Scopes Monkey Trial, Round 2: "Evolution is going on trial in Kansas."

School board member Sue Gamble, who describes herself as a moderate, said she will not attend the hearings, which she calls "a farce." She said the argument over evolution is part of a larger agenda by Christian conservatives to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the United States.

"I think it is a desire by a minority... to establish a theocracy, both within Kansas and growing to a national level," Gamble said.

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S-C-I-E-N-C-E.

read one karl popper. or thomas kuhn.

(Eisbar don't bother)

Darwinism is falsifiable. Religions' claims are not. Which is why the former is scientific and the latter ain't.

i wouldn't go this far maybe.

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yeah, many of them are philosophers to a degree. however, it is in their use of it which is the deciding factor here.

The idea that only naturalistic means of creation are valid is not considered falsifiable by many scientists. Physics Today requires only use of naturalistic means for submissions to be considered.

so what's the implication here??

as Jim Wallis pointed out, the Moral Majority-types were/are a political movement, not a religious one. they were a very particular strain of conservatism that decided to employ their own form of Protestantism as a crowbar to either pry or hammer their ideas into place.

that's not to say that none of 'em believe in any of this, but to remember that everything they do has just as much to do with winning elections/controlling the governments/gaining more funding as it does with acting from any particular belief.

If every scientist in the world happened to share the same religion and philosophy regarding life, the universe and everything, then there'd be something to that. As it happens, they don't.

A lot of the new evidence has gone away from Darwins original theories

Kinda what I was trying to say, but if I was unclear, let me restate -- anyone claiming to say that Darwin figured it all out I would look at with surprise and suspicion, precisely because of what has been learned that he didn't and in many ways couldn't know. Anyone obsessing over Darwin as the figure to trump and the person whose theories must be proved 'wrong' in order to conclusively demonstrate that a creationist view must be right I'd look at with equal surprise and suspicion.

Yes, microevolution. Please also consider macroevolution which does not work remarkably well and has never been verified.

(as usual, nairn can't keep his concepts or terminology straight, and instead derails thread into a morass of unintelligible gibberish).

please keep your concepts strait. I am talking about the philosopy/science of Darwinism (macroeveolution) or whatever name is best (As I questioned above).

you don't know what words mean, do you?

Darwin said that lack of fossil evidence is the biggest problem for his Theory. As Ned Science should move beyond this and find new ways to acount for this. The idea of "punk eek" is one of these, but too has no verification.

not really. actually it would make things much worse. remember, these fuckheads retain and accumulate power by trolling and putting forth these really asshole statement/bills/laws, and when the rejection comes, switch to the persecuted/defensive role and tell their followers "you see, they attack our ways of life, our beliefs, since i of course represent all of you. this only proves our/your/my righteousness."

as George Lakoff once put it, to attack their framing head-on with the same methods they keep it in place(culture war, yelling on talk shows, etc) will only re-inforce it. or, put another way, "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," as MLK said.

ok. i was thinking in terms of kuhnian paradigms--they do all share the system "science" though and can verify or falsify within the rules set up by that community. there is nothing that places "science" above anything else tho.

(am totally pro-evolution in this wider debate, btw)

Textbook makers using these points as examples, even with knowlede of the faults in them, makes it seem like they have some agenda they are trying make students believe.

the ONLY way to combat them is to do head-on. there's more of us than there are of them, even in the red states and among the religious.

actually, this is not an issue of terrorism.

I assume you mean "temporary evolution" - but even so, what does this term mean? Did you just make that up?

" (like beaks, and viruses)"

Uh, what? These are two completely different frames of reference.

"return to previous state when conditions that cause mutation are removed."

this is 100% not true. Once a form has been evolved, it does not revert to a previous form generations later.

...The United States is also a country whose culture is shaped by the mores and conventions of its overwhelmingly Christian majority. This culture makes it not only acceptable, but often popular and advantageous for Christians to be outspoken and public with their professions of faith. By culture and convention, Christians in America enjoy privileges and power that their coreligionists in other countries could never dream of. When or where in history was it ever easier to profess Christianity in whatever form you might choose?

And yet scarcely a day goes by, regardless of whether or not it is "Justice Sunday," in which some group of American Christians does not claim that they are facing "persecution."

They dare to use that word.

This is delusional, pathological. These people are insane. They are my brothers and sisters in Christ -- and the brothers and sisters of those Christians facing actual persecution in the world's forgotten corners -- but they are insane.

When protected, privileged and pampered American Christians claim to be facing persecution they spit on the wounds of their brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world and in history who have known firsthand what religious persecution really is. They mock not only their fellow Christians in this great cloud of witnesses, but also those of other faiths who have suffered or are, now, today, suffering genuine persecution...

what part of the foregoing do the jesus people NOT UNDERSTAND?!?

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"First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion."

THE LAW IS NOT ON THEIR SIDE.

*desperately tries to guess if Dan's point was proven conclusively or if A. Nairn has the driest sense of humor EVER*

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actually, i agree with dan.

actually, this is not an issue of terrorism.

uhm, actually one of the stated goals of the terr'ists is to fuck things up for us just enough so that we finish the job in completely fucking over everythign else. Attack an open society just enough so that it unbalances and falls into a closed society. Attack a country in such a way to empower the most bellicose, authoritarian and anti-democratic sections of its populace and watch 'em go to town.

exactly. that's why you make a concerted effort to attack the judiciary.

Maybe Naturalism/Darwinism/Evolutionism could be considered a religion too. It would depend on what definition of religion is being used.

In fact, the birds are changing into a new species! Speciation distinctions are arbitrarily discrete and human imposed.

You cannot backtrack in evolution. A prime example of this are cave fish. They wander into an environment devoid of light entirely and survive for successive generations. Their eye genetics mutate to the point of unusability due to a now enviromental nonfactor, but they still retain their eyes.

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(xpost: christopher just gave the "real" answer)

(sponsored by Deez Planterz, Inc.)

http://romanpolanski.online.fr/macbeth.jpg http://www.moviejungle.com/images/am_we_05_sm.jpg

I agree!

And if you go round up some biologists, they'll be happy to explain to you evolutionary science. (At least, if you can find some who haven't yet been driven batshit-crazy by know-nothing witch-burners attacking their discipline with nutso holy-book zealotry masquerading as "creation science".)

Also, the distinction between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" is mostly phony. Macroevolution is basically lots and lots of microevolution over a long period of time. But because it takes hundreds of thousands or millions of years and therefore has yet to be captured with time-lapse photography, anti-science wackos can attack it on the grounds that it hasn't been "proved," while pretending that it's something entirely different from "microevolution" (which they can't attack so easily, because it's observable).

there's a thing with Richard Dawkins in Salon from last week, which has some good bits, but REALLY doesn't help that Dawkins tends to be an asshole...

...It's often said that because evolution happened in the past, and we didn't see it happen, there is no direct evidence for it. That, of course, is nonsense. It's rather like a detective coming on the scene of a crime, obviously after the crime has been committed, and working out what must have happened by looking at the clues that remain. In the story of evolution, the clues are a billionfold.

There are clues from the distribution of DNA codes throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, of protein sequences, of morphological characters that have been analyzed in great detail. Everything fits with the idea that we have here a simple branching tree. The distribution of species on islands and continents throughout the world is exactly what you'd expect if evolution was a fact. The distribution of fossils in space and in time are exactly what you would expect if evolution were a fact. There are millions of facts all pointing in the same direction and no facts pointing in the wrong direction.

British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, when asked what would constitute evidence against evolution, famously said, "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian." They've never been found. Nothing like that has ever been found. Evolution could be disproved by such facts. But all the fossils that have been found are in the right place. Of course there are plenty of gaps in the fossil record. There's nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn't there be? We're lucky to have fossils at all. But no fossils have been found in the wrong place, such as to disprove the fact of evolution. Evolution is a fact...

The idea that evolution could be "random" seems to frighten people. Is it random?

This is a spectacular misunderstanding. If it was random, then of course it couldn't possibly have given rise to the fantastically complicated and elegant forms that we see. Natural selection is the important force that drives evolution. Natural selection is about as non-random a force as you could possibly imagine. It can't work unless there is some sort of variation upon which to work. And the source of variation is mutation. Mutation is random only in the sense that it is not directed specifically toward improvement. It is natural selection that directs evolution toward improvement. Mutation is random in that it's not directed toward improvement.

The idea that evolution itself is a random process is a most extraordinary travesty. I wonder if it's deliberately put about maliciously or whether these people honestly believe such a preposterous absurdity. Of course evolution isn't random. It is driven by natural selection, which is a highly non-random force...

this reminds me of rightwing fuckheads deliberately seizing on the multiple definitions of the word "theory" to obfuscate the debate about it.

that's the clincher, innit? when you know that your side can't hold up under scrutiny or rigorous debate(a debating tradtion that Anglo/American culture has inherited from the Rationalists in the Enlightenment), you're far more likely to gum up the works.

if you know that there's no way you can disprove, say, global warming, you just dig up some "scientists" who'll parrot whatever you like. Have them then dump their cooked-up results onto a mass media attacked so much that any scrutiny more than mere stenography is decried as "bias," and you'll achieve your goals. You never need to defend your own side when you've so thoroughly fucked-up any debate.

I was going to go off against the Christians, but instead I have to get all worked up about Dawkins. Improvement?! Does this man, who is supposed to be some sort of authority, have any idea what a ridiculous, anthropomorphic, value-judgment-fraught term that is to use in natural selection?

-- ryan (augustuscaesar2...), May 2nd, 1905.

Hurting, i don't understand your beef. If you posit that a mutation which increases a species cpacity survive (natural selection) is 'an improvement' and one which is either neutral to a natural selector or causes one to be selected is not an improvement then what he says follows well enough for me. There are constant mutations which are not improvements. Some are even deadly. Some are neutral (for the time being) though over time they may prove to be either deadly or a lifesaver. Where's the problem in saying this about mutation?

First, certain idiot-Christians act as if disproving evolution would somehow prove creationism is right. Wrong. But in a simple mind, this idea is easy to plant, where it will grow like the useless weed that it is.

Next, the idiot-Christians are always careful to focus the debate on the peripheral issues of evolution, where some argument exists about the exact details of the mechanisms involved.

This keeps the focus away from 'proving' what they think is true. This is convenient, because they can't make sense of the known facts if their lives depended on it. Their whole answer to inconvenent facts is that, if they don't fit, well, they don't have to fit, because God can do what He pleases and it pleases Him to make a total hash of natural laws for totally inscrutable reasons at whatever odd moments He feels like doing it. Don't ask why.

(I read it as "mutation is NOT random in that it's directed toward improvement)

"did somebody say 'smack'?"

Actually, Shakey, this isn't true. I'm presuming what Nairn had in mind were those blasted moths. But even apart from that case (which isn't really a good example as it was just a shift in frequencies in the gene pool, not an out and out elimination) there are other examples. It's one of the the big current puzzles in evolutionary science. There was an article I read recently...I'll see if I can dig it up.

Also, the micro/macro issue and darwinian evolution is a bit of an issue. "Species" is a definition assigned to a breeding population. Given that breeding can only happen within breeding populations there are significant implications about the history of evolution.

But ultimately, yeah, a bunch of non-scientists debating "evolution" as if it were a religion (rather than, say, the validity of induction or gradualism) is a bit like arguing whether the earth is flat.

Yes, but retroactively, from the point where human beings developed the concept of "species" and started labeling them. That makes it seem like a clear bright line, but obviously it's anything but.

one can only hope the op-ed cartoonists will be as up to the task as their forebearers were a century ago.

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Okay, We Give Up

There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.

In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of socalled evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.

Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details.

Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.

Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science eitherâ"so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.

Well sure. A lot of mutation has to do with very small genetic changes, genes being turned "on" or "off", and if they can change in one direction they can certainly change in the other.

Yes, but retroactively, from the point where human beings developed the concept of "species" and started labeling them. That makes it seem like a clear bright line, but obviously it's anything but.

