Freedom Of Religion?

[Aster Azul]

I saw a pamphlet on "Intelligent Falling" in one of my professor's offices a few weeks ago. Lemme dig it up...

http://www.geocities.com/intelligentfal ... lling.html

I think this sums up my view on Intelligent Design quite nicely.

(didn't want that to be at the bottom of the page)

[Mercury Hat]

Except macroevolution has been scientifically examined, documented and observed a number of times. The horse's fossil record is one of the most complete there is evolving from a small mammal with no hooves to the horse as it is today. Not to mention plants, bacteria, and other such life forms which reproduce at a faster rate have been observed speciating in the past century.

Macroevolution is just when enough changes occur so that part of one species branches off into its own species which is incapable, for whatever reason, of producing viable offspring with its predecessor. None of evolution is a theory for the origins of life, evolution is a theory for how species change, adapt, and continue based on pressures from their environment. Evolution doesn't care one way or the other whether a random assembly of inorganic material formed the first nucleic acids or if a divine being tapped the Earth, made life, and said it was good.

"Observed Instances of Speciation"
"Horse Evolution"

In fact, just browse around the Talk Origins site if you want to read more.

[Nyke]

None of evolution is a theory for the origins of life, evolution is a theory for how species change, adapt, and continue based on pressures from their environment.

Actual study of origins of life in scientific contexts is called "abiogenesis." Trying to declare that evolution is a theory for the origins of life is like trying to call this color red!

[Dr Legostar]

it should also be noted that evolution in no way claims that 'we descended from monkeys'

[Ahaugen]

it should also be noted that evolution in no way claims that 'we descended from monkeys'

but it sure is a great lie uesd to make the sheeple mad

*off topic*
it just started doing something nasty ... and i have to go to lab ... damnit!
*/end off topic*

[Rkolter]

In the book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking says this:

This quote is one of Steven's biggest blunders in his book; while he is absolutely correct, he clarifies the statement better in later editions. A theory has three basic requirements:

1) Any scientific theory must explain existing observations and experimental results.

2) Any scientific theory must explain future observations and experimental results.

3) The theory must be testable. That is, you must be able to design a scientific test or make scientific observations that could possibly lend credence to the theory, or that could possibly disprove a theory.

The leading theory must complete a fourth requirement:

4) The best theory will be one that meets the above criteria and is the simplest theory.

The problem with both ID and Macroevolution is no one can observe or test either theories. I don't agree with teaching Macroevolution as a science because who can know?

Ah, but this is not true.

Observational evidence is not always an observation of the effect in action. For example, if you came into a room, and on the table there was a puddle of milk, and a tipped glass, you would observe these things and reasonably predict that someone tipped a glass full of milk over on the table.

Likewise, by studying fossil evidence (see Mercury_Hat's comments for a wonderful example), we can show that macroevolution occurred. We did not see the horse through the generations, but we can see the remains of the horses and say 'these are similar' and show a pattern of change in the bones. For more modern animals, we can even show the pattern of change within DNA. This shows #1 and #2. It is possible to discover evidence that suggests evolution is wrong. For example, you could find a bacterium that is utterly incapable of experiencing any kind of evolution regardless fo what conditions you put it in. This is #3.

ID Theory does in fact meet the first and second criteria. You could say that all previous instances of evolution were the result of God. And you could say all future instances are also the result of God. However, this theory cannot be tested, nor disproved.

To test this theory, you would have to witness directly the higher power causing an effect. As thus far, all higher powers have chosen to remain invisible and undetectable by any scientific means, that will be difficult.

To disprove this theory, you would have to witness every single instance of evolution throughout the future of history and determine for a fact that they all, every last one, was not the result of a higher power.

That said, even if it was possible to verify ID theory, which is simpler - that evolution exists as the result of a process, or that evolution exists as a process AND GOD?

And since it generally conflicts with most religions, faiths and belief of God in general, isn't it a form of religion anyway?

No, I'm afraid not. Conflict with religion does not itself cause a religion to exist. Also, the conflict only exists amongst the Christian faith; Muslims for example, do not suggest based on their faith that evolution is wrong. Neither do the majority of world religions.

And then the real question: Does it matter what someone believes about the origins of life? It's not going to affect anyone now is it?

The origin of life is a science question and as such, should be investigated by scientific processes. Now the question of "why life exists" is a religious question and you're welcome to debate that.

[Laemkral]

Macroevolution has plenty enough solid evidence to place it squarely in the theory range, so it's on plenty good enough footing to be taught as science. Intelligent Design is a hypothesis at best, and a severely problem-plagued one at that.

