Sept. 26: FSM Comic Day

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:42 am

I haven't really entered this discussion because it's probably obvioius where I stand, but I'll throw my voice in now...

Any hypothesis that is accepted as fact in the absence of evidence, or is accepted as fact despite evidence to the contrary, is not science.

Intelligent Design requires us to accept on faith that a higher power created, or had a hand in creating, some of the complex systems that makes life as we know it possible. Disregarding the question of religion as a whole, the arguement can come down to this:

Intelligent Design requires us to accept a higher power's hand in the creation of life. This is in absence of evidence. Without evidence, this hypothesis fails to meet the requirements for science.

Further, if a higher power did have a hand at creating the complex systems required for life, there is a very basic tenant in science:

Whatever can be done artifically, can be done naturally.

Not only has this tenant been observed repeatedly, it's been tested extensively. It's as much fact as fact can be. That means, any higher power who did create complex life, did so using the existing laws of physics, and thus it could happen without the hand of a higher power.

Meaning... people who accept Intelligent Design do so for a single reason only - it makes them feel good about the way the world works. And while I applaud people for feeling comforatable in the world they live in, that comfort does not equate to good science.

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:07 am

Evolution IS provable though. We can clearly observe that organisms pass their traits to their offspring. Just look at all the kids who have facial features similar to their parents' features. The underlying concept is that the organisms that are the most suited to survive in the environment will reproduce and spread their desirable traits to their offspring while the organisms not suited for the environment starve and don't pass their traits.

An example of this would be: say that due to whatever reason there's an overpopulation of a small herbivore animal, animal A. Then there's animal B which is also an herbivore that varies from the same size as animal A to higher. The small animal Bs would dwindle because the animal As would eat all the low plants. The tall animal Bs would survive because they can eat the higher up plants that the As can't get to. So the Bs with the tall gene pass it to the offspring. Since the tallest Bs would eat the most and be the biggest and strongest they would dominate the others and reproduce the most. So eventually all the Bs would be tall. That's evolution. (hope that made sense)

I don't want to lecture you on what evolution is since I assume you already understand what it is but I'm just showing that evolution is based on observable phenomenon that can be scientifically studied and analyzed. It's science, and it's the most scientifically sound theory we have to explain the origins of life.

It's up to the church and the child's parents to teach them religious beliefs. It's not right to force everyone to pay money to teach children religious dogma. Plus, I feel teaching creationism would be a waste of time that would be better spent on actual science.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:32 am

LibertyCabbage wrote:Evolution IS provable though.

Uhm... I not only never said it wasn't, but throughly agree with you? Or are you replying to someone else?

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:33 am

Also, I could be mistaken, but evolution is not a theory for how life arose in the first place. It is how life continued, changed, and adapted AFTER it was created or sprang up or whatever.

Many people who accept evolution only do so partly; they accept micro-evolution, changes within a species yet they don't accept macroevolution. This just always confused me since macro- is just the result of micro- over a longer period of time to the point that speciation occurs

.

Ryan, I think he was responding to CW.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:36 am

I did not say "Survival of the fittest doesn't exist", or even that evolution as a mechinism doesn't exist. If I did imply that I meant that, I'm sorry. That's my fault for not being clear.

I meant that as a genesis, evolution is improbable because it requires something that did not exist before, in any form (life) to suddently exist. For life to come from non-life. It's an event that is not observeable in modern nature--life has been observed to only come from life.

I also argue that if the odds of abiogenesis (spontanious life from non-life) are small--and I think they have to be, for an event that is not observed in modern nature to occor once and only once--then could it not be likely that God did it? Could it happen naturally? Yes. Did it? Don't know. Has it since? Probably not.

Note: I do not have the odds for abiogenesis. I'm doing a search to find it, though it'll probably be too late to have anything to do with this particular arguement. I did, however, find <a href=http://www.answers.com/topic/abiogenesis> This page</a> that had an interesting arguement I'll throw in for the sake of throwing it in.

