Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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Is there any World Cup fever in Pa? For students of human behaviour it really is a "must see".

Fever is hardly a correct term, more like a mild "rubbernecking" similar to what wed see at an automobile accident.
We are a more genteel society here in the states. Soccer, from what we see, is not really a sport. It is a melee, both on and off the field. I suppose a soccer match between two pre industrial civilizations like , say, Manchester v Glasgow, would serve as good AV training for SWAT teams.

Outside of a few isolated fatalities like those that occasionally occur in NASCAR races, we in AMerica are quite nonviolent in our sports enjoyment, we are more involved in practising the high end sport- literary invective. Never do we get involved with the wanton destruction and killing that goes on when some third world country gets its 15 minutes of fame in any given year.( of course , there are the occasional post playoff NBA "celebrations" that sometimes do require the assistance of A Batallion or two of NAtional Guard troops. Then there was the 1976 Flyers Stanley Cup "fire". But those are isolated incidents. You can take book on there being guaranteed fatalities in the world cup (and none on the field). Ill bet that, as wespeak, there is a Las Vegas book on an "over and under" spread to cover betting on the actual number of fans who will die by each others hands in the World Cup Games.

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I was pumping a British Telecom hot shot in the pub about how this thing works and it's mind blowing. Especially extrapolating a few years on. He seemed to think that your Freedom of Information thing is a key factor.

Spendi, we have a colloquial expression that says'I fell off the melon truck" to indicate that we are having trouble understanding precisely the subject at hand. Im not sure, what you are meaning in this last sentence. Is 'what" the Freedom of Information a key factor in effectively" blowing ones mind"?

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fm-

I'll ask him to explain more fully but I think that he was suggesting that the F of I kicked off the blowing of minds on this kit the full import of which is still to get here. Maybe that's why our government are not so keen.

I think he meant that the kit is just the kit and the FoI the catalyst to some really wierd stuff but only wierd to us.When it flowers it presumably will be just ordinary to those who live in it.

I was probing him on the money side of things. He confirmed my previous estimate of the smallest currency unit being 0.00001 cent as being about right.He would go 0.0000001c.

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VIRGINIA UPDATE

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Textbook charge sparks debate
(BY GARY ROBERTSON, RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, June 10, 2006)

Jim Sparks, an adjunct biology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, says the introductory biology textbook his students will use this fall leaves out important information about evolution. He says the book is biased toward creationism and intelligent design.

And Sparks doesn't like it.

"The students here are very bright," Sparks said yesterday. "I don't want to give them a pile of crap. I want to give them a good education."

But Robert D. Holsworth, the dean of VCU's College of Humanities and Science, says Sparks' charges about the book are absurd.

A story on the textbook debate appeared in the most recent issue of Style magazine, a free weekly publication circulated in the Richmond area.

"It's a very testy situation. I don't want to make it worse," Sparks said of his protest over the book, "Essentials of Biology," published by McGraw-Hill.

The recently adopted textbook will be used in teaching Biology 101.

Since his views became public, Sparks said he's received a lot of support from colleagues and others across the country who have heard about the controversy.

Yet Holsworth dismissed Sparks' claims as being inaccurate.

He said VCU's Biology Department is completely committed to teaching modern biological science.

"My sense is that the argument being made is that this is some back-door way of teaching creationism - it's simply absurd," Holsworth said.

He said the book mentions that some groups support intelligent design, but it in no way advances the arguments of the theory or defends it.

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wande quoted-

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"The students here are very bright," Sparks said yesterday. "I don't want to give them a pile of crap. I want to give them a good education."

If he wants to do that he had better start by expressing himself in public with a bit more style than is shown there.

Why are his students "very bright". That's just flannel.Are they not very bright at other universities then? And why should he be giving them a pile of crap when they are his lessons which he is being paid to teach by people in authority who have some say in what is taught.
Obviously he wants to give them a good education. Don't we all?

He's back on that American bluster about a good education being what he thinks it is and what he likes is what everybody has to like.

I agree with RDH. And what's an "absurd" teacher doing there anyway?

And what does "a lot of support" mean?

You can't put stuff like that up besides quotes from Spengler. It's not in the same league.

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fm wrote-

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Fever is hardly a correct term, more like a mild "rubbernecking" similar to what wed see at an automobile accident.

I have often wondered about this aspect of American life fm. Why is it that a game which has the world on fire is treated with disdain by many Americans and at the same time two games which excite Americans leave the rest of the world cold. It must be something to do with something unique in the American soul.

I have tried to watch baseball and your football on many occasions because I give things the benefit of the doubt before I pronounce on them but I must say that I can hardly find a spark of interest in either.
I'll accept that I don't understand them too well but they look more like job creation schemes and vehicles for invidious status comparisons to me than anything else. How have you evolved these two sets of rules which seem,on the face of it, to select in character types which all look to be the same. Do you think that they began the way they did out of a desperate soul yearning to be different and are posited on nothing other than winning. What was the original cause of allowing the forward pass in a handling game and outlawing the bouncing pitch in bat v ball games.

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Ill bet that, as wespeak, there is a Las Vegas book on an "over and under" spread to cover betting on the actual number of fans who will die by each others hands in the World Cup Games.

I would be very surprised at that if only because of the difficulty of agreeing the count. One might easily apply such cynicism to body counts in activities where an accurate count is possible but the very idea is somewhat distasteful to civilised people. Our bookmakers are not noted for their sensitivity but I think they would blanche at that prospect.

All I can say about your skills in practicing "literary invective" is that you should practice more.

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spendi

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All I can say about your skills in practicing "literary invective" is that you should practice more.

