Kansas Adopts New Science Standards 868
porcupine8 writes "The Kansas State Board of Education has changed the state science standards once again, this time to take out language questioning evolution. This turnaround comes fast on the heels of the ouster given this past election to the ultra-conservative Board members who originally introduced the language. 'Science' has also been re-redefined as 'a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations' (the word 'natural' had been previously stricken from the definition). If you'd like to see the new standards, a version showing all additions and deletions is available from the KS DOE's website (PDF)."
Eternal Vigilance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a problem when most people are scientifically illiterate. In this age of 2 second sound bites, saying 'goddidit' is easier than learning the facts.
Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:5, Informative)
This video is really disturbing: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20070206_eva
Especially the poster which says "God Says it. I believe it. That settles it."
"God Says it" (Score:5, Insightful)
And if these people believe the bible was written by humans, then everything "god says" is hearsay and could be misquoted.
And let's not even get started on the fact that the bible Americans read has been translated. There are many phrases which can be translated multiple ways. Plus with the old testiment the English language can't properly represent the multiple meanings of Hebrew words, and so much is lost in translation.
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To make up rules which are impossible for God to violate is to negate that omnipotence.
Just because some human sees a logical fallacy in the temporary suspension of free will does not make it impossible for God to have done so - assuming, of course, that there actually is a God and that he actually did attempt such a thing.
On the other hand, it is sometimes argued that the purpose of organized religion is to control God by defining what he is and is n
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Free will is something we do have. We have the ability to make choices. It is assumed that God knows our choices already, but that doesn't mean he has determined them, only that he knows the choices we are going to make. So, IMHO, that still means we have the right to choose.
If it is argued that the Bible is the word of God, and as such, free will is not necessary in it's writing.
RonB
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So you're trying to choose between a bowl of ice cream and a nice salad. The fact that you are going to choose the ice cream was carved in stone over 4 billion years ago, but you think that you have the "freedom" to choose the salad? That belief is kind of sweet in a really sad way.
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You cannot give someone "free will" and then tell them if they don't do X or you'll do Y and still call it "free will," except with some Orwellian definition of "free."
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We make choices. We make those choices in SOME way, and a way that is characteristic and causally related to who we are. That's what makes them OUR
Re:"God Says it" (Score:5, Insightful)
The Jews have a rather vigorous tradition concerning writing of the Torah. It's not done by just any schmuck; you have to train for years. There's no white-out in a Torah; if you screw up you chuck the entire sheet of parchment and start over. (It's made of many segments sewn together, so it's not quite as horrible as it sounds, but it's still pretty harsh.)
Compare the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern Torahs and you'll find it's letter-for-letter exact in the parts where they overlap.
There's no need to believe in a missing set of scrolls which describe evolution. It's right there in the book, beginning with "B'reshit": in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Six days later he took a nap.
Clearly, such a belief is incredibly precarious. There's absolutely no reason to believe that those scrolls are the word of God, even if they've been faithfully copied for thousands of years. The only thing that distinguishes this book from all of the others is that your priest/pastor/parents/minister told you so.
Well, that, and the feeling one gets in one's heart. You and I and every scientist on the planet knows that it's never safe to trust one's heart on matters of fact, but once somebody has stepped outside of that you're never going to use logic or evidence to bring them back into the fold of rationality.
Even as a scientist, you go with your gut instinct fairly often. Your basic notion of evidence and proof is, ultimately, more about what your gut tells you is likely to be true. Sure, it works, and everything from transistors to amoxycillin comes from that, but the whole edifice could be knocked over at any instant by a guy with a white beard who sayeth, "I am the Lord your God".
Learn to understand where they're coming from, and maybe you have some hope of convincing them not to destroy the minds of your children with their self-serving fundamentalist rubbish. Ultimately, this is far less about belief than it is about power. They hate the fact that evolution justifies everything they hate, from moral relativism to sexual promiscuity. Evolution is just the touchstone.
