US school's new challenge to Darwin

As J-Pepper said this is an acknowledged problem, there was a pertinent editorial piece in a recent NewScientist online version (need to subscribe to read it all).
A quote out of it

So i will put it to you how is the claim that the world is like it is, was because some all powerful creator made it that way, testable, or falsifiable?

Religion is a belief in something outside of our terms of reference, it should stop pretending to be science.

 

Nexxo, what can I say, but you, kickarse and oysters having the same eye origins is a pearler of a suggestion.

Now don't go and misconstrue that into just any glazed eyeball look.

The perishers would have a field day with this one!!!!

 

Again, evidence or proof is only relative if those that you are trying to show it to be such accept it.

Science can be considered a belief system of sorts. Just a different way to come to a conclusion. Basically I look at it this way, science and religion have a product, I guess you could say, science get evidence from the ground up to come to a conclusion of why, while religion has the conlusion and goes to gather evidence to support. Think this has been said. But the simplicity is that neither is a wrong way to explain a certain product. Just different.

I think neither should be taught in school since neither can be proven without doubt.

 

erm...

 

Right we get that. But the point you made is that the book of genesis is from some just logical conclusion. While it's more in depth then is possible from just looking at things "unscientifically".

And this is another thing that separates the true christians from those that claim to be such.

Evolution is such a broad term that the explaination of it becomes very muddied with unexplained and underemphasised points that collide. Certainly genes mutate but this hasn't come to show that the species itself changes completely over time. Perhaps mostly to adapt to climate or food conditions. Essentially though there are many things that we ourselves possess that has reason behind it and is not there truly there for survival, as evolution claims.

 

I'm sure you have a thought... just spill it...

 

OK, here's what J-Pepper is getting about:

And FredsFriend explains why:

A Scientific theory is a logically coherent and predictive system that has been tested against experiment or observation. It explains observable phenomena and makes falsifiable predictions about them.

Scientific theory can be proved wrong. In fact, that is how it works: we do not accept a theory to be "true", until it has resisted all attempts to disprove it, and you can actually use it to reliably predict what happens next.

This bit is important. Creationism, as you say, starts at the conclusion and tries to find the evidence to support it. Of course it will find it! Scientists all know that generally one will find what one looks for. That phenomenon even has a name: the Rosenthal effect. It is the tendency for results to conform to experimenters' expectations unless stringent safeguards are instituted to minimize human bias (named after Robert Rosenthal, who performed many of the original experiments revealing the problem). We interpret things within our framework of a priori beliefs and expectations.

Science's safeguard against that is not to look for confirming evidence of a theory, but for evidence to the contrary. We try to prove that the hypothesis is NOT true. If we can't, we know it must be.

Of course somewhere along the way, just when we are really comfortable with our scientific knowledge, someone comes along and does find a way to prove that the hypothesis is NOT true after all. Suddenly, we have to change a lot of our theory. But that's OK, because science is a process, not a product. The product only is useful as long as it allows us to explain what is happening, and make reliable predictions of what will happen next. As soon as it fails to do so, or something more useful comes along, we adapt the theory. Science is pragmatic, not dogmatic.

I just illustrated above how even a simple farmer or fisherman can apply logic and work out the sequence of creation. First you must have the sky and the Earth, right? And the sun. Nothing goes without the sun (as any farmer knows). And you have to have land and sea. Only then can you put life in and on it all. And people, right, people, we are not like all the other animals. We're special. We're more important. We were made in His image. We are the pinnacle, no, the purpose of creation. So He must have made us last of all. One man, one woman. It all started from there, right? Like when you start your family, of a flock of sheep with just one ram and one ewe... Logic, dude. Pure common sense logic.

No, it is a complex idea. People find it hard to understand. They think they do, like we here think we understand computers, because we're geeks and we built our own watercooled rig an' all. And then we talk to a guy who designs CPUs or motherboards for Intel and we realise we don't know jack, really... Genes mutate. Species change. Natural selection happens --we've seen it all happen even in the last century. But the way it goes about all that is far, far more complex than the basic ideas of Darwinism.

Many of our properties that are "not truly there for survival", once were. Our hair still stands on end when we're cold, even though we don't have fur anymore. But evolution works that way: if it gives you an advantage, you are more likely to survive and pass it on; if it gives you a disadvantage, you are more likely to die and take it with you to the grave; but if it makes no difference one way or the other, it is passed on also because that's heredity for you. It simply doesn't get filtered out, because there is no reason for it to get filtered out, and therefore, no mechanism. So we are full of "junk properties" and "junk DNA", that once had a purpose but doesn't really now. In fact, the suspicion is that most of our DNA is junk DNA, and that many mutations happen in there, to result in no difference whatsoever (because it generally doesn't do anything). Until one day by random chance it produces something useful (or harmful). Which then will seem to have appeared from nowhere.

