Antievolutionists asked to review draft standards in Texas

The National Center for Science Education ^ | October 16, 2008

[Soliton]

Three antievolutionists have been appointed to a six-member committee to review the draft set of Texas state science standards, and defenders of the integrity of science education in the Lone Star state are livid. "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members," as the Dallas Morning News (October 16, 2008) explains. Six members of the board "aligned with social conservative groups" chose Stephen C. Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, Ralph Seelke, a biology professor at the University of Wiconsin, Superior, and Charles Garner, a chemistry professor at Baylor University.

Meyer, Seelke, and Garner are all signatories of the Discovery Institute-sponsored "Dissent from Darwinism" statement. Meyer and Seelke are also coauthors of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House, 2008), which, like Of Pandas and People, is a supplementary textbook that is intended to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution. A recent review by biologist John Timmer summarized, "But the book doesn't only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book." Garner reportedly told the Houston Press (December 14, 2000) that he "criticizes evolutionary theory in class."

Meyer and Seelke also testified in the 2005 "kangaroo court" hearings held by three antievolutionist members of the Kansas state board of education, in which a parade of antievolutionist witnesses expressed their support for the so-called minority report version of the state science standards (written with the aid of a local "intelligent design" organization), complained of repression by a dogmatic evolutionary establishment, and claimed to have detected atheism lurking "between the lines" of the standards..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for bringing me into the loop on this issue of space and time (which you know is one of my favorite subjects!)

Those who question whether there is anything beyond space and time should first consider the cosmic microwave background radiation measurements since the 1960's - all of which point to a beginning of real space and real time. Space and time do not pre-exist, they are created as the universe expands.

As Jastrow noted, that there was a beginning of space/time is the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science.

The first phrase of Scripture is "In the beginning, God created ..."

It laid to rest the eternity past cosmologies and with them, the atheists' trust in the plentitude argument that anything that can happen, did. Space/time is finite.

And to this day the inability to account for the beginning of space/time is the "poison pill" of physical cosmologies because all of them - whether multi-verse, multi-world, cyclic, ekpyrotic, imaginary time - all of them - require physical causation. They all require pre-existing space and time.

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Truly, the only "closed" scientific cosmology known to me is Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe for the very reason that it posits the perceptible, dimensional, universe or multi-verse is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually exist outside of space and time:

“A mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. If history were a movie, the structure would correspond not to a single frame of it but to the entire videotape. Consider, for example, a world made up of pointlike particles moving around in three-dimensional space. In four-dimensional spacetime — the bird perspective — these particle trajectories resemble a tangle of spaghetti. If the frog sees a particle moving with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined like a double helix. To the frog, the world is described by Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird, it is described by the geometry of the pasta — a mathematical structure. The frog itself is merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex intertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store and process information. Our universe is far more complicated than this example, and scientists do not yet know to what, if any, mathematical structure it corresponds.

“The Platonic paradigm raises the question of why the universe is the way it is. To an Aristotelian, this is a meaningless question: The universe just is. But a Platonist cannot help but wonder why it could not have been different. If the universe is inherently mathematical, then why was only one of the many mathematical structures singled out to describe a universe? A fundamental asymmetry appears to be built into the very heart of reality.”

Tegmark, Max, “Parallel Universes,” Scientific American, May, 2003

Tegmark’s view is radical mathematical Platonism. And truly one can hardly be a mathematical Platonist and fail to recognize the existence of such structures outside of space and time.

We began with a scientific image of the world that was held by many in opposition to a religious view built upon unverifiable beliefs and intuitions about the ultimate nature of things. But we have found that at the roots of the scientific image of the world lies a mathematical foundation that is itself ultimately religious. All our surest statements about the nature of the world are mathematical statements, yet we do not know what mathematics "is" ... and so we find that we have adapted a religion strikingly similar to many traditional faiths. Change "mathematics" to "God" and little else might seem to change. The problem of human contact with some spiritual realm, of timelessness, of our inability to capture all with language and symbol -- all have their counterparts in the quest for the nature of Platonic mathematics.

Barrow, Pi in the Sky, pg. 296-297

And to those mathematicians who try their very best to disavow Platonism, I counter that the very presence of a variable in a formula (such as circumference and diameter to the constant pi) attests to the existence of such universals.

In my view, the the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is like God’s copyright notice on the cosmos!

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. - Psalms 19:1-3

Information theory, btw, which is also a key to understanding life v non-life/death in nature and which has been vital to myriad advances made in medicine (DNA, RNA, etc.) - is a branch of mathematics. At the root, information too is mathematics.

[metmom]

Talking about me behind my back? LOL

No. Wrong again. If we were, we'd be using FReepmail.

[metmom]

I provided evidence to support my position.

Where? Nobody seems to be able to find it.

