Posted on 09/01/2005 6:36:09 PM PDT by wagglebee
perhaps the answer is "both".
1) You are assuming, of course, that life sprang into existence from non-life. That's a pretty wild assumption.
2) Chemical systems ARE very fast. None however have been found that result in the creation of life from non-life.
3) Your statement that life could have assembled by accident is unsupported hogwash.
Suppose for the sake of argument a bunch of chemicals pooled together and became LIFE. In order to qualify as LIVING those chemicals must meet certain criteria.
In order to become LIFE those chemicals also needed to evolve a means to metaboloize some other substance in order to produce energy. In order for those chemicals to become LIFE they also needed to evolve some means of locomotion in order to seek those nutrients necessary for survival. And if those chemicals evolved the means to metabolize some other substance for the creation of energy in order to become LIFE a means to eliminate waste would also have had to have evolved. And, in order for those chemicals to became LIFE it would be necessary to evolve the means to reproduce itself.
These independently complex systems would have had to have evolved simutaneously producing an organism that is even more complex than the sum of its seperate parts.
Thanks for playing anyway. You might want to read some cellular biology.
I have no problem with micro-evolution. Macro-evolution requires more faith than I can muster.
Kind of funny how people who don't cant explain how life evolved from nothingess substitute an infinitely powerful being that evolved from nothingness, which also they can't explain.
The thing about the precambrian explosion that amused me is early life was most probably soft tissues, and left no fossil trace. The explosion may have been the incorporation of hard structures in what had been previously existing life.
As far as I am concerned it is the only explanation that makes any sense. Non-believers however think I'm weak and foolish.
The universe is unbelievably large but I think it was created by someone who can be known and who desires to be known.
The universe has millions and millions of galaxies which contain billions and billions of stars and I believe ours in the only planet that contains any life whatsoever.
I think it makes sense that God would create someone who is capable of love and who is free to choose whether or not to love.
Many religions exist but I think the measure by which they should be compared is whether or not the religion promotes love or hate. And self-love is not love.
Love is a creative force. Hate is a destructive force. I think we were created by a God who loves us and we were created to love Him. And we demonstrate our love for God when we love others with a selfless love.
The Burgess preserved soft tissues. From what I understant it is no longer unique. To assume that in over the over three billion years before, there were no such formations capable of preserving soft tissues is debatable.
Should we teach in classes something we don't know is true because we believe it is for the good of society? I think that's what's called propaganda.
***There is a certain point that I have come to accept when I know something is true. It has to do with the ability to go and view the result myself, or at least trust that the source material has been through a tempering process. For instance, I believe it is true that John Adams was the 2nd president of the U.S., Francis Drake was the 2nd person to travel around the world, and Julius Caesar did conquer the Gauls. The reason why I use 2nd people in history is that I have been in too many conversations where people start badmouthing George W (irony intended) or Magellan or Columbus, and I can never get to that thing I want to, which is the accepted historicity of the event. Something becomes an established fact when both sides of a debate agree on it. One question here is whether or not the accidentalists are debating with someone along the same lines as the flat earth society. Probably not, judging from the fact that GWB and Reagan both had access to the top scientific minds of their day when they arrived at their positions.
I am not yet ready to accept that evo is true, though there certainly are a lot of facts to back it up. In particular the latest stuff about fine structure constant/speed of light decay makes it very a very intriguing possibility that we really do live in a young universe.
I believe there is even less evidence for accidental abiogenesis on this planet without some kind of external intervention. I have a philosophical bias against what I call the "haps": The root word of Happen, Happy, Happenstance is hap, which is another word for luck. I heard it over & over again in NON-SCIENCE classes that we got here by chance, we evolved by chance, and that it was "proven" science. I presently think the evo haps stuff is baloney, the abiogenesis haps stuff is even more baloney, and that all of this stuff belongs in a philosophy class, where there is a constant dialog about inductive pursuits, what you call "something we don't know is true".
