Teach both sides!
Posted on 09/28/2005 6:31:31 AM PDT by gobucks
(snip) But in order to attract converts and win over critics, a new scientific theory must be enticing. It must offer something that its competitors lack. That something may be simplicity (snip). Or it could be sheer explanatory power, which was what allowed evolution to become a widely accepted theory with no serious detractors among reputable scientists.
So what does ID offer? What can it explain that evolution can't?
(snip) Irreducible Complexity (snip)
Darwin himself admitted that if an example of irreducible complexity were ever found, his theory of natural selection would crumble.
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down," Darwin wrote.
Yet no true examples of irreducible complexity have ever been found. The concept is rejected by the majority of the scientific community. (snip)
A necessary — and often unstated — flipside to this is that if an irreducibly complex system contains within it a smaller set of parts that could be used for some other function, then the system was never really irreducibly complex to begin with.
It's like saying in physics that atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter only to discover, as physicists have, that atoms are themselves made up of even smaller and more fundamental components.
This flipside makes the concept of irreducible complexity testable, giving it a scientific virtue that other aspects of ID lack.
"The logic of their argument is you have these multipart systems, and that the parts within them are useless on their own," said Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Rhode Island. "The instant that I or anybody else finds a subset of parts that has a function, that argument is destroyed."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
That is an excellent policy. I was in a rush this morning - discovered I was out of diapers!
I virtually shake your hand, and am pleased to no longer be at outs!
This "6K question" bothers me too. I have obtained a lot of radiocarbon dates that are older than 6,000 years, with some up to 11,0000 years. I have good evidence of human cultural activity, but no flood. Yet I am told everything I have found is wrong because "that's not what I believe." My facts and theories about those facts are dismissed.
Other scientists have a good mtDNA record of human dispersal from Africa going back some 70,000 years.
Given this type of information, why should the Young Earth theory be taught to students in public school science classes?
A learning experience, now completed, as far as I'm concerned.
Cheers to all!
Well... yes and no... if nothing else, anomalies seem good places to go asking why? "It may have been a random event," thinks the observer. "But I wonder."
What is it that ID would look for? None of the ID advocates have been able to come up with anything.
Exactly... I think I.D. is good speculation and quite possible... But the advocates have to come up with a way of testing it to call it science.
Moving your earlier comment down:
The kinds of manipulation being done in laboratories would cause trouble if found in the wild. Pig genes in tomatoes and such.
Imagine this, though.... Civilization collapses and mankind forgets science, as a pig-gened tomato makes it into the wild.... 10,000 years from now a new civilization has rebuilt science and is trying to breed better tomatoes.
Might they notice a pig gene in a "wild" tomato? And if they did, how would they try to account for it?
>>>This article is an MSM example of something I been arguing for a long time: bio-scientists are mostly willing agents of the leftist-owned communistic atheistic MSM machine.<<<
No doubt. If they were honest, with no political agenda, they would at least allow for the fact that Sir Isaac Newton was a devout Christian, as were many other famous scientists.
Now I'm actually going to get some work done.
Wishing you a productive afternoon.
(Now I've misplaced the child who's supposed to be doing algebra ...)
To not consider the first hypothesis and examine the evidence in favor of that hypothesis, limits science and reduces it to dogma.
The only reason to limit examination of the first hypothesis by science is an "apriori conviction and devotion" to the theory of natural processes. And that faith on the part of evolutionists is what doesn't belong in the science classroom.
To not consider the first hypothesis and examine the evidence in favor of that hypothesis, limits science and reduces it to dogma.
The only reason to limit examination of the first hypothesis by science is an "apriori conviction and devotion" to the theory of natural processes. And that faith on the part of evolutionists is what doesn't belong in the science classroom.
You can repeat your claim as many times as you wish, but ID is not a hypothesis that can be tested by science. Why do you thing the Discovery Institute backed out of the trial?
It's because they admit they have no way of researching their claims.
New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution Theory (Washington Post)
But I have seen no satisfactory scientific explanation of what we see in the fossil record, which are sudden leaps by which new types of organisms appear in relatively short (from an evolutionary perspective) periods of time.
If this had occurred from the minor random genetic mutation that is well-established, it seems to me the fossil record would reveal life forms along the entire spectrum of possibilities, at every point in the spectrum.
Exactly what is seen (within the limits of fossil preservation). One of the problems with the presentation of evolution in the media and textbooks is that they only show a few "charismatic" fossils, not the whole range of what's been found.
Yeah, and I may have come up with my story idea for the nextNational Novel Writing Month this November.
But how can you test for the cause of anomalies if you don't have a history or a possible history?
Aye, there's the rub.
I don't for example, have explanations for all cases of crying statues, ESP, UFOs and such, but I trust my intuition about such things, and hold a placemarker for them in case one of them acquires better evidence.
Pretty much the same.... Thing is, it bugs me as much, when scientists take a "It's not science, therefore, it doesn't exist," attitude, as when people try to add their religion to science.
I'll am interested in similarities and points of agreement between science and various mysticisms.... But I admit that's philosophy.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Unfortunately I've run out of my alloted time on FR this AM... so I can't read the comments on the thread or the rest of the article. But the few comments I did manage to read look very interesing.
It's obvious to a simpleton like me the belief in evolution is a substitute for belief in God, and that is why evo-fundies get outraged and vicious at the mere suggestion that there may a flaw or two in neo-Darwinism, and why any scientist of any kind who brings up any criticism is immediately labeled as a crank, whacko, stupid or even as Richard Dawkins pronounced, "wicked".
Evolution believers will brook no hint of apostacy from the populace.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
1. They were designed by an intelligence.
2. They developed as a consequence of natural processes.
Not to mention:
3. They developed as a consequence of an intelligently designed process.
4. Some combination of 1., 2., 3.
Although I think it fair to say that there are many "evos" who are believers in God and Christians.
This is very simple. the Discovery Institute is right about one thing. ID needs to have some science before it claims to be science. It's interesting that all the so-called holes in evolution theory are the result of the normal workings of mainstream science. Pride and ambition insure that every crevice will be explored. The best prizes in science are reserved for people who overturn old ideas.
How is it a factual error?
I can have faith in anything I want, just because I believe it to be true wholeheartedly doesn't necissarily mean it's true.
Do not confuse faith with fact. Faith MAY be fact, but by it's very nature you can't prove one way or the other, that's why it's faith.
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