SCOTUS tells Newdow to piss off

[Kuciwalker]

No, other things have actual proof due to their applicability. Gravity, for example, can be proven by throwing a rock into the air and seeing what happens.

You can't show that that's gravity and not some supernatural being manipulating things in such a way that looks like gravity (note, this is exactly the same as your argument). In fact, I just tested this, but the only "evidence" I have that the pen actually fell to the ground is my memory - how do I know it actually happened?

[DinoDoc]

Out of curiosity, is there anything lower than a parent who forces his opinions on the rest of us wielding his child as a weapon?

[KrazyHorse]

Yes. Somebody who forces his opinions on somebody else's children.

[DinoDoc]

That seems to fit Newdow as well.

[DinoDoc]

Has anyone ever actually asked the kid what she wants?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That seems to fit Newdow as well.

Did I miss it when he asked that a statement of disbelief in God be inserted in the Pledge?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Has anyone ever actually asked the kid what she wants?

I know I wouldn't drag my kid through this **** given a similar situation despite the fact that Newdow is absolutely right in his opinion that a class activity which includes an implicit acceptance of the existence of God is wrong.

However, does it matter legally what a minor wants (especially one as young as this girl is) outside of a custody hearing?

[KrazyHorse]

Dino, if you can honestly tell me that you believe it is a greater imposition on the children of theists to ask that they refrain from reciting a pledge which implies a belief in God on school time than it is on the children of atheists to sit there and have to listen to said pledge then you have a blind spot the size of a Buick in your thinking.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Elok
The only application I have heard for evolution is as a model for computer algorithms, which is dependent on the system as an abstract idea rather than whether it actually happened.

Evolution is extremely important in the biological sciences, where it can help explain such phenomena as neurological development, aging, and pathology. The only alternative "theory" that's been proposed is creationism, and since creationism cannot help biologists to explain anything (similar to how gravity can help explain physical phenomona, whereas "god made this particular apple fall for no good reason" cannot), it's pretty clear which theory has merit and which does not.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Elok
Because we cannot affect the past the way it affects us, all we can do is stick together might-have-beens that fit the evidence available. They can never be systematically tested. "Just So Stories" for the egghead crowd. Again, the actual scientists probably disagree with me, but when I think of science, I think of the scientific method. You control variables and test the hypothesis, then get to the fun part where you stick your tongue out at the people who said you were wrong. If you can't control the vast majority of the variables, you can't test, right?

So Historians are not scientists?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Dino, if you can honestly tell me that ...

Actually I don't particularly care one way or the other. It just seems that if a parent (especially a non-custodial one) gets a hair up his or her arse to go around suing people on behalf of thier child then the wishes of the child should at least be of interest.

[Elok]

BeBro: I don't think of history as a science, strictly speaking; certainly I don't see why you would need to teach a high school biology class about the Battle of Gettysburg. If you see my point.

Loin: Why does "explanation" matter if the explanation is useless? Give me an example of how evolution as a whole is necessary for medicine or another applied science. Not just the example of germs growing resistant to antibiotics that two people have now cited as grounds for calling me an idiot. Natural selection by itself does not entail speciation by evolution. Survival of the fittest is everywhere. If you call that evolution, you might as well say that a spelling bee has "evolved" a more grammatically aware species by eliminating the weaklings who can't spell from the class gene pool. There could have been spelling bees without Darwin. Competition is an evident fact of life that kids will learn the second they grow up and get jobs. Evolution, in the sense that people get all huffy over, is not.

SkyCinich: Thing is, Occam's Razor actually WORKS for things like gravity because all you are doing is determining the simple facts by trial and error. If it is God causing the pen to fall, God is doing it every single time, usually at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared adjusted for air resistance. Whether it is god, gravity, or godvity for the ecumenist crowd, it's pretty predictable and can be treated as such. If Bernoulli wanted to say that God doesn't hold gas as tightly when you make it move, airplanes would still work, and mechanics, practical souls that they are, would have discovered by trial and error that praying to God does not make him more or less likely to loosen his grip. And if you don't trust that the past happened, if you think that forces you cannot explain are making you hallucinate memories, it's safe to say you're just a pawn in somebody else's game and it doesn't matter what you do anyway.

Evolution, on the other hand, is a process without feedback. You are positing cause and effect over a time period spanning longer than entire human lives, or the age of human civilization if it comes to that, a time with no living witnesses and a set of circumstances that cannot be replicated in a lab or even known in their entirety. You come up with a story that could explain what the past has left behind, but the very idea is complicated enough that you can't test it, which would be very hard to do anyway, because unlike normal science you have explained the phenomenon without even seeing it.

With gravity or ballistics, you see the process in action and watch it over and over until you've found a set of simple rules describing how and when it occurs. With evolution, you look at the results and invent a process that might have made it happen, a process that happens too slowly and subtly for people to even see assuming it happens at all. When you run into a snag, modifications are made not based on field tests but by thinking up a procedural route around the imagined obstacle. It's entirely limited to theory. I think there's a big difference.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by loinburger
Evolution is extremely important in the biological sciences, where it can help explain such phenomena as neurological development, aging, and pathology. The only alternative "theory" that's been proposed is creationism, and since creationism cannot help biologists to explain anything (similar to how gravity can help explain physical phenomona, whereas "god made this particular apple fall for no good reason" cannot), it's pretty clear which theory has merit and which does not.

He's not talking about wether or not evolution occurs, but rather whether or not it did occur.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Elok
Give me an example of how evolution as a whole is necessary for medicine or another applied science.

What is evolution "as a whole"? Do you mean how cures tested on monkeys are considered more reliable than cures tested on mice or on yeast, because humans and monkeys share a closer common ancestor than humans and mice or humans and yeast? Or do you have some sort of true scotsman in mind?

Anyway, a search for evolution over at PubMed reveals several (thousand) abstracts that might meet your criteria for justifying research into "evolution as a whole." It also reveals that most of the publications do not seem to be technology-driven as you had previously stated.

Originally posted by Kucinich
He's not talking about wether or not evolution occurs, but rather whether or not it did occur.

I don't understand. If evolution occurs in the present, then it probably occurred in the past as well, and will continue to occur in the future.

[Kuciwalker]

No, because we have no actual (conclusive) evidence that it was natural selection and evolution that caused, for example, people to (for severe lack of a better word) "evolve". Of course, we have no actual (conclusive) evidence that WWII occured, either.