ZOMBIE FORUMS

Huh? What have my soul been? What band is that, anyway? I think I'll stick with The Aquabats, who sing about important things like Midget Pirates and Goonies. If I want music with psuedo-meanings, I'll listen to David Bowie. (which I do)

Here's my final word on this argument. Medieval Science proved that simple organisms spontaniously formed. When there's shit, there's flies, when there's no shit, there's no flies, so the flies must come from the shit. Modern Science has proven that humans evolved from apes. Two million years ago, we find monkey bones. One million years ago, we find monkey-men bones, now, we have humans, so it must be a progression. Future Science may very well prove that evolution is mearly the T'Ka'Lians coming down and changing animals' DNA, they've got video and everything. Humans are fallible, it's a key element of us, so how can you take anything humans say as true? The usual way is to say there's no better alternative to human knowledge, so you've got no choice. I believe there is an infallible force in the universe, and therefor I should believe in that.
I'm not saying there's no such thing as adaptation. You put a bunch of wolves in the African Jungle, you'll get Jungle Wolves eventually. I just don't believe that's how everything got here.

That's all there is, there isn't any more.

How many times has this particular subject been debated in these froums? The problem with this country is that most people are dumb. I recently heard somewhere that 50% of the country doesn't know that the Earth revolves around the sun. Teaching ID in a Science class because a lot of people belive in it is like teaching that the sun revolves around the Earth because a lot of people believe in it. This is esentialy what is hapening anyway. ID is not a scientific theory. At most it is a philosophical correlation to evolution. Evolution can be proven, just by its nature is very unlikely to ever be totally proven. ID cannot be proven or disproven by its very nature. Not teaching either however is a horrible diservice. Besides that most Biology is based in part by evolution, remaning ignorant because some ignorant people want to is not moving forward.

Honestly speaking, I can't remember more than two sentences worth of info that I heard in H.S. biology. I learned that I'm not very good at growing mold, even under optimal conditions. I also learned that a class can intentionally destroy the bell curve system if everyone attempts to score <20% on the mid-term.

Ooh... that teacher hated us. lol

The most important thing anyone is supposed to learn in high school is how to think for themselves. Learning Scientific Process is more important than learning Scientific "Fact". People who simply believe everything they are told aren't useful.

Teaching alternate theories on human creation isn't a bad thing, as long as everyone understands that (Theory != Reality). Make the kids decide what is fact and what is fiction. Make them think about why they made that decision. Then make them disprove whatever they believe and come up with a better theory.

We don't really want every high school grad to know and believe in Evolution. We want them to know it, rip it to shreads, and improve on the idea.

This is true, and I don't think anyone ever meant to say that other theories than evolution should be outright banned from schools. The actual controversy in these cases is over wether or not ID should be taught as a SCIENCE in SCIENCE CLASS. It shouldn't because it is NOT a Science. Notedly, in order to teach it in Kansas, the Kansas school board changed their definition of science to accept ID.

Nonono. Theory in a scientific context is not a guess. It is a proposed hypothesis that has withstood innumerable tests and is supported by the available evidence. Whether or not it is correct in the BIG END SENSE is meaningless; it is the most correct hypothesis we have at the time. This makes it science. Why would we not teach science in a science classroom because some members of a religious group find it to be contrary to what they believe? We still teach medicine in medical schools even though Christian Scientists don't believe in it, don't we? Things will happen whether or not you believe in them.

Goblin King also misses the entire point of science. "If it can't come up with an explanation that is true forever, regardless of what new evidence is discovered, it's worthless." Whee.

Nick also underestimates science to a ridiculous degree. His site for a scientific creationist theory is a joke. Let's go back to some logic:

1. Evolution is a scientific theory. A
2. Scientific theories can be disproven later with further evidence. A
3. Evolution can be disproven later with further evidence. 1, 2 MPP
4. Creationism is better than evolution. ???

Ga-whaaaaaaaa? Saying you can only disprove macroevolution using a time machine is pretty silly. But regardless of the correctness of macroevolution, you cannot disprove creationism; you already are relying on a supernatural element as a basis for your theory, so why not just say "God put it there" to refute any further evidence?

So, let me make it more blatant:

Creationism cannot be scientific.

From a scientific standpoint, Creationism can be proven or disproven, however, all supporting facts point towards it being false and merely a belief rather than fact. Scientific method is based on a hyposthesis being capable of proven false, and one is capable of providing enough supporting evidence to deem Creationism wrong. Should it be taught in science classes? Yes, but only as what it is, a hypothesis in opposition to evolutionary theory, accompanied by the evidence to prove or disprove it.

The existance of God or any other higher being is not scientific.

