New Science Standards Approved in Florida 891
anonymous_echidna writes "Florida has voted to accept the new K-12 science curriculum standards amidst a storm of controversy around the teaching of evolution, which had up until now been the scientific concept that dare not speak its name. There was a compromise made at the last minute, which was to call evolution a 'scientific theory', rather than a fact. While some lament that the change displays the woeful ignorance of science and scientific terminology, the good news is that the new curriculum emphasizes teaching the meaning of scientific terms and the scientific method in earlier grades."
Science board is trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, I think it would be an improvement of orders of magnitude if science classes in general focused more on:
"how did we learn this?" (i.e., the scientific method, how observations have to be done to eliminate bias, the formulation of competing theories, how experiments are designed, how hypotheses were ruled out, etc.)
as opposed to:
"here is he official list of truth that you have to memorize and then do cute IQ-test-like problems with".
The latter gives the wrong impression of what science is and why it matters.
The news media is a major part of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
We need the news media to take the lead in helping people understand what a theory is vs. a hypothesis. How fact and theory are not opposites. The fact that a "law" is not the opposite of a theory. Too many people are getting away with murder in these debates because the termnology isn't clearly understood and the news media doesn't care to straighten it out.
That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:2, Insightful)
The 6 days of Creation match up with science on the ball when they aren't literal days as we know them, but days of God, which are explained to be any length of time in two different places in the Bible.
I wrote a chapter in my book about it, but I don't see the need to make a long post here. You can check my book on my website if you're so inclined. I updated it last week. Keep in mind that it is a rough draft.
Lamenting that evolution is called a theory? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:5, Insightful)
In several places in the Bible it explains how the passage of time is not a factor to God as it is to us (a day is like a millenia, a millenia like a day), but it explicitly says in Genesis, after each day of creation, "And there was evening and there was morning, the Nth day." If you hand-wave away that phrase, then what else do you hand-wave away?
Terminology? (Score:4, Insightful)
Control the meaning of words, you control how they're percieved. For instance, most if not all the old Soviet republics considered themselves 'democratic' in that elections were held on a regular basis. Of course, there was only one slate of candidates to elect, so calling them 'democracies' was a bit of a misnomer. Likewise, their penchant for putting "People's' in front of just about everything, like 'People's Democratic Republic of'. Double whammy there...
Now, if the definition of 'approved' now means 'guaranteed not to piss off any J Random NeoCon Fundie', and 'theory' now means 'something that cannot be proved but must be taken on faith', we're in serious trouble here...
Re:Evolution is not natural selection (Score:3, Insightful)
Cats and dogs go through similar things.
Assuming 'natural selection' is true and not a false hypothesis, this fits the pattern. If it's false, then this may not be the same thing at all after all.
Re:That's fair (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
why complain? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm in ur curriculumns... (Score:3, Insightful)
The highest honor SCIENCE can bestow any idea is that of the "Theory". Science cannot claim anything to be a fact because in science, nothing is beyond disproval.
If science starts stating things are fact, and beyond disproval then the idea in question becomes dogma. Dogma is the realm of religion. Science may be your religion, but you do science a great disservice by making it so, at the expense of the scientific schema and method.
I know that the creationist/ID crowd LOVES to rub it in that evolution "is only a theory", but you've got to resist the temptation of fighting back by out-dogma-ing the dogmatists.
Evolution IS only a theory, it's among the most widely studied and tested theories of science. It's the single unifying theory of biology. Everyone say it with me: Evolution IS just a theory. The 800lb Gorrilla, bad-mother-fucker, stomp your colon theory. The king of theories.
In science, that's as good as it gets. And as science-minded people, we should know that.
Losing relevance... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason I see for this idiotic push to marginalize evolution and push creationism as a valid theory is because Christian conservatives see their influence on American culture slipping. This is a desperate attempt to make their religion relevant. I don't understand how this is permitted.
Evolution is a science. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and have no place in the science class. Those concepts don't conform to the standards established by science. There is a place for creationism, and that's the theology class.
If parents want to compromise their children's education they should do so in private schools or at home instead of trying to force this stupidity on everyone.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
It just happens that the politics involved are largely being used within the framework of religion in order to maintain a certain population within a given power structure, and to resist attempts to overturn said power structure from the outside.
Re:That's fair (Score:2, Insightful)
That's one rather large difference between science and religion: science still works when you don't believe in it.
