Free Republic Poll on Evolution

Free Republic ^ | 22 September 2006 | Vanity

[PatrickHenry]

Free Republic is currently running a poll on this subject:

Do you think creationism or intelligent design should be taught in science classes in secondary public schools as a competing scientific theory to evolution?

You can find the poll at the bottom of your "self search" page, also titled "My Comments," where you go to look for posts you've received.

I don't know what effect -- if any -- the poll will have on the future of this website's science threads. But it's certainly worth while to know the general attitude of the people who frequent this website.

Science isn't a democracy, and the value of scientific theories isn't something that's voted upon. The outcome of this poll won't have any scientific importance. But the poll is important because this is a political website. How we decide to educate our children is a very important issue. It's also important whether the political parties decide to take a position on this. (I don't think they should, but it may be happening anyway.)

If you have an opinion on this subject, go ahead and vote.

[VadeRetro]

I'm not scoring very high on guessing what real astronomers think. For one thing, I didn't know all the elements of the problem, such as the symmetry the ridge exhibits with the light-dark pattern on Iapetus.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/iapetus_consume_saturn_ring.html

Anyway, the "rindge" as the author calls it (evidently a combination of "rind" and "ridge") is 12 miles high.

[VadeRetro]

Your dismissals invited on the article linked in 1501.

[RightWingNilla]

The Babylonian astronomers made extremely accurate star charts over the course of hundreds of years. Thier primary motivation however was their belief in Astrology.

Does this mean Astrology is "scientific"?

[PatrickHenry]

Latest Poll Results

Over 200 more votes have come in. Prior FR polls typically receive around 6,000 votes before they're ended. This one now has 4,700 votes, almost 80% complete.

The important votes are from those who have expressed an opinion on the poll question, so I'm ignoring all votes for "undecided" or "pass." Those with an opinion have voted as follows:

Yes (put creationism in science class) 2,695 votes
No (keep creationism out of science class) 1,602 votes
Total votes (excluding "undecided" or "pass") 4,297

Percentage voting "No" is 37.3%

[tomzz]

It's about 31% of members and 36% of non members,

32 To about 34 percent is a sort of a magic number in politics. It's about the percentage Hitler used to get, and basically about the percentage any loser fringe candidate or loser fringe proposition usually gets in elections in industrialized countries. Congratulations.

[Doctor Stochastic]

[Oztrich Boy]

32 To about 34 percent is a sort of a magic number in politics. It's about the percentage Hitler used to get, and basically about the percentage any loser fringe candidate or loser fringe proposition usually gets in elections in industrialized countries. Congratulations.

And the poll shows its also the level the GOP will drop to if it goes Creationuist

[grey_whiskers]

Because the moderators would get accused of bias for only deleting Balrog666, js1138, Jaguarbhzrd, Dimensio, freedumb2003, atlaw, and b_sharp posts. These are the ones that mount the shrill, crazed, and relentless attacks on a particular individual, in an attempt to get them to post something that will get the victim banned. This has gone on for 8 years here, and the only answer to it has been the "smokey back room."

Pardon my French, but Whiskey Tango...?

[grey_whiskers]

Each user of the term uses it in a different context each time he uses it and thereby shows transparently that the meaning is different in each use. The meaning differs from user to user and for one user at different times. It will be impossible to reduce the meaning of the term to a single simple fundamental sense. The shotgun compilation of a few meanings will not lead to any conclusion except that meaning is uncertain. It might be possible for a single author to write a monograph and nail down a meaning in a context.

See also the essay "Creative Mind" by Dorothy L. Sayers, in The Whimsical Christian (Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York). ISBN 0-02-096430-7.

Contains an interesting discussion of some populist (and other) misunderstandings arising from (as it were) "knee-jerk" reliance on the scientific method; includes a good discussion of the differences between specific scientific usage of terms and lay-folks' misunderstanding by confusion with the vernacular definitions.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

"Ascorbic acid does none of the things that vitamin C is credited with doing; vitamin C complex, which includes all the polyphenols and bioflavinoids present in the natural fruit is the only thing that works."

