Scientists have an explanation for the origin of all forms of life, the origin of the universe (Big Bang Theory), but one thing they will never be able to explain is the origin of matter. Nothing comes from nothing.
I, for one am. Religious dogma, whether masquerading as science or not, has no place WHATSOEVER in public schools. Wanna brainwash your kids with that crap? Send them to your own little dogma school, and leave the public schools alone!
I, for one am. Religious dogma, whether masquerading as science or not, has no place WHATSOEVER in public schools. Wanna brainwash your kids with that crap? Send them to your own little dogma school, and leave the public schools alone![/quote]
Without religion there would be no schools to talk of today nor hospitals for that matter.
Science is difficult to understand sometimes. That’s why it is easy to exploit it to further your particular aims. If there was an angle or a profit in it, it would probably be easy to start a competing theory of quantum mechanics. That’s some wacko stuff. I don’t understand it, but I trust that it has been developed by a long process using the scientific method. As has evolution.
Conspiracy theorists, ufoologists, Falun Dafa advocates, they’re all the same to me. Exploiting the complexity of facts that take a lot of work to properly understand.
Also impossible to understand is the time-scales involved in the evolutionary process. What is a million years? It is incomprehensible.
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“Dragonbones”]
SJ Gould dealt with exactly such questions in his many books on the topic, to my satisfaction; however, I read them so long ago and the answers were so involved that I cannot summarize them coherently here. [/quote]
Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man is now considered to be a piece of propaganda posing as science. Interesting that you should mention him as his reputation has begun to suffer because of the many accusations that he lied and/or falsified data.
[quote]The point at issue between the evolutionists and Gould seems arcane. Does evolution proceed gradually or through ``punctuated equilibrium’’ – immobility interrupted by transforming upheaval? Gould’s preference for the latter reflects his left-wing politics – for evolutionary upheavals, read social revolutions. Yet it may also be traced to his refusal to admit that systematic differences, probably evolutionary in origin, exist among human beings.
That same refusal regularly distorts Gould’s 1981 The Mismeasure of Man, now reissued in a revised and expanded'' edition (Norton, $13.95). The Mismeasure of Man (which in its first version sold 250,000 copies, was translated into ten languages, and became required reading for undergraduate and even graduate classes) dealt with questions that are delicate, controversial, and (to the scientific layman) even discomfiting: IQ, brain size, sex, and race. It did so by unscrupulously mishandling the evidence. The new version -- described by the publisher as an acclaimed classic that refutes the conclusions of The Bell Curve’’ – is expanded but hardly revised. It regurgitates character assassinations of deceased scientists, misrepresents their work despite published refutation, and studiously withholds 15 years of new research that contradicts every major scientific argument Gould puts forth. - Dr. J. Philippe Rushton
[/quote]
eugenics.net/papers/jprnr.html[/quote]
What you have above is most likely professional rivalry masking itself as objectivity. Gould was an immensely successful man. Do you think he did not have enemies? Or jealous colleagues?
In any case, who has any doubt that in another 20 years the majority of scientists will be very clear on the worth of Gould’s studies and ideas? Who has any reason to believe that Gould’s ideas will last if they are incorrect. The same cannot be said of religious ideas, and the pseudo-scientific ideas based on them.
The average workingman in the US who goes to church and pays his taxes which support public schools might have something to say about this. Oh wait…that average American workingman elected George Bush for the second time last November.
Plus Rushton’s a doctor of psychology, not evolutionary science, so I’d trust his opinions on Gould as far as I’d trust a dentist to diagnose cancer correctly.
The average workingman in the US who goes to church and pays his taxes which support public schools might have something to say about this. Oh wait…that average American workingman elected George Bush for the second time last November.
[/quote]
Who pays the taxes that support the schools and what those people believe is irrelevant to what should be taught in schools. That’s why they have schools - so people who know what they’re talking about can handle the education side of things.
And in what fields were your undergraduate and graduate degrees? What ever they were don’t seem to keep you from commenting on all and sundry.
Science has never claimed to be able to answer every question. If fact it has been proved that in any system of logic, there will be unaswerable questions.
In fact, Gould is widely esteemed as an important writer on this topic. I could not disagree more with your mischaracterizations. You cite Dr. J. Philippe Rushton, a psychologist at University of Western Ontario in Canada, to discredit a book by Gould on scientific racism; that book has nothing to do with irreducibility, which is the topic at hand. Nor is this psychologist in any way an authority on the topic of evolutionary biology. Nice try. 
Next!
So his criticisms of Gould are invalid? Where and how?
Says who?[/quote]
Scientists[/quote]
Which ones? Have any percentages? And to refresh your memory, all scientists used to believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. Dogma, whether scientific or theological is still dogma.[/quote]
Comrade-
I think I understand you and TC to be arguing that ID presents a conceptual framework with various laws that explain natural phenomena. In that respect, I suppose one could claim that the “theory” of ID is a theory like evolution.
Not sure what you are arguing for here, are you? Are you taking the stance that ID is a science and as such should be taught in the science classroom? If so, I am interested - sincerely - in hearing your thoughts on this. What, in your opinion, makes ID a science in the sense that others on this thread are using the term (and in general, actually)?
I expect you would need to have been born and raised or at least educated in the USA to be willing to try making Creation or Intelligent Design fly as they figure God intended it.
If God had just put serial numbers and manufacturing dates on everything it would be so much easier to support Intelligent Design.
Half of what I learned as “truth and fact” at age 20 was considered wrong at age 40. And half of what I learned as “truth and fact” at age 40 was considered wrong at age 60. What does this say about the so called scientific experts who “knew” what they were talking about???
The whole universe is probably a joke by some intelligent life beyond our ken! 
I wonder how much of this recent Christian fanaticism is merely a knee-jerk reaction to the perceived rise in Muslim fundamentalism. How much of it is just the usual swing toward conservatism that the USA goes through every couple of decades.
America’s education system is already fucked up enough without kids having to waste precious time on this creationist bullshit. How the hell is an understanding of Christian mysticism going to prepare them to compete with increasingly well educated workforces overseas? What can the schools possibly afford to drop from the existing program in order to teach this superstitious nonsense, when so many kids already have such a loose grasp on key subjects?
On Dr. J. Philippe Rushton, whom Comrade Stalin quoted in his character assassination of the excellent scholar and writer Gould, I found the following bit of amusement :
[quote]One researcher, University of Western Ontario
[quote=“Tetsuo”]I think we need to introduce the teaching of faith healing practices into medical courses.[/quote]Tetsuo -
Once again you have stumbled out with an unintended jewel.
I have discussed this exact topic with a number of practicing MD’s and also several, 4 if I remember right, teaching MD’s at a rather large Medical school.
These chats occurred in a causual setting and were conducted in informal situations.
Everyone of these MD’s, all with 15+ yrs at the minimum, agreed that so-called “faith healing” or unexplained healing by ‘miraculous/unknown’ reasons or forces is a real physical phenomenon. Several of the MD’s were quite religious, a few other were ‘religious’ but not practicising and 3 were of the agnostic/atheist pursuasion. But all agreed that it happens.
Quite interesting I thought.
Is it included in formal Medical School curricula?
Well…maybe not in those exact terms. But most of the MD’s concluded that events such as this are why its called…“Practicing Medicine.” 
My question is: Who decides who knows?
[quote=“Dragonbones”][quote]One researcher, University of Western Ontario