Posted on 07/05/2003 4:12:52 PM PDT by chance33_98
'Monkey trial' continues in Roseville
ROSEVILLE (AP) - Nearly a century has passed since the famous Scopes "monkey trial," but Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is still being tested - most recently before the Roseville Joint High School District.
At issue was how high school students should be taught evolution and if competing ideas about man's place in nature should also be included in a science textbook. But after a lengthy debate from dozens of residents and parents, board trustees approved a new science book that presented only Darwin's side of the story. School officials said there is no book on the mainstream market that presents what some call the "intelligent design" theory of evolution - a belief that life did not evolve randomly but instead progressed according to a plan or design. Officials said the book selected is readable and provides material that students will be tested on by the state.
Gore3000 posted to me this: you should know that it is so obvious that the Universe was designed that the atheist Steven Hawkings, one of the greatest physicists of today has only been able to give the ridiculous proposal of multiple Universes as a refutation. Such a proposal of course is ridiculous because someone as smart as he knows that such a theory is quickly decapitated by Occam's razor.
First it's Hawking, not Hawkings. My response (bondserv was half correct; I most certainly have heard of parallel universes and the anthropic principle) was "Please post a reference." However, I was actually looking for the exact cite/published paper by Stephen Hawking. As of 2002, he had 184 publications. See here:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/pdf/pub.pdf
So I will post two myself. Here are two very interesting articles by Stephen Hawking:
http://www.dcd.net/NBP/hawking_origins.html
http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/physics/quantum.html
Ok, lets dig a bit further. Here are two papers by Max Tegmark, a colleague of Physicist at Upenn:
For those who want to explore the Anthropic Principle a bit further, here are two links you may enjoy:
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthropic.html
And finally; Gore3000 posted this to me: Sidestepping the point made only shows your continued dishonesty
My response was: ROFL!
I just about busted a gut with his post on "sidestepping" after the 200 or so posts on Gore's continued evasion of admitting that a circle was indeed an ellipse and the planets circling our Sun move in wildly elliptical orbits. (Talk about sidestepping!) Struck me so ironic I laughed out loud at this reply from Gore.
The idea of parallel universes is not Hawking's. He may talk about the idea in his popular writings, but in scientific circles the concept is not associated with his name.
The idea is not a theory. It is a hypothesis. As far as I know, it does not synthesize hitherto disparate facts or predict testable consequences.
The idea is not ridiculous. In fact, depending how you define the term "universe", the existence of parallel universes may be strongly demanded in light of the WMAP data that was released in February. These data prove that the universe is flat out to the edge of our Hubble volume. The simplest interpretation is that there exists galaxies, stars and planets beyond the edge of our Hubble volume, and that in fact this extends infinitely in all directions. If you define "universe" to mean "everything we can geometrically travel to or see" (as most physicists do), then there exist a gigantically large number of Hubble volumes--universes--similar to ours, lying beyond the edge of our own.
The alternative--that some unknown physics radically alters the geometry of spacetime out beyond where we can see, and cuts it off somehow--is a radical idea without a shred of evidence, and which is based upon nothing but a desire for physical reality to be other than what it clearly appears to be.
If I did, I have forgotten the name.
Just the observation that my policy has served me very well, indeed. I think I'll take a shower.
I am off that direction myself. (work calls LOL)
I will follow suit on you policy! :-)
You seldom see anyone so obviously lacking in a firm grasp of the obvious.
Who is profiled in this "FR's finest" thread? (BTW, what do you think of my post 13 thereon?)
But would someone lie about being a radio astronomer? I don't mean to imply that RA is starving, gets no respect, and doesn't impress the ladies. The rumors are that quite the opposite is true. But seriously folks, who would claim to have such an occupation if it weren't true?
Resubmitting piecemeal papers by the scientific community can only leave one wanting. The fantasy stories that are woven into the analysis can only be considered to remove the Evolutionary theory from the category called scientific.
The argument for evolution is simply unpersuasive, and as you note regularly, this causes one to question the integrity of the scientists who purposefully overlook the massive flaws in their ideas. (Some scientists do point out the Theory ending flaws, but they are a small minority because the brave ones get promptly relegated to the buffoon category).
Until the scientists can demonstrate that life came about by natural means, those who continue to exuberantly claim it is the only intelligent explanation that fits the data, will be viewed as deceptive.
I must say that I appreciate your straightforward discussion of the topic, and I continue to look forward to your submissions to the debate.
1. The earth's distance from the sun.
One way to get "the right conditions for life," yes. For a planet the size of earth, for a star the size of our sun. But we don't know every possible case of "the right conditions," much less every way to obtain such.
2. The amount of oxygen and other gases in our atmosphere.
The amount of oxygen used to be very low. It only rose when oxygen production from photosynthesis (the action of cellular life on earth) overwhelmed the oxidation of iron and other metals on the surface of the earth. This is an incredibly ignorant argument.
3. The percentage of salt in the ocean.
Has varied historically.
4. The existence of life ending space junk like the comet Shoemaker Levy 9 showing up in our short lifetimes. (Think of the probability of that happening to earth in just a span of 100,000 years).
The bombardment of earth was much heavier earlier but has declined over time. Said bombardment may well have been a source of complex organics on the young Earth. It has also figured in extinction events.
5. The sophistication of our evaporation/rain providing continuous fresh water to the planet.
Chaotic, yes. But rainfall levels vary considerably across the planet and life adapts.
6. The temperature ranges of earth as opposed to the other planets in our solar system.
There are lots of solar systems.
8. The volcanic activity must stay below a certain amount to avoid mass extinction of life.
Mass extinctions have happened, some apparently due to hyper-volcanism. I don't see how this helps ID, is a consequence of ID, or has much to do with it. You have not shown that mainstream science has a real problem here, or that ID has anything to tell us.
9. This distance and size of the moon in relation to the tides.
Yeah! The moon is just the right size and distance to produce the tides we experience, and what are the odds of that?
10. The balance of the atmosphere in relation to solar winds and radiation.
Not sure what you even mean here, so I'll let it pass.
You've taken a bunch of anthropic principle sillies--arguments along the lines of "Ever notice how the mud puddles are exactly the right size and shape to fit into the holes in the ground?"--and decided they somehow form a coherent body of knowledge. It's a bizarre scrap pile of objections to the idea that life arose and diversified on Earth by unguided mechanistic (if chaotic) processes.
ID is a disjointed collection of creationist screeches that evolution cannot have happened, with the "... and therefore Genesis is word-for-word true" carefully excised in most cases.
"Radio Shack" clerks?
;-)
Note also that S-L just happened to strike Jupiter, the second-biggest gravity well in the solar system, when it did hit something. Jupiter will eat a lot more incoming junk than Earth. It's a vastly larger target and basically runs interference for the inner planets.
I'm sure it was unintentional, but layman reading the above are going to draw the wrong conclusion from your remark.
There is, of course, no physical "edge" to our Hubble volume, and the Universe (in the sense of the union of all possible Hubble volumes) is unbounded and infinite, as per the WMAP data to which you alluded.
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