Hell, science works when you actively try to -dis-believe it.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The news media is a major part of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I think back to college, and frankly the journalism students didn't seem to be taking many elective science courses. The journalism community as a whole doesn't seem to have a very good understanding of the scientific method.
On the other hand, there are a good number of excellent science journalists (SciAm seems to me to be written for a wide audience, yet succeeds in presenting accurate and generally interesting science news).
Then again, it could be that the public is just as ill-informed about science as the journalistic community. What a sorry state of affairs indeed.
Devils advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is the least popular theory ever proposed. It has been under continuous attack ever since it was proposed. During this time, the creationists have tried every trick they can think of to get it out of the schools. They have blamed just about every evil of society on it, and they have brainwashed millions into believing that it's incompatible with their religion. They've tried to make it illegal, and they have even tried (unsuccessfully) to disprove it. And evolution has survived all of these attacks because it is true. You can always argue that the physical evidence doesn't accurately represent reality, and of course the creationists have tried that, but it's no use when they're arguing with proper scientists.
Given this, I don't think we need to worry about evolution at all. Sure, creationists would like it to be thrown away entirely, but as long as we have scientists, that simply will not happen. You just can't do useful research in any physical science if you think the Bible has greater authority than a ton of physical evidence. There are worse problems in public schools than a bunch of nutcases wanting their crazy beliefs taught as if they were science.
There is no evidence that will convince a creationist that he is wrong. If Jesus Christ personally appeared in front of John Q. Creationist and said "Hi, John. My name's Jesus, the Earth is billions of years old and evolution is basically true," then John Q. would probably crucify him for blasphemy. That's what the fundamentalists did, the last time Jesus told them they were wrong. "Everyone" knows that God couldn't have created the Universe using evolution: he's omnipotent, sure, but he's not that omnipotent. In summary, there is no point in trying to argue with these people, their beliefs are nuts even in comparison to other Christians, so let's just ignore them..
Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anything that starts with some "There's some invisible guy, up in the sky, who can kill you, because he loves you" is deeply, persistently and fundamentally fucked up.
Creationism is merely an expression of how fucked up it is.
ANY country that has ANY religion is just as fucked up.
"Offer your sufferings to Christ" is NOT a health care policy. Got that?
Re:That's fair (Score:4, Insightful)
Before people go nuts however, I'd like to point out that Creationism is not a theory, or a law, or anything to do with science.
I thought so too (Score:3, Insightful)
Because my understanding (as a scientist) has always been that all science was theory - scientific theory and not fact. Some scientific theories, like evolution, have so much evidence that they may as well be fact - but they're still technically not fact.
And like you said gravity is a theory. The fact there is that when I let go of an apple it ends up on the ground, that's the fact - the most sensible theory that explains that fact and other related facts is the theory of gravity. And the theory of evolution is the most sensible theory that explains the fact that there are a wide range of different types of animals and plants on this planet. Creationism and ID are also theories - not scientific theories because they cannot stand up to testing by the scientific method. (And yes FSM is a theory too).
So let baby have his bottle - tell them "Yeah! Evolution is a scientific theory - and a damned good one at that." That'll stump them.
Re:That's fair (Score:1, Insightful)
Gravity is not a FACT. It is a theory. That every model we have come up with matches this theory is irrelevant; we cannot prove without room for doubt any scientific theory.
Gravity could be some as-yet unknown particle that can exert physical force away from itself; the planets are not held together by the force of gravity pulling everything in, but by a spherical buildup of these particles pushing everything down.
Gravity could be a low-end EM based force, with the planet/sun/etc being a large magnet.
Gravity could be many different things.
However, the ones I listed do not fit the known measurable information. This does not say that at some point in the future we will not discover something else that does not fit the current model of gravity.
Evolution is similar; we were not there, we cannot state with absolute certainty that the known species evolved from microbes. What we do know fits that model, but we cannot state it as known for a fact.
People say Science is about facts and Religion is about faith; they are wrong. Science is about theories and open-mindedness; a scientist that refuses to even consider changing his mind is as faithful as a baptist.
Approved religion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Turnabout is fair play (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Someone call editorial... (Score:1, Insightful)
You should never take any scientific theory at face value. Every true scientific explanation is accompanied by the data that led to that conclusion and thus each individual should be making their own conclusions based on the data. That is the beauty of science, if you don't think something is correct all of the information you need to prove that the wrong conclusion has been reached is there for you to use.