-- gypsy mothra (meetm...), May 3rd, 2005.

that's not necessarily true. there are definite genetic, behavioral and physiological barriers that make the idea of "species" a valid and useful concept.

and while sometimes the lines between genetically close species can blur, which is why you occasonally have hybrids such as mules, they are usually sterile and cannot produce offspring.

anyway, though there is some debate on exactly what constitutes a species (a question central to evolution obviously because speciation is what 'defines' evolution), it is far from an arbitary designation.

there are definite genetic, behavioral and physiological barriers that make the idea of "species" a valid and useful concept.

so, yeah, not much has changed in 150 years...

"And lo, Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus ... with a splinter in his paw. And O, the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big flippin' lizard, Lord!'

But Jesus was unafraid, and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw, and the big lizard became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch for O, so many years, inviting thousands of American tourists to bring their fat flippin families and their fat dollar bills. And O, Scotland did praise the Lord: 'Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.'"

Richard Lewontin, Harvard biologist, writes:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

I agree. The nonidiot-Christians should focus on the root of it an confront what people like Michael Ruse and Richare Lewontin say.

Defenders say that [evolution] provides a foundational concept for understanding many areas of science, including genetics and molecular biology.

"If students... do not understand the weaknesses of evolutionary theory as well as the strengths, a grave injustice is being done to them," Abrams said.

This is similar to what Ruse is saying here:
The important point is that we should recognize when people are going beyond the strict science, moving into moral and social claims, thinking of their theory as an all-embracing world picture. All too often, there is a slide from science to something more, and this slide goes unmentioned -- unrealized even.

In science class, public schools should not teach the religious aspects of evolution and just the science of it. I've always thought it would be a good thing to have religion/philosophy classes in the standard public school curriculum where all these other ideas can be taught.

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_23_corner-archive.asp#054479

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_23_corner-archive.asp#054504

The latter point is more splenetic and followed an avalanche of mail on the subject, so I don't blame him for annoyance. The initial post has this, which I think is well kept in mind:

Incidentally, a little back-story to my piece: I showed it round to some academic biologists before signing off with NR editors on it. One of these professionals objected that I had used the phrase "I.D. theory" at one point. Whatever you may think of I.D., she pointed out, it's not a theory. After some cogitation I agreed, and asked the editors to drop the word "theory."

I mention this because there is a school board in Georgia (Cobb County, IMS) that has had stickers put on all its biology textbooks to the effect that standard-model evolution theory is "not a fact, but a theory." This is of course correct! Facts are what scientists observe; theories are the arguments they cook up to explain the facts they have observed. The fact (wait a minute... yes, it's a fact) that the Georgia school board thought it was striking a blow against its enemies by mandating a statement that every one of those enemies would cheerfully agree with, shows the gulf of misunderstanding that exists in this area.

But while indeed the standard model of evolution is not a fact, but a theory, then I.D. is not a theory, but only a critique of a theory. Not necessarily anything wrong with that, but let's at least keep our terms straight.

I would like to see some scientifically literate school board somewhere mandate stickers in biology textbooks stating that "INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS NOT A THEORY, BUT A CRITIQUE." Then we might be getting somewhere with this dismal business.

"The odds against the universe being the way it is are trillions trillions trillions to one!" So they are. The odds of ANY particular event are exceedingly small. SOMETHING has to happen, though. I met my wife in a remote town in northeast China. What, from the point of view of my working-class English mother contemplating me as a newborn, were the odds of THAT? I was bound to marry somebody, though. The odds of it being any particular person -- let alone a person on the other side of the world -- were infinitesimal... but SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN.

I am selling this point short. It is, in fact, the only one that I find at all interesting. WHY does something have to happen? Or, as Stephen Hawking put it: Why is there something rather than nothing? Scientists like their theories to be parsimonious -- to explain the data as succinctly as possible. Well, the most parsimonious state of affairs is... utter nothingness. So why isn't the universe like THAT? Now there's a metaphysical question worth pondering. That, personally, is the zone where I go looking for God, when I feel that impertinent. The notion of the ID-ers, that you can find Him by staring hard at the gaps in our current scientific understanding, seems to me to be a sort of comic-book metaphysics, betraying a dire lack of imagination, and an utter waste of time.

"Dear Mr. Derbyshire--I really enjoyed your round-up of the Intelligent Design folder in the Corner today. I am a devout Mormon geologist (devout about being a Mormon, I mean, although I guess I'm a pretty devout geologist, too), and I believe quite firmly in God and His workings in our daily lives. That said, I also have many problems with the 'theory of Intelligent Design'. One of the arguments--the one about how you can't test evolution in the lab--has always made me laugh aloud. Can they test Intelligent Design in the lab? I didn't think so.

"I believe the earth is 4.6 billion years old (a number still being refined), and I believe our fossil record, and I also believe that God has a hand in all things in the earth and cosmos. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive to me. My understanding of science is at one level, and my understanding of God is at another level, and I realize that both levels are infinitely ignorant compared with God's understanding and genius. Does this stop me from doing scientific research to the best of my ability? Heavens, no. I just try not to get mixed up between what I know on a spiritual level with what I can figure out on a scientific one."

"Man, this is gonna be fuckin' hilarious!" says God.
"I dunno God," says me. "I'm not sure I get it."
"No, no, it's gonna be fuckin' fantastic," says God. "'Cause y'see, everybody's gonna think there's dinosaurs, and there's not! That's gold - solid gold!"
"I guess that's funny," says me. "Not really ha ha funny, more like Andy Kaufmann funny."
"Dude, you just don't get it," says God. "Now c'mon, you gotta check out these, these trilobites! Ohmigod! Ohmigod, these're fuckin' classic!"
"I think this is like that time we were out drivin an you got all excited about stealin that 'SALAD BAR' sign over that restaurant," says me.
"Know what, man, I am fuckin' starvin'," says God. "After this we're totally gettin' some tacos."

from the Fafblog.

Aha, you say, but why were they all killed in the flood? Wasn't there an ark? Why, yes. I asked that same question to Kent Hovind, aka Dr. Dino, the country's leading dinosaur Creationist and proprietor of Dinosaur Adventure Land. Well, he said, obviously they were just too big. I mean, a boat full of elephants and ostriches is one thing, but brontosaurs? C'mon, be reasonable.

(He allows that some smaller ones maybe made the trip, hence you've got your komodo dragons and Loch Ness monsters.)

See, it's all very simple if you'd just think about it!

it's GANGSTA CHRIST!!

Nairnmeister, Science has never, ever claimed to have all the answers, it's a *ho hum* evolving thing, it takes on theories, studies them and debunks the ones that don't hold up when more data is brought in. And if you're wondering why you're being dogpiled it's because dealing with your kind is like being trapped in a spacestation with one idiot trying to puncture the outside wall because "it's a way out isn't it?".

Look, we are insanely lucky as a species to get this far. And for those of us who don't choose the teddy bear of religion to cosy us to sleep at night when the brutal chaos of this universe seems to provide nothing but decay and ruin it's incredibly frustrating to see the immense potential of the human race debased, degraded and incapacitated by a bunch of weak slaves who'd rather be blind subserviant fools than try to come to terms with reality.

The huge cosmic joke in all this is that your kind will always have the upper hand as you are happy to brand yourself with whatever label your premise demands whilst "we" are not Liberals, Pro-choicers, Pro-Evolutionisersists's, Left Wing or anything like that. "We"'re not even Atheists. "We" only back these things as the best that life has to offer at the moment or the path that is least harmful to everyone else. If evidence came along for something new "we"'d change and adopt that. The reason why "we" seem so dead set against you and yet weak and unfocused as collective a lot of the time is that this isn't a Religion we're following. "We"'re not following anything. It's a process. "We" absolutely recognise that there is far, far too much to understand in our short, short lives to be able to stake a claim that "we" know best, "we" know the truth, that "we" could possibly have one simplistic argument that trumps all others and applies to every concievable situation. And "we" know that there is no "we", no flock and no congregation, just lots of "I"'s whose individual ways of dealing with being a hunk of animated meat is different in every single case. Objections only come when peoples ways of dealing start harrassing and damaging others. And there is only unity when a collective such as yours does it on a mass scale.

Monotheism is just Philosophical facism, except it has killed, tortured, injured, persecuted, oppressed, malaised, raped and terrorised billions more than any politically facist ideology has ever managed. If Christianity actually did what it said on the tin and provided a catch-all way for everyone to live together well then we'd be the first to sign up. But it doesn't. The holes in its paralysingly narrow texts have to be filled in with intolerance, violence and evil in order to make the whole thing work without contradiction in the real world.

And that doesn't wash for questioning mind. The questioning mind seeks to solve problems the best it can which when taken to it's highest level is all about inclusion, tolerance and love. "We" love you A. Nairn. The church doesn't, God doesn't. Stop being played.

it should be stated again, as it somehow does need to be on any thread on ilx where we do cover anything religious. the issue that i have is NOT that "religious people are doing this really stupid shit", it's that these really conservative fuckheads are enacting a really dangerous and unstable political agenda by cloaking it in terms of religion.

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civil war reenactors are some interesting types. the non-alcoholic ones usually have good stories to tell when they get back to their cubes on monday morning.

sorry nice kansas ppl.

it's just that for the longest time, our science was shit and religion had to fill the void of the how AND the why.

for whatever reason, some folks couldn't(or can't) handle the fact that we no longer always ascribe any phsyical phenomena as having metaphysical causes. a mix of gasoline and air will ignite in a particular way when compressed and touched off by a sparkplug due to the properties of combustion. that chick over there is a bit mad due to the oversized gland in her skull kicking out too much of a particular slurpee flavor preventing her brain chemistry from normal operation, not 'cuz she got the daemons runnin' thru her.

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Both sides? Aren't there more than 2 sides. They should, by random pc standards, also be forced to learn the creation myths of the local natives who, to paraphrase Bierce, have mostly ceased cumbering the land.

scientific evidence for any myth (read theory) should be considered. That is what science is.

many would say the same about evolution.

Yes, but unfortunately all those people are not SCIENTISTS!

Learn to read/spell/write/form coherent thoughts, then get back to us.

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(note that any answer privileging overturning darwin at the expense of contributing to the rampant starvation of one of every six american children consigns you to hades)

it is due to the deliberate obfuscation/confusing/fucking-up/disingeniousness of the issues by a lot of the really conservative fuckheads which has led to many problems. is it up to debate whether acceleration due to gravity on earth nine point eight meters per second squared?

that's where the "public debate" thing w.r.t. evol/i.d. is gunna go bad. one side has a history of not necessarily feeling the need to completely open about it all, or debating in good faith.

Yes I did read that one, and I know Its position. I linked to 3 articles and 2 above. All are useful to some degree to this discussion. My lack in rhetorical ability should not be significant. I am looking to find truth together, not to coerce others into thinking my ideas. If I was more skillful in rhetoric I might coerce some of you. It is better that I am not.

I don't see how anything I've said has "disrespected" any scientific evidence (are you talking about the eyeball thing? that's been debunked too... link in a minute, hold on.)

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(note that any answer privileging overturning darwin at the expense of contributing to the rampant starvation of one of every six american children consigns you to hades)

To be honest I just quickly found it posted it and read it thinking that I should post it first so others could read it too, but it's good to read the opposing view too.

Other examples of irreducible complexity abound in the cell, including aspects of protein transport, the bacterial flagellum, electron transport, telomeres, photosynthesis, transcription regulation, and much more.

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This maps out where the "eyeball as irreducibly complex" argument came from, as well as several related academic efforts to "refute" evolution - how they're related, how they're intellectually weak and inconsistent, and how they don't measure up to any standards of scientific rigor.

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well, that would help, except that its DELIBERATELY worded such to cloud the concept.

