Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]

Fox News | 12/20/05

[snarks_when_bored]

Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.

[beaver fever]

When I took high school geometry it was classic Euclidean.

Bertrand Russel was very hostile to Euclidean geometry after he published Principia Mathematica because Euclid's geometry was incomplete.

After Godel published his incompleteness proof for simple arithmetic Russell kept his mouth shut.

At any rate my approach to geometry was quite simple memorize all the axioms including their names and do all the end of chapter exercises citing every axiom I used in the proof. I ended up with a perfect score on the final.

Oddly enough I had switched to the academic stream the year before and had to catch up. In grade eleven I was finishing 9th grade algebra while doing 10th grade geometry and 11th grade algebra at the same time.

My friends from junior high who thought I was a duffus, couldn't understand why I could switch from a non academic to academic steam in one year, do twice their course load and get a first class average.

The answer simple hard work.

[donh]

I'll be happy to look over your 500 theses on
Piltdown--trot 'em out.

[P-Marlowe]

Your chart list biology as required for freshman admission to a specific university. Not graduation from high school.

What we have here is a failure to properly conjugate your verbs combined with an incomplete sentence. It's no wonder you didn't graduate from high school. :-)

BTW the California Department of Education science requirements for graduation from High School are listed in post 2515. If you still don't think your children need biology to graduate from High School, then I'd suggest your children schedule an appointment with the curriculum counselor at school rather than take your word for it.

Merry Christmas.

[RunningWolf]

Okay donh warrior answer the questions first. They are in the post you responded to.

Wolf

[donh]

Bertrand Russel was very hostile to Euclidean geometry after he published Principia Mathematica because Euclid's geometry was incomplete.

Eh? This seems an odd claim. What does "complete" mean? And why would Russell care about the level of completeness of geometry? What has geometry to do with the attempt to put a formal development from the basic laws of logic, under arithmetic? How is "Principia Mathematica" any more "complete" than Euclidian geometry?

After Godel published his incompleteness proof for simple arithmetic Russell kept his mouth shut.

Eh? Russell was a great promoter of Godel, and knew long before Godel published that Principia was a somewhat wrong-headed project, for several reasons, some related to what Godel demonstrated. And the notion of Russell shutting up about anything doesn't seem very plausable.

[RunningWolf]

// we're dealing with an individual who will go unclaimed by creationists, evolutionists, and those who believe that everything exists because the Great Galactic Marshmallow willed it so.//

I think you are referring to Wolf here. You could well be correct about Wolf being unclaimed by creationists and evolutionists. Wolf has no say on who claims him and that is okay.

This statement of yours //those who believe that everything exists because the Great Galactic Marshmallow willed it so.// Says nothing about anyone but yourself.

Now I am going put you to your own question yet once again. If you want to abandon it, that is okay just say so, if you don't want to answer it just say that to.

Your question Luis Gonzalez, Should we reinstate slavery? Well what say you Luis Gonzalez?

Wolf

[donh]

Okay donh warrior answer the questions first. They are in the post you responded to.

I already wasted lots of time playing this game with you on other threads, oh coy one. You have no notion how many PHD theses there are on the subject of Piltdown Man, and neither does anyone else. This is just a hook to waste people's time, and I imagine you're drinking and posting again, and cackling about how easy it is to use up people's bandwidth in return for nothing you promise to deliver. If you want to trot your some of your theses, if you, in fact, have any at all, I'll be happy to take a brief look, and tell you why most of them have little or nothing to do with actual science, as opposed to the sociology of science.

[RunningWolf]

You contradict yourself again, and so soon too

No, its sincere donh, I can deliver. But I wont show that hand right now.

And thanks for admitting something from your side about the theses, I'll et you figure out what it is.

Your last sentence reveals your mind is already made up. Donh Donh that is poor science lol, but if you will answer all the questions, I will deliver.

Wolf

[beaver fever]

A formal system is complete when all its theorems can be demonstrated to be valid formulas according to the rules of the formal system.

Russell held completeness and consistence as the standards for a robust mathematical system.

Russell also believed that the rules of mathematics were reducible to the rules of Logic.

Godel destroyed the presumption of reducibility forever.

Logical hasn't been the same since.

As a result of Godel's proof both Russell and Wittgenstein ceased publishing papers on formal logic and mathematics. Shutting up is an over strong word for Russell's abandonment of mathematical logic. But in his biography Russell said that the strain of writing the Principia caused a "snap in his head" after which he was unable to endure the rigor of new research in logic. This is rather implausible. It was Godel and Wittgenstein who effectively put an end to Russell as an influential Philosopher. Russell's antipathy towards Geometry is grounded in his belief that mathematics was consistent and complete. Godel proved that any formal system with two truth values and universal quantifiers would not be able to identify valid formulas as theorems and that some theorems would be incapable of proof.

[Virginia-American]

Merry Christmas!

Chappy Channukah!

[donh]

Your last sentence reveals your mind is already made up.

fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. It's not an infallible rule, but it's a good way to bet.

Donh Donh that is poor science lol, but if you will answer all the questions, I will deliver.

Hogwash.

[Thatcherite]

OK, I'll bite, Fleeing Mutt.

Do you assert that there are no, zero, nada, none, PHD thesis based on Pilltdown man?

No.

Is it your assertion that number of thesis [sic] on Pilltdown [sic] man is not exactly 500?