I think it is okay to teach the "theory" of evo in an advanced biology class for bio majors, and that if only out of politeness the creat/ID side should be presented at that time as well. None of these philosophies (haps nor haps-not) belongs in any other class unless it's some kind of private school where they have the right to pass on their own biases.
OK, so now that we've covered my own confirmatory bias, to answer your question, "Should we teach in classes something we don't know is true because we believe it is for the good of society?" Yes. Because it is good for society. We may NEVER know what is really true, so what is the harm in teaching both sides and letting students decide? I wonder if your question is really, "should we teach what we know to be UNTRUE", and the answer to that would be NO. At the point of the unknown, it's all a philosophy. Students should hear both sides and decide for themselves. The fact is, the propoganda has been emanating from the haps side for an entire generation.
Asked and answered.
Actually, I prefer more even-handed articles such as this one:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/july-dec05/evolution_8-05.html
LOL....PBS News "even-handed"....LOL
***I was looking for an article where both sides were interviewed, and that was the first one out of 8000 google hits that fit the criteria. If I ONLY read articles that proceed from the same set of biases that I have, my mind will never be open.
They would enjoy nothing more than feeding the fire and making this political controversy a national issue in order to make laughingstocks out of conservatives.
***Good to know, thanks. I certainly perceive this to be a political controversy at the national level, so much so that the president has weighed in on it.
It's not a controversy in the scientific community. 99+% of scientists accept the TOE and don't think ID or CS belongs in science classes.
***Ok, where does one verify those percentages and then, how do we establish the best policy for teaching children? Once you start going into policy-land, politics takes a front seat and guys like GWB have their say. Scientists start to be looked at fromt he prism of what the benefit is to society. GWB must have consulted top-level science advisors, and apparently it was not enough to remove his confirmatory bias. When I look through the mass of material, I see a big scientific controversy with eggheads on one side ridiculing eggheads on the other side.
Yes, project Steve: a good example of eggheads on one side ridiculing eggheads on the other side. It looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and it ain't a goose; it's probably a duck. The duck is a scientific squabble. It sure looks like a scientific squabble to me.
The difficult thing for people like me is that the entire subject matter is overwhelming. In addition, there appears to be no harm in teaching both sides of a controversy.
From TalkOrigins:
The primary reason for this archive's existence is to provide mainstream scientific responses to the many frequently asked questions (FAQs) that appear in the talk.origins newsgroup and the frequently rebutted assertions of those advocating intelligent design or other creationist pseudosciences.
From the other side:
http://www.discovery.org/
The 99%ers seem to think that the discovery institute and/or creationists are a pseudoscience on the order of astrology. I have trouble seeing that ID is a pseudoscience when these guys were instrumental in finding that the fine structure constant of light (and most probably a resulting finding that the speed of light is not a constant) has changed. Scientists were not able to convince two of our greatest presidents that this is wacky pseudoscience. There is something to this controversy.
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2005/september/0907_evolution_poll.shtml
Alternative Views to Evolution Gaining Public Support
By Jim Brown
AgapePress
September 7, 2005
(excerpt)
In fact, the poll found that 64 percent of Americans say they are open to the idea of teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools. And 38 percent favor replacing evolution with creationism in public school curricula. Ham contends that most people realize education involves looking at alternative views.
"If the evolutionists are so convinced that evolution is true, why would they even be worried about including creationist views?" the apologist wonders -- then answers his own question: "Because then they could be looked at carefully; and if they're obviously not true from their perspective, then science should show that -- which, of course, it doesn't."
Ham offers this observation. "I think what's really happened is, a lot of the elite secular humanists who really have an atheistic agenda have really taken over the education system," he says. "But the majority of people are quite willing to consider all views -- and that includes the secularists as well as the Christians."
Yes, I do perceive a scientific controversy as well as a political one. And from what I can tell, since 60% (or whatever the # is) of americans feel the 2 philosophies should be taught side by side, the majority agrees with me -- which is significant in a social policy discussion. The politics favors people like me, for the time being. Sorry to see you give up.
You and the GOP can stick to that position and watch what support you have left in the scientific community drift away.
The conservative coalition that has put the GOP in power is more fragile than you may think.
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