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Science

Evolution Endorsed by Steves 191

Posted by michael from the truth-is-stranger dept.
Genrou writes "National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has started an interesting and unusual project. Project Steve gathered about 220 scientists - almost all holding PhDs in all areas of science, and inlcuding two Nobel prize winners, eight members of the National Academy of Sciences, and several well-known authors of popular science books - signed a statement on the importance of teaching evolution and against intelligent design. The unusual part is that all of them are named Steve. Eugenie C. Scott, the executive director of NCSE, explained: "Creationists are fond of amassing lists of PhDs who deny evolution to try to give the false impression that evolution is somehow on the verge of being rejected by the scientific community. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Hundreds of scientists endorsed the NCSE statement. And we asked only scientists named Steve -- who represent approximately 1% of scientists.""
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Evolution Endorsed by Steves

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  • In other news (Score:4, Funny)

    by Green Light ( 32766 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:09AM (#5351590) Journal
    Hundreds of years ago, the vast majority of "scientists" believed that the Earth was flat! Like a pancake!

    • Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:42AM (#5351728)
      Hundreds of years ago, science was sponsored by the church.

    • Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)

      by foistboinder ( 99286 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:51AM (#5351792) Homepage Journal
      Hundreds of years ago, the vast majority of "scientists" believed that the Earth was flat! Like a pancake!

      There are some problems with that statement:
      1. The earth was know to be round since the time of the ancient Greeks, possibly earlier.
      2. Hundreds of years ago there really weren't any of what we would call scientists or a scientific community
      • Hundreds of years ago there really weren't any of what we would call scientists or a scientific community

        Sure there was... They were just wealthy land owners, whom were often considered 'eccentric'; In other words: people who could afford to play around with science. This is in a stark contrast to say, the peasants whom had to work like dogs just to keep themselves malnourished. I'll try to avaoid 'rant mode', but it's frequently forgotten that the whole concept of intellectual property is what has allowed many of us modern-day 'peasants' to feed our children by pursuing science.

        Before that, nearly all the notable scientists were aristocracy-- the highest of the upper-class. Newton, Laplace, Fourrier-- all upper-class, wealthy men. And they are more modern examples. Benjamin Franklin, whom many of the /. crowd seems to love quoting (because he gave his inventions away) was also quite wealthy -- he gave away his inventions because, quite simply, he could afford to. It's amazing how easy altruism comes when you don't have to worry about feeding a family; it's also quite interesting to note that most of the hardcore anti-intellectual property advocates are single. Sure, there's the rare exception like Gregor Mendel, whom was a monk; how he escaped not being burned as a heretic is something I'm quite curious about.

        Linus may be married -- but he's also not a rabid enemy of the concept of intellectual property.

        The same is true of thousands of other free software & open-source developers.

        You just can't afford to give away all your work for free when you have children to feed.

      • Re:In other news (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Ted_Green ( 205549 )
        Anyone who sailed far distances where there were moutains You can see the land apear to sink below the horizon. (Thus the earth must be curved.)
        I'm not too sure on wheter one can see a ship "sink" beneath the horizion though before it's lost sight of.

        Likewise one can gather the "shape" of the earth by observing lunar eclipses.

        As far as scientists... *shrug* depends on what you mean. There were certianly emperisists. And there were definitly those who aproached things with somthing similar to the scientific method.

        Aristotle for instance... indeed zoological clasificaions are a reminante of his science.

        Though if you mean more the paradigim in which science tends to work...for instance, the idea that a few fundemental "external" forces can account for the actions of an object rather than the inherient "internal" properities of that object (the differnce between us explaining an arrow's flight as a result of air reistance, gravity and inertia rather than airstotle's explainination of the arrow having the properities of "swiftness" and "heaviness").

        I find the similarites between Plato and Airistotle arguing over the valdidty of the forms with prominant physicsts arguing over the valdity of the "big crush" quite ... singular (haha, stupid black hole joke)

        Ultimatley I'm not sure the *True* validity of anything. In all honesty I think we pick a paradigm and go with it, part out of stuborness (or an unwillingnes.. or even an inablity to think outside the box) but a great deal due to the results it brings us.

        In this time and this place, science (as we know it) meets some of our deeper goals and desires... not sure what those might be in a 100 years though.