I must've missed that part of the thread. Could you please send me a couple of those links? They'd come *remarkably* in handy for a vanity I'm writing -- explicitly non-crevo-related too, so no fear of flames on either side...

Thanks for your help.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

"The facts in this book are correct until proven otherwise and are subject to change depending upon the social climate or newly discovered findings."

Don't we have enough problems on these threads? Stop plagiarizing my tagline :-D :-O ;-)

Cheers!

[Quix]

THANKS.

[grey_whiskers]

"Vitamin C Complex" is not "Vitamin C". Vitamin C is defined as being ascorbic acid. You have also made the unsupported assertion that synthetic bioflavovoids will never work and you made the demonstratably false claim that "synthetic" Vitamin C has no effect at all.

I missed that dispute. Was he just shooting himself in the foot from the hip, so to speak?

Linus Pauling, pick up the white courtesy phone.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Was it that fact that they were quoting Isaiah, or the fact that it was claimed the U.N. was "mis-quoting" Isaiah...?

Somewhere in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice it is said "the devil can quote scripture for his purpose..." and I think it is that which FreedomProtector meant.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I can't believe this. I go away to go hiking for ONE DAY and the entire thread degenerates into a flame war. After my Calvin and Hobbes cartoons in Post 1177 and Post 1178, too. ;-) [Self-aggrandizing attempt to provide peacemaking by offering myself as a target common to both sides placemarker.]

I stand behind what I have said. Modern medicine heals the wounded and cures disease.

Maybe you forgot the old saw, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"?

Or the old cigarette commercials from the 1950's, "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette" ??

Many things dietary and medical related are done, or left undone, because of commercial considerations, or because of the inability to test for long-term effects.

I think what editor is trying to get at here, is that sometimes there is a better way to health than throwing medical care at something--simply by maintaining health in the first place.

As G.K. Chesterton wrote in The Man Who Was Thursday, "The most poetic thing in the world is not being sick."

Cheers!

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Iapetus placemarker

[grey_whiskers]

"Since August 16, 2006"

Belated welcome to Free Republic.

You must really *like* Smoky Backroom...

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I don't doubt that Hitler, Stalin, etc. 'borrowed' Darwin's ideas. Let's also remember that Islam 'borrows' the concepts of 6-Day Creation, Adam & Eve, Noah's Flood, etc. from Judeo-Christian thought (i.e. the central tenets of Creationism). Kind of strange that 'objective' people see one link but not the other.

In many cirles Islam is explicitly regarded as (at best) a heresy of Christianity and/or Judaism. (See for example Hillaire Belloc's The Great Heresies.)

But totalitarian dictatorships are not a "heresy" on biology...

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

The science is quite simply not on the side of a literal Biblical interpretation, and has not been for several hundred years. If people can't deal with that, it's not a problem with the science, it's their own personal problem.

Not necessarily.

You forgot that there are certain metaphysical underpinnings to the science, namely that there is now, and never has been, any interference or misunderstanding of the physical data; and that the laws of nature as currently observed, and extrapolated, have always held true -- at least to great enough of an extent that the findings remained consistent.

Those are metaphysical and / or theological considerations, however.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Nice attempt at flame-bait.

But your attempt at Christian theology as described in that example (unless it was attempted humor) is about as piss-poor as many of the cre's strawman attacks on evolution.

Incidentally, if you *are* posting this seriously, aren't you lending credence to the view expressed by some that evolution *is* an attack on the Gospel?

Your post 1371 is claiming that taking the scientific evidence seriously is a trap set up by God in order to condemn people.

Since the Gospel is (by definition) meant to "save" people, and acceptance of science (by your words, a metaphoric "trap") leads to Hell, then by definition acceptance of science is opposed to the Goals of the Gospel. QED.

Hint: The way out of the Gordian knot, btw, is that your formulation (sarcastic or not) misrepresented a couple of things. Think it over. Or as the old joke goes, "God told Moses: take two tablets and call me in the morning."

Cheers!