Evolution Named Scientific Achievement of 2005 943
lazy_hp writes "The BBC reports that research into evolution's inner working has been named rtop science achievement of 2005 From the article: 'The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year. The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution. The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.'"
And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually thank the bible for that one.
The bible states numerous times that the earth is "firm" and "immovable". Therefore it cannot be a sphere orbiting the sun now can it?
Also the bible references "earths four corners" something that's only possible if the earth was flat, and Daniel 4:10-11 references a tall tree that is visible to the farthest reaches of the earth. Also only possible if the earth was flat.
So if you take the bible literally, then you must believe in a flat earth.
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Funny)
Yup. Intelligent Design proponents claim to be following a literal interpretation of the bible, but they are not really.
If you really want to take it literally you have to go hardcore - go flat.
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Literal interpretation has to be view in the context it is in. An exeeding high mountain migh
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the ones you cited earlier were stated to be dreams, I don't see why I should bother to chase up more. Basically, I don't think the Bible says anything about this; the shape of the planet just is not a matter for theology. You keep stating the Bible says the world is flat, you're the one who has to support that.
One can only see all the Kingdoms if the earth was flat.
Firstly, I think if you saw the hemisphere centred on Israel, you could see all the kingdoms of the earth at tha
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just look on the horizon with a telescope -- you'll see a ship's mast come into view before the deck. Didn't this strike anyone as odd back then?
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact during the middle ages most people I understand thought it round as well.
The middle-eastern view seems to be that it was flat.
http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/ThreeTieredUnive
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the real winner of this in 2006 is the people who need a cheap labor source. After all,if you get a crap-ass education in one of these misguided school districts, it's going to be hard to get a job that pays more then minimum wage.
Some of the backers of ID are really just aiming to keep people uneducated and within control. Liberty will eventually win out-- the Catholics tried to control education and discourse 500 years ago, and they eventually
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. Just because someone presents an alternate conjecture about the accuracy of a scientific principle does not mean that said conjecture is automatically on the same level of legitimacy as whichever principle one seeks to disprove. If that were the case, I could argue that computers run on magic, and then protest when my theory of devine computation was not taught in computer science classes. The antecedents of ID are undoubtedly religious in nature; ergo, the conclusions postulated by ID proponents are derived from sources known to be false, or at the very least untestable. I said "effectively trampled on", because ID was rejected for being unscientific in this particular case.
ID, not being a scientific hypothesis, will *always* be rejected by legitimate scientists, due to the fact that it:
That is the fault of the defense, and I can't actually fault the judge on that count, from what I've heard at least. However, if ID ever gets a decent legal and scientific team on its side, we should make some headway.
While what you say is probably true, I find the truth of the statement to be a sad reflection on public education, and the gullibility of American Christians. Allow me to be blunt-- ID is not science, and no amount of legal or psuedo-scientific doublespeak will make it so. Science is a process wherein the natural laws governing the universe are explored, tested, pulled, stretched, and examined. A key aspect of scientific study is impartiality; which is to say that a true scientist will not endorse any particular outcome to an experiment until that experiment has been performed and tested by many independant researchers. ID differs from science in that the key promoters of its hypothesis begin with their own surity of their ideas, and then disregard conflicting facts.
Literal Creationism has at least four main tenets: - the earth is young, probably around 6000 years old - God created all "kinds" of animals within 6 evening-morning days (fish vs. birds vs. land mammals vs. humans, etc.) - the earth was devastated by a global flood early in its history - all humans descended from a single couple known in the English Bible as Adam and Eve
Allow me to rebut:
The Earth is not young. Carbon dating, fossil records, geology, atomic theory, astronomy, and many other scientific disciplines have all independantly dated the earth at more than four billion years old.
If God did create the world, and all the things in it, in six days, then how were days reckoned before the creation of the sun?
If God created all the animals, why were so many of them such complete failures as to become extinct?
If all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, then why the biblical prohibition on incest? And, furthermore, I am not a genetic researcher, but I'm fairly certain that thousands of generations of familial in-breeding would result in a rather, shall we say, shallow gene pool.
If it could be shown that any one of these propositions does not hold, then Biblical creationism would crumble. The fact that they are extraordinarily difficult to challenge certainly does not mean that creationism is not a scientific theory. Furthermore, all of the evidence we have ever uncovered and understand quite we
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:4, Insightful)
And to the second question above, science needs only to describe the natural aspects of the universe. That's what it's for. If you're looking for explanations that include the supernatural, then you need to look to something else because science is the wrong tool for that job. And to force the supernatural into science, is to render it a tool unfit for any job.
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Informative)
Much like Pascal's flawed wager, that argument might hold water if evolution and intelligent design were the only possible answers.
The government can maintain neutrality in one of two ways: either teach every single religious faith that is or has ever been held by
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Odd ideas will get support with evidence, it was only ~10 years ago that the idea of many ulcers being caused by bacteria was laughed at. Now it's accepted as fact. Creationism has never had a shred of evidence going for it, the promoters spend their time bashing science instead of looking for proof to support their ideas. Actually if memory serves the Discovery Institute(?) was formed to get said evidence. They've come up with nothing over the past decade and instead now attack science.
