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| 5/21 |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Reference/Religion] UID:37534 Activity:high |
5/5 Pretty much sums it up on Evolution vs. "Intelligent Design"
Bob Novak: Why don't we teach evolution and intelligent design and let
students figure it out on their own?
Unknown scientist: Fine. Why don't we teach students the South won the
civil war and let them figure it out on their own? Why don't we teach
students that the moon is made of green cheese and let the students
figure it out on their own?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/005059.html
\_ It's clear that evolution + religion are sensitive topics that
should perhaps not be taught in high schools. Let them learn
chemistry, biology, algebra, calculus, etc, and stop at evolution.
Leave evolution as advanced topics in college.
\_ cuz fact is the north won, fact is moon is made of rock..
evolution is an observation but can't be proven
\_ Sigh...
\_ moon is made of rock is an observation but can't be proven
\_ You know, the role of the schools is to teach science. It is not
to lord science over religion, but it also shouldn't back down on
teaching scientific principles when they conflict with someone's
religion. Evolution predicts a number of things, such as common
ancestry which have led to discoveries in genetics and
pharmaceuticals. It's a tested theory that has passed the tests
that have been thrown at it. Believers need to learn not to fear
science, and atheists need to stop trying to disprove religion.
-emarkp
\_ because it's too easy to disprove religion? -tom
\_ To the degree that religious claims can be tested, they
should be.
\- proof has nothing to do with religion. it's like talking
about what is a fair voting system to pick my favorite
color. --psb
\_ It is difficult to disprove the statement:
"I believe God has a plan"
For this, you need to prove God does not exist, or
prove God exists and does not have a plan. God is
unfortunately not able to consult.
\_ Sorry, you guys have it all backwards. Try "proving
religion" first in an empirical fashion, then we'll
talk about "disproving religion".
\- you are still missing the point. religion isnt about
empirical evidence. do you have empirical evidence
of the infinitude of primes? "was jesus a real person"
is an empircal question. what is the speed of grace
in the ether is not. --psb
\_ No, you are missing the point. Religion is fine
if it merely an abstract study of thoughts. However,
it is not fine when people attempt to utilize it to
legislate or condone certaint types of real world
actions. When you bring religion into the real world,
then there is a requisite that it be empirically
sound. You don't build a bridge based on pure math,
that would be stupid. You build bridges according
to structural engineering, which is applied mathematics
based on firm empirical footings. We don't legislate
or mandate according to fiction, why should we
give a free pass to religion?
\- Once again: you can ask something like "if the
govt worriess less about distributional consequences
does that help spur growth" and look for empirical
evidence by looking at say the change in gini
coeficients vs gdp growth rates. However, what does
society owe poor people is not an empirical
question. It's not about an enginering optium and
arguments about it dont involve Lagrange multi-
pliers. Not all *important* questions are empirical.
I suppose there is an elevated discussion to be
had about what is called "logical positivism" but
I dont think that is what you are after. Yes we
can all agree bridges falling down on their own is
bad and an empirical theory of bridge design is
better than buidling bridges through prayer, but
to take a locally relevant example: how much money
should a society spend on bridges to look cool,
how should bridges be funded, what should be the
system to decide these question ... those are not
empirical questions. is slavery wrong because
of empirical reasons or abstract ones? how about
free speech? or are these not important questions.
i'd hate to think the only thing wrong with
racist hiring practices was it may not be an
optimal capitalist strategy [see e.g. richard
epstein: forbidden grounds].
\_ I think you're confusing religion with
philosophy. Or rather the behavioral guidance
of religion with the factual guidance such as
"King David lived in 171482 BC and sired 12824
sons". The evolution argument isn't about
behavior; it's about history and scientific fact
versus "what does religion say is fact".
\_ On the contrary, you are arguing that there
is no empirical foundation to the concept of
morality, but there is, i.e. sociology and
psychology. Granted, these areas of study
are amorphous, they deal with exceedingly
complex questions not easily broken down,
but to argue that society itself is not
empirical by nature is simply false. We
have already established that behavior
itself is highly empirical, as is concepts
of general asthetics. In fact, one may
argue that the concept of religion should
be studied in a pure empirical fashion as
a sociological question, i.e. why do religions
exist and on what basis? One could even argue
that religions are merely promulgated worldviews
and that society has developed them due to a
lack of technology before the advent of
science. As for justification of moral values,
i.e. should slavery exist or not, there are
empirical underpinnings in the sense that humans
have this concept of mirroring of minds, and as
such we have an emotional basis for not wanting
to enslave humans in general, (which is probably
why it's easier to enslave africans vs. europeans
because africans are different visually to
other europeans causing this emotional bond
to be weaker). Is nature inherently efficient?
