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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

 
 
Mathos
 
  1  
Mon 21 May, 2007 03:24 pm
Some 20,000 people lost their lives in the evacuation of Phnom Penh. An alarming figure indeed, but as a comparison it is noted that 1000,000 people died in revenge killings, murders, and balancing up grievances in France purely during the German retreat of 1945.

In Phnom Penh the different army groups of Pol Pot's forces being totally unaware of who was who, clashed and killed one another quite randomly in the streets of the city, it took a few days for the levels of insanity to settle down. The National Bank was blown up with dynamite, this was not an act allocated to Pot's forces, the Khmers Rouges leaders had every intention of establishing a monetary system of it's own. In the markets the stall holders were instructed to cut the costs of their goods, some by as much as 100%, to the delight of the population, but obvious despair of the mainly Chinese-stallholders. NCO's from the original government army were supposedly taken to Sam Riep for new training, and were loaded onto trucks in their hundreds. Twenty miles outside of Phnom Penh they were instructed to get off the trucks. Their arms were bound and they were badly abused before being bludgeoned to death.

Prince Sihanouk who had fled to Beijing prior to the invasion of the capital was due to return having agreed to accept the Khmer Rouge as the new government. Several highly ranked officers from his army were told to report wearing full dress uniform to welcome him back at the airport. Several prominent wealthy businessmen were instructed to join them. The convoy of vehicles was stopped near to Mount Thippadey, they were all killed by Khmers Rouges executioners waiting in ditches by the roadside. Their deaths were not swift!

Similar massacres occurred throughout the north west, in general any official of any town was certain to be killed, his family were not spared the brutality of rape, torture, humiliation and eventual death. Orders had been given not to waste bullets on these wretched souls, they were beaten to death with farming implements, rifle butts, rocks, kicking, the lucky if there is such a word for these victims, may have had their throats cut. Children were swung by their ankles into trees, smashing their heads.

I have actually seen some of the mass graves in the killing fields, thousands of skulls are on show as a permanent reminder to the world of what this regime committed against it's own people. Even now if you took a walk in those fields (I was last there in February-March 2007)it is possible to see numerous human bones amongst the dirt and foliage.


Some left Phnom Penh in cars, with consumer goods loaded inside and on the roofs, how they intended using fridges, TV's and electric fans in the jungle is anybody's guess. When orders were given for private cars and trucks to be abandoned the contents were strewn all over the roadside. A grand piano was sighted some three years later, marooned in the middle of a rice field, lacquer peeling! For many it became too much, a witness later wrote:-

A shiny new Peugeot was being driven down the river bank, it went into the water with a splash, floating forward, until the river current turned it round, taking it slowly downstream. There were people inside,. A man in the drivers seat, a woman besides him and children looking out of the back, their hands placed up against the windows. All the doors and windows remained shut.

Nobody got out.

We all stared as the car settled lower and lower and the waters went over the roof:

A wealthy family committing suicide.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Mon 21 May, 2007 03:33 pm
c.i. wrote-

Quote:
There's nothing wrong with the profit motive relative to science.


Tell that to the kids. A few might believe you.

Not one single solitary thing was wrong with the profit motive in relation to anything in the Carthage Gustave Flaubert researched and had peer reviewed by the French intellectual elite over a five year period of intensive study and two visits to the site. Why don't you read it and see what nothing wrong with the profit motive looks like.

You are defining "profit motive" the way you want to define it and it is obvious, tautologically obvious, that there will be nothing wrong with that. Otherwise you might have to change your way of thinking.

As far as I know there doesn't seem to have been much wrong with the profit motive anywhere until Christianity took it in hand. So next time you whinge about price gouging don't forget to nod your head in the direction of the Vatican. You might nip into a lawyer's office and read the pages relating to controlling it. They might be the size of Texas though if all spread out.

There's more to science than test tubes and cyclotrons. Like a very great deal more.