Re:That's fair (Score:5, Insightful)
It reminds me of a line from Steven Colbert talking about the "Half Hour News Hour." Something to the effect of "you really need to be on one side or the other because it's hard to be passionately moderate."
NOT! (Score:1, Insightful)
Gravity itself is also NOT a fact. It is a physical property of matter that we can observe, measure, and of which we cannot deny the existance. The *existance* of gravity may well be deemed a fact, but all our maths that describe gravity are still only theories too. The best minds in the world of physics are still struggling to come up with an explanation that accurately describes what exactly gravity really is, and what causes matter to have it.
The best minds in the world of zoology are also still struggling to come up with explanations of how *exactly* evolution could explain how one species of critter evolved from another. And they're still stumped. Only an uneducated simpleton who blindly believes that mammals somehow evolved from reptiles will buy the theory of evolution without detailed and accurate explanation or proofs.... just like the same kind of simpleton blindly believes that all critters were suddenly willed into existance, like *poof* all at once.
I firmly believe in God the Creator, but am blessed with a smart enough brain to understand that God is very complex, and that his Creation may very well have taken hundreds of millions, or even billions of the time units we call "years" to accomplish, and the exact mechanisms he used to create life and diversify all the species are so very far beyond our minds' capabilities to figure it all out at this point in our existance. Maybe someday we'll know how it all was all put together, but as for today... both the groups who claim that "Evolution is FACT" and "Six-24-hour-days creation is FACT" are both equally as ignorant as the same kind of group who once said "The universe orbits around the Earth and that's a FACT". God and the universe and all about how life came into existence and to be so diverse on this planet is all just a wee bit more sophisticated than we humans can thoroughly and accurately explain at this time. We've got some good clues into some parts of it, but we're still a huge long ways off from really complete understanding it.
Re:Science board is trolling? (Score:1, Insightful)
You and the first respondent are showing exactly why that angle ("isn't evolution pretty much just a theory at this point, not a fact") is such an effective troll, even though is been around for ages:
1) Theories are not somehow the opposite of fact.
2) Making it to the stage of "theory" is actually significant and requires a lot of evidence.
3) "Theory" is used differently in science than in common speech.
4) Untangling 1-3 takes much more effort than the troll itself because of the separate issues involved.
5) People believe they are smart for being able to untangle 1-3, so more than one person will so respond.
6) Not everyone will be able to untangle it properly, leading to a disagreement between at least two people who are accustomed to being correct, sparking a sub-flamewar.
7) People equivocate regarding the terms "theory of evolution" and "theory of gravity" leading to clever remarks like the one you just made, leading to 6) again.
8) It's easy for the original troll to "misunderstand" someone's attempt at 4) and spark further responses.
In fact, just about a month ago, an AC, who may or may not have been me, made a short post with this angle and got ~200 reponses *on Slashdot* ultimately stemming from his post.
Don't get sucked into it!
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, doesn't the Bible say that the Earth was here BEFORE there was light?
Re:I'm in ur curriculumns... (Score:3, Insightful)
The BEST theories have equations and calculations that come with them (some of these are commonly called "Laws"). Gravity and thermodynamics and relativity, and many many others have whole sets of equations that can describe and predict the factually observed behavior. Now with hard core gene sequencing and manipulation we're closer than ever to being able to do X and expect Y, but so far there are no "laws" of evolution that will tell you how evolution will progress at a discrete measurable level.
Again, while evolution is a good theory, it is not the KING.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:1, Insightful)
Evolution is a theory. I won't go into the scientific definition of theory here; that's covered quite well in this document [nas.edu] that was previously talked about on Slashdot. Evolution is not a fact (at least, not according to science) because it is untestable at this time. The mechanics behind evolution--adaptation and natural selection--are testable, and can generally be accepted as fact by all involved. Evolution, like all theories, takes observable, testable facts and presents a model based on those facts for the purpose of explaining observations.
We look at biodiversity, we look at the fossil record, we look at millions upon millions of scientific observations and we see what appear to be patterns. Science looks at those patterns and attempts to explain them. The result is the ever-changing theory of evolution.
What's more, there are two brands of evolution. There's the evolutionary mechanism, that is the process by which speciation can occur between two isolated populations of the same species. Then there's the evolutionary history, which attempts to create an ancestry for life based on fossil records and observations of current species. The former is almost undeniable; there exists little if any scientific data that contradicts our current model of evolutionary mechanics. The latter changes frequently and is perfectly questionable, and should be treated as such.