I find it intensely amusing to watch people like you, who deride science, become unhinged when looking at a little math

I've had three semesters of calculus in college for my science degree in meteorology. I'm not coming unhinged at a little math.

What field did you say your degree was in again?

[trisham]

I've had three semesters of calculus in college for my science degree in meteorology. I'm not coming unhinged at a little math.

******************

Wow. I am impressed metmom.

I was an English major. :(

[metmom]

Nothing to be disappointed with. Without English majors we’d all be illiterate.

[trisham]

Thanks. :)

[LeGrande]

I would say that the burden of proof is on those of you, who believe that something exists outside of space and time, to provide evidence supporting that belief.

What would you regard as "acceptable" evidence?

Hmm, I don't know what I would regard as acceptable evidence :( I can't see how it could be physical evidence, or information from outside space and time, or maybe it could be, I am not sure.

A GUT that didn't rule it out would be acceptable evidence. I am open to suggestions : ) Demonstrating something that doesn't exist in Space and Time is tough, I feel for you.

[LeGrande]

When I was an atheist I always made statements like that. I wanted life to be more than eating and sleeping and procreating and dying. I wanted someone to prove to me that there was a God. It was a cry of desperation.

I went the other direction :) I started out believing in God but found it vacant and wanting.

Now it is like a great burden has been lifted and everything is clear : ) I will die a happy man.

[LeGrande]

But as much as I’d like to engage his misplaced hubris, I have decided to spend all my energy getting the word out about Obama on moderate and lib forums until the election.And frankly, I would advise all FReepers (that includes you, LeGrande) to do the same if we are going to have any hope of keeping Obama and friends out of the White House.

I think that we agree. We have less than two weeks and it is going to be a come from behind victory : )

[LeGrande]

Since he has demonstrated time and again that he’s wrong and never backs up anything he says, he has destroyed any and all credibility that he may have ever had, and the chance to ever have any again.

My "evidence" as I have pointed out time and time again is Einsteins Theory of Relativity. I have given you the equation so that you can derive it yourself :) Unless you think you can prove E=MC² wrong, then consider that as proof, not just evidence. : )

[LeGrande]

I've had three semesters of calculus in college for my science degree in meteorology. I'm not coming unhinged at a little math.

Then prove E=MC² wrong : )

[LeGrande]

And to this day the inability to account for the beginning of space/time is the "poison pill" of physical cosmologies because all of them - whether multi-verse, multi-world, cyclic, ekpyrotic, imaginary time - all of them - require physical causation. They all require pre-existing space and time.

Therefor there is nothing outside of space and time : )

Truly, the only "closed" scientific cosmology known to me is Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe for the very reason that it posits the perceptible, dimensional, universe or multi-verse is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually exist outside of space and time:

Information theory, btw, which is also a key to understanding life v non-life/death in nature and which has been vital to myriad advances made in medicine (DNA, RNA, etc.) - is a branch of mathematics. At the root, information too is mathematics.

Hmm, Wofram would probably agree with you except that he would probably disagree with the separating out of Mathematics from space and time.

Are you basically claiming that the Universe is an idea made real? And that the idea (math) was created outside of space and time?

[metmom]

The rich man in Luke probably died a happy man as well.

[metmom]

Explain how that supports your contention that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light so that it disproves God.

[editor-surveyor]

"Diluting Protecting science education in the name of one religionTruth.

There, I knew you were having trouble getting it right. Truth is not a religion, and evolution is not science.

[editor-surveyor]

"Then prove E=MC2 wrong"

She has no more chance of proving it wrong than you do of proving it right. It has been found to be wrong, yet paradoxically, not 'proven' wrong. But it also has never been proven conclusively correct either.

[LeGrande]

Explain how that supports your contention that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light so that it disproves God.

Information can take three forms, Light, Mass or Energy. E=MC² shows that none of them go faster than the speed of light. Therefore information travels at the speed of light or less.

As a result of that fact (that information can't be transmitted faster than light) the idea of an Omnipotent, Omniscient being is disproved. It doesn't have to be information either, God can't even accelerate the tiniest bit of mass up to the speed of light either.

Since there are absolute constraints, God can't be omnipotent. If you believe in an omnipotent God then I have bad news for you, it doesn't exist : )

[editor-surveyor]

Perhaps “incomplete” might be more applicable than “wrong.”

[hosepipe]

[ Welllll, I can't prove it if that is what you are asking : ( I don't know how to prove a negative. I would say that the burden of proof is on those of you, who believe that something exists outside of space and time, to provide evidence supporting that belief. ]

Space and time when viewed in a linear way is simple..
But space and time probally is not linear.. thats only two dimensions..

[hosepipe]

[ I went the other direction :) I started out believing in God but found it vacant and wanting. ]

WHich God?..