Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@farmerman,

Now Gomer, you know you get cranky without your prunes. It seems you want to criticise me for saying that evolution is not hard and fast like you want it to be but still have it as absolute fact when you argue in its favour. Which is it ?

Quote:

by whom are they cherished

By you. Part time hole digger/hillbilly convinced he is a geneticist geologist arguing that religious people are wrong to have their beliefs because they do not agree with his beliefs.

1 Reply

@Ionus,

Quote:

It seems you want to criticise me for saying that evolution is not hard and fast like you want it to be but still have it as absolute fact when you argue in its favour. Which is it ?

HAd you said that evolution IS NOT hard and fast would not have evoked a peep from me. But your CONFIDENCE THAT "CHERISHED" PARTS OF THE THEORY WILL BE OVERTURNED" is just a fuckin pompous assed stupid comment that assumes that the theory is "xcxherished". It works enough and is used to predict. Its not cherished. Theres a million scientists who are looking for loopholes so that they can make their bones .

OF COURSE many parts of evolutionary theory will be modified or dropped dipshit, thats how science works. It doesnt need your sage advice (which means that your sage advice comes from deep within your cloaca)
If you dont like my opinions lets talk em, dont hate me cause Im educated . Thats just too Sarah Palin for me .

Quote:

Part time hole digger/hillbilly convinced he is a geneticist geologist

Do I detect some jealousy ANUS? what have you got against earned degrees by hard fuckin work? are you anti-education? a know nothing? a follower of Ned Ludd? You an out of work Conestoga Wagon wheelwright or a royal thatcher?
If youve got any point with some substance, lets air it and test it. Just coming up with crap that is easily shot down aint worth your or my time. You may impress English drunks but not me (and several others it looks like).

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

dont hate me cause Im educated

Hahahahahahahaahahahha !!! Very Happy

Ah, Gomer...you make my day !

0 Replies

@farmerman,

But you do cherish it. It is your primary weapon against those who do not believe what you believe. Your faith is that science knows everything, if not now then one day in the future. More to the point, it can not be argued with because of your cherished opinion of it. You use it to prove a negative, and to say that abscence of evidence is evidence of abscence and a whole lot of stupid utterances best left on the floor for the sweeper. All this because you fear you are wrong. Dont be frightened, if you are right then you will be dead and finished. You wont be held accountable.

Quote:

Thats just too Sarah Palin for me .

I would have thought that you being an uneducated country bumpkin she would be your pinup girl.

1 Reply

@Ionus,

Quote:

Your faith is that science knows everything, if not now then one day in the future. More to the point, it can not be argued with because of your cherished opinion of it. You use it to prove a negative, and to say that abscence of evidence is evidence of abscence and a whole lot of stupid utterances best left on the floor for the sweeper. All this because you fear you are wrong

Youre just projecting here ANUS. Point to anywhere where Ive even hinted at anything youre asserting here. Youre just a lying sack-o-**** who loves trying to rotate and take another side so that maybe others will forget all thats been said before.

Your quote of "absence of evidence" is an interesting phrase much used by the DChristian Creationists. Its a nice sounding phrase that is usedto make a dumb point. Absence of evidence is exactly what it is, in biology one needs to look before and beyond to see whether the "Absence of evidence" is continuous throughout a level of inquiry.
Fearing Im wrong. I dont fer being wrong, thats hardly a way to continue a career. On this board though, Im in no danger with you so I wouldnt give it another thought there Anus, you havent come up with anything worth considering yet. YOU have tried by several means, most rather circular or imposing quote mining and false attribution.
I find that, since you cannot argue the points of science v religion or merely science itself, youd rather try to spend time in attacking the writer. I can do the same and Im watching a tv movie ion the life of Georgia Okeefe.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Quote:

Youre just a lying sack-o-**** who loves trying to rotate and take another side so that maybe others will forget all thats been said before.

Too much corn whiskey Gomer. You repeatedly sneer and arrogantly try to humiliate religious people with science. You are a joke and you dont even know it when it is pointed out to you. You posts are full of you declaring you are right without any support from anything but yourself.

Quote:

Your quote of "absence of evidence" is an interesting phrase much used by the DChristian Creationists.