        Sorry. Went off on a tangent there just putting some thoughts down to clarify them later to myself. Wasn't an argument against your post, since I agree with it anyways =]
      • 1. The earth was know to be round since the time of the ancient Greeks, possibly earlier.

        So? A lot of what was known to the classical civilizations was lost during the dark ages (at least in Europe). And then there not only was common sense ("If earth were flat, things on the bottom would just fall down."), but also the fact that the Bible was to be take literaly.

        Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
        See, it says "above" and "below", not "around". How can the earth be round if the Book says otherwise? Upon the stake with you, heathen! (BTW, that covers point 2.)
      • Not only they the ancient Greeks know that Earth was round, Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth to within .4% of today's best measurements using simple geometry. See here [google.com]

    • Flat Earth (Score:4, Funny)

      by ENOENT ( 25325 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @02:54PM (#5355081) Homepage Journal
      Yes, hundred of years ago, the Earth was flat, but there's been quite a bit of inflation since then.

  • Modern science (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ahy ( 536546 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:12AM (#5351601)
    If we apply this scientific method to computer science, Microsoft could have collected 220 computer specialists telling the world that Linux is bad, and everyone would have to agree.

    --
    ah.
    • If we apply this scientific method to computer science, Microsoft could have collected 220 computer specialists telling the world that Linux is bad, and everyone would have to agree.

      Yeah, really. Science by majority vote? What kind of bullshit is that? Besides, one of the main postulates of modern science states that scientific theories must be falsifiable, that is, you're looking to construct hypotheses which can be demonstrated to be false by experiment; advancements in science are only brought by demonstrating the weaknesses in a particular theory, and coming up with a better one.

      • Re:Modern science (Score:5, Informative)

        by kasparov ( 105041 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @09:36AM (#5352050)
        From the FAQ:

        Well, is this some kind of joke, then?

        Yes and no. Creationists are fond of circulating statements denouncing evolution signed by as many scientists as they can muster, with the intention of conveying the impression that evolution is a theory in crisis. The point of Project Steve is to demonstrate, in a lighthearted manner, that, on the contrary, the status of evolution within the scientific community is secure. But the signatories realize that science is not conducted by voting.

        • From the FAQ:

          Hey, this is Slashdot! I'm not supposed to have read the article before spouting off opinions ;-)
        • The problem is there is no way to prove either method is true. A theory is a theory because it cannot be proven as a law--no matter what you say Evolution as the way all life on Earth began will always be a theory. In the end, it all comes down to what you believe--or what some would call faith.
          Evolutionists say, "see we are showing how this organism is evolving from this to this", but you can't say the same thing applies to everything else in the world! They can find all the skeletons they want, but it will still not prove humans evolved from some other primate. To fully prove this, you would need a seamless line of skeletons showing minute differences in features of a period over time. There is no garentee that the skeletons are not a line of freak mutations from another primate species evolving to an almost similar being as a human. Currently, there are jumps in the human evolution path with speculation used to fill in the missing skeleton evidence. Can site DNA all you like, but unless you see it happen in humans throughout our entire exhistance, it's not necessarily true.
          For all their scientific theory, scientists don't seem think very clearly. There is far too much of a balance in the world for it to to have occured by chance instead of by design. The balance is like balancing the Statue of Liberty on the head of a pin. It's too delicate to have happened by chance. Scientist are always changing there minds, and even the "laws", when they get new "views" into the data, and it's even possible that none of them are correct. What's considered to be law now might just be changed in the future because of a new "view" into the data.
          For the record, Creationism and Intelligent Design are not really the same things. Intelligent Design basically states that creation had a designer, but it doesn't rule out evolution. It is not tied to one religion (it is supported by many religions) and makes no real claim on who the designer is/was in the grand scheme of things.
          Creationism is a Jewish/Christian belief, and it doesn't rule out evolution. Creationism is a belief that God created the the Earth and the entire universe. There is a Professor (a Physicist I belive) who wrote a very detailed book going into the science of Creationism and how it relates to Evolution.
          The idea that the Universe wasn't designed by someone is stupid, maybe if we, as a species, live long enough science will realise the stupidity of some of their ideas.
          • There is far too much of a balance in the world for it to to have occured by chance instead of by design.