It's from a man named Yockey. According to the artical, he's highly critical of creationists and is not a creationist himself:

[quote] Although at the beginning the paradigm was worth consideration, now the entire effort in the primeval soup paradigm is self-deception on the ideology of its champions.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:46 am

christwriter wrote:
I meant that as a genesis, evolution is improbable because it requires something that did not exist before, in any form (life) to suddently exist. For life to come from non-life. It's an event that is not observeable in modern nature--life has been observed to only come from life.

Just a side note. Life has come from non-life. That event has been recreated in the lab. Scientists have created, from scratch, viruses that function, by building their protein coat and then creating their dna one piece at a time.

Additionally, some cell functionality has been proven both in chaotically generated lipid-coated bubbles and in porous rocks whose pores are lipid coated. The lipids themselves in both cases were self assembled. Both were under lab conditions, but again whatever we can do, nature can do, probably better.

Both are close to proof of concept. I'd argue the creation of a virus is absolute proof of concept, but there's some debate about whether viruses are technically alive or not.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:53 am

Well, I've also just read--like five minutes ago--that the abiogenesis theory is not for modern lifeforms but for life forms of lesser complexity (the web search for the probability of abiogenesis turned 'em up. Same seven pages that also said that calculating the probability is a waste of time. Abandoned the search because the science pages I read refused to offer a calculation and getting an easily refuted total would do no one good)

I would, however, ask if the exparament was to prove that viruses could be created from scratch, or for something else. If the exparament was biased for the creation of an organism from scratch, it could have effected the outcome. I did hear of one exparament that did make proteans--without the addition of oxygen, as it broke the proteans down, and the proteans had to be removed from the exparament immedately because they were more likely to bond with the byproducts of the exparament than they were with each other.

CW

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:03 am

christwriter wrote:Well, I've also just read--like five minutes ago--that the abiogenesis theory is not for modern lifeforms but for life forms of lesser complexity (the web search for the probability of abiogenesis turned 'em up. Same seven pages that also said that calculating the probability is a waste of time. Abandoned the search because the science pages I read refused to offer a calculation and getting an easily refuted total would do no one good)

I would, however, ask if the exparament was to prove that viruses could be created from scratch, or for something else. If the exparament was biased for the creation of an organism from scratch, it could have effected the outcome. I did hear of one exparament that did make proteans--without the addition of oxygen, as it broke the proteans down, and the proteans had to be removed from the exparament immedately because they were more likely to bond with the byproducts of the exparament than they were with each other.

CW

Well yeah. You aren't going to self-assemble a human. We're talking about the simplest of life forms. But, according to evolutionary theory, life evolved from the simplest forms. We're discussing beginnings here.

The experiment was geared towards the creation of a functioning, living virus. The goal of the experiment cannot logically bias the experiment though - if it could, then no experiment could ever be free from bias.

For the protean experiment you mention (although I haven't read the literature) you have to realize that oxygen is not a prerequsite for life; to consider the removal of oxygen to be a bias is misleading because in our experience as humans, "Removing oxygen" equates to death. There are untold numbers of organisms to which oxygen is fatal.

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:39 am

Yeah, Ryan, my post was in response to CW. I was typing it when you posted yours.

I don't know and I don't claim to know how the first simple organisms originated but I'm comfortable with that. Science can still validate evolution even if it leaves the beginning of it blank (which would open to possibilities to creationism+evolution theories).

Basically, creationism guesses at how life started and science says, "We don't know." Creationism promotes its guess as superiority because it has an "answer" and science doesn't. But science also has a guess, abiogenesis, but science doesn't promote it because it doesn't have enough evidence that it's correct and science is okay with admitting that they don't know (at least for now.)

Alternatively, science can go on the offensive and say, "You still accept that there's a God even though you can't explain God's origins," which there hasn't been a solid answer to aside from "God has just always existed" which is still just a guess and completely independent of science. The theory that a god spontaneously appeared one day is equally valid because they're just guesses.

