Posted on 08/21/2005 1:18:04 AM PDT by MRMEAN
Compared with fields like genetics and neuroscience and cosmology, botany comes up a bit short in the charisma department. But when scientists announced last week that they had figured out how plants grow, one had to take note, not only because of the cleverness required to crack a puzzle that dates to 1885, but because of what it says about controversy and certainty in science -- and about the evolution debate.
In 1885, scientists discovered a plant-growth hormone and called it auxin. Ever since, its mechanism of action had been a black box, with scientists divided into warring camps about precisely how the hormone works. Then last week, in a study in Nature, biologist Mark Estelle of Indiana University, Bloomington, and colleagues reported that auxin links up with a plant protein called TIR1, and together the pair binds to a third protein that silences growth-promoting genes. The auxin acts like a homing beacon for enzymes that munch on the silencer. Result: The enzymes devour the silencer, allowing growth genes to turn on.
Yet biology classes don't mention the Auxin Wars. Again and again, impressionable young people are told that auxin promotes plant growth, when the reality is more complex and there has been raging controversy over how it does so.
Which brings us to evolution. Advocates of teaching creationism (or its twin, intelligent design) have adopted the slogan, "Teach the controversy." That sounds eminently sensible. But it is disingenuous. For as the auxin saga shows, virtually no area of science is free of doubt or debate or gaps in understanding.
(Excerpt) Read more at american-buddha.com ...
I don't care about middle eastern life. I want to know where in the Bible God said slavery is evil. Is God's morality relative to place and time?
I still want to know when it was that European Christian monarchs noticed that the Bible requires governments to grant individual liberty.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ...That's pure deism. Jefferson was saying that our right to independence is inherent in our nature. The Continental Congress knew what he was saying. And they signed it.
It has to be with society that gave rise to Darwinism. He was influenced as much by Ricardo and by the geologists of his time. It was easy for these people to think of the lower classes of Englishmen as something close to beasts and for the "uncivilized" peoples as virtually wild beasts themselves. Can't understand Darwinism apart from the Zeitgeist.
I've wondered what the ID approach to this is.
If we assume that an "intelligent designer" exists because biological molecules are too complex to have been created by chance, is it not also the case, then, that one would have to ascribe the creation of the observable universe to an intelligent designer? Are black holes not complex enough? How about quarks or gravitons?
If there are limits to the powers of an intelligent designer, what could they be? Inability to lift heavy weights like stars? Inability to see tiny objects like quarks? A finite lifetime? Infertility? Allergies?
What possible limitation would be compatible with the ability to have created life on earth perhaps as long ago as four billion years?
Nothing pure about deism, but if by that you mean that it implies the existence of a natural morality that is virtually the same as Christian morality, then that is so.
ID exists because it SEEMS as though some intelligence intervened.
Haa, haa... You are right, I could proudly beat people over the head with what I don't know about evolution. What an assinine subject to take an interest in!
It is completely useless, contradictory, fluid, and many extremely intelligent scientists (smarter than you, this is not personal, but factual) are seriously skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life.
Those who would forbid any challenges to Darwinian theory are displaying the same kind of partiality as the IDers they claim to despise.
Defenders of “evolution-only” on this posts and others are taking rather unattractive tactic – accusing all critics of trying to bring religion into the discussion. However, critical scientific analysis of Darwinian evolution is not religion, and exploration of all the facts should be encouraged.
I will however stick to real science, science I can touch and personally observe. Science where I don't have make giant leaps of faith to fit facts that don't quite add up. Bet you thought I am talking about IDers, guess what? I'm not. LOL
You're the one doing the "what if"s.
Electron theory? Quantum mechanics? Dark matter? Gimmi a hint, just a little one, pretty please?
***I want to know where in the Bible God said slavery is evil.***
As I previously made clear, not all forms of slavery are "evil" therefore there is no blanket condemnation of it in the Bible. Some forms of slavery in history have been beneficial to both parties. The Bible clearly condemns those unjust and cruel actions which characterize slavery in its more virulent forms. We have looked at some of the verses. We can go back over them is you wish.
***I still want to know when it was that European Christian monarchs noticed...***
I will not defend European "Christian" monarchs because I do not believe many (if any) were authentically Christian. (Your originally asked for a "Christian ruler" incidetially - not specifically a European one)
The reason I am persisting in asking you to define "individual liberty" is because America fails even one of the two examples you gave. Now if you will be so good and to oblige me with a more precise definition I believe I can find you a few examples.
And a question for you - Who grants you your rights?
The science of bringing home a paycheck, feeding my family and enjoying life. LOL
You are identifying evolution with Darwin's theories? It is one thing to propose a mechanism by which species might change, quite enough to evaluate human beings and/their cultures using that mechanism and to take action based on that evaluation.
*** Or they are inherent within the individual, which is what "natural rights" means.***
OK, I'll play.
How do you inherently know that any person has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
*** Typical fundamental thinking***
It's dangerous to think that everyone who disagrees with you is stupid.
That's an art, and a very useful one at that!
How about a little tempest in a teapot? It seems odd that all those Christian governments missed the relevant Biblical passages granting individual liberty, whereas a few Deists and skeptics with guns established them in a few years.
***Jefferson was saying that our right to independence is inherent in our nature***
... and put there by our "Creator". By which he means the Being that created the universe and not some, (hint, hint, nudge, nudge) atheistic, natural process.
No Creator - no rights.
I'm glad we have that cleared up.
As for who grants me rights, no one does. I demand them. I take steps as I see fit to protect them. I have, at a very inconvenient time, accepted the demand of my country to participate in a war being run by treacherous and incompetent democrats. Sometimes it is difficult to decide what is best in these circumstances, but I alone make those decisions for myself.
Indeed. We're all descended from the Thrintun food yeast with which FT124 (Earth) was seeded 2 billion years ago.
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