Such as worship services at MegaChurch?
Posted on 03/22/2006 6:22:07 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser
Huge crowds extend Darwin exhibit in New York
Wed Mar 22, 2:54 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - A monumental Charles Darwin exhibition in New York has been extended by five months amid an overwhelming public response to what was touted as a scholarly rebuke to opponents of teaching evolution in US schools.
The American Museum of Natural History said Wednesday that nearly 200,000 people had visited "Darwin" since it opened three months ago.
Originally slated to close at the end of this month, the exhibition will now run through August 20, said museum spokesman Joshua Schnakenberg.
"Darwin" had opened amid furious debate in many school districts over the teaching of the 19th century naturalist's evolutionary theory and the first trial on the teaching of the God-centered alternative favoured by many religious groups, "intelligent design," or ID.
That trial, in Pennsylvania, ended in defeat for the evangelical right with the judge in the case decrying the "breathtaking inanity" of the school board in the town of Dover which backed the concept that nature is so complex it must be the work of a superior being.
"Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom," the judge said in his ruling in December.
An early section of the New York exhibit is devoted to the question, "What is a Theory?" and seeks to clarify the distinction between scientific theories and non-scientific explanations about the origins and diversity of life.
"This is really for the schoolchildren of America. This is the evidence of evolution," said the exhibit's curator, Niles Eldridge.
In a Gallup poll released last October, 53 percent of American adults agreed with the statement that God created humans in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it.
Thirty-one percent stood by the "intelligent design" stance, while only 12 percent said humans have evolved from other forms of life and "God has no part."
My point to you is that you appear to working from a relativist view. Especially talking about "truths" in science. IMO, the word "truth" sets off moralistic alarms and does not have a place in science. Science just is,it exists, and we struggle to understand it. For e.g., thermodynamics exists and we struggle to understand it. Evolution exists and is a lot easier to understand.
It seems like you have a lot of hypotheses and "truths" that you are wrestling around with in your head. Hope these evo threads help you straighten it out.
Why should everyone else be required to change the meanings of words to accommodate your ignorance?
Please ask your wife why all evolution writers who start their articles stressing that they are sitting on a fence end their articles clearly on the anti-evolution side of the fence?
The trouble, of course, is that Darwinism, most especially the way it’s taught in school textbooks, also has implications about religion.
While you're at it, ask her why people who are religious believe they can discount evolution by implying that it's religious?
That must make it a really bad thing in your twisted mind?
No, the reason it isn't science is that it has no hypothesis, does no research, proposes no research, and has contributed no data or no new ideas in the 200 years since William Paley wrote about it. It is not science because it is a sterile idea.
If our knowledge of the atom had not advanced any further since the Ancient Greek conception, we would have no basis to call it a valid theory, either. Democritus happened to make a lucky guess about the fundamental nature of matter - many other such guesses have proven wrong throughout the centuries. The science behind the claim didn't come until later.
The scientific evidence points powerfully to common descent, that's universally known in the science world. Natural selection, lateral gene transfer, genetic drift, etc. are known to be able to (testably) explain a lot of what we observe in the evolutionary record. A lot remains unexplained, indeed. Could an Intelligent Designer be involved in that void? Of course it's possible. But for now, such a supposition lies on the level of Democritus' hypothesis. Unless someone can posit an experiment or potential data find that validates the claim and can explain exactly why it validates the claim to the exception of other, simpler explanations (as evolutionary biology has repeatedly done), ID remains nothing more than a philosophy.
Ken Ham, and any parent who inculcates such ignorance in children should be locked up. It's child abuse, plain and simple.
You and me both. I will make it there one way or another. I am glad it's extended.
Such as worship services at MegaChurch?
Disprove invisible elves live on the far side of the moon.
Shall we include that into our science classes as well?
You make just about as much sense.
I can imagine no practical difference, other than simply seeking the truth. If ANY of the theories can ever be PROVEN, then we can lay the arguments about it to rest, which would be a worthwhile thing, probably.