News flash dickhead ! It is used by everyone, from police to real scientists, not labourers with delusions of omnipotence like you.

Quote:

Its a nice sounding phrase that is usedto make a dumb point.

That dumb point is that clowns like you are out of control. You protest that you do not worship science, but every chance you get you hold it on high like it is God.

Quote:

youd rather try to spend time in attacking the writer

Now I know you are joking. No way are you that big a two faced hypocritical jerk. Read what you have called me lately ? You want to use insults right up to the point where you lose, then you want to go all nice and pleasant....Awwwww...arent you a lill sweety !! Or a frightened fool who loses his temper than thries to back pedal.

2 Replies

@Ionus,

fm is that sort who gets all indignant and righteous when asked to take his feet off the table and stop spitting greenies on the carpet.

0 Replies

@rosborne979,

Quote:

Science is not some plot bent on making your life meaningless

i daren't point the finger at art

1 Reply

On a website for a company that provides textbooks for homeschooling, a parent left this comment:

Quote:

This book must have good things to offer as far as homeschooling through high school in concerned, but if you’re not Christian you may have a hard time wading through the lectures (and scripture passages) about how important Christianity is before you find it.

In Chapter Two “Blueprint for Success” I was surprised to learn that “all homeschoolers should do a thorough study of the evidence for both creation and evolution.” I was also surprised to learn that “intellectual honesty demands that you consider all reasonable evidence” in regard to creationism. Why would a non-Christian need to do that? Does the author also ask the reader to consider the scientific evidence for the Buddhist idea of creation? How about any of the myriad of Pagan ideas of creation? Hindu? Islamic? Taoist? Shinto? Sikh? Greek? Mende? Nope. Just Christianity.

Even while you are reading the nitty gritty how-to’s later on in the book Christianity keeps peeking in with phrases like “God-given powers of intellect”, “moral virtues”, “where God wants them to be”.

Finally in the General Curriculum Appendix B you will be flooded with Christian curriculum, with very little else.

It would have been nice to be told somewhere up front that this book had a Christian slant before I got it. The title, back cover and chapter headings do not allude to this fact at all.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Well, the Constitution does not forbid the concept of charter schools. They get through by leaning on the "Free Expression clause"and get to skate through un slammed. The only thing we can do is hope that the kids who are so indoctrinated can unlearn much of that stuff by the time they want to enter a college .

Im amazed that the book publishers seem to lean heavily on Creationist dogma to incude within these science texts. I guess that, after evaluating their market they decided on trying to appeal to their largest fan base.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Quote:

The only thing we can do is hope that the kids who are so indoctrinated can unlearn much of that stuff by the time they want to enter a college .

What stuff ???

1 Reply

@Ionus,

the stuff in their science books that address the equivalence of Creationism v Evolution. Were you not paying attention to Wandels post or is this still some mystery that loses its point to non USers.?

I collect science books of the turn of the 20th century and its amazing how the kids were indoctrinated back then with Creationist "science". Books werent even trying to sneak in Biblical references, they were outright blatant about it.

2 Replies

@Ionus,

Look Io-- The main point here is that the anti-IDers are the epitome of vulgarity and that my side is civilised and generous in spirit as any good Christian is supposed to be. And here you are making my side as vulgar as the anti-IDer's side.

Darwin's theories are vulgarity in 7 no trumps. The putative science is neither here nor there. His supporters have no intellectual alternative to vulgarity and barbarity. That it shows on this thread, even in wande's quotes, is as obvious as the nose on your face. Some young woman, probably corruptly recruited, called the governing class of a state of the Union "know nothings" and the only evidence she offered, being bereft of any other, was her having asserted it.

That's the sort of vulgarity that Macaulay was justifiably accused of. The rapid solo on the trumpet. The simple world. The direct categorical. The assertion. The stamping emphasis. The unloveliness. The strong effect. Offensive to taste. Untempered crudity. The shallow analysis. The puerile rudeness. The Puritan streak.

Macaulay called Montesquieu a "learned pig" and a "musical infant". The High Priest of Darwinism called an opponent "lower than an earthworm" recently.

But this vulgarity on here over-reaches Macaulay. By some distance. It goes beyond triviality and levity to flat vulgarity of thought and to something of mean and ignoble associations. And calls in an obsessive scatology to its aid.

