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All species are unique, or they wouldn't be species.

lambadomy wrote:@generalgrog

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I had posted a link describing piles of transitional forms...

oh wait I DID do that. And you obviously didn't click the link or read a word of it. It shouldn't be my job to write it all out here. If you can't be bothered to follow a link then what is the point here?

Transitional forms are a non-issue for real scientists. There are piles of them. Next you'll be babbling about the evolution of the eye or flagella, because you don't care about the actual science, since you already KNOW the answer. If you did the research you'd understand you don't have a leg to stand on. The main issue is this: There is evidence in the form of fossils, existing species, the way DNA works, observations of change over time in species, observations of differences between geographically separated groups, etc, etc. This evidence needs an explanation. Macro Evolution is a pretty good explanation, and is falsifiable - just find some fossils that are obviously modern in the Precambrian or something. Or come up with an actual testable theory of your own. Scientists would LOVE IT if someone came up with new evidence that invalidated something - they'd get to come up with a new theory, or figure out how their old theory was broken and adjust it.

Right now, that new evidence is exceedingly unlikely to be found, but it could happen. On the other hand, new things are found all the time that reinforce macro evolution as a theory and as a fact. Occasionally they put a new faked human footprint in the creation museum, but strangely that doesn't change anything.

Just calling someone else's repeatedly tested, falsifiable belief "Faith" doesn't make it so. it just makes you ignorant.

Wow it didn't take long for the insult button to be pressed. I didn't insult you lambadomy, please try to keep emotions out of this. We are both people of faith, mine is in God yours is in science, we can agree to disagree agreeably. :-)

I did in fact click that link(I have been to that website many times before, by the way), and it did absolutetly nothing to prove a transitional form. Those ape-human examples given are the same old tired examples of transitional forms given over and over again to try and prove Macro evolution. At least they were smart enough to not mention the fakes that have been passed off in the past to try and pad the so called "missing links". The australopithecines for example are nothing more than extint apes.

GG

Referring to the act of trying to understand the evidence as as faith is being purposefully insulting. Don't pretend otherwise.

You are conflating "proof" with "evidence which we're trying to explain". You can say they're not transitional, or that they're not good enough for you - that is fine. But you don't have an alternative framework, another theory. I don't care if it proves anything to you.

Part of what makes these transitional fossils so great is that the way it works is we look at existing fossils, and how we think evolution works,and we say "well, if thats true, we should find a fossil that looks like X". And often enough, exactly that happens. Thats part of the predictive power of the theory of evolution.

Anyway, this is pointless. You can disbelieve the evidence or the explanations all you want, and you can insult people who are trying to understand things scientifically as blinded by "faith" all you want as well. But until you have an alternative explanation which is testable and falsifiable, evolution is all we have anyway. Which is why the non-science science degree proposed in the original article needs to be prevented.

P.S. last I checked, one person doing something wrong does not invalidate a scientific theory. Maybe I'm wrong - it must invalidate the whole thing, otherwise you'd only mention it because you're trolling.

@ GeneralGrog: You simply do not understand how science works if you think you can keep saying "prove this to my satisfaction." That's not meant to be insulting, but you seem to have a deep misunderstanding.

Science doesn't prove anything. It provides the tools to create ideas and rules for how the world works. Those rules are tested by trying to find evidence that disproves them. For example, you cannot prove to me that two masses will attract each other. You can't prove that gravity exists. It's always been there, and it's never been disproved, but you can't PROVE it. In addition, scientists need a better theory, not simply be told that the current one sucks.

Macro Evolution has yet to really have any serious flaws found in it. It has gaps, to be sure, but not proven flaws. Now, it is falsifiable: if fossils were found in the wrong geological era, or if it were shown that species cannot change in any appreciable way over time.

Evolution doesn't need to be proved to any higher standard. It's useful for the people that need to know how species originate, and that's all that really matters.

It is also worth pointing out that nearly all scientists that disagree with evolution are more right wing Christian, while agnostic, athiest, non-christian, mainline protestant and catholic scientists all generally tend to agree with the consensus. The point being? Sometimes you just don't' want to see the evidence.

lambadomy wrote:Referring to the act of trying to understand the evidence as as faith is being purposefully insulting. Don't pretend otherwise.

You are conflating "proof" with "evidence which we're trying to explain". You can say they're not transitional, or that they're not good enough for you - that is fine. But you don't have an alternative framework, another theory. I don't care if it proves anything to you.