Re:"God Says it" (Score:5, Informative)
Some examples: (1) there is anywhere between 1 character in 20 and 1 in 2000 difference between the dead sea scrolls fragments and the current text; (2) truly identical copies of the Torah are found only from the 16th century on, and those are not handwritten; (3) even today there are slightly-different versions of the Torah in use, e.g. the Yemenite version differs in 3 characters from the Koren (which is perhaps the 'standard').
So, by no means has the text been copied without error, at least not according to the people researching this topic.
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However, you say it is the "best error/time ratio of any document in existence" - I don't know about that. The Koran was copied for almost a thousand years before the printing press, and those transcriptions may be 100% exact, for all I know - we would need to ask a scholar in that field. (Yet even if it is, this may have something to do with the Jewi
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But where is the connection with evolution? It would have to be a sort of statement of immorality being a survival trait, or that immorality is inhe
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The basic connection is that evolution helps create a "natural" world where God is not needed. One of the fundamental reason why people "need" their faith in a god is because it explains the unexplainable. Every new peice of information that gives another explanation makes their faith just a little less reasonable.
The other major connection is that a "natural" world means a world without a purpose. A "natural" world means a world without right and wrong. Withou
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They're not synonymous. Though if you really think that ALL Christians are either stupid or intellectually dishonest, there's probably not much I can do to change your bigotry (and those of whoever modded you Insighful).
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Now let's say that you want to explain this to mankind. You want to let them know you created everything. But right now, they're at a point where they don't even have basic mechanics figured out, you know they'd never comprehend th
Re:"God Says it" (Score:5, Insightful)
My own answer to that, of course, is that Jesus was at most a relatively bright human, God doesn't exist, no miracles occurred, and the entire thing that it's grown into is people taking some fun stories waaaaaay too seriously.
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Re:"God Says it" (Score:4, Insightful)
Hehe. Good one. I'll bite.
I would probably clarify the situation now that a large number of folks can comprehend me.
Heck, I am omnipotent, I can be VERY convincing even if I seem to be contradicting earlier simplified statements.
I might also, while I am motivated, clean up some of these war and hunger problems, eradicate a few corrupt governments, etc. I might even make more people gay to deal with the population problem. A little spring cleaning, so to speak.
Of course, I would have to exist to do all that.
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b) My point is not that that's exactly what God did because it's what I would do. It's that the Bible not being a word-for-word account of exactly what happened during creation does not mean that it's all a lie, there are other alternatives. I presented one of them. Also, to show that if God did create the world and man through the processes currently identified by scientists, then maybe telling ancient man exactly what he did wouldn't have been t
Re:"I say God Says it" (Score:4, Insightful)
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And you name would be Condaleeza Rice.
-Don
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Of course I also believe that Science hasn't explained everything yet, but the people you're apologising for believe that that fact means that Creationism is true, which is bullshit. Love is not supernatural, it's an emotion.
I'm not accusing you of being Christian, but you certainly are an apologist and an enabler, if you try to come up with lame excuses like your theory of evolution guided by a Christisan God, who you seem to think you know what he'd do. There's nothing scientific about that, and it's
There are all kinds (Score:3, Insightful)
The Christians that make the news (as Christians) are usually the ones that are crazy psychotics trying to enforce their own morality on other people- The Jerry Fawells, Jack Thompsons, and Clinic bombers. The Christians who don't make idiotic statements, don't
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Very few Christians "suffer not a witch to live" as commanded. Almost all Christians will wear "cloth of mixed fibres" and so on. Not many Christians condone slavery (in fact it was a really big deal when Catholic church when against the old testament and said slavery was wrong).