You are beginning to sound like one of those people who once read Scientific American (which I'm beginning to think is an Oxo cube) in the dentist's and as a result think you understand science. An armchair scientist like sort of you know.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Mon 21 May, 2007 04:07 pm
spendi, Most developed countries of the world are teaching our kids math and science. That just blows your mind, doesn't it?
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 03:23 am
It doesn't blow my mind c.i.

Your statement doesn't make sense to me as it stands. Developed countries can't teach anybody anything.

I assume you mean that kids in developed countries can run rings round American kids at maths and science.

First thing is that I don't know that's true. Somebody could write an article or make a TV programme or mount a campaign to get more funds to teach maths and science or make some other point. Such people distort statistics to reinforce their point and leave out other matters.

You would have to know which kids are in the comparison.

And you would need to justify the value of teaching maths and science at certain levels to everybody. Most occupations don't need expertise in those subjects beyond a rough working knowledge. Over emphasis on those subjects can reduce the effect of other subjects which are of importance and create psychological states which are often not useful. They can produce narrow illiberal mental states. Hothouse plants don't have the sturdiness of natural ones.

Successful cultures readily go soft anyway. It's the way of the world.

Taking over a wilderness and getting onto the moon in 200+ years requires a practical bent. The theoretical side can be bought in.

I don't know that your statement is true and I don't know whether correcting it if it is true has value. A culture of 300 million living like you seem to do is a very complex entity and I suspect all simplistic assertions made about such a thing.

From a theological point of view (intellectual) , where individual fates are of no consequence, you look like a runaway success to me. It is dangerous to focus on a single issue.

Your obesity problem is more likely to vibrate my mind a touch. And this assertion problem. And, if you remember, I concocted a justification for the latter a few weeks ago.

But I am almost persuaded that in the destiny of nations you may well have "peaked". But with the DOW at record levels I have reservations about that.

Onward and upward requires more that a lot of mathematical and scientific hotshots.

Piety may be more important. And inner peace. But not too much eh?
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 04:05 am
foxy
Quote:
Baloney. With the training and resources, I can do the experiments and research myself. I can see with my own eyes how the data comes together and draw significant conclusions from that. This is 'experiencing' science first hand.
You just made my point, thank you. Only through the duplication of exact conditions and the recreation of the results of an experiment or discovery do we validate science. If you wish to go around claiming experience is the best teascher, knock yerself out. Youll just be dead wrong more often.

When Dr SChweiter discovered "soft tissue" within a kneecap of a T-rex, she didnt publish in a peered journal till it wa repeated two more times and the innards were described and verified by anatomists, geneticists, ect.
She may have experienced the elation of discovering the material, but the science part demanded repeatability, and communication of hard data.

Chances are that you wont be publishing any data in the near future so I hope this revelation doesnt come as too big a shock.



Spendi, you seem to be in a manic phase, Ill wait till youre more calm before paying any attention to yourpin-ball style. Ta-ta snookums.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 05:49 am
fm wrote-

Quote:
Spendi, you seem to be in a manic phase, Ill wait till youre more calm before paying any attention to yourpin-ball style. Ta-ta snookums


I'm glad I only seem to be in one tiny corner of the earth and I'm happy for you that my seeming to be in a manic phase is so convenient for you in that it provides a seemingly valid excuse to not answer any of the points I raise or any of the crucial questions you have been repeatedly been asked to answer.

I am well used to such things. It's the stock answer, despite the multitude of possible variations, of the complacent, closed off mind.

In view of it it would be bootless to inform you of how shot through with holes your answer to Foxy actually is. And how meaningless it is as a consequence.
0 Replies
 
xingu
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 05:52 am
spendius wrote:
fm wrote-

Quote:
Spendi, you seem to be in a manic phase, Ill wait till youre more calm before paying any attention to yourpin-ball style. Ta-ta snookums


I'm glad I only seem to be in one tiny corner of the earth and I'm happy for you that my seeming to be in a manic phase is so convenient for you in that it provides a seemingly valid excuse to not answer any of the points I raise or any of the crucial questions you have been repeatedly been asked to answer.

