beating bible-ers
Man, I'm glad Merrick beat me to most of the hard work. While a lot of the US population treats science as a kind of religion, it isn't. The simple fact is that science is a set of mathematical/logical systems that attempt to model the world around us. A bouncing ball does not 'follow the laws of science', rather science attempts to create a set of rules that as accurately as possible model what a bouncing ball can be expected to do. (And thanks to 'chaos theory', science actually knows a fair amount about how much it CAN'T model/predict the behavior of the bouncing ball.)
Listen, regarding the teaching of Creationism or it's proxy "Intelligent Creator Theory" in a Public School science class: it's just the wrong place to do it. ICT simply isn't science - it fails two important tests: it can't be disproven and it isn't useful. You can't disprove that there is an intelligent, omnipotent being driving the emergence of the world as we see it today (and carefully covering it's tracks as it goes) and you can't disprove the existence of unicorns. As such, neither are science. Along the same lines, you can't make use of ICT: so what if there is an IC driving the emergence of species? What the %&!@* do I do with that information? Amazingly, Darwin's observations of life forms and his speculations about what was happening have proven to be amazingly useful: our farms are wildly more productive thanks to our more sophisticated understanding of breeding for specific traits, we figured out that DNA exists and is the (pimary) carrier of information from one generation to the next, and with that understanding we can cure diseases. Darwin's work has proven to be immensely useable and useful. It it has been the foundation for all of biology, medicine and agricultural sciences. The same can't be said for ICT - it's simply a dead end.
Frankly, I would love it if science teachers used this whole political kerfuffle as a teaching opportunity. "Evolution is a theory"? Hell Yeah it is! In an ideal world, every kid coming out of high school would be able to explain what the difference is between a 'scientific theory' and a 'scientific law', would be able to explain why ICT simply isn't science. Please note, though, that I don't want every kid to come out of high school believing that there is/are no God/s or that religious texts like Genesis are 'bunk' - rather I hope that they would understand that science is just a separate field from religion.
Listen, regarding the teaching of Creationism or it's proxy "Intelligent Creator Theory" in a Public School science class: it's just the wrong place to do it. ICT simply isn't science - it fails two important tests: it can't be disproven and it isn't useful. You can't disprove that there is an intelligent, omnipotent being driving the emergence of the world as we see it today (and carefully covering it's tracks as it goes) and you can't disprove the existence of unicorns. As such, neither are science. Along the same lines, you can't make use of ICT: so what if there is an IC driving the emergence of species? What the %&!@* do I do with that information? Amazingly, Darwin's observations of life forms and his speculations about what was happening have proven to be amazingly useful: our farms are wildly more productive thanks to our more sophisticated understanding of breeding for specific traits, we figured out that DNA exists and is the (pimary) carrier of information from one generation to the next, and with that understanding we can cure diseases. Darwin's work has proven to be immensely useable and useful. It it has been the foundation for all of biology, medicine and agricultural sciences. The same can't be said for ICT - it's simply a dead end.
Frankly, I would love it if science teachers used this whole political kerfuffle as a teaching opportunity. "Evolution is a theory"? Hell Yeah it is! In an ideal world, every kid coming out of high school would be able to explain what the difference is between a 'scientific theory' and a 'scientific law', would be able to explain why ICT simply isn't science. Please note, though, that I don't want every kid to come out of high school believing that there is/are no God/s or that religious texts like Genesis are 'bunk' - rather I hope that they would understand that science is just a separate field from religion.
Bacon is meat candy.
Dear Mike I wold appreciate it if you would not fold your tents and leave the field. I learned alot and enjoyed it.mgad wrote:Then I guess Plato was ignorant in his method of thinking. He believed that he had arrived at what seemed to him to be logical proofs of the existence of a Supreme intelligence.
Folks, I will exit this conversation. I have opened my mouth often and enough. I'm also sure that in doing so I have not been void of vanity. Thank you all for what you have offered. I have learned some things. I appreciate the opportunity to share. God help me shut up for a while now.
Mike
If I was too strong on my criticism of evangelism on this board It may be my issue and old trauma form who knows what.
I try to be a good man but all that comes
of trying is I feel more guilty.
Ikkyu
of trying is I feel more guilty.
Ikkyu
I guess what I am trying to say is this isn't an either/or proposition. I think that is what I got from merrick earlier.
Science is good as far as it goes but it doesn't explain everything and it sounds to me like it doesn't purport to.
Religion, or,, for me, Spirituality ,leaves room for a direct personal experience that leads to Wisdom. The road to that awkening can be subjected to scinetific inquiry but ultimately it is personal direct knowing that transcends rational thought.
Science is good as far as it goes but it doesn't explain everything and it sounds to me like it doesn't purport to.
Religion, or,, for me, Spirituality ,leaves room for a direct personal experience that leads to Wisdom. The road to that awkening can be subjected to scinetific inquiry but ultimately it is personal direct knowing that transcends rational thought.
I try to be a good man but all that comes
of trying is I feel more guilty.
Ikkyu
of trying is I feel more guilty.
Ikkyu
I remember seeing this as a kid...
"God is dead"...signed Nietschze
"Nietschze is dead"...signed God
or i always wanted to put every single one of those fish symbols on my car to confuse the masses.... straight up christian fish, the darwin fish, the dead darwin, the darwin eating christian fish....etc
"God is dead"...signed Nietschze
"Nietschze is dead"...signed God
or i always wanted to put every single one of those fish symbols on my car to confuse the masses.... straight up christian fish, the darwin fish, the dead darwin, the darwin eating christian fish....etc
Positive vibes brah...positive vibes.
Even people who read a lot don't know the entire body of scientific knowledge that supports evolutionary theory, especially the average person pissed at their child's school. Second, a theory in scientific terms IS NOT what people think of as a theory. A theory is supported by a large collection of data collected through many repeated trials by differing scientists. Next, a hole in science is not a reason to discredit science. I remember a kid in school using the fact that science couldn't explain how bumblebees fly to "prove" there was a god and that science was limited. Well, science solved the question. Yes, there are gaps in many areas of science. The great part is anyone is able to fill the holes and anyone else with data can disprove anything that is studied. Yes, data is flawed, people make mistakes, but so did the early pioneers of airflight and most people believe in the science of heavy planes flying through the air defying gravity. What astounds me is people love science when it diagnoses a disease ie. MRI's or helps enrich their life, ie glasses, contacts, air conditioning, etc. Now, why are those scientists capable of doing their job but the scientists that study paleontology, geology, and archaelogy a group of bumbling idiots? If you don't like the science, that is your problem to work out in your faith. Even better, fund scientists who research in the areas you want funded. The more people who work on a problem the more we will know, no matter what the scientists believe.
The theory of evolution is just as stupid as the theories of gravity and electromagnetism.