"David Berlinski versus Nilsson & Pelger in The Case of "The Vexing Eye"
A section on "The Vexing Eye" took aim at a 1994 paper by Dan-Eric Nilsson & Susanne Pelger that had modeled how lensed eyes could have developed incrementally in 1829 1% changes accumulating in as little as a few hundred thousand generations (a geological eye blink).[6]

Misspelling Pelger's name consistently throughout his December 2002 entry (including in a direct quote from somebody else, as we'll see below) Berlinski had focused not on the substance of Nilsson & Pelger's data set, but rather on how the work had been commented on by others:

Biologists who failed to read what Nilsson and Pilger [sic] had written -- the great majority, apparently -- assumed that they had constructed a computer simulation of the eye's evolution, a program that could frog-march those light-sensitive cells all the way to a functioning eye using nothing more than random variation and natural selection. This would have been an impressive and important achievement, a vivid demonstration that Darwinian principles can create simulated biological artifacts. But no such demonstration has been achieved, and none is in prospect. Nilsson and Pilger's [sic] computer simulation is a myth. In a private communication, Nilsson has indicated to me that the requisite simulation is in preparation; his assurances are a part of that large and generous family of promises of which 'your check is in the mail' may be the outstanding example. What Nilsson and Pilger [sic] in fact described was the evolution not of an eye but of an eyeball, and they described it using ordinary back-of-the-envelope calculations. Far from demonstrating the emergence of a complicated biological structure, what they succeeded in showing was simply than an imaginary population of light-sensitive cells could be flogged relentlessly up a simple adaptive peak, a point never at issue because never in doubt.[7]

Concerning what "the majority of biologists" purportedly thought about Nilsson & Pelger's paper, a footnote in Berlinski's December 2002 Commentary article put forward only this example:

The physicist Matt Young offers this inadvertently rich account of his own inability to read the literature: "Creationists used to argue ... that there was not enough time for an eye to develop. A computer simulation by Dan Nilsson and Suzanne Pilger [sic] gave the lie to that claim: Nilsson and Pilger estimated conservatively that 500,000 years was enough time."[8]

Among the many letters in the March 2003 Commentary on Berlinski's views, Young rejoined that even if Nilsson & Pelger had not strictly used a computer to carry out the simulation, the modeling was nonetheless a thoroughly mathematical one, and thus still valid on its own merit.

In challenging Nilsson & Pelger on this point, Berlinski would have improved his argument had he investigated the individual dynamic changes being modeled. But all that concerned him was whether there had been a "computer program" to do the dirty work. Replying to Berlinski in 2001, Nilsson correctly replied that his work with Pelger had indeed not involved a computer simulation. What Berlinski had not asked to see were the actual data points on which those calculations were based.[9]

Having failed to inquire about the data set, the half-cocked Berlinski then shot both rhetorical barrels in an April 2003 diatribe for Commentary. Now Nilsson & Pelger ballooned into "A Scientific Scandal" of significant proportions, with the "gross incompetence" of those evolutionists who had intemperately described Nilsson & Pelger's work as a "computer simulation" becoming "in many ways the gravamen of my complaints and the dessert of this discussion."[10]

Grinding this axe extra fine, Berlinski took issue once again with Matt Young:

Whatever the truth -- and I do not know it -- Mr. Young's inference is pointless. One judges a paper by what it contains and one trusts an author by what he says. No doubt Matt Young is correct to observe that "computer-aided simulation might have been a better description" of Nilsson and Pelger's work. I suppose one could say that had Dan-Erik Nilsson and Susanne Pelger rested their heads on a computer console while trying to guess at the number of steps involved in transforming a light-sensitive patch into a fully functioning eyeball, their work could also be represented as computer-aided.[11]

Well, harrumph!

Beyond all the fuss over whether some science writers should check their rhetorical license more carefully, Berlinski pressed onto really serious ground when he directly accused Nilsson & Pelger of having virtually made up their data, performing no substantive calculations at all. He specifically hammered at Figure 3 of their paper, where the growing number of image points in the visual field followed a commendably linear progression through the 1829 steps of the sequence.[12]

Mistaking the highlighting of seven of the eight theoretical stages in the process as a sign that the rest of the line had been merely an interpolation, Berlinski insisted:

Moreover, Nilsson and Pelger do not calculate the "visual acuity" of any structure, and certainly not over the full 1,829 steps of their sequence. They suggest that various calculations have been made, but they do not show how they were made or tell us where they might be found. At the very best, they have made such calculations for a handful of data points, and then joined those points by a continuous curve.[13]

When I wrote Nilsson to check up on these matters, I did ask about his data set, and he readily supplied a neat summary of the ten variables involved in the simulation and the stages of their acquisition.

As seen from Nilsson's summary, the shifts in the first five stages involved the corneal width and thickness, and the upper and lower widths of the retinal and pigment surfaces. The next stage added an increase in the central refractive index. The final two stages incorporated changes to iris width and the height and width of the developing lens. The accumulating variations could have been reached by any number of specific paths, of course (where three increments involving two variables could have been A>B>A as readily as A>A>B or B>A>A).

Parenthetically, it was a curious lapse for a mathematician like Berlinski not to have appreciated the obvious: just listing all 1829 increments of the ten factors Nilsson & Pelger had used would have involved dozens of pages of small print. So perhaps it was understandable that the Royal Society paper had not included all the raw numbers.

Concerning the ongoing research that Berlinski so disparaged, Nilsson also explained how their modeling of eye evolution was becoming more inclusive precisely to the degree that they were incorporating realistic algorithms reflecting actual genetic control processes and developmental gene expression. In other words, if Berlinski is expecting an increase in computational clarity to undermine the overall theoretical point established in their original 1994 work, he may be in for quite a wait.[14]

But underlying Berlinski's unwarranted charges is a far more seriously flawed conceptual basement. According to Berlinski,

What Nilsson and Pelger assume is that natural selection would track their results; but this assumption is never defended in their paper, nor does it play the slightest role in their theory.

And for an obvious reason: if there are no random variations occurring in their initial light-sensitive patch, then natural selection has nothing to do. And there are no random variations in that patch, their model succeeding as a defense of Darwin's theory only by first emptying the theory, of its content.[15]

Whatever did Berlinski think was going on in Nilsson & Pelger's data set, if not a particular quantification of what would have ultimately represented "random variations" in the parameters of the initial light sensitive patch?

Whether done on "computer" or envelope, one has to recall that all the stages in Nilsson & Pelger's mathematical modeling were based on examples found in living organisms, so Berlinski's characterization of the initial set of cells as "imaginary" rings hollow.[16]

Going by Nilsson's summary of the data points (which Berlinski did not ask about, remember), an initial variation need have been no more than a 1% increase in corneal thickness. That was the feature showing the greatest number of cumulative shifts leading to the second stage of the model, by the way. What Berlinski was insisting here was that in a whole population of organisms possessing that initial photoreceptive patch, none of the characters in any one of them would ever have varied by even that single percentage point!

Given the observed ubiquity of natural variations (from DNA alleles through to the number of ribs in our chest) Berlinski's position tells far more about his own grip on modern biological science than the limitations of Nilsson & Pelger's foray into eye evolution.[17]

Not the first time, either: Berlinski's idiosyncratic view of evolutionary theory
This aspect of Berlinski's critique of evolution hasn't always been easy to spot, but only because he hasn't cited all that many technical works. A rare prior exception concerned a comment dropped in the letters section of Commentary -- this time back in September 1996, sparked once again by one of his anti-Darwinian articles. On that occasion, Berlinski called attention to a paper on botany that had not only isolated the mutations responsible for the evolution of several sunflower species ... they had actually been able to reproduce them experimentally.

Now you might have thought this was about the last sort of revelation that could be taken as posing a problem for Darwinism, but that's not taking into account Berlinski's amazing aptitude for glossing sources. He decided that this finding actually "contravenes Darwinian doctrine" -- by which he meant Stephen Jay Gould's argument on the contingent and unpredictable outcome of evolution, where "rewinding the tape" of life would purportedly produce very different results (such as dinosaurs never giving ground to mammals). Berlinski then opined that "the tape in this experiment ran to precisely the same genetic end product every time it was played."[18]

The problem with Berlinski's claim is that Gould's opinion is hardly a core of "Darwinian doctrine" -- just ask Simon Conway Morris, or even Jerry Coyne's commentary on the very article Berlinski had cited. Berlinski had taken Gould's view (which at most would apply to only the broadest phyletic and class categories) and summarily transmogrified it into a dogma mandating genetic chaos all the way down to mutation selection in speciation and plant hybridization.[19]

Now all these quixotic utterances would have represented nothing more than scholarly laziness or conceptual dyslexia on Berlinski's part -- and not a troubling case of "double standard" -- were it not for something that the mathematician had written in the March 2003 letters section of Commentary."

...from the above link.

x-post

It is not all just evolutionists vs. creationists. It's people looking for truth and using legitimate means at finding that truth.

OK, the mousetrap metaphor has gone as far as it'll go I think. But the same applies to eyes, however complex. All this stuff about proteins etc in the article is a red herring designed, I suspect, to make it look like the author knows what he's talking about. All irrelevant. Organisms don't evolve retinas first then irises then corneas etc. It's all little bits at a time because mutations occur with each generation and some mutations confer and advantage. And "advantage" is, again, defined as something that allows the organism to live longer and produce more offspring.

So that's basic evolution theory, which you probably already know. According to the articles you cite, this doesn't apply to tiny complex things like cilia or flagella. But why shouldn't they? The articles don't demonstrate they can't. These things didn't evolve all fully formed, or even with some components but not others. In one generation a mutation occurs which allows a rough patch to develop. In the next, the roughness is more pronounced. A tiny extra bit on the rough buds is generated from a mutation etc etc. And eventually you get the structures you see now.

All that stuff about DNA coding is also silly because the ones that don't work die out! If you have a critical mutation which prevents you from having children, you don't get to pass your DNA on. By definition the only successful DNA is the DNA that either contributes to or doesn't harm your chances of survival.

Science isn't a religion or philosophy, it's a methodology. Science doesn't have "all the answers" because that's not what it's for. It's for enabling humans to see what questions are answerable and in what way. You say you're not good at rhetoric. I understand the points your making - the problem isn't that you haven't used words eloquently enough. It's that the arguments you put forward display misconceptions about what evolution is, what science is and what is a scientifically valid claim. People can't claim that the reason they don't convince others of their arguments is that they're being too pernickity over terminology and facts. ID is basically saying: "I don't think I can get my head around this so I doubt anyone else can and I won't bother myself about it". But anyone who believes they look different to their parents believes in evolution.

But _everyone_ is a scientist. If you slam your hand in a car door by accident you don't do it again because it hurts. That connection of observation to explanation and action IS science.

The important point is that we should recognize when people are going beyond the strict science, moving into moral and social claims, thinking of their theory as an all-embracing world picture. All too often, there is a slide from science to something more, and this slide goes unmentioned -- unrealized even.

Science is not always what it should be. This important point applies for both ID and evolution. Effort should be made to mention and realize what slide is being made.
Using scientific evolution to slide into saying that material is all there is and is the ultimate origin and fate of all, brings it into a religious level. likewise it is also a slide to use ID to say we have scientific knowledge or proof about God creating everything.

Currently the amount of scientific research done in ID is not much because it is fairly new as a science, but is growing. Those researchers are not saying "I don't think I can get my head around this so I doubt anyone else can and I won't bother myself about it." or else they wouldn't be good researchers. They are looking for evidence, not just trying to prove evolution false; new evidence that will compliment and improve on the evolutionary evidence and theory. The opponants of ID could be considered as saying "I don't think I can get my head around ID" becuase intelligence existing in the universe in a natural way is something hard to get ones head around. Maybe in the future there will be mathematical equations discribing how this intelligence affects matter, or how designs came from it. From my initial instigation comparing ID to einsteinian physics, I think it's a possiblity that in the future what we know about evolution could be changed in a similar way to how physics was change about a century ago.

No. "Intelligence existing in the universe" is nonsense. It's anthropomorphizing physical things. It's a categorical mistake.

I will also say this: stop making Newton:Einstein = Darwin:creationism comparisons. Newton's theories are perfectly acceptable for explaining *every type* of motion that doesn't involve moving at near-luminal velocities, i.e. EVERYTHING that takes place in everyday life. Newtonian physics is still fine for describing (and predicting) phenomena involving bouncing basketballs, head on collisions between tractor-trailers, and bicycle riding. There is absolutely no scientific equivalent between that theory and anything that creationists have put forward to describe the origin of species. In other words, Darwinism, like Newtonian physics, does not need to be completely overhauled and replaced with something new.

