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."
AnnoyedOne: True, but the ones in each camp who do not do so are so few in number as to be almost non-existant.
You really need to document this. I'd say that the great majority of atheists accept evolution, but I'd also say that a large percentage of biologists (at least in the USA) are theists.
Worldwide, I don't know whether there are more Christian or Muslim creationists. Also, ToE is tolerated by the Catholics, Anglicans, and other large Christian denominations.
So, some stats are in order here.
So where's the *proof* of Newton's Laws?
Interesting. I served in the military as a Precision Measuring Electronics (PMEL) Tech, and callibrated oscilloscopes and other test equipment for the guys who worked on the black boxes in fighter aircraft. I bet those fighter jocks would have felt very comfortable knowing that the entire electronics systems within their aircraft were based on mere imagination. I thought you did not believe in such things as magic.
What process involved in evolution cannot be observed?
Lots of things are readily observable without suggesting the regular phenomena responsible.
People observed apples falling from trees for as long as there have been people, but it took Newton, with his laws of thermodynamics, to describe the universal properties of the motion.
That was just before the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
The sun apparently rising is an observation. The rotation of the earth is an explanation of the observation. We don't directly observe the earth rotate. There's no doubt the explanation begets other questions (why does the earth rotate?, etc); anyone who's talked to a bright four-year old is familiar with the infinite chain of questions and answers. And ultimately we get back to the really fundamental questions of where the universe came from, and so on. We can't yet answer those questions with confidence. But what we can answer are the immediate questions, and the immediate questions all have natural rather than supernatural explanations. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the harder and more distant questions will have natural explanations, and to exclude supernatural explanations, because the imminent problems, without exception, do not have supernatural explanations.
This argument, incidentally, is not mine; it was recently posted on Panda's Thumb by a Christian philosopher by the name of Bob O Connor, who feels that science can exclude ID on pragmatic grounds, and without making any contentious distinctions between science and non science. I found it a persuasive argument, because I worry about demarcation criteria.
You're a chemist. I'm sure you can describe all the elements, their properties, the effects of combining them in different quantities (H2O = water), and so forth. But that's not an explanation for how those elements exist or why they behave the way they do. No one can objectively explain the "whys" of those things.
Actually, I can give you a reasonably good explanation of why some elements exist and others don't; and I can give you excellent ones why they have the properties they have.
Then you know the difference between impedance and resistance.
Good question, actually, since it appears it is not a law at all.. after all, the accelerating expansion of the universe violates it.
I must say, I am suprised that there are so many people who are scared of their children being exposed to various ideas, some of which are purely speculative. I would have thought that those who were confident in their beliefs would be unafraid of having their beliefs challenged... but history has shown that to be untrue time and time again, and a lot of brilliant minds went to the stake for it, so I do not know why I expected any greater enlightenment in thought now.
I don't. Most modern electronics functions because V=IxR (the common form of Ohm's Law) doesn't hold for most substances. Try taking a multimeter and measure the current running through an ordinary diode as a function of voltage and tell me if Ohm's Law holds for the diode. It doesn't. I'm sure you know that, though, and just misinterpreted the point I was making.
Ahem. Are you sure you meant thermdynamics?
"Take Newtons Laws of Thermodynamics, for instance..."
Please, tell us what *Newton* said about thermodynamics.
Yes. Resistance, being resistance to electron flow.. impedence in a capacitor is similar, in that in an AC circuit, a capacitor resists electron flow at certain frequencies.
You could make that claim about any scientific theory. Why did it take until the 16th century to verify a heliocentric solar system? The evidence was in plain view. Someone had to be first (and Darwin wasn't the first to figure out evolution, he was just the first to attribute it to a testable & subsequently verified cause).
How could I have forgotten?
:)
>, I am suprised that there are so many people who are scared of their children being exposed to various ideas
In philosophy class, sure. But we don't want alchemy taught as an "alternative theory" to chemistry.
>, I am suprised that there are so many people who are scared of their children being exposed to various ideas
In philosophy class, sure. But we don't want alchemy taught as an "alternative theory" to chemistry.
[Neither are ever proven, and laws get superceded by more inclusive laws.]
really?
Yes, really.
Take Newtons Laws of Thermodynamics, for instance.
*cough*
Originating with "An object at rest will tend to stay at rest, and an object in motion will continue to remain in motion, in a straight line, until acted upon by an outside force".. it has been added to and expanded, but that basic concept has NEVER been superceded.
You mean, other than the realization that due to quantum physics there's actually no such thing as "an object at rest"?
More inclusive means something was added to it.. but not that the original remains.. and remains factual.
That's nice, but even leaving aside your errors, nothing you've said here refutes the statement that was made. The fact that some laws might not (yet?) have been superceded doesn't change the fact that at times laws *do* get superceded, which demonstrates the falseness of the original claim that "LAWS are proven" -- if they were actually proven, they wouldn't need corrections and modifications.
No, it's accused of not constituting "real" science because it is not science by generally accepted definition of the word 'science'.
You place a lot of weight in the words of wikipedia, which may or may not be correct as it is filled in by just about anyone who chooses to add to it (I think wikipedia has had some controversy lately over that very thing).
Who brought Wikipedia into it? The definition didn't originate there - if somebody put it there, it has no bearing on this discussion. You're changing the subject.
Theories are not proven. LAWS are proven.
You're the one who brought up "proof". You said "If ANY of the theories can ever be PROVEN", which you now acknowledge is not possible with any theory. Mighty big "if" there, my friend.
And now you bring up Law. What does that have to do with it?
Law: a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature; "the laws of thermodynamics"
Words mean things, after all.
Care to tell us how ID fits in there? We've established that it's not a Theory, what relevance does it have to a Law? Let's stay on track, shall we?
Theories can, however, be tested, make predictions, and results repeated.
Precisely why ID fails to qualify. It does none of those.
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