There should be no conflict with the idea of evolution and religion. There is simply no need for them to be at odds. Now, if one should choose to disbelieve specific evolutionary histories, that's really no big deal...the truth is, there are huge gaps in the fossil records and those "family trees" can never be 100% accurate. They just do the best with the data they have.
So maybe public schools should just skip teaching the lineage of any give creature and stick to the mechanisms that drive evolution and the general concept of it.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's fair (Score:3, Insightful)
That's one of the tricks when using 'gravity' as part of a discussion regarding 'evolution'. The existance of both is proven. The 'why' of gravity has not yet been proven. But that is a MUCH different 'why' than the 'why' of evolution.
Gravitation is much closer to mathematics than evolution. I'm sure we can agree that if we are to discover the 'why' of gravitation it will be relatively neat. (Not simple, but neat in the sense that we will be able to say that this does this which causes gravity)
Yet evolution, is a much 'messier' thing to explain. It has a lot of potential causes that feed into the overall theory. Random mutation, natural selection, directed selection such as domesticated animals. Each of these may or may not play a role in any one creature's evolutionary path.
So evolution, when compared to gravity is always going to be a bit murkier of a discussion even if you remove the religious angle from it completely.
Re:The news media is a major part of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
She, also, blamed, partly (among other things she was discussing in the interview), the media for this sort of stupidity. She said the media has gone too far with its equal treatment of different sides of each issue. She said that sometimes one side is right and the other wrong, and giving the wrong side equal weight is not really serving the public well. The creationism vs. evolution "debate" was the example she used.
Evolution is a fact, the path is the theory. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Evolution" is a proven fact. Organisms evolve over time. It has been documented, proved, case closed. Again: it is a fact that organisms evolve. Score one for science and zoology.
Now, the more complex question, why do certain evolutionary steps take place? That is subject to theory and speculation, research, anthropology, and study. Did human being evolve from "lesser" primates? Almost certainly, barring some unforeseen UFO landing (8 million years to earth -- Quatermas and the pit) or divine intervention, the fossil record is pretty conclusive.
What is most interesting is the path from lesser primate to our current form, we still do not know everything. For instance, it seems that perhaps the Neanderthals re-joined the genetic pool rather than simply die off.
The problem is that religious fools require absolute certainty in everything but religion. The evolution of human beings is far more proven then genesis, but they "believe" genesis as "gospel." So, evolution and the path between single cell life and 21st century human beings has to be 100% documented with no missing steps or ambiguous lineage or it is just a wild theory and therefor no more valid than what they already believe.
They are, by definition, unreasonable. Unfortunately, "unreason" is the common sense of the day because we "elite" thinkers don't represent "real" America.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't believe in evolution... (Score:2, Insightful)
There may be some question as to whether man evolved from apes (although the evidence is pretty overwhelming), but we can see evolution in other organisms occur literally before our eyes.
Re:Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)
The equivalency of validity between scientific theory (based on evidence, tested by observation, and refined to match the observe phenomenon) and belief (backed up by nothing more than "I said so") has gone too far in this world. I make the stand, not out of arrogance, but out of outrage. Belief != Search for Truth. Belief != Truth. Belief != Philosophical Introspection. Belief != Model of the Universe.
Unless you have EVIDENCE to offer for your claims, I say shove them. Even a well reasoned argument will suffice. But if your theory requires acoutremant like an omniscient daddy sitting in the sky tossing death rays down at us to make it work with no particular need for him given the observed phenomenon, then it is quite frankly invalid. Now, you can preach to those mistaken fools who are silly enough to swallow your garbage, but quit equating what you do to science and philosophy.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with this whole "it's just a theory" argument is that the word "theory" is ambiguous. It's just like "free speech" vs. "free beer".
In science "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. A theory is a logical explanation or a testable model for a given natural phenomenon.
In common language, however, theory refers to conjecture or opinion. Thus the confusion.
String theory is the former, but it is incomplete. It has yet to be adopted by the scientific community as a proven theory because there are no accepted methods of testing it. In other words, it is a work in progress. To nitpick about calling string theory a "theory" is like nitpicking about a computer program that isn't finished being coded yet being called a "computer program". No matter which side of the fence you decide to sit on you'll be right. It's not technically a program yet because it's incomplete. But to say that it's not a program raises the question of what to call it.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're religion says man was made of dirt that was created with the rest of the universe 6000 years ago by an invisible sky ghost in only 144 hours, then there IS conflict between science and religion.