Just out of curiosi
Re:And the winner for 2006 is... (Score:3, Insightful)
aaaaaannnnnndd .... no. (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of your arguments seem to be based upon the evaluation of atheism as a religion. Humanism is a philosophy which is orthogonal to atheism; neither are they the same thing, nor is either one of them a religion.
As the man said, "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."
As the headline on fark.com said.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As the headline on fark.com said.... (Score:4, Funny)
careful i have a patent on intelligent falling... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:As the headline on fark.com said.... (Score:3, Funny)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Aw, what do I know?
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
How many people can I piss off or on today.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
The saddest part is that no matter how vast our understanding of evolution becomes, there will always be those who, for religious or logically unsound reasons, or just out of plain ignorance and misplaced incredulity, will reject it, and there will be those that wish to misrepresent or out-and-out destroy science simply to prop up their too-deeply held superstitions.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
ID proponents would be better served examining how evolution *validates* their viewpoint. Just because evolution doesn't specify an Intelligent Designer doesn't mean there isn't one, just that we can't prove one scientifically. For some reason, being unable to prove something scientifically means, to some people, it just doesn't exist.
I'm not a Christian, and I don't have a firm belief in any kind of God, but ID supporters are clearly looking at evolution the wrong way.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are prominent examples of *non-theists* who are proponents of ID (like Michael Behe and Francis Crick, for example - Google is your friend).
It's interesting to me that this whole thing has become a religious debate. I read the sticker that the Kansas school board wanted to attach to the textbooks and didn'
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
This is true of evolution as well, and in fact evolutionary theory is constantly being tweaked, like all other scientific theories.
Please also note that it is often unclear whether it's the theory that is problematic or whether it's the experiment (see cold fusion for a notorious example).
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
And so it is nothing but a waste of time in science class.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as Galileo, I am unaware of any "evolutionist*" zealot that have locked up and threatened to kill Michael Behe if he did not stop his assertions.
As for myself, I cannot say that I believe in evolution. I say I hold the opinion of evolution. And frankly, those stickers are absolutely redundent as suggested. It is a shame that the real principles of scientific inquery are not better taught.
*Evolutionists -- Perhaps I should get on the horn with some slick term maker and start calling a section of the population "Evolution-deniers"
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Observed phenomona often are. We observe heritable traits in populations changing over time. Do you also wish to have the Earth circling the sun taught as a "theory". Beyond that, the whole Kansas stunt demonstrates a purposeful attempt to confuse two usages of the word "theory". How is a bit of propagandistic wordplay a legitimate expression of the nature of a major scientific line of inquiry?
Maybe someday you ought to vist PubMed and look at the abstracts. Evolutionary theory, like all theories, is in constant development. Why would you think differently?
Which is in and of itself rubbish. The basic outlines of the Modern Synthesis are far less complex to outline than the intracies of the cosmology.
Even if your accusation were correct, Intelligent Design isn't science. It does not mean any of the requirements of a scientific theory. It is a legalistic stunt meant to sneak Creationism past the Establishment Clause. There is no research program into ID. It offers no predictions, no means of testing. The single known publication in a journal was through a nasty little editorial trick. In short, no scientists are doing any research into ID. Not even Behe is submitting ID to any journals, and most of the "work" on ID is in fact, oddly enough, being done by people who aren't scientists at all.
So you're right, I don't want my kids taught a rewording of Paley's old watchmaker argument. There is nothing new in ID, so even in that part of your argument, you get it wrong. As Judge Jones recognized, ID is nothing more than a restating of Creationism. Hell, even the only actual ID textbook was simply a search-and-replace of Creationism with ID.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you falling into the trap of confusing the colloquial definition of "theory" for the scientific definition? The Theory of Evolution is the basis of modern biology. You want to throw out modern biology because you think Evolution is not a fact? Do you have similar problems with the Theory of Electromagnetism being taught as "fact"? Does the fact that light exhibits behavior of a wave in some instances and as a particle in other instances invalidate the "old and outdated" Theory of Electromagnetism?
Are you also aware that ID teaches that the idea of speciation is wrong, that the various species were created essentially whole in an instant by an "Intelligent Designer? That is, birds did not develop from dinosaurs, but magically appeared with feathers, beaks, etc.
As John E. Jones III wrote in his judgement in Kitzmiller v. Dover:
You really need to get a hold of the full text of the judgement. It's quite an interesting read.
The Catholic church versus Galileo has nothing on today's evolution zealots.
The people that you call "zealots" seem to fall into non-mutually exclusive two groups:
1) Those that do not want the government to endorse a certain religious viewpoint.
2) Those that do not want children to receive a substandard education.
If you want to see zealotry in action I again highly recommend that you read the actual judgement. John E. Jones III outlines the zealotry of the school board and takes them to task for their zealotry.
