. Now, all you need to realize is that the argumentby scientists is that ID should not be taught *in science classes*!!!

If you want to teach it in *philosophy* classes (the proper academic forum for metaphysics), then that is fine with most of us "sceince types."

But I'm pleased that you admit the lack of equivalence between science and ID.

Jeremiah writes :

"The electric eel.

Q.

What is the force behind the shock wave created by it?

A.

The exact mechanism remains largely unknown."

Jeremiah, check your facts before you go off on an ignorant Jeremiad..

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0000E4BE-FFF5-138D-BFF583414B7F0000&catID=3&topicID=3

EvoMan,

Don't need a course, already got the answer!!!

In Him there is no fault!!!!!

And one of these days, when He takes me home, He'll explain it ALL to me!!

Just like Enoch did, He...

"crossed the gap another way
he changed his pace but not his company"

Jeremiah

"On ne tue point les idees." One does not kill ideas - Science is a quest, a search and religion is a status quo compilation of dogma and superstition. Some like cherry pie, some like apple pie. "Let a thousand flowers bloom," Mr. Mao once said (among many other things). Peace, Anaximander

Don't need a course, already got the answer!!!

In Him there is no fault!!!!!

And one of these days, when He takes me home, He'll explain it ALL to me!!

One word: Nutjob.

AAR writes
"You are totally blind to any possibilities other than what you believe. You have ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF that all life evolved through evolution and natural selection alone."

Proof not required. Proof is for drunks, mathematicians and creationists who don't know any better.

We have plenty of evidence that natural selection alone can create new species. And there are other mechanisms besides NS at work in evolution, genetic drift for example.

"You can't even give me the complete and total sequence of all events and changes,"

Not necessary. The evidence that they occurred, however they occurred is there.

Try and educate yourself with this:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

" yet you expect everyone else to believe as you do. Considering the complexity of life, it is not unreasonable at all to consider the possibility that a Creator or higher intelligence was involved at some or multiple points. "

Sure, you can consider it. But what eveidence do you have for it? You are attempting to argue that ignorance itself is evidence of something.

3000 years ago people had no idea why it rained, why the Sun rose an set or why the Moon went through phases. Today, most 10 year olds can answre these questions. Yet past socieities relied on the "intelligent designer" to answer questions that today we consider mundane. If you wish to resort to Shamanism to answer unsolved problems, thats fine but it make it clear that's what you're doing.

100 years ago, what stars were and the origins of their power source were complete unknowns. Today Stars are relatively well understood.

What you IDers offer is a counsel of despair. Give up on hard problems, and chalk it up to the unknown, unseen intelligent designer.

"Well, not everyone believes as you do,"

Science is not a belief system.

" and those who don't are tired of you trying to force your version of evolution on everyone else, and using our schools to teach only your version. And I hardly consider Intelligent Design to be in the same category as the Easter Bunny, but if that's what you believe...! "

Michael Behe testified under Oath in the Kitzmiller trial that the definition would need to be expanded in order to include Intelligent Design. He also testified that under that expanded definition, Astrology would also be conseidered a science.

Nuemenon writes:"EvoMan: Don't do what so many creationists do and assume one smartass question ("...then why are there still monkeys?") can bring your opponents' worldview crashing down. Here's an Answers in Genesis consideration of that question that at least gives some food for thought."

Thanks for the link Nuemenon. It is a perfect illustration of the wild, wild, wild world of creationism.

Its intersting that this link mentions aquatic mammals. Don't creationists know that they are not fish?

Sure some fish have the ability to live in both salt and fresh.

But those that don't will be killed off. Therefore, the great diversity of fresh water and salt water fish must have evolved in a short period of time.

So how do creationists argue that fresh and saltwater fish survived the flood? Why, with lots of evolution afterwards..

Say, can you explain how an Iridium layer got deposited in the flood too?

The central problem with critiques of "Darwinism" by non-experts is a fundamental lack of understanding of both evolutionary biology and genetics. I'll take the example of AAR:

The human genome contains about 3 billion (that's 3,000,000,000) DNA base pairs. Estimates vary, but the last I read, the human genome is estimated to contain 25,000 to 30,000 genes, but genes represent only about 2% of the human genome. The remainder consists of regions whose functions may include providing chromosomal structural integrity and regulating where, when, and in what quantity proteins are made.

Basically correct. The latest estimates from the Broad Inst. group suggest somewhat fewer protein coding genes (ca. 20K-21K), but irrelevant to the big point you make. The number of genes that encode RNA products (beyond the well characterized ribosomal RNAs, transfer RNAs, the SRP RNA subunit, RNase P RNA subunit, snRNP components etc.) is unclear, but that would (obviously) only increase the number of genes, leading off to the next issue on AAR's plate...

I'll leave it to a mathematician to work out the details, but the various combinations would be astronomical to say the least -- and by the science of mathematics -- improbable! A computer programmer can't even write much, much smaller computer programs without making numerous errors, but nature through accident, random chance, and natural selection got it right -- and one misplaced or bad gene or protein and the organism sickens or dies! Anything is possible, but when we begin to look at life from the most detailed levels, there's a greater likelihood that a Creator, Intelligent Being, or space aliens were involved than the "perfect accident of nature"!

The probability of something like this is not purely mathematical - it is highly dependent upon the model. I think you percieve this, but may not think of things in exactly these terms. More importantly, you clearly have one model in mind.

What do I think that model is? It is a model where some fairly large proportion of the human genome has to be "just right" for us to live, and that (if evolution were true) it had to spontaneously assemble. Neither of those model assumptions is correct, based upon rigorous evidence.

Let's shift to a "model system" - geneticists typically use organisms other than humans for obvious reasons. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisae is such a model system. Some of the fundamentals of the cell cycle (how eukaryotic cells control their division...obviously important for fighting cancer, which is cells dividing in an uncontrolled manner) was worked out in Saccharomyces, and it can be shown that the human cell cycle is similar (for example, human genes for controlling the cell cycle work in yeast).

Although yeast is much less complex than a human or another vertebrate, it is still quite complex. So, what happens if you randomly mutate yeast genes, either using a chemical mutagen or by randomly inserting short DNA segments into the genome? The answer is (obviously) it depends upon which gene you alter. But the surprising part is that many alterations don't cause a detectable change in phenotype (and the most resect transposon barcoding experiments were pretty sensitive to changes).

So assumption one - the some fairly large proportion of the (in this case yeast) genome has to be "just right" for it to live - is wrong. This probably reflects in part the robustness of biological network structures, which are often of a type called "scale-free networks". I won't belabor this, other than to say it is perfectly explicable in terms of science. Obviously, for ethical reasons (and there would be technical reasons even if folks didn't behave ethically) this finding has not been rigrorously replicated in humans, but there have been similar experiments in model systems like mice (though not as comprehensive - the yeast folks really covered the whole genome with a fine toothed comb).

The other assumption - that genomes for species had to spontaneously assemble. There very fact that organisms are related through a common ancestor removes the need for some sort of spontaneous assembly. Evolution by natural selection works just like a genetic algoritm in programing (indeed, Darwinian evolution inspired genetic algorithms). A function genome is modified by mutation, and that variant will increase in proportion if the individuals with that variant have more offspring. Obviously, if the variant were non-functional (e.g., led to pre-reproductive lethality), the proportion of individuals in the population with the variant would not increase (and the variant form would likely be eliminated).

There are well-characterized mechanisms for the evolution of novel functions that are predicted to leave footprints on the genome. We see those footprints. This is not to say that science knows everything. But it is to say that claims that evolution (or Darwinism) is simply absurd, a "religion" that is obviously wrong reflect ignorance of the state of the art in science.

If individuals like Mr. Noonan really wanted to learn about these principles, they should learn about gene duplication, genetic algorithms, network theory, and genetics in model systems.

The reality is that evolution should be neither left nor right politically. It simply is. Even the discussion of the Catholic churches position arrived at the wrong conclusion. The Catholics believe that God created human souls. The development of the body could have been separate. Evolution and genetics says nothing about the origin of the soul, science cannot measure the soul so it is not the place to look if you are thinking about the soul. Science is the place to look if you are interested in the body.

What is the REAL ISSUE over INTELLIGENT DESIGN?

Why should liberals object so strenuously to teaching other views, other theories, other opinions, and other possibilities? After all, wouldn't an objective and open discussion about the different theories provide students with a broader education, increased and expanded knowledge, and encourage students to think? Wouldn't students be better served by learning about other viewpoints and theories, and forming their own opinions -- especially when Liberals can neither prove nor disprove any of the theories. How could additional knowledge possibly be harmful?

The fact is, the Liberal objection to Intelligent Design isn't about science at all. It's all about SUPPRESSION OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE, AND IDEAS, about LIBERAL MIND CONTROL, and about LIBERAL BRAINWASHING of America's children and voters! Since Liberals cannot prove the current theory of evolution nor disprove Intelligent Design, teaching about other theories could cause people to think and question the liberal "approved" godless version of evolution. More people might believe that God, a Creator, or other higher intelligence could in fact be or have been involved in the creation and evolution of life.

The entire Liberal Agenda, their religion of Liberalism, and their social engineering all rely on a godless existence, and the liberal "approved" version of evolution fits right into their godless society. Liberal's anti-religion, anti-Christian, pro-sex, pro-abortion, anything-goes-lifestyle, all benefit from and grow in a godless society. If people learn about other theories and question the liberal "approved" version of evolution, people (voters) may begin to see that some aspects of evolution and natural selection are not inconsistent with God or a higher intelligence.

If people begin to believe in Intelligent Design as a real possibility, they may begin to believe in the existence of God, and that could be the chink in the liberal's armor that destroys much of their liberal agenda and their social engineering!

Liberals fight to suppress information and knowledge about Intelligent Design not because of science, but solely to protect, maintain, and expand their control over society!

AAR

Do all of you "believers" really believe that GOD desires you to keep yourselves so ignorant as to deny the utility and product of the scientific method ?

AAR,

Really Good post!

