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Dumbing Down Of America, 2
Topic Started: May 12 2006, 11:46 AM (5,626 Views)
cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Interesting piece on Georges Lemaître who was not only a mathematician and physicist--"Father of the Big Bang theory" who derive the Hubble constant and argued with Einstein for the cosmological constant--but a Catholic priest: The Creation Myth.

Some highlights of his own words:
Quote:
 
As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in non-singular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God... it is consonant with the wording of Isaiah speaking of the "Hidden God", hidden even in the beginning of creation.... Science has not to surrender in face of the Universe and when Pascal tries to infer the existence of God from the supposed infinitude of Nature, we may think that he is looking in the wrong direction.


And
Quote:
 
The writers of the Bible were illuminated more or less -- some more than others -- on the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or as ignorant as their generation. Hence it is utterly unimportant that errors of historic or scientific fact should be found in the Bible, especially if errors relate to events that were not directly observed by those who wrote about them.

The idea that because they were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all.


The author concludes: "Lemaître indeed would not ever have allowed a term like creation to be used credibly in a scientific paper. By its very nature, the word describes something that is empirically unverifiable -- how, in principle, could any experiment or theoretical quantification be made of an act or process (for want of a better term) that by definition precedes all things, including time, space and matter? Lemaître never made this mistake."
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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teryt
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DocInBird
Jun 21 2006, 07:37 PM
Chris said:
Everything you know is wrong! Heard that somewhere.


LOL. It was the title of a Firesign Theater album.

Great shades of Pordgy Tirebiter!
My Boast is Christ :pray:
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Doc, found this. Someone said befire Fireside.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
--Buddha (536 B.C.-483 B.C.)
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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ngc1514
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teryt
Jun 20 2006, 11:24 PM
I'm just waiting for ID researchers to see if they can formulate their studies into something that the metaphysicals can more readily accept. (Then again, IDers are waiting for the evolutionists missing link.)

(Too bad about Neanderthal DNA not matching up with human DNA, because that would have shown something in the missing link area. But Neanderthals being a seperate species actually goes towards the Gap Theory.)

"Their studies...?" What studies? The refusal to be nailed down on a strict definition of "irreducilble complexity" shows the non-scientific nature of ID. No one attempted to answer this the last time I asked it, but I'll throw it out one more time. Why are the tiny bones of the middle ear - mallus, incus and stapes - not used as examples of irreducible complexity? By what SCIENTIFIC definition are the flagella of rotifers decided to be irreducilby complex, but the ossicles of the middle ear not?

"Missing link" is such an unscientific term. Are you talking about intermediate or transitional forms? One of the most basic lessons learned in evolution is that ALL forms are transitional forms. Species evolve as the allele frequency of the genes changes.

There was nothing odd about Neanderthal DNA not matching human DNA - no more odd than human DNA not matching chimp DNA. All the sequencing shows what that the branching between species occured futher back in time that some scientists thought. Neadnerthal was not a transitional or intermediate form from our proto-human ancestors to modern man, but just one of what will probably turn out to be a number of evolutionary dead ends.

ID is left with the unenviable position of having to show why the DNA of Neanderthal and human had any matching at all. Oh.. because god made it like that.

Right.

Posted ImageEric
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teryt
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As my dad would say (as I evolved from him), "This is like talking to a stump." (of course, the stump be me. of course)

Forgive me, I need my morning coffee, and to get ready to go camp in the woods. Things will evolve from there :coffee:
My Boast is Christ :pray:
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Are you preparing for a stump speach? ;)
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
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teryt
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I dunno, I'm stumped! :dunno:
My Boast is Christ :pray:
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Do you recall the stump Starrett and Shane uprooted? Tree of knowledge? Tree of life? Or just the evolution of the West?
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
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ngc1514
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teryt
Jun 24 2006, 12:06 PM
As my dad would say (as I evolved from him), "This is like talking to a stump." (of course, the stump be me. of course)

Forgive me, I need my morning coffee, and to get ready to go camp in the woods. Things will evolve from there :coffee:

It would be less like talking to a stump if you were willing to talk in specifics rather than generalities. Science is all about details and how those details make a picture of the world in which we live.

One of these details are the above-mentioned ossicles and the inability to show why they are not irreducibly complex while flagella are. This is fascinating stuff and ignoring it does nothing to support your position that this form of creationism should be admitted into the science classroom.

Do the basic research, formulate a real scientific theory that is subject to testing and falsification and you'll have something that is science rather than just snarfling about "viewpoints."





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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
The ID Movement, and it is a movement not a theory, is not just not science, it is anti-science.

Example? Increasing evidence for intelligent design theory
Quote:
 
...I can understand why people would shoot down an emerging theory that challenges decades of scientific consensus, especially one that permits the supernatural and unobservable.

But people need to understand there is a slowly increasing amount of evidence in support of intelligent design, and it won't be going away anytime soon.

Because evolution theory became institutionalized, most scientists look at data only through Charles Darwin's glasses — even if other theories would fit the new data just as well.

One theory says a certain fossil is a transitional species, while another theory says it's an extinct platypus-like creature. Darwinists have shown their bias by jumping the gun on new discoveries.

In 1922, scientists claimed they found the remains of a missing link between humans and apes that has become known as the Nebraska Man.

But all they had really found was a tooth — that was later discovered to belong to a pig....


But wait a minute, not so fast. Where was this claimed increasing evidence for ID? Why, there was none mentioned to substantiate that vacuous claim. What we have is merely another attack on science.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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ngc1514
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cmoehle
Jun 25 2006, 10:02 AM
Quote:
 
In 1922, scientists claimed they found the remains of a missing link between humans and apes that has become known as the Nebraska Man.

But all they had really found was a tooth — that was later discovered to belong to a pig....


But wait a minute, not so fast. Where was this claimed increasing evidence for ID? Why, there was none mentioned to substantiate that vacuous claim. What we have is merely another attack on science.

I love it when non-scientific types point to such errors as an effort to point out the deficiencies of science!

What they don't understand is that this is not a failing of science, but an affirmation of its self-correcting nature.

Scientists are, above all else, humans with the same foibles and failings inherent to the rest of us'n people. Yes, people - even scientists - make blunders and mistakes.

Even more telling are the mistakes of the IDers who, so anxious to show evolution to be wrong, tell lies and half-truths. The Nebraska Man is a prime example. A quote from Henry Osborn - the scientist to whom the tooth was sent:

Quote:
 
"I have not stated that Hesperopithecus was either an Ape-man or in the direct line of human ancestry, because I consider it quite possible that we may discover anthropoid apes (Simiidae) with teeth closely imitating those of man (Hominidae), ..."

"Until we secure more of the dentition, or parts of the skull or of the skeleton, we cannot be certain whether Hesperopithecus is a member of the Simiidae or of the Hominidae." (Osborn 1922)


Did he claim this to be a "missing link?" His error was in claiming that it might have been a primate tooth of uncertain genera or species. This is a far cry from claiming it to be a missing link as the creationists claim.

The talkorigins FAQ is a great place to dig up (chortle) such information and the FAQ on Nebraska Man finishes up with:

Quote:
 
Nebraska Man should not be considered an embarrassment to science. The scientists involved were mistaken, and somewhat incautious, but not dishonest. The whole episode was actually an excellent example of the scientific process working at its best. Given a problematic identification, scientists investigated further, found data which falsified their earlier ideas, and promptly abandoned them (a marked contrast to the creationist approach).


Infallibility is a claim of the religionists and not the scientists.

And you are correct that showing errors in evolution does nothing to support creationism. Other than claiming "God did it that way,' creationism offers no answers.





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