Teaching Alternative To Evolution Backed

Two House Republicans are citing landmark education reform legislation in pressing for the adoption of a school science curriculum in their home state of Ohio that includes the teaching of an alternative to evolution.

In what both sides of the debate say is the first attempt of its kind, Reps. John A. Boehner and Steve Chabot have urged the Ohio Board of Education to consider the language in a conference report that accompanied the major education law enacted earlier this year.....

Some people like to point to man-made bridges and say that if they were obviously designed by intelligence, why not the universe? Of course, with a bridge you can observe a history of intelligent designers creating such structures and structures that involve similar building practices. To date I have not seen anyone present a seperate universe with a documented history of intelligent design as a basis of comparison for this one, nor have I seen a documented history for intelligent design of this one.

Some 'proof'

In 1993 at Tel Dan, the northernmost city in the biblical kingdom of Israel, Dr. Biran discovered the "House of David" stele. The inscription on this stele, written in early Aramaic paleo-Hebrew script and dating from the 9th century B.C.E., is the first archaeological evidence supporting the existence of the House of David.

Well, when I was a kid and mixed odd chemicals, added energy in various forms, and waited to see what happened, something strange would happen pretty frequently. We had to evacuate the house once. I didn't do that one again. That's science.

Right. And when you do another one and the result is a polypeptide chain of amino acids capable of reproducing itself when floating in a sea of other polypeptide chains of amino acids, none of which existed until you waited to see what happens, the idea of abiogenesis will be science.

Until then, it's faith.

Shalom.

I don't think Einstein proved himself an idiot when he said, "G-d does not play dice with the universe."

(I'm slowly working my way to the top of the thread.) Einstein was making a statement of faith concerning apparent inconsistency between the theory of relativity and the newly advanced theory of the quantum. If both are true, then causality isn't, and that wasn't consistent with Einstein's notion of God. He was sure that there had to be an error, and spent the rest of his life looking for it, unsuccessfully.

Physicists have come to do without the causality .Richard Feinman once quipped, "Not only does God play dice with the Universe, sometimes he throws them where they can't be seen." (He also said, "Nobody understands quantum theory. You just get used to it.")

Simple. There must always be a means to disprove/falsify a given theory. As long as the potential for falsification exists, you haven't "proven" your theory -- you've merely offered supporting evidence for the truth of its statements.

So long as there is no way to disprove the theory and despite overwhelming evidence in support of the theory is still stands as a theory as opposed to fact? I guess I'm not following. Why must there be a method of disproving something in order to prove it?

EBUCK

The problem with mathematical probabilities in regards to proving or disproving evolution is that one is dealing with an incomplete data set; probabilities generated from such a set are perforce in error and cannot be trusted.

If that were really true, my statistics professors wouldn't have been getting paid the big consulting bucks by folks who didn't share your view of statistics.

That does not mean that God isn't real; it only means that the scientific method cannot be applied to God or effects caused by God.

I think I have to side with r9 on this one.

Suppose that a monolith like the one in "2001 a space oddessy" appeared tomorrow in the middle of Ground Zero with the words "Made in Heaven" emblazened on the side in a fiery white light.

Suppose, in addition, that thousands of people went to the site and viewed the monolith, newspaper reporters took pictures and published them, and CNN, (p)MSNBC, and FOX NEWS all ran 24 hour pictures of the monolith. That would be the result of G-d acting in our universe (the effect of G-d), and it would be very provable by science.

Of course, you could argue that it wasn't realy G-d, and that may be the point you were trying to make. But if it was really G-d, then you could prove the effects of G-d by science.

Shalom.

God could only be considered "natural" if this God were constrained to the universe and its physical properties.

You are making some major ASSUMPTIONS here. What is your definition of God? Do you assume to know what is the ultimate nature of the universe and its properties? Only a few hundred years ago "scientists" of the day assumed they resided in the center of the universe on a "flat earth". Today's scientists have now reached omniscience? Not hardly.

Give it a couple of hundred million generations and the progeny of each strain separately may well be as distinct as a cow and a frog.

It's that "may well be" that always gives me heartburn whenever I get called an idiot for being skeptical of evolution as an explanation for biodiversity. It's always there, yet the supporters of evolution still get mad at me when I prove skeptical of their claims.

Shalom.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by incomplete data set. Could you expand on that some?

Having said that, I will take a guess. The mathematical probabilities I was speaking of were not calculated from a "sample" taken from the fossil record. Rather, they were calculated under the constraints of what we understand the processes to be. For example, if I recall correctly, (without my notes) there are 80 types of amino acids, 20 of which are found in living things. A single protein is built from a combination of 100 of these 20 amino acids in a specific order. Given just that information, it is possible to calculate the probability that a protien would be created by a random combination of 100 amino acids.