Jeremiah

If man came from monkeys, why are there monkeys? Where are the "intermediate species?" Quoting scripture to undermine darwinistic theory?

People- the world is laughing at you. You're scared of reality, scared of others, scared of yourselves. The bible you quote incessantly today has been translated, copied, and modified dozens of times since it left the pen of its authors- how could it POSSIBLY be an immaculate text? Remember, the bible was in the hands of a very few- there may have only been a couple dozen copies- for 1600 years before the advent of the printing press! And you're shunning all that we've learned because you're afraid of death?

One of the popular arguments here runs along the lines of "Hmmm, created in God's image or coming from monkeys- I'll take the first one!" But the truth isn't about what you prefer. I'd rather be immortal. But I'm not. And neither are you.

Another argument is "Religion helps people." This can be true. But again, a lie that helps is still a lie. That's why placebos are used in lab tests. It distinguishes what people create for themselves from what they don't.

Religion tells us what's right, not what's true. Just because it helps you solve your moral problems so easily doesn't mean it can help you solve a math problem. Listen to yourselves- listen to what's right. We can stop this before it gets worse. We don't have to go back to the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Crusades. If you don't know the answer, don't think the Bible will give it to you. God helps those who help themselves.

It's like Leonard Cohen wrote: America is "the land of the best / And of the worst"

Posted by: Tony at August 27, 2006 01:20 PM

Hello Tony from down under,

Thanks for the quote from fellow Montrealer, Leonard Cohen, and isn't that the truth. Looks as if America is now experiencing the worst.

I am, however, optmistic that this dark age will pass when Bush & his administration is just a bad, bad, memory. Indeed, there are honest, intelligent and able people, anyone of whom could occupy the Presidental office and once again bring hope to a nation in dire need.

If man came from monkeys, why are there monkeys? Where are the "intermediate species?" Quoting scripture to undermine darwinistic theory?

People- the world is laughing at you. You're scared of reality, scared of others, scared of yourselves. The bible you quote incessantly today has been translated, copied, and modified dozens of times since it left the pen of its authors- how could it POSSIBLY be an immaculate text? Remember, the bible was in the hands of a very few- there may have only been a couple dozen copies- for 1600 years before the advent of the printing press! And you're shunning all that we've learned because you're afraid of death?

One of the popular arguments here runs along the lines of "Hmmm, created in God's image or coming from monkeys- I'll take the first one!" But the truth isn't about what you prefer. I'd rather be immortal. But I'm not. And neither are you.

Another argument is "Religion helps people." This can be true. But again, a lie that helps is still a lie. That's why placebos are used in lab tests. It distinguishes what people create for themselves from what they don't.

Religion tells us what's right, not what's true. Just because it helps you solve your moral problems so easily doesn't mean it can help you solve a math problem. Listen to yourselves- listen to what's right. We can stop this before it gets worse. We don't have to go back to the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Crusades. If you don't know the answer, don't think the Bible will give it to you. God helps those who help themselves.

shortz,

The Dover, PA case was not about "teaching" Intelligent Design, it was about reading a simple statement of facts prior to the beginning of the class, telling students that evolution is a theory and other theories exist, and encouraging them to do further reading on their own if they would like more information.

As I said in my prior post, the sole purpose of that court case was to suppress information and knowledge. The court decision was wrong, and it should have been appealed to the Supreme Court.

Text of the intelligent design statement Dover, PA teachers were instructed to read to their students:

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, “Of Pandas and People,” is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.

The above is hardly "teaching" Intelligent Design -- except in the mind of a liberal who wants to suppress knowledge!

AAR

Still waiting for any evidence of ID. I guess it's about as well supported as the Easter Bunny

I'll leave it to a mathematician to work out the details, but the various combinations would be astronomical to say the least -- and by the science of mathematics -- improbable!

I wish I could believe your promise to leave this to someone more qualified.

My brain hurts from thinking of all the ways you can misapply or misunderstand probability in this context. Here's an example.

An old scam involves a financial advisor sending out 10,000 letter. Half advise buying stock X; the other half short selling it. What happens next depends on the market: if X went goes up, he mails the 5,000 people he told to buy; if it went down, he contacts the short-sellers.

In this second mailing, he tells the first 2,500 recipients to buy Y, and the second 2,500 to sell short.

Again, he mails only the ones for whom his advice would have worked, telling the first 1,250 to buy, and the second 1,250 to sell.

He continues this until he's down to about 40 people, at the 8 week mark. He tells them: "I've given you correct advise 8 weeks in a row because I'm a financial genius. The probability of that happening by chance is 1 in a thousand! So I'm going to offer you a special deal, to invest in my own special fund...."

The con artist in this example is using selection, as applied to a repeated random sample, to find a particular portion of that sample which "looks" unlikely.

Ask a statistician "what was the probability that the con artist would find that sample", and he would tell you, nearly 100%. That's because what we had was selection combined with a random number generator, not just a random number generator.

Evolution involves selection (by nature), and random variation in a self-replicating code. Self-replication allows the survivors of selection at each stage to build up their numbers in preparation for the next selection. Self-replication with error means there will be some diversity in that population, and naturally the more fit part of the population distribution will be more likely to survive through selection.

This process is well known to be capable of producing staggering complexity over time, but more importantly, it produces organisms much better fit to their environment; ie, with characteristics that give them a fighting chance of survival.

The rest of your examples---eyes, sexual reproduction---are straight out of the same creationist tracts that have been refuted over and over again since Paley wrote about his watch. I'm not going to retype them; they are so hackneyed scientists have put together a compendium of responses, which you can find here.

Your claims are answered, for example, at CA200 through CB350. Do you think professional scientists are so stupid that they would have stuck with evolution if it couldn't meet these criticisms? How insulting.

Perhaps you can give us all of the steps, gene by gene, structure by structure, change by change, organism by organism that you believe led from a soupy mix of inorganic, lifeless molecules up to the first reptile?

If that's too complicated, perhaps you can give us the genetic sequence, gene by gene, protein by protein, and all of the structural, tissue, organ, hormonal, cellular, and other changes that occurred to permit a single celled animal and mammal to evolve the ability to reproduce sexually? Why did those steps occur? Did they occur all at once, or incrementally? If an organism does not have the ability to reproduce sexually, how would it know it needed to develop that capability?

Apparently you do agree that neither you, nor science, nor anyone else can prove that ALL life on Earth "evolved" (or whatever you want to call it) by natural selection and random chance.

I think this is the biggest double standard I've ever seen. Scientists have to explain every last detail of history before you will adopt their explanation as the best provisional theory. Religious believers, on the other hand, deserve equal time even if they can't explain, with evidence, how a single event in that history was the result of divine action.

It's like you're playing the Harlem Globetrotters. The score is 502-0, in the second half, and you're saying you're "practically tied", even though the fat lady has been singing since 2 minutes after tip-off.

And, neither you, nor science, nor anyone else can prove that God, a Creator, or space aliens have not intervened at various points in time to introduce new organisms, plants, and animals with completely new structures and abilities from those that existed before it!

Again? What about my list of ten other things that can be disproved? You think they should be taught in schools?

You can't prove that the Easter Bunny has "And, neither you, nor science, nor anyone else can prove that God, a Creator, or space aliens have not intervened at various points in time to introduce new organisms...."

If I were you, I'd be ashamed of such a poorly founded belief system. You seem proud of its weaknesses.

AAR, that's it for me. You ignore the vast majority of what I say, then repeat arguments I have addressed. You fill up my time with moldy oldies of Creationism. It's time for you to self-educate.

mss,

Go climb Mt. Everest and then come back and tell us what you think!!

Jeremiah

shortz,

You're just not paying attention...there is no one here who has a problem with science...after all, in order to do any of this we are using the benefits of applied science.

The death of science, however, is the death of the concept that science has, will have or can have the full answer. The curious thing about this death, is that it was caused by those who were and are the strongest proponents of science having the answers - it was killed because a whole bunch of lies and nonsense were dressed up in science.

Now that science, as a god, is dead - we are left wondering the why of it all. We on our side provide the answer: ID.

Giggle,

You are making the mistake of assuming that God is part of Nature - He isn't: he is the creator of Nature and stands outside of it. You're thinking is a bit two-dimensional on this subject.

Morris:

This is actually an interesting argument, which is quite a shock for a discussion on Creationism. (Indeed, the point you raise is pretty much orthogonal to the Creationism debate).

I think you are too hard on K&T for what is simply a difference in nomenclature across different fields and different generations of scholars.

What you are proposing sounds like a good topic for basic research, on which basic research is being done: the respective limits and uses of conscious and unconscious thought. But I think you are still badly stretching this question to fill a whole in our present argument over evolution.

1. Science is a process incorporating first impressions, deliberate thought, and unconscious thought ("Eureka!"). But since we must share our findings with others, we end up having to translate those thoughts into papers, presentations, and seminars.

2. A Eureka moment that does not lead to anything someone else could verify or confirm isn't helpful. Take three examples: The Buddhist who suddenly realizes all existence is an illusion; the true believer who "knows" in his gut that Genesis is literally true; and the evolutionist scientist who sees a waterfall and suddenly believes there is a God working behind the millions of years of evolution.

All three believe contradictory things. No more than one (and perhaps zero) are correct. Each could claim to know something through unconscious thought, but none can provide any evidence or reasoning to anyone else.

This is the problem noema pointed out. However good on average unconscious thoughts is, unless it can yield something verifiable to other researchers, it is unhelpful.

3. Unconscious thought can lead (immediately) to evidence. I have mulled statistical problems "in the back of my mind" until a solution emerged. That solution worked, produced verifiable evidence of working, and thus was scientifically very helpful. If the intuition just said "your hypothesis is right; can't tell you why", I would have been far less excited and far more skeptical ("Perhaps I just want to be right.")

4. The raw processing power of any computing device is a poor predictor of the quality of inferences it can make. My laptop can process 16 billion bits per second, but can't do a lick of scientific inference. My unconscious brain may run circles around my conscious brain in some areas, but I doubt it is better at, say, solving math problems or writing computer code.