To this date, no one has proposed a plausible alternative to the Theory of Evolution that hold up under the Scientific Method. Those people that you call zealots are generally those people that insist on reason, logic, critical thinking, and most of all, facts. If a devotion to facts makes one a zealot, then, please, call me a zealot.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Falsifiability (Score:3, Insightful)
The social problem with ID is that the people doing the pushing are religious bigots. Make no mistake about it. They're as open-minded as the taliban. They don't care whether it's scientific. They're not interested in a dialog or the truth. They have a
Re:Falsifiability (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not suggesting that dinosaur bones were "placed" everywhere, nor that already-eroded mountains were created; rather that dinosaurs were still alive as recently as 2,000 B.C. and those mountains eroded a lot faster
Re:Hmm...Can you say "String Theory"? (Score:3, Insightful)
A more subtle definition appears to be needed. Falsifiability is needed for many purposes, but it doesn't seem (to me) to be the bedrock of what is scientific.
Re:Hmm...Can you say "String Theory"? (Score:3, Insightful)
God killed my dog? No - and ID is wrong too (Score:3, Insightful)
People who know about these things (ie. not me but some guys on the radio with reputations) argue that ID isn't even good theology. The "God of the gaps" argument implies that God is reponsible for everything - even the stupid or nasty stuff. ID is apparently built on this. If you want to worship an evil vengeful and capricious God that fits I suppose - but aren't these people pushing ID supposed to be Chris
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Understand that some people live by faith or belief in something greater than "man is an animal". It doesn't make a difference to you does it? So how can it be "sad" if the people who believe in the Jesus, Hail Mary Mother Ghost of Alah or whatever, are happy believing in such?
I personally am not Protestant or into Judaism, but I don't wholly subscribe to the idea that I'm just meat. Finding out how about how my body did develop is a vital activity, on the other hand.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
If one finds happiness in slavery, is he still a slave? Is it still wrong to treat him as a slave? Even if not "wrong," is it still sad?
People don't take meat seriously enough (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the dismissive phrase "just meat" implies that there isn't much to it. In fact you can implement some incredibly cool things using "just meat". Intelligent life, for example.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the theory of evolution is supported by both strong scientific evidence and observation. It is also predictable.
One is the product of science, and belongs in a science class. The other is not.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
predictable is a result that could be predicted
predictive is a theory that makes predictions
One is a characteristic of a result, the other is a characteristic of a theory.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
You can't pick Evolution over ID as a scientific theory based on the evidence or on the testible hypothesis or on falsifiable hypothesis- the two are completely equivalent on those criteria, because the evidence used is exactly the same evidence. "God did it" and "Random Chance did it" are both theological statements that are logically indistinguishable from one another.
You claim that ID is not predictible- but since it predicts the exact s
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument actually collapses on itself, because you have essentially said ID does nothing but add a layer of complexity to evolution--a layer that is unnecessary, does not aid our understanding of the evolutionary process, and does not alter observational results.
That is exactly why I oppose ID being taught as an "alternative" or "replacement" for evolution. It is not, it is simply an ill-conceived modification designed to inject monotheistic dogma into a realm where it has no place.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
The other assumes an Unintelligent Designer instead- Random Chance.
Most mutations are the result of damage caused by disease, radiation, and transcription errors. Combining genes (as in sexual reproduction) can also produce unexpected effects. None of these rely on a designer, and "randomness" is an essential feature of our universe (per quantum mechanics).
And yet, the way it's been taught in the last 50 years- it does rely on one. It relies on random mutation as a driving creator. So does ID by the way- except in that case it's God doing trial and error testing. Without a creator, intelligent or unintelligent, pushing change- both ID and evolution would find a stable state and the changes would simply stop.
Except randomness is not an agent, it's a concept. It implies someone with intent is responsible for our evolution. Natural processes have no intent.
And why would God need to do trial-and-error testing to begin with? I should think He'd already know what to do.
Evolution never stops because the environment is not stable. Natural selection occurs in response to an ever-changing environment. If a group of people were isolated in an environment devoid of any change--in terms of population, knowledge, climate, anything--they would only evolve to optimally survive in that environment, then stop. We do not live in such a world.
Nope- because God is no more complex than the concept of a random and indeterministic universe. The two concepts are equally complex.
But randomness is observed, as we see the lack of a pattern. You can't observe God, which makes the idea useless to science.
Incorrect- without that motivating layer, whether intelligent as in ID or random as in evolution, there's no way for natural selection to happen. Life in the universe as we know it would reach a steady state- and never again evolve.
See my statements above about constantly-changing environments.
Then the idea of a random, indeterministic universe, which is ALSO a monotheistic, or maybe a better word would be ANTI-theistic, dogma, should not be injected into that realm either- in which case you can't teach evolution. The basic theory *does* require a motivator- the only argument is over what that motivator is.
I don't understand how the lack of mention of God makes something anti-theistic. At best, it makes it agnostic--it does not know if a God exists, nor does it attempt to prove one.