I am well used to such things. It's the stock answer, despite the multitude of possible variations, of the complacent, closed off mind.

In view of it it would be bootless to inform you of how shot through with holes your answer to Foxy actually is. And how meaningless it is as a consequence.


Nice pat on the back you gave yourself. You must be in love with your delusions.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 08:28 am
Hiya xingu-

I'm glad you liked it. "Nice" is a lovely word. I thought it not bad. I wouldn't go so far as nice.

Which delusions are you referring to? Are you a serial asserter too? Is anybody not in the USA. The war went on an assertion I think. That's what everybody says anyway. Not me mind you.

Perhaps you might answer the questions that have been asked which no-one apart from myself and Foxy have answered despite them being asked a number of times.

1- Are you in favour of muzzling science. And "a little bit" is no good. It requires a straight yes or no. Lola asked me that and I answered.

2- How do anti-IDers propose to nourish the feeling side of human nature
as well as the reason side with just the facts?

Most people seem to think that if the feeling side withers we will become
dehumanized. And I have already discussed the positive possibilities of dehumanization so you needn't have any inhibitions about being unable to nail your colours to the mast where we can all see them.

It would make more sense than blurting inanities on a science forum. One can blurt anything one wishes. A lot of young ladies do it all the time. The effect of such things on me is a lot less than that of a snowflake falling in the Antartic.

Perhaps someone who won't answer is the deluded one.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 08:58 am
UK UPDATE

Quote:
The wrecking of British science
(Harry Kroto, The Guardian, May 22, 2007)

There is food for thought in the fact that, after a decade of Labour government and at the same moment that the prime minister was making a speech about how important he considered science, the University of Reading announced the closure of its physics department.

Thirty per cent of physics departments have either been closed or merged in the past five years. What is one to make of the deafening silence of ministers when, last year, the small Sussex chemistry department - a fantastic department to work in, where I stayed for some 37 years and which has housed some 12 fellows of the Royal Society, three Nobel laureates and a Wolf prize winner since it was created in 1962 - was under threat of closure? It was only through the concerted efforts of staff and students that a U-turn occurred.

Does no one in the government care, or is there a hidden agenda? Some government measures, such as those aimed at improving technology transfer and the encouragement of start-ups, have been successful.

However, nothing effective has been done by this government, or for that matter the previous one, to improve the situation on the science education front. Indeed, several new measures have exacerbated the problem. The laissez-faire attitude to science education has resulted in a disaster exemplified by the fact that more young people are opting for media studies than physics.

***********************************

As well as trained engineers and scientists, we desperately need a scientifically literate general population, capable of thinking rationally - and that includes lawyers, businesspeople, farmers, politicians, journalists and athletes. This is vital if we are to secure a sustainable world for our grandchildren.

The facts that a) we use in one year an amount of fossil fuel that took a million years to accumulate, b) we may be on the verge of a climate change catastrophe of global proportions and c) powerful technologies may soon fall into the hands of disturbed individuals with minds riven with those twin cancers of nationalism and religious fanaticism, seem to concern the scientific community a lot more than they do politicians or the media. As my Sussex colleague, the Nobel laureate Sir John Cornforth, has written: "If you are a scientist, you realise before long that if the world is in anyone's hands, it is in yours."

The failure of our general science educational policy is manifest in the fact that so few are aware of the true level of our dependence on science and technology, or the truly humanitarian contributions that science and technology have made to society: from raising the health of the population (half of all 18th-century children died by the age of eight) to the advanced technologies that pervade our everyday lives (the internet and mobile phones being archetypal examples).