Why not do more experiments? Try to design a mode of science in which only intuition is allowed. Then pit it against science that uses other conscious thought as well. See which mode solves given problems more accurately. My bet is against the purely intuitive model.

But please, hold off on trying to draw conclusions about whether our unconscious mind "sees" into non-material worlds our conscious minds can't see. You haven't got any useful evidence on that point. It could be (and surely is) a topic for speculative fiction of the Deepak Chopra style, but it's years away from being even a scientific theory.

"there is no one here who has a problem with science"

There seems to be people here who do have problems understanding it. The people who see science as a left/right issue also have problems with science.

"The curious thing about this death, is that it was caused by those who were and are the strongest proponents of science having the answers - it was killed because a whole bunch of lies and nonsense were dressed up in science."

And what proved these things wrong? Science. Thank you.

"Now that science, as a god, is dead - we are left wondering the why of it all. We on our side provide the answer: ID."

Science is not a god. ID is. Gods dont belong in science. The courts have already put your ID fraud/god in its proper place.

Bio,

The first step on the road to wisdom is to admit one's ignorance - of the things possible to be known, 99.9% of them are necessarily unknown to any given human being, and collectively we probably only know a percent or two.

I am less interested in whether or not evolution happened than I am in how people deal with the concept.

If you want to take the time, head in to your backyard and find out how many plant and animal species live in it - then look up how many extinct plant and animal species we have discovered. My bet is that the numbers will be close to each other. In Darwinism, we're looking at our backyard or, at most, at the local park - and from this we're supposed to figure the entire history of life on earth? Whatever data you have, it is very thin - you are mostly ignorant of what has gone on in this world since the beginning.

Additionally, as you look at the fossil record, you are missing the one thing vital for any solid foundation of Darwinism - any transitionary creature at all. You don't have one - all such species alleged to have been found in the past have been errorneous, when not outright fabrications. Knowing as little as you do of life on earth, and having none of the really vital evidence you need, how can you be certain? And, since you cannot be certain, why even have an argument about ID vs Darwinism?

A there we get to the crux of the matter - in spite of it not being terribly important, in spite of the lack of evidence one way or the other, the issue is fought over tooth and nail. This is an extraordinary number of comments for one of our posts - the average number of comments is about 15...a good thread runs to 50-100 comments; we're far more than 200 as I write this - and keep in mind that about 10% of the attempted comments are deleted due to obscenity or other problems with the comment policy.

Why all the heartache?

My view is that they it is generated out of fear: a fear on the left side of the aisle that if blind, Darwinist evolution isn't correct, then there must be a God out there who acts, and wants people to do one thing, and not the other. Much more comforting, I think for these people, to cling desperately to Darwinism than turn about, face the Creator, and deal with that fact.

Morris,

They just aren't thinking things through...they are, in some ways, the genuine successors of Dark Age peasants who just believe because it is what they believe.

shortz,

Ah, but science was a god - as much a god to some as money, sex or fame is to some. Science is the god of the left - and the high priests of the left's god are quite diligent in the suppression of conflicting ideas.

"I love it that Morris actually used--and Noonan actually cosigned--the "ignorance is bliss" argument on himself and doesn't even realize it. Man, this thread is freakin' awesome--the dearth of right-wing intellect held up for all to see."

"OTOH, I feel sorry for the real scientists among you. It must suck to know your fellow countrymen and countrywomen would rather cling to a supernatural being who allows them to avoid responsibility for confronting their existential fears."

Mark,
Did you catch these? They actually don't mind skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction...the liberal left's compassion isn't quite so compassionate if it might mean using the word "God." They seem to believe that humans are so broken that happiness indicates a problem. I guess that's why they need all those entitlements, to make up for the lack they impose on themselves in embracing a system of what's real based on limited, deliberate conscious reason except when that conscious reason and scientific evidence shows a relationship with the unseen is stronger in terms of coping, and smarter in terms of sensing.

And the second post, do you catch the condescending way he disguises that ad hominem attack? I guess it must be tough that they're not good enough to fight with they're own tool (reason), when the religious kooks are more reasonable than they are. Maybe if he read some more, he'd understand that many people fight existential angst by making things in this world seem permanent, by, you know, assuming that the abstract tools of their language like those used in reason and logic are real. At least those brave scientists aren't weenies in that way. Of course, many people can't handle existential angst and so become depressed. But if the religious nuts like us are happy, it's almost like their way of fighting existential angst isn't as real and as effective as our way.

...most of the lefties are having fits over it...

Fits of laughter.

"As I said in my prior post, the sole purpose of that court case was to suppress information and knowledge. The court decision was wrong, and it should have been appealed to the Supreme Court."

The purpose was to prevent the establishment of religion. They were quite clearly trying to impose their religious views as truth to the children, even though they lied on the stand about it. Not very Christian, I admit. Appeals or not, the case was quite a straightforward and uncontroversial application of the law.

"Science is the god of the left - and the high priests of the left's god are quite diligent in the suppression of conflicting ideas."

You keep saying this. And its not true. But it does cheapen both science and religion. As well as make you look like a moron. Science is non-partisan.

Anyone who thinks science is a god will be knocked down: by science.

Michael Hogan,

The bible does tell us how to live a right life before God, after all God spoke the first words in the bible.

But what do you do? You twist the whole thing around by saying, "not what's true."

People still today, fall for the same old lie, just like Eve in the Garden of Eden! Satan deceived Eve into thinking that she would be Wise like God...thus, the same holds today because of sin - many people hold ill contention for the truth, by accepting darwins theory as "evidence"

As I said: I Darwin was a failure!!

Darwin gave us a creation story, one in which God was absent and undirected natural processes did all the work. That creation story has held sway for more than a hundred years. It is now on the way out....In The End of Christendom Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious and hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has."

Well, what do you know? The Bible was right. Creation could not happen without God!

ethos
pathos :)

Jeremiah

Morris,

It is a little sad - all we can do is keep praying for them. What a vain, empty existence so many of them must lead.

But the invective - well, we're getting more and more used to that. We've had a few thoughtful comments from the other side on this thread, but most of them boil down to an insult.

"You are making the mistake of assuming that God is part of Nature - He isn't: he is the creator of Nature and stands outside of it. You're thinking is a bit two-dimensional on this subject." --Noonan

So God is outside of logic? So an Uncaused thing was able to Produce, without cause, something without ever interracting with it (because even observation changes the observer). Rebuking Adam and Eve, for example, would have been impossible for the same being.

Something from outside of a system cannot interract with system, and remain outside of the system.

I guess my question is: are you declaring that logic, as such, simply does not apply? If that's the case, then why do you even try to reason with us at all? And why would you even consider trying to elevate intelligent design to a science, if logic, the foundation of science, is inadequate?

Giggle,

Like the author of a book can interact with the characters in the book without becoming part of the book. Nature is a creation of God - it is sustained in its existence by the will of God; if God ever stopped willing it in to existence, it would cease to exist.

Of course, all of this is only sensible if you believe in God at all - if you don't, then you'll take a different view...

shortz,

Second Star To The Right And Straight On Till Morning!

AAR

"It is a little sad - all we can do is keep praying for them. What a vain, empty existence so many of them must lead." --Noonan

That's not an insult?

"You are making the mistake of assuming that God is part of Nature - He isn't: he is the creator of Nature and stands outside of it. You're thinking is a bit two-dimensional on this subject." --Noonan

So God is outside of logic? So an Uncaused thing was able to Produce, without cause, something without ever interacting with it (because even observation changes the observer). Rebuking Adam and Eve, for example, would have been impossible for the same being.

Something from outside of a system cannot interact with system, and remain outside of the system.

I guess my question is: are you declaring that logic, as such, simply does not apply? If that's the case, then why do you even try to reason with us at all? And why would you even consider trying to elevate intelligent design to a science, if logic, the foundation of science, is inadequate?

Giggle,

No - honestly, it is a sorrowful observation.

"Like the author of a book can interact with the characters in the book without becoming part of the book." --Noonan

You can't say the author and the book are seperate, because the book would not exist without the author, nor would the book possess the particular qualities that it does without the author. And the author could not possibly have created the book, without interracting with it. Firstly with the characters and plot, and also materialisticly with the act of actually writing it.

"Nature is a creation of God - it is sustained in its existence by the will of God; if God ever stopped willing it in to existence, it would cease to exist." --Noonan

So you're saying the is a cause-and-effect relationship between God's will and Nature. So Nature is dependent upon God's will in order to exist. Well, unless God has been unchaningly causing Nature to exist, God is changing, and therefore not uncaused--but caused, and therefore not self-existent.

And if we are to cite Genesis, then we know God had not been unchangingly creating Nature, but rather went from a state of not creating Nature, into a state where he was creating Nature.

"No - honestly, it is a sorrowful observation." --Noonan

If that's truly how you feel then I have to respect you for that, and all evangelists of all types for that matter. I have nothing but respect for people who honestly feel they have the key to ending suffering, and who sincerely and with open hearts try to share it with others, and who are filled with sorrow and compassion for those who are suffering due to their ignorance.

Matters of opinion aside, I appreciate the gesture.

If this thread is an indication of the future of science in this country, we as a nation are in serious trouble. We are the only Western nation where evolution is a political issue, and we have the highest percentage of people believing in the literal truth of the bible... by an uncomfortably huge margin. Only Turkey comes close.

Just as Kansas has become the the laughing stock of the US, we risk becoming the laughing stock of the world.

For the vast majority in Europe, the bible is not taken literally, but metaphorically. It is a guidebook, where faith dominates over mysticism. In the US, it is the reverse... Mysticism is the cornerstone of faith. Jesus really did walk on water; the earth really was created 6,000 years ago, etc.

I am not a liberal by any stretch, but I do believe in Evolution. I also believe in the importance of faith, no matter the religion, as long as it is kept in perspective. As another poster pointed out, there have been many religions with many unique stories of the creation of the earth. Most predate Christianity. I agree that creationism/ID should be taught, but in classes on theology, along with a history of all those other stories.