The burden of proof is on Intelligent Design to show us why evolution could only have happened with the aid of a Designer. ID proponents have yet to provide such evidence, while evolution has demonstrated amply that random mutation results in natural selection, without the need for a higher entity guiding the process.
As I said before, ID assumes a being with intent. Natural selection does not. And don't confuse random input with random output. The results of evolution are anything but random, which is the whole point of natural selection.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Replacing one religion with another doesn't help a bit. Quantum Mechanics is not predictible, and thus fails at the test of being a science by your own rules.
I'll assume you don't know much about quantum mechanics. QM tells us that while the motion of particles is random at a certain scale, their interactions ARE predictable. In fact, that is what QM does: it describes the interactions of particles. (I'll avoid a tangent discussing the school of thought that there is no such thing as particles, but rather a universe of intricate power-relationships. Google is your friend.)
A lack of intent is as much a theological concept as having intent; logically the two are completely equivalent. They do carry an emotional difference however, which is my theory on why the disparate concepts arose.
Lack of intent is not theological, it is observational. The randomness we have seen implies a lack of intent. If we saw patterns, we might assume intent. But the inputs to evolution are random. More specifically, they are random variations of a pattern. Natural selection culls disadvantageous mutations.
I think the real reason people get so hot and bothered about evolution is that it indicates we're Just Animals. There is no miraculous proof of a Creator. Evolution essentially tells us we aren't special, just lucky and adaptive. Some people can't deal with this, and have to believe in invisible men in the sky to give their lives meaning. I have no problems with people doing that, as long as they don't try to make everyone else believe the same way.
Evolution, as it is now, ignores theistic issues. Is there a God? Is there not a God? Evolution doesn't care, and doesn't attempt to prove it either way. This is the point IDers miss. Apparently, they can't leave well enough alone, but feel injecting a Higher Power into it is necessary. I don't think it is, and neither does most of the scientific community, or the US federal government.
Why would he know how to be a parent any more than the rest of us? That's a pretty big assumption you're making as to the definition of the word God.
I assume you're talking about other than the Judeo-Christian God, then. In which case, I might ask you to define "God" as it pertains to you.
Well, that's the other half that drives natural selection certainly. But that doesn't mean you can get rid of the first half. I don't understand that statement. Care to clarify?
Neither can you actually observe randomness, since a random spot is indistinguishable from a larger pattern.
That is actually a worthwhile point. The only way we can deal with that is to continue gathering data until we begin to see a pattern. For the time being, though, we don't see one, so we don't assume one. That's science: explain what you can prove, keep looking into what you can't.
Useless because it fails to identify the cause of the change- it's just another theological argument.
What cause have we failed to identify? If you want to talk about causes, then what caused God?
But that's the problem isn't it: it does attempt to prove the lack of existance of one.
No, it doesn't. The only implication is that God is not required to understand the explanation. Do you need God to understand how gravity works? Do you need God to do trigonometry? No. So, why do you need God to explain the evolution of life which, while we like to romanticize it, is essentially the cooperation of numerous chemical machines toward their mutual survival? I know most people like to wax poetic about what life is, but in terms of physics and chemistry, life may be complicated, but it is not impossible to comprehend by any means.
Too bad random mutation is in and of itself a higher entity, or else by occam's razor that would be true.
Only because you seem interested in anthropomorphizing it, which is a mistake. "Intelligence" itself is a construct. You have to get beyond such things.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, repeat after me: Mutation means nothing. It is an insignifigant force that basically means Jack to evolution. Mutations usually die off, and rarely get to reproduce.
The two key mechanisms for evolution are variation and selection.
Variation means is that in every population, there is some degree in the variation of physical traits. Tails vary in length, animals vary in height, there are variations in hair color and patterning, and so on.
Selection means that some members of a population are, for some reason or other, better suited at producing a larger number of viable offspring. This could be because they are more attractive to mates, or because they are better at getting food, or maybe they are better at defending against predators. Whatever the reason, some members produce more kids than others, in spite of the hazards of their surroundings.
Now, here's the kicker, and how this all works. When two members of a population mate, their genes basically get mixed together to produce the offspring. While the mixing is random, the genes supplied aren't, and so the offspring will tend to enjoy the same genetic benefits that the parents did -- when two tall people produce kids, their children tend to be tall. Likewise, when two members of a population have a lot of luck in producing kids, then their kids will likely also have good luck, and so their genes tend to spread more.
This is how evolution works. There's no magic, nothing more than a statistical shift in genetically-determined traits, which occurs in response to natural selective pressures.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Variance and selection explain a lot of how species change. Why a species of moths may change color over time, or a species of birds gradually get a longer beak. It doesn't explain very well how new species suddenly come about, hence the reason the anti-evolution crowd likes to point out the "gaps" in the fossil record. The gaps are wher
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, no it doesn't. ID makes no claim other than an unidentified supreme being started the ball rolling. However, ID doesn't even provide evidence to support that such a being exists. It starts by assuming a being does exist. That's not a prediction. That's a statement of fact unsupported by anything.