Macroevolution is just microevolution in a greater amount of time, and arguably the biggest distinction between the two rests in people's minds anyway. It follows the scientific method, something which ID fails greatly.

In the book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking says this:
"a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state, "any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."

The problem with both ID and Macroevolution is no one can observe or test either theories. I don't agree with teaching Macroevolution as a science because who can know? And since it generally conflicts with most religions, faiths and belief of God in general, isn't it a form of religion anyway?In which case why is it being taught in schools but not the creation theories of other religions? And then the real question: Does it matter what someone believes about the origins of life? It's not going to affect anyone now is it? I think they should both by in an elective philosophy class... that would really make more sense.

Ok... feel free to blast me with both barrels now that I've opened up a can of worms here...

[/i]

Religion answers the "Whys" of the universe. Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does the sun rise? Why do plants grow?
Science answers the "Hows" of the universe. How did we come to be here? What were the mechanics of the event that happened to the person? How is it the sun appears to rise in the sky? How does a plant sustain itself?

Religion can answer any why and not a single how. Science can never answer the why but given time and research can answer the hows. Will we ever know for sure the exact process by which human beings came to be the dominant species on this planet? No, but eventually we'll be able to develop a much clearer understanding of it because technology progresses and more research is always being done. Will we ever know why we are here? Sure. Because God made it so, according to my beliefs. God brought us here by setting up a universe filled with change, and through His divine power used evolution to create the various species of fauna and flora that populate the planet. Evolution is the mechanism, God the driving force behind it.

As to why evolution is science, do you really believe 2+2=4? If you do, why? There is no proof that 2+2=4 in any of the mathematical world. It is such because we accept it as such because no one has ever been able to show that there is an instance where 2+2 equals something OTHER than four. The acceleration of gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters per second, approximately. Why? The same reason 2+2=4. No one has been able to show that there has been an instance where the formula used to calculate a planets gravitational force has actually been wrong. It is proved by lack of disproof.

Evolution is the same. Talk to any expert in the field and they'll say Darwin was wrong. They'll say he's been wrong for quite some time now. The theory of punctuated equilibrium as developed by Stephen Gould is the reigning theory of the mechanics of evolution, and it has yet to be disproven by any shred of evidence turned up by anyone. If it is disproven, a new theory will be formulated that incorporates the new data.

By the way, Stephen Hawking, who you mentioned, has corrected himself and his own theories because new evidence he didn't know about came to light and contradicted what he originally claimed regarding black holes, time travel, and all that other fun stuff. It apparently IS possible to travel through time, but its one way only.

[Dr Legostar]

The acceleration of gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters per second, approximately.

psst.. 9.8 meters per second per second

[Laemkral]

The acceleration of gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters per second, approximately.

psst.. 9.8 meters per second per second

Y'know what? Screw you, I failed my physics class twice. There's a reason I changed my major away from Engineering.



Please don't get mad at me, master

[Kilre]

technically, both religion and science can answer the how and why, but it gets really boring

[Dr Legostar]

The acceleration of gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters per second, approximately.

psst.. 9.8 meters per second per second

Y'know what? Screw you, I failed my physics class twice. There's a reason I changed my major away from Engineering.



Please don't get mad at me, master

meh, it's a common mistake. I'm forgiving. Now go clean out the Mutated Monster cages.

[EvilChihuahua]

whatever happened to freedom of religion? has it become taboo to be non-christian?

I would disagree. As a Christian I feel it is more taboo to be Christian.
When Narnia came out, Phillip Pullman, a prominent atheistic writer, said that he would rather give his kids hallucinogens than let them see it.
Movies everywhere constantly mock Jesus, ( see a lot of monty pythn sketches, you'll know what I mean) and the media eats them up. and yet, every time a movie comes out that tries to accurately depict the Christian faith, ( like the passion, or narnia ) there's a bunch of complaining.
And let's not even get into the Da Vinci Code.
I mean, Christians have to be really thick skinned to survive in the public eye.
I think someone earlier apologised on behalf of christians. THis I refuse to do. Anyone who can turn a message of love and acceptance, and turn it into a reason to persecute is as christian as , who, by the way, pretended to be christian.
But he is NOT and if you think that christians are a bunch of racists, keep in mind that JESUS WAS A JEW!
PS-I used the word "Hallucinogens" because the forum blocked out the word starting with "D"

[Ian Moulding]

whatever happened to freedom of religion? has it become taboo to be non-christian?

