spendius wrote:Wolf-
Wouldn't a bright kid feel that if the survival of the fittest is the law of evolution and nature,which it is of course,wouldn't he easily get the idea that our social organisation is degenerate and should he ever rise into our ruling elite he might bring Fascist ideas into play as a way of reducing this degeneracy and thus improving our society's long term chances of survival.
No. Is France fascist? Is Tokyo fascist? Is Australia and the UK fascist?
Quote:Fascist ideas on such things as eugenics,
That would be Nazism, actually. I don't seem to remember Fascism being all that linked with racism. That's splitting hairs, I must admit, but there we go.
Quote:...toleration of people with physical and mental disabilities and expansion of the Fatherland rest comfortably in the same bed as Darwinism and,in fact,many people have used Darwinism to underpin their ideas on these matters and often in extreme form.
So does Capitalism. Darwinism and Capitalism fit well together too. What's your point? Anything can be taken to the extreme, even religion. You name the number of people whom have died because of religious wars and I assure you it's more than those whom have died because of eugenics (but only because eugenics hasn't been around as long, I'll admit).
Teaching ID will not prevent people from taking Darwinism to the extreme. Teaching Creationism will not prevent people from taking Darwinism to the extreme.
Take this mug of tea I have sitting right next to me. Just because it's there, does it mean I have to drink it all in one go? Just because drinking water is good for me, does that mean I have to submerge myself completely in water and drink constantly?
You worry about social Darwinism. So?
I worry about social Darwinism too. Everyone who talks about the fears of gene testing leading to only a race of blue-eyed blonde Aryans fears social Darwinism. Everytime we talk about Global Warming, everybody avoids discussing the rather Nazi-like prospect of population control.
The social stigma of being labelled a Nazi is enough in most cases to deter, except for Neo Nazis. I can't understand them. Anyway, social Darwinism can be easily countered by decency and common sense.
Quote:Quote:Social packs are beneficial to DNA.
Hitler would certainly agree with that.
I wasn't talking about Hitler. If you read the rest of my argument, you'd have seen that I made the argument, preventing those supposed undesirables from breeding is potentially diminishing the gene pool of beneficial genes. Sure, they may have bad genes, but to get rid of them completley may get rid of the good genes too.
My position is carry on with your life and don't pay attention to the state of the human race's genes. As long as there is a large diversity of different people, that is enough. Let people fall in love and society go doing on what it is doing.
Quote:Quote: And if I come across as sneering and self-serving,
I don't recall you doing that Wolf.
Well, I responded to the post which you directed at me. In that post, you asked me whether I would subject your view to the sneering, self-serving, condescending tone of voice that others have done. I merely assumed that you thought I had done that before along with the others.
Quote:Quote:In reality the tone of my voice is apathy combined with stress and complete disbelief that anybody could ever think that Intelligent Design or even Creationism is actual science and deserves to be taught as an alternative to Evolution.
I'm sorry to hear you are stressed.It is quite a bad thing to be from a strict evolutionary point of view.
My viewpoint isn't a strictly evolutionary point of view. My viewpoint is that evolution happens on its own but the laws of the Universe may or may not have been created by some God-like being. This, however, is not the same as ID, because ID goes out of its way to state that anything you can't explain is explained by God, which is a horrible, horrible scientific notion.
You cannot explain it so therefore some imaginery suernatural figure must be responsible? That is the most horrible unscientific thing I've ever heard. That is why I am absolutely against ID being taught, because it is encouraging sloppy thinking.
Quote:Nobody on this thread,least of all myself,thinks that ID is science.It seems to me more in the way of a choice between the lesser of two evils.What children are taught has an outcome in what sort of citizens they become and if the Essdeeoids on here thought about the social result of exclusive evolutionism I don't think they would be quite as much in favour of it as they believe themselves to be.
Evolution is not an evil, nor is Creationism.
The thing I'm against are Creationism and ID, neither of which are science and neither of which encourage good scientific thinking.
God and science don't mix. Just look at how Albert Einstein made a complete fool out of himself when he said "God does not play dice" in regards to quantum phsyics. He was wrong and his belief made him ignore the evidence which suggested that chance plays a huge role in quantum phsyics.
True, there is a possiblity that God exists. Don't care. Nothing to do with science. The issue of God confuses things. Leave him out of it.
Quote:Having been brought up themselves with the benefit of some Christian ethics I don't think they appreciate what a society would be like that eschewed such things.
Do you seriously think I wasn't brought up with the benefit of Christian ethics? I was brought up believing in God. I was taught Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels as if they were fact, true and tested. Yet those events had nothing to do with the ethics.
The words stated by Jesus, yes, certainly. But Genesis? No.
Quote:In such a society Enron executives would be cock of the walk and would presumably mate serially. And one couldn't really see the point of referees and umpires or rule books in sport.The Romans didn't see the point either in their games.
Destroy Christian ethics and replace them with Buddhist ethics. You'll find that Buddhist ethics are very similar and will serve just as well in preventing social Darwinism from happening. And Buddhists don't have anything against Evolution.
The only matter in which Buddhists insist on ignoring scientific evidence is on the nature of the mind.
Quote:Actually Wolf the problem is PRIDE. Pride is not top of the list of the Seven Deadly Sins (oops-sins don't exist in nature) for nothing.It is miles above such things as Lust and Gluttony and rightly so.
And from what I've seen, pride is very prevalent in Christianity too.
We are made in the image of God. We are the chosen ones. We are better than you, because we adhere to God's laws. Our religions is better than yours.
All of your issues that you have stated for has very little to do with ID as a real scientific theory as something that should be taught in science classes. Science is not about how we should live. It is about how the world works.
Everything you've stated for concerns society and sociology (which is in effect a science, but I'm talking the hard basic sciences of chemistry, physics and biology).
So what if you're taught ethics in sociology that contradicts evolution?
Science teachers should teach students that researchers often come up with contradictions. They should show students that some research comes up with one answer and some research on the same subject comes up with a contradictory answer, that science is full of research groups contradicting research groups and also research groups confirming the findings of others.
Students should be taught to avoid the black and white that you are labelling Evolution and ID with.
The only thing that I know that is clear cut, black and white, is that ID is not science.
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