Creationism vs. Evolution: Kansas in Spotlight Again

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Yes they are. They state certain beliefs about the way in which God works on the world, which is the realm of theology.

Just saw this. Wasn't bothering to read your posts, but Boris quoted it.

This is ****ing idiotic. According to this train of thought, every question is properly one of theology. My religion tells me that angel breath moves the planets, and I won't let you spread blasphemy about some supposed law of universal gravitation.



You really have a problem with making ridiculous statements without thinking them through.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So why educate the public about science then, rather than dictating to them? Education is not supposed to be an authoritarian process under the liberal understanding of the word.

Funny, I thought that's what schools and universities were trying to do. How is teaching evolution "dictating" science any more than teaching long division is "dictating" math? You seem to be having a double-standard for science as opposed to other subjects in this regard.

What the public considers important and vital to their interests is significant to science, because without the support of the public, they will not be able to conduct their endeavours to the same degree as previous.

This is irrelevant to the actual truth of scientific theories, however, which was my point.

Care to try and describe to me how it could be remotely feasible that the validity of science was determined by public referendum?

Where do I say that, Boris?

I didn't say you said it, I said you implied it, whether intentionally or not.

I have seen scientists adopt soundbites particularly when their funding is up for review. Why are the obviously intelligent scientists unwilling to take the public into consideration when postulating their theories?

They are learning to do so, but it is impossible and I mean impossible to do this for much of science. You simply cannot distill certain aspects of science into an easily-understood format without opening it up to attack from doubters as being simple and incomplete. Biologists spend lifetimes studying and mastering this material, and it's material that has been accumulating over decades and decades.

Even if 100 percent of scientists today believe that evolution were true as a theory, then that would put it much like other theories have been in the past. It does not prevent science from progressing.

That's nice, but irrelevant to the point being discussed and not at all an answer to what I said.

In fact, to decide that everything within evolution is canon, and cannot be questioned, is a statement that truly stifles scientific investigation.

Now who said that? Talk about strawmen...

You might think they are not, but I think they are, and I have given an argument as to why they are offering competing theories for the same evidence. I suggest you address the argument, rather than blustering past it.

Considering a healthy majority of evolutionary biologists are theists of some stripe or another, I can say without hesistation that any conflict between evolutionary theory and theology is simply a fabrication of people's minds.

I'll state it again, since you're not getting it: evolution is not a theological or metaphysical question, it's a scientific one. IDists and Creationists attack it in debates on scientific grounds by trying to poke holes in it. See the Index of Common Creationist Claims on talkorigins and you can see that about 95% of the arguments against evolution are from a scientific angle (or, more accurately, pseudoscientific), not from a theological one. Second Law of Thermodynamics? Moon dust? Shrinking Sun? Fossil record?

I find it quite amusing you're asserting it's about theology, because IDists would be the first to say you're wrong about that. They don't want it to be about theology, because they're trying to dupe people into thinking it's about science, not their religious beliefs. Were people to think the latter, teaching it in public schools would be a total non-starter.

[Kuciwalker]

Quantum physics is just a theory. Never mind that it's an exceptionally well-supported theory backed by decades of research and experimental observations. So I demand that my religion, about how a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away, there was this force created by midichlorians...

[Boris Godunov]

Heliocentrism is just a theory. According to the Bible, the sun moves around the earth. Ergo, teaching people that the earth goes around the sun is blasphemy. I demand schools give EQUAL TIME to teaching geocentrism! It's only fair. TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!

[Boris Godunov]

Plate Tectonics is just a theory. Since the Bible states the earth is only ~6000 years old, it's impossible that mountains were formed over millions of years via moving plates. What a silly theory! We all know the Great Flood formed all the mountains. I demand we give EQUAL TIME in high school earth sciences courses to Flood geology! TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Heliocentrism is just a theory. According to the Bible, the sun moves around the earth. Ergo, teaching people that the earth goes around the sun is blasphemy. I demand schools give EQUAL TIME to teaching geocentrism! It's only fair. TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!

Plate Tectonics is just a theory. Since the Bible states the earth is only ~6000 years old, it's impossible that mountains were formed over millions of years via moving plates. What a silly theory! We all know the Great Flood formed all the mountains. I demand we give EQUAL TIME in high school earth sciences courses to Flood geology! TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!

Actually people say that

Most fundies are too stupid to even comprehend quantum physics though

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Actually people say that

I know. I think it speaks volumes that I can essentially quote them verbatim and have it sound as monumentally stupid as it does.

Most fundies are too stupid to even comprehend quantum physics though

Most are too stupid to comprehend evolutionary biology, too. That hasn't stopped them from attacking it.

I've seen fundies trying to use quantum physics as proof of God's existance, btw.

[Q Classic]

ID is mental lazyiness, it's a "god-in-the gaps" argument. Things that are unexplained are unexplained because we don't have the data at the present time to explian them, not that we will never explain it and so have to resort to mystical BS.

I'm not saying I support ID, I'm just saying that it's more insidious precisely because it's more palatable. It appeals to many simply because it doesn't turn its back on either faith or science, but tries to straddle a middle ground.

And frankly? If it can push fundamentalist Creationism out of the way, marginalizing it, I'm all for ID.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Most are too stupid to comprehend evolutionary biology, too. That hasn't stopped them from attacking it.