Further, if one is to believe what ID supporters say, "Things look they were designed", then that is patently false. Just because something looks like it was designed does not mean it was. I submit for your viewing pleasure the underwater rocks of Bimini. [google.com]
For decades people assumed that they were a road from a long ago civilization. However, once the rocks were tested they were found to be naturally occuring phenomenon.
ID makes no testable predictions. Even the Discovery Institute, the driving force behind this farce, provides no evidence to support their claim. None. All they do is try to point out supposed flaws in evolution, flaws which are repeatedly answered and shown not to be true but they keep spouting the same lies in the hopes the public is too stupid to realize they're lying.
In fact, you do the same thing. You keep saying there are flaws yet provide nothing to support your claim. That's not how the scientific method works. If you think your idea deserves attention you have to provide evidence to support your claim. To date no one, and I mean no one, has ever provided any evidence to support ID. They immediately turn around and say, "Well evolution doesn't provide evidence for 'X'" where X is whatever the flaw of the week is. Trying to poke holes in a current theory does not make your claim valid.
ID isn't science. Get over it.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution says nothing about the origin of life on Earth. It does provide for the possibility of abiogenesis, and there are many theories as to how this work, but they aren't part of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory simply tells us that organisms change (because their DNA changes) over time in response to their environment, and that the primary two mechanisms of this change are variation and natural selection.
Thus, evolutionary theory *is* testable, even in a lab -- you can take a fast-breeding species like the common fruit fly, apply artifical selective pressures, and watch the allelle frequencies[1] shift in real time compared to control groups. Dog breeding is another example; humans use a the natural mechanisms of evolution, but add in their own constraints in the selection and variation departments.
If you could prove, experimentally, that some other mechanism accounted for this; or even that it wasn't the combination of selection and variation that prompted observed shifts in allelle frequencies, then you would easily be able to disprove evolutionary theory as it currently stands, and would open up new realms in modern Biology.
Intelligent Design, on the other hand, says absolutely nothing about any of this; instead, it makes a claim about the origin of life that is by definition unfalsifiable, as it is vacuously true. Beyond this, discussion of ID as science is moot, because falsifiability is a prerequisite for ANYTHING to be considered a scientific theory. Want to prove me wrong? Give me a test scenario where ID can be invalidated through experimental results; after all, I just gave you one for evolution.
[1] For the non-genetically inclined reader:
Allelles are, if you will, defined points on the strand of DNA. Each group of allelles governs a set of physical traits, and each group of allelles can be populated by different genes, giving rise to different traits. For example, a single allelle governs the RH factor of your blood, so depending on what gene gets stuck in that allelle, which is determined by your parents' genetics, you are either RH+ or RH-. Since these points are well-defined, and produce physically observable characteristics, it is relatively easy to see the genetic change in a population over time, and link that change back to changes in the way the allelles are populated.
To the genetically inclined: I know this is a simplistic explanation, but I think it's adequate for the purpose of this post.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dog breeding for specific traits is an example of Intelligent Design using evolution (specialization and va
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
#1) The only currently scientifically observed "intelligent design" are the activities of human beings (breeding, genetic engineering),hardly GOD or supernatural beings
Agreed - there doesn't currently seem to be anything scientifically observable that would necessitate the existence of a supernatural Creator - if we observe something we have no natural explanation for, tha
I Beg to Differ on the Prediction Prediction (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think this is true or I did not understand your meaning. For example:
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup (Score:2)
-everphilski-
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Colin Norman, news editor of Science, said the choice was based solely on the merits of the research, not the battle over intelligent design.
I still agree with you, politically motivated, I wish they could have shown a little more tact and rather than putting up a headline such as "ID you suck, naner naner". I wish they would have been a little more specific to the study that received credit for the award.
For a horrified, thankfully brief, moment... (Score:5, Funny)
Tacky, tacky (Score:5, Insightful)
And, hello -- how about the HapMap?
Re:Tacky, tacky (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tacky, tacky (Score:3, Informative)
usual Slashdot accuracy (Score:2, Informative)
The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.
The court did not ban the teaching of the ID, it ruled that the teachers
cannot be forced to do that.
Re:usual Slashdot accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
Why don't you read the judgement:
1. A declaratory judgment is hereby issued in favor of Plaintiffs pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. 2201, 2202, and 42 U.S.C. 1983 such that
Defendants' ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Art. I, 3 of
the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
2. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 65, Defendants are permanently enjoined
from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area
School
I know this is 146 years late, Mr. Darwin (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin [wikipedia.org]
Politics and academia (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that was a Good Thing, but should decisions like identifying the Best Scientific Achievement of a year and medical decisions of vast importance be something we leave open to the whims of politics? I realize that in this case there was no "buckling" from pressure but it apparently was intended to reflect political shifts of our time. Whatever the case, it just doesn't sit well with me.