Part of what makes these transitional fossils so great is that the way it works is we look at existing fossils, and how we think evolution works,and we say "well, if thats true, we should find a fossil that looks like X". And often enough, exactly that happens. Thats part of the predictive power of the theory of evolution.

Anyway, this is pointless. You can disbelieve the evidence or the explanations all you want, and you can insult people who are trying to understand things scientifically as blinded by "faith" all you want as well. But until you have an alternative explanation which is testable and falsifiable, evolution is all we have anyway. Which is why the non-science science degree proposed in the original article needs to be prevented.

P.S. last I checked, one person doing something wrong does not invalidate a scientific theory. Maybe I'm wrong - it must invalidate the whole thing, otherwise you'd only mention it because you're trolling.

You have called me ignorant and now a troll. All I have done is explain simply my viewpoint. I am sorry that by my calling your belief in evolution as a faith has offended you, but it is most certainly not meant to be purposefully insulting. I'm very surprised that you are so offended.

But I find it amazing that you feel that "the non-science science degree proposed in the original article needs to be prevented"

I mean, who are you to try and prevent something, just because it may fly in the face of what you believe. Welcome back to the dark ages and suppression of ideas and thoughts, just because it brings a different viewpoint and may threaten your faith system.


GG

Polonius wrote:@ GeneralGrog: You simply do not understand how science works if you think you can keep saying "prove this to my satisfaction." That's not meant to be insulting, but you seem to have a deep misunderstanding.

Science doesn't prove anything. It provides the tools to create ideas and rules for how the world works. Those rules are tested by trying to find evidence that disproves them. For example, you cannot prove to me that two masses will attract each other. You can't prove that gravity exists. It's always been there, and it's never been disproved, but you can't PROVE it. In addition, scientists need a better theory, not simply be told that the current one sucks.

Macro Evolution has yet to really have any serious flaws found in it. It has gaps, to be sure, but not proven flaws. Now, it is falsifiable: if fossils were found in the wrong geological era, or if it were shown that species cannot change in any appreciable way over time.

Evolution doesn't need to be proved to any higher standard. It's useful for the people that need to know how species originate, and that's all that really matters.

It is also worth pointing out that nearly all scientists that disagree with evolution are more right wing Christian, while agnostic, athiest, non-christian, mainline protestant and catholic scientists all generally tend to agree with the consensus. The point being? Sometimes you just don't' want to see the evidence.

Except that we can actually see magnetism happen, experiment with it analyse it.

You can't do that with Macro evolution. We dig up fossils and place our presupposed ideas to get the results we want. Not to mention that the pressure placed on the people performing the test and analysis can face repercussions from acadamia for presenting a different view. There is much peer pressure to make the results fit the presupositions in order to keep your job.

GG

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Science ceased to be what is was supposed to a while ago. Lead scientists contradict each other on a day to day basis

That is how science works, and how science was always supposed to work.

and people pick whatever works for them the most at that moment (egg whites are bad for you, no egg whites are the best part, nuh-uh! they cause cancer or global warming, I mean global cooling, I mean climate change). At least everyone deserves a fair chance to push their agenda and claim that they're the authority.

Debate over nutrition invalidates science? Your failure to understand basic elements of climate change debate invalidates science? No, not all, you fail at this.

Look, science is a process. You observe something, you come up with a model to explain it, then you try and disprove your model. You publish your results, others read them and they in turn try to prove or disprove your results and your model. That's what science is.

Concepts such as evolution are still here because they are consistant with observed events, and the model continues to predict things we later find. Creationism does nothing of the sort, it complains about parts of evolution (some are legitimate areas that are yet to be resolved, many are terrible misunderstandings of evolutionary science) and never offers a testable model of its own. Without that model creationism is not a science, and should never be called anything of the sort.

It's that simple.

generalgrog wrote:
But I find it amazing that you feel that "the non-science science degree proposed in the original article needs to be prevented"

I mean, who are you to try and prevent something, just because it may fly in the face of what you believe. Welcome back to the dark ages and suppression of ideas and thoughts, just because it brings a different viewpoint and may threaten your faith system.


GG

Who am I? Nobody important. But of course, in the grand scheme of things, neither is this school, or anyone who will be getting this degree. That is not the point.