This is so futile it's comedy. By definition CF's have embraced ignorance. They flaunt their own ignorance like a badge, and ridicule those who havn't handcapped their own critical thinking skills. It would be nice to think that these cultural neanderthals would die out due to pure evolutionary process. Nature culls the weak and stupid and closed-minded. Stay in you're caves, drool over you're meat, fear the sky,...and for the sake of the world...just hurry up and go the way of the dinosaur.
You know...dinosaurs. The dragons that Adam and Eve rode around the garden of eden while they incestuously fucked their way into a planetwide population.
Sweet sweet ignorance. Dull my senses and make the scary, confusing, diverse world a nice dull, colorless blanket of sycophantic groveling.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Amen.

Giggle,

The Author, though, doesn't become the part of the book - by writing what I just wrote, I was not changed: I remain precisely as I was before I wrote it, even though I have used myself to create the writing. I can now, also, go back in to what I wrote and change it - create a "miracle", as it were, and still remain precisely as I was before.

I don't have to make the writing - I can make a dozen different types of writing; I remain the same, whether or no. I am outside of it and entirely in command of it - I am the Lord of my writing.

It is a little sad - all we can do is keep praying for them. What a vain, empty existence so many of them must lead.

I don't know many scientists who feel that way about themselves. The vast majority of scientists I've talked to about evolution find it an exciting and beautiful process. Compared to evolutionary theory, Bible stories seem dry and threadbare to me.

Obviously you feel differently, which doesn't bother me a bit. But most of us on the other side of this debate are quite happy with the advent of evolutionary theory, and quite relieved that we have a better explanation for life's diversity than the fairy stories of the Old Testament.

I'd rather have the truth than comically, empty promises any day. And it's exactly that kind of honesty that science has thrived on.

But the invective - well, we're getting more and more used to that. We've had a few thoughtful comments from the other side on this thread, but most of them boil down to an insult.

You began this thread with a deeply insulting post, accusing scientists of professional dishonesty. That's something scientists take very seriously. If a scientist fudges his data, that scientist will probably get caught---we like checking up on these things---and without doubt his career will end immediately in disgrace, without any second chances.

So throwing accusations of dishonesty at scientists as a whole is like walking into a bar and telling the patrons about their mothers' sexual exploits: it's an invitation to abuse, and you shouldn't play the victim. You asked for it.

If this were Usenet, this blogger would be considered a troll.

"Science is dead!" Oh, ok. Just make sure you throw away your computer, all your medicines, your car, your cellphone, your furnace and air conditioner, anything which uses electricity, and then go live in a deerskin teepee out in the woods.

Sorry, but whoever wrote that is an idiot.

Psssst. The earth is flat! Don't fall off!

CA,

There have, indeed, been many creation myths...but only Judeo-Christianity says

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth.

The myths of creation are mostly absurd stories of created gods doing this, that or the other thing - in the Judeo-Christian view, God - singular and all-powerful - wills the heavens and the earth in to existence. This is a very different concept.

There is nothing fantastic in this - you can take this literally and still believe in evolution...I doubt much that any non-Judeo-Christian creation stories are compatible with science.

"The myths of creation are mostly absurd stories of created gods doing this, that or the other thing"

You were doing so good this far.

"by writing what I just wrote, I was not changed" --Noonan

Not so. You, at the very least, have gone through the experience of having written it--spent energy, and had thoughts during the experience, and afterwards retain memories of having the experience.

Yes, in fact, you were changed.

Just like a tree is not the same tree it was just a moment ago: at the very least, sap has moved and water has evaporated off of the leaves.

Really, it's not just word games.

shortz,

Really, honestly - you and I have been arguing for at least a year or two now...won't you just once step outside of your pre-conceived notions and think anew?

Giggle,

I, of course, am a poor analogy for the Creator of heaven and earth...and you are still thinking a bit two-dimensionally.

To you in the story, it seems an A B C progression....but the Author had the whole book, from start to finish, in his mind eternally...he might even write chapter 6 before he writes chapter 5.

"Really, honestly - you and I have been arguing for at least a year or two now...won't you just once step outside of your pre-conceived notions and think anew?"

Well, they're not really pre-conceived. We get to science from experience, not from revelation.

But I must say what you write doesn't inspire much thinking. Have you yet changed your mind about science being a left/right issue?

Giggle,

We DO NOT change physically, Just our minds change, But our heart remains the same when Jesus enters in!

God never changes.

James 1:17

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly
lights, who does NOT change like shifting shadows.

Jesus also said: "I am the same yesterday, today, and forevermore"

He also said to the people in Jerusalem, "If you have seen me you have seen my Father which art in heaven"

So, Jesus is God, and Jesus never changes so again there is no such thing as evolution.

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created."

There is a difference, You see?

Good and Evil - They Never change. They are a constant force!

Like your posts, You are continually trying to persuade people to believe your lie.

Jeremiah

"To you in the story, it seems an A B C progression....but the Author had the whole book, from start to finish, in his mind eternally...he might even write chapter 6 before he writes chapter 5." --Noonan

Results depend on causes. I tire of irrationality.

I hope all of you find the happiness you're looking for. My pants have lost their giggle.

Mark,

Here's what I don't understand... why is the Judeo-Christian story of creation superior to that of Buddism, or Hinduism? Why is it superior to the various Indian tribes, Babylonians, or Aztecs? You say because creation was the will of a singular and all powerful God. If that is the case, how is it superior to the ancient Memphite story of creation in which the world was also created by a single all powerful god, "Ptah"?

The Judeo-Christian story of creation is no more and no less plausible than any of these other stories. In addition, how many other creation stories have two different versions that are in conflict? Before you can begin to claim the superiority of this creation story, you would need to effectively reconcile the Priestly and Jahwist accounts of Genesis.

My point is that each story and each religon deseves equal respect, but cannot be equated with scientific research.

Noonan writes:

I am less interested in whether or not evolution happened than I am in how people deal with the concept.

It is now painfully obvious you have no interest in actually learning about evolution, so let's stick to your stated topic of momentary interest: how people deal with the concept.

Later in the same post, Noonan wrote about this discussion:

Why all the heartache?

My view is that they it is generated out of fear: a fear on the left side of the aisle that if blind, Darwinist evolution isn't correct, then there must be a God out there who acts, and wants people to do one thing, and not the other. Much more comforting, I think for these people, to cling desperately to Darwinism than turn about, face the Creator, and deal with that fact.

I'd like to set aside your strange obsession with left/right: there are far, far too many conservative evolutionists for that to hold water.

But let's take your premise on it's face: what if the divide really is driven by fear, a fear of "dealing with that fact", as you put it? I think you are correct, but you've got the actors reversed. Scientists are not afraid that there might be a god, but creationists and anti-evolutionists are "clinging desparately", as you put it, to the hope that evolution is false.

Creationists are deeply fearful that if evolution be true their belief in a god would be undermined. And to some extent they may be right: certainly some creationist notions, such as a young earth, a young universe, and a woldwide flood, are as fanstastical today as believing that Atlas holds up the heavens on his shoulders.

So that's how creationists deal with evolution. They ignore it or distort it. Mostly, they fear it. Science is about facing reality, Mark. You might want to deal with that fact.

Mark,

Here's what I don't understand... why is the Judeo-Christian story of creation superior to that of Buddism, or Hinduism? Why is it superior to the various Indian tribes, Babylonians, or Aztecs? You say because creation was the will of a singular and all powerful God. If that is the case, how is it superior to the ancient Memphite story of creation in which the world was also created by a single all powerful god, "Ptah"?

The Judeo-Christian story of creation is no more and no less plausible than any of these other stories. In addition, how many other creation stories have two different versions that are in conflict? Before you can begin to claim the superiority of this creation story, you would need to effectively reconcile the Priestly and Jahwist accounts of Genesis.

My point is that each story and each religon deseves equal respect, but cannot be equated with scientific research.

Noonan writes:

I am less interested in whether or not evolution happened than I am in how people deal with the concept.

It is now painfully obvious you have no interest in actually learning about evolution, so let's stick to your stated topic of momentary interest: how people deal with the concept.

Later in the same post, Noonan wrote about this discussion:

Why all the heartache?

My view is that they it is generated out of fear: a fear on the left side of the aisle that if blind, Darwinist evolution isn't correct, then there must be a God out there who acts, and wants people to do one thing, and not the other. Much more comforting, I think for these people, to cling desperately to Darwinism than turn about, face the Creator, and deal with that fact.

I'd like to set aside your strange obsession with left/right: there are far, far too many conservative evolutionists for that to hold water.

But let's take your premise on its face: what if the divide really is driven by fear, a fear of "dealing with that fact", as you put it? I think you are correct, but you've got the actors reversed. Scientists are not afraid that there might be a god, but creationists and anti-evolutionists are "clinging desparately", as you put it, to the hope that evolution is false.

Creationists are deeply fearful that if evolution be true their belief in a god would be undermined. And to some extent they may be right: certainly some creationist notions, such as a young earth, a young universe, and a woldwide flood, are as fanstastical today as believing that Atlas holds up the heavens on his shoulders.

So that's how creationists deal with evolution. They ignore it or distort it. Mostly, they fear it. Science is about facing reality, Mark. You might want to deal with that fact.

One more thing before I go: ethics and science are not mutually exclusive, and Christians do not have a monopoly on morality.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" does not have a "so long as they share common beliefs" clause.

And Jeremiah: I'm not trying to persuade anyone to believe anything. Belief is the exact opposite of what I'm asking for, which is honest examination. Unexamined beliefs is the core obstacle of the issue, from where I stand.

"The myths of creation are mostly absurd stories of created gods doing this, that or the other thing - in the Judeo-Christian view, God - singular and all-powerful - wills the heavens and the earth in to existence. This is a very different concept."

So that means that the Judeo-Christian creation narrative is superior to any others? I dunno, there are some other creation stories where the world comes from a dreamer...or is the construct of another world...or was simply discovered. All have equal weight to Genesis. Just because more people believe in something, it doesn't mean it's more likely to me true. That sort of arrogance is obnoxious and prejudiced against the equally valid beliefs of others and should be quashed from any rational debate.

