Evolution vs intelligent design
Discussion
I see the US Shaved Monkey president is supporting a court bid to make US schools teach the 'intelligent design' model in biology lessons; that God created earth and all this evolution stuff is tosh. Appears half of US citizens belief that God created man in his/her curent form (ie. didn't even throw a handful of life into a pond and watch the fun, just made a whopping great hairy bloke in one go between putting the bins out and calling his Mum).
Now if this was the Taliban.....discuss
Now if this was the Taliban.....discuss
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4282692.stm
Interesting. It seems a group of parents are not happy with teachers saying that evolution is an unproven theory.
Surely if they give equal billing to each "theory" then it'll lead to the kids questioning which one is "true" which is a much better situation.
I spent my childhold being told that man-made global warming was true. Boy am I pissed off about that now!
Interesting. It seems a group of parents are not happy with teachers saying that evolution is an unproven theory.
Surely if they give equal billing to each "theory" then it'll lead to the kids questioning which one is "true" which is a much better situation.
I spent my childhold being told that man-made global warming was true. Boy am I pissed off about that now!
At this rate the yanks will be banging rocks together and worshipping fire by, oh, 2010 or so...
Why does an otherwise technologically and sociologically (arguably) advanced nation succumb to the brainwashing of Christian Fundamentalist nutters? A related BBC article of the above stated that fully 50% of US adults believe the Earth was 'created' in six days! Presumably the same 50% that voted for Dubya, consider the Dukes of Hazzard to be a documentary and want a giant McDonalds sign over the Middle East. I assume NASA gets its employees from the other 50%...
ST
>> Edited by speedtwelve on Monday 26th September 22:58
Why does an otherwise technologically and sociologically (arguably) advanced nation succumb to the brainwashing of Christian Fundamentalist nutters? A related BBC article of the above stated that fully 50% of US adults believe the Earth was 'created' in six days! Presumably the same 50% that voted for Dubya, consider the Dukes of Hazzard to be a documentary and want a giant McDonalds sign over the Middle East. I assume NASA gets its employees from the other 50%...
ST
>> Edited by speedtwelve on Monday 26th September 22:58
theres some deeply, deeply ace discussion on this topic on www.psci.com. watch perfectly rational scientists duke it out over something that cannot be argued.
oooo..its in a book you say? then it must be real..
oooo..its in a book you say? then it must be real..
I sat listening to a bloke the other day going on about intelligent design..someone pipes up "so who/what was/were responsible for the design some 10000 years ago!" The G word pops up......
Needless to say I fooked off pissing myself
Its just another crazy excuse to get religion back in the classroom....
Supes.
Needless to say I fooked off pissing myself
Its just another crazy excuse to get religion back in the classroom....
Supes.
nervous said:
theres some deeply, deeply ace discussion on this topic on www.psci.com. watch perfectly rational scientists duke it out over something that cannot be argued.
oooo..its in a book you say? then it must be real..
Where? That's some sorta tech page with nowt on it?
One of my best mates is currently in the US doing some work. This is a blog of a recent trip out:
Chris said:
A bar in Ballston DC was the venue last night for my first, and possibly last game of American football, at least, my last surrounded by whooping, mildly inebriated Americans.
It was quite fun watching larger than life hypermales, visibly supersized by suits of armour, slamming into each other one moment and doing little poncey dance moves the next, interspersed between soul-destroyingly lengthy commercial breaks; but I didn't understand a single thing about the actual game. Not that I understand anything regarding fanaticism about any sport.
We were in a little group of six, including myself and Billy, two girls and two guys (not blokes. Anything but. "Bloke" is a risky term since people don't know what it means and presume it's derogatory and you're lying to get one up on them.)
One of the girls asked about what the hell I was doing over here, and we got to talking about my "work" situation. I remarked, cautiously, that there were a lot of Southern Baptists around where I lived and "worked", then curtailed myself to ask if she was religious at all (see; I'm learning). She replied that she too was a Southern Baptist. So polite conversation about that was necessary until she'd forgotten the way I'd spat the term upon initial mention. It didn't take long. It turned out that they all worked together as biologists at that big five-sided building, the name of which I daren't utter on here. They weren't allowed to say what they did, but I gleaned that it was DNA related.
"So, do you mind if I ask a personal question?"
The look on her face was wonderful as she said "Umm . . . ."
"Where do you stand on the evolution versus intelligent design debate?"
