Posted on 07/13/2009 9:55:26 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Human-Chimp Similarities: Common Ancestry or Flawed Research?
by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D.*
In 2003, the human genome was heralded as a near-complete DNA sequence, except for the repetitive regions that could not be resolved due to the limitations of the prevailing DNA sequencing technologies.[1] The chimpanzee genome was subsequently finished in 2005 with the hope that its completion would provide clear-cut DNA similarity evidence for an ape-human common ancestry.[2] This similarity is frequently cited as proof of man's evolutionary origins, but a more objective explanation tells a different story, one that is more complex than evolutionary scientists seem willing to admit...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
Coldwater went on something of a self-imposed sabbatical not that long ago, after making a complete fool of him(?)self due to pretending to understand a particular cite of Einstein, pertaining to general relativity. So, I’m just surprised to see this particular FReeper flinging the “projection” slur at anyone else, at all, quite honestly.
Well, you know what they say about liberals having no shame.
There’s value in knowing where we’ve come from in science.
I was taught about alchemy in chemistry class- what it was and how it led to modern chemistry. I was also taught about the progression of science through the various models of the solar system from the geocentric, to the heliocentric, to the current model.
Teaching about something is a far cry from teaching it as true.
Just as there were flat earthers ( a whole 3,000 members in all at the height of the Flat Earth Society’s membership whose last president’s name, interestingly enough, was Charles Johnson), there are probably some who believe the other models are true. Big deal.
We shouldn’t be wasting our time trying to prevent something that isn’t going to happen. I’d say it’s a safe bet that virtually no one knows anyone who believes the geocentric model of the solar system or the universe, much less anyone who’s going to demand that it be taught in schools.
If, by some stretch of the imagination, someone proposes that geocentricity be taught as fact, (which is no doubt what all the hysteria is about) we can deal with it when it comes up, instead of running around with our hair on fire over something that’s not going to happen.
There’s enough wrong with public education to worry about that proposing *What if* scenarios which have a snowball’s chance in hell of happening is a total waste of time and a distraction from the real problems.
So what do you mean when you say that “virtually no one knows anyone who believes the geocentric model of the solar system”?
Do you find their views ridiculous or merely wrong? By what criteria would you exclude their nonscientific views from science class while including your own?
Who?
If they’ve made their views so well known, you should have no problems naming names.
On what basis should we accept your views on science and what should be taught in science class?
Are you claiming to be unfamiliar with their geocentric views?
I’ve never paid much attention.
I don’t let it eat at me enough to.
This is the criteria for what should be taught in science class.
Scientific: Adhering to the scientific method
Supported: a necessary and sufficient physical explanation for the physical data and allows for accurate predictions of physical reality.
Used and useful: Utilized by working scientists.
And it isn’t exclusively “my” view of science, it is what scientists need to know to do their work and understand the data. Any class that purports to be on the subject of science should discuss what scientists know and use in their work.
Science should be taught in science class. Creationism isn’t science.
So do you find their Geocentric opinion ridiculous, or just wrong?
By what criteria would you exclude their unscientific views but include your own?
So? Atheists frequent these threads, does that fact make me or metmom one? Don't go down that trail. It leads to a logic desert.
Never paid much attention? This is NOT the first time this has been brought to your attention metmom. Amnesia recently?
posted on Saturday, July 11, 2009 6:46:52 PM by allmendream to metmom:
Who is misrepresenting the geocentric position of several creationists here on FR?
Once one goes about deciding that their interpretation of scripture will be held to despite all observations and scientific theories one may as well be a Geocentrist.
After all what is the fundamental philosophical difference between a Geocentric Creationist and a Heliocentric Creationist?
Is one more influenced by pagan thinking? Is one more willing to “compromise scripture” than the other?
Metmom said that virtually no one knows an actual geocentrist.
metmom’s attention before.The presence of Geocentric FReepers has been brought to
Does she find them so embarrassing that she blanks their comments and the comments bringing them to her attention out of her mind?
Yes indeed, and that's the whole point. You wrote:
I was taught about alchemy in chemistry class — what it was and how it led to modern chemistry. I was also taught about the progression of science through the various models of the solar system from the geocentric, to the heliocentric, to the current model.
How can we say we are "scientifically literate" if we don't know the scientific past? If we don't understand it as one of the greatest on-going human quests, if not the greatest, of all time? How are kids supposed to get excited about science if all they get in class is its current "politically correct" version as determined by "experts?" To simply accept that what they tell us is the truth about the nature and structure of reality? So all you have to do is take down, by rote, what they tell us? Like a bunch of parrots?
How can we understand the present if we don't understand the past?
Thank you ever so much for your excellent essay/post, dear metmom!
You can say whatever you want, but you are you and no one else. That said, I know several people who have admitted they are atheists. Some of them were very offensive and some were more "Christlike" than some Christians. But again, so what? This article is about the interpretation of numbers. The fact that someone believes something does not make it my task to defend their beliefs unless I choose to. Then I understand that I would be trodding on dangerous grounds since those beliefs would not be mine.
Of a truth, students ought to hear the history of science. They should understand how certain the scientific minds were of theories which were later debunked - that science is not a "done deal" - there's work to do, theories of today may also be debunked, and they can be a part of it.
I also want to know by what criteria a geocentrists unscientific view would be excluded from consideration in science class, but her own creationist unscientific view should be included.
“Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? […] The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.”
Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. (1938) The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.);
Note: CS = coordinate system
“The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and heliocentricity] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view.... Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
Hoyle, Fred. Nicolaus Copernicus. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973.
“...Thus we may return to Ptolemy’s point of view of a ‘motionless earth’...One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein’s field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein’s point of view, Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right.”
Born, Max. “Einstein’s Theory of Relativity”,Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345:
“People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
Ellis, George, in Scientific American, “Thinking Globally, Acting Universally”, October 1995
AMD is being his normal AssHat here.
He is pretending that he doesn’t understand that the geocentric nature of the cosmos doesn’t mean that the sun revolves around the earth.
He is dishonest at his core, and cannot help himself on this, any more than Obama can be a freedom fighter.
And how do you feel about memom claiming that virtually no one knows of your existence and that people try to defame creationists and creationism by claiming that they believe the same thing you believe about the Sun being in orbit around the Earth?
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