            Some would argue that chance would inevitably lead to the delicate balance you see in the world. In nature, what works tends to survive and reproduce. After a significant passing of time, it's amazing how ordered everything can appear.

            I fail to see the significant difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design. Both require a Creator(a god), and neither rule out evolution. Just because different groups of people accept one or the other doesn't make them substantially different.

            Scientists are doing the best they can to discover and verify the origin/age/nature of the universe--and they are working a lot harder at it than those who merely accept what Moses (who obviously didn't witness the Creation he wrote about) wrote a few thousand years ago.

            Far be it from me to call anyone's belief system "stupid" as you do in your post; each of us is entitled to view the world as we see fit. I just happen to place a lot less stock in faith than I once did. I like tests. I like results. I like verifiable data. Although, as you say, it may be impossible to ever know for certain what our origins are, we can look at the various theories available and choose the one that best fits the available data. And you're right again--our view of the world might change from time to time as more data becomes available. But I prefer this to a stagnant view of the world based on a limited set of data obtained from a set of writings that are thousands of years old. Again, just my preference.

          • Creationism is a Jewish/Christian belief, and it doesn't rule out evolution.
            ...then you must be reading some very different stuff than what I've seen. Creationism presumes that the bible is a source of physical knowledge. Scientists aren't supposed to make such assumptions.

            And another thing: Creationism has nothing to do with Judiasm whatsoever. Jews take a highly alegorical view of the Hebrew Bible. Whether or not the physical things in it really happened is irrelevant. The important thing to them are the social truths. Creationism is irrelevant to Jewish thought.

            Creationism was made up by biblical literalists. There are some who believe that the bible must not be interpreted in any way, and that it is literally true in every detail. Unfortunately, this point of view is often focused on just one translation of the bible, while glossing over details such as mysterious idioms or words which appear in just one context for which the actual definition is lost in time. Yes, even those who read the original Old Hebrew and Greek biblical texts have questions as to what it actually says.

            So those who advocate Creationism as a serious field of science have a far bigger mess under the rug to answer than most scientists who discount it.

    • Re:Modern science (Score:3, Insightful)

      by KeyserDK ( 301544 )
      No, this is actually a better evidence than 220 people with no specific names. Statiscal that is, i think that is some of the (intentioned) phun =). Picking a specific name is merely a way saying that the selected persons were chosen randomly of out every ph.d out there.

      Picking out 220 ph.d's out of every ph.d in the US. and they end up having the same stance on a particular issue is not much prove at all as you say. There is no one who can claim that they are truly choosen randomly, and therefore representing the rest of the ph.d's

      However if you say that all them must be named steve you have chosen a group (hard to prove otherwise) that they have been elected randomly out of all the ph.d's.

      If this group then have a particular stance on a issue it is well proven that it could represent all of ph.d's in the US

      This however doesnt prove _anything_ about the particular issue, but it does say something about what the opinion of the ph.d's in general are.

      • If this group then have a particular stance on a issue it is well proven that it could represent all of ph.d's in the US
        Honestly, I think it does more to show evidence in favor of intelligent design than anything else.
    • No, they'd have to find 220 computer specialists telling the world that windows was good. The $220 million cost would probably be OK for Mr Gates.

    • Re:Modern science (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Genrou ( 600910 )
      Actually, they didn't mean to vote on what is the best theory to explain why man came to be - as in "a lot of scientists believe that evolution is real, so everybody needs to agree".

      In fact, this list was made not for this purpose, but as a joke on what creationists use to do - to collect signatures of people who doesn't believe in evolution in a (vain) effort to make it less popular.

      NCSE is doing that exactly to prove that this kind of list doesn't prove anything. If creationists can gather a lot of signatures saying that evolution is not good, scientists can do the same in favor of evolution (and they - as a homage to Stephen J. Gould), only receive signatures from Steves.

      Not much more than that.

    • Microsoft could have collected 220 computer specialists telling the world that Linux is bad, and everyone would have to agree.

      Only if they are all named Linus...
      ;- )
    • Microsoft could have collected 220 computer specialists telling the world that Linux is bad

      (1) Steve Ballmer
      (2) Steve Jobs
      (3) ...