So, one can't claim Einstein's revision of Newton as a scientific precedent for the sorts of claims made by ID "theorists".

xpost

Faith and science are not contradiction. For example, about a hundred years ago and back most of the major scientific dicoveries were made by scientists whose motives were religious. i.e. to find more about God's creation and serve humanity. like Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Boyle, Galileo, Harvey, Ray.

When conditions reached extremes there were gaps: extremes of sizes and speeds. Irreducible complexity points to an extreme condition of evolution.

This process is completely understood via Newton. It's not like we understand falling apples and rubber balls, but as soon as we drop an automobile, Newtonian physics becomes incomplete. However, that is not true of evolution -- we understand the evolutionary tree of some species better than others. In such instances, we attempt to apply certain evolutionary principles to fill in the missing gaps because it's worked 23982985259872957898342754 times before. We don't call those gaps "irreducible complexity" and invoke the Jesus principle to fill them.

That's it. Back to lurking.

But they allowed their God given faculties of reason to posit theories based on the observance of God's other revelation, the natural world as opposed to trying to obtain results that jibed with the theological fashion du jour. Don't exclude Darwin from your list either, 'cause his faith was as great as anybody's and he knew his theory of natural selection (evolution wasn't his idea) might be used to attack the accepted cosmology of his religion and he eventually published anyway. Why? Perhaps Darwin knew that ignorance cannot defend faith and that wisdom doesn't hurt it. It took the Roman Catholic Church 623 years to accept this with regard to Galileo. Hopefully, we're quicker nowadays.

That'll be the Galileo that was imprisoned by the church, Copernicus who was afraid to publish because of the Church . . . Not so much Men of God as Men Fucked Over By The Clergy.

Dud - The pride of the theologist who already knows what the data mean but can't figure out how to make the results look right.

Up to a certain point it seems, I wonder why. It seems God keeps on getting moved further and further back in the equation.

Still I ask for some creationism evidence which exists outside the context of proving evolution is false.

uhm, that's what some of us have been saying for a while now.

the problem is that those who DO wish to advance a particular political point of view have adopted the tactic that only their religion as they particularly practice it now is the key to heaven, and anybody else who doesn't follow exactly along are all hatahz who hate religion and thus all of us Common Good Folk here in God's Country, since obviously God has blessed the U.S.A.

so thus they work at casting all their opponents, science folks, lib'ruls, judges or anybody who doesn't immediately fall in line to their demands as being anti-religion and anit-Christian. This is all in an attempt to grab more power in a country where the vast majority of folks do claim some Christian leaning.

The real reason the Xtian right is doing this in places like Kansas is from nostalgia. Nostalgia for a time when the large majority of people were Americanized protestants of European descent living in a post Wars of Religion truce that contemptuously tolerated some Jews, some Catholics. As Catholics have become mainstream and the Kennedy admin. proved they weren't under foreign domination, they too have started hearkening for a time where all these pesky 'others', atheists, Hindus, new agers, Buddhists, etc... weren't so darn pushy about their hellbound nonsense.

1. The study of design or purpose in natural phenomena.
2. The use of ultimate purpose or design as a means of explaining phenomena.
3. Belief in or the perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in nature or history.

And yeah, I think you have a few dozen questions to answer Nairn, seeing as how people keep askign you the same thing over and over and over and instead of answering you just sort of mis/re-direct the conversation.

this Davis has also drawn comparisons between the 9/11 hijackings and the hijacking of this country by liberals.

"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

...

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.

"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/305721p-261517c.html

Yeah. They're arguing simultaneously that A.) science is really a "religion" and B.) their religion is really a "science."

This is basiclly what I was getting at too, and I don't see why anyone would think of this as bad idea. Also I agree with what gypsy mothra said, yet I'd change it like this:
They're arguing simultaneously that A.) philosophical claims that are made in the name of science are really a "religion" and B.) their religion is something rational that "science" supports. But I don't think all ID people are religious or need to be. I think that ID is or will become a scientific thesis.

Therefore, in regards to responding to Derbyshire and finding more creationism evidence which exists outside the context of proving evolution false, I'll get to that and try to find better sources.

HUH?

also, thank god we have university folks there:

But intelligent design advocates say that's not true and argue that they're only trying to give students a more balanced view of evolution.

"Public science education is an institution," said Bill Harris, a University of Missouri-Kansas City professor of medicine and intelligent design advocate. "It appoints a teacher to be a referee among ideas.

"Nobody would tolerate a football game where the referee was obviously biased..."

Isn't it time for all non-fundamentalist-wacko conservative/Republican-types to finally get off this bus now?

1) Where did the over-compensatory/self-congratulatory "intelligent" part come from? The design seems self-evidently stupid and lacking in, as nairn puts it, an 'end-goal'. DUMB DESIGN.

2) We need a latter-day Tom Wolfe to define these hobbyists up close and personal

In spite of an enormous amt. of genetic flux in plants and animals, the basic genetic processes and major mol. traits are believed to have persisted essentially unchanged for more that three-and-a-half billion years, and the mol. mechanisms of animal ontogenesis for more that one billion years. Moreover, systematics is based on virtually const. characters in space and time - otherwise this important branch of biol. would not be possible. Addnl. the fossil record displays a regular pattern of abrupt appearances of new life forms (instead of their arrival by innumerable small steps in a Darwinian manner), followed equally abrupt disappearance of the major life forms, which have dies out after different periods of time. Doyen of the synthetic theory, Ernst Mayr or HArvard, has just recently admitted, this constancy (stasis) of life forms in the face of tremendously dynamic genomes is one of the greatest problems of contemporary evolutionary biol. and demands an explanation. In agreement with several researchers, I refer to arguments and facts supporting the view that irreducible complexity (behe) in combination with specified complexity (Dembski) characterize basic biol. systems and that these hypotheses might point to a non-gradualistic soln. of the problem.

(sorry I don't have the full text available)

There are local fitness peaks in the evolutionary landscape. If he's wondering why there isn't silicon based life or some other chemical 'life-like' process competing with known DNA mechanisms, it's because DNA got their 'first' and successfully crowded out the local fitness peak. This has some basis in information theory and I first became aware of it reading Murray Gell-Man (which I'd recommend).

The fossil record argument he posits is pretty weak, considering the nature of fossils of themselves and puncutated equilibrium.

I'd like to hear A. Nairns actual thoughts on what he just quoted as well, rather than just responding to a scientific abstract.

Today's Christians are - more often than not - the very proof that intelligent design is a fallacy. An intelligent God would never create anyone so stupid and allow them to have any control over their own lives.

"Coerce", although used incorrectly by you earlier, is a perfect word for what the creationists/ID proponents are doing - trying to force their religious beliefs on the public school system, and thereby the public.

Or we can wait until some other developments come along that helps solve all the current problems of evolution. They might be similar to ID, but be called different names.

They might be similar to ID, but be called different names.

heh. you may be more right than you know. after all, as mentioned up thread, a lot of the ID thing came about as a way to reframe teaching literalist/young-earth creationism in public schools.

again, it's an odd thing, since most folks who really don't like this book-learning just pull their kids out and home-school them for the extra-sheltered flavor of it all.

of course, it's all so much noise and distraction.

Oh, believe me, Nairn. As soon as they "prove" ID, it's lunch at Tavern on the Green, my treat.

That's religion in a nutshell, folks. Question the premise, then draw your own unsupported conclusion before anyone has a chance to give you a good, solid, frightening explanation.

"See?" they will all say. "Science IS a religion!"

Yeah, religion. Let's see if you burn at the stake. Hm... will a carbon-based lifeform turn back to carbon when ignited? Only SCIENCE can tell us for certain!

Jarlrmai,
ok, what about some cosomolgical evidence? The Goldilocks dilemma: where fundamental numerical values, such as gravitational force, ratio of proton mass to electron mass, strong and weak nuclear force, electromagnetic force, and others, all turned out just right for life to exist.

some quotes from physicists and astronomers:

Heinz Oberhummer says "I am not a religious person, but I could say the universe is designed very well for the existence of life."

George Greenstein, "Nothing in all physics explains why its fundamental principles should conform themselves so precisely to life's requirement."

Paul Davies, "Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspciously, friendly to life?...It's almost as if a Grand Designer had it all figured out."

Here's an interesting quote by Nobel prize winner Arno Penzias: "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan... The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole." He's not saying the his religion is science, he's saying it happens that science, correctly being used as a method, does not contradict his religion.

Here is a quote from author Gregg Easterbrook, "The multiverse theory requires as much suspension of disbelief as any religion... Join the church that believes in the existence of invisible objects 50 billion galaxies wide!"

which is true of most actual scientists, and has zero to do with "intelligent design." science and religion are not inherently opposing forces. creationism, a near-universally-established scientific theory, and "intelligent design," a political movement for Americans without much familiarity with science, are.

I take it that was a typo?

"author" Gregg Easterbrook is, like "author" David Brooks, one of those faux-intelligentsia apologists for rightwing thuggery.

jesus, what an asshole. Of course, "counter-intuitive" and "really fucking hard to do the math for" does NOT equal "suspension of disbelief" in the religious connotation that this guy is trying connect.

the whole "multiverse theory", a part of string theory, just came from people working thru the math as currently established. Also, most proponents of string/multiverse theory tend not to talk about it with the same "we're all so obviously correct so you're a fookin' cunt if ya don't agree with me."

also, here's a key bit:

Join the church that believes in the existence of invisible objects

he's trying to posit any immediately/empirically unobservable phenomena as equally described by science or religion, or blind faith vs actually working the shit out on a coupla computers to see what results you find.

This thread is ridiculous, despite the number of clever posts it contains.

You are all arguing with A Nairn. It is everybody against A Nairn. He cannot win!

Of course, he cannot win because his ideas are silly! If there were an army of A Nairns, he still could not win! If the most intelligent & well-read exponent of Creationism or Intelligent Design theory were to land here, that person could win neither! His ideas would be silly!

But some of the posts above in response to A Nairn are silly also. They are unreadable! Lazy! Lacking vigour!

These lazy, boring, zestless posts are not to be scorned. Mostly, they say things that are correct! Whoopie-do.

Speaking as myself, I would find it more entertaining if the people above would express as much passion in pursuits other than proving to A Nairn that he is wrong.

A Nairn is wrong! It needs no proving. But this thread seems to me to be about getting A Nairn to admit to everyone that he is wrong. He will not! And were he to, whoopie-do! There are many A Nairns!

Fucking expand! Expand! Don't write at A Nairn - but imagine more. Expand!

the oddest thing thing was that the color-scheme of the sticker and typeface chosen resembled nothing so much as a Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream product.

Ick.

I'm sorry, but I bet half of these mugs above do anything more than what these mugs do above.

If I am standing in the way of serious action, I am sorry. I hereby let you pass.

do nothing

only around Halloween, i think...

just think back to 1988-1989 and you'll remember.

or see "The Abyss" or "L.A. Story"

There was a better joke about them in a Dilbert strip once:

Dilbert: "The neighbors said you glued their cat to their car window by his paws"
Dogbert: "What was the problem? Copyright infringement?"

More about DNA in respects to it being positive evidence:

"The structure of DNA is precisely parallel to the structure of languages and computer programs. Can we infer that specified complexity in DNA is likewise the product of an intelligent agent? Unless we define science from the outset in terms of naturalistic philosophy, the answer should be yes." Science and Christian writer, Nancey Pearcey goes on to explain how she things we could define science as "Faced with any phenomenon, a scientist can run it through the Explanatory Filter: Is it a random event? Then all we need to invoke is chance. Does it occur in a regular, repeated pattern? Then it is an instance of some natural law. Is it a complex, specified pattern? Then it exhibits design, and was produced by intelligence."

Paul Davies, "Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won't work because it addresses the problem at the wrong concptual level."