Again, bottom line: Evolution is science. Creationism is not. Keep religion out of science class.

Risky · Post by **Risky** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:08 am

As stated previously, I agree with ChristWriter. I'm not sure why CW appeared to then disagree with me.

Creation in science class: Some believe life started this way.

Evolution in science class: Fossil record, the galapagos islands, dinosaurs, endangered species, lab induced survival of the fittest (do you know how insulin is made?), radioactive decay (and by extension carbon dating), all of natural history, years of scientific research and analysis, years of theories and paradigms, the genetic code, mendel, phenotypic fallacies and true traceable traits, microcells, blue algae, etc etc etc etc.

1 takes a page, tops. The other could have entire semesters devoted to it, and if you had 4 different science classes (natural history, biology, chemistry, physics) you could teach part of it in each class and every time it would belong.

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:16 am

In my high school, they taught us that some believe in creationism, and that others believe in evolution. They basically told us what creationism was (God created everything) and then went in-depth with evolution, because that's what was required for us to be taught and was much more complex in nature.

We didn't get any of this Christian science or "intelligent design" bullshit. It's creationism. Calling it something else doesn't make it more of a science. And we didn't have people telling us that fossils were planted by God to fool us.

Oddly enough, I learned most about the different creation ideas in my social sciences courses in middle school, not in science class.

Risky · Post by **Risky** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:20 am

The Neko wrote:In my high school, they taught us that some believe in creationism, and that others believe in evolution. They basically told us what creationism was (God created everything) and then went in-depth with evolution, because that's what was required for us to be taught and was much more complex in nature.

We didn't get any of this Christian science or "intelligent design" bullshit. It's creationism. Calling it something else doesn't make it more of a science. And we didn't have people telling us that fossils were planted by God to fool us.

Oddly enough, I learned most about the different creation ideas in my social sciences courses in middle school, not in science class.

Same here. And dick about FSM. Actually, FSM is the name of my girlfriend's dorm block.

Wishmaster · Post by **Wishmaster** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:27 am

The Neko wrote:And we didn't have people telling us that fossils were planted by God to fool us.

That's because the fossil record is a satanic conspiracy to discredit religion!

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:34 am

Risky wrote:As stated previously, I agree with ChristWriter. I'm not sure why CW appeared to then disagree with me.

Creation in science class: Some believe life started this way.

Evolution in science class: Fossil record, the galapagos islands, dinosaurs, endangered species, lab induced survival of the fittest (do you know how insulin is made?), radioactive decay (and by extension carbon dating), all of natural history, years of scientific research and analysis, years of theories and paradigms, the genetic code, mendel, phenotypic fallacies and true traceable traits, microcells, blue algae, etc etc etc etc.

1 takes a page, tops. The other could have entire semesters devoted to it, and if you had 4 different science classes (natural history, biology, chemistry, physics) you could teach part of it in each class and every time it would belong.

Sorry if I gave you that impression (not sure how I did, but sorry anyway).

Edit: And I just realized it'd probably be best if I bowed out of the arguement now. We've reached the end of my scientific knowlege, and I probably have nothing more to add anyway. It's got all the potential to irritate me...and I like these arguements so much I'd probably waste the whole day on evolution instead of comicking.

That, and I know have to make time for paranoid Weather Channel watching. (Bad Rita. Bad. Go somewhere else!)

CW

RemusShepherd · Post by **RemusShepherd** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:49 am

LibertyCabbage wrote:Alternatively, science can go on the offensive . . .

The best way for science to go on the offensive is to define itself. I'm amazed at how many people have no idea what science is. In their minds, it's just a form of magic worked by men in white coats, and thus no more valid than preachers or new age crystal freaks.

Science is a process of discovering truth by performing experiments and predicting their results.

That's it. And that simple definition throws any creationist-like teachings out of the classroom. Nothing in creationism is arrived at via experiment, and no results in intelligent design can be predicted. Until the Rapture happens. Then I'd concede someone's prediction has come true.