You are making the big assumption that the "religion" you want to refer to is a very liberal, reformed, and enlightened one that is the very opposite of what their religious books tell them they are.
NOMA [wikipedia.org]sucks!
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure you can observe gravity and model it based on observation, but no one know what actually causes gravity or why it exists. There is no proven theory as to what gravity actually is.
However evolution can be observed and modelled. The process of selective genes being inherited from one generation to the next is observed, documented and can to some extent be predicted.
Given the above, I'd say evolution is more completely scientifically known than gravity.
Re:That's fair (Score:2, Insightful)
It forms the simplest and most complete explanation for a phenomenon.
It must be testable, and capable of being disproven--and, having been extensively tested, must not have been disproven.
It must be capable of being used to predict how a phenomenon will happen.
It must be entirely consistent with nature--no supernatural allowed, because supernatural events have nothing to do with science, and we're talking about scientific theories here.
Unless a hypothesis fulfills these constraints--and -all- of these constraints--it is not a theory.
My argumentation style in these matters is generally along the following lines: to stick to facts that cannot be denied, and to construct, using basic logic, the conclusion that is being denied from these undeniable facts. This technique has proven useful in the past--though it always could use improvement.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
No one has witnessed Macro-Evolution (changes from one species to another).
Until you prove that the mechanism for "micro-evolution" is different than the mechanism for "macro-evolution", then belief one is belief in both.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
EVERY description of how things work in science is a theory. This does not mean it is not also a fact. The only things that are called "laws" are only called that for historical reasons; if thermodynamics were developed today it would be called a theory.
Any theory can be disproven at any time by presenting a contradictory, repeatable example. If a contradictory example is given, then the theory can either be modified or replaced. Theories can never by absolutely proven. Supporting evidence can pile up. The most convincing evidence to support theories is if they make predictions which we can then test and find them to be true. However, any theory can be struck down at any time.
The fact that evolution is STILL a valid working theory after over 100 years is testament to its strength. It's been modified a few times but never displaced. After so many years and thousands of challenges, there is still no credible evidence or experiments that disprove it. That means that even if it's not entirely accurate, it's nearly certain that it's pretty damn close to the mark.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
The driving force behind religion is - in my opinion - social pressure. If your parents are christian, you'll be a christian too. Not because it is testable that it is the only true religion, but a) because you are indoctrinated from day one, and b) because your environment won't allow you to think differently. You won't "fit in" anymore. Just think what happens when two people with different religions want to mary. In extremis, even today, young people are killed by their own family because they want to mary somebody with a different belief. Now that's an extreme case, but it clearly shows how strong social pressure can be. The family rather kills it's own than to have to go through the shame. The individual feels the pressure of the family, and the family feels the pressure of the community.
That's why they want to propagate ID by law instead of scientific proof. It's totally in line with how religion works.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:1, Insightful)
One thing that I am constantly amazed about is that people implant their own logic into Evolution; DNA does not have an agenda. It does not wake up one day and say "over the next 100 generations, I'm going to grow wings and fly!". No, it would create a flap that hinders the movement of the arms or legs and the creature would die, due to the "survival of the fittest" logic (see the Theory of Evolution).
Charles Darwin wrote that slight changes can occur which, if beneficial, will continue into the next generation. It is a HUGE leap from this to saying that "We all came from fish". It is not correct to look at fossils and assume that one came from another because they look similar. Without scientific proof (Please, show me how fish can grow lungs to breath only air, without compromising their current breathing system) all you have is a pretty chart.
Re:The news media is a major part of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:2, Insightful)
When you have two positions (science vs. religion), based on diametrically opposed systems of thought (reason vs. faith), reaching contradictory conclusions about the way the universe works (physical processes vs. magic), how can they not be at odds? I keep hearing feel-good platitudes about how science and religion can coexist peacefully, but I don't see how when their spheres of influence overlap and each teaches that the other is completely wrong. If one person tells you that 1+1=2, and another person is telling you that 1+1=9, they are going to be at odds. One of them is wrong. And when there's as much at stake as the reason vs. superstition debate that seems to have taken over American politics, pretending the conflict doesn't exist is foolish.