Re:Politics and academia (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. They are simply recognizing the huge amount of recent work that has immensly increased our understanding of evolution and its mechanisms. You'd be right if they were mearly recognizing the staggering quantity of raw evidence in support of evolution that has accumulated recently, as the quantity was already overwhelming, and is about as signifigant as more evidence in suppo
I was just reading this creationist article (Score:4, Informative)
I have seen creationist after creationist come to this Creation-Evolution debate board [christianforums.com] I lurk on, tell us the Earth must be young because of XXX and that we are all wrong. Once we present to them some scientific evidence that the Earth is old, they get real quiet real fast.
Basically, believing in an old Earth is only possible when a creationist is in a serious state of denial. Case in point: The only people who believe in a young Earth have a religious reason for doing so. Many Christians believe in an old Earth; not one atheist believes in a young Earth.
[1] The original offending article can be seen here [goodnewsetc.com]. The refutations can be found here [lhup.edu] (just because you can come up with one case where we got different dates doesn't mean the 99+% of cases where we get the same age via different techniques is invalid) here [talkorigins.org], here [evowiki.org], and here [talkorigins.org] (the refutation is for creationist claims for c14 levels in coals, but the process in question can make diamonds have c14 atoms also).
Just under 4 billion years too late (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My fellow Christians: Strategize (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My fellow Christians: Strategize (Score:5, Funny)
Given that you Christians believe in one God (or is it three?), won't it get rather confusing if you name all the planets after him?
You won't be able to tell Uranus from Urelbow.
Re:My fellow Christians: Strategize (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My fellow Christians: Strategize (Score:5, Insightful)
"I think the planets should be renamed because they're named after fake gods."
You are free to call the planets whatever you wish.
But clearly what you really want is the power (through government dictate) to force others to use names that are approved by your particular religion.
I hear a lot of Christians complain about how oppressed they are.
In the end the complaints turn out to be about wanting the power to control others.
Why isn't... (Score:2)
...if you don't get it, read this [bbc.co.uk].
Re:lol. political awards anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
Where did the Intelligent being come from? The elements that comprise the being had to come from somewhere.
Whatever you reply to this "he always existed" or whatever, is the same reply I'll give you to you about where the elements came from. It's just as logical as yours.
Re:lol. political awards anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
The intelligent being had to come from somewhere too, until you explain that, you've explained nothing. ID is a fundamentally question begging answer.
If intelligence can "just exist" then why can't we "just exist" without a creator?
If an intelligence needs a creator, where did the first creator come from, or is it just turtl
Re:Most people don't know what ID is (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this statement with regards to evolution is not correct. True it is unplanned and random, but the process, as a process is not unguided. Each creature evolves with its evironment as a guide.
Imagine some organism in a world full of oxygen and very little carbon dioxide. Let's say this organism has three offspring (A), (B) and (C). (A) is just like the original organism. (B) uses more carbon dioxide. (C) uses more oxygen and less carbon dioxide. (A) will continue just as the original organism did, (B) will be worse off, and (C) will be better off. Thus (C) and its offspring will be better suited to live in the environment.
The guide is the world the organisms live in. That world may have been created randomly. Each particular mutation may arise randomly. But the process of evolution for each species is guided by the environment of that species.
You also say that life is a statistical anomoly. This seems nontrivially related to the inverse gambler's fallacy [wikipedia.org]. Further, there are hundreds of billions of solar systems. Many of them probably have planets (we have already found some, I suspect we will find that solar systems are more and more likely as we gain the ability to see such things). If the odds of life forming on its own is, let's say, 100,000,000,000 to 1 against (which seems very generous to the people who think life is unlikely, given experiments with the common elements which form the building blocks of life and lightning), and there are 100,000,000,000 planets. On average, there will be life somewhere. Further, the only people that will notice will be from that planet (because there won't be life anywhere else!). They may think themselves extremely special and favored by the universe. They would be wrong.
If you're going to claim that basic life (single celled organisms, let's say) may occur reasonably often but in order to evolve there needs to be guidance in the mutation process, I'm just going to claim that the right environment needs to be in place to encourage mutations with the appropriate features. And given the mutations I can speculate with some accuracy (or at least, historically we have been able to) about the conditions at the time which made such mutations useful. This makes my theory bear extra fruit while you simply put some being in and say "it did it", and that tells us nothing extra. So even if the theories were otherwise equivalent in terms of their predictive power, I can predict things about the environment after the fact, and you cannot. This seems to be an extra point in favor of my theory all other things being equal, which, obviously I don't think they are.
Re:Most people don't know what ID is (Score:3, Insightful)
dan_sdot wrote:
The real problem--primitive superstitious beliefs aside--is that people think that ``order'' can never come from ``randomness.'' Which, of course, is pure bullshit.
Take a heaping handful of marbles and toss them purely randomly into a shoebox. Hey-presto! Order from chaos!
Or, if you like, drop enough bowling balls onto a beach, close enough to each other, that they start to pile upon each other. Once again, order spon
And they are the lucky ones (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Feel free to take four minutes and eight seconds to learn precisely how the human eye probably evolved [pbs.org].
If you can handle the four minutes and eight seconds, perhaps you'd be willing to do some reading about how a bacterial flagellum could form without a designer [arn.org].
