Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.
They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A system composed of many complex parts such that each of those parts, or precursors to those parts, would offer no survival advantage singularly or in combination to explain their selection or retention according to theories of natural selection or mutation. Much as evolutionary theory looks for traces and artifacts of evolution in everything from genetics to skeletal structures, it's possible to look for features that can't be explained by evolution. Essentially, it's looking for the turtle on the fence post or Mount Rushmore.
Just as it's possible to concoct possible ways in which a turtle could wind up on a fence post or a Mount Rushmore could exist in nature, one can always imagine it's possible that anything evolved if you beg the question and simply assume that evolution is correct. That doesn't really prove that evolution is correct, though, any more than the fact that an infinite number of monkeys given an infinite amount of time and an infinite number of typewriters could bang out the complete works of Shakespeare proves that Romeo and Juliet was written by monkeys.
But don't ask me to provide definitive links/information right now. My brain is trying to get a grip on homeschooling as it is! LOL
LOL. I was actually paraphrasing a respected cosmologist. His quote was printed in New Scientist as they surveyed the status of the field.
Perhaps you were not aware of the Crisis in Cosmology conference in Monção, Portugal held in June of this year?. They assert the Big Bang fails to explain certain crucial observations.
But I kinda like the Big bang theory, for now. I don't think Big Bang and the Bible disagree. I think the oscillating universe and the Bible disagree and it was that theory that was blown apart by the discovery of the acceleration of the galaxies in 1998.
When God created the universe it may well have appeared much like the Big bang theory suggests.
In the meantime for the current theories to hold true we must find the remaining 96% of the mass of the universe which is missing in action. Some hints of the existence seem to be there. But those hints are little more than whiffs of hope.
But I fear no discovery of science. I've been in R&D for over 20 years. I love science.
I've also been around long enough not to get pouty when theories go awry.
On the other hand, you also shouldn't assume that a history exists if you can't demonstrate it. By the same measure of evidence, evolution is also unproven. You can't claim that something evolved simply because you assume that everything evolved so this must have, too. That's begging the question.
If you want to engage in science, propose an alternative history, one that (gasp) makes assumptions about the designer, the objectives, methods and possible limitations of the designer.
The assumption is that the designer is intelligence. The theory is that it's possible to distinguish that which has been intelligently designed from that which happened at random. The objectives don't need to be known, nor do the methods (Darwin didn't understand the actual mechanism of genetic mutations in a modern sense but that didn't stop him from observing their effects). Limitations don't really matter, either.
Say something about the attributes of the designer that would predict something other than what natural selection predicts.
I've done that. The key attribute of the designer is that the designer is intellgent and that some or all aspects of life have been designed. What it predicts is that living creatures may contain traits that can be explained better or only by design than by chance or natural selection.
Anything that is unexplained can be asserted to be unexplainable, but that doesn't make it so.
Ah, but it also doesn't follow that everything is explainable or explainable as the natural workings of a universe without a deity or deities. That's the main point of contention here, I think. Evolutionists assume that the unexplainable is explainable by evolution and natural selection. Creationists assume that the unexplainable is explainable by the hand of God. Both are ultimately begging the question and it's a guess eitehr way. Certainly on either side really isn't warranted, yet you'll see plenty of it from both sides in the Creation vs. Evolution threads here and elsewhere. That's where the scientific dogma enters the picture.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that it would be impossible to tell the difference between a unvierse entirely governed by natural processes and evolution and a universe of guided evolution created by a deity. What harm does it do to allow that idea that some divine agency might be at work behind the scenes or may not be when teaching evolution, rather than simply giving students the impression that the universe is Godless unless that's the ultimate objective here, to push the conclusion that the universe is Godless? Put another way, what difference does spending a class on ID make if evolution is still being taught and discussed? What harm does it do?
the problem with ID is not that it is wrong, but that it doesn't propose scientific questions. Science is about making assumptions and testing them.
It does make assumptions. It makes assumptions that an intelligent agent had a role in the creation and/or development of life. Further, it assumes that such intelligent design may leave traces in the life it created or guided. Now, ID advocates are trying to test their assumptions but it's kinda difficult when the evolutionists essentially claim, "If something doesn't look like it could have naturally evolved, that's only because we don't have enough information." That's simply begging the question and assuming that evolution is true and explains it all. Where is the testing and proof in that? Looks pretty dogmatic to me.
Why should Einstein be immune?
There are a few professors that have seen the light: The National Association of Scholars has been arguing for a traditional "great books" western civ type of education, as well as other issues: http://www.nas.org/. They are curmudgeonly and conservative -- which I doubt anyone here will have any complaints about!
Which illustrates a semantic dispute over the meaining of "species."
There is no dispute about the scientific definition of species.
"Much as evolutionary theory looks for traces and artifacts of evolution in everything from genetics to skeletal structures, it's possible to look for features that can't be explained by evolution. Essentially, it's looking for the turtle on the fence post or Mount Rushmore."