Absolutely not. This is mirrored in our society.
Is its inefficiency a justification for clouding
the issues in the guise of religion? Probably
not.
\_ Who (except maybe tom) is trying to disprove religion? Is
this just another one of your straw men?
\_ I see it all the time. Tom is just one of them. -emarkp
\_ I don't see many web sites disproving religion. I think
most scientists are bright enough to not want to get
into circuitous and pointless conversation with you
ultra-right Christian fundamentalists. I do however
I see far more web sites promoting religious solutions
over scientific methods (Scientology, voodoo, etc).
What do you have to say about that?
\- In my experience in a place like berkeley, you see
a lot of hostility toward religion or mocking of
religion [church is hypocritical, religion people
are naive etc] rather than a specific desire to
assert it is false, god doesnt exist etc. Of course
there are people like Holube, and it is pointless to
speculate on their agenda and motivations, although
at some point with aaron/holube-ping I'd say it got
personal rather than issue directed. As with the
anti-SUV camp, there are specific issues worth talking
about [like proslytism] but the vague hostility seems
pretty intolerant, given that the majority of religous
people *around here* are pretty much the live and let
live type and the people doing the condemning are
selectively tolerant liberal hedonists.
\_ However, is it not true that religions themselves
are generally intolerant of other religions? Is
it not true that there has been much blood spilled
in the name of religion? If there is intolerance
against religion in general, perhaps it is because
religion itself is generally intolerant.
\- I think it is a lot more reasonable
to suppose voting for BUSHCO2004 is
giving tacit support to Abu Graib than
going to Easter Mass is an endorsement
of T. Torquemada. ok tnx.
\- is msft intolerant toward linux? how about
the mfgrs of cialis toward the mfgrs of viagra?
yes, i think we can agree intolerance is
often bad. we can agree the problem of
relativism is a tough or for societies to
relativism is a tough for societies to
grapple with. are you intolerant of bestiality?
well to be a little less glib: i believe there
is much conflict among societies for structural
reasons [see e.g. Man, the State and War], and
since religion is an important element in
societies it's likely to be a proximate
explation for a lot of stuff. with the rise of
capitalism/imperialism/colonialism/totalit-
arianism in the 20th cent, is it a surprise
they play a role in the story of ww1/ww2?
the muslim invaders of india and europe didnt
specifically want to pick a fight with hinduism
or xtianity, they just wanted stuff. athens and
sparta or the greeks and trojans didnt fight
over gods or souls but for more material and
security reasons. i think material concerns
are a big part of the 30yrs war, but i have
to think about that and check some things
before weighting in on this standard case
of a relig war. |
| 5/21 |
|
| www.balloon-juice.com/archives/005059.html Intelligent Design Bob Novak, on Crossfire: Why don't we teach evolution and intelligent design and let students fig ure it out on their own? The response from an unknown God-hating scientist: Fine. Why don't we teach students the South won the civil war and let th em figure it out on their own? Why don't we teach students that the moo n is made of green cheese and let the students figure it out on their o wn. Meanwhile, in bizarro land, Terry Jeffrey is advocating that belief in ob jective truth requires that you believe in intelligent design. This woul d make a great SNL skit, except you can't parody these guys. evolution trials in Kansas: Charles Thaxton, who lives near Atlanta but is a visiting assistant prof essor of chemistry at the Charles University in the Czech Republic, als o presented another key criticism of evolution. He testified that there 's no evidence that life formed from a primordial soup. Irigonegaray asked Thaxton whether he accepted the theory that humans an d apes had a common ancestor. At some point, people are going to recognize that faith is not a very use ful building block for a logical syllogism or a good foundation for scie ntific inquiry. On the other hand, teaching creationism does do damage to science. read this, most notably this: A scientific theory or law represents an hypothesis, or a group of relat ed hypotheses, which has been confirmed through repeated experimental t ests. Theories in physics are often formulated in terms of a few concep ts and equations, which are identified with "laws of nature," suggestin g their universal applicability. Accepted scientific theories and laws become part of our understanding of the universe and the basis for expl oring less well-understood areas of knowledge. new discoveries are first assumed to fit into the existing t heoretical framework. It is only when, after repeated experimental test s, the new phenomenon cannot be accommodated that scientists seriously question the theory and attempt to modify it. The validity that we atta ch to scientific theories as representing realities of the physical wor ld is to be contrasted with the facile invalidation implied by the expr ession, "It's only a theory." For example, it is unlikely that a person will step off a tall building on the assumption that they will not fal l, because "Gravity is only a theory." Comments Part of me really wants to take up these frauds on their offer. Show the umpteen million pieces of evidence for biological a