Teaching Alternative To Evolution Backed

Washinton Post ^ | Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | Michael A. Fletcher

[Gladwin]

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.....

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Ahh. Got it. You know what you're talking about when you throw around an expression like "fallacy of the excluded middle" but you can't give a single example to illustrate this fallacy when asked :-)

[AndrewC]

but you can't give a single example to illustrate this fallacy when asked :-)

Nope, It's refusal to play your games. I've been doing that for quite a while now and you still don't get the picture. Look at that SIRDS image I posted. Do you even see the dots?

[ConsistentLibertarian]

You talk about game playing. What's the contrast class? Honest inquiry? You say an argument assumes excluded middle and that this is a fallacy. Anyone interested in honest inquiry would want to document that point. It's easy to do. Just give a non-controversial example of the fallacy, so we can all see what the fallacy is and why it's a fallacy, then show how the argument assumes it as a premise. If you think I'm a bad guy, don't focus on me. Focus on the point at issue. It's much more effective than "Your ugly and your momma dresses you funny". Of course, if you don't have a point and you're dead in the water on the merits, best to stick to the momma's ugly strategy. The last thing you want to do if you're going to lose on the merits is focus attention on the issue.

[AndrewC]

You talk about game playing.

Not playing means not playing. I implied that I don't play games in post 321 and explicitly told you in post 333 that I don't play your games. If you are interested in educating people do it yourself. You have demonstrated the ability to argue with yourself and lose. You need no help, you are a one man show. Post 347 shows that you have the ability to make up people out of whole cloth.

[Quila]

I have no spiritual, emotional or moral need for gravity. What's your point?

There's no need for you to believe in gravity. It's there, no need for convincing. You can see a rainbow and think "There's evidence of God." I see it and think "That refraction of light is beautiful to me."

Meaning that if someone showed you something better than you have ever known (something non-spiritual, say) you would reject looking at it because you are happy the way you are?

Nobody's ever been able to show it to me, so there's nothing to reject. I don't say "I don't believe in God." I say "I have no belief in a deity." There's a world of difference. The former is rejection, the latter is non-acceptance. The difference between a Christian and an atheist is that an atheist only believes in one fewer gods than the Christian does.

Remember when you meet G-d to explain to Him that you were quite happy without Him.

Remember when you meed Buddha that you were quite happy without him. See how that sounds to me?

[Quila]

A perfect designer takes everything into consideration, even things truly intelligent designers don't.

Like vestigal organs, birth defects, various inadequacies in organisms, etc. Everything I see points to that if there's a designer, he's not very good.

[AndrewC]

Everything I see points to that if there's a designer, he's not very good

Yes, people with bad eyes don't see well. I recommend glasses.

[PatrickHenry]

You mean, creationists said silly or stupid things and you were going to demonstrate this in excrutiating detail and someone thought you were promoting an illegal act or making a racist remark or promoting a planned economy or soemthing like that?

The first part of your sentence is accurate, and I've underlined it so there's no mistake. As to what someone thought, I have no idea, as we're dealing with creationists and their accomplice among the moderators. There certainly were a load of personal attacks in the material I quoted, but it was abundantly clear that these were verbatim quotes taken from the posts of others (each one complete with a tag line giving the post number, date, time, name of poster, etc.), and that the material was not my own. I doubt that the moderator was confused on that point.

In all likelihood one of the creos, knowing his good buddy was on duty (a freepmail from the moderator to his creo friend is all it would take), hit the abuse button and said: "Waaaaah! PH is picking on us!" And the moderator decided to provide assistance for his favorite side of our debate. It's not difficult to see the pattern. Or to make a couple of educated guesses as to the identity of the moderator in question. For the moment I am keeping my suspicions to myself.

This kind of thing takes a highly respectd internet forum for conservative thought and converts it into what looks like a satellite of the "Institution for Creation Research," which makes all conservatives and all Republicans look like whackos. It's a very bad development.

[JediGirl]

spam, spam, good for your heart.... <3

[JediGirl]

Clearly something else was at work in past ages on this planet.

LITTLE GREEN MEN! HALL-EY-LU-JAH! PRAISE BE! Someone has to come to know the Green Man! Glory be! Another little one will be entering the Spaceship of Green Man!!!

[JediGirl]

"the odds against evolutionism are uncountable, as opposed to merely infinite." I'd be impressed if you could explain the difference. Cantor is always fun.

