Posted on 04/17/2012 4:27:49 AM PDT by scottfactor
Why do antibiotics prove less effective after their initial introduction?
How is antibiotic resistance developed within a population?
There is only one scientific answer. Evolution.
And those with a superstitious and primitive view of the world do not have a veto power on what science is taught in science class. And if they did - it would not stop with evolution.
Once again you FAIL to engage my argument.
Radioactivity decay - can't study that because it embarrasses creationists about the age of the earth.
The nature and speed of light - can't study that for the same reason.
Plate tectonics - oops - long age of the Earth - cannot study that!
I could go on but the point is clear - creationists objections to science are hardly limited to the theory of evolution.
I can NOT fight a strawman of your creation. How many times in my posts did I use the word MACRO evolution ( known by some as “Darwinism”) ?
Fact: Macro evolution is of NO importance to the overwhelming majority of scientists. Most never even spend a nano-second on the subject in their graduate programs or in their daily work. And....This is true even for biologists.
Fact: Those who invented the techniques used for studying and measuring radioactive decay, plate tectonics, or the speed of light didn't give a twit about Macro evolution and likely attended all their various levels of schooling BEFORE macro evolution was part of the curriculum.
Solution: Remove the “Veto Power” of the voting mob. Privatize universal K-12 education. End the curriculum wars.
It is impossible to have a politically, religiously, and culturally neutral education.
There are half wolf half dogs...where are the half ape half man?
But once again you FAIL to address my argument.
If we give those with a primitive and superstitious view of reality a veto power over what is taught in science class it will not end with evolution.
It seems that the majority of the “major scientific discoveries” listed creationists have MACRO objections to - they don't have MICRO objections to those fields of science - they have MACRO objections.
That is why your strawman that it is ONLY one facet of one theory and therefore NOT that important is inapplicable to reality - because it is NOT just that one facet of one theory that creationists object to - it is major features of almost every scientific discipline.
Rant about public schools all you want - I support privatization of schools, vouchers, homeschooling, you name it. But so long as there are public schools - science should be taught in science class.
Not just what science is acceptable to those with a primitive and superstitious view of the world.
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State” Thomas Jefferson author of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom that Madison used for inspiration.
Separation of Church and State is a foundational principle of this Republic. One essential to it being a FREE Republic.
Sure worked for the Soviet Republic.
The Soviets were not a Republic - neither were they free.
The concept of separation of Church and State is one that predates Communism - and it was one of our foundational principles as outlined by Madison and Jefferson and its recognition is included within the very first right in the bill of rights.
Funny that creationists not only have to reject science - but now apparently history also.
If (as the evolutionists say) evolution is compatible with God, and if micro-evolution equals evolution (as the evolutionists like to say), then the following is merely a statement of evolution: man evolved from Adam and Eve, who were created by God. Since this is evolution, it can be taught in evolution class. And evolutionists should have no objection to it.
1935 Consititution of the USSRARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church.
Decree of the Soviet of People's Commissars on the Separation of the Church from the State, and of the School from the Church (January 23, 1918):1. The church is hereby separated from the state.
2. It is unlawful to pass any local law or issue any decree whatsoever within the territory of the Republics, which will restrict or limit the liberty of conscience or grant any advantage or privilege whatsoever to any citizen on the basis of his religious profession.
4. No proceedings of any state or other official public body shall be accompanied by any religious rites or ceremonies whatsoever.
6. No person may refuse to fulfill any civic obligation on the ground of his religious convictions. Exceptions to this rule may be made on the condition that another civic obligation is performed in substitution for the one declined, but this must in each separate case be considered by the People's Court.
7. Religious vows, or oaths, are abolished. Whenever necessary solemn affirmation to tell the truth is made.
8. Registration of births, marriages, deaths, etc., are performed exclusively by the civil authorities and the departments for the registration of marriages and births.
9. The school is hereby separated from the church. The teaching of religious doctrines is not permitted in any state, public, or private educational institution where general educational subjects are taught. Citizens may give or receive religious instructions privately.
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State”
Thomas Jefferson
It’s a one way separation ‘wall’ amd!