And leave your 'Science teaches how, and religion teaches why' at home, please. Science is happy to leave moral questions alone, but religion can't seem to keep its fingers out of questions of empirical knowledge. This current debate is proof of that.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
or this paper that shows "allopatric speciation by reproductive isolation in Drosophila pseudoobscura fruit flies after only eight generations" [Dodd, D.M.B. (1989) "Reproductive isolation as a consequence of adaptive divergence in Drosophila pseudoobscura." Evolution 43:1308-1311.]
or a similar paper using other fruit flys [Kirkpatrick, M. and V. Ravigné (2002) "Speciation by Natural and Sexual Selection: Models and Experiments" The American Naturalist 159:S22-S35 DOI]
or any of the genetic evidence for speciation [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hadn't heard this! Great news! How?
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Pick a harder one, like why the human retina is such a lousy design and that of the octopus is so much better.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what's so silly about these debates; it's as if the people setting the standards haven't the slightest idea what it is scientists have been doing since the end of the Dark Ages. How many of them boast college degrees? That's the number of colleges that need to take a serious look at their science requirements.
Re:Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:3, Insightful)
For the record, I am an ex-Christian who's tired of the shitty creation-vs-evolution "debate" coming from the two most vocal camps. I tend to side with the evolutionists in the role creationism should play in our education system (namely, none in science, maybe a footnote in religious courses), but unfounded attacks like this (and they fly both ways, so don't think you're off the hook, creationists) make me wonder why I should even give a shit. It's like all of your minds are already made up, and not only that, but everyone else *must* adhere to your point of view or they're "deeply, persistently and fundamentally fucked-up."
I know that the great religious thinkers of the past would be severely disappointed with the creationists' tactics and attitudes. I don't doubt for a second that the same goes for the great scientific thinkers' assessment of the evolutionists.
*I don't claim that banning religion results in a fucked-up society any more than allowing religion does, merely that it has little bearing on how fucked-up a country is.
Re: Evol vs. evol-ution (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's the problem. The word "evolution" is being used in two very different senses. The differences of scale do, indeed, make the words very different.
One use is for the small changes within a species over time. The "bird beaks". The deterioration of vision in humans. MRSA. These are all things that genetics easily explains. These are all evolution "facts".
The other sense covers "origin of life". Sludge turned into slime which turned into fish which turned into whatever. That's the "big E" Evolution. And yes, I know, I'm oversimplifying it alot. These are all the "could be's". These are all the ones where nobody was there to actually see it happen, so it's a theory that it is how it DID happen.
Two very different senses: these things were observed vs. these things we think happened. These observed facts vs. a theory about how unobserved results were obtained.
It is almost inevitable that whenever someone who argues for the latter, Big-E Evolution meets someone who doesn't believe in the Big-E version, the believer switches to talking about the little-E version and insults the non-believer for ignoring the "facts" of little-e evolution.
Yes, MRSA "evolved". That's a fact. A genetic mutation in non-MRSA resulted in a strain that was resistant. Simple genetics, and we can duplicate it in the lab as well as observe it in nature. Little-E evolution occurs.
BUT, little-E evolution does not prove Big-E Evolution. "This can happen" is not proof that "this did happen".
That's why "the theory of evolution" refers to Big-E evolution and is quite accurate in claiming that it is, indeed, only a theory. Science will not ever be able to convert Big-E evolution into a fact, since there is no method of proving how something DID happen, only ways to show how it COULD HAVE happened.
Maybe Big-E evolution did happen. Maybe the world was created to look as if it did. You cannot differentiate between the two, and little-E evolution does nothing to prove or disprove either.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
There is plenty of non fossil data. Most obviously from domestic animal/plant breeding and parasites becoming resistant to drugs.
Possibly the issue here is that there are people who dislike the idea of human activities being "natural selection" as much as a change in ecosystem created by soil erosion.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Man, ALL religion is crazy... (Score:4, Insightful)
It works out great. By being second in command you get all the power and its trappings, great food, great sex, great place to live and the best part is you can pass the buck to the guy in charge if things seem to be going awry. It's actually a much better thought out scam than politics.
