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 ...
"About once a month, Jerry Choate says, workers at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays find brochures in the restrooms promoting creationism over evolution."
Comment: I think this should be applauded, as many are the times I've been in a museum bathroom, only to discover they were out of toilet tissue. It is very thoughtful of Creationists to provide free supplemental material that is suitable for use in a "toilet emergency."
BTW, there is an historical/political precedent for this sort of behavior; there was a political group of which I am aware which used to sneak quietly into public meetings of other groups, in order to surreptitiously insert THEIR group's pamphlets among the handouts of the sponsoring organization on the "information table." Can you guess what political organization would pull such a sleazy stunt? Can you say: "LYNDON LAROUCHE"? I knew you could.
As for the quote proclaiming that the nation-wide spate of museum "confrontations" isn't part of an organized effort, it is laughable on its face.
Er, you're welcome, I guess--I was actually sort of trying to scold you a bit--you do realize it was you those posts were addressed to? Are you unaware that you can monitor responses you've gotten if you pick the "more..." link on the "articles" page of FR? Are you also unaware that you can keep a permanent link to threads you might want to get back to using the "bookmark" link?
Right! And let's not forget crystal healing, once I had the flu, and my sister dangled a healing crystal over me, and I was eventually cured! If that's not grist for the science mill, I don't know what is. I demand a warning label on all physics books, and a mere one hour of physics lecture time devoted to harnassing the powerful healing energy that ties healing crystals to the omega point energy grid. It's not like books at least as heavy as Behe's haven't been written about it. And let's not forget wikkan septagonal invocations--there has to be something to that, and the hollow and flat earth theories. You're such a parochial, narrow-minded IDist.
You can't derive history from structure. You can reasonably speculate that if you know the history of object A, and you find an object B that is very similar, then you know something about the history of B.
Interestingly, this is how Darwin derived the rules for natural selection. He spoke with large numbers of animal and plant breeders, noted the history of domesticated plants and animals, and speculated that the same rules of design and manufacture apply to all living things. The difference being that "wild" nature is a lot more wasteful and ruthless in pruning its populations.
"That they haven't found such evidence yet does not mean that ID is not science"
Instead of...? What "next level" do you imagine and do you have an example of a scientific theory that has achieved it?
We agree on that point - I didn't mean to infer otherwise. My big problem with ID is that its adherents seem to draw God as a "scientific" conclusion from the "gaps".
I believe in God because of what I do know.
I believe in the Creator as well; and I also have an extreme awe for the universe and the natural laws that govern them. I'm just saying that God's role in creating the universe and life on earth is not something science is inherently equipped to detect. Only a spiritual view can discern such things, and these are great things to discuss, but they're not science and do not belong in a science classroom - neither science or religion are done a service by mixing the concepts up.
(I presume you are a physicist?)
In training - nearing completion of my PhD in nuclear/particle physics (experimental). (And spending too much time on FR, incidentally - gotta get back to work if I want to get that elusive degree in the next year.)
I have to admit, I'm having trouble telling where you stand on this whole issue - do you acknowledge that there is good science behind evolutionary biology? What about the age of the earth? If you do think the science is valid, what exactly is the conflict? (Just trying to understand where you're coming from, here.)
Again, I hope everything works out for best for you & your loved ones in the wake of what lies ahead.
Then what are those rovers trying to do on Mars? Then what are these researchers trying to do?
My point is not that God needed anyone's permission. My point is that the Bible and modern science both speak of a PROCESS of creation, not of an instantaneous speaking of everything into existence. In that respect, the Bible and modern science are not really in conflict. Properly read and interpreted, I don't believe that the Bible and science can ever come into conflict. The Bible is the word of God and science is the study of God's creation. I fail to see how it is even possible for the two to conflict, at least given the premises that I have stated. Of course, if I am wrong and the Bible is not the word of God or if science really is inspired by Satan, then of course conflicts can ensue between the two.
You are aware that there have been studies in to the impact of prayer and such on health, right? There is also an ongoing controversy about whether the placebo effect is real or not.
If gravity were magically turned off, would the moon move away from the earth? No. The moon's motion away from the earth is caused by the fact that tidal friction, which is caused by gravity, slows the earth's rotation. This represents a loss of angular momentum in the earth-moon system. To conserve angular momentum, the moon must move into an orbit with greater angular momentum. This is an orbit that is farther from the earth. The angular momentum does not cause the moon to retreat from the earth. The CHANGE in the angular momentum is what causes the moon to recede. The change in the angular momentum is caused, as you have already conceded, by gravity.
All sorts of goofy things get taught in school by teachers.
Here's my hypothesis:
It's not a hypothesis. It's a straw man. But I'll play for the sake of argument.