Neither LiberalTeenager nor Jeremiah are adding anything to this debate by insulting or patronizing other participants. Likewise, it seems people here are speaking 2 different languages...neither can get through to the other because the vagaries of the English language and American culture end up assigning different meanings to the same word.

As an Anthropologist, I'm supposed to be non-judgemental and not look down on the worldview of others. However, part of my brain reels at the mendacity of promoting something that requires supernatural, untestable intervention into classrooms that should only teach what is considered natural and testable by a rational person.

Bio,

Not so - believers have no fear. I know, people who are not believers think we operate from fear, but that is not the case, as any believer could tell you. When you know the answers, what is to be feared?

I cannot, of course, look into another's heart and see what lays there - but from the evidence, I'd have to say that fear is what motivates most of the other side of the aisle...it is the only reasonable explanation for the amount of invective turned towards anyone who doesn't toe the Darwinist line.

When you know the answers, what is to be feared?

Ah, but Jeremiah, God does change in the Bible. After Adam tastes the tree of knowledge, God acquires legs, walks through Eden and calls for the hiding man, seemingly not knowing where he is.

Fact is, the Bible contradicts itself in several places and is not the thing to be quoting in a debate about the utility of science. One cannot learn how the physical world works by reading the Bible - you read it (or an equivalent text of your choice) so as to learn how to be a better person.

We can play the Bible game - but it's not the only game for most people.

Seriously, has anyone really looked at the so-called science texts which creationists use to "support" their "facts".

Aside from actually having the chutzpah to use bible quotes as literary sources (pause for laughter), the rest are sources to texts which in turn reference back the same book. Circular logic at it's worst.
Most of these texts refer to science from the 1940's, published in the 1950's, refuted in the 1960's, in some cases by the same religious institution which did the initial "research".

My favorite little nugget of wisdom is that Methuselah actually lived 1,4XX years due to the lower levels of oxygen in the atmosphere which were the result of a celestial object (seriously) which God threw past the Earth. This set-up a greenhouse effect (seriously) which resulted in the current levels of oxygen today.

Didn't Jesus say something about a fool building his house on sand vs. rock.

"When you know the answers, what is to be gained by asking questions?"

Biotech,

It depends on how you use you question's.

Do you want to dis-prove God?

Or...Do you want to grow in the knowledge of God?

To try to dis-prove God would be futile.

But...If you ask Jesus into your life?...Then he says He will send the Holy Spirit to remind you of all that He has taught you!

Jeremiah

Bio,

Thing is, I hold myself to be the much more questioning person than you - I really want to know it all, not just the pat answers provided by psuedo-scientists with a political agenda.

Have you ever stopped to consider that the most important thing human beings have - their thoughts - have no weight, no mass...no existence, really, at least as understood by our science? Doesn't that strike you in the least odd?

It is such questions which I run my mind over - you just seem to want to "know" there either isn't a God, or if there is one, He's rather distant and uninterested in the Nature He created.

It is scarcely surprising that those most responsible for the death of reason in this country would proclaim the death of science.

Equally to the point, the examples employed by this author to support his claim that science is dead are as ridiculous and irrelevant as employing the examples of Timothy McVeigh, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggart to support a claim that Christianity is dead.

dsivis,

Uh, yeah - funny thing about being a Christian: you hold that your Christian view of the universe is superior to the non-Christian views. I know - entirely insensitive and not at all in keeping with our modern, PC era...but, I can only be what I am - and that is a Christian.

I make value judgements all the time - so do you; like when you are choosing which pair of pants to buy. Some things are better than others, and some of the better things are best of all.

"Have you ever stopped to consider that the most important thing human beings have - their thoughts - have no weight, no mass...no existence, really, at least as understood by our science? Doesn't that strike you in the least odd?"

I wouldn't say that thoughts are quite that understood. So we can't really say much about them as understood by science. We do have electro-chemical reactions and transmissions in our brain, and those have as much 'weight' and 'existence' as other such electro-chemical transmissions.

Jeremiah,

I don't think you'll get many converts here - blood is up and heads are down.

"Have you ever stopped to consider that the most important thing human beings have - their thoughts - have no weight, no mass...no existence, really, at least as understood by our science? Doesn't that strike you in the least odd?"

I wouldn't say that thoughts are quite that understood. So we can't really say much about them as understood by science. We do have electro-chemical reactions and transmissions in our brain, and those have as much 'weight' and 'existence' as other such electro-chemical transmissions.

AAR writes "What is the REAL ISSUE over INTELLIGENT DESIGN?

Why should liberals object so strenuously to teaching other views, other theories, other opinions, and other possibilities? "

Let me translate AAR's objection here.

" I am unable to do with the overwelming evidence for evolution, so I will write a political jeremiad"

Jeremiah,

I have no interest in disproving god. I have an interest in making what contributions I can to advancing science and improving human health. Evolutionary biology provides the organizing framework -- the only scientific framework that has stood scientific challenge -- for all of biology.

So far the only objections raised have been religious ones. You may presume me to be an atheist, but do you presume that all the scientists who retain their faith are hypocrites? Do you think Brown University Professor Ken Miller -- a believing and practicing Catholic and prominent biologist -- is untrue to his faith for excoriating Creationism and Intelligent Design as unscientific claptrap? Do you think Francis Collins -- leader of the public human genome project and evangelical Christian -- is misguided when he takes the same position as Miller?

Jeremiah,

I don't think you'll get many converts here

Posted by Mark Noonan at August 27, 2006 09:59 PM

This is one time I'll agree with Mark. Your preaching is falling on deaf ears, Jeremiah. Give it a rest for awhile.

Thing is, I hold myself to be the much more questioning person than you - I really want to know it all, not just the pat answers provided by psuedo-scientists with a political agenda.

Mark, I'm sure you believe as strongly in your own intellectual curiosity as in your other beliefs, but you haven't really demonstrated much. Honestly, do you expect to be taken seriously as a commentator on the state of science when you don't deal even tangentially with scientific arguments?

Science is godless in the exact same sense that plumbing is godless.

mss,

I checked your link to "The Talk.Origins Archives, Index to Creationist Claims".

Absolutely Worthless! I was expecting to see some real proof of something, but all I found was page after page of canned replies that said nothing! More theoretical and hypothetical possibilities for various issues and questions that possibly, might, or could happen, but no proof of anything!

As for other readers, don't waste your time on the site. You will only get comments like the excerpts below filled with words like some, can, should, could, favor, plausible, probably, theoretically, etc...

"Populations of digital [computer generated] organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions ... provided that these were also selectively favoured ... complex functions can originate by random mutation and natural selection ... steps are known to be viable ... Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments ... we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists ... origin of the lens appears to be based on ... That one does not know how something happened does not mean it cannot have happened ... One plausible sequence ... are probably selectively advantageous ... Because one does not understand how butterfly metamorphosis evolved does not mean it is too complex to have evolved ... could have developed over time to produce butterfly metamorphosis from an ancestor without metamorphosis ... not a theoretical difficulty ... Sometimes multiple coordinated changes can occur when there is a mutation in a regulatory gene ... experimental support for some of these ... could easily happen gradually"

mss, stick with your Easter Bunny theory, you will have more success proving the Easter Bunny does not exist than identifying the steps in the evolution of a butterfly!

Intelligent Design still offers the best answers on the complexities of evolution!

AAR

There must be a major cultural chasm here.

Basically you have someone arguing that science died out 150 years ago (relativity? Quantum mechanics? Transistors? Lasers, computers, DVD players, wireless phones?)

See, to me this is like saying that no wars have happened since 1850. Or that no new roads have been built. That's just demonstrably false, and leads me to wonder how someone gets an idea like that in the first place.

In fact, it's worse than those analogies suggest: I can look around from where I'm sitting and see technology that didn't exist even 20 years ago. I can see in my immediate vicinity, with my own eyes, proof that science is chugging along. Probably so can you---in fact, if you're reading this, you definitely can.

So when I see language that "heads are down" and "[y]our preaching is falling on deaf ears," I am genuinely baffled. Surely accepting the reality of physical things around us right now is not a heads-in-the-sand response?

Biotech,

Sir, the study of evolution is a chasing after the wind! There is only one book that has stood the test of time, and it tells you all you need to know about where life came from and who it was made by.... but I can see your sole intention is to undermine it with every fiber of your being, You are NOT going to advance science by using an earthly humans lie, such as Darwins garbage.

TO advance anything you have to gain knowledge with a rock-solid base of evidence proven by people long before your time.

And as for the Christian professors you mention that's good!Because They are basing their facts on which all other facts are based, and which is Creator of the Universe - God Almighty.

When evolution is entered into the picture everything goes into dis-array due to all the many questions surrounding evolution...thus, leading to a more concocted picture of how the earth was created? how many years has it existed?
eventually leading people into the train of thought as Darwin once did...and he never proved anything but to be a failure.

This is why more kids are being taught at home now-a-days, because of Liberal Democrat teachers who are being instructed to teach the kids that darwinistic trash, and I think it is good that they do, because liberal democrat teachers don't deserve any salary for teaching such propaganda!

Do you want your kids to grow up little Darwins?

Go-ahead... brain-wash them into an eternity of grief.

We need to teach about God more in schools because God - as Mark said - is the fact on which all other facts are based, all you have to do is look around you and see His creation.

Learning a text in which God is the director their is no room for mess-up's, you see.

What I'm trying to say is...God is the first step, as long as we give Him credit first THEN there is room for study on how He created it.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with studying the different physics, biologies and such, as long as you leave evolution OUT OF IT!

Jeremiah

AAR,

1. Learn why scientists don't use the word "proof", but instead use more cautious language. It is not a sign of weakness, but a habit of skepticism.

2. Learn how to read and summarize actual scientific work. The Index to Creationist Claims is an index; if you want the details and evidence, you have to follow the citations to *acutal* science journals, which will lead, through those papers, to still other scientific papers. Quoting half-sentence glosses doesn't cut it.