Genetically, evolution is not a quest for "perfection". It is a process of random mutation that various complex mechanisms and rules excert an influence on. Our DNA is not purposefully composed from the ground up: it is code with many useful bits and changes and plug-ins bolted onto it along the way. We have legacy issues, so to speak. Metaphorically speaking (because we think that way ), We're stuck with IDE when we could have had SATA, because that's what we started out with, and any improvements or add-ons have to be based on that. Conversely we have natty things like RS-232 ports and Parallel ports, that are long since obsolete because we all use USB 2.0, but that are still passed onto our children, because they come included in the genetic package.

 

And as a postscript,

More details at the Beeb.

Don't think it will change anybody's views, but at least intelligent thinking has been demonstrated.

Well, that's one bit of evidence that confirmed I'm right in supporting Charlie's view...

 

Kinda ironic really, considering President Bush is the most solid evidence to date that we are descendant from the apes...

http://home.comcast.net/~tpodr/gwbushchimpanzee9iq.jpg

 

One bit left over (well two...) is my nipples. I don't need them, I can't use them, but as Nexxo said, they do neither harm nor good, so they stay.
So, if, we are/were/whatever - inteligently designed, why do I have them, as they serve no readily definable purpose. Oh, and Appendices (-ixes?)! Do we need those? People who have had them removed seem to do OK without them. I mean, they're worse than nipples - I certainly don't eat grass and I wouldn't really like it to do it's biological hand grenade thing on me.

Inteligently Designed?
Our genetic code has more cruft than the NEC.

- H.

 

Quite so. Nipples in males are a side-effect of the fact that all life started out based on a female template. Males are, so to speak, a mutation. In some species a temporary one (some oysters, fish, amphibians and lizards can switch gender more or less at will, depending on the gender balance of their local population), in some species, like ours, permanent. But life started out female. Masculinity was a useful trick that facilitated the sharing of useful inheritable traits. The nipples are legacy.

But it also enanced natural selection without risk to the procreating parent. Think about it: males may beat each others' brains in or experience selective pressure in other pysically tough ways while competing for the female, but that's OK because in most species all they need to do is survive long enough to impregnate the female. She, meanwhile stays physically safe and intact enough to give birth to, and raise offspring; all she has to do is be healthy and fertile (which makes her look sexually attractive). Thus the offspring has the best of both worlds: physical strength and endurance, and health and fertility.

Think of it as Windows software...

 

From the bible it explains that a woman was crafted from a man, basically. So then the design of man helped along the design of woman. Wouldn't it make sense that we basically have the same parts unlessed design differently? Also, who said that sex for humans should be as enjoyable as it is? I mean we don't need to enjoy it to procreate. The bible says that we were designed to fill the earth and subdue it. So what better way than to make sex enjoyable as the means to procreate?! heh...

 

The bible says two different things on this subject

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:7
the LORD God formed the man [e] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:22
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib [j] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.


So? Which is it? Did god create man and woman at the same time as in genesis 1, or was it man first, woman second, as in genesis 2?

And while we are on the subject, god needed man "to work the ground" with, unless you actualy are meaning the chapter which god created the man and woman at the same time (but then again, if you were doing that, you just invalidated your own arguement!).

Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Genesis 2:4
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth [c] and there was no man to work the ground.



I still find it funny that I seem to know more than most religious people about their own bible

 

OK, Malf, let's look at that.

Genesis 1:27, if you take it in context, is towards the end of the highly compressed, rather stylistic first chapter of Genesis. It's logical to say it all in one sentance. Genesis 2 gives a far more detailed account of the creation of Man. It's about the same length as Genesis 1, but only looks at the creation of Man, instead of the entire sequence of events in Creation. If you read in context, it's obvious that God created Adam first, and then Eve.

As for your second quotes, there's nothing there to say that God needed a man to work the ground. It simply says that at the time, there weren't any people around. That first section is an introduction to Chapter 2, in which a setting is established. It's nothing earth-shattering, nor is it a contradiction. Once again, reading in context is the key.

 

So, I'm just going to get this straight:

god is speaking (very very poorly, and so often misunderstood) to the poor sap who is writing genesis 1, says "OK, I created this, this, and this. But no details!" Yep, absolutely no details here. No possable way could they have gotten their own facts straight in a small enough space to fit.