I'm also sure you've heard the name Behe before. Did you know that in 2001 Michael Behe admitted that his work had a "defect" and does not actually address "the task facing natural selection." Futhermore, irreducible complexity is rejected by the majority of the scientific community. The main concerns with the concept are that it utilises an argument from ignorance, that Behe fails to provide a testable hypothesis, and that there is a lack of evidence in support of the concept. As such, irreducible complexity is seen by the supporters of evolutionary theory as an example of creationist pseudoscience and amounts to a "God of the Gaps [meta-library.net]" argument.
Can ID answer the following questions?
If you can't answer the last one at the very least, stop reading now. Go back to the link above, click on it, and spend the four minutes and eight seconds educating yourself.
The point to those questions is that NONE of them can be answered with ID. Can't be predicted with. Can't be tested with. None. Zero.
But do you know what can? Evolution, every one of them.
That said, while you accuse others of not understanding what ID actually is, I contend that you do not understand what evolution is.
First of all, the article this discussion is linked to references how scientists have learned new "specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view..."
Second, evolution has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with how life was created on what was once only a molten planet. Nothing. At all. Evolution is the transition -- of a population -- from one form of life to others forms of life over (usually long periods of) time.
Creation of life where there is no life is what is known as abiogenesis [talkorigins.org], not evolution. Now stop what you're doing! I can see you reaching for that reply button and Googling for references to the Miller-Urey experiments from the 1950s.
Stop it! You didn't even read that abiogenesis link, did you? I didn't think so. Nothing I can say can convince you to if your mind is already made up (read: clouded by mindless dogma). However I will leave you with one thing so that you can look it up yourself and do the research.
Abiogenesis experiments conducted by Dr. Sidney Fox. Don't even b
Re:Most people don't know what ID is (Score:3, Insightful)
metaphysics = not observable
metaphysics = not testable
metaphysics = not falsifiable
metaphysics = not science
Once again...
metaphysics = not science
Say it again...
metaphysics = not science
No one has said that you cannot discuss ID in a comparative religion or philosophy class. These are the classes for metaphysical discussions, not the biology classes.
One more time.
Re:Most people don't know what ID is (Score:3, Interesting)
dan_sdot: "ID does not address that question. Any answer to that question is as good as any other as far as ID is concerned. ID only talks about a `designer', however he came about."
ID doesn't address many questions ... it just gives up when the questions get difficult. "Beyond human comprehension," or some such cop-out.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it scary to you that so many geeks might actually believe religion? An awful lot of brilliant math and science has been performed by people who firmly believed religion...does that terrify you, too?
Or do you just assume that, if someone believes in religion, they're supporters of ID and incapable of rational thought?
I don't understand the anti-religous crusade so many people seem to take on as their own little holy war. Why the hell can't you leave me alone? You believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want. I won't teach your kids to believe what I do, and you can just stay away from mine.
If you want to talk about testable hypotheses, we can do that. You produce evidence contrary to my understanding of the universe, and I'll change my understanding. I'd hope you could do the same thing.
But if you want to get into a contest of faiths, don't even bother. And don't think that atheism isn't a faith: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You can prove to me that we as a species evolved, ultimately, from a tiny pile of organic slime clinging to a rock in some antediluvian sea. Check. You can't prove to me that no god exists, any more than I can prove to you one does.
Your railing against religion (and everyone else's) as a whole (as opposed to railing against statements made based on religion that are demonstrably false, which is, of course, appropriate) is no better than any other zealot demanding that his religion is right and everyone else's is wrong.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it just saddens me - I wonder how much better they could have done without it.
Or do you just assume that, if someone believes in religion, they're supporters of ID and incapable of rational thought?
Supporters of ID, no. As for rational thought, not incapable, but by definition they think irrationally more often than is good.
I don't understand the anti-religous crusade so many people seem to take on as their own little holy war. Why the hell can't you leave me alone? You believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want. I won't teach your kids to believe what I do, and you can just stay away from mine.
Because you're wasting your life, and you're not seeing the glory of the universe that's out there. And you're doing it for such a stupid reason. When you're walking down the street and see someone banging their head against a building, you want to stop them.
If you want to talk about testable hypotheses, we can do that. You produce evidence contrary to my understanding of the universe, and I'll change my understanding. I'd hope you could do the same thing.
Of course. And if you're doing that that's halfway there. But if you start believing random things without evidence, your worldview's not going to make a lot of sense.
But if you want to get into a contest of faiths, don't even bother. And don't think that atheism isn't a faith: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You can prove to me that we as a species evolved, ultimately, from a tiny pile of organic slime clinging to a rock in some antediluvian sea. Check. You can't prove to me that no god exists, any more than I can prove to you one does.
Just like the fairies at the bottom of my garden. I haven't seen them because they turn invisible whenever humans are looking at them, of course. Occam's razor and assuming the absence of anything that doesn't have a reason to exist is the only way to get a reasonable view of things.
Your railing against religion (and everyone else's) as a whole (as opposed to railing against statements made based on religion that are demonstrably false, which is, of course, appropriate) is no better than any other zealot demanding that his religion is right and everyone else's is wrong.