I just believe that no halfway reasonable theory should be discounted and discarded until it can be disproven.
Okay, I just have to stop you there. This is exactly why I said we were going to need a refresher course in the meanings of words.
No theory is ever proven. None. Ever.
Not the theory of gravity.
Not germ theory.
Not the Theory of Evolution.
No theory. That's not what a theory is.
Time once again to review our terms:
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"
Theories are never proven. They may be disproven - in fact, the possibility of evidence arising to contradict it is essential. In the case of the Theory of Evolution, that would be something like finding a eight million year-old Homo Sapiens skeleton. That would prove the ToE is wrong. This is called "Falsifiability".
There is no conceivable piece of physical evidence that would disprove the existence of a Designer. That means that ID fails to meet the basic criteria for being a scientific theory.
In our search for truth, I would hate to see us overlook the significance of any evidence we may someday encounter, simply because what it is telling us is something we already ignored because it seemed too far fetched. Many great minds, for instance, think it is very far fetched that we will ever encounter intelligent life out there, even if it exists. But I would hate to see someone ignore a coherent signal we got from space just because we refuse to believe anyone is out there.
I have no disagreement with this statement. The problem is: after centuries of postulating, no creationist has been able to supply even the smallest piece of physical evidence. Not one.
No scientist will ignore evidence. If a creationist ever finds some to support, then ID will be worth discussing.
That's a little extreme, IMO. Actively exposed as frauds and berated, yes, but locked up? As fired up as this perpetuation of ignorance makes me, I still believe the 1st Amendment guarantees one's right to be willfully ignorant, and if one wants to raise his/her kids that way, it's not the government's place to interfere. (That would be a very slippery slope to walk on...)
Now, on the other hand, if a parent unwittingly paid Ken Ham to educate their kid in science, they might have a good case for a class-action lawsuit for parents to get a full refund on their investment...
These are the same things. Why is it that you cannot see this? Saying "God did it" is just another species of "that's the way it happens to be."
With the exception of pure mathematics (without any real physical parameters).
Let me post my own example of gravity:
A little history here:
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation
“Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.”
F=Gm1m2/r2
Where:
F equals the gravitational force between two objects
m1 equals the mass of the first object
m2 equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10-11 N*m2/kg2 (which is still being refined and tested today)
(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)
Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.
A few of the problems are:
It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.
Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.
A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model. However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.
From an NSF abstract:
“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.
In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.
But don't you see? ANY test result is consistent with the hypothosis "an all-powerful creator exists" and no test result can establish the hypothosis "an all-powerful creator doesn't exist," for the simple reason that the proposed entity, if it exists, could make the test results appear negative. There is no way to avoid that fact, regardless of how the test is structured, because it is inherent in the premise. As such, the hypothesis itself is outside the realm of science.
No. That's not correct. "Intelligent design" explicitly bases it's key inferences on the (purported) insufficiency of "natural causes" to explain this or that phenomena. Therefore divine employment of natural cause is not "intelligent design".
Since the Bible presents God as governing all of nature, including it's mundane and regular aspects, it is certainly theistic, yet excluded from ID, to argue and understand that what God accomplishes through natural phenomena is part and parcel of His manifestation as Creator.
I would argue that ID isn't even theistic, but rather deistic. It wants to make God (in the guise of the "intelligent designer") the author of this or that aspect of creation. Theism (IMHO) must hold that God is author of all creation.
I was looking for a proximate explanation, not a vague feeling that somehow, there's a higher power behind it all. You know, the kind of thing we teach in physics class: rotation of the earth, etc.
Others believe otherwise. That's their right to believe that, but it doesn't mean their position is any more scientific. It's just their biased default position as opposed to our biased default position.
No; the explanation that the sun appears to rise because that point on the earth is for the moment rotating in a direction away from the sun is not an equally valid explanation as a 'feeling this couldn't have happened by chance'. One is direct, immediate and predictive; the other is subjective and irrational.
Atheist does not automatically = supporter of the TOE, any more than Christian automatically = believer in Creationism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.