Then, for some unknown reason, god decides to go back and repeat himself in this guy's next chapter, but add's in a few details that he "just so happened to leave out". Yeah, I'll admit, there are a lot more details here. Doesn't seem like a bigger story though, just an entirely different version of the same one.



Listen, don't tell me that one part of the bible is not literal, then turn around and say that the exact same chapter is literal when you are trying to formulate a "scientific" theory which is so full of holes and mal-research it's not even funny!

 

We evolved our enjoyment for sex as its a very handy way of making us do it more often, and the more often we do it the more times we pass on out genetic code (which is the key goal for all forms of life)

Concentrations of nerve endings in "certain" organs mean that we find sex pleasureable, the more nerves we have the more pleasureable it gets, so the more sex (on average) we have, therefore the people with more nerve endings pass on their genetic code more often creating a race of people who enjoy sex. Simple really

 

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A judge on Tuesday barred the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution at a Pennsylvania school, saying in a scathing rebuke to the school board that it violated a constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Jones dealt a blow to Christian conservatives who have been pressing for the teaching of creationism in schools and who played a significant role in the re-election of President George W. Bush

"Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school classroom," Jones wrote in a 139-page opinion in the case, brought against the Dover School District.

Jones condemned the "breathtaking inanity" of the policy of the board, all but one of whom have now been ousted by local voters. "Any asserted secular purposes by the Board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective," he said.


So there you go. Even the legal system agrees that this all is just silly religious non-sense.


Finally! Sanity!

 

Gee, thanks for the flames. In the interest of slowing Global Warming, I won't even dignify this with any more of a response than this: If irreducible complexity is so perposterous, "full of holes and mal-research", disprove it. You've said that science is all about disproving things. Please, be scientific.

 

Sorry it sounded like it did, but I wasn't flaming you (at all, period), I had figured you were being "devil's advocate" and I answered to the question in general, and broadened the arguement to a much wider audience than you.

Most people arguing for ID say that it is science, and quote genesis as being proof. Yet these same people will cite the exact same thing you did when the whole adam/eve bit is pointed out.

Again, I'm sorry I sounded as if I was flaming you, I didn't mean anything personaly against you.



Anyway, in answer to your question:

We are not talking about global warming (I don't know, maybe it's because I'm too tired, but I don't get why you've brought it up), but irreducible complexity is just silly.

If you are to believe that nothing can be reduced to simpler things (or more complex things over billions of years), then how does it happen on a daily basis all around us without any proof, evidence, or even hint of this "divine" intervention that would be required for ID?

I'm honestly not awake enough (nor do I have the time, as I've got to get to bed soon for work tomorrow) to continue this, so here, read this: http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html Very good read and covers most of it.

Here are a few good points from it:

Irreducible complexity, intelligent design's closest brush with biology, is marked by three ironies.

* IC is supposed to be important because it cannot evolve. But it can evolve, in the same ways that anything else does.
* Not one of the impressively complex biochemical systems said to be IC by IC/ID proponents has been shown to be in fact IC and several are known not to be. The known cases of IC are simpler and their evolution is understood.
* Although the subject is religiously motivated, proponents have focused on bacterial flagella as the last hope for a highly complex IC system. This has the unintended consequence of making The Designer (aka God) responsible for serious diseases.

 

I really think this all just comes down to the basic nature of philosophy...not the complexity of everyday life or our history.

I think it can be readily seen that our lives here on Earth are really just a fleck on a sea of unknown. Look up at the sky to gain the perspective of how small and unimportant the Earth is. Out of 6,000,000,000+ people on the Earth, each one of our lives here on the Bit-Tech forum really makes no difference to everyone as a whole. Someone could disappear and no one would notice or care. I think life is unfortunately like that.

Imagine being on your deathbed reflecting on your life and wondering what everything meant. What was your purpose in life? Are you just going to die? Your soul to disappear with the last electrical pulse from your nervous system and your body to recycle into the earth?

Accepting evolution is admitting the cold harsh reality of life. Admitting that your life really has no meaning besides those around you. It may be easy to accept life being so harsh when you are in your health and life seems limitless...but death always comes and eventually you'll have to really question the meaning of your life and your purpose here. I think this is why religion has become so prevalent in our society. Even if nature is hinting to us that life is without meaning, its the tenacity of life that fights to survive and to put a value on ourselves and our loved ones.

I really think you have to been comfortable with yourself and your life to truly accept evolution and the burden it carries. It's not always a matter of what's right logically. I don't expect anyone's mind to change...or anyone to read this for that matter...but it did help me realize my perspective on this issue.