Thomas Jefferson “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
Evolution seems to fear open and honest debate and prefer the courts to continue doing their godless bidding. Judgement day is coming soon for everyone to give an account of their words and actions.
Information theory is scientific and is a valid defense for ID and creation. You can NOT have things like DNA without a creator creating these complex codes. Science is simply trying to re-trace God’s thoughts and actions.
Evolution does just fine in open and honest debate - it is the creationists who had to lie on the stand in Dover and who have to invent revisionist history.
Judgment day = if you accept evolution you are going to hell.
Heck of a scientific argument you got there buddy!
Amusing that creationists cannot argue against a scientific theory without making it an argument against atheism.
Science describes the physical mechanisms behind creation. There is no gap, and God is not a god of the gaps. God created a universe that evidently is self-consistent and without the need for miraculous intervention for day to day operations.
I put ‘wall’ in quotes b/c it is only a limitation or separation on the state ~ not the church nor the people.
Without your precious state funding evolution would have been discarded long ago as the useless theory that it is.
The scientists from centuries back payed their own way rather than being dependent on taxation and lawyers to do their bidding.
Without information theory you would not have a computer nor a network to continue posting your drivel.
Thomas Jefferson didn’t put scare quotes around a wall of separation. It is a limitation on the State - and the limitation goes both ways - the State cannot infringe upon free exercise of religion or pass laws that establish a particular religion in preference to others.
Evolution is a useful theory and its formulation, acceptance and use is in no way dependent upon government funding.
In the free market where ideas are either seen to have value or not - Science has value - knowledge of evolution has value - Creationism is useless.
MM: Fine. Then leave evolution out of it because it's nothing but a philosophical construct based on forensic evidence and extrapolation. There is no ability to observe it in action, no testability, no repeatably, nothing that would qualify it for being classified as science except it's blinkered exclusion of God.
Well of course dear allmendream, science should be taught in science class. But this begs the question as to whether Darwin's theory is "science." Evidently metmom has reasons to suspect it isn't; and so do I. It rather appears to be a philosophical cosmology rooted in materialist presuppositions.
It utterly denies any spiritual extension of the natural world. It is "successful" largely for subjective psychological reasons.
So let me bring in a forensic psychologist, Robert Godwin, who has deep insights into this problem. In his book, One Cosmos under God: The Unification of Matter, Life, Mind and Spirit [2004] he cites Aldous Huxley, who thought that "too much working hypothesis means finding only what you already know to be there and ignoring the rest. And this is especially problematic in the realm of Spirit, where people have a decided tendency to think what is thinkable and a strong motivation to 'discover' what is desirable, not what is true. We might call the problem of 'too much hypothesis' the 'fallacy of religion.'"
In my view (FWIW), Darwinist evolution theory is a prime example of "too much hypothesis" that definitely does involve the "fallacy of religion." Darwin's theory is effectively an ersatz religion for an utterly materialistic, despiritualized world. (Darwinism has no need for Spirit, just as it has no need for God.)
Godwin says the 'fallacy of religion' "is not, of course, limited to religion, but is pervasively present in political, cultural, and psychological thought, in fact, the humanities in general, which are overrun with pseudo-religions masquerading as theories and ideologies."
He goes on to say, "These parasitic pseudo-religions form closed systems that distort and obscure reality through the prismhouse of ideological I-glosses." He contrasts the problem of "too much hypothesis" with another problem akin to it, the "no hypothesis" problem which, strangely, also seems to affect Darwin's theory:
...Huxley points out that "no working hypothesis" means no motive for research, no reason for making one experiment rather than another, no way of bringing sense or order into the observed facts." This problem of "no hypothesis" we shall refer to as the "fallacy of scientism." Instead of enlarging our thought so that it fits the phenomena, this fallacy reduces, ignores, or excises the phenomena to fit the theory, often leaving a universe too impoverished even to sustain the original phenomena. [Emphasis added.]Elsewhere, Godwin calls this phenomenon "'Materialitis,' or perhaps 'Reductionosis'."
