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.
I read your post, and there is going to be a great deal of work to get us on the same page: in other words, to the point where we are doing more than merely talking past one another.
Unfortunately, I am bound for time by home-type commitments.
Would you be willing to prolong this thread a bit in time, as though it were a chess-by-mail match?
It's rare to find someone who reacts with anything other than snapbacks.
Cheers!
Excuse the snarky response, but which part tipped you off? The *met* part or the *MOM* part?
Anyway.....
holds open the possibility that things may not have always worked the way they do now.
I've clearly stated as much. I do not believe that the physical laws of the universe have been unchanged since its inception.
And it’s not that she insists that things worked differently at a certain point in the past, in the particular ways required to validate her personal beliefs.
I'm not trying to validate my beliefs. They are what they are.
It’s that she seeks to dismiss a whole branch of science—several of them, actually—because they don’t accommodate those beliefs, and she labels those who practice and accept those branches of science ‘anti-God” and “atheist.”
No, I am not trying to dismiss science and I do not labels those who practice said branches of science as ‘anti-God” or “atheist” simply on the basis of them being scientists.
Do you have any idea what the *met* part of metmom stands for? I've made no secret about it.
Not only that, she wants her “things were different at a certain point in the past, in particular ways, even though we have no ‘hard scientific evidence’ of it” story taught alongside the current-law-based story.
My contention is that we have no hard scientific evidence that things have remained unchanged either. It is merely an assumption made by scientists. One of convenience that allows them to postulate the theories they purport. For their theories to be taken seriously, they HAVE to insist that everything has remained unchanged since the inception of the universe. If they admitted that things could have been different, all of what's invested in the ToE comes crashing down like a house of cards.
Perhaps it's that blind dedication to a theory that is so fragile that if the conditions under which it was supposed to have occurred were different, it wouldn't have happened that is the problem.
Suggesting that conditions were different in the past sends most of them into a frenzied tailspin of denial.
So their insistence that the natural laws of the universe have always been the same is not based on hard scientific evidence, but opinion and convenience, almost of desperation lest they cannot support their theory.
BTW, of my three kids, there are two physicists and one engineer, all of whom have attended large, secular universities (whose names you would recognize) with an exceptional physics program (or engineering for the engineer) and have done very well in their classes.
For the purpose of protecting anonymity, names are NOT going to be forthcoming.
You know, whether the physical laws which govern this universe have changed or not since the inception of the universe is of no effect to the special creation of life position.
It's only the ToE which is dependent on the paradigm put forth by scientists, ie. old universe with laws unchanged since the beginning.
Special creation could happen in either one.
Never heard of BF Allen. I always thought the Deluge Geology Society was founded in 1938 by George McCready Price, and that it died out sometime shortly before 1950.
But, be it Allen or Price, be it 1937 or 1938, the 1937 edition of Webster’s Unabridged Universal Dictionary carries the definition of Creationism following:
creationism, n. 1. In philosophy, the doctrine that matter and each new form was created by a direct exercise of the Divine power; opposed to evolution.
2. In theology, the doctrine that a new soul is created by a special act of God at each new birth, while there was but one creation for the human body; opposed to traducianism.
Which demonstrates that the term Creationism was conversant prior to ’37 and was not confined purely to 7th Day Adventists.
“When “Creationism” is mentioned, 83% of the time . . . ” (bada bing - bada ba)
Really? (Not 82% or 84%?) Documentation please.
Turning to the etymology of the term we find that before 1847, it was originally a Christian theological position that God immediately created a soul for each person born; from creation + -ism, and as a name for the religious reaction to Darwin opposed to evolution when the term was used to deny the existence of God, it is attested from 1880, and the term creation ("action of creating, a created thing," from O.Fr. creacion, Mod.Fr. creation, "creation, coming into being," from L. creationem (nom. creatio) "a creating, a producing," in classical use "an electing, appointment, choice," noun of action from pp. stem of creare, see create, meaning "that which God has created, the world and all in it" is from the early 1600s, the first instance of the capitalization of the “C” in “Creator” arising from the publication of the 1612 KJV translation of the Holy Bible (see online etymology and other etymological sources).
