Posted on 08/07/2005 6:25:03 AM PDT by RepublicNewbie
In the "Monkey Trial," 80 years ago, the issue was: Did John Scopes violate Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution? Indeed he had. Scopes was convicted and fined $100.
But because a cheerleader press favored Clarence Darrow, the agnostic who defended Scopes, Christian fundamentalism -- and the reputation of William Jennings Bryan, who was put on the stand and made to defend the literal truth of every Bible story from Jonah and the whale to the six days of creation -- took a pounding.
If anything it ought to be considered a Creation.
But, the arguments against Darwinism as it applies to science, a small part of the universe of Darwinism, are having an effect as we watch America falling behind surprisingly rapidly in science education and the high tech jobs moving overseas.
You're right. I don't always catch my errors as quick as others see them.
What I don't get is that creationists don't want evolution taught in schools because as a theory it has too many holes in it. But they want it replaced with creationism, which isn't even a scientific theory! .
Your not sore for me calling you a fundamentalist are you?
What's wrong with teaching both? Send your kid to whichever class you want. Evolution is faith too.
Whatever the cause, the campaign against science is having an effect. The Godless foreign nations are moving relatively ahead in science education and our advantage in technology is rapidly being eroded along with tech jobs.
One is science, the other isn't.
Send your kid to whichever class you want.
You don't need a class in "scientific ignorance." People come by it naturally. Evolution is faith too.
No it isn't. It's science, backed by mountains of evidence.
Please insert "< /p >" where appropriate in post above.
Yeah right. Like what? Would you say the overwhelming presence of design in the universe is a better scientific proof of Evolution or Designed Creation?
Amazing. I must admit that ignorance as profound as yours is impressive.
How does one test for the presence of design? If there is a theory attached to it, how does one falsify the theory? (Both requirements must be met for a theory to be scientific).
Do you really want to know? Okay ...
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Yes, macro-evolution.
Ichneumon's legendary post 52. More evidence than you can handle.
Post 661: Ichneumon's stunning post on transitionals.
Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics. Anatomic similarities are confirmed by DNA similarities and copying errors.
Evidence of Evolutionary Transitions. There really is evidence out there.
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ. Yes, transitional fossils exist.
8,000+ papers on vertabrate evolution. National Academy of Sciences.
Fossil whale with legs. Land animal to whale transitional fossil.
Feathered Dinosaurs.
Archaeopteryx. Reptile-to- bird transitional fossil.
Archaeopteryx: FAQS . A true transitional fossil
All About Archaeopteryx.
Evidence for Evolution . Compilation of links.
Human Ancestors.
The Evidence for Human Evolution.
Comparison of all Hominid skulls.
If anything, your quote from Popper indicates he is leery of "natural selection" as explanatory. He also indicates a tautology can be useful, even though it is not explanatory.
It seems to me creationists make clear their assumptions and guiding Authority, but evolutionists are loath to admit they have either one. No wonder there are so many evolution stories (none of which ought to be taught as science, per se).
"I still believe that natural selection works this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection . . ." - Popper
Which way did he change his mind? Doesn't really matter. Evolutionism is still a philosophy that should take a seat down the hall in philsophy or history class.
That wasn't his question, now was it?
He wanted to know where the "stuff" in the Universe came from, and I've provided the scientific answer.
Demanding every detail of how everything started before you will accept the scientific viability of the Big Bang theory is like demanding to know the origin of water before accepting the viability of hydrologic theory. Once that's explained to you, you'll demand to know where oxygen and hydrogen come from, and then the atomic components of each element, etc., ad nauseum. How the inflationary process started is irrelevant to the question of what effects it has.
The same way one tests for the presence of planet Earth and the universe. Or is it unscientific to test for such a thing? Is it unscientific to assume such things exist without testing for them? Has it occured to you that design might just be a "given" under which science is capable of taking place?
Both what? Why should they teach creationism?
Evolution is faith too.
If by "faith" you mean "we can't be 100% sure" then, I guess, yes. But I suppose you don't want relativity or the nature of the atom taught either. They are both theories.
And that old bird-reptile thing(Archeopteryx) has been disproved as a transitional form by many scientists. And has been found to be a forgery based on inconsistent materials found in the fossil. No transitional forms have half-legs/half-wings or any other such transitional bone or organ structure.
All these evidences for Evolution are nothing more than raw evidence presumed to be evolutionary in origin.
The only fraud here is the above statement. The Scientific Method was introduced by Bacon about 500 years before Popper.
Popper gave us two important principles concerning science: the principle of falsifiability and the principle of verification.
Popper's Principle of Falsifiability states that in order for a proposition to be regarded as part of science, it must be possible in principle to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false. An example of a field that might be affected by this is modern String Theory, since it’s all math and we don’t have or foresee any apparatus that might be used to verify or falsify the results. However, this obviously does not exclude evolution, since there are any number of observations that would falsify it.
Popper's Principle of Verification states that verification of a theory would require a positive result in every possible instance, most of which would remain in the unobserved future, and as such, no theory can be absolutely verified.
To summarize Popper’s two principles, no theory can be absolutely proven, regardless of the number of positive results, but any theory can be disproven by a single negative observation.
People, ignorant of science, of which I think you would probably be included, imagine that scientists believe in the laws of thermodynamics because they have been somehow “proven.” This is not the case, we believe in them because they have been overwhelmingly scrutinized and not a single case has been observed that would falsify them. As Popper pointed out, there is no way to “prove” anything in science.
I have seen many pro-evolutionists take the bait from people like you and try to argue that evolution is science in the same sense that physics is science. This is simply not the case as pointed out by a number of famous biologists, such as Ernst Mayr. Mayr, in “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology” points out that evolutionary biology differs from functional biology in the sense that evolutionary biology tries to answer the “why questions” as opposed to functional biology or physics or chemistry, which try to answer the “how questions.” For example, the functional biologist wants to know “how” our gall bladder works, whereas the evolutionist wants to know “why” we have one in the first place.
Evolution is a bit like what they now call “forensic science.” Is forensic science a true science in the sense that it advances under the guidance of the Scientific Method? No, I don’t think so. It’s just a collection of scientific tools to do more accurate detective work. However, forensic science does produce knowledge. Knowledge which jurors accept as being believable “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Evolution is a bit like forensic science. It is a collection of methods borrowed from other fields to investigate biological history. Has it been proven? Not absolutely, but "beyond a reasonable doubt." This, as Popper has taught us is all that any science can do
By the way, I would suggest studying a little philosophy before you go around quoting philosopher. There are some people that actually read the stuff.
They don't run in the same evidentiary vein as Evolution or the Big Bang. Creation Science and Evolutionary Science are both on the same footing when it comes to who was where to see what when as far as the origin of life and matter. One theory can be more scientifically evidential than another based on quality and quantity of evidence but neither is anything more than a basic assumption and a lense through which the facts are viewed.
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