The point is that this degree purports to be a science degree, when it is obviously not, since no science is being done. If science were being done, I'd be fine with it. We went through the dark ages and came out of it with reason and the scientific method. This degree flies in the face of that. It's not about suppression of ideas and thoughts. If anyone ever had come up with a single testable hypothesis for creationisim or intelligent design, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If they were being intellectually honest, I wouldn't mind one bit. But they are not. It has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with science. And therefore shouldn't be awarded as a science degree. Disagreements are fine - so long as they are actually science related, as opposed to bullpucky.

generalgrog wrote:
You can't do that with Macro evolution. We dig up fossils and place our presupposed ideas to get the results we want. Not to mention that the pressure placed on the people performing the test and analysis can face repercussions from acadamia for presenting a different view. There is much peer pressure to make the results fit the presupositions in order to keep your job.

really, think about what you're saying here. You're saying that scientists, students, whatever, are actually covering up evidence that macro evolution is incorrect due to pressure placed on them to keep their jobs. if they had actual evidence, and presented it in a peer reviewed journal, and wrote a book about their experience, they would become *absurdly rich* and famous due to blowing the lid not only off of one of the more well established scientific theories, but one of the biggest scientific coverups of all time. How in the world can you really believe that some acadamia job is worth enough to all of these people that they would all fake things?

I think you kind of misunderstand what a transitional fossil is and why they matter. We all know there is a fossil record - bunch of bones, impressions, etc in the ground that we unearth, look at, date, etc. We get a pretty good idea of what these creatures were like from these, and we can compare them, and look at what times they lived, etc from our dating techniques.

So what we find in the fossil record is that a bunch of animals appear at certain times, and disappear at others, and are never found randomly much earlier or much later. So we say hmmm, why is this? Why are some animals or plants or whatever only around for certain times? And one scientist may say, well gak charles, I think maybe they die off, or in some cases transition into some other specie(s). So then you have a theory of why this may happen. A competing theory may be that aliens every few million years come back to earth and shuffle around what kind of animals are there, or maybe a theory that everything was there from the beginning, and we're not looking really hard enough, and it's just a huge coincidence that all of these animals are only in certain areas or at certain times and look different (sometimes only slightly different) than each other. This isn't a "presupposed idea". It's a testable theory.

Anyway after some debate they decide that since the aliens theory and the coincidence theory aren't testable, they're going to try to test the whole evolution thing. So they think, well, what kind of prediction might our theory make? feth me, I have an idea! We might find *more* fossils, that look like they're in between some of these species, that also happen to date to a time period in between. We'd call these...transitional fossils. We might think that's a swell idea - it makes our theory testable, and since it's already falsifiable if we start suddenly finding fossils spread around randomly in the timeline, it works really great!

Well, it turns out that they are, pretty regularly, finding more and more fossils that fit quite obviously between species, in the right timeline. It's kind of nice, since it fits our theory and counts as evidence to reasonable people. It doesn't PROVE anything, but it gives us an idea that we might be looking in the right direction. And it makes the aliens and coincidence theory's less likely, and just as untestable.

If you're unwilling to accept transition fossils, and you truly want to believe that macro evolution evidence is at best complacency and fear and at worst conspiracy and intellectual dishonesty, thats fine. I'm not really going to spend more time arguing or explaining.

Do transitional forms need to be fossilised to count?

Polyploidy in wheat is evidence for macroevolution and transitional forms.

generalgrog wrote:

Except that we can actually see magnetism happen, experiment with it analyse it.

You can't do that with Macro evolution. We dig up fossils and place our presupposed ideas to get the results we want. Not to mention that the pressure placed on the people performing the test and analysis can face repercussions from acadamia for presenting a different view. There is much peer pressure to make the results fit the presupositions in order to keep your job.

GG

I wasn't talking about magnetism, I was talking about gravity, and my point wasn't that there was evidence for it, my point was that you can't prove that it exists. There is just as much evidence for macroevolution as there is for graviational attraction.

