You know, mgad, you are obviously an intelligent and spiritual person and I actually agree with most of what you have said on this thread but this really feels like "sideways evangelism": a sort of passive /aggressive missionary work...please stop it.mgad wrote:Oh it's so easy to be free today. God help us value what we have been given, an consider the consequences of self-interest rather than brotherly love. For this I believe we need God's help because I for one know my own selfishness, and how much harm it can do.
beating bible-ers
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
There is a fundamental problem that drives me nuts whenever people 'discuss' evolution and creationism. And it stems from the intent of the two disciplines the ideas stem from.
One can define science as a methodology for making sense of the world around us.
One can define religion as a description of the world around us.
There is a big difference between the two. Science is a process, religion is a statement. There are no truths in Science, there are only truths in religion.
However, like mgads ontological thought expirement in his backyard, science attempts to create thought models that are integrated into a unified system of understanding. What do we know (and by know we don't mean truth, we mean good enough assumption that we are willing to trust it) and what else can that show us.
The integration provides a lot of power. Becuase we think A adequitely explains B we can use B to explore C and D. But there is the possibility that A is wrong and sometimes A changes. This is what is know to historians of science as a paradigm shift. It often represents a new better model of explanation of the natural world replacing a less accurate one. This is not sciences weakness but it's strength. It can grow and more accurately encompass the world around it.
What it can not do is provide absolute truth.
So the reason why scientists don't feel there is a place for creationism in science class is becuase it does not integrate into the rest of the body of knowledge. Evolutionary theorey makes sense with the given assumptions and allows for all sorts of other things to be explained. short term evolutionary process's have been witnessed. fossil records make sense, adaptations in different environments make sense. you can build computer models that mimic evolutionary patterns that have other applications.
Adding for the possiblity of creationism would be like teaching a class on how to play baseball and adding one lesson about how to throw a football. It doesn't make sense.
Science is not even trying to say evolution is an absolute truth, it is trying to say it is the best fitting model we have come up with to explain our observations about where we(as animals not souls) came from. By that logic it also implies that creationism is not the best fitting model to explain where we came from. And it isn't.
However, it might be an absolute truth. But teach that in religion class not science class.
One can define science as a methodology for making sense of the world around us.
One can define religion as a description of the world around us.
There is a big difference between the two. Science is a process, religion is a statement. There are no truths in Science, there are only truths in religion.
However, like mgads ontological thought expirement in his backyard, science attempts to create thought models that are integrated into a unified system of understanding. What do we know (and by know we don't mean truth, we mean good enough assumption that we are willing to trust it) and what else can that show us.
The integration provides a lot of power. Becuase we think A adequitely explains B we can use B to explore C and D. But there is the possibility that A is wrong and sometimes A changes. This is what is know to historians of science as a paradigm shift. It often represents a new better model of explanation of the natural world replacing a less accurate one. This is not sciences weakness but it's strength. It can grow and more accurately encompass the world around it.
What it can not do is provide absolute truth.
So the reason why scientists don't feel there is a place for creationism in science class is becuase it does not integrate into the rest of the body of knowledge. Evolutionary theorey makes sense with the given assumptions and allows for all sorts of other things to be explained. short term evolutionary process's have been witnessed. fossil records make sense, adaptations in different environments make sense. you can build computer models that mimic evolutionary patterns that have other applications.
Adding for the possiblity of creationism would be like teaching a class on how to play baseball and adding one lesson about how to throw a football. It doesn't make sense.
Science is not even trying to say evolution is an absolute truth, it is trying to say it is the best fitting model we have come up with to explain our observations about where we(as animals not souls) came from. By that logic it also implies that creationism is not the best fitting model to explain where we came from. And it isn't.
However, it might be an absolute truth. But teach that in religion class not science class.
Back from the Dead!
A hypothesis is just an idea or a statement about something. Some hypotheses are better than others because some are more easily testable. Most scientists consider the creation hypothesis a poor one because it is difficult to test and seems unlikely given the millions of experiements that support an alternative hypothesis. The hypothesis that Santa Clause lives somewhere up north is hard to test also. It seems unlikely but no one has searched every square inch up north to verify this.
No worries. We need 2 sides for a good argument. the scientific community put up a good argument but they used lots of big words and lost me. You Restated everything I been taught so I'm putting the score at 1 to 1 so far. Next inning....
"Everyone should have a plan for the zombie apocolipse" Courtney