That would be a feeble claim, since 501 such theses would be regarded as falsifying the claim. I believe that the number of Piltdown theses (excluding those that mention Piltdown *after* it was debunked as an example of fraud/hoax) is much, much less than 500.

Finally you need to say here what constitutes 'evidence' or 'proof' to existence of thesis [sic] based on Pilltdown [sic] man would be to you.

A list of titles, dates, publications, and authors. ie something where we can verify a sample to see if they mention Piltdown Man in support of evolutionary theory, and that they are Doctoral Theses, as originally claimed.

[donh]

A formal system is complete when all its theorems can be demonstrated to be valid formulas according to the rules of the formal system.

I presume you mean that all of its true theorems can be proved.

Godel destroyed the presumption of reducibility forever.

By reducibility, I presume you mean the same as completeness above. Godel's theorem applies to discrete systems only; you cannot make use of the enumeration step of the proof if your domain of discourse is continuous--you have nothing to map to. Amusingly enough, considering Russell's initial assumptions, formal continuous systems, such as plane geometry and The Calculus, are presently thought to be complete, or reducible, if you like, at least in theory. Also, Godel's proof is just a proof, which is a man-made object--it is not a Transcendental Truth, and important proofs that were venerated for years have fallen on their faces before this.

[beaver fever]

" Godel destroyed the presumption of reducibility forever."

By reducibility Godel meant the rules of arithmetic in addition to two truth values plus two logical operators, (addition and subtraction) should obey the conditions of completeness and consistency of formal logic.

His proof proved otherwise. Even for simple arithmetic that only recognized addition and subtraction as logical operators some valid formulas could not be identified as theorems and existing theorems could not be determined to be valid formulas according to the rules of arithmetic.

Quoted from you

"I presume you mean that all of its true theorems can be proved."

Exactly the opposite.

Godel proved that any logic that contained quantifiers, (For some, For Every) would be incomplete and inconsistent.

Godels proof is so powerful that it blew the bottom out of mathematical logic and consigned to a sidebar in the history of Philosophy.

If logic can't construct a coherent account of the underlying rules of addition and subtraction then it can't account for anything in the world. (Paraphrasing Wittgenstein)

[donh]

wolfie will play this stupid game with you all night if you let him. But this is a honeytrap. So what if there are 500 doctoral theses that cite Piltdown Man? There are probably 500+ doctoral theses that cite findings in phrenology, and the ether. His obtuse, pretentious annoying delivery seems to shut off the critical portion of the brain, and causes otherwise cautious people wrestle over meaningless battles whose outcome doesn't matter a tinker's poop.

Why on God's green earth does anybody give a rat's patootie whether or not there are exactly 500 scientific doctoral theses whose subject is Piltdown man? Or is it which cite Piltdown Man--or is it even science PHDs we're talking about? Why take up such a challenge so vaguely framed you can't answer the previous question?--it's just a side show to try to blow off evo credibility on a meaningless point of protocol.

[donh]

"I presume you mean that all of its true theorems can be proved."

Exactly the opposite.

Are you sure this is what you intended to say? That reducability (or completeness) means NOT "all true theorems can be proved"? You're aware the Godel's proof is called the incompleteness proof?

[beaver fever]

"I presume you mean that all of its true theorems can be proved."

A point of clarification is due here because I didn't read this sentence carefully enough.

All theorems of a logical system are valid formulas according to the rules of the formal system.

All valid formulas render true and only true valuations according to the rules of the formal system.

Therefore all theorems render true valuations according to the rules of the formal system.

The theorems of logic can only determine that the rules of logic have been obeyed. They say nothing about the world

So by definition all theorems render a true valuation.

[donh]

u

Godel proved that any logic that contained quantifiers, (For some, For Every) would be incomplete and inconsistent.

No, he didn't. That's an easy assumption to make, and I made it when I was younger, much to my eventual embarassment. Universal and particular Quantifiers can be used to state the axioms of plain geometry, for an obvious, not to say, classical example. Quantifiers don't necessarily imply specifiable, logically tractable sets--barbers in villages that don't shave themselves come to mind.

When you try to run the proof over a continuous domain, you find that you have no contained sets to map to the Godel strings that represent particular theorems+theirProofs. You need sets to complete the proof, and continuous domains of discourse are not about discrete sets of things, they are about continuous things. You could just try to run Godel's proof over plane geometry, instead of arguing with me about it.

Godels proof is so powerful that it blew the bottom out of mathematical logic and consigned to a sidebar in the history of Philosophy.

Um, well, it blew the bottom out of the grand project to formalize all of mathematics. As far as I can tell meta-mathematics is still alive and kicking. It's a great proof, but it ain't a universal solvent.

[beaver fever]

"As far as I can tell meta-mathematics is still alive and kicking"

You snagged me there. Meta-mathematics was in it's formative stages when I studied this stuff in 1971.

Also you have a knowledge of sets which I am very weak on.

I'm really curious at this point of your background in Philosophy.

I have to admit this is the most detailed conversation I've had on this topic on FR.

My mentor was John Woods who did battle with Willard Quine and Jakko Hintika in the early seventies so I'm probably behind on my scholarship.

Please send me a more detailed post of your objections. It is very interesting.

Links would be nice including to your own work.

It's been a long drought. I miss Philosophy

[xzins]

Smoky Back Room (SBR)....

This thread was in the open forum.

Now the mods have moved it to the SBR, generally happens when there is bad behavior.