Posted on 06/09/2003 6:07:51 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
In the years that BreakPoint has been on the radio, I've had some strong words about our nation's public television broadcasting system, PBS. Two years ago, for example, I criticized PBS's airing of a deeply flawed series on the theory of evolution. That series was inaccurate and one-sided, leaving out any mention of the scientific evidence that supported the theory of intelligent design.
But today I've got good news about PBS to report. And this is news where you can make a real difference.
Over the past few weeks, here and there around the country, some PBS stations have been broadcasting the one-hour science documentary "Unlocking the Mystery of Life." This program tells the story of the biological theory of intelligent design. Using interviews with scientists and philosophers, computer animation, and location footage -- from such sites as the Galapagos Islands -- "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" describes the emergence of an alternative theory to strictly naturalistic evolution.
Naturalistic evolution, you see, credits all the amazing diversity and complexity of life solely to mindless natural causes, and that's how PBS science programs usually explain biology. That's "usually" as in "the sun usually goes down at night." You'd search fruitlessly if you tried to find PBS presenting the scientific case for a different viewpoint than Darwinian. And so airing "Unlocking the Mystery" points to a significant breakthrough.
The documentary tells such a good scientific story that, earlier this year, PBS made the program available to all of its national affiliates. Local stations could download the program from a satellite link, and -- if they so decided -- put it into their schedules.
Stations in Oklahoma and Michigan have already done so, and in a couple of days, PBS affiliates in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Texas will broadcast the program as well. You can contact BreakPoint (1-877-3-CALLBP) for the days and times of these broadcasts.
Airing "Unlocking the Mystery" on taxpayer-supported public television is great news for intellectual freedom and openness in science. Most Americans learn about new developments in science from TV -- shows like the long-running PBS series NOVA. A well produced TV documentary can take complicated scientific theories and make them accessible and easy to understand -- even fun to watch. For young people, science that might be boring in the classroom becomes fascinating when presented imaginatively on television.
But TV can also exclude scientific ideas if they're deemed too controversial or likely to upset the scientific establishment. Challenges to Darwinian evolution have been seen just that way, religiously motivated and therefore suspect. But science suffers as a result, because there is plenty of evidence that does challenge Darwinism, and the public needs to hear both sides.
So here's what you can do. Call your local PBS station if it hasn't scheduled "Unlocking the Mystery," and encourage it to show the program. Send them an e-mail. If they've already shown it, let them know you appreciate their willingness to present alternatives to Darwinian evolution -- and that you'd like to see more of such programming in the future.
Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
There have been a lot more fossils found since your first disillusionment. You can look at some of them here. Many transitional species, originally theorized from partial skulls, are now represented by complete skeletons. And given the age of the bones we're talking about, why would you expect more?
I'm goign googling to see if their are any papers on the existence of dark matter in our galaxy.
I'll be back, sooner or later.
No kidding?
I wouldn't say, categorically, that science cannot examine God. It is just that testable hypotheses that include the effect of God are all but non-existent. An example of a testable hypothesis would be that God associates with each human a soul. Souls are not associated with other animals or plants. A soul has a component of mass and energy. However, no such hypothesis regarding human souls exists and science is powerless advance or retard the theory of souls.
Given how easy it is to find many extinct horses with entire skeletons, I don't cavil at repeating that I'd reasonably expect more than this for such a complex creature as man.
Q: Does this comment mean the pope is endorsing evolution?
A: Again, no. He says it the trend toward accepting it in the scientific community, following the evidence gained in the last fifty years, is "remarkable," but saying something is "remarkable" is one of those ways to say ... something nice and polite --- without committing oneself to an endorsement, though as with all consensuses that develop after scientific research, the consensus itself constitutes an argument (from the non-specialist's viewpoint) in favor of the theory.
Q: Does this statement mean the pope thinks that no scientists have tried to force the evidence in favor of evolution?
A: Certainly not. The pope is well aware of the role of bias and even dishonesty in the field of science, as in every other field of human endeavor. Human sin affects everything.
Q: Did the pope indicate that evolution could be false hypothesis?
A: Yes, the pope explicitly noted that evolution is not different from other scientific theories, which all must be continually tested and re-evaluated if they stop working as an explanation of the observed data:
"What is the significance of such a theory [as evolution]? To address this question is to enter the field of epistemology. A theory is a metascientific elaboration, distinct from the results of observation but consistent with them. By means of it a series of independent data and facts can be related and interpreted in a unified explanation. A theory's validity depends on whether or not it can be verified; it is constantly tested against the facts; whenever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought."
Neandertal may be our donkey, but I'd hardly call him my bro. What Neandertal DNA they've been able to recover, IIRC, is just too different from ours.
You:
No kidding?
I was attempting to give you a serious answer to your question in post 250, in which you asked:
What do you think would be the reason for not observing dark matter in our galaxy? Are there any implications if dark matter is not observed in our galaxy but is observed in other galaxies?
In a story told by Stephen Hawking, scientist was giving a lecture on astronomy. After the lecture, an elderly lady came up and told the scientist that he had it all wrong.
"The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist asked "And what is the turtle standing on?" To which the lady triumphantly replied: "You're very clever, young man, but it's no use -- it's turtles all the way down."
The notion of ID proposes a greater complexity to explain a lesser one. How does ID propose to explain the greater complexity. It seems to me they would need something akin to, "It's turtles all the way up."
This article mentions Dr. Jerome E. Dobson, a geographer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who studied 300 of them: HERE.
There is a real dispute among anthropologists as to whether the pollen in the one excavation was placed there at the time of burial. There is a good discussion in this book. What is indisputable from the bones is that many neanderthals lived years, or even decades, after sustaining serious injuries (broken legs, arms, etc.) that would have killed them if there hadn't been other neanderthals taking care of them during their recuperation. That makes them my kin, as far as I'm concerned.
Ah, but I don't fear the supernatural because history shows that yesterday's supernatural never was supernatural in the first place! They, like electricity for example, always were natural.
Man's conception of the unknown does seem to change over time. It used to be that the philosophical state of the art was to assume there was some kind of mystical, magical anthropomorphized person behind all phenomena whose cause was unknown. But then more & more phenomena became explainable, and some people started to realize that maybe "I just don't know yet" is a more accurate, less deceiving attitude to take than "goddidit".
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