Posted on 04/03/2009 8:22:15 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The political situation in Texas is kinda weird. Yes, this is a defeat for "Creationists", but it is a defeat for the "atheists and evolutionists" as mentioned in the article as well. The issue that people don't understand is that those words don't mean quite the same thing in Texas as a reasonable person would assume.
There are those of us who look at the fossil record (many of us first hand; Texas is a great place for fossil hunting) and reason that the evidence suggests evolution from simpler to more complex forms. We don't "believe" in evolution, we just think it presents the most probable explanation for how life as it exists now came to be.
There is another group, however, that is quite a bit more dogmatic. They "believe" in evolution. Many of these people don't have a clue about the actual science; they just want Darwinian evolution to be taught as fact and any alternatives to be suppressed. Things that don't quite fit their Darwinian hypothesis (like the Cambrian explosion, where the massive speciation doesn't fit Darwin's pre-DNA explanation) aren't relevant to science instruction in their opinion. To these people, the purpose of natural history and biology classes isn't to educate the young, but to indoctrinate them. They desperately want to point to the fossil record and say "...and this clearly shows there is no God".
Maybe these sorts of people only exist in Texas? If so, count yourself lucky. But try not to think of Texas as a state full of Luddites just because the media stories all imply that this is a binary conflict between "science" and "creationism". There are simply a lot more than two sides to this issue, and the not all the "evolutionists" are on the side of scientific integrity.
>In science, unlike in common parlance, theories are about accounting for the data, not sitting back in an armchair and wondering about why things happen.
Wrong. Especially wrong in considering the sciences of Mathematics and Logic. See Euler’s work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg
Surely you recognize that you only hear dissent about *how* evolution happened, not *whether* evolution happened.
Whether assuming philosophical naturalism is appropriate is never discussed, only which path that it supposedly took to arrive here.
All dissent is equal but some dissent is more equal that others.
Regardless of whether Creationism is true, there are serious problems with evolutionary theory.
I do see it as a “win” for intelligent design.
Even if not, I do not see how it could be anything but a “win” for science.
There is no good sense in silencing debate and shaming dissent.
For “Science” to be anything other than a blind religion, its results, methods, and the motives of its followers, must be scrutinized at all times, or it will be used as tool of tyranny, to dictate behavior to the masses of laypersons. “You can’t argue witch Science! Shut up, and sit down, plebe!”
There is nothing inherently noble about a scientist, except that which is inherently noble in all people.
But scientists often lay claim to a certain objectivity that, in their own esteem, places them above reproach. They are delusional in their capacity to believe that they are free from bias, even in the interpretation of hard scientific data.
Of course you "believe" in evolution. You just think it presents the most 'probable' explanation for how life as it exists came to be once you exclude everything except philosophical naturalism.
That's easy to understand.
Wow, Charlie over at LGF must be giving birth to a full set of kittens over there.
What part of “examining all sides of scientific evidence” don’t you understand?
>>The evidence stands strongly against evolution, but discussing that evidence in class has been forbidden.
>
>I have spent a lot more time in biology class than most people around here. I don’t know what you are talking about.
As I see it there are several LARGE holes in the theory of evolution:
1 — Life from non-life. Even the simplest life-forms are incredibly complex; the lack of creating life, even by design [in a lab], is a testimony to how complex it is.
2 — Multi-cell life from single-cell life. There is no condition that I’ve seen that should promote multi-cell over single-cell life from the biological imparitive standpoint. While we do see “colonies” of bacteria and such, that seems to be more akin to why early civilizations arose near rivers/seas, because water is life, and being close to the water ‘guarantees’ a water-supply.
3 — The emergence of specialized organs. In micro-evolution, the theory is that a species is incrementally improved, even to the point of gaining new features. What, though, is the use of a half-working eye, a half-working heart, or a half-working liver... all they point out is the lack of perfection [compared] to the real [working] organs.
4 — Sexual reproduction. One of the biological imparatives is the reproduction of a species. If one has asexual reproduction, how is pressure applied to gain sexual reproduction? (Also note, half-functioning sexual reproductive organs are useless.) Like CS searching [algorithms] it takes foresight/organization which natural processes do not often present... That is, an efficient/smart search may be used only if the data is sorted beforehand.
Creationism or Evolutionism:
All I know is God’s fingerprints are all over this world and I’ll leave it at that.
I don't know about Creationism - don't know what is meant by it. But if Intelligent Design means "the idea that there is a Mind behind Reality that has created it either quickly, slowly or immanently" - then Intelligent Design is strongly supported by the 'strong' Anthopic Principle.
I'll try and do some justice to this.
The Strong Anthropic Principle
This concerns the observed "tuning" of the cosmological constants (strength of gravity, strength of emg force etc) that underpin the Universe.
The idea is that the tuning points to a Creator who did the tuning- because the tuning is exactly right for the existence of human life, far too improbably exact to have happened by chance.