Jesus himself said that you must not ignore "on iota" of the law of moses, so you can't even claim that the new testament supercedes
Re:"God Says it" (Score:4, Funny)
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But I understand what you're saying, in that while the US has pretty much overcome racial and gender discrimination, it's nowhere near that stage when it comes to religion (or lack thereof). In many parts of the country, it's arguably "better" to be a black woman than a white male
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Oh, I dunno about all that. I guess your qualifier "In many parts of the country" means rural areas or the South, aka the Bible belt. Assuming you are a white guy who is an Athiest, you'd be much better off. It's not as though anyone would necessarily *know* your beliefs.
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You can certainly decide to see evidence of what you want to believe (a God) if you have already chosen to do so, but the biggest problem I see is the extremely detailed, and usually contradictory aspects of any particular religion.
So being a deist (there is a god who created everything but that's about as far as he cared to interact wit
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Yes, it's really surprising that we turned out so well considering those Pilgrims. They basically were religious Nazis that killed off the native Indians rather than convert them to Christiainty. The natives weren't human because they weren't white European Christains so it was o.k. to kill them off.
The only religio
Re:"God Says it" (Score:4, Informative)
um ...
The Pilgrims weren't all Puritans. In fact, the Mayflower Compact [historyplace.com] was writtten on board the Mayflower to try to prevent mutiny by the majority on that ship who were not in it for religious reasons but rather, for profit (which was the primary motivation for almost all colonies.
Converting the people living in the Americas to some kind of faith or another was more the motivation of Spain, who had (in 1492!) only just rid the Iberian Penninsula of non-Christians. Occasionally, some of the English Colonists would pay lip service to this ideal, but it was rarely policy.
The 37 Separatists (Puritans) fleeing religious persecution who were on board the Mayflower had set about trying to convert their fellow shipmates. And when it was discovered that they were strongly desirous of creating a theocratic movement in the new colony, their shipmates immediately threatened to let them off right where the boat was at the time (in the middle of the Atlantic) where they could set up their government in any way they preferred.
Since the victors tend to write the history books, we tend to be particularly focused on these particular Separatists who narrowly missed setting up a theocracy in salt water. Over the course of the years following the original Mayflower landing, more Puritans emigrated and it is these people who began linking governance with their religion. They were primarily interested in making money, realizing the trade in shipbuilding timbers and exploitation of the costal fisheries was making a number of the colonists wealthy and land in the colony was available at low cost.
And, rather than indescrimately kill all Native Americans, the earliest colonists were beneficiaries of a French trading mission that had passed through the area five years before the Mayflower landed, unwittingly exposing their trading partners to European diseases. It is said that influenza killed off half of the tribal population in the area the first year and when the Mayflower landed, the colonists found the land empty.
This stands in sharp contrast to the Roanoke colony [nationalcenter.org] which lasted some 10 months, the survivors of which were returned to England due to increasingly hostile Native Americans.
If you look at a map of New England, you'll see many towns and cities with the word "field" in the name. The reaon why this reoccurs is due to the habit of the Europeans referring to these areas as clearings. Now these areas wold not have been cleared had the Native Americans cleared them but, due to disease sweeping through the indigenous populations whenever contact was made with the Europeans, these clearings had been abandoned. Europeans called a "clearing" a "field."
The Plymouth colonists' first contact with the Native Americans was in March, 1621, when Samoset, a Wampanouy, entered their encampment and began conversing with them in English, which he had picked up from English sailors in the area. Samoset and later Squanto, a Massasoit, were interested in these new white settlers because they wanted to form an alliance between them and their tribes in order to be able to fend off incursions from other tribes. They figured that the European technology might help them resist encroachment on their lands and that an alliance would help them both from a military standpoint and a trade standpoint. But the Europeans would never have been a consideration had their tribe not suffered substantial losses in population due to disease.
Now, I have read history and part of it is due to my ancestry being from the founders of the Cape Ann colony, which settled in Massachusetts in 1623. Many relocated to Connecticut by the 1680s. While the Puritans were very strict in their adherence to the tenants of their religion, you have to understand that they did not try to convert Native Americans--that was just not their aim. I
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Re:"God Says it" (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never met or heard of a christian who knows ancient hebrew well enough to study the bible like a jewish scholar. And I've also never met a christian who quotes such scholars to validate their understanding of the bible. Therefore I don't see how they can know the original meaning of your "Old Testament".
