Posted on 03/25/2002 7:53:24 PM PST by ThinkPlease
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:52:15 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.
(Excerpt) Read more at asp.washtimes.com ...
The entire issue illustrates that the educational "elites" in the US are among the dumbest, least-educated groups in the entire country. I'm entirely confident that most of them don't understate the issue, and if you laid it out for them, they wouldn't be able to follow it. What this really demonstrates is that it's time for "public" education (that is, government-run education) to be abolished. Socialism is never a good idea, in education or anywhere else.
I do not say that anywhere here. The Theory of Evolution explains our origins better than any other theory. Now we have a group of Intelligent Design promoters, led by the Discorvery Institute's Center for Renewal and Science and Culture. Instead of promoting their theory in meetings and papers like other scientists, they decide to announce that their theory is "scientific" and present it to the public in meetings and forums, like the one in Columbus, OH on the 11th of March, and the one upcoming in New York City, in mid-April.
What it appears to me that ID is doing is try to perform an end run around the scientific method, and then trying to call their theory science. I don't consider it such, and I don't believe most other scientists do either.
Psst...love ya, Rick, but that's not an argument that favors ID over evolution. It's an argument that favors ID and evolution over the everything-fell-together-one-day-by-accident theory. By all means expunge the latter from public schools.
All I ask is for a quantitative algorithm that I can test. If I apply the algorithm to this sentence, for example, it will say "designed", but if I apply it to a series of randomly generated words, it will say "not designed". If they don't have such an algorithm in hand, then they have nothing.
What, for example, is the beginning form of any species used to validate the "theory"? How does that beginning form compare to the current form? What evidence in the fossil record supports the transition from beginning form to current form? Is there a species used as a baseline for this idea?
Darwin's musing on evolution isn't even a valid theory. There was no scientific study pursued in order to form it and it has never been subject to any experimentation whatsoever in order to even establish rules for its basic premise.
Darwin's nutty idea should be subject to exactly the same scrutiny under scientitfic review as any mathmatical theory proposed for inclusion in a school's curriculum. Darwin's SWAG has never passed such a review anywhere. Its only review has been a legal review, and that was subject to strenuous courtroom histrionics.
Haven't you heard, this theory has been refuted. The moon is actually made of half blue cheese and half yellow cheese. It only appears green at a distance. (Courtesy of Lucy to Charlie Brown.)
Shhhhhhhhh!
You're letting the cat out of the bag.
ID is really part of a conspiracy to promote school choice.
Haven't you heard? Mathematical proofs are also incomplete.
To set the stage, let us listen to Hermann Weyl (1946), as quoted by Eric Temple Bell (1951): We are less certain than ever about the ultimate foundations of (logic and) mathematics. Like everybody and everything in the world today, we have our ``crisis.'' We have had it for nearly fifty years. Outwardly it does not seem to hamper our daily work, and yet I for one confess that it has had a considerable practical influence on my mathematical life: it directed my interests to fields I considered relatively ``safe,'' and has been a constant drain on the enthusiasm and determination with which I pursued my research work. This experience is probably shared by other mathematicians who are not indifferent to what their scientific endeavors mean in the context of man's whole caring and knowing, suffering and creative existence in the world.
And these are the words of John von Neumann (1963):
... there have been within the experience of people now living at least three serious crises... There have been two such crises in physics---namely, the conceptual soul-searching connected with the discovery of relativity and the conceptual difficulties connected with discoveries in quantum theory... The third crisis was in mathematics. It was a very serious conceptual crisis, dealing with rigor and the proper way to carry out a correct mathematical proof. In view of the earlier notions of the absolute rigor of mathematics, it is surprising that such a thing could have happened, and even more surprising that it could have happened in these latter days when miracles are not supposed to take place. Yet it did happen.
Do I remember right that you said once you are a Deist?
I wonder at the logic and research that you used to reach these conclusions. Perhaps you could share your opinion of the following webpages:
29 Evidences for Macro Evolution
One of the better illustrations of the Fossil Horse tree
As you can see from this information, there are no wild guesses involved. As you also can see, there are a large number of transitionals, just in the horse phylogenic tree. I can include other trees if you wish.
What, for example, is the beginning form of any species used to validate the "theory"? How does that beginning form compare to the current form? What evidence in the fossil record supports the transition from beginning form to current form? Is there a species used as a baseline for this idea?
It depends on the tree you wish to explore. In the case of the Horse, Hyracotherium is the clearest first primitive horse found. In most cases, that beginning form doesn't always compare to current forms, since most of the species that have ever lived are now extinct. In some cases, you can trace some features from that ancient critter to today. In the case of the Horse, there are clear cases in the foot structures, bone structure, and the teeth that show a clear transition from the early Hyracotherium to the present day Equus.
Darwin's musing on evolution isn't even a valid theory. There was no scientific study pursued in order to form it and it has never been subject to any experimentation whatsoever in order to even establish rules for its basic premise.
Each individual fossil (depending on its completeness) that is found in the earth provides one scientific form or test to be placed on the the theory. The world is the laboratory, and each fossil field is the experiment that verifies, adjusts or refutes the theory. Does that make sense to you?
Absolutely.
Private schools would be free to teach whatever the market demanded, even "ID" and Creationism, as well as more traditional curriculum.
If what you said were true, I'd agree with your conclusion. But your premise is faulty: Evoltionary Theory can be disproven (and is therefore falsifiable) in a wide variety of ways. One example: the discovery of widespread mammalian fossils in the Pre-Cambrian strata ought to pretty well upset the apple cart.
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