      -

  • Creationists taking biblical text out of context (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jcasey ( 264935 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:14AM (#5351608)
    The major mistake that creationists make is their attempt to interpret biblical information in a scientific context. It should be noted that the author(s) of the book of Genesis did not write the story of the creation in order to teach how the world came to be, rather it was written to express a spiritual concept - that of a parental higher power, god, or divine origin that preceedes mankind. It suggests that this god preceedes mankind and is therefor not man made. Mistake number two is trying to create a scientific theory that justifies this misinterpretation (putting the cart in front of the horse)
    • Just out of curiosity, how do you know what the author(s) of the book of Genisis meant when they wrote it?

      I mean is there somekind of secret page 0 where it says,

      "It should be noted that the author(s) of the book of Genesis did not write the story of the creation in order to teach how the world came to be, rather it was written to express a spiritual concept - that of a parental higher power, god, or divine origin that preceedes mankind."

      or something?
      I sure haven't seen it when I've read it.
    • Depending on the branch of Christianity, the bible can also be interpreted in various ways.

      I'm Protestant, as my associate pastor once explained to our youth group, "While the Bible may have originally been the Word of God, it was orally passed down by people for centuries, written down by a person, and later translated by other people. As such it is not necessarily accurate."
    • The major mistake that creationists make is their attempt to interpret biblical information in a scientific context.

      I agree with that statement. They have it completely backwards.

      Creationists should be interpreting scientific information in a biblical context.

    • Niether you nor the creationists know the real intentions of the Middle Eastern sheperd or farmer or group of them that wrote Genesis.

      The creationists give a literal meaning, you don't and there lies the problem: what such a book says is fully open to subjective interpreatation (no wonder there are so many Xain sects).

      I personaly don;t want to see such a book used as the base of sceintific endeavours of any kind, including biology.

  • Sampling Error (Score:4, Funny)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot AT elliotjohnson DOT com> on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:20AM (#5351633) Homepage
    I'm not so sure the sampling of only egg-heads named Steve is really random enough to be representative.

    What would the results be if you only asked scientists named Mohammed?

  • Thanks for that cooperation (Score:4, Funny)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @08:29AM (#5351676) Homepage
    Finally!

    I'm so happy that Steves endorses Evolution!

    Thanks M. Ballmer, thanks M. Jobs!

    Finally a free PIM for all platforms!

    And they are so humble at Ximian's they don't even report the news on their website!
  • Great! First the Eric Conspiracy ( http://secretlabs.ericconspiracy.org/ ), now the Steve Conspiracy...
  • Honesty is the best policy.
  • My name is Steve (OK, it's actually Stephen).

    I disagree, I don't endorse evolution... but I guess my opinion doesn't count, as I don't have a PhD (or any other doctorate).

    And since this is an article about Steve's, why does it list someone called Eugenie "Steve" C. Scott?

    Are there 220 non PhD Steve's (or Stephen, Esteban, or Stephanie, as the site states) that want to join me in a non-endorsement of Evolution (and I don't mean the Ximian product!)

    -Steve

    • Re:Here's a Steve that disagrees (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vallee ( 2192 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @09:40AM (#5352079)
      > My name is Steve (OK, it's actually Stephen).

      > I disagree, I don't endorse evolution... but I
      > guess my opinion doesn't count, as I don't have
      > a PhD (or any other doctorate).

      > And since this is an article about Steve's, why
      > does it list someone called Eugenie "Steve" C.
      > Scott?

      > Are there 220 non PhD Steve's (or Stephen,
      > Esteban, or Stephanie, as the site states) that
      > want to join me in a non-endorsement of
      > Evolution (and I don't mean the Ximian product!)

      > -Steve

      What an ironic plan you've got there, Steve!

      All you would prove by doing this is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to believe in evolution. This will just play into NCSE's hands, don't you think, about the teaching of evolution? :-)

      How about 220 PhD Steve's non-endorsing evolution... what, too hard? lol

      Paul
    • They say they allowed people who have Steve as their middle name if those people used their middle name instead of their first name in everyday life.

  • RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by yarbo ( 626329 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @09:30AM (#5351997)
    The article isn't saying evolution is right (that's another debate). It's saying that the scientific community is nowhere near about to reject it.