And since it happens, the odds are irrelevant.

[JediGirl]

Philip Johnson...IT COULD BE LITTLE GREEN MEN!!

[gore3000]

EL crossed somebody's line one time and was the victim of the usual C-side abuse-button junkies, the usual Moderator suspect.

I don't know what the guy did, however, I do know that the moderators have been very, very mild in their treatment of evolutionists. Evolutionists have posted hundreds of insults, abuses, character assassinations on some threads and not gotten kicked out of FR. YOU know that very well. Evolutionists have also been guilty of many other infractions such as reposting of deleted posts and using multiple accounts on these threads.

The purpose of these threads is discussion, civilized discussion not abuse, insults or character assassination. It is time you and your friends start following the rules instead of complaining about them. You do not have a right to defame people, live with it.

[medved]

No, it wasn't little green men. What it was, was that the animals themselves were able to change their own morphology within one or two generations on occasion, using at least one resource which is no longer available on this planet. The most major thing we notice in question of macro changes in our biosphere is that they are no longer happening, i.e. whatever caused them has simply been turned off for the time being.

If you study religion at all, you notice two or three basic things. One is the dichotomy between astral and spiritual. Plato and other classical authors speak of the astral gods (planets) of the old pantheon and, at other times, they speak of a pervasive, spiritual God which is basically the same concept found amongst Christians and Jews. The two concepts are kept separate.

Moreover, the religions prior to Christianity were characterized by attempts to communicate directly with the spirit world, prophets, oracles, idols and elaborate ceremonies to enable the idols to speak to the people and, later, only to priests. Christianity represents a recognition that that sort of thing had finally become no longer possible, and that man's relationship with the spirit world had to be based mainly on faith.

The things which enabled the biosphere changes in past ages were related to the older kinds of religion as I note in web page linked above. To comprehend the world of the old testament, you have to have a copy of Julian Jaynes' book and you need to read through that article.

Like I say, the article provides at least a partial clue as to how macro changes actually occurred.

[gore3000]

And since it happens, the odds are irrelevant.

There is absolutely no proof of macro-evolution. No proof of series transforming themselves into something more complex, with new traits, new abilities. There is no proof of anything ever evolving. In fact there is tons of proof showing that there is no need for any species to evolve. The simplest creatures, single celled organisms, are the most varied, most successful organisms on earth. There is absolutely no necessity for anything to evolve and the cause of evolution has always been said to be necessity. There is no such necessity.

[gore3000]

"What could possibly be worse than professing to believe in such a thing?" Thinking that evidence of imperfect design is evidence for a perfect designer?

Your problem is that you are too arrogant and think you know what God's purpose is. It's way beyond your pay grade.

[medved]

"Uncountable" or "undenumerable" means the infinity of the real numbers as opposed to that of the integers/rationals. In order to distinguish the two, notions of "bigger" and "littler" had to be expanded somewhat. "Bigger" in set theory means that you can devise a function from the larger set onto the smaller but you can't devise a one-to-one function from the larger into or onto the smaller. "Smaller" might also be viewed as meaning you can devise a one-to-one function from the smaller set onto some subset of the larger, but you can't devise a function from the smaller ONTO the larger. With those distinctions, various orders of infinity can be described.

The Gnome Galeon browser appears to work here so I'm not going to have to go back to RedHat 7.2 this morning, but it was down to about one. Netscape for LINUX is not fully functional and Mozilla is totally hosed on 7.3 and doesn't work at all. Phone calls to redhat are the next item on the mornings agenda...

[gore3000]

That the designer may have been less than perfect, but was still way ahead of YOU.

Reminds me of the joke about the scientist that challenges God to make a more perfect man than God can. God takes up the challenge and the scientist picks up a bunch of dirt. God tells him - oh no, get your own dirt.

[JediGirl]

Your problem is that you are too arrogant and think you know what God's purpose is. It's way beyond your pay grade.

So God could commit any atrocity and because it's way beyond our "pay grade" (limitations you place only on yourself, might I add), it should remain unchalleneged, lest we commit blaspemy against your god?

[chemainus]

This is why I enjoy FR ! BTW I have been known to try to elicit responses such as yours. Thank you for this learned and reasoned response which is quite interesting. The only contention from me is that the entire argument was based on belief systems and any answer whatsoever was still begging the question.