Dean Kenyon, "If you survey the experiments to date, designed to stimulate conditions on the early earth, one thing that stands out is that you do not get ordered sequences of amino acids. These simply do not appear among the products of any experiments"

So how many scientists have tried doing said experiments continuously for several million years?

What's the difference between a "regular, repeated pattern" and a "complex, specified pattern"? Random events produce patterns. This Nancey Pearcey is just stringing words together that sound good.

This last bit is bogus. There is no evidence it was produced by design. Complex, specified patterns are produced by complex specified environments. There's no mystery there.

Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won't work because it addresses the problem at the wrong concptual level.

I don't even understand this analogy. Is he suggesting that you could mix chemicals together and a dog would pop out? Because the way it's phrased it seems that's what he's suggesting. The key ingredients here when describing evolutionary processes are SELF-REPLICATION and TIME. Unless an analogy incorporates these two pieces it is a false analogy.

Caitlin OTM on the other point.

FWIW I appreciate A Nairn's comments on this thread. On the whole this thread has been refreshingly civil, despite how infuriatingly wrong some of the ID arguments have been. I have no problem arguing against them though, however wrong and counter to science they may be. It seems that the big ideological hurdle for ID is understanding the processes that shape complexity. Nairn I'd recommend reading some popular science books on Systems Theory (if you're not already familiar with it). This is really ID's true philosophical opponent IMO.

Right. And even more than that, the ID approach to finding a book or cave painting for which there's no clear historical record or provenance would be to say, "Aha, God did it."

Yet you haven't produced any arguments. only ppl saying "oh wow it must be down to a designer"

What about when a scientist comes across some cave writing or a book. That's a complex, specified pattern and the logical conclusion is that the complex, specified environment resulting in the words is that someone with intelligence designed it.

This is no argument at all but a reversion to Natural Theology and hasn't been taken seriously for about 150 years - certainly not here, and certainly if you do nothing but repeat it.

Why continue to point out stuff that appears intelligently designed and say "this is proof" - it isn't and naive induction will tell you it's a hostage to fortune anyway. Such happened in the past and succumbed to eventual explanation without recourse to any intelligent entity, while example of manifest unintelligent design is ALSO explained by the same scientific principles.

Not to sound rude, but the type of thinking A Nairn demonstrates is filled with faulty logic. For instance, the "but isn't it odd that the universe is set up so that conditions are perfect for life to occur?". What if I showed you footage of me throwing a penny high in the air and it landing upright, on its edge. Pretty remarkable, huh? I mean, what are the odds? You might ask how many attempts I made before that happened, and I'd have to confess that it was well into the thousands. But if you didn't know about the other attempts that went wrong, it'd seem almost...miraculous.
Wouldn't you think it was lazy to just take my footage at face value, chalk it up to divine intervention and not even contemplate other explanations?

On a micro level, conditions on Earth are juuuust right for life to flourish. Does that mean that God chose this planet to be the one that nourished life and therefore set things up to allow that? Or does it mean that there are billions and billions of other planets where the conditions are not right and if you throw that coin up in the air enough times, eventually it will land perfectly on its side?

Making claims from evolutionary psychology or sociobiology are examples of reaching into philosophical territory in the name of science and trying to reframe ethics, morality, or what ever else it can get its hands on. This leads to justifying
rape:
"a natural, biological phenomenon that is product of the human evolutionary heritage."
Randy Thornhill
infanticide:
"a capacity for neonaticide is built into the biological design of our parental emotions."
Steven Pinker
beastiality:
"we are animals, sex across the species barrier ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings." Peter Singer
and dare I mention some of the other issues that have already become 'acceptable' to many in our recent history...

Wouldn't it be great to teach the future generation that "science proves Materialism is the only valid explination for life's origin and therefore your existance is nothing more than biology at work. Now go try and justify any morality with that." Science is not suppose to make claims like this. That is why alternative theories should be taught, because without them Evolutionary origin of life reigns over more than just the science class. Just from simple experience and human nature this way of reframing morality feels incorrect, and I ask if anyone can really live life in a way only following what biology makes them do, without being a little insane or feeling wrong about it.

An aside: For example, as a Christian, I absolutely know that God created the earth, He created man in His image, He is the author of morality. Through God's mercy I have faith and through faith I have knowledge. It is not something I just infer. This claim of mine is very valid/reasonable (applicable, many others have a similar claim, Biblical, not limited by geography or era, etc) . Evolutionism (when it's stepping out of the confines of science as scientism) makes the claim that the earth formed only naturalistically, man evolved only by biological means, and morality is only based on biology. Under seperation of church and state these claims should not be made in state institutions. (Moreover, they don't absolutely know those claims, they only infer them.)

Yes, we know what Science should be, but in practice is it really that? Its tendency to become Scientism is often swept under the rug and ignored.

I'll repeat how important I think it is to draw a distinction between testable theories of science and philosophical claims that are made in the name of science.

it is impossible to have a rational, logical argument with someone who insists that they absolutely know something to be true even though there is no concrete evidence to support it.

there are other forms of morality which are not based on "God says it's bad. don't do it or he'll be pissed at you". I don't know why religiosos think must disintegrate if God is removed from the picture. (also, you say those justifications you listed are not necessarily justifications. it's like saying "he killed him because he looked at him funny" is a justification.)

xpost that's just nutty

Surely this is self-evident? Infanticide is so common that you can't argue that we, as a species, *don't* have the capacity for it.

Of course, there's an evolutionary argument as to *why* religions rule that infanticide is bad: the most successful religions are the ones which propagate themselves to the most people, and one way to get an advantage there is to ensure there are more people to propagate to. Therefore, the most successful religions tend to be ones which outlaw infanticide (of babies whose parents believe what we do), murder (of people who believe what we do), birth control and so on.

as a Christian, I absolutely know that God created the earth, He created man in His image, He is the author of morality.

No, you don't. You *think* you do. What you *actually* do is believe it. This is an important distinction. Languages have nuances like this because precision is useful and good.

Evolutionism (when it's stepping out of the confines of science as scientism) makes the claim that the earth formed only naturalistically, man evolved only by biological means, and morality is only based on biology. Under seperation of church and state these claims should not be made in state institutions.

You said that "evolutionism" is a philosophy, right? So you're saying that no philosophy at all should be taught in public schools?

BTW, what do you think about the phrase "under God" being in the Pledge of Allegiance?

It doesn't justify rape, it explains its existence. You do believe it exists right? I.e. that its within human capacity to rape? Doesn't it make more sense to understand it as a product of biology than the product of a good deity who lets bad things happen for some inexplicable reason?

philosophical claims that are made in the name of science
Like what? Please name one and explain why it doesn't count as science.

What if you'd been bought up by wolves in a remote fucking forest what would you know then? Would you "absolutely know that God created the earth?" You only know about God because someone else told you about it, think about the philosophical implications there.

I don't need a deity to tell me how to try to be a good person. But morality isn't constant. Although we haven't discussed properly so far, I'll make an assumption that you don't believe in relativism in this context. Would you say it's morally defensible to stone adulterers to death? God said we should. His son said we shouldn't unless we are "without sin" ourselves. So which is it? Why is it so terrible that conceptions of right and wrong should change over time?

Biology tells me how to live my life and it doesn't drive me insane and it doesn't "feel wrong". Social constructs are a product of the biological urge to survive and procreate. So are war, music, rape, pop tarts, belief in gods, everything humans have ever done – our brains produce these unguided by gods. The reason I say this is because humans have done scientifically rigorous experiments to see how brains work. We don't know everything yet and we may never do, but there's no evidence at all that gods reside in the gaps in our knowledge.

This is only under your view of rationality. I realize that there are so many different sides of this argument and I have moved into outer and outer circles. Yet my ideas of how religion relates to it are not just one crazy persons ideas. They are established, common, and rational. Yet it may be based on some uses of reason that science does not include, like faith. I am just putting myself out as an example of this type of person. A nonchristian looking at this type of person from the outside sees it just as a belief, and maybe they can study it from a sociobiological point of view. Yet from the inside it is an absolute knowledge.

I think a good outcome would be to have in schools a science class that teaches methods, experiments, and the theories and how they are infered by the rules of science (making it clear that these rules cannot make claims about philosophy). Then after that (maybe in a philosophy/religions class) what different philosophical ideas can then be infered from the scientific theories, and what more does philosophy say about things that science can't reach. This would include philosopical/religious ideas that under the rules of science are not rational, but under the rules of philosophy and religion are rational. I don't think it's too hard or biased of a concept to teach. It would not be anti-religious or anti-atheist. The religious student, who knows something that science doesn't prove to them, can see this and notice where thier rational comes from. The atheist/non-religious student can disregard the rules of religion and philosophy as they see fit. This is better than making the religious student try and disregard rules of science.

Two big examples of philosophical claims made in name of science are the existance of God and Materialism. Sometimes names like ID and evolution try and include these two claims.

Give us some facts, descriptions, rules or something that backs up ID. What predictions does it make?

-- A Nairn (moreta...), May 7th, 2005.

Um, Christianity? That God chap? You know, the one who's EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME.

Why does a billion people believing crackpot things give those things more validity? Many many people believe many things that are outright wrong.

A nonchristian looking at this type of person from the outside sees it just as a belief, and maybe they can study it from a sociobiological point of view. Yet from the inside it is an absolute knowledge.

Replace Christian/Christianity here with Insane/Insanity.

So precisely where does this knowledge come from?

Q.E.D.

-- A Nairn (moreta...), May 9th, 2005.

Science includes all that can be observed. If god exists outside of that which can be observed he/she/it doesn't exist.

(Observed would include seeing, hearing, measuring or inferring from other things)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/05/AR2005050501927.html

...Take away the television cameras and the PowerPoint presentations, and Thursday's scene bore a resemblance to the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn., where a high school science teacher was famously convicted of violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution. This time, said Bruce Chapman, a former Reagan administration Census Bureau director, "This is the Scopes trial turned on its head."

Chapman heads the Discovery Institute, whose Seattle offices overlooking Puget Sound have become the headquarters of the intelligent design movement, which posits that modern Darwinian theory is limited and that life is too complex to be explained by evolutionary theory alone. An early witness was Jonathan Wells, a Discovery senior fellow who described himself as "an old Berkeley antiwar radical" who loves controversy.

Wells confirmed during cross-examination that he was a member of the Unification Church when he earned doctorates in theology from Yale and in biology from the University of California at Berkeley. In an Internet posting distributed outside the meeting by Kansas Citizens for Science, Wells refers to church leader Sun Myung Moon, saying, "Father's words, my studies and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism."

Testifying to the three-member education committee, Wells described himself as an embryologist and theologian, and said evolutionary theory "has left the realm of science" and instead has become a given, leaving many conclusions unproven. He described the common scientific conclusion that all living things come from a common ancestor as essentially an act of faith...

Duh. They do this already, eegit. The difference between what you're suggesting and the Way Things Are Already is that you would like evolution to be taught in philosophy class. Which, of course, is ridiculous. I'm beating the deadest of all horses here but: Nairn, evolution is not a fact, nor do most scientists profess it as fact. It is a THEORY with mountains of data to back it up. However, evolution was not a first principle: it was arrived at AFTER analysis. ID, on the other hand, IS a first principle and those that support it have shaped existing data to fit their model. THIS IS WHAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND or at least are completely willing to ignore. I have not read all of the myriad links above, but if there's ONE that points to a previously dyed-in-the-wool evoluntionary biologist turned IDer, I'd LOVE to read it. All of the other pro-ID tracts I've read have been written by reactionary Xtians cheesed that their stories aren't being told in science class.

This is exactly the currently held postion in science education. It assumes existence is only based on ability to observe. That ability is a human ability and is not perfect. belief in the existance of god is a rational belief, but not a scientific one.

Materialism (physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena) is something that would be better to teach in a philosophy class. Often it is assumed in science class as a scientifically accurate first principle.