I realize its hard for you to understand our humor, your too busy wailing away on each other at "games"

Anyone who criticizes American team sports must recogize that, with the exception of Nascar and a few others, most sports are derivative ofsome other country's initial pastime. Weve just tried to make them more watcheable after all, its all mindless entertainment no?.Anyone who watches cricket surely has no grounds for criticism. Watching my fava beas grow in my garden is infinately more exciting than cricket.

Soccer is a jingoistic substitute for ritual tribal warfare. Else, why is there all that flag waving from tens of thousands of knuckle draggers in the stands. Im sure these are not your vaious countries" candidate pools for Nobel prizes.

To think that Las Vegas doesnt have an over or under pool is very naive of you. We bet on anythging in the US and, if the event carries no interest, we bet on the collateral damage.Im not saying its great humanity but its a fact.

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fm-

I was in a drinking school which tried, as an exercise in who has the best judgement, to guess the death toll shortly after the second tower went down with all media sources predicting 20,000 or so.

I predicted 6,000 and won the contest. I had underestimated your capacities by about 100%.

On sport.

Now you must admit that Europe is hosting a cultural event with the World Cup Finals. Those who come to it are not only imbibing aspects of our way of life but are also people of influence in their own countries. Most of the teams from Africa are made up of men who already play in European leagues and speak English as a matter of course as is the case with those from South America and to a lesser extent countries from further east.

The national sports of America can draw no such support. Those sports are introspective and those who play them get closer and closer to Forest Gump lookalikes with every year that passes and those who are chosen to commentate on them approximate to zombies faster than that.

It was said in one World Cup programme that the referees were required to pass an English test to qualify to have the heavy responsibility of officiating in such activities as were their two linesmen and the "fourth official" and also the "fifth official" who is a new found manifestation and who can probably get in with some fancy "pidgin".For now I mean. This obviously makes an assumption that English is the language of the future unless baseball and your forward pass malarky can win the hearts and minds of the world at large.An outcome I have grave reservations about.

I don't think Americans have a sense of humour. They seem to lack the capacity to see themselves as absurd which is considered in European intellectual circles as absolutely necessary for such a thing. They have a tendency to LOL at their own wit which educated Europeans consider to be the very essence of witlessness and as naff as naff gets and getting naffer with each year that passes.

What really shocks me is that with 290 million people you could be a force to reckon with at football and cricket and, as such, join the family of nations if only you would make it a foul to pass the handled ball forwards and outlaw more than one full pitch every six.

It seems so utterly silly to miss out on such fun as the rest of the world enjoys on the basis of a stubborn insistence on refusing to accede to such trivialities.

Superbowl is a joke and baseball seems to be swiping,hitting and cheering,missing and groaning and no-balls. With some fat guys jogging from base to base at 6 mph. The cheer leaders are the only source of interest and they are self evidently selected on body fascism principles.

Get with it. 20 years of reducing humiliation is all it would take.

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spendi

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Those who come to it are imbibing aspects of our way of life

Thats what I always said about soccer.

As far as your comments on senses of humor, times change. There was a time when America kept British humorists fed,Earlier , there was a time when Britain kept Sam Clemens living above his means. Ill laugh at anything, long as its funny. SO are you supposed to be a wit or just a lecturer?

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At the moment fm I'm one knackered tosser at half past one in the morning after a hard hot day vicariously kicking a ball and I know you'll understand if I off it to the charp pit this very instant.

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NEVADA UPDATE

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(Reno Gazette-Journal, June 11, 2006)

Backers of the Truth in Science and Prohibition of Unfunded Mandates initiatives have dropped efforts to qualify them for the ballot.

Las Vegas masonry contractor Steve Brown said he did not think his Truth in Science proposal would be passed by voters if it were on the ballot.

The measure, which would have required teachers to instruct students that there are questions about evolution, was viewed by opponents as an opening to teach intelligent design.

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Wandel, I have to get a copy of that "Essentials of Biology". Ive heard from a colleague up at Lehigh who commented that the book is leaning toward an advocacy of ID. If thats the case we are back playing with the same ball of string.
I dont even know whether this is an intro text for majors or a general text for the liberal arts . There usually is some differentiation between the two .

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Whoever heard of one book containing the essentials of biology. The very idea is so superficial that it militates against an understanding of science as Spengler explained in that passage I quoted last week which,despite its importance, has been ignored. Once again.

It's a bit like how the idea of "bargain hunting" militates against an understanding of capitalism. It's bargain science.

"Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you."

Bob Dylan-----It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleedin')

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Farmerman,

"Essentials of Biology" is published by McGraw-Hill (a major publisher).

spendi,

I doubt that Bob Dylan will ever write a biology textbook.

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I'm afraid you have missed the point again wande which was that Essentials of Biology can't be a biology textbook either and it is stretching it to even think that one book can justifiable be called An Introduction to Elementary Biology.

Did you not understand the Spengler quote or is it that you daren't?

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spendius wrote:

Did you not understand the Spengler quote or is it that you daren't?

Spengler never wrote a biology textbook either.

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http://covers.eppg.com/Jpeg_140-wide/0073224790.jpeg

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And neither did you either but you shouldn't go underestimating Spengler in such a casual and offhand way.

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I've found God, says man who cracked the genome
Steven Swinford

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.
Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man "closer to God".

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. "One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war," said Collins, 56.

"I don't see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years."

The Sunday Times June 11 2006

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spendius wrote:

And neither did you either but you shouldn't go underestimating Spengler in such a casual and offhand way.

I've found God, says man who cracked the genome
Steven Swinford

Spengler is God?

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wande-

I can't figure out how you manage to conduct a conversation. Those words in that quote stand on their own. Spengler only wrote them. Focus on the message wande not the messenger.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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