3. Provide *one* example of evidence for ID. You have provided none of any kind.

4. I'm serious about ID being as well supported as the Easter Bunny. Let's play under your rules---in which a theory can only be rejected from our classrooms if there is "proof" against it.

I challenge you to "prove" that the Easter Bunny does not exist.

You may think that all the candy hidden for little children on Easter Sunday is put there by the parents, but I reject that claim. Even if parents hid most of the candy, you cannot "prove" that the Easter Bunny never adds a little here and there, or even prove that the Easter Bunny does not exist.

I offer no evidence for my claims, but am happy to criticize any alternative hypotheses you put forth as incompletely proven.

And every time you dismiss this as silly without explaining why ID has more evidence, you are actually calling your *own* belief in God silly, because you have failed to offer any more evidence for his intervention in evolution than you have offered against my quite similar Easter Bunny claim.

Leave it to a topic like Intelligent Design to bring out swarms of liberals, attacking like crazed hornets when their nest is disturbed -- ferociously attacking to squash and kill anything and anyone that might upset their godless view of life!

Liberals publish America's defense secrets to our enemies around the world, but desperately and irrationally fight to suppress and withhold any and all information like Intelligent Design that is contrary to their "approved" views and opinions!

Are Liberals really objective and tolerant of opposing opinions, beliefs, and ideas? Absolutely Not!!!

AAR

Have you ever stopped to consider that the most important thing human beings have - their thoughts - have no weight, no mass...no existence, really, at least as understood by our science? Doesn't that strike you in the least odd?

Wow. I guess electrons are massless. Learn something new every day.

Mark, there are legions of neuroscientists and cognitive scientists trying to figure out how the brain works by studying the physical interplay of neurons. But I guess you know better than them, eh? Care to cite the science which understands "thoughts" to be "non-real"

Also, "massless" does *not* equal non-existent. Photons are massless. Is sunlight not real?

Here are two questions to those who feel that Creationism/ID should be taught in public schools...

According to your beliefs, evolution is a theory, so other theories should be taught alongside it... What constitutes a theory vs. a myth?

Why should Judeo-Christian creationsim/ID be given any more credence as a theory then Buddist/Hindu/Siekh/Native American stories of creation?

Mark Noonan, you are a fool.

Weinstein,

Let me translate your reply... When you can't answer the questions and object to the truth, post a false comment!

AAR

The Age of Science is just over people.

The Age of Truthiness is upon us!

Mark,

Why does the 6:43 P:M post stand?

Jeremiah

The original post is eerily similar to postmodern declarations of the death of capital-S Science, along with History, Truth and even Man.

Bio,

That is the precise problem - science has de-coupled itself from religion; reason has refused to work with faith. We have half educated people.

I try to look at the whole picture - not just bits of it and, worse, take those bits and try to extrapolate them in to the whole.

MSS,
You write:
"I think you are too hard on K&T for what is simply a difference in nomenclature across different fields and different generations of scholars."
Maybe I am. But there is still a difference between the layman's term woman's intuition that is likely to cause misunderstandings about the nature of Kahneman's conclusions. Kahneman's experiments are not reaching for what is beyond conscious awareness, but what is immediately available to it.

"What you are proposing sounds like a good topic for basic research, on which basic research is being done: the respective limits and uses of conscious and unconscious thought. But I think you are still badly stretching this question to fill a whole in our present argument over evolution."
Okay, what is the "hole" in the argument that isn't getting filled up by an uncanny human sense of the unseen that can't be measured or tested? Why isn't that something worth attention in schools? Like I said above, it's the ground that gives perspective to the figure, and we teach aesthetics in art and music, so why not teach them in spirituality, in a relationship with the unseen?

"1. Science is a process incorporating first impressions, deliberate thought, and unconscious thought ("Eureka!"). But since we must share our findings with others, we end up having to translate those thoughts into papers, presentations, and seminars."
Right, and many scientists like have described making great discoveries with eureka, yet we don't teach it in schools. The eureka discoveries when later validated change perspectives and paradigms more than the deliberate thought which is obviously going along the path of what is already known.

"2. A Eureka moment that does not lead to anything someone else could verify or confirm isn't helpful. Take three examples: The Buddhist who suddenly realizes all existence is an illusion; the true believer who "knows" in his gut that Genesis is literally true; and the evolutionist scientist who sees a waterfall and suddenly believes there is a God working behind the millions of years of evolution.
All three believe contradictory things. No more than one (and perhaps zero) are correct. Each could claim to know something through unconscious thought, but none can provide any evidence or reasoning to anyone else."

Okay, here's my example: Bill W.
In his day, people didn't get better from alcoholism, but he and a few others like him turned themselves over to God after even a great therapist (Carl Jung) couldn't help. That started a movement of people who've by the thousands if not millions have recovered from alcohol by turning their lives over to God. If such a move were just throwing themselves into blissful ignorance, they'd be dead. But many of them recover after having a tranforming change they cannot explain.

And I'll use your example: The Buddha.
From what I've read of Buddhism, it doesn't teach that all life is illusion. It teaches that believing life to be permanent and believing the self to be permanent is an illusion. The evolutionists would be hard pressed to come up with something or someone that's lived forever, so it's difficult to prove them wrong. It is, for Buddhists, life lived as though it were permanent and the self were permanent that's the illusion.

"This is the problem noema pointed out. However good on average unconscious thoughts is, unless it can yield something verifiable to other researchers, it is unhelpful."

If you ever have a life changing moment as described by so many mystics and others, you won't believe it to be useless just because you can't communicate or publish the mechanism. It will be a gift to you, for you, and in that moment you'll understand that even if you can't describe it, you've received something beyond what you could have previously known possible.

"3. Unconscious thought can lead (immediately) to evidence. I have mulled statistical problems "in the back of my mind" until a solution emerged. That solution worked, produced verifiable evidence of working, and thus was scientifically very helpful. If the intuition just said "your hypothesis is right; can't tell you why", I would have been far less excited and far more skeptical ("Perhaps I just want to be right.")"

You're getting closer here. You may actually be much more excited. These are (according to the evidence) better decisions. And you can make them, without knowing how you're making them. It's a source of wonder, of a connection to something greater than you can know. They are gifts of wisdom to you, and the wisdom will not always be explained to you. It's a source of mystery that you have the opportunity to resolve through faith in something greater than yourself, that has faith in you.

"4. The raw processing power of any computing device is a poor predictor of the quality of inferences it can make. My laptop can process 16 billion bits per second, but can't do a lick of scientific inference. My unconscious brain may run circles around my conscious brain in some areas, but I doubt it is better at, say, solving math problems or writing computer code."
Right, this is what the research says. When there's a system of a limited number of variables that you can master, the deliberate conscious mind works better. But the more complex the decision is, the better at it the nonconscious mind is as compared to the conscious mind.

The way you interpret this is up to you. You can just believe in your bigger brain, or you can believe there's something greater that your mind may sense, and you may learn to trust that sense.

Remember, spirituality and its connection to better health, mental and physical, may be a physiological response to the experience of the sacred. If you and those you work with find something sacred in your pursuit of science, seeing what you wouldn't call God's fingerprints, but an equivalent experience of wonder, that may be enough. All I can tell you about is the research from Pargament and Seligman that shows religious and spiritual people tend to be happier and healthier.

Knemon,

Isn't it actually the abolition of Man?

For people like me, the death of all these things is because people have attempted to separate out God from everything else - but the Author of all things cannot be excluded, and the only way to really know what happened is to make reference to God.

We have had a few fuddy-duddies in here who wanted to fight - but I'd just like to say that I'm enjoying discussing this with those who are able to take a step back and think about things a bit.

Mark, you say that science has forgotten God - well, maybe I might give you that one.

However, maybe the most important question is this - if there is a God (or force of something godlike) why does it have to be your Christian God?

Do you presume to know the mind of God, Mark? Are you that arrogant?

Maybe there is a God - but that does NOT mean he has to fit the description given by the Christians, or Jews, or Hindus, or Buddhists, etc...

Maybe God is MUCH MORE THAN WE CAN EVER KNOW!

So STOP pushing your own views as right and the ONLY religion that is right. ALL religions might have pieces of the puzzle, even including Islam.

Scientifically speaking, God is more than we can know right now - maybe you should try to understand this instead of the arrogance of man destroying the concept of God. The Christian God is NOT the only answer that makes sense.

Mark, you say that science has forgotten God - well, maybe I might give you that one.

However, maybe the most important question is this - if there is a God (or force of something godlike) why does it have to be your Christian God?

Do you presume to know the mind of God, Mark? Are you that arrogant?

Maybe there is a God - but that does NOT mean he has to fit the description given by the Christians, or Jews, or Hindus, or Buddhists, etc...

Maybe God is MUCH MORE THAN WE CAN EVER KNOW!

So STOP pushing your own views as right and the ONLY religion that is right. ALL religions might have pieces of the puzzle, even including Islam.

Scientifically speaking, God is more than we can know right now - maybe you should try to understand this instead of the arrogance of man destroying the concept of God. The Christian God is NOT the only answer that makes sense.

If you ever had any doubt that the human race is a bunch of shaved apes just read what passes for "reason" in these comments. What a drove of cowering superstitious ninnies here. What fool would imagine that facts in nature are subject to a public relaations campaign?

"For people like me, the death of all these things is because people have attempted to separate out God from everything else - but the Author of all things cannot be excluded, and the only way to really know what happened is to make reference to God."

You're not making sense anymore

Robert,

It is the only one that makes sense to me, however. Its why I'm a Christian - it isn't just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I really believe it - all of it; including that virgin birth, walking on water and sitting at the right hand of the Father stuff.

Furthermore, I believed it with my reason long before I believed it with my faith.

The Trinity makes sense to me; the morality commanded is really the only way to live; the necessity of the Fall and the Resurrection commends itself to my thinking.