Here are some video interviews with Dean Kenyon, a previously dyed-in-the-wool evoluntionary biologist turned IDer
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/DETCHE/VIDEO/BIOLOGY/KENYON/Kenyon.html

So how we even know about god?

(I'm beginning to think A. Nairn is not actually a real person, but is instead some pre-programmed trolling personality that appears at pre-arranged intervals and posts messages composed of randomly selected words from the thread)

(maybe we're all just pre-programmed... by biological processes)

xpost me too

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/05/persecution_con.html

The glamorization of "persecution" is a component -- and a vital one--of the culture "wars". It allows a participant to view himself (or herself) as a "soldier" carrying out God's work -- and losing.

This is the important part.

If you're losing your struggle, you get to break the rules, cheat, lie, do anything to win. Winners have to play fair, but if you can somehow twist things so you become oppressed, you are granted moral license to do, well, anything.

It's the glow of martyrship without the ickiness of actually being martyred.

And that feeling, that shock of indignation, that swell of righteous anger: it's addictive. It's a sure-fire hit on the crackpipe of certainty. It's why all fanatics sound the same -- their leaders all use the same tools.

yeah, we're kind of reached the end of it now.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being save it is the power of God. For it is written:

"I'll destory the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe...For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength...

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

Bollocks

A Nairn, please explain why you take more notice of Corinthians than of me.

All things are produced by the Tao, and nourished by its
outflowing operation. They receive their forms according to the
nature of each, and are completed according to the circumstances of
their condition. Therefore all things without exception honour the
Tao, and exalt its outflowing operation.

This honouring of the Tao and exalting of its operation is not the
result of any ordination, but always a spontaneous tribute.

Thus it is that the Tao produces (all things), nourishes them,
brings them to their full growth, nurses them, completes them, matures
them, maintains them, and overspreads them.

It produces them and makes no claim to the possession of them; it
carries them through their processes and does not vaunt its ability in
doing so; it brings them to maturity and exercises no control over
them;--this is called its mysterious operation.

exactly. so much time and energy has been wasted on this little distraction alone. the deliberate re-framing of it has caused a lot of pain and noise.

kudos for trying at least.
m.

http://www.jesus-is-lord.co.za/images/1250.gifAre your children being taught scientific "proofs" of evolution that have already been disproven?

Much of the world has been convinced to abandon God because of a few classic "proofs of evolution" in schoolbooks. "The Vanishing Proofs of Evolution" shows how one after another of these has been found to be untrue.

Don't just stand and watch while your kids and their teachers are being deceived. Give them the knowledge that will build their faith and help them help others.

It's all explained in this scientifically-sound book, which clearly shows that true science supports the Creation position and disproves evolution.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Pillars of Evolution
Climbing Mount Improbable
Chapter 1 - Peppered Moths; Best Evidence for Evolution?
The Best Evidence?
"Uphill Evolution" a Myth
Chapter 2 - Does an Embryo Relive Its Evolution?
Faked Drawings
Abortion
Chapter 3 - Comparative Anatomy
Chapter 4 - Can Evolution Make New Organs?
Mutations Usually "Downhill"
The Fruit Fly Experiments
Recessive Mutations
Point Mutations
Chapter 5 - Vestigial Organs, Evolution's Leftovers?
Downhill Evolution
The Appendix
Scalp and Ear Muscles
Where Did New Organs Come From?
New Animals and Endangered Species
Chapter 6 - Uniformitarian Geology
Chapter 7 - Do Fossils Prove Evolution?
The Missing Links are Missing
Eyes
Punctuated Equilibrium
Chapter 8 - Did Life Evolve from Chemicals?
How Did Life Begin?
Were the Materials Available?
The Myth That Lipids Formed in Nature and Produced The First Life
The Myth That Proteins Formed in Nature and Produced Life
The Myth That The First Living Cell Was Started by RNA
A Tough Job for Primitive RNA
How Long?
Information
Machines
Conclusion

also, dig some of the reviews of this guy's work

I'm not particularly religious and to me evolution isn't anything special. It's just another scientific theory that explains fairly well an aspect of the world around us - we'll stick with it until something better comes along. So it's a bit like, say, the current model of the atom, or our understanding of gravity or the best way to avoid high blood pressure (all theories/ideas/explanations that seem to fit what we see).

As a secular person I'm not too bothered either way about it.
So why is it such a big deal to religious people?

If evolution is true that doesn't DISprove the existence of god.
And if ID is right that doesn't prove 'god' did it. It might have just been aliens for example.

If religious people really do believe, if they really have faith, if they really KNOW, then why does this argument bother them so much?

I think one of the big contradictions is in "God created the heavens and earth" vs. "The earth and all it's life evolved naturalistically." This may not be exactly what the theory of evolution claims, but many people expand it to include a naturalistic, anything but divine, origin of species and the world. When people say "I stop being a Christian because I heard about evolution." That shows that it is reaching beyond science.

Also there is the 'cultural mandate' for Christians, which is God's command to cultivate the earth. This involves scientific research. A Bible believing, scientific researcher often uses the two to form and refine understanding.

(ID doesn't prove god or aliens. Think of it more as just a yet undiscovered force involved in the fromation of life.)

No offense, but Orwell might have been perversely proud of that formulation.

But it's fine for these people to stop being Christians, as they didn't believe in the first place. Had they really believed they would have KNOWN God existed, so evolution wouldn't bother them.

I'd think true believers would be happy to be rid of such fly-by-nights.

hold on that line's ambiguous, this is better:

There is also some degree of militant intolerance for changing one's view when the bible warrants changing it.

yeah, and I think it would have to also involve more of an unwillingness to change where needed. Change like in ecclesiastes where it says "There is a time for everything , and a season for every activity under heaven."

Incidentally, A Nairn, you began by defending ID but I guess you've abandoned that - now you seem to want to shoehorn a specific god into all this. There isn't room. Science is the opposite of god because knowledge is the opposite of ignorance. (We disagree on which way round you apply that.) This doesn't mean that science is encroaching on the realms of philosophy. It means the more you know, the less room for doubt there is. You fill the space created by the doubt with god. I let scientific investigation provide answers.

A Christian should not have a problem with most parts of the theory of evolution

Now you're just picking and choosing, surely? Either god created everything in 6 days or the animals we see now evolved over millions of years and the universe took billions. Which do you subscribe to?

evolution reaching into philosophical/religious territory, and making claims there in the name of science

Seriously would you explain what you mean by this statement that you make over and over again? Science is methodology, as we've already discussed. Evolution is a theory which predicts what has been measured by science. God is not a theory which predicts anything that can be measured by science. Philosophy is not religion - it has quite a lot in common with science though. If science is about the measurable, philosophy is about the positable - what can be conceived etc.

"love God with all your mind"

We are arguing two things simultaneously. One is under the rules of science the plausiblity of ID. The other is under the rules of theology the plausiblity of how science is closing in on the gaps.

-- A Nairn (moreta...), May 12th, 2005 4:38 PM. (moretap) (later)

1. Humans might not be perfect but science is a method for finding things out to the best of our ability. Science is by definition the most accurate way of discovering something.

2. "Which way is more correct?" doesn't make any sense I'm afraid. Relativism applies to language, to ethics, morality, all sorts of things, but not to binary choices between made up things and real things.

3. You can't use science to prove your way is "better". What you keep insisting is true is not proveable. Not only is it unproveable, there's no evidence for it...

4. ... So why do you believe it?

5. And would you PLEASE answer this question: Either god created everything in 6 days or the animals we see now evolved over millions of years and the universe took billions. Which do you subscribe to?

under the rules of science the plausiblity of ID

6. You are welcome to submit evidence for ID to be investigated with scientific rigour. But so far you've submitted no evidence that makes sense or stands up to scrutiny.

general revelation

7. Does this just mean god personally told you to believe in him? What form did this revelation take? Or do you mean you believe other people told you they were told that by god? Or do you mean you've read that people were told that by god? Why should any of this be believed?

black is white, night is day, 2+2=5, etc.

It uses the rules of logic. But there are lots of things that are unknowable. (It's been proved in maths that there are _some_ things that are unknowable, although they were probably only certain properties of sets)

and there won't ever be. it would require time travel and mind reading + who knows what else.

but the flipside is, that there doesn't have to be a concensus. or rather, that a sort of venn diagram exists and somewhere not really in the average but in an intersection where no believer ever gets it perfectly right, there's a circle of the TRUE interpretation. it probably requires traditions outside the text. hence the church on some levels. and christians would probably argue that it definitely would require the holy spirit helping a person out.

what i'm saying is, we don't have to have it all right. it's a journey. we're unfinished. we don't get a badge and suddenly were jam. we all die unfinished.

that's the general idea put forth. we've all fallen short.
m.

maybe they get you there in an interesting way. like beer on a canoe trip.
m.

that's because scientific evidence for it is so abundant that xians are more or less forced to acknowledge it. how much of the "truth" in the bible needs to be disproven before you seriously wonder whether there's much truth in it at all? (other than common-sense type stuff a la don't kill people, love is kinda groovy, etc)

When people say "I stop being a Christian because I heard about evolution." That shows that it is reaching beyond science.

that shows that that person has had their religious beliefs affected by science, not that science itself extends to philosophical/religious areas.

obv you express these things with words.

This is such a bullshit strawman. I have never heard ANYBODY day this. But that fits A Nairn's pattern of framing the debate to be between an imaginary opponent and an infallible/unmoveable "faith".

ugh. Nairn's shitty grammar/typing must be rubbing off on me.

i guess i would say that analogies and metaphors are often just as insufficient. that's kind of where i was coming from. just as systematic, just as much potential for being flawed, but more colorful. and often the misunderstandings that come from analogies and metaphors are useful. (or at least funny!)

m.

I oftimes think that the resistance to teaching science comes from a school of thought that teaches that the Bible is all you need, that the World is a snare, and the Tempter awaits patiently for us to drop our guard so he can seduce our senses and addle us with sophistry. This school of thought believes the Bible to not only be 'inerrant' but literal. In an almost Koranic fashion, it is a book that can be consulted like a law code. To deny the literal meaning of Genesis's story of seven days of creation (which, come to think of it, is weirdly random, as if an omnipotent God couldn't have created everything at once) is to open the door to disbelief, say these people of little faith and even less poetry for whom the seven days being about rest,prayer, and reverence is insufficient. This school smells of smug, often auto-didactic, know-it-allism and while it may sometime speak in contemporary language, it's inherent fear and hatred of modernity is apparent.

Ironically, I believe that it is precisely freedom from state religion that allows these people to thrive. Even now, punditry across America has linked their monolithic faith to the greedy, corrupt corporate aspect of Republican politics - which is what they get for being so self-righteous about what parts of Christ's message they believe worthy of inspiring law but not entirely fair, either, since many of them are, to use a cliche, good, simple folk. The can of worms they're trying to open will not be good for them.

Teaching science in secular government run schools should not be about changing a person's faith. It should be about learning facts and methods useful to the citizens of the Republic and to the Republic's arts, crafts, science and business. The only reason that teaching evolution is an 'attack on people of faith' is because they insist it is, not because it inherently gainsays anyone's faith. To require schools to teach alternatives to science in a land bound by the laudable theory of equality under the law is to open the school house to a thousand theologies, including, why not, Wicca and Rastafariansism.

What I mentioned above as "general revelation" is all we know about God from outside the Bible ("special revelation"). General revelation involves things like human nature and science backing up a belief in God, but it is incomplete and misguiding without special revelation. The more that scientific investigation uncovers about life and the universe etc, the smaller the gaps of knowledge become, the more we learn about God's creation. Yet because of the faulty nature of science (it being a man-made method) the gaps will never be filled, and God will never be proveable.

Wouldn't someone who believes in Jesus want to know more about the prophesies about him. I mean if this is the son of god and there is access (the only access in the world) to growing closer to him (and through him closer to god), wouldn't anyone who belived in Jesus try and grow as close as then can. I think the rest of the Bible would matter to them, unless they didn't really believe.

He also lived in the garden
but he had no mouth or eyes
One day Adam came to kill him
and he died beneath these skies

when looking with special revelation I'm for creationism
when looking with general revelation I'm for intelligent design, evolution, or other scientific theories.