    • Re: RTFA (Score:3, Informative)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


      > The article isn't saying evolution is right (that's another debate). It's saying that the scientific community is nowhere near about to reject it.

      FYI, it's a sort of satire on the play made by the fans of "Intelligent Design" for the Ohio state school board last year, where they sought to descredit evolution by publishing a letter signed by fifty scientists who rejected the theory of evolution, or at least called for giving equal time to the alternatives. It turned out that about half of those "scientists" were professors of mechanical engineering, dental surgery, and the like, who are not normally considered scientists at all - let alone experts on evolution. The other half (26 or 27 of the 50, IIRC) still generously includes mathematicians, chemists, etc., who can in fact be considered scientists, though not exactly heavyweights when it comes to biological theories. I don't remember the count, but there certainly weren't many biologists among the 50.

    • I think it's really sad that in this day and age scientists still have to waste time and money to defend themselves (and the rest of us) against the misguided and plain wrong superstitions and ignorance of previous centuries. Why is this phenomenon so prevalent in the USA? It's practically unheard of in Western Europe. Why is the USA so backward?
  • I wonder if all these scientist would also have signed a statement like:
    • I hereby declare that I am the product of a random process that happened by change. That I am not more than the sum of a very complex physical process. Although I do experience some kind of consciousness, I declare that it is a mere illusion produced by my brain. The logical consequence from this position is also that I do not have a free will, and that as far as I do think that I have a free will, this is a mere illusion. My actions are completely defined by the past. It is purely by change that I signed this statement. It is the result of some random physical process whoes nature is beyond my comprehension. (Actually, the concept of "comprehension" is an illusion as well.)
    • I fail to see that either side of the origins issue has to do with free will of the individual... but it are you saying that God and his "Divine Plan" gives you more freedom than being the result of random chemical reactions?

      And in the (paraphrased) words of George Carlin: "What's the use of being God when any shmuck with a $2 prayer book can come along and screw up your plan?"

      But I dunno, being made supposedly for a specific purpose seems a lot more restrictive than being here for no reason at all. :)
      =Smidge=
    • Although I do experience some kind of consciousness, I declare that it is a mere illusion produced by my brain. The logical consequence from this position is also that I do not have a free will, and that as far as I do think that I have a free will, this is a mere illusion. My actions are completely defined by the past. It is purely by change that I signed this statement. It is the result of some random physical process whoes nature is beyond my comprehension. (Actually, the concept of "comprehension" is an illusion as well.)

      Wow, very interesting claim there. And delightfully irrelevant to the topic, I might add.

      Tell me: If God is all-seeing and all-knowing, then doesn't He know what's going to happen in the future? And if God already knows what's going to happen, doesn't that mean that our destinies are set in stone, and we have no free will?

      (Bear in mind that answering "no" to the first question is an admission that God is not in fact omnipotent.)
      • And if God already knows what's going to happen, doesn't that mean that our destinies are set in stone, and we have no free will?

        No - your knowing that something will happen does not mean (or even imply) that you cause it to happen.

        Best analogy I can come up with: watch a movie. Now, watch it a second time. Do you know what's going to happen now? Yes. Did you actually cause it to happen? No - the actors, the directors, the editors did. They exercised their free will, and you are viewing the results. Because you are (essentially) looking at it from outside the moving-making space and time, you have a viewpoint similar to the one that God has from his "position" outside our space and time.

        • Best analogy I can come up with: watch a movie. Now, watch it a second time. Do you know what's going to happen now? Yes. Did you actually cause it to happen? No - the actors, the directors, the editors did. They exercised their free will, and you are viewing the results. Because you are (essentially) looking at it from outside the moving-making space and time, you have a viewpoint similar to the one that God has from his "position" outside our space and time.

          Ahh, but God is the director (and the writer, for that matter), is He not? When God created the world, didn't He already know exactly how it would all turn out? Couldn't He have chosen to do things a tiny, tiny bit differently and cause the future to play out in a different way?

          P.S. This post's original parent "I have no free will" seeded an interesting discussion, and deserves better than to be modded down as a troll.
          • Couldn't He have chosen to do things a tiny, tiny bit differently and cause the future to play out in a different way?