I meant comprehend it in the sense of understanding how it makes them utterly, utterly wrong.

[Q Classic]

The problem with Creationism, and to a lesser extent, the God-in-the-gaps ID, is that it's a notion that seeks to tear apart another theory with solid evidence by striking at its foundation.

Alas, Creationism replaces it, not with a theory borne out by facts, but by a literal interpretation of a bedtime story that most Judeo-Christian denominations choose to view as symbolic.

Creationists tend to tear down facts, and replace them with fiction. Thus, ID > Creationism.

[Q Classic]

You don't see the problem of teaching this in a science class? Since when has science classes ever been a place to discuss metaphysical philosophies?

I see the problem with teaching Creationism. Teaching ID, on the other hand, I have less of an issue with, so long as they keep evolution as the primary mechanism.

If IDists don't have a problem with evolutionary mechanisms, then they have no reason to critique how evolution is taught, since that's all it does.

Evolutionary education does not deal with the question of God at all, it's not the place of science to do so.

True, true.

However, you're incorrect to assert that ID accepts evolutionary mechanisms. Behe's and Dembski's "irreducible complexity" argument is an assertion that some systems in living beings must have been created ex nihlo, since they were to complicated to have evolved.

Again, from what little I know about ID, it didn't sound like it rejected Evolution outright. I always figured it to be more like the Pope's declaration that Evolution was all according to God's Plan.

Beyond that is the simple fact that the mechanisms of evolution as currently understood by science are nondeterministic and rely on random genetic mutations. This is incompatible with the ID philosophy that some intelligent entity is actively guiding the process.

Not necessarily...
Hundreds, if not thousands, of iterative bits of progress humanity's done, well... it's happened through chance. Medicine, for instance. Chemistry.

===

You're right in saying that I know squat about ID. Mostly because I don't give a frack.

What I am saying is that if Kansas wants to be relegated to staying in its backwards position, being as biologically advanced as the Soviets were, let them.

It'll be to their folly.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Creationists tend to tear down facts, and replace them with fiction. Thus, ID > Creationism.

ID does this as well. I will refer you to my previous reply to you.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
I see the problem with teaching Creationism. Teaching ID, on the other hand, I have less of an issue with, so long as they keep evolution as the primary mechanism.

How on earth can you say you don't have a problem teaching a metaphysical philosophy that has zero factual support in a science class? That makes no sense whatsoever and contradicts your subsequent agreement that science education doesn't and shouldn't deal with God. ID is dealing with God.

Again, from what little I know about ID, it didn't sound like it rejected Evolution outright. I always figured it to be more like the Pope's declaration that Evolution was all according to God's Plan.

This isn't the case, as Behe's example shows. BK even highlights the issue in his own posts--accepting "microevolution" but denying "macroevolution." That is indeed a rejection of evolutionary theory, since science makes no such false distinction.

But even saying evolution is according to God's Plan has no place in school curriculum. That's patently a philosophical/religious statement, not a scientific one. Evolution doesn't state "there is no God," it is (like all science) theologically neutral on the issue.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of iterative bits of progress humanity's done, well... it's happened through chance. Medicine, for instance. Chemistry.

You missed the point. IDist have to believe that evolutionary change has direction. If it didn't, we would be mere products of chance, and they couldn't believe we were specially ordained by the big cheese to rule the world/universe/whatever. We'd just be another byproduct of a divine experiment.

[Q Classic]

How on earth can you say you don't have a problem teaching a metaphysical philosophy that has zero factual support in a science class? That makes no sense whatsoever and contradicts your subsequent agreement that science education doesn't and shouldn't deal with God. ID is dealing with God.

ID, as I understood it, didn't deal with God. It just suggested that some intelligent, transhuman power might have had something to do with steering evolution.

Which it has no factual basis, it's still on the level of quality of science currently taught in most schools across the country. Therefore, I have no problem with it.

Should it be better? Sure. But it's not going to be, not with these schmucks in power.

===

Like I said before, I don't know most of the details about ID, so I've been shooting from the hip. Still seems to me that it's less retarded than fundamentalist Creationism, more palatable, and, like I've said for quite possibly the fourth time, more insidious.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
ID, as I understood it, didn't deal with God. It just suggested that some intelligent, transhuman power might have had something to do with steering evolution.

I can scarcely see how this could be pointing to any other agent other than a deity with miraculous powers. Regardless, it's still metaphysical and devoid of any evidence. So I don't see any reason it should be taught in a science course.

Besides, what's to teach? There's no ID theory or anything. All one would be saying is, "some people believe everything was created by the great poobah." What the hell point is there in that? Who the hell would think that belongs in a science class?

Which it has no factual basis, it's still on the level of quality of science currently taught in most schools across the country. Therefore, I have no problem with it.

Name me one other thing taught in science curriculum that postulates miraculous intervention. This is a bizarre assertion on your part.

Like I said before, I don't know most of the details about ID, so I've been shooting from the hip. Still seems to me that it's less retarded than fundamentalist Creationism, more palatable, and, like I've said for quite possibly the fourth time, more insidious.

If you consider it more insidious, then why do you have "no problem" with it?