For a couple decades I walked around like that - firmly believing it was all true because it all made sense, but not really understanding the full picture because, in my pride and sloth, I refused to follow my thinking to its conclusion. Thanks to some timely observations by my wife and a certain protestant minister, I finally understood the faith aspect of it - I bent the knee and actually worshipped my Creator for the first time in my life. I surrendered, and thus "won" it all.

I don't have to perform a formulaic set of daily prayers; I don't have to try and disconnect myself from reality, I don't have to do anything other than acknowledge my Lord and He takes care of the rest. Since the day of that self-surrender, I have become ever more astonished at what my Lord does to and through me - things which once seemed vastly important shrink to utter insignificance...meanwhile, I'm learning to delight in helping others, especially when I don't want to.

Crudity, vulgarity and self-centerdness daily lose a bit of their grip on me - I still find myself to be annoyingly prideful, lustful and impatient with my fellows...but I'm learning a little bit each day. To deny these things - to say that perhaps other religions have it more right or equally right with the religion my Lord founded while he lived on earth as a man...well, that is just absurd in my view.

shortz,

But wouldn't your view be that I've never made sense?

If you believe in God, then to try and explain anything without reference to God is a pointless exercise.

Morris, this is going to be my last post on the topic (at least I intend it to be), because I fear we will soon be repeating ourselves.

I think you're genuinely interested in unconscious thought as a tool for processing and perception, and have certainly read more about it than I have, and I don't have time to read up to take you point by point. Thus I will just give my general impressions of where I think your argument and interpretation of the literature's implications is weak.

1. Even if we stipulate, for the sake of argument, that unconscious decisions are more likely to be correct, on average, than conscious ones, that does not imply---without further theory and evidence, and of the following:

a.) That unconscious thought connects us to something "deeper and greater" or an object of "faith"

b.) That unconscious thought reveals the otherwise unseen (it may be better processing of the same measurements available, in principle, to conscious thought; e.g., body language)

c.) That unconscious thought is better than the *iteration* of conscious thought by several thinkers, who can correct each other's mistakes

d.) That unconscious thought is better at any specific task than conscious deliberation.

To elaborate on point d: You say:

When there's a system of a limited number of variables that you can master, the deliberate conscious mind works better. But the more complex the decision is, the better at it the nonconscious mind is as compared to the conscious mind.

It would be very easy to falsify this for specific tasks. In my research, I often conduct multivariate analyses on large datasets with many variables. In a typical example, I might consider the relationship among two dozen variables observed over two thousand cases, for a total of about 50,000 specific pieces of information.

If I were to attempt to, say, memorize these numbers and let them slosh around in my subconscious, I would not expect my brain to someday come up with, say the least squares estimates of the partial effects of the first twenty-three variables on the twenty-fourth.

Instead, I would set up a regression model by writing a piece of computer code, then run the model on the results. This modeling exercise helps reduce a complex set of variables to a simpler, understandable construct. We could debate the usefulness of the model, e.g., compared to other models. But I have never seen---and would be shocked to see---someone just mull the data over in raw form and expect to get a final result.

Unconscious thought might come in between bouts of conscious investigation, as we consider different model refinements. But in science, the problems of information overload are dealt with the explicit, verifiable, replicable methods. So we would always look to see how our intuition pans out in the data using models and representations anyone else could replicate.

I think you are being honest in your investigation of cognition, but why not be more cautious? Establishing the utility of unconscious thought in some contexts is great and interesting; showing that it connects people to unseen wisdom is something else, and suggesting we should revamp scientific methodology is a third thing. We need evidence for two and three before they could ever be taught in schools.

The simple notion that useful insights can come from unconscious thought *is* taught in schools. Surely most high schools students are taught about Archimedes and his bath tub. But your more expansive claims are very very speculative.

PS: K&T were interested in studying rationality and its limits; they simply had a different research question from the one you associate with "intuition". You can't fault scientists for using words differently than colloquial expression.

Even the word "rationality", for K&T, doesn't mean what most people think it means.

The death of Science?
I find it interesting, looking at the blog now, to see this topic listed right under "What is a Right?", and the arguments about growing up and recognizing what's what.
Science is about that very process. It is about leaving behind safe, childish beliefs (God is an old man sitting on a cloud, embracing harsh realities, and learning to live with them.
If there IS a death of science (in this country; don't count out some of the others), then it is because we have become so decadent that we will not or cannot face up to the truth.

There is a theory now in higher physics that states our universe, from the Big Bang on, may be the result of a collision between two "proto universes". Think of a higher plane, in which a couple of beings are putting away the dishes after a dinner party. Two wine glasses touch, and there is a clink.
That clink is our universe. The sound represents matter and energy - all of it - existing in an infinite moment. The couple continue cleaning up, not even noticing.
Now imagine their God. Infinitely high above them, contemplating their infinite multi-dimensional existance, to which our universe was but a clink.

And here we sit, a bunch of intermixing biochemicals, thinking God loves us more than anything, and that he hates fags and liberals.
Idiocy.
If any part of us is important, it is not the material part, the part concerned with Iraq and evolution and whether the Ten Commandments is on a plaque down at the courthouse. If we are important, then it is our science - our willingness to explore, learn, and face the truth, not just about physics and biochemistry but about universal morality and ethics - face the truth, accept the truth, and live with the truth.

Most can't. Thus, the death of Science.
For some.

You know, we can argue day an night about evolution and ID, but this doesn't change one big annoying fact:

If you want an alternative theory of scientific creationism taught in public schools, you have to give it to us.

I mean, where is it written down? What are its equations? What predictions does it make? What experiments can we make to confirm or disconfirm it?

I don't simply mean "where can I read about it?" People write tons of stuff about creationism, but where is the theory itself written down so that it can be tested? For example, if you want to test Relativity, there is a short book written by Einstein that lays it all out.

A major reason why evolution is taught in high school is that students will use it in college. And the major reason why students use it in college is that, like any other theory we use, it produces useful predictive results. That is why scientists use any theory: it gives them results. If you want ID or creationism taught in schools, here's your plan:

(a) Write the theory down.
(b) Show how it makes useful predictions about the fossil record or such.
(c) Show how it does a better job than evolution.

Note that it's not enough for a theory to "better explain" the data. We don't need the ability to explain stuff, since "God did it" is a perfectly good explanation for everything. No, we need the ability to predict stuff. Everything from the laws of physics to relativity to QM to evolution is taught in school because it predicts stuff.

If you have a theory that satisfyingly explains everything but can make no useful quantitative predictions, then no offense, but nobody will ever have a reason to use it---or teach it.

The death of Science?
I find it interesting, looking at the blog now, to see this topic listed right under "What is a Right?", and the arguments about growing up and recognizing what's what.
Science is about that very process. It is about leaving behind safe, childish beliefs (God is an old man sitting on a cloud, embracing harsh realities, and learning to live with them.
If there IS a death of science (in this country; don't count out some of the others), then it is because we have become so decadent that we will not or cannot face up to the truth.

There is a theory now in higher physics that states our universe, from the Big Bang on, may be the result of a collision between two "proto universes". Think of a higher plane, in which a couple of beings are putting away the dishes after a dinner party. Two wine glasses touch, and there is a clink.
That clink is our universe. The sound represents matter and energy - all of it - existing in an infinite moment. The couple continue cleaning up, not even noticing.
Now imagine their God. Infinitely high above them, contemplating their infinite multi-dimensional existance, to which our universe was but a clink.

And here we sit, a bunch of intermixing biochemicals, thinking God loves us more than anything, and that he hates fags and liberals.
Idiocy.
If any part of us is important, it is not the material part, the part concerned with Iraq and evolution and whether the Ten Commandments is on a plaque down at the courthouse. If we are important, then it is our science - our willingness to explore, learn, and face the truth, not just about physics and biochemistry but about universal morality and ethics - face the truth, accept the truth, and live with the truth.

Most can't. Thus, the death of Science.
For some.

A hundred thousand years from now, when self replicating computers and robots have exceeded our wildest imagination, scientists will be digging through the landfills of history, searching through the vast multitude of ancient computer chips, calculators, handhelds, laptops, computers, and electronic devices.

Scientists will herald and celebrate each new find as one more branch on their tree of evolution, one more missing link found, providing conclusive and irrefutable evidence that computers and robots evolved through random chance and natural selection, and adamantly denying that a creator or Intelligent Design was involved in the process!

AAR

That is the precise problem - science has de-coupled itself from religion; reason has refused to work with faith. We have half educated people.

I try to look at the whole picture - not just bits of it and, worse, take those bits and try to extrapolate them in to the whole.

No you don't, Mark. It's clear from your initial post and your later comments that you are disinterested in and disdainful of science.

Let's just take this one little snippet of your wrongness: "If you believe in God, then to try and explain anything without reference to God is a pointless exercise". No, no, no. From Augustine to Acquinas to centuries of Jesuit scholars to Calvinists to the Founding Fathers to Einstein, Pauling, Watson and Crick, a thousand times no. This idea has been so roundly and rightly derided by intellectuals Christian and secular for so long it's hard to see where you came up with it. But you are part of a movement: the movement towards epistemic nihilism, strangely coming from the self-proclaimed arbiters of moral authority.

Just one more note on this telling Noonanism:

If you believe in God, then to try and explain anything without reference to God is a pointless exercise

Noonan calls a plumber:

Plumber: "I think I found the problem".

Noonan: "I've been praying you would find it. Please tell me why God clogged my bathroom drain"

Plumber (confused voice): "Your drain was clogged with hair clippings and toothpaste, sir. That'll be $75."

Noonan: "But how could god allow this to happen?"

Plumber: "I'm a plumber, not an exorcist. Maybe you shouldn't trim your chest hair over the sink. I'd like to leave now."

Noonan: "You don't understand. This cannot be explained without reference to God. That would be pointless."

Plumber: "I really have to go. (helpfully) Maybe satan tempted you?"

Noonan: "Of course! Now I understand. Here you go. I'm sorry I can't give you a tip."