We at least have some grounds for this - "religion is dumb because this religious person said this dumb thing" is fallacious but better than "my religion is better than yours" with no reason at all.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think we're scared so much as confused. Why would someone intelligent believe in an invisible and all-powerful being for whom no evidence exists, and whose existence is so incredibly unlikely? How could someone intelligent, who would would presumably be well-read and therefore be aware of the incredible range of (blatantly silly) things people have professed belief in throughout history, not simply place modern religion in the same category? How can intelligent people, who dismiss out of hand many other superstitions, believe in the most outlandish things? Is it really that hard to get past childhood indoctrination?
Religion is so clearly a means for uneducated people to explain the world around them, as well as a way of wishing the world was not as it is (ie. denying mortality), that it is very hard to see how someone smart could fall for it.
That's what confuses us.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because some people have been murdered in the name of religion, religion should be abolished? Does that mean because some people have been murdered in the name of freedom, freedom should be abolished? Slaves were kept in the name of cotton, so cotton should be eliminated? Maybe we should talk about eugenics, which was accepted science at the beginning of the 20th century.
Your claim that indoctrinating children is always wrong is even more ludicrous. What do you think I'll be doing w
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet, I believe not one of those things, while simultaneously being Catholic. Meanwhile, I'm sure I can find plenty o
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes there is. The more intellegent people are, the less likely they are to be religious. Pointers to plenty of studies that show this can be found here [objectivethought.com]. The fact that there are indeed famous intelligent and religious people is not a proof of the contrary (as any intelligent person will know :-).
Besides, when refering to people like Da Vinci, one has to take into account the society that they lived in and the corresponding education that they recieved.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, it has nothing at all to do with creationism-
Oh, you are so wrong it hurts.
First of all, "design" and "create" are synonyms [m-w.com]. It has everything to do with creationism, it's just cleverly worded to avoid any direct mention of the specific religion that it is meant to support, in order to attempt to sneak it into public schools despite a constitutional ban of such shenanigans. Hence the ruling to that effect.
ID is not science by the very definition of science [m-w.com]! "the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding", ID is based on ignorance and misunderstanding, it's the entire basis of the argument: "There's bit we don't know or understand yet, so a magical, invisible hand did it!"
Just because it's a lie supporting something you agree with doesn't make it true.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, for that matter, so does Evolution, which is based entirely on observations, hypothesis and conclusions. So by this set of completely arbitrary and capricious rules, which are DIFFERENT from the 5 given for the previous poster, Evolution is not science and should not be taught as science, an
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:3, Informative)
An event that is too complex to be described as fact by finite human beings; that must be described in terms of probability because we don't want to or can't do the work neccessary to make it predictible. Thus, anything steming from a random event is by definition not predictable; thus evolution and ID are scientifically equivalent depending on the set of arbitrary rules you use to define science.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:4, Informative)
Judge John Jones disagres. [cnn.com] A direct quote from his 139 page ruling:
ID is all about religion. It was made by the religious, for the religious and to be religious. Any debate about ID is a debate about religion. This fact is unescapable.
There is a problem with evolution, in that darwinian THEORY cannot explain where life came from, only how it continued to change.... I mean how could DNA or the process of cell division 'evolve' if evolution itself requires cells to divide and carry on it's genetic blueprint.
Evolution, when combined with other disiplines, can explain every facet of evolution. It's all in the numbers. the sheer amount of oppertunies for mutation, combined with natural selection, ensure that processes are constantly being refined and streamlined for their enviornment.
And yes this process is completely random. That is in fact its primary strength. Through random mutations, organisims have a higher chance of adapting to any changes in their ecosystem, no matter how it changes.
Re:Slashdot Under Siege.... (Score:3, Informative)
1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID)?
2. What evidence supports ID and not a competing theory?
3. What predictions does ID make?
4. How might ID be falsified?
The IDers have had since 1987 (when "intelligent design" was first used as a drop-in replacement for "creation science") to come up with answers for these questions and they've failed to not only make any headway, they've failed to even attempt to answer them. So you'll excuse me and f
Re:Evolution? Scientific Achievement of 2005? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Scientifically proven" is an oxymoron. No scientific theory has ever been proved. Ever.
Re:Evolution = the new evolved bigotry (Score:3, Interesting)
So if something has not been observed, it cannot happen? Interesting philosophy. Stupid; but interesting nevertheless.
What have explosions got to do with anything?
Technically speaking, a defined sequence is information, even if it is random.
Except creationism doesn'
Re:Evolution = the new evolved bigotry (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be simliar to the number of scientists who reject the sun being powered by nuclear fusion, and who instead support the "Electric Universe" crap that oddly keeps appearing on Slashdot.
In otherwords the number is essentially zero.
Roughtly 99.9% of professional biologists accept evolution. There is no genuine scientific controversy over ev
Re:So this must mean that Scientists have ... (Score:3, Insightful)
And speaking of eyes, how come we