Do we hand over 50 million kids to that? That's the argument. And if you, Io, match vulgarity with vulgarity then there's nothing to choose between the two positions except the science which anti-IDers decide to limit themselves to.

John Morley wrote-

Quote:

Now a man of letters, in an age of battle and transition like our own, fades into an ever deepening distance, unless he has while he writes that touching and impressive quality,---the presentiment of the eve; a feeling of the difficulties and interests that will engage and distract mankind on the morrow.

And these vulgarians run away from talk of social consequences with the same alacrity that they run towards the needs of the moment and the glory of the present hour and towards the dunny can for their abiding image.

Faustian science is care for the future. They have not one scientific bone in their bodies. They only have the books they have read and every one read, and indeed written, to flatter their personal peccadilloes which function to keep them in the little box they live in.

That's why fm is taking you on and not me. He knows that if he can get you down into that hole he can beat you.

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

I collect science books of the turn of the 20th century and its amazing how the kids were indoctrinated back then with Creationist "science". Books werent even trying to sneak in Biblical references, they were outright blatant about it.

Which science books? Carefully selected ones no doubt to help you make the point you want to make. Any Freud? Any de Sade? Any La Mettrie? Any Darwin? Any Mill?

Were they all colouring books? You have a non sequitur on your hands old boy. Again. What you collect has nothing to do with anything. The price was probably the decisive factor. A cheap method of deluding yourself that you're a collector of scientific memorabilia as a route to imagining you are a scientific person and, as such, superior to the common herd.

1 Reply

@spendius,

You seem to just fluff yourself spendi. I dont need to take you on, you are an example of why your viewpoint is bankrupt. You are still fighting a fight that was ended in the 80's yet you seem to have missed it.

Also, most of your points are totally irrelevant to all but you. (Id look into that, do you get overly- startled a sudden noises?)

Take you on? wait till Im up to my ears in multi tasking that way I can spare a bit of left hemisphere (not too big a chunk) jut to make it even.

I like the nice way you call ANUS stupid. I may even agree with you but why not just come out and say it. Why try to dress up the carp ? The mans incapable of supporting two disparate concepts at the same time cause he even has trouble with one

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Drivel fm. We can now call it Macaulayism. Without the style. Your atheism is like that "save the worldism" some young ladies get enthused about. You're as sweet a little Christian as I ever came across. Not only do you give science a bad name but atheism as well. They are merely knives and forks with which you feed your ego.

I ought to add in order to show that I don't read in one corner of the library that John Morley was such an atheist as to criticise Mill's Three Essays on Religion as lamentably soft-minded and as showing an acquiesence toward the possibility that the Christian doctrines contain some truth.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

I ought to add in order to show that I don't read in one corner of the library that John Morley was such an atheist as to criticise Mill's Three Essays on Religion as lamentably soft-minded and as showing an acquiesence toward the possibility that the Christian doctrines contain some truth.

And the Dolittle raid had more to do with setting up the end of WWII in the Pacific because it caught the Japanese flatfooted and led to MIDWAY. SO FUCKIN WHAT? your inability to discuss the concept at hand is on your coat of arms. ( Your ADD is renown about A2K).

If youve missed the point of wandels post just say so, dont beat around the pilot house like you are on some "higher plane of discourse".
Your just an old English drunk with prsumptions to classical philosophy. You have no idea what science is or isnt about AND youve no idea of the culture wars in the US. SO why dont you and ANUS keep on the down lo and leave polite society alone.

Ill catch your next post when I return in several hours . Im sure it will be one in which youve spent time on google and the urban dictionary.

2 Replies

@spendius,

Quote:

Were they all colouring books? You have a non sequitur on your hands old boy. Again. What you collect has nothing to do with anything. The price was probably the decisive factor. A cheap method of deluding yourself that you're a collector of scientific memorabilia as a route to imagining you are a scientific person and, as such, superior to the common herd.