"Scientists will herald and celebrate each new find as one more branch on their tree of evolution, one more missing link found, providing conclusive and irrefutable evidence that computers and robots evolved through random chance and natural selection, and adamantly denying that a creator or Intelligent Design was involved in the process!"

This is actually a pretty good example of exactly how biological evolution is different from design. There are all sorts of things we see in the design of computers that we never see happening in nature, and with good reason.

For instance, lets say that there is a supposed lineage of Intel and AMD we are tracking. At some point, we see the Intel chip get a new type of L2 cache. Then, a few months later, the AMD chip gets one as well.

We never see that in nature, at least not in sexually reproducing metazoans. And the reason is obvious insofar as you understand how evolution works: there is no mechanism to take a "good idea" from one lineage and stick it in a completely new one that's reproductively isolated. Particular traits and, more importantly, clusters of traits always stick to a lineage and never jump over into another one. Hitting on a good idea and then adding it to the rest of your designs is pretty basic in computer hardware, but totally foriegn to biology.

So is creating a completely new lineage, redesigned. Again, we see this happening in computer chips all the time: we get better fab techs, or better theories of how to build networks, and we design a new chip along those lines based on these new concepts, from the ground up. But with evolution, what you have is what you're stuck with: you modify what you have. you don't have any other option.

And again, that's exactly what we see in nature: descent with modification rather than redesigns from scratch.

"But wouldn't your view be that I've never made sense?"

Not at all. I understand perfectly what you said about science being a left/right issue. Its this other hogwash that doesnt make sense

EvoMan: Wikipedia says the Black Sea Flood theory is getting a little dated, they've found some evidence that Mediterranean lifeforms penetrated the region before the date of that flood. But at least I've heard of it now, it's an exciting theory to imagine.

I don't think Answers in Genesis focused unduly on the mammals; they spent most of their time grappling with the hard questions about fish. And they used the same kind of "here's how other animals tackle this task" that I always find so compelling in evolutionary narratives (eg, "whales may have transitioned from teeth to baleen by using their teeth to filter out sand from their food. Seals do this today.")

AAR: You go to the Index of Creationist Claims looking for counterarguments, not for proof. "That one does not know how something happened does not mean it cannot have happened" is a lousy, terrible argument trying to prove something happened -- but it's an excellent argument against someone who claims it couldn't have happened. Even if the site didn't work for you, I commend you for having the intellectual openness to go there and check it out.

Mark Noonan:

"Additionally, as you look at the fossil record, you are missing the one thing vital for any solid foundation of Darwinism - any transitionary creature at all. You don't have one - all such species alleged to have been found in the past have been errorneous, when not outright fabrications."

I've seen quite a few examples of transitional fossils proposed in this thread -- Tiktaalik, the whale chain, etc. It feels a little closeminded of you to continue making this claim so strongly. Even Answers in Genesis has this on their list of Arguments we think creationists should NOT use, saying, "Since there are candidates, even though they are highly dubious, it’s better to avoid possible comebacks by saying instead: 'While Darwin predicted that the fossil record would show numerous transitional fossils, even a century and a half later, all we have are a handful of disputable examples.'"

"A hundred thousand years from now, when self replicating computers and robots have exceeded our wildest imagination,"

AAR,

Before we can get that far, you have to at least accept the science behind the stuff we have in our houses right now.

You know, like the same particle physics that gives us smoke alarms, nuclear power, and radiocarbon dating?

Let's make a big list of scientific knowledge, and strike out everything that also shows the Earth is more than 10,000 years old. So no plate tectonics, no speed of light, no radiometric dating methods. No evolution either, but that's just one tiny part; you'd lose geology, cosmology, some physics and chemistry. Even the basic boy-scout knowledge that you can tell the age of a tree by counting its rings. One day people matched up tree-ring samples and built chronologies going back over 10,000 years.

What's left? That's the science you have to build your self-replicating future robots. Hope you can do it with gears and pulleys.

A common misconception is that we can keep the "good science" and throw away the parts that contradict young-Earth religious beliefs. No you can't. You can't even own a DVD player without contradicting young-Earth religious beliefs. Unless by some miracle our theories of light and electricity are wrong, and yet everything we've built with them work exactly as predicted.

I hope this doesn't offend people, but if you seriously think that science contradicts your religion, and if you buy gadgets based on the science, then you don't believe your own religion. You may say you do, but your actions reveal your true belief.

But on the "bright" side (heh heh,) just imagine the immense relief that will come when you are allowed to accept the physical reality of your own stuff. It must be incredibly stressful to spend hours a day typing into a computer whilst doubting the science that makes it exist.

Mark - why are you ignoring my request for a simple explanation of a "fact" that you boldly stated? Either some examples or a "I was wrong" would suffice.

>OK. The original poster (Mark noonan) has found the time to reply to lots of other posters, but apparently is unable to supply a just a few examples of something that he asserted is commonplace (he said it was the "usual" scenario). I can only conclude that he cannot support this point.

>>>>It usually takes someone from outside science to show that some particular crackpot theory is twaddle

>>>Could you provide 2 examples, please?

>>I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. Since you assert that it is _usually_ someone from outside science who disproves some theory, it shoud be _trivial_ to come up with a few examples. Or are you implicitly retracting this claim?

There's a common stereotype that advocates of the right wing don't understand science, and don't know history.

Here you are basing your argument on the contention that a) there was a stronger consensus on the rules of science between 1650 and 1850 than in the years since 1850, and b) science as a whole was more honest and truthful 1650-1850 than since 1850.

Way to go reinforcing those stereotypes.

We already have "proof of concept" examples that Intelligent Design in one form can, has, and does occur.

Instead of accepting that fact as a possibility in the evolution of life on Earth, our [non]objective Darwinians ignore that possibility and instead theorize and hypothesize other "possible" ways in which mutations, accidents of nature, and natural selection "might" explain complicated aspects of evolution, for which they have no concrete proof.

Why? Because it does not fit their desired conclusion and outcome!

AAR

Why did science stray from the path of truth? I think it is because we ceased educating the men of science with a knowledge of religion - a knowledge, that is, of genuine truth, genuine reason, and the relationship of man to creation, and his Creator.

"By 1985, machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do." -- Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University - considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence - speaking in 1965.

"The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." -- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

"I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea." -- HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.

"X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.

"Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work." -- Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.

"The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous." -- Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

"Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war." -- Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915.

"How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense." -- Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, 1800s.

"The phonograph has no commercial value at all." -- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1880s.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said 'you can't do this'." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M "Post-It" Notepads.

"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." -- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).

"Democracy will be dead by 1950." -- John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936.

Lets see, "reason has refused to work with faith...". Too bad Copurnicus, Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake 1600), Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and so many more who knew the earth wasn't the center of the universe can't read your ignorant blather about how "faith" was and is so willing to work with reason. Just a couple questions about your "TRUE" bible...
Which story in genesis is the right one about creation? (there are two separate and contradicting accounts, just READ and PAY ATTENTION). Or how was it Joshua commanded the SUN to stand still instead of the earth??? If God was dictating the TRUTH would'nt he at least get it right? And the protestants were certainly no better than the papists... Luther was no enlightened reasoner... just pissed he had no standing with the pope and was'nt in on the payoffs. Here's a few more; God goes by so many diffenent names in your "truthy" bible... again, he's talking about himself, why can't he get his own name right? And when was "Jesus" born? And what was his REAL name? And where was he born? Bethlehem, or Nazareth? And when did he die? exactly? There are no answers to these questions, but oh yeah, it's the truth because your faith says so. Because somebody (who?) told you it is the truth and so you blindly believe it because you live in abject fear. Be a good little republican and believe everything you're told and live in fear, it's alright, big daddy God and GW will take care of you. Now shut up, stay in debt, pay your minimum payments on time, slave.

AAR,

You still haven't mentioned a single instance in which we have evidence of intelligent intervention in the evolution of life by non-humans.

Vaguely talking about "proofs of concept" in other areas, or complaining about Darwinists doesn't count. I asked for evidence about your claims that at least some life has been intelligently designed. Any evidence at all. Contrast this with the burden you place on evolutionary theories to provide evidence for every single variant of life. I making it so easy for you!

Your beliefs about your God's role in creation are running neck and neck with my Easter Bunny theory.

You should feel pretty silly, or pretty dishonest.

Prague,

Ah, then let us dispense with the man in the sky and just say what you wrote was the product of historical accident - that you are a mere biological automaton of no value whatsoever..

AAR: "The fact that AN organism, plant, or animal can evolve and adapt to its changing surroundings and environment over time, through natural selection, does not prove that ALL organisms, plants, and animals were created by natural selection."

Your comment wasn't particularly well stated, but from it and others I take it you don't deny that speciation has been seen to take place in a number of closely observed instances, and in each case in a manner consistent with the principles of evolutionary theory. So that part, it appears, is not in doubt for you. Instead, it appears that you have a problem with the adequacy of the theory when it attempts to extrapolate the same principles to all speciation events, particularly those that involve an increase in complexity or a considerable change in form -- for example, the development of a new phylogenetic family. In your mind, the dual mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection are not sufficient to explain those events. And they are not because, (a) there is insufficient detail provided in the known fossil record or other forms of available evidence to show how those developments occurred, and (b) there was insufficient time in the history of the earth to explain the complexity and species diversity that we see today.

Am I right so far? I think it's consistent with everything you've said. And I would say they are reasonable arguments, at least on their face.

In light of these issues you propose the inclusion of two other theories to be taught alongside evolution: Creationism and Intelligent Design. So I guess the first question is... why those two and just those two? More to the point, is there a compelling reason other than your own particular sectarian proclivities? I'm not saying there isn't. I'm just asking. But if there is, I'd like to know what they are.

Notwithstanding that question, I think even you would agree that Creationism and ID are two very different theories. Creationism requires the idea of a very young earth, and thus a number of assumptions have to be made which are very difficult to support. Because of that, I think even you are willing to forego any serious consideration of that theory in a scientific classroom. Maybe I'm being presumptuous in that thought. And if I am, please correct me. And please be honest. If you don't correct