U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution

Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution - You can follow the links on that page to part 2, 3, and 4

When I read these articles it suprised me that evolutionism isn't as widely accepted as I thought. There is just so much evidence for evolutionism and its all very logical. There is no evidence for intelligent design besides a book that mentions some fantasy as Chuck calls it.

Your thoughts?

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That's just sad. I'm speachless.

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TEAM
LL

"Evolution is not opposed to religion unless people make it so, The message of evolution is that we are just as Genesis told us, we are made out of the dust of the Earth and that we are united in this web of life with every other living creature on the planet, and I think that's a fairly grand notion."

This is the real issue which undermines both religion and science:

"shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the nonexistence of God,"

;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

"Evolution is not opposed to religion unless people make it so, The message of evolution is that we are just as Genesis told us, we are made out of the dust of the Earth and that we are united in this web of life with every other living creature on the planet, and I think that's a fairly grand notion."

This is the real issue which undermines both religion and science:

"shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the nonexistence of God,"

;)

In front of mainstream audiences, ID proponents refuse to speculate about the precise nature of the designer. Regarding this crucial point, ID proponents are agnostic. It could be God, they say, but it could also be a superior alien race.

When speaking or writing for Christian audiences, however, ID proponents are more candid. Some have openly speculated about who they think the wizard behind the curtain really is.

"The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the nonexistence of God," Johnson wrote in a 1999 article for Church and State magazine. "From there, people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'"




...The latest packaging of creationism is intelligent design, or ID, a conjecture which claims that certain features of the natural world are so complex that they could only be the work of a Supreme Being. ID proponents say they do not deny that evolution is true, only that scientists should not rule out the possibility of supernatural intervention.

But scientists do not share doubts over evolution. They argue it is one of the most well tested theories around, supported by countless tests done in many different scientific fields. Scott says promoting uncertainty about evolution is just as bad as denying it outright and that ID and traditional creationism both spread the same message.

'Both are saying that evolution is bad science, that evolution is weak and inadequate science, and that it can’t do the job so therefore God did it,'...

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Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

The Top 10 Intelligent Designs (or Creation Myths)

My personal favourite is #3, Hindu Cosmology's Rendezvous with Brahma

The Hindu cosmology contains many myths of creation, and the principal players have risen and fallen in importance over the centuries. The earliest Vedic text, the Rig Veda, tells of a gigantic being, Purusha, possessing a thousand heads, eyes, and feet. He enveloped the earth, extending beyond it by the space of ten fingers. When the gods sacrificed Purusha, his body produced clarified butter, which engendered the birds and animals. His body parts transformed into the world's elements, and the gods Agni, Vayu, and Indra. Also, the four castes of Hindu society were created from his body: the priests, warriors, general populace, and the servants. Historically later, the trinity of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer) gained prominence. Brahma appears in a lotus sprouting from the navel of the sleeping Vishnu. Brahma creates the universe, which lasts for one of his days, or 4.32 billion years. Then Shiva destroys the universe and the cycle restarts. Relax everybody, the current cycle has a couple billion years left.

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Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

Evolution

Creation-evolution controversy

The Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

A little light reading for anyone who might be interested.

(Please feel free to filter out my posts if you so desire.)

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Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

The Intelligent Design theory, as you probably know, rests on the hypothesis that creation came about within a very narrow set of constants. For example, if the young Universe had expanded at a fraction too fast the prescribed rate, no life would have come about. If it had been just a fraction too slow, again no life would have been possible. There are many other similar examples within the laws of nature, according to physicists.
But this form of I.D rests on the assumption that the Universe, or Creation, somehow has a kind of 'knob' that can be turned up and down. Turn it up a tad too fast; no life. Turn it down a tad too slow; no life. But this may not be the case. The laws of nature are what they are, perhaps because that is the ONLY way they can be. There may be no 'dial' that can be turned up or down. No narrow set of constants about which to speak. In short, perhaps the Universe can only be one way.
This in turn rests on the assumption that the nature of this Universe, and the emergence of life, is inevitable, just as light from fire is inevitable. But that does not prove the case for any kind of Intelligent Designer.

Sarah.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Intelligent Design theory, as you probably know, rests on the hypothesis that creation came about within a very narrow set of constants. For example, if the young Universe had expanded at a fraction too fast the prescribed rate, no life would have come about. If it had been just a fraction too slow, again no life would have been possible. There are many other similar examples within the laws of nature, according to physicists.
But this form of I.D rests on the assumption that the Universe, or Creation, somehow has a kind of 'knob' that can be turned up and down. Turn it up a tad too fast; no life. Turn it down a tad too slow; no life. But this may not be the case. The laws of nature are what they are, perhaps because that is the ONLY way they can be. There may be no 'dial' that can be turned up or down. No narrow set of constants about which to speak. In short, perhaps the Universe can only be one way.
This in turn rests on the assumption that the nature of this Universe, and the emergence of life, is inevitable, just as light from fire is inevitable. But that does not prove the case for any kind of Intelligent Designer.