If it isn't science, keep it out of the classroom. It's that simple.

But back on topic, can anyone really prove that Jesus is *not* the son of the flying spaghetti monster?

Czar · Post by **Czar** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:56 am

I'll try not to get involved into the argument on ID vs ToE, not because I don't believe in the latter, but because enough has been said on this already.[EDIT: Well I tried... Initially.]

What I want to take a poke at is what should be taught in school.
This is touched on in this thread, but not nearly enough.

CW wrote: 1. The only things that should be taught in schools are facts

No.
School should teach us facts, yes, but only as the most basic thing they teach us. The object of education is to create well formed individual who can add to society.
Therefore, values must be taught in school.
These values, however must be taught in a manner somewhat akin to a neutral perspective.
Good morals must be taught, respect must be taught, religion must be taught, but not just by stating that this is how you are expected to think, do and believe.
In the case of morals and respect, by in depth analysis. Why do we need these things? What are they? How does one practice this?
In the case of religion, I believe in what I have experienced myself: You need to be taught about the religion of your parents and your nation, what the beliefs are, what they stand for, how they are interpreted. But also how others believe, other religions.
It should also be considered important to teach why we believe.
However, this is not science. This is humaniora (engl translation: The Humanities, the arts: language, social sciences, religion, art, music).
Science is Math, Technology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and such.

At some points they intersect. Creationism is one example of this, but it is a false example of this.
Humaniora and science has a true intersection in geography. They have a true intersection in medicine (biology, chemistry, psychology etc), in economics (math and social studies, etc) and several other subjects. But not in creationism.
Creationism comes from the belief that God must have created Everything, but that evolution is not necessarily all that wrong a theory.
But it is approached the wrong way.

In Science class, when teaching biology, TEACH about Evolution. It is only a theory, yes. But it is the best we have.
When teaching Religion, TEACH about Genesis. It is a belief and as such it deserves mention (at the very least, you'll hear enough about it in church if you are so inclined).
The belief and the theory can co-exist, allow this as a possibility!

Regarding separation of church from state: Note that you do not TEACH religion, you TEACH ABOUT religion. Not just one, but many.

CW wrote: 2. If a factual explination for something does not exist and this something cannot be excluded from a cirriculum (I know, I know) then the most posible/most believed explinations should be included and presented to the student in such a way that the student is allowed to choose which one to trust.

Why YES! But in order to choose, one needs a solid ground. By all means, awaken a debate amongst the students. By all means, theach both views and have the students debate about which they believe in. But theach both and in the name of the fates do it right!

CW wrote: 3. Evolution does not have the facts to back up its claims.
4. Neither do religious creation theories

3. Hence it is a theory, scientifically, it has enough facts to be considered a good theory, the best we have scientifically from a neutral point of view.
4. Hence it is a faith. There are many of them, which one is the best can not be decided from a neutral point of view as there are NO facts to back them up.

CW wrote:5. The only bit of creation theory that should be included in a science book is that it is possible that a God started this whole mess off.

No, what should be in a science book is that there are some who believe that god cranked the engine of life to a good and solid start. Let textbooks on religion tell the rest of the story.

Now about the FSM. It makes me giggle. It's funny. But it's also stupid, it does not contribute much to solving the issue either way except that it states that there is a problem.

CW wrote: 6. Arguing about this isn't going to change anybody's mind at all, ever, peroid, the end, everybody should kiss, make up and go get drinks or something.

BRILLIANT IDEA! Drinks are on me everyone!
And yes, this is a bloody huge chunk of a post. Make my drink a double.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:16 am

christwriter wrote:Edit: And I just realized it'd probably be best if I bowed out of the arguement now. We've reached the end of my scientific knowlege, and I probably have nothing more to add anyway. It's got all the potential to irritate me...and I like these arguements so much I'd probably waste the whole day on evolution instead of comicking.

And again you show yourself mature beyond your years.

My own last .02 before I start ignoring the thread...