It's just that special and general revelation are complimentary and nor contradictory.

I treat them like how most materialists treat science.

An adolescence spent with Zeppelin turned my brain to mush.

When there was darkness and the void was king
and ruled the elements,
When there was silence and the hush was almost deafening
Out of the emptiness
Salvation, rhythm and light and sound,
Twas the rock and roll creation
Twas a terrible big bang
Twas the ultimate mutation
Ying was searching for his yang
And he looked and he saw that it was good.

When I'm alone beneath the stars and feeling insignificant,
I turn within to see the forces that created me

I look to the stars and the answers are clear
I look in the mirror and see what I fear
Tis the rock and roll creation
Tis an absolute rebirth
Tis the rolling of the ocean and the rocking of the earth
And I looked and I saw that it was good

Then you understand not science.

But what happens when human nature and science _don't_ back up a belief of god? I guess any evidence (no matter how weak) of evolution for example falls into this category. Do you attempt to refute the evidence? Say it was planted by the devil?

It doesn't seem fair to only cherry pick the stuff that furthers your position.

some folks have put some work into figuring that one out, including the aforementioned Lakoff and Jim Wallis over at Sojo.net

http://sojo.net/

RELIGION IS MAN-MADE TOO

"Jim Wallis is doggedly anti-war, anti-capital punishment, passionate about fighting poverty and supports gay rights. Furthermore, he does not drape his faith in the US flag and is prepared to highlight hypocrisy in the US church and dangerous imperialism in its government."

"Wallis writes from a US perspective in which the Right (and the religious Right in particular) trumpets moral values but in reality champions only two, namely abortion and homosexuality (strongly against both, of course)."

"The religious Right, according to Wallis, misses the real essence of Jesus’ moral teaching, and in blindly pursuing its two key issues, actually ends up opposing much of what Jesus said. Hence, they get it wrong."

we touch a bit on this over in the Wall Street Journal thread, too.

Why on earth would a religion that particularly prizes faith want to prove the existence of God? I keep thinking about, not only Kant, but especially Kierkegaard here. Isn't the leap of faith precisely what's important here? I'm not fully conversant with Presbyterian liturgy and theology (esp. w/regard to their Calvinist origins), but I'm pretty sure that Catholics would claim that the free will that God has accorded us is a gift, allowing us to be more than mere automata. Similarily, by not coming down with the booming voice, the burning bushes, and the miracles every year to make perfectly obvious His existence, God forces us to deal with general revelation around us as well as the explicit (?) revelation of the Bible.

A. Nairn, you may have some of my sympathy if you recoil at the idea of science being used to prove or disprove the existence of God, metaphysics generally being outside the purview of science, but to resist the evidence of our God-given senses and reason as expressed through the scientific method seems not only paranoid but ungrateful to a beneficient deity.

Good scientists don't, at least.

or his shorted, more handbook-like, _Don't Think of an Elephant_, that was published last year.

i think an individual or small group of like-minded individuals could work that way cause data can be fudged. but the community as a whole needs reproducable results. reality can't be fudged to meet theoretical needs. unfortunately, religion does have that profane luxury. you can come with an agenda and pick your quotes or read things how you will... etc etc. no exegesis, don't pee on the carpet! of course, it's all about having faith in your dog (God). (bad joke! i duck!)

m.

totally agreed. what a great metaphor... and in some ways... it feels very literal even.
m.

interesting point, but for every critic of "strict fathers", there's a critic slamming nuturing. you can find that all over the spectrum. "kids are coddled." "our kids are going to be pussies!" "spare the rod, spoil the child" "those kids run around like hooligans cause they've never had discipline!"

those two styles of parenting are forever at odds and you start to question people's parenting, and shit gets ugly. nobody likes to think that they're raising their kids wrong. quite often you love them more than anything.

it's so complex, like lakoff said... there are plenty of strict father families that happen to be liberal politically and vice versa. potentially dangerous to go there on the campaign trail.
m.

nairn, if you're still following this, and willing to indulge me, i wonder how this article fits into the special/general revelation dichotomy

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/050516crbo_books

is God making us smarter, or are we making ourselves smarter?

totally otm. seriously. things like unitarianism aside... what christian church says it's not biblically based?

m.

(ps. see, making up teleological nonsense is TOTALLY EASY!)

guess what? EVERY CHURCH DOES. there is not a church today practicing "church" as 1st or 2nd century churches did. that doesn't automatically make them heretical.

i suppose the thread needed to be taken off life support... oh no, another controversial topic with no answer!
m.

If you're calling me a wanker, don't bother. I already knew that.

actually, the "conservative christians" thread had worse.

A Nairn, why do you believe in god?
I'm skeptical of anything else, and beliving in god is a reasonable belief. It doesn't force me to go against my nature, everything fits into place under a belief in god.

But what happens when human nature and science _don't_ back up a belief of god? I guess any evidence (no matter how weak) of evolution for example falls into this category.

Evidence for evolution does compliment a belief in God (It's part of how His world works). Evidence for God's noninvolvment in origin and formation of life (which is a kind of evidence that does not exist and is an impossiblity) would not back up a belief in god.

"Wallis writes from a US perspective in which the Right (and the religious Right in particular) trumpets moral values but in reality champions only two, namely abortion and homosexuality (strongly against both, of course)."
"The religious Right, according to Wallis, misses the real essence of Jesus’ moral teaching, and in blindly pursuing its two key issues, actually ends up opposing much of what Jesus said. Hence, they get it wrong."

This "religious right" as used in this context, is wrong and fundamentalistic according to my definition of "fundamentalim" from above:
Beliving the Bible is inerrant is not a "fundamentalistic" belief. Beliving your one interpretation of a matter is correct, even if it's something added to what the bible says and no consideration is made of what the rest of the bible says, is "fundamentalistic."

Why does everyone try to reframe arguments about theism vs. no theism into conservativism vs liberalism. or moreso the worst side of conservativeism vs. the best side of liberalism?

RELIGION IS MAN-MADE TOO
um, this is a poorly formed argument.

i'm interested in how someone like a nairn respond
personally? I've given more money to poor/homeless people than any of my friends (especially the nonreligious ones and materialists). I've fed them meals many times on holidays. I am not wealthy. I don't spend frivolously. In most things I do, I try to do them out of love for my neighbor and god. Yet I am also sinful and will always be, but I strive to not be.

if you recoil at the idea of science being used to prove or disprove the existence of God.

Oh, I totally agree with you in regards to what you say about faith. My wording may have been a little weird. I meant that if science was perfect it would be able to prove God, and it isn't (God didn't intend science to be perfect) and we cannot prove God.

Nairn, show me an Intelligent Design person who didn't START from a belief in God.
I'm pretty sure Dean Kenyon is like that. He first wrote a book about evolutionary biology refuting ID called: "Biochemical Predestination," then changed his views:
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/DETCHE/VIDEO/BIOLOGY/KENYON/Kenyon.html

calling fundamentalism "a Biblical based denomination" = putting lipstick on a pig.
I didn't call fundamentalism a Biblical based denomination. medal of honor called the PCA denomination somewhat fundamentalist, and I said it was not, but instead Biblical (or aims at being). See the way I defined "fundamentalism" above. I dislike "fundamentalistic" tendencies even more then most of you.

not every church that claims to be based on the Bible (special revelation) is biblically based. Some churches go beyond what's in the bible (general revelation)
EVERY CHURCH DOES
Um, msp I agree with you (notice the little pixel difference in the name of that post.) A church is a human institution that is under the effects of "the fall." They do add claims that are not biblical (see my definition of "fundamentalism") But I think your understanding of "general revelation" is off a bit. It is God revealing to man knowledge of nature, human nature, and history (mostly these 3), not man falsely claiming things. There's a difference.

All churches should recognize both forms of revelation, and try to minimize manmade revelation.

This thread is really, really repulsive. I think it might be the most offensive thing I've ever read on ILX.
don't be too hard are them.

(sometimes I do come of as smug. I don't intend it. I'm trying to sound less smug, and be more clear. I'm confident in the reasonableness of Christianity, but not as much in my reasoning ablity.)

It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact.

Like I said before, I don't know how one can be so skeptical of human mental faculties w/r/t to one area and have complete, er, faith in them in another area, ie you just *know* that God exists, that people don't have this whole religion thing all wrong, that God revealing himself to people isn't a type of delusion/wishful thinking/looking for connections in things that aren't connected/etc.

forget that for a sec. explain to me why you think religion isn't a man-made concept.

hahaha talk about a poorly-formed argument!

All churches should recognize both forms of revelation, and try to minimize manmade revelation.

well, yeah... i knew that wasn't you. that poster said so. the comment just merited reaction, even if it was trollbait.

of course my understanding is off a bit. that's been my consistent point. yet, i'm not as comfortable with and knowledge of the terms like "revelation" that you're using. there are volumes and volumes of various notions regarding revelation and inspiration. enough so i'd just rather not use such loaded terms. even the notion of "manmade" revelation is incredibly undefinable. where does man end and god begin? is everything man does not useful just because it's flawed?

i just have big problems with the "your church is not as biblical as my church" line of junk. sure, many are mature enough to rise above such we're right/you're wrong things, but many are not. and many of those are polite enough to not say it in mixed company, but still think it. many find it their duty to judge their brothers and sisters... not to mention EVERYBODY else.

that's just insanely sad. and not to say that you are implying such a thing. we probably have a lot more in common theologically than not. and i guess i would rather err on the side of "generous orthodoxy". humble unity over whatever the opposite of that is.

that same humility needs to be extended to nonbelievers. hence, not forcing our beliefs into the lawbooks and into the public classroom. if we could spend half the energy we spend trying to be "right" and force what is right on everyone and instead spend that energy actually serving nonbelievers i think christianity would be much more valued by the community as a whole. if we show people love rather than force it upon them, they're probably more likely to agree that we are indeed trying to show them love and respect.

long post. sorry. windbag? guilty. my dad was a preacher, so i learned to be a windbag naturally.
m.

This is a good point. God's existance is a presupposition. It cannot be proven by human mental faculties, it just has to be assumed as a basis. The only way someone can make this presupposition is through God's involvement because of His mercy. This involvment is known as the Holy Spirit. I say I am skeptical of my human mental faculties w/r/t knowing about spiritual things without the Holy Spirit's aid. How do we know when the Holy Spirit is involved? It's not a perfect science, and many people claim to know about spiritual things which they don't really know. That is why the Bible is important, and that is why I disagree with orthodoxy and think when people become Christians they still sin. I understand that trying to think how Christianity is reasonable without the presuppositions is an impossible thing to do. But whatever philosophy you view things under has it's own presuppositions too. I just think it's better to have God make the presuppositions instead of myself or other humans.

i think christianity would be much more valued by the community as a whole. if we show people love rather than force it upon them, they're probably more likely to agree that we are indeed trying to show them love and respect.

The goal of Christianity is not to be valued by the community or have others agree that Christians are trying to be loving and respectful. It's to give glory to God. Man following Christianity will never solve the fallen state of the world. Christianity becomes Humanism when other aspects of it are taken away. Man following Christianity id only to glorify God, and what gives Him glory and why are hard questions for Man to consider or answer.

showing love through christ-like action is giving glory to god.
m.

"That is why the Bible is important, and that is why I disagree with orthodoxy and think when people become Christians they still sin."

Orthodoxy acknowledges that Christians sin. but Jesus's crucifixion pre-forgave everyone who is willing to repent of their sins (as well as delivered everyone out of hell). there's the assumption, based on the Gospels, that sincere repentance tends to produce the quality of character that sins less egregiously and less often than those who refuse to ask God for forgiveness. that's sort of the crux, as it were, of orthodox christianity. whether genesis is meant to be ready literally or not is an extremely minor issue

The hits just keep coming.

But the Bible was written by man, not God or Jesus (i'm sidestepping the assumption that Jesus is the son of God). Everything we "know" about god(s) comes from man. Without man, there'd be no [concept of] God (and likewise, without "man-of-the-last-2000-years-or-so" there'd be no Christian God).