Sarah.

DING DING DING DING. We have a winner......

In addition to what Susan stated there is the Anthropic principle to consider. We can't judge the Universe as being an extraordinarily rare occurence as if it is likened to being the holder of a winning lottery ticket. Of course the life that exists in the Universe is going to be tuned, so to speak, to the conditions of the Universe that make that life possible in the first place. Existence of reality comes before our faculty of consciousness as it precedes it. If we stand around and say to ourselves, "Wow, the odds are so small that the Universe would turn out just exactly like it is!" is a symptom of a greater confusion.

We like to seek order in the Universe. This is how our brains are wired so that we can shape reality to our own survival purposes, etc. But there's a built in fallibilty we have that sometimes sees coincidences as something more significant than they are. For example:

What are the odds of you flipping a coin right now while reading this and getting Heads 20 times in a row?
We'll express that like so...

H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H,H. (pretty amazing, huh. you must be a REALLY talented coin flipper)

What are the odds of this sequence of 20 flips of the coin?

H,H,T,H,H,T,H,T,T,T,H,T,H,H,H,T,T,H,T,H ? (no discernible pattern there)

The odds are the same for each of the above of course.
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Another example:

Out of all of the wildly different species of organisms on the planet, hundreds of thousands categorized and researched yet not one single scientist has yet to discover a species with the compulsive trait of always eating all of its young at birth. They've never discovered a species with a 99.9999% suicide rate either! What's going on?

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Teaching evolution back in Kansas in 2007.
You can see it in NewScientist.http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125646.500.html

An offshoot of the Anthropic Principle has always interested me. Apparently the ID proponents have never noticed it.

It concerns human intelligence and goes something like this: why have humans evolved to become aware of the universe on a scale ranging from quarks to the large scale galactic structure? We don't need this knowledge to thrive - we're already far into the top 1 percent of the biggest, fastest, strongest and meanest creatures on the planet. On top of that, we're omnivores and like most other primates, we run in gangs (so much for lions, tigers, bears and anything else we want to dominate).

Given these tremendous advantages over other life forms we would still likely be Earth's dominant species if we had no more intelligence than cats. So why have we developed intelligence that goes far beyond the need for day-to-day living? This has been used to point to the existence of a creator (...in his own image, etc.). I'm not buying it, but it's not a bad argument.

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Jim McDonald,

Some traits run concomitant with others. The attribute of intelligence is our dominant survival trait. If we had the intelligence of cats we'd be doomed given our physical attributes. In short, There's no need for us to have developed the ability to comprehend galaxies, quarks, black holes, or the structure of molecules. But it is a 'package deal'. Aspects of intelligence 'not sold seperately'. :-)

Incidentally, I don't think humanity understands the above concepts very well at all anyway. We think of particles acting like billiard balls. Some physicists still make the mistake that black holes exist in space as a point, etc. We make analogies to space being a fabric or like a waterbed with a bowling ball sitting atop it to represent a planet. We understand things this way because that is precisely how our brains are structured. They're structured to deal with larger scale objects and we have to think of these other subjects on those terms to deal with them.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution

Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution - You can follow the links on that page to part 2, 3, and 4

When I read these articles it suprised me that evolutionism isn't as widely accepted as I thought. There is just so much evidence for evolutionism and its all very logical. There is no evidence for intelligent design besides a book that mentions some fantasy as Chuck calls it.

Your thoughts?

Given the theory that a large body of people will choose more intelligent candidates, I can only assume that this is more evidence of "tyranny by the minority" in the US.

The fewer people vote, the less individuals are required to swing the result one way or the other. Therefore, more cohesive and motivated groups become more valuable in the political process.

Religious groups are a great bunch to target, because they have exploitable belief systems, they confirm their beliefs with each other regularly, and they have central organizations that can influence their members' interpretations of various issues.

If you can convince a religious group that you're doing something in favor of their religion, such as getting "intelligent design" into classrooms, they can organize for you and vote for you too.

Now, it doesn't take a whole lot of these religious groups to swing the vote one way or the other, so you can appeal to the voters who are the most fanatic.

Hence issues like "intelligent design" or "abortion" come to the forefront in the US. But oddly enough not "dying soldiers in Iraq" because that's not an issue of dogma that the churches are concerning themselves with.

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Given the theory that a large body of people will choose more intelligent candidates, I can only assume that this is more evidence of "tyranny by the minority" in the US.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with this statement. I believe the truth is quite the opposite. Mobs make stupid decisions. Lowering the decision making process to the lowest common denominator is a recipe for blunder. Why on earth would the quality of an idea (or elected official even) improve by increasing the number of those asserting it? The validity of an idea cannot be judged based on the number of its adherents. If this were not true there'd never have been a SETI of any form in the first place.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

If you can convince a religious group that you're doing something in favor of their religion they can organize for you and vote for you too.