As I mentioned in a previous post, in Chapter 7 of "A New Kind of Science", Wolfram spends some time talking about the random generation of certain states. He uses a 10X10 grid of black and white squares to illustrate the probability of a particular solution found at random. He concludes that it would effectively be impossible. And, yes, he does address the fact that nature doesn't have to get it exactly right. Very interesting stuff, actually.

As I said above, I am not sure what you mean by incomplete data set so if this doesn't address your point, providing a further explanation of the incomplete data set you are referring to may help me understand.

Sure. Just don't call it science, because it isn't (note that this is not the same as saying that it is false). Science is about formulating hypothesis based on observation, not making guesses to account for a lack of information.

OK. We're good to go.

By the way, I'm not yet accepting your assertion that you can't scientifically claim something until you can validly falsify the claim. I think you're making a very limited definition of knowledge. For example, I can know that my wife loves me, but I have no idea how I could prove it to not be true.

Shalom.

To date I have not seen anyone present a seperate universe with a documented history of intelligent design as a basis of comparison for this one, nor have I seen a documented history for intelligent design of this one.

Actually you have. You just reject the validity of the document. I don't have a problem with that, but you are usually so precise I thought I'd point this out.

Shalom.

"However, as I understand it, the genetic code is not very tightly packed. Since you've kindly taken on the role of educator, can you tell me whether that has any impact on your statement?"

(Please, no patronizing on this thread!) It has no impact that I can think of because it offers no way to disprove the present of Intelligent Design. You seem to ask whether an Intelligent Designer is necessary to account for patterns found in the genome, or for that matter, in every non-random pattern we find in nature. I contend that one is not.

At this level I am not sure that physicists have yet proven that their mathematical models accurately reflect reality.

Just like the model of the atom has undergone changes as we have understood more, I believe the quantum model of the universe still has some growing to do before it can be considered a realistic model.

Note that I didn't say a useful model.

Shalom.

Sorry, I didn't meen to be patronizing. I was trying to be clear that I wasn't challenging, only asking.

We were talking about information theory. You said that IT wouldn't be useful in SETI because we are getting so good at packing data into our signals that it was becoming more and more difficult to separate nose from information using IT. I then asked if the non-packed nature of the DNA would make it possible to apply IT to determine whether it was, in fact, information?

Shalom.

Do you also admit that it is nearly impossible to remove personal bias from ones interpretation of the fossil record?

Of course. No doubt about it. But arch-bias is by no means a reason to throw out the entire fossil record.

I would agree, although probably not in the same way you mean it. I would suggest that it is not mutation that changes a species on the micro scale to have things like longer beaks or higher slam-dunks. Rather I think it is environmental changes that modify the sample of the population that survives. That is, the number of bugs resistant to DDT that could have originally been produced from the gene pool never changed, just the number of bugs that survived and bred. DDT resistent bugs didn't "appear" they just had a reason to become more prevalent. If DDT ever goes completely away then the population sample will eventually revert to the same mix of resistant and non-resistant bugs that existed before its use.

Now we are getting somewhere. What causes some bugs to have higher tolerances to DDT in the first place? Without mutation all bugs would be the same in a given population after enough breeding. I lean towards a combo of both mutation (creating adaptive advantages) and environment (creating situations where advantages equal survival). Mutation within a population is the only clear means of adaptation, survival of the fittest.

It can, but I still posit that the details of the mechanism must be demonstrated before I am called an idiot for being skeptical.

I don't think I called you an idiot, can't see why I would either. The mechanics behind the operation seem to be pretty complicated but it's only a matter of time before someone figures it out.

EBUCK

with a bridge you can observe a history of intelligent designers creating such structures and structures that involve similar building practices.

Some would define God as the origin of the laws which must be followed for the building of structures (physical, biological or whatever). Just as the laws of mathematics determine how numbers interact, God's laws of life determine the infinite interactions of the universe. The essense of "natural".

For example, I can know that my wife loves me, but I have no idea how I could prove it to not be true.

It is currently accepted that human thought processes, including emotion, are a result of chemical reactions in the brain. If this is true, then while the technology for observing and quantifying those reactions does not yet exist, either the theoretical possiblity that those reactions could be measured exists (from which you could define what establishes "love" and test to determine its presence) -- or, it could be the case that human thought processes are something beyond any natural explanation (in which case it's outside the scope of science).

Yes, the method described above is not currently feasable, however if human thought processes are a natural occurance (and if they're not they're outside the scope of science and finding a disproof method is irrelevant) then there should be a method of observing then. Once you can observe them, of course, you run into the problem of whether or not your observation method might possibly be influencing your observations (kind of like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). All you need is an established definition for "love" and you go looking.

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.