daptation. Let the ID con-men flounder about defining complexity, suffer humiliating refuta tion, and then repeat exactly what they said before. Let them mangle sce pticism into an obligation to be a sucker. Then afterwards, some good Christian rock songs about judicial activism. Thomas on May 5, 2005 04:29 PM ID is nothing more than a smoke-screen for creationism, and creationism i s absurd. Any 'scientific theory' you can refute with two words is usele ss. And then they are forced to engage in Scopes Monkey trial style gibberish about the concept of time and what a day really means. this one 8 0 years ago sufficed, in my estimation: MR DARROW--There were no others recorded, but Cain got a wife. Do es the statement, "The morning and the evening were the first day" and "The morning and the evening were the second day" mean anything to you? MR BRYAN--I do not think it means necessarily a twentyfour- hour day. If you will take the seco nd chapter--let me have the book. The fourth verse of the second chapter (Genesis) says: "These are the generations of the h eavens and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lo rd God made the earth and the heavens." The word "day" there in the ver y next chapter is used to describe a period. I do not see that there is necessity for construing the words, "the evening and the morning" as meaning necessarily a twenty-four-hour day: "in the day when the Lord made the Heaven and the earth." MR DARROW--Then when the Bible said, for instance, "And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day," --that does not necessarily mean twenty-four hours? MR BRYAN--I do not think they were twenty-four-hour days. MR BRYAN--That is my opinion--I do not know that my opinion is better o n that subject than those who think it does. But I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in six m illion years or in six hundred million years. I do not think it importa nt whether we believe one or the other. MR BRYAN--My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt t o argue as against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days. MR DARROW--Have you any idea of the length of the periods? MR DARROW--Do you think the sun was made on the fourth day? MR DARROW--And they had evening and morning without the sun? MR DARROW--They had evening and morning for four periods without the su n, do you think? MR BRYAN--I believe in creation, as there told, and if I am not able to explain it, I will accept it. And they had the e vening and the morning before that time for three days or three periods . Now, if you call those periods, they may have been a very long time? MR DARROW--The creation might have been going on for a very long time? MR BRYAN--It might have continued for millions of years. John Cole on May 5, 2005 04:33 PM The real problem is that evolution is so poorly taught in high schools th at teaching ID along side it would probably convince kids that ID is rig ht. It provides the answer whenever there is an ev identiary gap in the fossil record: it must have been designed. For many high school students, that would unfortunately be a more persuasive ans wer than: we don't yet, we're still looking. Steven on May 5, 2005 04:48 PM The advocates of evolution probably try to prove too much. Teachers can s how that evolution is a fact that can be witnessed over the course of te n days using fruit flys. But those same teachers should admit that the w hys and the wherefores are not completely understood when the theory is used to map the development of life from the primordial soup to today. B ut all that can be done while maintaining rigorous critical thinking. And I don't wan t either taught in public schools because we ought to be teaching critic al thinking (and the scientific method, which requires critical thinking ) in schools. Birkel on May 5, 2005 05:17 PM My Dad is an atheist and he thinks the evolution theory is not adequately been proved , yet. I agree with Birkel that critical thinking skills should be taught in sch ool, but the teachers will still have to contend with students who do no t beleive in evolution. I went to school in the eighties and we learned evolution, and Creationism was never mentioned. I know 2/3 of my class b eleived in Creationism, but noone ever questioned the teacher about it. They did the experiments , passed the tests, and went on with their live s No harm, no foul. This was an advanced class where most students went into engineering, medicine, computers,etc. Creationism and Intelligent Design does not need to be taught in public s chools. How are these students supposed to compete at the collegiate lev el, and in the real world if they want a degree in the sciences. JS on May 5, 2005 05:41 PM My Dad is an atheist and he thinks the evolution theory is not adequately been proved , yet. Intelligent Design can best be summed up as: "Hey- this shit is complicated and I don't understand it- some 'intellgie nt' being or thing must have designed this. Oh, and by the way, these cr eationists over here think God did it all in seven days." John Cole on May 5, 2005 05:46 PM Think of it as an opportunity. The more young people from Kansas with a w orthless scientific education, the more math, science, and engineering e mployement opportunities for a young person in China or India... Fitz on May 5, 2005 05:47 PM I think the coolest thing about evolution theory is that it is chageable. You can question it and based on new observations the theory can adapt. Creation, like ID and religion in general, cannot be questioned. JG on May ... |