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 ...
Why such vehement opposition to IDers by evos?
So too held the Church's Court that convicted Galileo -- he dared challenge the "settled precepts of science".
There is no observation with a point of view to make it, and without an observation the nigh-infinite set of quantum state possibilities never resolves to one. So without points of view, the universe stops -- or rather: does naught be.
Yet we know there is, there be and was. So by that we know there is a point of view to be had -- and further that there is and was in great, ornately intricate and majestic all at once order -- a order that gives a man each breath by beat of his heart and lungs drawing in the just-so-correct percentage of oxygen. A loving order by that, a creator who sets all points of view before the viewers, and by their breaths so given gives them the mind and arts by which they too can create new views, and even points of view that realize new worlds.
Because ID is not science, and it is attacking science. Does this explain it for you?
Do you know how many fossils have been found since 1981?
The only opposition is to teaching something as science that doesn't adhere the procedures and methodologies of science. It would be a bit like teaching ESP in computer science classes as an alternative to IP.
Oh dear. Quantum mechanics as solipsism.
The 'resolution of possibilities' is an result of the artificial division of the system into observer and observed. Without that division, the evolution of the wavefunction under the Hamiltonian is entirely deterministic.
Yet we know there is, there be and was. So by that we know there is a point of view to be had -- and further that there is and was in great, ornately intricate and majestic all at once order -- a order that gives a man each breath by beat of his heart and lungs drawing in the just-so-correct percentage of oxygen. A loving order by that, a creator who sets all points of view before the viewers, and by their breaths so given gives them the mind and arts by which they too can create new views, and even points of view that realize new worlds.
Marshmallow taxis appear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone.
ok.
nevermind. You don't understand, but instead prefer to score points with insults.
The concept is beyond your ken, so you are embarrassed.
Last try: We do not understand any system without understanding the forces operating upon it. We cannot understand orbital mechanics without understanding the force of gravity, for instance. We cannot understand weather without understandign the forces involved (many of them such as thermal forces, intertial forces, etc etc...no weather models can perform without them.
Furthermore, all such systems must have initial conditions. A point from which the modelling proceeds.
You on the other hand believe we do not need to understand the forces on life. In fact you deny it exists.
You do not know the initial conditions, nor the primary force behind life. yet you know life scientifically? nonsense.
or TCP/IP if you wish.
You miss the point and delve into irrelevant detail. The original poster tried to make a point by using Pascal's Wager.
The point is that Pascal's Wager is a false dichotomy. The validity of the Koran is totally irrelevant to this.
Every complex system has an appropriate level of study. A study of quarks does not(yet) tell us how the properties of water emerge from hydrogen and oxygen. Nor does biochemistry tell us when and how to do the Heimlich maneuver.
The science of genetics made a great deal of progress before DNA was discovered and decoded.
You are asserting that nothing is known until everything is known -- an assertion so monumentally stupid as to qualify for an entire new double-wide in the the museum of regrettable posts.
Think real hard about this. Are the initial positions of the planets required to understand and predict their motions?
Take your time on this one.
I understand perfectly - your posts are gobbledygook. Why they are so is not a subject that particularly interests me, but they are. As for "insults", the ridiculous has a habit of gathering ridicule unto itself.
We do not understand any system without understanding the forces operating upon it.
I've already explained to you that the chemistry of biological systems is no different than any other sort of chemistry. The same "forces" that have caused the car that's currently sitting on blocks in your front yard to rust are responsible for driving the chemical reactions that make up living things. For whatever reason, you are apparently declining to accept this. The nature of the universe is not contingent upon your acceptance, however.
Furthermore, all such systems must have initial conditions. A point from which the modelling proceeds.
The theory of evolution is a descriptive theory. I don't know quite what you think is being modelled here, but I would point out that you don't need to know where every molecule in the atmosphere was last July to know that New Orleans is currently underwater.
You on the other hand believe we do not need to understand the forces on life. In fact you deny it exists.
On the contrary, DNA is quite adequately described by the regular, boring old laws of chemistry. Evolution is quite adequately explained by the principle of natural selection. Apparently this is not sufficient for you. Oh, well.
You do not know the initial conditions, nor the primary force behind life.
I don't think you have anything resembling a cogent argument. I think what you have is a bunch of pseudo-technical jargon deployed as a means of "rebutting" something that you plainly don't understand. JMO.
Very different from 'inferring' things from the past, and putting an age on it that cannot be accurately tested.
LOL! I've been there...........I walked to the river and back. And I laughed at the idea that the river caused the canyon.
It's a funny thought for a logical mind.
I like how the standard for "knowledge" is now set so high that we can never really know anything at all. Since we're not now - nor will we ever be - omniscient, we can't ever understand anything. I know that the good doctor has remarked on the similarities between creationists and postmodernists before, but it is rather rare that we are presented with a live example of same. My guess is that if this one were a programmer, he'd get an awful lot of scope errors, and yet never quite figure out why.
Possibly, those who know nothing project their ignorance on others. The postmoderndeconstructioncreationistID supporters not only do so, they revel in such.
It's a funny thought for a logical mind.
Great! Then you, using scientific logic, terms, and processes, can provide an alternative explanation for the river?
Your patronizing tone aside, i'll answer it anyway, without hesitation.
OF COURSE THEY ARE! You must define the distance of each of the planets relative to each other and in which plane, you must define their velocities and then define their starting positions at t(0) relative to each other before you "start" your model.
Of course you must know initial conditions. (Hint: for some systems when the force is known and is shown to be constant then you can establish initial conditions from later observations, even when you have incomplete observation. For the life force we know nothing yet. ]
good grief.
Rolling on the floor laughing while humming logical fallacies to yourself is not a victory celebration, it is the tragedy of a Right Wing Professor evolving into a Left Wing Professor with a propensity for rolling on the floor with twits like the one who wrote this article.
You provided NO quotes supporting your lunatic twits stupid assertions that Bush is some sort of Luddite. You know it, I know it and anybody reading this stupid thread knows it.
As General Honore says "Don't get stuck on stupid Prof".
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