I would disagree. As a Christian I feel it is more taboo to be Christian.

Oh my yes, the suffering of Canadian Christians is indeed mighty. The last three Prime Ministers have been openly Christian and the current one says he intends to govern guided by his beliefs, a Christian church receives tax money to run the country's seperate school board, Christian holidays are given special status in the work calendar, and the constitution refers directly to the supremacy of God.

Truly, we are a persecuted minority. Weep for us.

[McDuffies]

No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."

I don't agree with teaching Macroevolution as a science because who can know?

see the problem is you'd have to discard everything we teach as a science by that logic.

If you look at it that way, there is no such thing as certain knowledge. There is no true or false, there is just probability that something is true or false. Scientific theory is accepted when the probability that it's true (based on information we have) gets high, over a sertain line. Also, you accept something and believe in it whenm, by your judgement, it crosses a certain line of probability that you've drawn.
(If a number of experiments approve teory and then one disaproves, that doesn't mean that the theory is fault. It just means that the probability that the theory is correct, is slightly lower. Often not low enough to disaprove it.)
Therefore, no 100% certainity. Some would say that if knowledge means 100% certainity, then there is no knowledge. But then, the term "knowledge" would lose it's purpose and we'd have to redefine this term alltogether. So we accept the conventions of terms like "knowledge", "true", "false", "right", "wrong", knowi ng that they don't imply 100% certainity, or rather, this lack of certainity is implemented in them by definition. It's just a matter of how much aproximation we can accept - try to live by accepting no aproximation and your life will be very confusing.

[Jim North]

Aw, man . . . I go to work, come back, and everyone else has taken all the good points!

Oh, wait, I can still disagree with McDuffies! GLEE!

There is no true or false, there is just probability that something is true or false.

While the rest of your post is fine and dandy, really, this part may not exactly follow. Science isn't the way reality works, after all, just the human understanding of the way reality works, which quite a different animal indeed.

The actual truth or falsity of something exists seperate from our understanding of it. Better to say, "There is true or false (actual reality), as well as the probability of it being true or false (science, our perception and evaluation of that reality)." They used to believe that the sun travelled around the Earth, after all . . . but the actual truth of the matter was not altered by their perception of it.

I do agree that there's probably nothing like 100% certainty of knowledge, though . . . but heck, I'm not even 100% certain about that.

[Nyke]

PS-I used the word "Hallucinogens" because the forum blocked out the word starting with "D"

Oh, you mean drugs?

[Blacklist Billy]

I think Rkolter hit the nail on the head.

When this resolution fails to pass, or is blocked by the courts, this guy is going to go on a nationwide crusade crying and moaning about how his religion is being oppressed and christians are being herded into concentration camps. Damn good career move, if you're lacking for publicity, or maybe you want a job as a Fox News "expert."

As for Jesus being maligned in the media... so what? If He's the king of the universe, what does He care? Where in the Bible does it say that the Bible cannot be mocked?

[Realityendshere]

Wow Enormous reponse...


So basically, what you are saying is that Evolution is creatures adapting into creatures that are incapable of breeding with the creature that they branched of from? But not that say... lizards can become birds? If that's the case I will retract my arguement. That being so, Speciation and ID don't conflict because they don't touch on any of the same points.

Anyway.. I retract my arguments against speciation.

[Mercury Hat]

Evolution states, basically, that species will adapt and become more suited to live in their environment. Should that environment change, the ones best suited for THAT new environment surpass the others. So, no, evolution doesn't say "dinosaurs become birds".

However, in the history of our Earth, the environment affected some dinosaurs so that they developed more and more bird-like characteristics until, some millions of years down the line, they led to creatures which more closely resembled birds than they did dinosaurs (there were bird-like creatures with teeth, for instance). Several more millions of years later and they bear little resemblance to the dinosaurs which are their distant, distant ancestors.

If you could clone dinosaurs and put them on a different planet similar in climate, organisms, etc, but not identical to Earth, and could observe them for tens of millions of years, they will not give rise to the exact same species of birds which we have on our own planet. The environmental pressures on those dinosaurs would be different than those which were present on Earth around the time of our own dinosaurs. Who knows, it may end up that a species of dinosaur becomes sentient and develops into the dominant species on that planet like pre-humans did on our own.

[Realityendshere]

Not sure if earth is billions of years old... aren't we losing like a 1/4 of a second every year due to the earth slowing down... Wouldn't that mean we were spinning insanely fast billions of years ago?