I think you're debating in bad faith. I think for all of your talk about presupposed ideas you've simply made up your mind on the issue, based not on evidence but on personal preference. If you want a more bona fide debate, answer the following:

1) If macro evolution is an incorrect theory, what do you propose is the source of speciation? Until there is a better theory, science isn't going to reject one that works pretty well.
2) What evidence would you want to see to accept macro evolution? By that, I mean is there something we could show you to make you accept macro-evolution, or will the goal posts be perennially shifted?
3) What evidence is there that macro-evolution is false? Not what gaps are there, not what is missing, but what has been discovered that shows that macro evolution is actually incorrect?

lambadomy wrote:

Young earth creationism - this is testable and falsifiable, unfortunately no one working in the field has any intellectual honesty, so any evidence they find against their belief is then folded into the theory. For example, when radiocarbon dating would provide evidence that things are more than 6,000 year old, the argument becomes the earth was created with "the appearance of age", which removes testability and falsifiability.

I've even read (I don't remember where) that the fossil record was created by Satan to confuse man about God's plan. I DO remember laughing so hard my sides hurt.

lambadomy wrote:
So what we find in the fossil record is that a bunch of animals appear at certain times, and disappear at others, and are never found randomly much earlier or much later. So we say hmmm, why is this? Why are some animals or plants or whatever only around for certain times? And one scientist may say, well gak charles, I think maybe they die off, or in some cases transition into some other specie(s). So then you have a theory of why this may happen. A competing theory may be that aliens every few million years come back to earth and shuffle around what kind of animals are there, or maybe a theory that everything was there from the beginning, and we're not looking really hard enough, and it's just a huge coincidence that all of these animals are only in certain areas or at certain times and look different (sometimes only slightly different) than each other. This isn't a "presupposed idea". It's a testable theory.

Anyway after some debate they decide that since the aliens theory and the coincidence theory aren't testable, they're going to try to test the whole evolution thing. So they think, well, what kind of prediction might our theory make? feth me, I have an idea! We might find *more* fossils, that look like they're in between some of these species, that also happen to date to a time period in between. We'd call these...transitional fossils. We might think that's a swell idea - it makes our theory testable, and since it's already falsifiable if we start suddenly finding fossils spread around randomly in the timeline, it works really great!

Like the celocanth? Yeah that fish was supposed to have died out a long time ago, yet as I have allready mentioned is still alive and kicking. If what you say is true why didn't it die out? The presuposition that I'm talking about is the use of the geologic strata(uniformitarianism) to attempt to "date" fossils. I believe this is also what you are talking about when you say"We might find *more* fossils, that look like they're in between some of these species, that also happen to date to a time period in between". They have set up a system for determining the age of a fossil by where they pull the fossil out of th earth and the specific strata that the fossil is pulled out of. They also use various dating methods, like potassium argon, carbon 14. The problem with both of these methods to date fossils is that they assume/presuppose that things have always been the same throughout history.

Ask yourself, what if they are wrong. Then their whole system of dating is based on smoke and mirrors and a deck of cards.

GG

So ok, let me get this straight. Not only do you deny evolution, but geology and chemistry too? You're really stretching your point here.

Just because something that we thought had died out hasn't doesn't disprove evolution. Here's a mad hypothesis for you, what if some celocanths became geographically isolated from others and speciated into something entirely different whilst some remained the same? Impossible? Hardly.

And, yes, we do assume that the half-life of carbon has always been the same, because there is zero evidence to suggest otherwise.

@generalgrog:

greebynog already covered it, but I'll respond anyway:

Who cares if the celocanth is alive? It's neat, but it doesn't have any bearing on macroevolution. Things being *still alive* has nothing to do with anything. It's things that *didn't appear before time X" that matter. We do not care if/when things die out. New species do not necessarily need to replace old ones. Again, a modern penguin in the precambrian is what you're looking for, not the loch ness monster. Plenty of creatures exist who have evolved very little over time - they've had little to no environmental pressure to do so. This doesn't invalidate evolution in any way.

As for dating - carbon 14, argon/argon, potassium/argon, rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, uranium/lead dating are all useful and give us a pretty good idea of the age of things. But you are 100% right - it could all be completely wrong. The problem is, scientifically, there's no reason to just assume that and then say "well since I came up with some guess that it could all be wrong, it invalidates everything!". You need evidence! A reason to believe! A way to test your theory! Maybe it will happen someday - turns out that it WAS aliens, and the earth IS 6000 years old, and all the dating tools we used WERE bunk, all of them, amazingly! It would be pretty cool, I'd be super excited to see real new proof of something like that. I couldn't care less if evolution is true or not - it just happens to be what *all of the evidence* points to, and it happens to have made some useful predictions which pointed us to finding things like DNA. Part of the reason *all of the evidence* points to it is that the theory is adjusted over time to fit the evidence found. That is normal science. Of course, when you or someone find the evidence that all of the dating techniques are complete bupkus, that would be an exciting time...but no one is going to hold their breath and wait for you to invalidate evolution, geology, and large parts of chemistry and physics at the same time. This isn't a conspiracy of people to keep their stupid jobs. It's a conspiracy of logic related to the evidence collected and observed. If you don't want to accept it, that is fine,