Creationism - a widely held belief by one of the major religions on Earth. This belief is NOT SCIENTIFIC. Ditto Intelligent Design, which is nothing more than Creationism with a twist of lime.

Evolution - Well grounded theory of how life came to be as it is today. Grounded in science. SCIENTIFIC.

Religion - Significant to well over 95% of the world population. Irresponsible to discard it for that reason. Equally irresponsible to teach it as science.

Science - Significant to well over 95% of the world population. Irresponsible to discard it for that reason. Equally irresponsible to use it to try to lend credence to a religious debate.

FSM - If the state legislature is going to ignore a petition signed by thousands of scientists, and ignore the pleas of 20 nobel prize winners, then the FSM probably won't make a difference. Still, anything's worth a shot. Intelligent discussion won't sway them. Sheer numbers of petitions from people smarter than they are won't sway them. Maybe insulting their intelligence will.

Peace out.

Black Sparrow · Post by **Black Sparrow** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:42 am

The Neko wrote:In my high school, they taught us that some believe in creationism, and that others believe in evolution. They basically told us what creationism was (God created everything) and then went in-depth with evolution, because that's what was required for us to be taught and was much more complex in nature.

We didn't get any of this Christian science or "intelligent design" bullshit. It's creationism. Calling it something else doesn't make it more of a science. And we didn't have people telling us that fossils were planted by God to fool us.

Oddly enough, I learned most about the different creation ideas in my social sciences courses in middle school, not in science class.

Not true for me. I remember, on the first day of 10th grade biology, my teacher wrote down a list of theories on the board. One was creationism, one was evolution, and there were a number of in-betweens ((aka Intelligent Design and the clockmaker theory)).

Then, he spent ten minutes stressing that evolution was just a theory, and it was up to us whether we really "believed" it or not.

Personally, I'm on the side of rkolter on this one ((mainly because I don't believe in a creator-god)), but I can understand where CW is getting her stuff. My parents are firm believers in Intelligent Design, and they have a way of presenting evidence that's hard to refute. If I were still a Christian, I'd believe in ID, too.

YarpsDat · Post by **YarpsDat** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:49 pm

christwriter wrote:[...] abiogenesis [...] Could it happen naturally? Yes. Did it? Don't know. Has it since? Probably not.

Oh. I can prove abiogenesis did happen, using three (EDIT: four) assumptions:
1) A life form finite in size is possible. (eg. an amoeba, a bacteria cell, or a whale, all are finite in size)
2) The tunneling effect known from quantum mechanics works. (ie- There's a small, but non-zero chance that a particle, an atom or a molecule will randomly change position)
3) Universe is infinite. (this one is debatable... but if you want to debate it, don't bother. I use it mostly for simplicity otherwise I'd need to crunch the numbers taking for example the vissible part of the universe, and some simple bacteria, and I'm too lazy.

)
EDIT (adding one more assumption. It's a common one and I forgot to explicitly mention that):
4) Universe is more or less uniformly filled with matter, as suggested by observation (ie. the galaxies and whatnot fill all the universe, and don't suddently end at some point. Of course this cannot be proven, but is a common assumption.)

-------------
Considering these assumptions true.
let's try to calculate a chance that our life form (ie. amoeba) will appear in a certain spot, during the next 5 seconds.
There's a non-zero chance that first atom will accidentally jump into alignemet, and a non-zero chance that another one will join... and so on.
Eventually we'll get a number, a non-zero number, with billions over billions of zeros in front, but still greater than zero.

Now, assuming the infinite universe, the experiment of "amoeba appearing in a certain spot" has been conducted infinite number of times.

And the laws of statistics dictate:
Infinite number of attempts * non zero chance= infinite amount of successes.

Hence, life can, and did appear, by pure chance countless times. (And at least an infinite amount of these happened on a water and resource rich planets orbiting nice stars not unlike our sun)

Now, a moment of silence for all the whales who had the misfortune of appearing 100 km over the surface of a planet.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:29 pm

But... but... the universe isn't infinite. It's not even infinitely old.