The fact is that youre too dim to understand the relationship between the Charter school texts and the texts of the first quarter of the 20th century. It is quite relevant. These are texts that strongly profess the Divine intercession of creation and dismiss evolution as badly as you attempt. Their logic, like yours is loaded with barnyard aphorisms and country sayings like "Its laufghable to think we are related to the brutish apes of the jungle" - Natural SCience 1918. In 1918, DArwin would not have been a text used in the Normal schools, college yes but not lower grades Le Metrie " (which one) hadnt yet proposed "Big BAng" And la Mettrie nor de Sade were considered any more relevant for a few years , just like Moby Dick wasnt re-discovered till the 1920's .

Mill, Bentham, Malthus,etc were applications oriented so they did have their places in several sciences, not biology until Darwin became "neo-Darwin".

Floodist and Biblical Based science were all the rage in the US until the mid 1920's when Scopes attempted a show trila of evolution. After that , the process of teching science slowly became invested in the scientific method rather than churchy bullshit.
I sure you know this though, youre just acting dumb to try to curry favor with whoevers new .

1 Reply

@oolongteasup,

oolongteasup wrote:

Quote:
Science is not some plot bent on making your life meaningless

i daren't point the finger at art

I don't know who you were quoting there oolong, but it wasn't me.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

Your just an old English drunk with prsumptions to classical philosophy. You have no idea what science is or isnt about AND youve no idea of the culture wars in the US. SO why dont you and ANUS keep on the down lo and leave polite society alone.

1- I'm not a drunk. I am never above the legal driving limit. Never.

2-I have no presumptions to classical philosophy.

3-I am a scientist. I know exactly what science is and isn't. Far too much for my own good. It is not an aspect of the Revolution. It is the Revolution. And it's European. It's method subordinates imagination to observation and only discovers knowledge in experience. As animals do. It seeks to determine conduct by utility and that leaves it with a big problem concerning the utility of belief systems. The simple fact that you think there is nothing to argue about is the proof you have no science. You are simply asserting the utility of scientific method and ignoring questions about the inutility. I can show why you have no science, and have done often enough, and your posts speak it loud and clear. It is unscientific to make your assertions. 7 I think in the post concerned. In combo. The one before with its fair share which is why I said it was drivel.

4-I accept that I don't know much about your culture wars. Like any scientist I am here trying to find out. The assertions you make about some southern states are ridiculous and point directly to the absence of science from your make up.

5-Scientific method is the precise opposite of polite society as you have proved time and again by your refusal to offer the scientific position on matters I have asked you about. You fondly believe that the application of stern science will lead to improvement in the human race which I find a utopian fantasy belied by any study of history. It is an attractive philosophy to young men on whom the dust of daily life has not yet had time to work its effects and who think of it as a means of their advancement. It being so simple.

Prejudices, pre-dispositions, belief systems and the like are easily attacked by the rationalist when thought of in isolation. But they are not in isolation. They come wrapped up symbiotically with feeling, character and ways of life which no Darwinian would dispute. A violent surgery upon them risks destroying, along with the declared false opinion it is operating upon, all that goes with it and which has as much chance of being valuable and wholesome as any other opinion. In fact, scientific method is a wholesale attack upon all opinions and as you pass out opinions like you might pass out cards dealing bridge hands you are no exemplar of it. Attacking opinions and beliefs using simple rationality is as infantile scientifically as attacking crime in order to be well thought of without allowing that the attack might be successful and all crime cease and all that goes with it. What a job destroyer that would be eh? What career opportunities lost. What contracts unsigned. What ennui. It simply won't wash. The belief is not an isolated concept. To treat it as such is profoundly unscientific. It is an integral aspect of the whole culture. To exchange it for faith in the scientific method alone is a step you are not prepared to contemplate as I have shown many times and each time you have confirmed the importance of belief.

6-I haven't read wande's last post yet. They weary me. But I will now you have pointed it out.

Quote:

Im sure it will be one in which youve spent time on google and the urban dictionary.

7- And what in these exchanges has come from Google or the urban distionary. Once again you are blurting out unjustified assertions. John Morley is out of print. His name elicits no response from Google. Try it. If you can get a response let me know. I would be interested. I daresay I have looked at the UD five or six times in all my years on A2K. No scientist would make your statement without some evidence. You're insulting the intelligence of A2Kers trotting out aspersions like that. You must think some of them are daft enough to believe them.

8-I have nothing to do with Ionus. I have disagreed with him on the Brit thread this very day as well as on this one. Deal with me. I'm not a movement.

0 Replies

Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know