45% of Americans are Morons

[Dr Strangelove]

I think we ought to add to public school curriculla courses on Philosophy and Religion. For younger kids such courses would largely deal with ethics and interpersonal relationships, then in the higher grades material more traditionally associated with those subjects would be taught. In such a course teashers could allow the students leeway to explore creationism and the philosophy of science and make up their own minds.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
We already have genetically engineered rice with added vitamins to fight the deficiencies so prevalent in parts of the third world. They are working to develop "vaccine plants" that would take the place of some of the standard vaccines that could save tens of thousands of poor children per year.

Golden rice isn't such a cut and dried subject (pardon the pun). The actual results from the rie will be rather insignificant, but the project serves very well to sucker people into being less critical of GMO projects than they should be.

Golden rice, and by extension, all GMOs, are being touted as a cure for world malnutricion and hunger, when in fact that even a diet consisting of nothing but golden rice would provide only 10% of the necessary vitamin A (6% for pregnent women). However, since beta carotene is fat soluable, not even that rate would be achieved in the real world.

The problem isn't improper food, but an improper distribution system that means that the poor don't get enough food to eat. GMOs won't stop that. They will, however, excaserbate 3rd world poverty, as more and more peasants lose the ability to maintain their land and join the cities' shantytowns.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Well it should be that way shouldn't it, but it is not always that way. Sometimes people develope theories that will test well.

The point is that a theory is only as good as its ability to be verified and applied. If a theory works well it is retained, if it fails it is of less use and may or may not be discarded depending on its failing. The idea of a faith in theory is unfounded, but you can have degrees of confidence in its ability to explain things and make predictions by testing them continously.

Having faith in the in the idea that predicting, testing, and reproducing results will lead to better understanding is the crux issue. The theory can be right or wrong, but its the scientific method which will tell you which one is more appropriate and applicable

Of course there is no way to be certain that the laws of nature will not change from one day to the next or one place to another - an apparently accurate theory today could become useless tomorrow, or useless somewhere else. You have to have faith that it won't, if for no other reason than you need a working assumption. An assumption that the scientific method would accept as being false if needs be.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

They indicate that any common ancestor would have had to have a very large number of cellular traits that were lost by its various descendents as they branched out. The theory is that the common ancestor was actually just a loose community of protocells which were just simple membranes with some very primitive genetic elements that easily passed in and out of the membrane, leading to mostly lateral spread of traits rather than inheritence.

I've never really liked the progenote hypothesis.

[Odin]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Mitochondria, different types of DNA structures (bacteria versus protozoa, for example), chloroplasts, plus various other organelles in various kinds of independent, non-bacterial cells. Plus some of the weird crap out there, like ricketsia (did I spell that right after almost 30 years?), etc. I suspect Kuci is even more up to date than I am, he's been in school alot more recently.

Mitochondria are dirived from an aerobic eubacterium, related to the modern purpule non-sulfur bacteria and rickettsias, that formed a symbiotic relationship with an archaebacterium. this symbiosis eventually became the modern eukaryotic cell.

Cloroplasts come from a cyanobacterium that formed a symbiotic relationship with the common protozoan ancestor of red algae, green algae, and land plants (all other algae, like kelps, diatoms, dinoflagellates, and Euglenoids come from other unrelated protozoans that engulfed red or green algae).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Mostly phylogenetic studies.

They indicate that any common ancestor would have had to have a very large number of cellular traits that were lost by its various descendents as they branched out. The theory is that the common ancestor was actually just a loose community of protocells which were just simple membranes with some very primitive genetic elements that easily passed in and out of the membrane, leading to mostly lateral spread of traits rather than inheritence.

Do I really have to tell you that this is not evidence that species evolved they way that you think they did?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dauphin
The point is that a theory is only as good as its ability to be verified and applied.

No. That is incorrect. There are things that are true that are not verifiable. But the real point is that scientists also believe things that are not verifiable, like the Theory of Evolution.

Having faith in the in the idea that predicting, testing, and reproducing results will lead to better understanding is the crux issue.

Does anyone disagree with that? Not me.

The theory can be right or wrong, but its the scientific method which will tell you which one is more appropriate and applicable

Not in the case of the Theory of Evolution because it is reasonable to believe that the theory is false and also reasonable to believe that the theory is true. So what good is the scientific method in this case?

Of course there is no way to be certain that the laws of nature will not change from one day to the next or one place to another - an apparently accurate theory today could become useless tomorrow, or useless somewhere else. You have to have faith that it won't, if for no other reason than you need a working assumption. An assumption that the scientific method would accept as being false if needs be.

I don't have any problem with the laws of nature.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kidicious

No. That is incorrect. There are things that are true that are not verifiable. But the real point is that scientists also believe things that are not verifiable, like the Theory of Evolution.

Of course things can be true and non-verifiable, but any such theory is meaningless without reference to verifiables.

Not in the case of the Theory of Evolution because it is reasonable to believe that the theory is false and also reasonable to believe that the theory is true. So what good is the scientific method in this case?

The scientific method gives a confidence in the theory as it requests quantifiable, measurable and predictated results that can be repeated and compared to to the theory. Where the theory continually measures up it gains credibility, and where it fails the theory is refined or replaced.

It is entirely possible the theory of evolution is wrong, the scientific method does not say that the theory of evolution is right. It just says that on the strong balance of probability, it is. If someone has an alternate theory, and it measures up better, then the scientific method will say you should discard evolution. Any scientist worth his salt would take heed.

[Q Classic]

Y'know, I shied away from this thread because I initially read it as "45% of Americans are Mormons."

Now I'm bowing out because I put more of my faith in science, but this is just turning into another Conservative-Liberal style debate where people just talk past each other.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Y'know, I shied away from this thread because I initially read it as "45% of Americans are Mormons."

There was a copycat thread called just that.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Do I really have to tell you that this is not evidence that species evolved they way that you think they did?

Did you think I was presenting it as evidence as such?

I was merely commenting on an interesting fact, that you were probably (unintentionally) correct in asserting that life did not arise from a single ancestral cell.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Kidicious

No. That is incorrect. There are things that are true that are not verifiable. But the real point is that scientists also believe things that are not verifiable, like the Theory of Evolution.

Not verifiable? How the hell did you figure that out? There are so many examples. Not just the microbiological but also observation of artificial selection and my favourite, clonal selection in the immune system.

Does anyone disagree with that? Not me.

It's not a belief. It's been shown to be a system that works. There is no belief required whatsoever, it's not some random myth, it's a model.

Not in the case of the Theory of Evolution because it is reasonable to believe that the theory is false and also reasonable to believe that the theory is true. So what good is the scientific method in this case?

I don't have any problem with the laws of nature.

See my above post. The theory of evolution has stood up to all manner of scrutiny. The only thing that has happened to it is it has been refined in light of our knowledge of heredity and genetics. The original theory was correct, just incomplete, and at the time of Darwin, couldn't possibly be complete...

[Kuciwalker]

Kid, weren't you a teacher? Please tell me you didn't teach science.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Perhaps then you ought to look more closely at the evolutionists' necessary plank of abiogenesis, where living things are said to form from non-living matter.

Abiogenisis is not only highly plausible, but scientists have been getting pretty close to achieving it in the laboratory.

[Az]

And you have faith in this statement.

Not blind faith, or almost blind faith. You could say that I "believe this to be the truth", but that's true of any opinion held by anyone ever. I am perfectly willing to reconsider if you come up with major flows in this, or come up with something better.