First, we should distinguish the “strong” Anthropic Principle from the “weak” one.
The weak one is roughly along the lines of “isn’t it lucky we live just far enough away from the Sun to live”.
And similar arguments, like “lucky that humans got a chance to evolve when the Dinosaurs cacked it” etc. It’s weak because this argument can be countered by the “humans are simply self-selecting observers who live on one lucky ball of rock” argument.
The strong version of the Anthropic Principle is the observation that this Universe appears to have been designed to allow life to exist. In any form. At all. Out of all the infinitely variable boundary conditions of the Universe (the Gravitational constant, the relative strength of the Strong and Weak forces, and many others) the Universe just *happens* to have, or to embody, the exact set of parameters which make matter, space and life itself possible.
Note the emphasis on “possible”. We are not talking about there being a universe which happened to give rise to humans, baboons and bacteria. That would be the weak Anthropic principle.
We are talking about there being a universe where life is possible in any form whatever. If one of the Universe’s constants were to change by a few decimal places then the Universe would consist only of hydrogen, or only of baryons - or it would have lasted only a few millenia before crunching back on itself.
The prima-facie odds of getting even carbon-synthesis to work are extraordinarily remote, and everything else has to be “just right” as well
The odds are literally infinitesimal that our Universe just happened to get it right. The religious, supernatural theory that the Universe was designed - and designed for us - is strongly supported by the extraordinary unlikelihood of the Universe being able to support any kind of life.
The usual (materialistic or atheistic) counter-argument against the Strong Anthropic Principle is the theory that there are quadrillions of parallel Universes, one of which is ours. Ours is only special in that we are in it to observe its existence.
This parallel universe theory (apart from being a tired Star-Trek trope) turns out to be a non-disprovable. Any “other” Universe would have to be completely orthogonal to this one, with no interaction of any kind. That is simply what "another Universe" means.
If a scientist could detect another Universe, he would have - by definition - simply have detected more of ‘The’ Universe.
The so-called ‘universes’ of Brane theory, hyperdimensional regions of dark matter interacting weakly with our own - these are part of “the” Universe. If you observe such exotic regions of the Universe then you have discovered that the Universe is a complex multiply-connected object. You have not discovered 'another Universe'.
Strict materialists would therefore have to adopt the position that there exist unthinkable infinities of rigidly unknowable and undetectable Universes covering the gamut of all possible physical constants in order for us to have become self-selected observers of this “one” Universe - the one that happens to have the right conditions for life.
This position “might” be true - but by its very nature it cannot be proven (”Hey! I've detected a Universe which - by definition - is totally orthogonal from this one” is a statement that cannot be true).
Materialists have to move to a position not readily distinguishable from religious belief in order to contest the logical consequence of the Strong Anthropic Principle - which is that this Universe has been extremely precisely tailored to the existence of life.
Hope this is helpful/useful.
Calling it the "public school indoctrination process" reveals a certain bias. Does "indoctrination" = "education in something I don't like"?
{Are you aware that this is a conservative web site?}
It has not escaped my notice. It's why I joined. I am not among those who think that using a form of affirmative action to get one's religious beliefs accommodated in science class when they haven't been able to succeed in the marketplace of scientific ideas is a particularly conservative position.
You know, that scenario does sound familiar...
Unless it happens to be your favorite set of beliefs.
In that case, it's fine and dandy.
It should. It was your defense of evolution.
Oh yeah, Mr. Smarty Pants, how did it get on the table? That follow up question stumps ‘em all and at this point the atheist bursts into the laughter of a man who knows he can’t win this debate!
Kinda like the creationist when the atheist declares that evolution doesn't include abiogenesis.
Not in the way the "evolutionists" do. To them, it is an article of faith that carries with it philosophical and ideological consequences. To me, it is just an observation of the available data.
You just think it presents the most 'probable' explanation for how life as it exists came to be once you exclude everything except philosophical naturalism.
Yep; pretty much. I recognize that it is incomplete in that regard, and always must be (from a Godel perspective); I also recognize that my interpretation of my observations could be in error (two things most "evolutionists" would refuse to accept as possibilities).
Some evolutionists will try to compare evolution to gravity. This is a great comparison to make, but not for the reason they think. There are "evolution" and "gravity" the observations (the fossil record shows change in specie types over time and bodies with mass evoke a force vector of attraction). There are also "evolution" and "gravity" the theories (multiples for each, FWIW). But any decent physicist would admit that our current best theory of gravity is certainly wrong. Finding an "evolutionist" who would do the same, for a theory where the evidence is far less precisely measured and where experiments are far less repeatable, is somewhat more difficult. This is one of the dangers of attempting to couple scientific observation with ideology; the result, regardless of which "side" one chooses, inevitably corrupts the conclusions.
Uh, yeah. I got that. You posted a smiley after your recap of our conversation, and I was responding in kind.
Post 77 and we're already at "Stalinist"! Awesome! Come on, you're almost to "Nazi"--you can do it!
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