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Can biology do better than faith?
New Scientist ^ | November 2, 2005 | Edward O. Wilson

Posted on 11/05/2005 6:34:38 AM PST by billorites

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To: Ready2go
I know about iris scanning, I was just being goofy (I am good at it).

My point was that you are assuming that having similar finger/foot/iris prints is the default which is not necessarily so. Having different prints is just as logical a default as having similar prints. Because of this any attempt at relying on probability calculations for this case is useless.
61 posted on 11/05/2005 12:13:21 PM PST by b_sharp (Please visit, read, and understand PatrickHenry's List-O-Links.)
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To: Senator Bedfellow
The First Amendment is hardly a "local school board issue", and thus when it is implicated, federalization is inevitable.

Are you asserting that a scientific theory, or hypothesis if you'd prefer that has roots in or associations to theism, is not valid for a schools curricula because it violates the "establishment clause" of the 1A? If you are, then there are implications that neither you nor I would like one bit, Lemaitre and BBT being a case in point. Under your expansive reading of the "establishment clause" Lemaitre's work would have been banned from American public schools because when he first posited it, his peers looked askance at it, and of course Lemaitre was a Catholic Priest as well as a scientist. And a dreaded creationist at that.

You may certainly assert that it should not be so, but for the time being, it is so, whether you happen to approve or not.

:-} You'll understand if I don't treat that sentence like it was special delivery from a guy named Moses.

And something makes me think you would be somewhat less sanguine if some school board somewhere decided to ignore, say, the Thirteenth Amendment, federal as it may be.

Right, I would not be sanguine at all if states started enslaving students. I'll concede that point.

Ah, I'm free to express my opinion, but of course I really shouldn't have one in the first place. Got it. ;)

I don't think you got it at all. The victim-hood quotient on FR has been steadily increasing lately. If I wasn't interested in what you had to say I would never have posted to you. You have to admit, there's a certain logic there even if it flows from the keyboard of the dreaded creationist.

You are conflating two senses of the term "intelligent design".

I conflated nothing in fact. I was pointed in what I said, to wit, intelligent design, small id, is a fact. You telling me that intelligent design doesn't mean intelligent design doesn't get us anywhere. You are stuck on ID and there's no way out. Not my problem.

The fact that humans can manipulate organisms does not in any way lend support to the ID thesis that some ineffable designer has guided or otherwise influenced evolution in the past.

I never said it did. So, in essence, you have engaged yourself in argument. I'm interested in how it will come out. :-}

However, I think I see a way out of the forest of equivocation here. We can simply include a chapter on genetic engineering and the techniques used by biochemists in biology textbooks - this will then satisfy the Discovery Institute's desire that "intelligent design" should be addressed in science class.

There you go, you solved your own problem. Now for the next question. What will be the penalty for school districts describing genetic engineering generically as intelligent design? The stocks or the feds?

Or will it? Hmmmm....

Dunno, I am not in any way, shape or form associated with the demons at DI.

62 posted on 11/05/2005 12:16:22 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: CarolinaGuitarman

>>>As it is Written, there is nothing "NEW" under the sun and there is nothing new about denying the Creator.<<

"And Creationists will always trot out the lie that evolution is a denial of God. Some things never change."



IF your (man's) ancient theory discounts that the Heavenly Father formed fully grown adult human beings, more than two then that is discounting/denying the CREATOR. I will not assert that evolutionists deny a "god", as there are two gods and most don't know the difference.

I will also state that I unlike most Creationists know this earth is million upon millions of years old, how old NO man knows. This flesh was created/formed for a specific purpose and age, when the flesh 'age' is complete the flesh will no longer need be. Even old Darwin knows this now.


63 posted on 11/05/2005 12:24:31 PM PST by Just mythoughts
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To: Coyoteman
One of the most notable is the high-altitude adaptations in the Andes--the Spanish did not do well up there.

I once knew a girl from Peru who's family came from the mountains. We hiked in Southern California, and nobody I had ever seen could hike those mountains that well with no observable out-of-breath effects like her. She was amazing, particularly above 10k feet. Claimed she had never seriously hiked, and was not a physical fitness geek.