Why does the 2004 election come to mind?

Hmm, 'Abortions', 'gay marriages', 'faith based'...

Yes, 'christians' have been duped...

because that's not an issue of dogma that the churches are concerning themselves with.

No, it's because they have been brainwashed into believing that Muslims are their enemy... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

I couldn't disagree more strongly with this statement. I believe the truth is quite the opposite. Mobs make stupid decisions. Lowering the decision making process to the lowest common denominator is a recipe for blunder. Why on earth would the quality of an idea (or elected official even) improve by increasing the number of those asserting it? The validity of an idea cannot be judged based on the number of its adherents. If this were not true there'd never have been a SETI of any form in the first place.

Obviously you didn't read my entire post.

I'm saying that the reason why you see religious issues, such as "intelligent design", enter American politics is because the low voter turnout makes appealing to small-but-cohesive religious groups, i.e. church groups, a viable tactic.

In other words, Americans aren't getting the intelligent choices that a full participatory democracy should make because the sampling numbers in their elections are unrepresentative of the general population.

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Maybe they could just try to reconcile what the Bible says and science. They still don't have the original manuscript of the Bible, so I understand. God said He created heaven and earth in six says. Maybe the first day took a billion years. They could study what they've dug up at Noah's Ark. If two guys or girls want to get together and have sex, let 'em!! I dont care. I hope they enjoy it. I hope they don't propagate disease, though, but heterosexual activity does that, too. Maybe they could minimize abortion by planning. So, did a cow metamorphose into a dolphin? If so, how? What atoms changed?, what genes? How did the changes pass on to offspring? I think, to protect the environment, the people that do, shouldn't have so many goddamn children nor have them so young. Their superstitious elders (who think that anything that even most slightly resembles a human, such as a tree marking or condensation pattern on a window, has to be the face of the one and only Jesus Christ) think it's so blessed to have a dozen children. Well, it's harmful for those children because it's hard to take care of so many, and it's destructive to the environment because trees have to be cut down, etc.

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I think the bible was given to us by the aliens. I did a report on it in High School many many moons ago. There's an interesting book on the subject. The idea of the arc ---> seeding another planet.

I'm getting the feeling that, as humans, we need to get off the planet and live completely in space and let evolution create the next "intelligent" creature to dominate. It's unlikely that another creature will develop like we did until they can reach a certain level of population. Eventually, we might screw up our reproductive ability and kill ourselves off on earth. But if we can move man to space, we could allow another species to evolve properly. Then we can give them the bible. OK, that statement just made me sick but it might help early evolution in ways we don't yet understand but the aliens do.

And Human lived to be five hundred sixty and seven years and begot gorilla.
Gorilla killed his wife and was condemned to eternal darkness.
Human lived to be six hundred ninty and four years and begot chimpanzee.
Human lived to be seven hundred forty and three and he died.

Maybe we could outlive methuselah.

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TEAM
LL

I think the bible was given to us by the aliens.

Oddly enough... I've spent many of days pondering over this myself:

Did the Holy Books come to us directly from God? Did aliens leave us the Holy Books? Did aliens write the Holy Books? Did God give the aliens the Holy Books?

But my conclusion has always been the same:

Whoever wrote the Holy Books, they were much more intelligent and much more wise than myself or anyone else that I have ever met, and that I would do well to follow what they had to say... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Whoever wrote the Holy Books, they were much more intelligent and much more wise than myself or anyone else that I have ever met, and that I would do well to follow what they had to say... ;)

I don't think that about myself, in any way.

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TEAM
LL

An offshoot of the Anthropic Principle has always interested me. Apparently the ID proponents have never noticed it.

It concerns human intelligence and goes something like this: why have humans evolved to become aware of the universe on a scale ranging from quarks to the large scale galactic structure? We don't need this knowledge to thrive - we're already far into the top 1 percent of the biggest, fastest, strongest and meanest creatures on the planet. On top of that, we're omnivores and like most other primates, we run in gangs (so much for lions, tigers, bears and anything else we want to dominate).

Given these tremendous advantages over other life forms we would still likely be Earth's dominant species if we had no more intelligence than cats. So why have we developed intelligence that goes far beyond the need for day-to-day living? This has been used to point to the existence of a creator (...in his own image, etc.). I'm not buying it, but it's not a bad argument.

Yes, we don't need knowledge of complex mathematics for survival, or to know how to create a Mozart symphony. All these seem superfluous to our needs when it comes to survival of the fittest. What we seem to have is a 'runaway effect' in development of the human intelligence. But a runaway effect is all it may turn out to be.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.