When I ask myself "what if they are wrong", I shrug and say "well, hopefully the new evidence lets us form a better theory, still testable, falsifiable, etc and still useful for making predictions, and which still makes sense of the other, non-fossil evidence and information such as the way we know DNA works". Then I'd sit back since I'm not an actual evolutionary biologist so I'm not going to bother doing the work on the theory myself. But I won't shed a tear for the death of evolution, I'll be excited that we've found something new. I'd love a new, testable explanation that actually covered the evidence.

And THAT my friend is the difference between faith and science. And why it is insulting to call this belief in macro evolution and transitional fossils "faith".

generalgrog wrote:
Like the celocanth? Yeah that fish was supposed to have died out a long time ago, yet as I have allready mentioned is still alive and kicking.
GG

Who says transitional species are supposed to have died out? Evolution doesn't work that way. If their adaptation towards survival works, the species will continue to exist. A subset of the species may evolve into a different beastie, but this does not invalidate the original transitional species' adaptation to certain circumstances.

Lambadamy I appreciate that you seem to be the only one that understands where I'm coming from. (It's fine that you disagree) And, sans the insults, I have enjoyed this discussion so far. I haven't had the opportunity to debate/discuss Macroevolution theory in years and hence I'm a bit rusty at it. Thank you for acknowledging that the half life decay rate methods in use today are based on an assumption that decay rates have always been the same as they are right now. I acknowledge that scientists can't go on anything besides what they see before them, that being the current state of decay rate. I need to brush up on the assumptions made by the geological dating metods as well. It's been way too long since I studied this stuff!

But my supposition, that it takes faith to make an assumption that things have always been the same as they are now, is still valid.

My main point is that it's far to easy for scientists to brush aside God by making assumptions, and for some reason scientists far too often fall on the side of excluding God (and the bible) when they make assumptions.

That is what Creation Scientists don't do. They believe in intelligent design and use science within a context of an intelligent Creator God. That absolutely does not invalidate the science. It's just science from a different perspective and using different assumptions/faith than mainstream science. They offer an alternative explanation for how things came to be. I'm also not saying that I agree with everything they come up with. But I'm not going to just dismiss the effort as a bunch of cooks and crackpots like the way the quotes from the OP read. I mean he quoted from an athiest website for goodness sakes. Hardly unbiased sources.

I think it's very dangerous to try and "legislate" thought when it comes to new ideas. And legislating thought by promoting the "prevention" of creation science is nothing more than a new inquisiiton trying to prevent scientifical heresy. It reminds of the scene from the Planet of the Apes when the orangatangs scientists were plugging there ears when Charlton Heston was speaking.

Also I'm not sure why you keep bringing up the alien angle, read too many black library books I take it? :-)

Look we are just going around in circles here. I made my points and you have made your points. There isn't going to be many creation scientists that play warhammer much less that are members of DAKKA so I realize that I will always be in the minority opinion on these boards. But thats ok.

Once again I thank you Lambadamy for the discusion, but I think I'm going to end my participation in it because we are just going in circles.

GG


p.s. greebynog.. In no way did I ever purport to "deny geology and chemistry" A bit of hyperbole and a huge distorition of what I said there. If you look at my post carefully you will see that I was refering to how macroevolutionists make assumptions when they use geology and the various decay rate tests to "prove" macroevolution.

@generalgrog:

It absolutely does invalidate it. You CANNOT go into science already knowing the answer, and then trying to prove it. They start with intelligent design for no reason. There is no evidence for it, so they're not creating a theory to explain existing evidence. Instead they pick nits, or misrepresent things, or are purposefully obtuse.

There are no circles here. You have yet to come up with any reason why the creation scientists should be working on their intelligent design theory. You have yet to explain a single piece of evidence other than "well, the evidence may be wrong!". That isn't evidence. This isn't a scientific idea. It's a waste of everyone's time.