The fact that humans speak different languages doesn't invalidate the original meaning of the text.
That's right. It means that no one who has read it in a translated form can know the original meaning if not educated by someone who can read the original. In the footnotes of every translated Jewish bible are explanations of the multiple meanings of Hebrew words and phrases. I've never seen anything similar in translations of the "Old Testament" of the Christian bible. The English language simply does not have the capacity to clearly convey the original text without much explanation. Therefore a direct translation is simply never sufficient.
Many of the Christians who claim to fully understand their bible have no knowledge of what was lost in translation from the original texts. Congratulations if you're educated on the subject. How about helping out the rest?
Usefullness of science (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I'm not happy with their definition of science. I'm sure there'll be crackpot around there to say that "God" is part of the "natural process that drives things" and therefor He's divine presence is needed to explain phenomenons.
I think it'll be more meaningful to describes sciences as a series of models that humans have inventend that are designed to describe the world around us in a way that can be measured/checked (numerically, for exemple, in the case of physics), that can be proved/disproved (what ever your own deity say you should believe about the shape of the earth, that doesn't stop the newtonian physic to be rather good at predicting phenomenons happening on it's surface : object falling and being thrown around), and that can be used to predict the behaviour of some object (all the science used in engineering can be used to invent new technology by knowing in advance how they're supposed to work once build).
These models aren't necessarily perfectly exact, they are just good enough inside their scope (newtonian physic isn't good enough for very masses and high speeds. Einstein's physic is better and more precise in those cases).
In that perspective, when encountering complex phenomenons like evolution, scientific believes like Darwin's theory are a good interesting model for interpreting the facts that you discover (lots and lots of slightly different animals in archeologic discoveries, and if you put them together in chronological order, they seem to slowly transform from one specie to another. The monkey->ape->human evolution is a nice example) and that can make interesting prediction (you can't directly make an experiment to prove/disprove it. At least not as long as crackpots repeat that micro and macro evolutions are different. BUT you can predict that as we dig up more and more fossils, we'll fill the holes and get more steps that details in a better way the evolution).
Whereas if one's intellectually lazy and prefer to say "goddidit", one just stuck with this single explanation. Nothing useful can be made of it. To the question "What happens next", the only possible answer is "depend's on god's mood today" and that isn't very useful.
I think that these notions :
- science is descriptive of phenomenon,
- science puts quantities and classes on them,
- science can be proven and disproven (and mostly be proven to be accurate enough for some scope), and
- science may be useful to predict outcome of experiment and behaviour of inventions
Re:Usefullness of science (Score:5, Insightful)
One modification is absolutely necessary to your definition.
Science can only be disproven.
Science cannot prove to you that General Relativity is true everywhere all the time.
"God did it" is not science because it cannot be disproven.
Re:Usefullness of science (Score:4, Interesting)
In science, we don't speak of certain Truth or Facts, but talking about evolution as true and a fact in a colloquial sense is perfectly appropriate if talking about ANYTHING as a fact is. That people get upset at evolution and only evolution when referred to that way, despite the reality that the evidence for evolution is far far stronger than virtually anything else to which they DON'T object being called a fact, I think we have a right to question their sincerity or fairness.
" I'd like to see some standards that acknowledge there are several theories (evolution, creation, intellegent design) that currently have some level of support within the scientific community and society."
This claim would be a falsehood. Even intelligent design, which is a PR movement devoted to trying to "create" the circumstances for this claim, has virtually no support amongst biologists. That many Americans believe in creationism has no bearing on whether it is sound science. Science is about the evidence, not about people's beliefs. The evidence says that creationism is ridiculous, and that intelligent design is not even a coherent or scientific theory. Neither is a scientific alternative.