"Oh, oh, I'm a creationist."
Deep breath. Bill Hicks' words rising from my diaphragm . . .
"Ok, so, here's a one word question for you: Dinosaur?"
"Oh, well, they're lizards. You see, everything lived longer back then, even people; I mean, Moses was at least seven hundred years old and lizards don't stop growing until they die, so. . ."
"Hang on, hang on. Moses? Seven hundred? Years? Old? Where do you get that from?"
"The Bible."
"Yeah, I figured, but where does it say that?"
"Exodus."
". . . and what exactly does it say?"
"Oh, I dunno, but scholars and scientists have interpreted it as. . ."
"Sorry, scientists?(!) Aren't you a scientist?"
"mm hm (with affirmative intonation, i.e. up at the end? like it's a question? when it's not? it's just a statement?)"
"So, would you let someone else read journal articles and interpret them for you? Don't you think that second hand interpretation of something that has already been translated so many times a little shaky, you know, as a scientist?"
The whisky and cheap cigars were apparently taking their toll on my placid demeanour and reserved, patient conversational style. I mean, I wasn't looking to change the poor girl's mind, such as it was, but I needed some material for a blog, which I intended to attempt to write nicely, but which has become an ugly, verbatim extract of direct speech due to my still shaking hands, hangover, and rising bile. One of the guys interjected:
"What are you guys talking about?"
"Evolution versus creationism" I replied.
"Ah, so which side of the fence are you on?"
"Well, I'm kind of a physical anthropologist."
"Sooo . . . ."
"Evolution! Not that spirituality, or God, or whatever and evolution in any way rule each other out."
He managed to sit on the fence, saying that it works on a small scale and for certain animals within a species, but the very idea that fish and giraffes and monkeys and people all came from the same . . . .and there we have it: monkeys and people. That's the real issue. These people are just uncomfortable with evolution because they think they're so much better than primates. Like English people a hundred years ago who drew little cartoons of Darwin as a monkey, remember? The guy who is now on our ten pound notes, one of which I whipped out and flashed around.
Bless their blinkered, arrogant little juvenile heads. I couldn't be arsed going into basic comparative anatomy, and I won't bore you to shit with any more of thistwaddle. But the fact that it is a serious matter of debate whether this shite should be taught as biology in schools, as a scientific theory which rivals neo-Darwinism, rather than as comparative religion is scary. I mean, from over there it's funny, but here it's taken seriously. Which is scary.
Anyway, isn't it insulting to "God" to say that "He" is powerful enough to zap us into existence with a lightning bolt, but not clever or inventive enough to put into process the most beautiful and subtle process of evolution, beginning with a self-replicating double-helix of molecules, a single cell full of jelly, and a few squillion years? Whatever you believe, isn't it scary that the idiot with his finger on The Button has a little imaginary friend that he thinks is God, whispering sweet nothings about the book of revelations in his inbred little ear?
Well, it
but then again, so do clowns.
Frik said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4282692.stm
Interesting. It seems a group of parents are not happy with teachers saying that evolution is an unproven theory.
Surely if they give equal billing to each "theory" then it'll lead to the kids questioning which one is "true" which is a much better situation.
If 'intelligent design' is to get a look in, I want my beliefs to be discussed as well as I've seen the light after being 'Touched By His Noodly Appendage' www.venganza.org
Maybe it's time to bring back medieval Gnosticism - they belived the world was created by a stupid daemon and mankind's only way of saving itself was through knowledge. (They also believed the creator of the Universe - "Old Nobodaddy" had lost interest eons ago and fked off.)
Worrying - it almost makes sense nowdays...
Prof Beard
ked off.) Worrying - it almost makes sense nowdays...
Prof Beard
Just stupid. These people (and I mean the religious lunatic fringe), are in the minority believe that the scientific method threatens their faith. This is, of course, idiotic. I don't think the Scopes "Monkey Trial" is going to get overturned. And if it does, it will probably get turned back.
It is against all principle of religious faith to have a need to "prove" that there is a God. And, it's an arrogant conceit by any of us to think that we could grasp all the complexity of the universe in a handy little theorem, either evolution (which is likely to remain a theory and never become a full-fledged Law), or "intelligent design".