You find the evidence first, then you use a theory around the evidence to make predictions and test them. Intelligent design isn't making predictions, or trying to test them, or doing anything other than looking at the evidence and saying "well what if ALIENS did it?!". Unfortunately they also love to misrepresent the evidence, or be purposefully obtuse, and then pretend that the problem isn't them, but the scientific establishment playing witch-hunt with anyone who disagrees with them. It couldn't be further from the truth, but it makes for an entertaining movie full of darwin-caused-hitler nonsense.

Anyway, you're right, you're going in circles. Everyone else is going in a nice straight line using actual science. Eventually ID will die off, but it will probably take a while. In the meantime people like you with an agenda (the purpose of which escapes me, unless it is to prove god is real) will continue to try to pretend "well it could be wrong!" is evidence of something or useful in scientific debate.

It has to be legislated because teaching things that are not science, as science, is nothing but harmful. It makes people ignorant of what science is. it makes people ignorant of what evolution is. it serves no useful purpose. It is disingenuous to pretend that it's about intellectual freedom when it's really about intellectual dishonesty. But you will never, ever see it that way, because your religious beliefs have given you the answer before you've even started looking for the evidence or what questions to ask. So it will never be science. If you can test it, or falsify it, please find a way FIRST, then try to make it science. Everything else is working backwards, and incorrect.

P.S. I bring up the alien angle because you mentioned Richard Dawkins in Expelled, and because it is the main way that ID/creation scientists try to get around the fact that they're really just trying to make religion into "science", by saying well it could be god...or ALIENS.

P.P.S. you are specifically, unequivocally, denying geology and chemistry - if evolutionists are wrong about the ages of their fossils, chemists and geologists are wrong about the dating methods, the decay rates, and the ages of their rocks. And this information, and the methods used, are hugely important to both disciplines.

I'm going to get a degree in Spontaneous Generation.

It'll be all the rage.

A degree demands facts, creation demands faith.

When it comes down to it all science is based on faith, scientific method uses induction to validate itself, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning . Any good scientist will never tell you we know anything with 100% certancy.





As per the degree thing, I would love to see a class that teaches ID. Provided that they found a teacher with no bias. How about a switching the evolutionary bio teachers with the creationist teachers. I am tiered of being taught Haeckel drawing:

As a scientist you have to accept that creationism could be correct. Doubt is integral. But seriously- it's not a science. That's my only problem with this degree.

the problem I have with any effort to replace Macro Evolution with Intelligent design is two fold, outside of the actual merit of the evidence:

1) ID and ME actually answer two separate questions. ME attempts to explain how and why species diverge, while ID is primarily concerned with exploring the idea of a creator. Now, discovering who, if anyone, created the universe is important work, but it is not work that invalidates the search for discovering how our universe works.

2) What work, exactly, can be done in ID? I mean, let's say the scientific community stops teaching Macro evolution and completely shifts to the idea of an intelligent creator. What do biologists and geneticists do? What does that tell us? If there is no evolution, can a species change? Can traits in populations still shift? And not to sound overly smarmy, why do you need a two year degree to learn "Everything was created by a designer." Where is the nuance or complexity that requires advanced education?

Da Boss wrote:As a scientist you have to accept that creationism could be correct. Doubt is integral. But seriously- it's not a science. That's my only problem with this degree.

Exactly. I believe that the world was created by an intelligent designer, but I still think that macro-evolution is the best tool for explaining the diversity of life. There's enough random chance in evolution for an intelligent designer to have some fun.

ID simply doesn't answer scientific questions, only philosophical ones.

In relation to the OP, you have three points to consider...

1. Do non State funded institutions have to be regulated by the State as do State funded institutions?

Answer - YES... ALL institutions must be regulated otherwise there would be no need for regulations... everyone knows that anyone can do enything anytime anywhere... can't they???

2. Do all schools, coleges, universities, institutions require regulating to ensure that education follows a National standard for content and conformity?

Answer - YES... Otherwise, they might start teaching something we don't want to learn about.

3. Is Creationism a science?

Answer - ?... Must answer #4 first.

4. Which is true... Creationism or Evolution?

Answer - You may need a Master's Degree in Science for Creationism, I believe that you can get one in Texas... soon.

On a serious note... I believe that the OP is about point 1 and 2... to discuss anything else would require a website all to itself.