Liberal Bible-Thumping
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Liberals can confront conservative Christians on their own terms.
Published: May 15, 2005

Even aside from his arguments that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and that St. Paul was a self-hating gay, the new book by a former Episcopal bishop of Newark is explosive.

John Shelby Spong, the former bishop, tosses a hand grenade into the cultural wars with "The Sins of Scripture," which examines why the Bible - for all its message of love and charity - has often been used through history to oppose democracy and women's rights, to justify slavery and even mass murder.

It's a provocative question, and Bishop Spong approaches it with gusto. His mission, he says, is "to force the Christian Church to face its own terrifying history that so often has been justified by quotations from 'the Scriptures.' "

This book is long overdue, because one of the biggest mistakes liberals have made has been to forfeit battles in which faith plays a crucial role. Religion has always been a central current of American life, and it is becoming more important in politics because of the new Great Awakening unfolding across the United States.

Yet liberals have tended to stay apart from the fray rather than engaging in it. In fact, when conservatives quote from the Bible to make moral points, they tend to quote very selectively. After all, while Leviticus bans gay sex, it also forbids touching anything made of pigskin (is playing football banned?) - and some biblical passages seem not so much morally uplifting as genocidal.

"Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn males in every Egyptian household?" Bishop Spong asks. Or what about 1 Samuel 15, in which God is quoted as issuing orders to wipe out all the Amalekites: "Kill both man and woman, child and infant." Hmmm. Tough love, or war crimes? As for the New Testament, Revelation 19:17 has an angel handing out invitations to a divine dinner of "the flesh of all people."

Bishop Spong, who has also taught at Harvard Divinity School, argues that while Christianity historically tried to block advances by women, Jesus himself treated women with unusual dignity and was probably married to Mary Magdalene.

Christianity may have become unfriendly to women's rights partly because, in its early years, it absorbed an antipathy for sexuality from the Neoplatonists. That led to an emphasis on the perpetual virginity of Mary, with some early Christian thinkers even trying to preserve the Virgin Mary's honor by raising the possibility that Jesus had been born through her ear.

The squeamishness about sexuality led the church into such absurdities as a debate about "prelapsarian sex": the question of whether Adam and Eve might have slept together in the Garden of Eden, at least if they had stayed longer. St. Augustine's dour answer was: Maybe, but they wouldn't have enjoyed it. In modern times, this same discomfort with sex has led some conservative Christians to a hatred of gays and a hostility toward condoms, even to fight AIDS.

Bishop Spong particularly denounces preachers who selectively quote Scripture against homosexuality. He also cites various textual reasons for concluding (not very persuasively) that St. Paul was "a frightened gay man condemning other gay people so that he can keep his own homosexuality inside the rigid discipline of his faith."

The bishop also tries to cast doubt on the idea that Judas betrayed Jesus. He notes that the earliest New Testament writings, of Paul and the source known as Q, don't mention a betrayal by Judas. Bishop Spong contends that after the destruction of Jewish Jerusalem in A.D. 70, early Christians curried favor with Roman gentiles by blaming the Crucifixion on Jewish authorities - nurturing two millennia of anti-Semitism that bigots insisted was biblically sanctioned.

Some of the bishop's ideas strike me as more provocative than persuasive, but at least he's engaged in the debate. When liberals take on conservative Christians, it tends to be with insults - by deriding them as jihadists and fleeing the field. That's a mistake. It's entirely possible to honor Christian conservatives for their first-rate humanitarian work treating the sick in Africa or fighting sex trafficking in Asia, and still do battle with them over issues like gay rights.

Liberals can and should confront Bible-thumping preachers on their own terms, for the scriptural emphasis on justice and compassion gives the left plenty of ammunition. After all, the Bible depicts Jesus as healing lepers, not slashing Medicaid.

What does ID have to do with science class? You can't prove it OR disprove it. It's basically taking the results of scientific investigation and saying "Oh, yeah, and we wouldn't have these results if it wasn't for God." How can you argue for or against that in any setting BUT a religious one? It's not ridiculous, it's just really not something you can give scientific reasoning for one way or another. (You could certainly say "some people believe in a God who created everything" in a philosophy, religion, or even social studies class. I don't think public schools really have the time to require philosophy classes though. It's hard enough to have people graduate with basic math and a little economics and knowledge of how government works, things many won't have the opportunity to learn about after high school, and those things need to be the priority.)

Also, I think the political/religious division in the US is really unhealthy. The equation of Christians with financially and socially conservative Republicans is definitely something that's been created by the conservative Republicans, but it leads to a lot of false assumptions. Christian beliefs on social issues do not actually have to match up with conservative beliefs on fiscal issues. In fact, Christians don't even have to have the same views on all social issues - for instance, there are a few weirdos who are anti-abortion and pro-gay-marriage.

The motivation for most of the Republican Christians I know justifying fiscal conservatism is that they think, "I think that taking care of the poor should be done by individuals and private charities, not the government. I'm not actually disobeying Jesus because of my personal contributions to charity or volunteerism." That's the line of thinking I see, although I think it's wrong because in terms of sheer organization, equitability, and extent the government can do a FAR better job than private charities.

Most people on this thread seem to be against him and yet he comes back time and again to argue his point, and he hasn't really lost his temper.

Also, he's probably getting blamed for a lot of things that other Christians have done and that have little to do with him, which doesn't seem fair.

The Evolution of Creationism

Published: May 17, 2005
The latest struggle over the teaching of evolution in the public schools of Kansas provides striking evidence that evolution is occurring right before our eyes. Every time the critics of Darwinism lose a battle over reshaping the teaching of biology, they evolve into a new form, armed with arguments that sound progressively more benign, while remaining as dangerous as ever.

Students of these battles will recall that in 1999 the Kansas Board of Education, frustrated that the Supreme Court had made it impossible to force creationism into the science curriculum, took the opposite tack and eliminated all mention of evolution from the statewide science standards. That madness was reversed in 2001 after an appalled electorate had rejected several of the conservative board members responsible for the travesty.

Meanwhile, Darwin's critics around the country began pushing a new theory - known as intelligent design - that did not mention God, but simply argued that life is too complex to be explained by the theory of evolution, hence there must be an intelligent designer behind it all.

The political popularity of that theory will be tested today in a school board primary election in Dover, Pa., where the schools require that students be made aware of intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinism. The race pits those who voted last year for that rule against those who oppose it.

Now the anti-evolution campaigners in Kansas, who again have a state school board majority, have scrubbed things even cleaner. They insist that they are not even trying to incorporate intelligent design into state science standards - that all they want is a critical analysis of supposed weaknesses in the theory of evolution. That may be less innocuous than it seems. Although the chief critics say they do not seek to require the teaching of intelligent design, they add the qualifier "at this point in time." Once their foot is in the door, the way will be open.

The state science standards in Kansas are up for revision this year, and a committee of scientists and educators has proposed standards that enshrine evolution as a central concept of modern biology. The ruckus comes about because a committee minority, led by intelligent-design proponents, has issued its own proposals calling for more emphasis on the limitations of evolution theory and the evidence supposedly contradicting it. The minority even seeks to change the definition of science in a way that appears to leave room for supernatural explanations of the origin and evolution of life, not just natural explanations, the usual domain of science.

The fact that all this is wildly inappropriate for a public school curriculum does not in any way suggest that teachers are being forced to take sides against those who feel that the evolution of humanity, in one way or another, was the work of an all-powerful deity. Many empirical scientists believe just that, but also understand that theories about how God interacts with the world are beyond the scope of their discipline.

The Kansas board, which held one-sided hearings this month that were boycotted by mainstream scientists on the grounds that the outcome was preordained, is expected to vote on the standards this summer. One can only hope that the members will come to their senses first.

This passage is very important:

First of all, intelligent design is not what people often assume it is. For one thing, I.D. is not Biblical literalism. Unlike earlier generations of creationists—the so-called Young Earthers and scientific creationists—proponents of intelligent design do not believe that the universe was created in six days, that Earth is ten thousand years old, or that the fossil record was deposited during Noah’s flood. (Indeed, they shun the label “creationism” altogether.) Nor does I.D. flatly reject evolution: adherents freely admit that some evolutionary change occurred during the history of life on Earth. Although the movement is loosely allied with, and heavily funded by, various conservative Christian groups—and although I.D. plainly maintains that life was created—it is generally silent about the identity of the creator.

The movement’s main positive claim is that there are things in the world, most notably life, that cannot be accounted for by known natural causes and show features that, in any other context, we would attribute to intelligence. Living organisms are too complex to be explained by any natural—or, more precisely, by any mindless—process. Instead, the design inherent in organisms can be accounted for only by invoking a designer, and one who is very, very smart.

this is the crux: while ID is an inherently pseudoscientific movement,
it's lack of biblical literalism doctrine allows to gain more respect among non-fundamentalists. that is why it is ver very dangerous and must be fought.

Evolution Debate in Kan. Prompts Attacks By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 15, 1:58 PM ET

A discussion about how evolution should be taught in public schools degenerated Wednesday into personal attacks among State Board of Education members.

The board is reviewing proposed standards drafted by three conservative members designed to expose students to more criticism of evolution in the classroom. During the discussion, four board members who want the standards to maintain their existing evolution-friendly tone assailed the proposal.

Bill Wagnon told the three conservative board members they were the "dupes" of intelligent design advocates, who presented what Wagnon said was bad science during public hearings in May.

"It is all based on absolute and total fraud," Wagnon said of the proposal.

But one of the three board members, Connie Morris, lectured the board's four moderates for not attending the public hearings in May, during which witnesses criticized evolutionary theory that natural chemical processes may have created the first building blocks of life, that all life has descended from a common origin and that man and apes share a common ancestor.

"Had you attended, you would have been informed," Morris said. "You would be sitting here as informed individuals and not arrogantly calling us dupes."

Conservatives have a 6-4 majority, so much of what the three members proposed — if not all of it — is likely to survive.

The board didn't make a decision Wednesday about the standards, but it told a committee of educators to review the proposal. Board Chairman Steve Abrams, another one of the three members who drafted the proposal, said he also intended to have a second, external review it in July. That suggests the board won't vote until at least August.

Besides Abrams and Morris, helping draft the latest proposal was board member Kathy Martin.

The ongoing debate over how evolution should be taught has brought international attention to Kansas. The four days of hearings in May attracted journalists from Canada, France, Great Britain and Japan.

The standards determine how fourth-, seventh- and 10th graders are tested on science. They currently describe evolution as a key concept for students to learn before graduating from high school, treating it as the best explanation for how life developed and changed over time.

The proposed standards don't specifically mention intelligent design, except to say the standards don't take a position. But advocates of intelligent design, which says some features of the natural world are so complex and well-ordered that they are best explained by an intelligent cause, organized the case against evolution during the hearings.

Many scientists view intelligent design as a form of creationism, and national and state science groups boycotted the public hearings, saying they were rigged against evolution. As a result, no scientist testified in favor of evolution.

State law requires the board to update its academic standards regularly, setting up this year's debate over evolution.

In 1999, the Kansas board deleted most references to evolution from the science standards, bringing international condemnation and ridicule to Kansas. Elections the next year resulted in a less conservative board, which led to the current, evolution-friendly standards. Conservative Republicans recaptured the board's majority in 2004 elections.

Battles over evolution also have occurred in recent years in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Circulated Monday was a newsletter from Morris, in which she derided evolution as an "age-old fairy tale," sometimes defended with "anti-God contempt and arrogance." She wrote that evolution is "a theory in crisis" and headlined one section of her newsletter "The Evolutionists are in Panic Mode!"

____

On the Net:

State Board of Education: http://www.ksbe.state.ks.us

it was great

http://www.csama.org/safaris/shwks.htm

more like osama.org

Post Rock Quarry Sign is Loaded With Fossils

MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE

haha, i'm trying to imagine what a post-rock quarry would be like

xpost

brainiacs

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/yael-t-abouhalkah/article35684450.html