64 posted on 11/05/2005 12:43:49 PM PST by narby (Hillary! The Wicked Witch of the Left)
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To: b_sharp
In general I agree with you, however the misunderstanding of this particular definition is the crux of the matter at Dover and other school districts. As usual it is just a suggestion, just one of the many I make.

Lemme mull it over.

65 posted on 11/05/2005 12:58:14 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Reality is a harsh mistress. No rationality, no mercy)
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To: All
That question could best be answered by the homosexuals and the homosexual monogamy (gay marriage) advocacy...

What is it with the creationist obession with homosexuality? Why is homosexuality gratuitously dragged into crevo debates by the creationists so often?

66 posted on 11/05/2005 1:03:06 PM PST by Thatcherite (Feminized androgenous automaton euro-weenie blackguard)
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To: Thatcherite
Why is homosexuality gratuitously dragged into crevo debates by the creationists so often?

Because they can't drag in science.

67 posted on 11/05/2005 1:10:42 PM PST by Wormwood (Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!)
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To: Wormwood

Dang, I should have thought of that.


68 posted on 11/05/2005 1:18:24 PM PST by Thatcherite (Feminized androgenous automaton euro-weenie blackguard)
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To: narby

Adaptation to altitude is something most people can do, although it takes time. At least three weeks, maybe more. In the bad old days of East Germany, they build an underground gymnasium and dormitory for their Olympic athletes to live in and train for the Mexico Olympics.


69 posted on 11/05/2005 1:26:09 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: Thatcherite
Why is homosexuality gratuitously dragged into crevo debates by the creationists so often?

Projection?

70 posted on 11/05/2005 1:26:55 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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Comment #71 Removed by Moderator

To: Thatcherite

Closets.


72 posted on 11/05/2005 1:40:01 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: js1138
If you'll swallow creationism, you'll swallow anything.
73 posted on 11/05/2005 1:50:22 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Reality is a harsh mistress. No rationality, no mercy)
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To: airborn503
Wilson makes exactly that same point; -- atheistic communism is indeed just another ideology, a "toxic mix of religion and tribalism".

Only if you peer into emanations from penumbras. His statement is what it is. You can't dress it up in pink and call it Barbie. The mix is "religion and tribalism". Unless you are from the school of thought that says atheism is a religion, his comment was not directed at the commies at all.

You bet it is.. Its time we made a choice to live by our Constitutional values, and forgo the "toxic" values of the other two ideologies.

The United States Constitution singles out religion for special treatment, that would be the "free exercise clause". They could just as easily made special mention of scientific humanism but they didn't. So I have to ask, just what constitution would you be referring to?

I'm curious though, are you an adherent to the Humanist Manifesto?

74 posted on 11/05/2005 1:53:15 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: js1138
Adaptation to altitude...

She claimed she moved to the city at low altitude as a young girl, and never went into the mountains. If I understand Coyoteman's post, he's saying that there was a genetic adaptation to natives of high altitude South American mountains. If so, she had it. I was on her first hike at altitude to 10k feet, and she acted like she was walking along the beach at Malibu. Even the other serious hikers in the group were at least working a bit, and she was'nt at all.

75 posted on 11/05/2005 1:57:07 PM PST by narby (Hillary! The Wicked Witch of the Left)
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To: PatrickHenry
African or European?


76 posted on 11/05/2005 2:13:42 PM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: billorites

The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.

'Toxic mix of religion and tribalism'. What a great concise phrase. Radical Islam and the reactionary anti-science religious right in this country are dangerous.

77 posted on 11/05/2005 2:24:51 PM PST by ml1954 (NOT the disruptive troll seen frequently on CREVO threads)
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To: canuck_conservative

Once again, to all those who believe in Creationism and reject Evolution:

How do you explain dinosaurs?

They think the Flintstones are historically accurate.

78 posted on 11/05/2005 2:28:17 PM PST by ml1954 (NOT the disruptive troll seen frequently on CREVO threads)
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To: billorites

YEC INTREP


79 posted on 11/05/2005 2:44:08 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America)
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To: canuck_conservative

Creationists have no problem explaining dinosaurs. They were created along with the other kinds of animals. Not sure what your question is...


80 posted on 11/05/2005 2:47:14 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America)
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