(See also cosmogony (n.) 1690s as "a theory of the creation;" 1766 as "the creation of the universe," from Gk. kosmogonia "creation of the world," from kosmos "world, universe" (see cosmos) + -gonia "a begetting."
As for interest in the term in other than the Americas, other than the fact that the KJV, from which came the use of Creator, was an English translation of The Holy Bible, see James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin; highly regarded in his day as a churchman and as a scholar. In the Eastern Orthodox church the "controversy" of Creationism v Evolution was generally dismissed as of no significance and frivolous.
If your quarrel is with the “YESCs,” why do you find it necessary to slander a whole people (Christians)?
The mom part, plus the fact that you've talked about your kids before. I only said it because grey_whiskers referred to you as "he," so it was an aside to him (I assume g_w is a him).
No, I am not trying to dismiss science and I do not labels those who practice said branches of science as ‘anti-God” or “atheist” simply on the basis of them being scientists.
Well, that's not what I said. But you do so label practitioners of science who come to conclusions (based on the evidence) that you reject, despite hearing many of them testify to their belief in God.
Do you have any idea what the *met* part of metmom stands for? I've made no secret about it.
Yes, I do. I believe we've had conversations before about the fact that you don't (as far as I know) believe that God has a direct hand in the formation of every tornado and hurricane (some people think He does, at least for some of them) but insist He must have had a direct hand in the formation of every species.
My contention is that we have no hard scientific evidence that things have remained unchanged either. It is merely an assumption made by scientists. One of convenience that allows them to postulate the theories they purport. For their theories to be taken seriously, they HAVE to insist that everything has remained unchanged since the inception of the universe.
A lot of theories rely on that assumption, not just the ToE. For example, theories about the formation of the solar system kind of depend on gravity having worked the same way for a long, long time. As I said, I don't see where the "things could have been different" argument gets us, practically speaking. Or, as you put it, "speculating on that is simply a mental exercise that accomplishes nothing so is not worth wasting time over, IMO."
BTW, of my three kids, there are two physicists and one engineer, all of whom have attended large, secular universities (whose names you would recognize) with an exceptional physics program (or engineering for the engineer) and have done very well in their classes.
Sincere congratulations. You must be proud.
Yes, I’ve read hydroplate theory also, and I do think that they are on to something. Still, until any of these proposals gets some verification, it’s probably good to explore all of the possibilities to see which works best in matching with the evidence.
You’re right about a paradigm shift being necessary. There are so many things that scientists are clinging to to prop up their theories which are preposterous, and other evidences which they ignore for the same reason. For example, it just takes a little simple physics and math to calculate that pterodactyls couldn’t fly, and pterosaurs couldn’t stand upright, if they lived under current earth conditions. You would think that would lead to scientists trying to figure out what the conditions could have been that would have allowed for megafauna, and what has changed in the intervening time. The only ones I’ve seen seriously examine that, however, are the scorned creationists. The “real” scientists just don’t want to touch it, maybe because it might upset the uniformitarian apple cart.
“The creationists might as well call the 4H clubs anti-christian becuase they are taught about selective breeding methods. Same for dog breeders, horse farms, nursuries, orchid growers etc...”
Creationists don’t have any problems with selective breeding, hereditary laws, changes within a species or type due to such, or through natural selection. Those are things that nobody disputes. The part that creationists dispute is the creation of new species or types of organisms through collection of mutations, genetic drift, or what have you.
Simply put, nobody argues that selection can create a new breed of dog, but creationists dispute that any amount of selection, or any other natural process, will turn a dog into something other than a dog.
“Having said that, if evolution is still working should not other species show changes in social structures, use of tools, language development, physical improvements, &c, &c?”