Imagine a two-dimensional being trying to "get away from it all" by going on vacation in Flatland; anywhere he goes, he will still be restricted to a cramped planar existence, and never experience the comparatively infinite freedom of the third dimension, even though that dimension is equally available from any point in Flatland.So, how do we rescue AMD from Flatland? Is this even possible?
Must close for now, but not before giving Robert Godwin the last word:
...strictly speaking, science has no "theory of spirit" — as put by the philosopher Eric Voegelin, it is philosophically "closed" and "logophobic" — because it does not acknowledge the existence of the divine or transcendent ground in the first place.... The "logophobia" or "pneumapathology" of science is actually a spiritual disorder whose symptoms include "refusal to engage in the search for the truth of existence," closure of the soul and resultant estrangement from the transcendent ground of being, adherence to rigid ideological and methodological preconceptions, the substitution of "secondary realities" for the primary One, and the inevitable worship of false gods in the form of intellectual "graven images." It leaves our world in the now familiar position of being "turned backwards and upside down, with its face toward darkness and nonentity and its back to the sun of truth and the source of being."No wonder our society is in such deep trouble nowadays....
Thank you so very much, dear sister in Christ, for your (as usual) keenly astute observations!
Darwin's theory is successful because it is of use. Creationism is useless.
Science is based upon using physical causes to explain physical phenomena. You can cry all you want to about how such is a “materialist presupposition” - but it is what makes science of use.
If the cause of a phenomena is material - then it is predictable, replicable and understandable.
If the cause of a phenomena is supernatural - then it is not predictable or replicable and not understandable - and thus it is of absolutely no use in terms of further knowledge discover or useful application.
So have you figured out what the physical cause of the evolution you say you accept is yet?
Will you ever?
What if there IS no "physical cause?" Have you ever entertained that possibility?
What if the driver of evolution is actually a spiritual cause?
Which is do believe is what Genesis 1 asserts. Physical, "material" nature does not show up until Genesis 2.
So, what is going on in Genesis 1? To me, it is the spiritual layout, or blueprint, for what ensues in Genesis 2. The analogy from physics is that Genesis 1 refers to whatever was loaded into the Singularity — the Word of God, Logos Alpha to Omega — In the Beginning.
The "Logos Alpha–Omega" part guarantees that our universe, as created by God, was originally designed to unfold — or "evolve" — in physical space and time. Indeed, that was God's Plan in the Beginning. That He already knows the End — the purpose and goal of His Creation — does not affect its free development "In-Between" its Beginning and End, which has been called (by Aristotle), the Immanent Cause of everything that happens, or could happen, in physical Nature.
In other words, God did not create an "overly-determined" universe. There are rules and guides to the system; but within those constraints, there is every possible scope for novelty to emerge in physical nature, via an evolutionary process.
An analogy from physics: the relations between the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law — "matter cannot be either created nor destroyed" — is a conservation principle. It refers to that which does not ever change over time. It is, in short, a universal principle.
The second law — the law of entropy — refers to that in nature which is capable of changing. Note the second law holds that all systems in nature have an inherent tendency to become disordered over time. And all would do so, if there were no other operative principle in the universe to counteract this tendency.
BTW, the Singularity was "discovered" by Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, a Jesuit priest. The Singularity is what "blew up" in the Big Bang; and evidently is the basic foundation for the inflationary expansion of the universe ever since — which is decidedly an evolutionary process in space and time.
But of course, Lemaître was perhaps just another superstitious Christian creationist in your book. Maybe we can also say this of Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk who just happens to be the father of the science of genetics, which gave Darwin so many bright ideas.
* * * * * * *
Anyhoot, I don't know if any of the above is at all helpful to you, dear allmendream. All I can say is I'm not here to "tell you what to think," but rather to "show you where to look." You can go look if you want to.
I do hope you will, dear brother in Christ! Thank you ever so much for writing!
What part of evolution is replicable? Testable? What real life observations of evolution in action have been made that are not based on forensic evidence and extrapolation?
OK, predict the next step in the evolution of any man or animal of your choice?
If the cause of a phenomena is supernatural - then it is not predictable or replicable and not understandable - and thus it is of absolutely no use in terms of further knowledge discover or useful application.
Sounds like you just described evolution there.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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