Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@farmerman,

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Its nice to be able to comment from the comfort of ones office that "evolutionists do this" or "we need religion in that".

As indeed it must be nice to able to refute the value of religion whilst living in a society that benefitted from religions shaping effects for thousands of years.

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Call me in 300 years.

As we will both be in hell, I think I would rather knock on your door....

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@Ionus,

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As indeed it must be nice to able to refute the value of religion whilst living in a society that benefitted from religions shaping effects for thousands of years.

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I dont think Ive refuted any of that. However, now that youve brought it up, There is ample evidence, that religions like Catholicism and many other Christian sects have certainly been unfriendly to the forwarding of scientific investigations in the past.

By benefits, I suppose you mean things like Societal order, or our bases for morals and laws? I wonder how true all that is? Most of the patting on the back has actually been done by the religious so its really not a very objective statement. I wonder how we could scientifically test what you say?

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

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it took much back-and-forth on this thread until Ionus was finally clear he didn't object to evolution per se
I have believed evolution to be a sound solid theory since I was 12. You are mistaken. I was arguing that it does have gaps, that it can never be considered a fact because our facts that support it are constantly being improved and this has a butterfly effect on the larger theory.

Sorry - that was badly phrased. I was aware that you don't doubt evolution - was just trying to find out the nature of your objection, specifically if it's the same as was outlined in the book review http://www.economist.com/node/14082089 the "Gould v. Dawkins" issue. Another excerpt, to clarify:

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....the old argument that Stephen Jay Gould had with Mr Dawkins, about how smoothly evolution progresses. Gould, a palaeontologist, observed that there are long periods of stasis in the fossil record, which is true, and inferred from this that selfish genery is therefore wrong because it predicts continual change, which is questionable. It is just as plausible that selfish genery arrives rapidly at optimal designs, and that these shift only when what is optimal alters because, say, the environment has changed.

Separately however I question your definition of "scientific fact" on epistemological grounds. Newtonian physics work; they have been refined with the addition of relativistic data, but his original equations were facts; Maxwell believed in the ether, but his equations are valid even without; and so on.

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@farmerman,

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There is ample evidence, that religions like Catholicism and many other Christian sects have certainly been unfriendly to the forwarding of scientific investigations in the past.

Once again, that is only true if you define science in the limited way you do. Somebody once said that the Catholic Church is a fertility machine. Had the science applied to such a machine been ineffective we would all be descended from the hordes of Ghengis Kkan and company. Your avatar would not look at all as you have it. You bloody silly moo cow.

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

Separately however I question your definition of "scientific fact" on epistemological grounds.

I also pointed this out to him, but he either missed it or ignored it.

Evolution is a scientific fact. But the usage of "fact" within science isn't an absolute and unchanging concept.

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@farmerman,

I also object to the phrase "religions like Catholicism". There are no religions like Catholicism.

You also seem unaware that there are such things as "pre-conceptual levels". Things that don't refer to your idealised horizons or to your empirical abstractions, and which they pre-date and are lost in the mists of time, the most obvious of which is your separation of your limited science from the reality of the socialisation process both in its operational mode with 50 million kids living in diverse communities and its objectives. One needn't dispute the "facts" of evolution theory to dispute the teaching of it to adolescents for most of whom it is of little or no use.

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@spendius,

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that is only true if you define science in the limited way you do

That entire arena of discussion was entered into in cross examination of Dr Behe during the Dover trial. Noone was really too impressed by the flow of information he provided.Could you have done better and how?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

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that is only true if you define science in the limited way you do
That entire arena of discussion was entered into in cross examination of Dr Behe during the Dover trial. Noone was really too impressed by the flow of information he provided.Could you have done better and how?

If I remember correctly, Behe's line of reasoning led to him claiming that astrology could be considered science.

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@farmerman,

I didn't read what Mr Behe said. My previous post about the science of the mechanical operation of the machine is the line I would have taken but it would probable have been put on Ignore by people in the machine rather than those pulling the levers of it. You surely don't want me to lay it out calling a spade a spade do you? Judge Jones wouldn't have done.

Try to remember fm that Augustus tried unsuccessfully to get the birth rate up. Mr Behe has nine kids.

The Russians are trying to get their birth rate up. What's the birth rate for feminists and atheists?

You think it all grows on trees ready for you to pick the fruit.

The "entire arena of discussion" as it relates to evolution in schools was nowhere near gone in to. It was all in a tight circle in which the prosecution couldn't lose. Like I told you seven years ago. It's a back-slapping party seeking power on a lie of omission.

I'm quite prepared to discuss mandatory fertility operations. And so you should be. And your mates.

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@rosborne979,

Astrology can be considered a science. Only a fool could think otherwise. Laughing at "What's in Your Stars" newspaper feechewers is for little lads.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Astrology can be considered a science.

Take a hike, bro.

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@High Seas,

You take a hike, sistah!! I can prove it. I did so on a Trivia game 7 years ago and astounded the other players.

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@spendius,

Prove it.

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http://www.astrology-and-science.com/u-case1.htm

The case against astrology is that it is untrue, it has failed hundreds of tests, and astrologers do not usefully agree on what a given birth chart indicates. The case for astrology is that a warm and sympathetic astrologer provides low-cost non-threatening therapy that is otherwise hard to come by. Much the same applies to sun sign astrology but at a more basic level. In short, there is more to astrology than being true or false. But astrology is an easy target for commercial abuse. It also faces strong competition from hundreds of self-help psychology books that it may or may not survive once its true nature becomes more widely known.

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@High Seas,

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Prove it.

What?? Twice!!! I could do it over and then somebody in a few weeks who missed it would come in again and say "prove it" and I would end up like the tick-tock pendulum your Foucault lays on us as if we believe in gravity which we don't. Gravity can't hold Faustians down. Faustians are not like atheists.

I'll say it again. Astrology can be considered a science. Opinion polls are worthless otherwise. So are temperature measurements.

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@edgarblythe,

You are choosing your own astrologers ed and in doing so blinding yourself to the science. The science has nothing to do with your astrologers.

Are you actually saying that the time of year you are conceived, gestated, born and undergo your first formative experiences has nothing to do with how you turn out. The planetary conjunctions are merely signs. Labels.

The emphasis is reduced of course with air conditioning and plentiful availability of food.

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@spendius,

In short, you have not bothered to check the link.

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@rosborne979,

Yes it was astrology and the entire line of cross examination was really embarrassing for the IDers. Behe looked like a total tard in this one and you could see that his heart really wasnt in it. He took a lot of crap up at Lehigh for that entire line of cross exam.
He shoulda just taken his hits and said that"of course astrology isnt a science because it doesnt follow the rules of the scientific method"

BUT, instead he kept it up and dispelled all doubts.

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@High Seas,

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Prove it.

I think hes been wassailing his way around town, We call em "pub crawls". He calls it "doing research"

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@farmerman,

Well fm--he obviously isn't aware of the scientific argument. And neither are you. What does that have to do with the science?

We have already established that your science is just your science and all other science is bullshit. It avoids you being discomfitted you see. We don't want that do we?

The entire line of cross examination was your entire line of cross examination and whatever it did for the entertainment industry it proved nothing about IDers despite your assertions to the contrary. I can't imagine what the science of astrology has to do with ID anyway.

I'm surprised you aren't dizzy fron the circularities you are spinning in.

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