"Is it too much to ask that we try to take a neutral point of view with education standards?"
Should we also take a neutral point of view on the holocaust, astrology, numerology and 2+2=4? Should we simply stop teaching science altogether? Isn't that basically what you are asking for, in the end?
Science ISN'T neutral. Science is about what the evidence shows, not about surveying everyone's opinions and beliefs.
Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:5, Funny)
No. he is saying that he is the retarded offspring of five monkeys that had regular sex with a retarded fish-squirrel.
Apparently, our next task in Kansas is to amend the sex education textbooks.
Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:4, Funny)
that's right, in full audio [toonzone.net]
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Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eternal Vigilance (Score:4, Funny)
God Hates Kansas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God Hates Kansas (Score:5, Funny)
That doesn't prove God hates Kansas. It just proves that he wants to transport their homes to magical lands occupied by midgets.
Computer Science . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Computer Science . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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Biology, chemistry and phyiscs are man-made systems to describe the world around us. That's what math does. How does a physicist solve a problem without using math? Physics is applied math. Chemistry is applied physics. Biology is applied chemistry. They are all linked. They are all science. Some are more "pure" than others, but they are all just descriptions of the universe.
"ultra-conservative"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservative belief does not necessarily intersect much with religion.
These were _ultra-religious_ board members.
Let's at least get that part right.
BWilde.
Re:"ultra-conservative"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Um, I've observed just the opposite: Republicans are fond of paying lip service to conservative ideals while ignoring both the majority of Americans and the religious fundamentalists. With things like endorsing torture, failing to take substantive action on the abortion problem*, etc...
For example, I can find no verse in my Bible that says, "Thou shalt ba
good for Kansas (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:good for Kansas (Score:4, Informative)
Re:good for Kansas (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is sex ed the only place we consider ignorance as a safety mechanism? You wouldn't teach driver's ed and refuse to give out information on what to do in slippery conditions to prevent kids from driving recklessly. Abstinence-only programs routinely misinform, distort, and outright lie about sex and safety. That's probably because their main focus is to prevent sin, not to keep kids safe.
I just don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Science is the endeavor to explain what can be oberved. It does this by creating models which explain current observations and predict future results. It then tests these models by setting up scenarios in which the predictions can be determined to be accurate. In short, from a Christian perspective it's an attempt to understand the universe God created and how it works. I can imagine no greater subject of study than that of the works of God.
Evolution is a scientific model. It looks at the current state of life, fossil records, and historical accounts and establishes a model of life which fits all thse observations. Each new finding tests the model, and it has several times been refined by new discoveries. The system of evolution is almost undeniably correct; it is difficult to argue that evolution can occur in the way it is described. The evolutionary history of various organisms is debateable, as there is always a chance that new findings will change the current version. That's how science works.
So many of my fellow Christians seem to think that evolution is an attack on us and our beliefs. It's not. It is simply the result of rational consideration of the facts at hand. Science is not (well, should not be) malicious and has (should have) no interest in attacking religion, as the existence of diety is currently outside the reach of science.
They also make the mistake of lumping everything they disagree with under the name "evolution". I've heard the Big Bang mentioned in discussions of evolution, even though it's part of a completely different field of science.
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
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Tangent: first cousin incest isn't particularly risky and can be tolerated in the gene pool for several generations before it becomes an issue. With the genetic contributions of four families, it's not all that unrealistic.
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If evolution is true, you'd agree that God did not create Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, right?
Well, that Adam and Eve story is the entire basis of Christianity, because that's where sin originated. If there is no original sin, then what was Jesus sent to save us from? If Jesus was just a man who was trying to preach love, he wouldn't be the savior of the world, whatever that means.
So that's why Christians have to not believe evolution. If they accept evolution, then the entire point of Christianity is called into question.
I agree completely with your points, I don't think scientists have an a priori "attack religion" mentality. If the observable data led people to believe that Christianity was true, of course scientists would believe it. A scientist is just someone who uses observation and experiments to get at the truth, not dogma.