There has been some evidence supporting evolutionary processes, and also some instances where new species emerged more quickly than would normally be predicted by evolution. No, I can't think of a specific example, as I am recalling from distant memory and can't be bothered to look it up. The point is that the theory has it's flaws, and we should be careful not to put too much stock in something like that, which we cannot really prove conclusively. It is absurd that religious people think that some observations and conclusions aim to undo the foundations of their faith.
I went to school in the bible-beating south, and I can tell you that, many people are moderate, but there is a tremendous religious culture in churches, on a social basis, for people to have matching beliefs. Especially members of the Southern Baptist Convention. These people cannot accept that, as little humans, there are going to be things remaining to be understood about the nature and workings of God, and that they can't define everything down to the nth degree on theological basis. And they forget that the bible itself was written by human beings and has gone through many translations. But there's so much absolutism and insecurity, these people make their own crucible. Sadly, there's an enormous amount of pressure and "holier than thou" crap for people to be accepted by their religious community, and keeping up with joneses. There's almost no variation allowed. People get fed up with that and leave all together.
It is against all principle of religious faith to have a need to "prove" that there is a God. And, it's an arrogant conceit by any of us to think that we could grasp all the complexity of the universe in a handy little theorem, either evolution (which is likely to remain a theory and never become a full-fledged Law), or "intelligent design".
There has been some evidence supporting evolutionary processes, and also some instances where new species emerged more quickly than would normally be predicted by evolution. No, I can't think of a specific example, as I am recalling from distant memory and can't be bothered to look it up. The point is that the theory has it's flaws, and we should be careful not to put too much stock in something like that, which we cannot really prove conclusively. It is absurd that religious people think that some observations and conclusions aim to undo the foundations of their faith.
I went to school in the bible-beating south, and I can tell you that, many people are moderate, but there is a tremendous religious culture in churches, on a social basis, for people to have matching beliefs. Especially members of the Southern Baptist Convention. These people cannot accept that, as little humans, there are going to be things remaining to be understood about the nature and workings of God, and that they can't define everything down to the nth degree on theological basis. And they forget that the bible itself was written by human beings and has gone through many translations. But there's so much absolutism and insecurity, these people make their own crucible. Sadly, there's an enormous amount of pressure and "holier than thou" crap for people to be accepted by their religious community, and keeping up with joneses. There's almost no variation allowed. People get fed up with that and leave all together.
shirepro said:
I see the US Shaved Monkey president is supporting a court bid to make US schools teach the 'intelligent design' model in biology lessons; that God created earth and all this evolution stuff is tosh. Appears half of US citizens belief that God created man in his/her curent form (ie. didn't even throw a handful of life into a pond and watch the fun, just made a whopping great hairy bloke in one go between putting the bins out and calling his Mum).
Now if this was the Taliban.....discuss
It's a sign of weakness.....G'Dubbya and the Taliban have one thing in common. They need to retain their control over "the plebs" by any means possible.
GW's hold on this is slipping, so he's calling upon the influential U.S. "God botherers" to prop up his Presidency and popularity.
Religions around the world have worked this miracle for centuries and got away with it, mixing a political message amongst brainwashed followers for their own ends........No more than in the U.S., after all........."they have God on their side"
........... I have no problem with Darwinism begin taught as a theory - mainly because it is one (though I'd prefer if it was interpreted within the Dawkin's Selfish Gene theory rather than classical Darwinism). And I think it would be a good idea to teach other theories of how we got here as well (Environmental Determinism anyone?) But only if within a seperate unit of theological sciences.
An intelligent design theory could be given some exposure as well - as all these things help teach people that there are alternate methods of thinking about things.
As a child my faith in the schooling system was shattered when I learnt that much of what was taught was lies and best guess rather than the truth.
An intelligent design theory could be given some exposure as well - as all these things help teach people that there are alternate methods of thinking about things.
As a child my faith in the schooling system was shattered when I learnt that much of what was taught was lies and best guess rather than the truth.
One of the problems these people have is that most of them have a fundamental lack of understanding of the principles of science and scientific theories. They're so brainwashed to believe in absolute values they cannot comprehend that scientific theories can be refined or even abandoned as new evidence comes to light. So, as soon as something comes along that doesn't fit it with conventionally evolutionary theory they all point and shout about how science got it wrong and evolution is wrong etc. Whereas a scientist examines the new information and tries to determine a theory that incorporates and explains it along with everything else.
What really worries me is the real scientists who still subscribe to this nonsense - do they not see the paradox?
What really worries me is the real scientists who still subscribe to this nonsense - do they not see the paradox?
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