            Sure. Consider this, though: God is omnipotent, omniscent, perfect, and merciful:

            • Omnipotent - He created the universe.
            • Omniscent - He knew what the result of His creation would be.
            • Perfect - He is perfect, and is capable of perfect creation.
            • Merciful - He did not want puppets or slaves, so He created beings who may choose (or not) to worship Him
            Given those statments, this world - the one we're living in right now - is the best of all possible worlds. Depending on your viewpoint, you can either argue that this is proof positive that God does not exist, or an example of how devastating the effect of sin (the choice to do evil in the eyes of God) really is.
            • I think free will and the omniscience of God are always going to be concepts that conflict in my mind. Whether or not this is the best of all possible worlds, it remains that if God knows in advance what choices we make, then we are destined to make those choices.

              I suppose one possible resolution to this would be the idea that God sees time not only from start to finish, but also all possible alternate times as well, in which people made different choices [uidaho.edu].

              Also, I suppose I haven't really chimed in on the creation/evolution topic specifically... I myself lean toward intelligent design, but, by the nature of God (who could set things up from the Big Bang and know exactly how it would turn out in the end) there's no way to really know if God made it happen, or if it was all one big coincidence. In that sense, I don't really believe that evolution and intelligent design conflict at all, and I see no reason to exclude one or the other.
    • You mean first-posters have to do it?

    • I wonder if all these scientist would also have signed a statement like: [snip]

      "Random process" - change is random, the selection of fit individuals is not random.

      "Mere illusion" - illusion, maybe. "Mere" certainly not. Consciousness is extremely useful.

      "I do not have free will" - non sequitur. Actions are defined by the past, yes, but there are several problems with trying to predict the state of the brain from its past history. It is a complex, nonlinear system, which means that classical chaos causes us problems. Add quantum uncertainty to that and you have enough noise in the system to make prediction of its future state impossible. This is probably where "free will" comes from.

      Oh, and I'm guessing that they might have been able to spell "chance", too.

    • I do not understand how you get from 'the sum of a very complex .. process' to 'I do not have a free will', and the other deterministic concepts you express.
    • Good. Then you know what a load of rubish you just wrote.

      And, assuming your 100% deterministic universe existed, then I will be the first to sign, since to find the truth about something is nothing shameful.

      I would have been also first on line to sign to an statemtn saying thet humans evolved from ape-like creatures. That statement is as potentially "explosive" as the one you cook up here.

  • They should have asked... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kopretinka ( 97408 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:02AM (#5352691) Homepage
    They should have chosen different names - they should have asked Adams and Eves. I don't know how the percentage would be affected, or the resulting numbers, but it would certainly be slightly more impressive. 8-)

    Oh, and it would include women scientists, too. 8-)

  • It's a Stephen Jay Gould tribute (Score:3, Informative)

    by WallyHartshorn ( 64268 ) <wally.hartshorn@nOSpAm.pobox.com> on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:03AM (#5352704) Homepage
    Read the article. They chose "Steves" as a tribute to Stephen Jay Gould, who recently passed away.

  • Steve Hawking (Score:3, Funny)

    by I am the blob ( 239590 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:12AM (#5352779) Homepage
    You all know MC Hawking's take on the subject, of course.

    Fuck the Creationists [imarc.net]

    Check it out at da Hawkman's Crib, j0.

    MC Hawking's Crib [mchawking.com]

    --blob
  • IMHO with all the recent 'safety-measures' we humans are applying around us we are prohibiting the further evolution of the human race. Back in the good ol' days if you did something stupid you croaked. Now you either can't do something stupid or we'll fix you up again.
    This results in the human race getting weaker, because we don't 'filter' out the weaklings anymore.
    I propose some sort of auto-darwination law in which all safeguards against 'stupid' actions should be removed. (Eg. no more airbags and seatbelts)

    It's the only way to further ourselves! ;-]

  • I seriously hope no one else initially thought that in addition to being able to find the best deals in Europe, Rick Steves [ricksteves.com] had suddenly thrown his hat into the evolution debate as well.

  • It's about the scientific method. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cornice ( 9801 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @01:31PM (#5353986)
    I am constantly amazed by this whole thing. Like it or not science and religion are both belief systems. Depending on what school you attend, you might have a class for each. Religion seems to think it's OK to subvert the scientific method while science (some science teachers anyway) seem to think it's OK to claim that science delivers truth.