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ok, so we shouldn't take the golden rule ("Do to others as you would have them do to you.") literally? And what values do you suggest we derive from the instructions of stoning apostates, homosexuals, adulturers, people that work on the sabbath etc?
Which principles? The vengeful god or the loving god? The instructions for th
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for one problem. The majority of Christians belong to churches that don't, in fact, deny evolution. The key to all of this lies in the fact that a good many churches, including big ones like Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism, do not espouse Biblical literalism. Not every word of the Bible had to be a literal truth for the book to still be the word of God.
This is another angle on this problem. Not only are these Creationists in Kansas, Dover and elsewhere trying to bring down science, they're also attacking other strains of Christianity.
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Not necessarily. Not that when their son Cain fled after murdering his brother, he went out among other people. Adam and Eve couldn't have populated even a single village with children, so the other people came from somewhere.
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Are you serious? The question is easily answered. Humans became capable of sinning when they became capable of differentiating right from wrong. A dog can maul a child, but that's not since because it's just an anmimal and doesn't know better. The same act, for a human, is a sin because he should know better than to senselessly kill a child.
The creation story in Genesis gives a description of (among other things) man's evolution to somet
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Really, I think the most important chafing point is the understanding
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Whether crystals grow in a lab or in nature, they grow in a similar fashion and are governed by the same laws. The lab-grown crystal grows in conditions that, from the start, have a designed result and require very little additional influence from their creator. From inside the crystal all you would see is growing crystal; it's not until you look at it from outside that you understand that its growth has purpose.
Evolutionary science sees chaos because God cannot be accounted for in science
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Sad faith (Score:5, Insightful)
But, faith itself can be twisted and misused. When faith is used as a tool to prevent people from using their god given gifts, then it's become a weapon. I have seen people use their faith to ignore what they have seen with their own eyes. I have seen faith used to prevent normal healthy inquiry. It is my opinion that this is the path to pure insanity.
If you except that God created man, and you also except that you were not consulted on God's plan and work habits, then you should be open to explanations as to the details of his creation. Was evolution part of God's plan? Most people admit that they do not know how God works, but some of those same people claim to know exactly how he does not work.
Scientist are only looking for the truth, and sometimes to be published. But I think they are truthful. I imagine that someone with a greater observance of what God has created and it's inner workings is much closer to God than someone who twists faith to blind themselves to God's wonders.
Re:Sad faith (Score:5, Insightful)
I argue the opposite. Faith is a weakness. Faith leads people to accept their conditions and pray that it will get better rather than act. Faith leads people to accept conditions that are unacceptable.
Faith keeps women from leaving abusive husbands because the hope they'll see the light. Faith keeps people from speaking out against the government because they hope their God will intervene. Faith keeps people from enjoying the only life they know they have because they hope that the words in a particular book are true.
Our best quality isn't our ability to blindly accept conditions as they are because they might change, but to recognize the flaws in our condition right now through research and figure out a way to change the stuff we can. In fact, the ability to drastically modify our environment is what makes us a technological species.
Perhaps you're using a different definition of "faith" than I am.
only half the story (Score:5, Insightful)
Faith, helps a POW survive his situation even though his body has "given out". Faith, gives hope to a poor person, who through education, believes they can work their way out of poverty. Faith helps anyone, in a dire situation, deal with it in a way that they can handle. It may be feeble compared to your way but for some, its the only way they can make it through that situation.
Faith is a tool. And like ANY tool, it can be used for good and bad.
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That's not faith. It's fear, of their husbands, of not being able to take care of the kids as a single mom, and of loneliness. "Faith" is just how they rationalize it.
Faith keeps people from speaking out against the government because they hope their God will intervene.
Four out of five suicide-bombing Muslim extremists disagree.
