Posted on 11/29/2012 7:56:08 PM PST by kathsua
The new standard for teaching science in public schools should prohibit teaching religious beliefs like evolution as if they were the equivalent of scientific theories.
Science should be defined as using experimentation and observation to discover information about physical reality. Explanations of what happened in the ancient past cannot be verified using experimentation and observation.
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Contrary to a popular myth pushed by those who want to make science a substitute for religion, science has yet to produce a new explanation for the development of life or the origin of the universe.
The idea that the universe came out of a black hole (the "Big Bang" theory) became popular in the 20th century, but it is hardly a new explanation. An account attributed to the biblical patriarch Enoch (Noah's great-grandfather) first described an event in which "all of creation" came out of an invisible object with a fiery light inside (i.e., a black hole) thousands of years ago. Many cultures use the word "egg" to describe the object the universe came out of.
The idea of one species changing to another, particularly the idea of humans being related to apes, was around long before Charles Darwin wrote his "Origin of the Species." Darwin was reluctant to say we are a monkey's grandchildren, so he just suggested that we are distant cousins. The ancient Tibetan religion had no such inhibitions and claims that we are descended from monkeys.
Evolutionists ignore the fact that humans use gradual changes to develop complex equipment. Development of biological life through gradual changes implies that an Intelligence developed life.
That is the scientific method.
Theory: Heavy objects fall faster than light objects. That was given truth for many, many years.
Test: Drop cannonballs off a tower.
Result: They hit at the same time.
Rework Theory.
/johnny
So what was the daytime high temperature in Dallas on April 5, 2011?
Oh you're going to go through the archives of a Dallas newspaper to find it? But that's not the scientific method. There's no measurement involved. That just involves looking at past information and making some theoretic claims based on historical data.
I guess we'll never know that the daytime high temperature in Dallas was on April 5, 2011.
Darn.
I keep an open mind on everything. And I believe people can and should believe whatever they want to believe. As long as I am allowed to do the same.
Never said that. Thanks for showing your lack of analytic capacity.
It has been an theory used, as an excuse, to kill other human beings for years.
My FIL, of all people, fought in Britain in WW2 against the Nazis. We were having a drink at the pub and some conversation. He thought that the disabled needed to be euthanized at birth. My mouth almost flew open. I said to him....”Hitler thought the same thing.” He clammed up.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
The calculations engineers make to deterime if a building will stand up, based on measured properties of the materials is no less a "projection". Are you proposing we declare that not to be a valid application of scientific principles?
As another poster said, evolution is just speculation -- and then we find out that the speculation is certainly wrong, so they make adjustments and speculate in a different way -- until they find out that that was wrong too.
I cannot imagine any circumstance that would make these guys say "You know, maybe this evolution thing really is crap" -- they have too much invested in the theory, so they will keep admitting that it is wrong, that the new evidence invalidates part of the old thinking, but they will hold on to the core of the speculation. No matter what.
Evolution isn't science. It's a religion.
You said that.
/johnny
Yep, I learned that in 8th grade. Sheesh.
I said evolution is not based on the scientific method. It is just a theory. It is not based on repeatable experiments and direct observation.
It is reasonable to believe that a specific sample may have formed with exactly the proportions of those elements required to present a false appearance of age. It is insanity to believe they all did.
I don’t doubt the validity of radioactive dating. I was more or less trying to explain where the explanation came from, or how it is derived. There was a part one to my statement in comment #17.
So a theory cannot be science.
I find it good to study the Universe that God gave us, to come closer to understand it.
I certainly don't try to limit God's methods with pre-conceived ideas.
/johnny
You state that as an absolute.
/johnny
Are you proposing we declare that not to be a valid application of scientific principles?
No. But what I more or less am stating is that we don’t have to live through the half-life of a radioactive substance, which can, in most cases easily decay only a minute fraction in a person’s lifetime. We can calculate it based on how much, even if small of a percentage, and logarithmically figure it out from a defined time interval. And yes, we can calculate materials’ without neccessarily having to physically do it the hard way (i.e. have to test it’s strength for every possible proportion. We can calculate it with accuracy.
“I never knew that sciences and theories are mutually exclusive”
I think this article is idiotic, but to be fair what they’re saying is the theory of evolution is not scientific because you can’t run an experiment to falsify or confirm it. Little known to them, apparently, is that scientists agree. Big Picture Evolution is really more a story than a theory.
The scientific part of evolutionary biology is natural and sexual selection. We only use the sweeping saga of life from primordial ooze to human civilization to give us an informally organized view of the whole pattern of which the specific selection from generation to generation is the scientific part. Sorta like how astronomers study the sweeping life of the cosmos, for instance, to guide their understanding of the science while their specific experiments are the real deal. You can’t verify the Big Bang theory experimentally, though you can strengthen trust in it. It’s there to help you understand what your experiments and observations mean.
I won’t argue with that.
Well then you’re in for a treat. Here’s more math and science than you can shake a stick at.
Center for Scientific Creation - In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/IntheBeginningTOC.html
And it is the typical site for those home schooled children attending Bible School [oh the horrors!]
PS Your best children’s best competition will be the home schoolers
“We spent thousands of years wrong about chemistry, physics, medicine, etc... I don’t suppose we’ll get exactly how God did what He did with the Universe until the very end.”
I agree wholeheartedly. I think that after we’ve been finished with our judgements, and live with God in the heavens, we can learn more, and learn the whole story. I figure there’s a reason why we don’t know everything; we probably just aren’t ready for it until we can master the priotity stuff: i.e. repent and accept God.
“I find it good to study the Universe that God gave us, to come closer to understand it.”
There’s plenty to benefit from a better understanding of the universe, new technology, especially.
“I certainly don’t try to limit God’s methods with pre-conceived ideas.”
Important as well, because we really only limit ourselves with our own pre-conceived ideas.
You’re a scientist?
This article is attacking a strong man. No one who matters thinks Big Picture Evolution is scientific in the same manner as that which can be empirically tested. The scientific part of evolutionary biology is natural and sexual selection; the rest is there to give people an overview to better understand specifics.
If you wanna go after charlatanism posing as science, attack string theory. It, too, cannot be empirically tested. Instead of treating it as mathematical games, for whatever ungodly reason most physicists take it seriously.
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