    You keep your religions texts out of my science class and I'll quit stating theory as truth. Now are you happy? Didn't think so...
    • Even though I disagree with your opinion that science is a 'belief system', but I do agree that your viewpoint is a healthy one.

      Stop preaching in my school and I'll stop thinking in your church.

    • Like it or not science and religion are both belief systems.

      The Theory of Relativity and Santa Clause are also both belief systems, but that doesn't mean they are both intellectually equivalent.

      Religion seems to think it's OK to subvert the scientific method while science (some science teachers anyway) seem to think it's OK to claim that science delivers truth.

      Religion delivers truth with zero evidence (and proudly so), while science delivers truth with all the supporting evidence -- and a caveat that new evidence may change the conclusions.

      Science has a much better track record for delivering truth.

    • You don't believe in science. You test it, challenge it and create new assumptions that because have been tested help you to better understand the universe where you live. Actually somebody that does not believe at all in science is more useful to its advancement because poses more interesting questions, but there the usability ends.

      Compare that to religion in which you just have to accept whatever is thought to you. No wonder that in many religions sheep have a prominent symbolical place.

  • Only in the "Science curricula" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ggwood ( 70369 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @06:52PM (#5357400) Homepage Journal
    The statement only rejects the teaching of creationist pseudo-science in the science curricula. It does not say creationism should not be taught as a religious belief. I don't think any of the scientist would want these students to be intentionally not taught about relgion. Some of the religious opponents do want young people to be ignorant of the scientific evidence for evolution.

    It is probably wise to only include in the science curricula what has been arrived at via the scientific method. I don't think anyone believes creationism was arrived at via the scientific method.

    First, this is not to say that when two different disciplines contradict one another there should be no conversation on it. However, you first have to know what the disciplines are saying before you have a conversation. I am sure you are all aware that in the US there have been attempts to replace evolution altogether by creationism.

    Another example would be the Christian teaching that:
    Mark 10:25 - It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
    Verus the implicit "maximize your wealth" philosophy taught in economics classes.

    We should see both points of view and decide for ourselves - with their strengths and weaknesses. Scince should be taught in science classes, religion in social sciences, literature or religion classes.

    You probably would not read origional science texts as literature as they would not be great examples of writing. (Perhaps some are.) You should not read about religious beliefs which do not make very good science. (Perhaps some do.)

    Should there be more integration of knowledge from different fields together? Certainly - but only after the fundamentals are mastered. It is on this we should focus first because despite the well educated slashdot readers, there are many high school students who cannot read or write, and I know from personal experience that many, many of them here at Cal State University Northridge cannot do any algebra at all. I would trade in an instant all their knowledge of evolution for a single decent semester of math.

    Please, please remember how poor our education system is in America (please ignore if you aren't in America) before wasting breath and emotion on evolution. There are bigger fish to fry.
    • Mark 10:25 - It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

      This is probably a mistranslation. At least some Biblical scholars argue that the original Hebrew was "camel hair rope" rather than "camel". Makes more sense in context and the mistake would be easy to make.

  • Quotes... (Score:4, Funny)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@gd a r gaud.net> on Saturday February 22, 2003 @12:42PM (#5360813) Homepage
    "Evolution is a '
    theory', just like gravity. If you don't like it, go jump off a bridge."
    "Evolution is cleverer than you are."
    "I have encountered a few 'creationists' and because they were usually nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they were
    really mad or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created the whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading humankind?" -Arthur C. Clarke.
    "Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing: 'does not!'" -Dr.Pepper.
    "If those folks in Kansas are right about evolution never having happened, I sure hope it happens soon." -Michael Sheinbaum.
    "The creationists have this creator who is evil, who is small-minded, who is malevolent, and who is not very bright and can't even get his science right. Creationists have made their creator in their own image, in my view." -Ian Plimer, The Skeptic.
    "Believe in Darwin; cancer cures smoking." -Bumper sticker.
  • I am another Steve (not on the original list). I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry I also endorse evolution. I have two other friends, also named Steve. One has a Ph.D. in Physics, and the other has an MD. They both also endorse evolution. Seems to be a trend... 3 out of 3 Steves.

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