Faith keeps people from enjoying the only life they know they have because they hope that the
Re:Sad faith (Score:5, Insightful)
And faith also keeps you going when you rationally should give up hope, or when your rationality is overcome or undercut by powerful emotions. You have faith in rationality. Faith is more akin to an emotion, and rationality to a method of interpreting information. They are not really opposites, any more than rage is the opposite of a trial by jury. We associate them with opposite scenarios, but they are not strict antonyms.
But faith obviously must have survival value, otherwise it would have been weeded out by evolution quite some time ago. Perhaps when the world was a much more risky, unknown, isolated place, having faith allowed our progenitors to survive and succeed when the best, rational course of action in the face of the unknown was to call it a life and expire. Like many of the emotions we have, they were shaped in a very different environment than the typical human finds themselves in today. My personal suspicion is that faith is a highly useful, good thing to have, INDIVIDUALLY. It gives us the courage to try new things that we don't know that we can do, to face disease, death, selfishness, and all the evil in life and try to make the world a better place despite that. OTOH, when it starts becoming a group ritual, it seems to take on many of those negative aspects you mentioned; it tends to enforce existing power structures, allow one to suffer through circumstances rather than change them - to make it acceptable to be a victim, if I may sum up some of what you said.
Faith isn't going anywhere, any more than greed, lust, love, or curiosity are leaving the human condition. Figuring out how to accommodate it in society without it becoming a cancer like the American-style religious right is the challenge.
The real news here (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe we should go back to calling ourselves "natural philosophers" rather than "scientists".
What I've never understood (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't misunderestimate the electorate (Score:5, Interesting)
The next schoolboard election saw a higher voter turnout and the pro-ID board members were ousted, replaced by moderates.
All this in a county that votes 65% Republican. If only voters had paid attention during the first election hehe
"flock of dodos" documentary (Score:3, Informative)
So um...tags.. (Score:4, Funny)
In closing
"WTF PEOPLE?!"
buttsexwithfishsquirrels tag` (Score:4, Informative)
[Air clearing] A Christian view you DON'T hear (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no problem with the Big Bang. The singularity that marked the beginning with "let there be light", and the fact that the galaxies are moving away and accellerating only strenthens the argument there was a beginning, not an oscillation.
Humans are carbon-based, and animals are, too, so we'd have food. It doesn't work the other way. I have NO PROBLEM with evolution (the change-over-time) aspect, nor do I have an issue with mankind starting as an ape-like being which one day found it's soul.
What I *do* have a problem with, is preachers that still say mankind is only 6,000 years old, never had prototypes (apes) in his development, or that science and the Bible are at odds.
[Delay while a hush fills the room...]
Precisely because the Bible has room for all this stuff. It mentions giants and other creatures. It's not a play-by-play of the billion years before man. It's not a total list of all creatures ever made, though it *does* list the development of plant categories, and it matches the fossil record.
So can we deflate a bunch of the "Evolution is wrong" arguments, at the outset?
Re:[Air clearing] A Christian view you DON'T hear (Score:4, Insightful)
If you've made contact with a larger intelligence it's your duty to your species to provide evidence of this intelligence.
Otherwise, your "larger intelligence" is no more real than my imaginary friend, Larry, except that other people don't look at you weird when you talk to him.
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Then, like my imaginary friend Larry and the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the invisible purple dinosaur in my basement and the celestial teapot, this "larger intelligence" is of no consequence to my existence.
Inflammatory (Score:4, Informative)
Ghandi said it best... (Score:5, Interesting)
"I like your Christ. I do not like your christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
I don't think Christ would like the way people are stiffling expression and imposing their will in his name, especially with the grief he went through when he was around. I mean, seriously... "Hey everyone, be nice to each other!"... "No, we're going to nail you to a tree instead. Natch!"
If good ole JC was around right now, I'm sure we wouldn't be having silly discussions like this...
I'm confused - which "evolution" are we talking? (Score:3)
Evolution, as I know it, merely means "adaptation of species". It, in no way shape or form, evaluates HOW they started (creation).