************************************

The scientific method is based on what I prefer to call the inquiring mindset. It includes all areas of human thoughtful activity that categorically eschew "belief", the enemy of rationality. This mindset is a nebulous mixture of doubt, questioning, observation, experiment and, above all, curiosity, which small children possess in spades. I would argue that it is the most important, intrinsically human quality we possess, and it is responsible for the creation of the modern, enlightened portion of the world that some of us are fortunate to inhabit.

Curiously, for the majority of our youth, the educational system magically causes this capacity to disappear by adolescence. Without it, we have no instinctive ability to assess the importance of the technical issues that impinge on our everyday lives. We are unable to gauge accurately the validity of fears over such issues as climate change and the looming energy crisis, or grasp the socio-economic and humanitarian importance of new genetic technologies.

Scientific education is by far the best training for all walks of life, because it teaches us how to assess situations critically and react accordingly. It gives us an understanding based on reverence for life-enhancing technologies as well as for life itself. If we do not know how things work, how can we fix things? And how are we going to use these powerful technologies wisely?

******************************************

Do I think there is any hope for UK? I am really not sure. It is beyond belief that in the 21st century, our prime minister and the Department for Education and Skills are diverting taxpayers' money to faith-based groups intent on propagating culturally divisive dogma that is antagonistic to the secular, enlightened philosophy that created the modern world.

It is a scandal that the present system is enabling a car salesman to divert significant government funds to propagate dogma such as "intelligent design" in our schools. State funds are also being used to support some schools that abuse impressionable young people by brainwashing them into believing that non-believers will burn for all eternity in the fires of hell. This policy is a perfect recipe for the creation of the next generation of homegrown and state-educated suicide bombers.

I think there is every likelihood that the lack of scientifically educated and aware young people in the UK will result in ever poorer performance on a global scale, and a takeover by the next generation of young Chinese and Indians, ravenous for the scientific knowledge that will free them from the shackles of present poverty levels. They are being actively encouraged by their governments, who understand that the future lies in a scientific education based on doubt and questioning, rather than on belief.

It is truly disturbing that a well-funded cohort of religious groups - aided, abetted and condoned by the Labour government - is undermining our science education. If they achieve any more success in their subversion of the intrinsic secular safeguards embodied in our democratic institutions and our educational system, there can be no doubt there is major trouble ahead. So my final message is: "Do Panic!"
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 09:03 am
farmerman wrote:
foxy
Quote:
Baloney. With the training and resources, I can do the experiments and research myself. I can see with my own eyes how the data comes together and draw significant conclusions from that. This is 'experiencing' science first hand.
You just made my point, thank you. Only through the duplication of exact conditions and the recreation of the results of an experiment or discovery do we validate science. If you wish to go around claiming experience is the best teascher, knock yerself out. Youll just be dead wrong more often.

When Dr SChweiter discovered "soft tissue" within a kneecap of a T-rex, she didnt publish in a peered journal till it wa repeated two more times and the innards were described and verified by anatomists, geneticists, ect.
She may have experienced the elation of discovering the material, but the science part demanded repeatability, and communication of hard data.

Chances are that you wont be publishing any data in the near future so I hope this revelation doesnt come as too big a shock.



Spendi, you seem to be in a manic phase, Ill wait till youre more calm before paying any attention to yourpin-ball style. Ta-ta snookums.


Did you accidentally miss the point I was making or was it just too difficult to address at face value so it was necessary to distort it to the degree that you did?
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 09:46 am
foxy, your point was just silly annd sounds like some old men sitting in a park arguing whether Baddeck is pronounced Bah-Deck' or Ba'-Deck.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 10:31 am
Hey Foxy- your turn.

But seriously, is fm's statement-

Quote:
foxy, your point was just silly annd sounds like some old men sitting in a park arguing whether Baddeck is pronounced Bah-Deck' or Ba'-Deck.


a typical example of what passes for acceptable discourse in the higher levels of the American educational establishment. You must be able to see that it means nothing other than a noise. It's worth about as much as you responding by saying

Quote:
fm, it is you who is silly not me and I can't imagine how I might sound like some old men sitting in a park arguing when I have a sweet, seductive voice and never studied simultaneous ventriloquism in any register let alone the authoritative baritone one might expect from some old men.