Mik

Creationism is NOT a science. There is no question about this. It does not use the scientific method. This is not to say it isn't potentially a valid way of thinking- I think (and I'm a scientist btw) that the special position science holds as a framework for thought is damaging sometimes.
But it is not a science.

For the rest of it, I've spent a long time arguing with creationists and learned one thing: You can't win.

Da Boss wrote:For the rest of it, I've spent a long time arguing with creationists and learned one thing: You can't win.

Exactly. When science and faith argue, Science is willing to admit it could be wrong, while Faith won't. Guess what wins?

I think a word from the centre that will be benefiting from these changes is in order.
http://www.icr.org/article/4554/ and in particular the closing paragraph 'Certainly, it is better to trust in what is known: that life was created by God. His Word plainly states this, and science clearly supports it.'

As far as i can see there are some glaring logical absurdities in this arguement.
'trust in what is known' How do we know God created the world? is there some sort of way of proving this? AH HA the creationists cry. 'It is written down in the Bible'. Those of us who can think question 'How was the Bible created' to which the creationists reply 'eyewitness accounts'. We then say 'what about Genisis'. The reply is 'ermmm.......PROPHETS who have heard the voice of God' I then say 'Wait a second, I think I hear a voice. Nope just the wind, whistling across the lands as it has done for millions of years.'

Also the belife that 'science clearly supports it'. NO IT DOESN'T. It says Creationism may be right but there is a more logical explaination with more evidence called evolution. Another plus side of this explaination is that you dont have to accept it is the literal truth or 'gospel' and there is no need for cults and mass suicide and the brainwashing that comes with any religion.

BTW I was brought up in the Baptist church and as such have first hand experience of the power of repetitive chanting and being kept in a perminantly exausted state. Eventually no matter how hard you resist you end up beliving it wholeheartedly.

To those Hard line Christians out there, Please prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did not create the World without disproving your own 'God'

yani wrote:
BTW I was brought up in the Baptist church and as such have first hand experience of the power of repetitive chanting and being kept in a perminantly exausted state. Eventually no matter how hard you resist you end up beliving it wholeheartedly.

This question is offtopic, but I have been to Baptist churches in the U.S., and have never seen "repetitive chanting and being kept in a perminantly exausted state" over here. In fact Baptists could be considered mild/staid evangelicals. In my experiance. (I'm not Baptist by the way).

Could you explain what you mean by, "repetitive chanting and being kept in a perminantly exausted state".

I'm very curious about this. You can PM if you like.

GG

Its the youth group 'adventure' weeks 7 days of being fed high sugar food with 7-6 hours sleep, lots of physical activities and yes quite a lot of repetitive chanting.
Oh and many 'I converted to Christianity and........' stories. All the 'helpers' are selected to be appealing to the opposite sex and are allocated groups of adolescants accordingly. There is no time to think you go from activities to informal meetings about God then right back to activities. At the end of it you feel euphoric and belive that this was because of God reaching out to you.

Could you describe the repetitive chanting? Like were they singing cumbaya over and over again or something?

The other stuff you described sounds like any summer camp that I have heard of(Except for the Christian aspect of course). Nothing sinister about that from your description.

GG

Da Boss wrote:Creationism is NOT a science. There is no question about this. It does not use the scientific method. This is not to say it isn't potentially a valid way of thinking- I think (and I'm a scientist btw) that the special position science holds as a framework for thought is damaging sometimes.
But it is not a science.

Yeah, this is the big thing. Creationism has no theory, hypothesis or model. If there was something to test and use for predictions there would be grounds to call creationism a science to be taught in science class. But there isn't.

For the rest of it, I've spent a long time arguing with creationists and learned one thing: You can't win.

I’ve seen it happen. The thing to remember is that you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. No argument, no amount of evidence will ever be sufficient to convince a creationist that evolution is a science and creationism is a bunch of stuff invented to bring bibles back into school.

However, if you can get to reasons behind the belief in creationism there is ground to be made. I’ve seen a couple of guys, over the course of a couple of years, over the course of a lot of arguments, really get to the ideas behind a friend’s belief in creationism. The guy really wanted to believe in creationism because he felt his faith as a whole was threatened if there was another explanation for the origin of man. It took two years for them to get my friend to turn around, and accept that you can have God and evolution, and that accepting one does not invalidate the other.