Well, the mathematical probabilities for humans to evolve this far are so astronomical, I guess it would be like lightning striking twice if it happened again. Conveniently, that also eliminates the pesky problem of scientists actually having to replicate the phenomenon so that their proposed explanation can be proven or disproven.
“Or did our ancestors completely obliterate the competition so that not even a fossil record remains (the missing link is still missing!).”
Standing orders are, if you see anything hairy start rubbing two sticks together or making a spear, BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!!
I already corrected myself as intending to say “straw man” in post 54.
Supersymmetry really belongs to particle physics, not string theory. Or is your point that if string theory is shaky, so is particle physics (raspberry!)? Well, I admit theoretical physics as a whole has been stagnant for 50 years or so. It was a wild ride from Faraday’s field theory, through relativity to quantum physics and finally the Standard Model. Since then, crickets.
Maybe it’s that we’ve wasted time in string fantasy land, or maybe we’ve exgausted our options and are stuck until some new technological breakthrough let us see more.
The point was threefold: first, that at least SuperSymmetry *was* capable of being unambiguously tested experimentally, by contrast to string theory; second, that the smugness of some theoretical physicists re: God might take a hit, since SuperSymmetry has apparently itself been shown experimentally to be a violation of Occam's razor ("needlessly multiplying entities" is a pretty apt description of a mathematical model which posited companion particles for all the known particles, which turned out NOT TO EXIST...); third, as you said, crickets.
Cheers!
No, but it can be used to show that 3 < 2
for unusually large values of 2.
The key here is whether one takes the "laws" of physics as "for all practical purposes fixed, and it's gonna take some pretty sound experiments -- hopefully, but not necessarily, backed up by a cogent theoretical framework in keeping with the correspondence principle -- to modify the general statemens"
or
"absolutely inviolate in time and space"
The latter, as any intro to philosophy class will tell you, is a fool's errand; but the usual "snapback" to anyone suggesting that the laws are not fixed is one of frustration: "You stupid fundie, there's no use doing ANY science or engineering at all, since nothing is reliable."
Which is itself an error: to say that the laws of nature are not "mathematically or philosophically" absolute, does not require that they are totally out the window.
There is an interesting parallelism between the fixity of the laws of nature vs. the supernatural, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster movement. The FSM is actually a powerful illustration of the weakness of the scientific method, rather than religion: there are some claims, metaphysical in nature, upon which science depends, which cannot be disposatively decided within the realm of science.
Cheers!
I beg your pardon, but I've just surfed through this thread and a cursory-to-middling check did not show any times on this thread where *I* referred to metmom as a "he".
Must've been Maxwell's Grammarian. Or Morton's.
For the nonce, I am very much a *he*.
Cheers!
In #247, I said to metmom, "Of course, what you're really doing is asking us to let you suspend particular physical laws at a particular point in the past to accommodate your religious beliefs." In a reply to that (#257), you said, "Actually, all he's asking is that physics not be confused with metaphysics." If your "he" there didn't refer to the person I was speaking to--i.e., metmom--I admit to being totally confused.
Thank you.
Big Bang Theory is almost reality TV in our home.
Geek Central.....
Needless to say, we have some interesting dinnertime conversations when the kids are home from college.
The perjoratives.
So . . . you have nothing . . . other than poo to sling against the walls.
Supposedly, your quarrel is with the “YECs.” Why do you find it necessary to throw poo on a whole people (Christians)?
I only “throw poo” at bad arguments. I have no reason to throw poo at a whole people. Most of them I know like to make good, reasoned arguments and civil debate.
Now you have two explanations: 1) what “bad arguments” and, from earlier (#276) 2) what “pejoratives”?
Science knows how to abort an unborn child. It takes Creationism, as practiced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, to teach us that killing unborn children is generally, if not categorically, wrong.
You seem to be trying to say that only Creationists know that abortion is wrong, and that science is responsible for people practicing abortion, to lead to the conclusion that science is evil, and only Creationists are able to discern good from evil.
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