Then he could reply spluttering about your ignorance and general all-round stupidity and finding another ridiculous simile with which to illustrate his remarks and you can continue until the end of time if you live long enough and never be short of an interesting and enlightening companion.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 10:34 am
Apparently spendis entire job is to pick up stones and hand them to other people to throw. Very Happy
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Foxfyre
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 10:37 am
Well, I am quick capable of finding my own stones, thank you very much. But I thank Spendi for seeing the situation as it is. It's a good thing I REAAAAAAALLLLYYYY like you Farmerman, or I would get snitty over your reeeeealllllly snitty posts. And snittiness is so unattractive to the non snits yanno.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 10:48 am
I don't know that "unattractive" is the right word. Ridiculous or absurd might be better. Nothing that's funny is unattractive in my view.

It really is quite funny observing some pompous twit expounding at great length to no purpose and obviously believing himself to be a fount of wisdom and authority. Monte Python took the piss out of that endlessly and great fun it was too.

A School Board with a majority of that type may as well not have discussions. Just a vote should be enough and then adjourning to the pub to play darts.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 11:34 am
spendius wrote:
It really is quite funny observing some pompous twit expounding at great length to no purpose and obviously believing himself to be a fount of wisdom and authority.


Then, after a while, it gets boring.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 11:50 am
One might forgive oneself a wry smile on reading Mr Kroto's piece which wande quoted.

His compendium of braggadacio, special pleading, snobbery, incoherence and inscrutability, the very opposite of the plain, simple, rapid and noble style of Homer, which he has obviously felt no need to consult with before regaling long suffering Grauniad readers, and now us, with his admonishments of the duly elected governments he refers to, is really quite a good laugh for those of us who find Shakespeare's use of such melodramatics in his tragic characters one of the joys of life.



His homilies on our self-indulgent lifestyle would be quite acceptable coming from a person who lives in a cave eating seaweed but one has reason to fear that he lives much like the rest of us, perhaps moreso for being able to earn money so effortlessly, and that he may be suspected of some private motive or other.

One might easily suspect also that were we to take him at his word he might well faint clean away when the DOW and the Footsie plunged to hitherto unknown regions which they would if we did.

Perhaps he was just enjoying himself over breakfast one morning in his conservatory, or lean-to as I prefer to call them.

The qualities he rightly grants to small children "in spades" are not "magically" eradicated by the educational system. They are carefully crafted by experts for that very purpose because a population of adults with those qualities, even in hearts, might well present a few insurmountable difficulties. One might usefully watch small children at play to form an opinion on such matters rather than bring them into an argument in order to milk the "aaaaahh" factor.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 11:55 am
Careful there, spendi. You've been known to spout your favorite writers too!
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 11:55 am
I'm never bored wande. I think boredom is a consequence of a mind with little in it.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Tue 22 May, 2007 01:05 pm
spendi, in one breath wrote
Quote:
His compendium of braggadacio, special pleading, snobbery, incoherence and inscrutability, the very opposite of the plain, simple, rapid and noble style of Homer, which he has obviously felt no need to consult with before regaling long suffering Grauniad readers, and now us, with his admonishments of the duly elected governments he refers to, is really quite a good laugh for those of us who find Shakespeare's use of such melodramatics in his tragic characters one of the joys of life.
, and I thought that I was the worst at run-on sentencing. Spendi has achieved, and retired, the Jack Kerouac, toilet paper roll sentence award.
Also, I think that spendi may be in for some honorable mention in this years William Henry Bulwer Lytton competition.


CONGRATULATIONS YOU OLD PIECE.
0 Replies
 
 

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