The universe is supported on the back of an immense tortoise. You cannot see it because you are part of the universe and cannot see beyond its reaches.
What reason do you have to believe that either (A) the current theories of how the universe works are inadequate to explain the universe or (B) the tortoise exists? The problem is that you can't honestly answer these questions because your example is a straw man. A ID advocate or even a biblical literalist could honestly answer these questions, even if you don't find their answers personally persuasive.
Now, I'm going to begin lobbying for my theory of the universe to be placed in every textbook used in our public schools. You cannot demonstrate that my hypothesis is incorrect, and I claim that it is correct. I haven't found the actual evidence yet, but one thing's clear:
If you can muster thousands of supporters who honestly believe in the tortoise and want their children taught about the tortoise in school, then by all means lobby away. That's how democracy works -- power lies in numbers. Of course if we had effective school vouchers, a lot of this problem would go away and Fundamentalists could send their kids to Fundamentalist schools, Atheists could send their kids to Atheist schools, Tortoise people could send their kids to Tortoise schools, and so on.
Heck, what are whole fields of science including archaeology, geology, paleoclimatology, the oil exploration mentioned earlier, etc. doing, then?
I suggest you go back to
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1487919/posts?page=944#944
and read past the first sentence.
This is going to be a tedious discussion if you continue taking an opening sentence out of context and ignore the argument.
Is the disinction that you are trying to draw between "deriving" and "speculating" or are you trying to claim that you need a known history in order to speculate about an unknown history? I can't really tell because it's not clear to me.
With respect to the first point, speculation does not disqualify something from being science. With respect to the second point, it's possible to reasonably speculate about the history of an object without having a known history or example to compare with by looking at its form and features.
Or are you trying to make some other point?
There are certain basic assumptions that science uses because without them science is not possible. One of these is that there are testable, natural explanations for all natural events. Another is that the laws of science don't change over time and from place to place in the universe.
Surely you can see that without either of these assumptions, science isn't possible. Without the first, there's no point in even engaging in science. Why should you seek a natural explanation for a phenomenon when there may not even be one. By your standard, which involves rejecting the second assumption, we cannot do ANY science, let alone any science involving life. We don't know for certain, for example, that gravity operated in the same way several million years ago as it does today. We don't know for sure that the laws of chemistry are applicable to the early earth.
However, in the interest of actually doing some science, we provisionally assume that the laws of science remain constant throughout time and space. We can check the consequences of that assumption and determine whether this assumption leads to absurdities in some cases. For example, we are pretty confident, but not entirely sure, that the force of gravity works on Pluto as it does on earth, mainly because we assume it does and then calculate where Pluto will be based on that assumption. If Pluto is found to be in a position slightly different from what we have predicted, we look for explanations for that based on the assumption that gravity indeed works the same everywhere. If there's a difference that's too big to explain by the gravitational attraction of other bodies, we would then reject the assumption that gravity works the same everywhere. In that case, we would probably NOT reject the assumption that the laws of science are constant everywhere, but rather look for a more fundamental idea that explains the differing gravities on earth and Pluto.
A similar idea is at work with respect to life. We do indeed understand the basic forces at work with life. They are mostly just manifestations of the electromagnetic force, which is well understood. We do indeed assume that the electromagnetic force, in its manifestation known as the laws of chemistry, works the same way in living creatures as it does in test tubes full of chemicals. We do understand the basic principles involved, what we may not understand in all cases is the detailed application of these principles. In mathematical terms, this would be analogous to knowing all the differential equations governing life, but not knowing any initial conditions sufficiently to yield an accurate result. Much of this arises from the complexity of life. This is analogous mathematically to a chaotic system of differential equations. A infinitismal change in initial conditions can produce a finite change in the solution of the system. Therefore, unless these initial conditions are known to a great deal of accuracy, prediction is not possible. Nonetheless, it cannot be said that we have no understanding of the basic forces of life.
If you are postulating that there must be some heretofore unknown force that causes life, that idea has been proposed historically, and shown to be unnecessary. The forces acting on inanimate objects are sufficient to explain life. That was the real point of the original experiments that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors. Not that these experiments would realistically portray how life originally formed, but rather to render the notion of a "vital force" necessary for life unnecessary.
Why would you think that there would be a single "missing link", rather than a whole chain of species that start out ape-like and through small incremental changes, which would be waved away as microevolution, proceed to form a species which is human-like. This whole notion of a missing link is nothing more than a creationist attempt to deny evolution by promoting an intentional misunderstanding of what evolution says.
Consciousness is the essence of the élan vital which is the great Reality. It is impossible to know Reality through logic and science. It is known only in intuition which is a direct vision and experience transcending intellectual processes and scientific observations and reasonings.
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