I'd be all for it if it wasn't for this demand of universal ignorance they call faith.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Evol vs. evol-ution (Score:3, Insightful)
Science will never convert evolution (whether you use a big e or a little e) into a fact, because in science all explanations and generalizations are theories. Facts are observations, like "All known differences between the DNA of different vertebrate species are of the type created by mutation." Any interpretation, e.g. "These facts argue that all known species arose by common descent" is theory.
"I dropped a book and it fell to the ground" is a fact.
"All masses are subject to a gravitational attractive force" is a theory.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not wrong, it's incomplete in extreme situations. To simplify for people like you, it means it works but has to be refined in certain conditions, ie. on the scale of very small, very large and very fast. Go read a book already.
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:2, Insightful)
That would be a problem, considering that the sun was created only on the fourth day.
Re:Devils advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes.
Sure, creationists would like it to be thrown away entirely, but as long as we have scientists, that simply will not happen.
. There are worse problems in public schools than a bunch of nutcases wanting their crazy beliefs taught as if they were science.
Weapons, and drugs are worse problems. However if your local school has such problems it has failed completely to BE a school.
There is no evidence that will convince a creationist that he is wrong. If Jesus Christ personally appeared in front of John Q. Creationist
The only way to prevent an increase in the number of such people is to give them enough understanding to accept the scientific method. They need to be exposed to this with an open mind early on in life and given plenty of examples if you want to prevent their being brainwashed by their parents/culture. Note that unlike the people that would indoctrinate them, all you need is exposure. The scientific method makes sense. A lot of complex science goes against your intuition but NOT the scientific method.
so let's just ignore them..
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is, of course, a problem in itself because you have plants before a sun. Ignoring suggestions that God could sustain the plants without the sun, it is clearly contrary to any reasonable scientific sequence of events.
Bottom line is that Genesis has a lot of obvious problems if understood literally... the least of which is the length of a "day."
-matthew
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:3, Insightful)
Well I have news for you. Newton STILL is the last word on gravity for our our frame of existence. Now if you can get near the speed of light, then some of the additional effects that Einstein theorized may come into effect. Nobody has been able to test that part of Einstein's theory yet. So for now, Newton's apple still falls as he said it does.
(......fish and humans have a common ancestor..........)
All we can say from what we observe TODAY is that all fish ancestors are always only fish. All humans come only from humans also. Nobody has ever seen anything else. We can observe what happens today, but we can only guess and conjecture about what happened in the past. Observation and experiment is science. Conjecture and guesswork is philosophy and/or religion.
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:1, Insightful)
I am still amazed that there are a group that is so feveret to remove god or any superiors being from our existence that they would believe that we all got here by mere chance. But these same people refused to believe that the Nazca Plains and pyramids were created by natural weather and erosion. Look at pyramids, they exist in various forms in multiple locations on earth, and we have found them in area without any current civilization around them.
If we are here purely by chance then it's unlikely that we are the only civilization or even the first to have archived our current technology level. We are almost at the point were we could send out huge colony ships to search for other worlds and explore and/or colonize them. Prove to me that we aren't really the result of an alien expedition that brought life to this planet millions of years ago and at some point suffered a calamity which caused them to lose all their technology and revert to the prehistoric cave men status. Why couldn't be even be the result of a penal colony, descendants of men and women who were sent to this world millions of years ago? Can you even convince me that where is no superior beings in the universe that could have manipulated our ancestors?
Re:I accept evolution and I know God is real. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmmm....
Nope... those Christians literalists are still just bananaboat batty homophobic asshats.
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Re:Jesus Fucking Christ (Score:2, Insightful)
Viruses certainly and bacteria go though millions of generation is a reasonable amount of time. Experiments with these have NEVER, even once made a different kind of virus or bacteria through huge numbers of generations.
If your premise were correct, at some point we should have seen by now at least one "arbitrarily large" change from say an HIV virus to some other type, such as maybe ebola or any of the other known or even unknown viruses. Viruses and bacteria, as all life forms, can evolve to cope with environmental stresses, but so far have been demonstrated to remain essentially as they are, even though innumerable generations.
My alternate theory is that all life forms were created by God similarly to the fact that all automobiles, airplanes, bicycles, horse drawn buggies and other transportation machinery were invented by people. Motorcycles don't evolve into automobiles and apes don't evolve into humans.
We can and do how learn these life forms work and put them to use for our benefit. However, figuring out how all life got here is not provable scientifically. I think that scientists have enough to do, trying to figure out how things work today, without conjecturing how it all came to be, since that is merely belief, not science.