Once your argument is shorn of your excess verbiage, you are defining "irreducible complexity" as "complexity that I personally to find irreducibly complex." It's the ultimate Behe problem: there's a lot of arm-waving, but no observational data to back up the arm-waving.
"Just as it's possible to concoct possible ways in which a turtle could wind up on a fence post or a Mount Rushmore could exist in nature, one can always imagine it's possible that anything evolved if you beg the question and simply assume that evolution is correct."
Very well. All the Discovery Institute need do is produce one new antibiotic using the concept of "irreducible complexity" as its touchstone instead of the concept of "natural selection and survival of the fittest."
Wish you were here.
You can't demonstrate the Civil War happened except by exhibiting the evidence and asserting that it is foolish to deny it. The same applies to evolution. The evidence is there even if you choose to close your eyes. Event the advocates of ID -- Behe, Dembski and Denton -- accept the fact that evolution happened.
Ah, but it also doesn't follow that everything is explainable or explainable as the natural workings of a universe without a deity or deities. That's the main point of contention here...
But science is an activity that seeks natural explanations. Always has been.
The theory is that it's possible to distinguish that which has been intelligently designed from that which happened at random.
No one says evolution is random. Variation is random, but selection is not random. No one says life is a random glob of molecules. The argument is about the specific history. You do not have a theory unless you can produce a history that can be out to the test.
I passed a rack of those supermarket newspapers today and noticed that Einstein's brain has come alive and gone on a rampage. A real news story.
Maybe science doesn't have everything figured out after all.
There were many theories hopping about before the background radiation was discovered. The Big 2 theories in 1964 were "the Steady State theory, supported by Fred Hoyle, and the Big Bang theory of George Gamow. "Hoyle maintained that the universe has no beginning or end and that, as the universe expands, matter is spontaneously created to maintain the constant density of the universe."
I rather like the beauty of the Steady State theory but it is the LEAST comparable to the Biblical description.
Isn't it interesting that of the several theories abounding at the time the theory that most closely aligns with the Biblical text is the current popular Big bang theory?
And then the Big Bang theory was expanded to suggest an oscillating universe, bang-swoosh-suck-bang-swoosh-suck-bang...to the nth term to infinity. That was much less Biblical. God only did it once, so far. Now that oscilaltion idea has been cut down at the knees, so we are back to the Big bang again,..."and then there was light".
"..and then there was cosmic microwave radiation"..also..which of course is light in the non-visible spectrum.
So I do not see how the background radiation is inconsistent with the Bible.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness." -- Genesis 1:3
Agressive ignorance by the busload?
Like a Cindy Sheehan rally.
I notice that creationists consider it a win if they can flood you with so many questions you lose track of where you are. It's almost as if they are not really looking for information, but for reassurance for their ideas.
I posted this on another thread. From a reader review of 'Evolution vs. Creationism : An Introduction', off of Amazon.com.
"Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon -- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory. "
Probably in reaction to his words being quote mined by creationists.
Crisis doesn't mean the whole theory is in crisis. I'm aware of the fact that cosmology is a subject that is constantly under scrutiny. The Big Bang still stands strong, though - no other theory has had its success in explaining the expansion of the universe, explaining the homogeneous background radiation and explaining the ratio of hydrogen/helium observed in the universe. Most of the alternative models discussed were variations of the same model. Other models were discussed at the conference, and hey, if one works, more power to it, but no alternative has gained mainstream acceptance.
But I kinda like the Big bang theory, for now. I don't think Big Bang and the Bible disagree.
I don't think evolution and the Bible disagree (at least not a reasonable view of it). That theory stands stronger than ever. I certainly hope you don't believe that theory is going awry. If you do have a challenge to conventional scientific thinking, please show what research backs it up.
I agree, and never suggested otherwise. In fact I elaborated on that in several posts.
Love is also real but not scientifically provable. yet scientists do not deny that love exists because they have personally experienced it for themselves. However they may deny that the Holy Spirit exists, without any evidence backing their supposition, except that they personally have not experienced it, so they require scientifically acceptable data to convince them.
However scientists who have experienced the Holy Spirit affirm it to be real.
Since love occurs much more easily to practically everybody then it's existence is not questioned.
If love only happened to a limited subset of scientists then it is presumable that the existence of love would be drawn into question.
What is love? Is it spiritual? Why not?
So now we have precedence for the acceptance by scientists of a perhaps spiritual element in the human being. What could possibly be the argument against a similar spiritual existence in the form of the Holy Spirit?
For love to occur certain preconditions much occur. We must meet the person (or see them) and make judgments about their appearance, behaviour etc... and we must have an open heart to the possibility that we might love.
The same is true for the Holy Spirit. Certain preconditions must be met and we must have an open heart to the possibility.
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