Lots and lots of ppl (even on
I ask this because I just had this conversation with a very smary friend of mine. He said he doesn't buy into evolution and I thought "whoa! are you kidding me?". Well, after discussing this with him a while, I realized he was substituting "evolution" for "creation". Once we agreed that evolution meant "adaptation of species and nothing more", he agreed that he DID buy into evolution. It struck me because it appears to me a lot of people fall into this trap. Most everyone agrees with adaptation of species. But views diverge when you start discussing how it all started.
So, be careful with definitions when you discuss evolution (I know I am not the only one discussing this subject in my free time).
Re:Church vs. State (Score:5, Insightful)
If we could manage a separation of State and Ignorance, that would be great...
Re:Church vs. State (Score:5, Informative)
There is less evidence in support of Newton's Theory of Gravity (or even Einstein's Theory of Relativity) than there is in support of the Theory of Evolution. The term 'law' has not been used in science for a very, very long time. The word theory should not be confused with the word 'hypothesis'. In science, a hypothesis is closer to how the common vernacular uses the term 'theory'. A hypothesis is just an idea based on observation. A theory is what grows from a hypothesis: Scientists continue additional observations and experiments over the course of time and use those results and observations to refine or refute the hypothesis. Eventually the hypothesis becomes sound enough to become a theory. A theory must be supported by multiple sources of available evidence; it must be repeatable, consistent, empirically testable, and falsifiable. It must be multiply reproducible. Yes, theories must admit that they might be wrong. But there are no absolutes in this world -- just as they must admit that they might be wrong, theories are also the soundest explanations for natural occurence that science has available.
No matter how you slice it, Intelligent Design is not science. It doesn't hold up to the rigorous scientific scrutiny that scientific theories must hold up against. Evolution does. Intelligent Design is nothing more than religious dogma; it is not now, never will be, nor can it ever be by definition, a scientific theory.
I have nothing against people having their children taught Creationism. But not in a science classroom. The time and place for studying Creationism is in a religious setting, not a science classroom.
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To put it into more geekish terms: ID with evolution is like a linux server where you set it up using a script, thou
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Alternative theories are fine in science class, as long as they have a scientific basis and conform to scientific principles.
I dont see any demands that evolution or other theories with a scientific basis, be presented as an alternative in church, nor requirements that the vast host of philosophical theories around the concept and nature of creation and existence be presented as alternatives at any religious function, so why the d
Re:The future of America (Score:5, Funny)
Considering the way Creationists jump up and down and fling poo every time the word Evolution is used, I'd say his question has already been answered.
Re:The future of America (Score:5, Informative)
Well, with such an incredibly incorrect first premise, I'm sure you can prove about anything.
Natural selection is not random.
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Wish I had some mod points to push this above the parent!
The one interesting thing I've read that I don't quite understand is how evolution doesn't seem to be a gradual process. Rather it comes in spurts which seems to imply that mutation isn't completely random.
A mutation either happens or it doesn't. It is by definition a stepwise process, not a gradual one.
What you find in the fossil record is not the stepwise occurance of mutations, though. It is the stepwise occurance of selective pressure. In a stable environment, the biosphere will diversify - whatever doesn't kill something will sooner or later develop and the maximum of complexity allowd bythe energy envelope of the niche will be achieved. THEN when a change in the environment occurs (some plain gets f
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Honestly - what that shows is that five years of philosophy has not equipped you to recognize arguments that are empty.
The first statement is some kind of religious confusion. Evolution is not a process driven by "random chance", any more than your selection of a mate is "random chance." Evolution chooses results by an extremely powerful filtering process colloquially described as "survival of the
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How many home schooled children do you know on any real basis? How many home schooled children of ultra-conservative christians do you know on any real basis? What makes you think your opinion is accurate or representative?
There are a large variety of reasons to be utterly and completely diss