It can't be disproven. Find any evidence against it, and it can be waved away with "God put it there because He liked it that way." If you want to go with the 6000-year-old Earth version of creationism, okay, we can talk about that (although we can still say "God did it!" with regards to silly things like that carbon dating). But no, Creationism certainly cannot be disproven since it's not built on evidence to begin with.

I'd get into this argument, but I am le tired. So I'll point you all in the direction of Mr. William Dembski and his amazing filter. The latter link offers a basic description of Dembski's means of showing design.

EDIT: I got motivated. I'm now going to quote things that I found interesting and make comments. Ahoy!





It entirely depends on what your scientific method is, what you value in a scientific method, and so on. If we were playing under Paul Feyerabend's rules, anything works and ID is acceptable. Under most theory-dependent methods, you're left with ID being currently not up to snuff with evolution for terms of explaining things. Under theory-independent builds, neither really work as they haven't been proven conclusively outside of theory. Fun stuff, all around.



As stated above, it depends on what you're using as your driving scientific method. Falsifiability is nasty in that you can continually assume that external conditions are marring the truth, replicability can get messy because of the problems associated with inductivism, etc., etc.

In short, we're fucked. I suggest we all get tanked.

Was wondering when someone would bring up Hume. I don't know how relevent it is to this discussion.

You're close, but still incorrect. The requirement of a scientific theory is simply that given science's current level of knowledge on that area the theory that gets accepted is the one that explains said knowledge in the most complete and succinct way (knowledge being accrued through experimentation and testing for repeatability of results) - naturally as the body of knowledge that scientists have to work from increases fairly exponentially with time theorys will change to adapt to these advances. For example, newtonian physics -> quantum physics; although quantum physics doesn't yet explain everything, we know from our current body of knowledge that the newtonian model is incomplete, similarily newtonian physics explained our world better than what went before. It's not a foolish assumption to guess that as we gain a larger and larger bod of knowledge quantum physics is ruled out as flawed and simplistic and so a more elaborate and complete model is devised.

The difference between scientific theory and religious belief, when one reduces it down to it's simplest form is thus: Scientists are willing to review and alter the work that came before them if it is proven to be incorrect, religious beliefs however are (generally) set in stone.

ptlis

You're missing the forest for the trees. I'm not attacking either of them. What I'm offering is a solution to the problem in public schools. If we can avoid the topic of human genesis in core science classes then we can keep both trains of thought relatively happy. Make Evolutionary Biology a separate science credit in public schools. That way people can choose to learn it on their own free will. For core science classes, we could substitute more "real-world" science. People blow themseves up at gas pumps because of static electricity, or burn their house down becuase they put an Arby's wrapped burger in the microwave. By teaching our youth science that has more to do with the modern world and workplace, we might be able to prevent stupid deaths later on, and by substituting this instead of Evolution we keep the Bible Belters happy. It's a win/win. Kids who grow up to be pilots, electricians, IT directors, stock brokers, dentists, software engineers, auto mechanics, etc. really don't need to know where the fuck we came from or why we're here.

If we don't need to teach anything that's not practical, why do we teach trigonometry to assembly line workers? What you're proposing leads directly to the creation of a worker caste. One of the great successes of this country is that in the past century or so since the creation of public schools the idea of the worker class has largely disappeared (the American Dream and all), and it is now largely possible for a sufficiently motivated kid to be able to go to college regardless of his family's income. Your proposal leads to the complete reversal of this, where public schools, the great equalizer, become the place that teaches a person only what he or she needs to know to perform a specific task. They become 12-year-long trade schools. This is the complete antithesis of every American ideal there is. Why don't we just have a Great Leap Forward and a Cultural Revolution while we're at it? We'll have children born into families with money that can send their children to a private school that teaches them all the things they need to know to be able to enter college, and then we'll have everyone else who is forced into a trade school or a factory with no opportunity for advancement. How is appeasing a group of individuals with no understanding of science in such a way progress?

The thing is Barrems, the seperation of class like Marjin suggested has been in practice throughout the US for quite a number of years. It started in high schools, but now it's starting to flow down into lower grades. I know in my own experiance, I was given the option of taking either a biology science course or a chemisty science course. I'm also certain there are schools that specialize even more than that. The Great Equilizer you speak of stops at about 6th grade, when students are presented with the ability to start creating their own schedules, and becomes even more pronounced as they go through to college. Can you sit there and tell me that college is anything beyond a glorified trade school without simply falling back on "well yeah, but I also learn this, that, and this from these courses, even though they have no bearing on my chosen major"?

Not all scientific methods ascribe to the idea that new theory = better theory. In fact, Copernicus and his ideas on astrology were pretty horrible when they were first made public; it was only after much work by other astronomers that his theories were affirmed. The same could be said of various points in scientific history.

You should check out some of Thomas Kuhn's work on the subject of science.

You'd be very, very misguided to assume that college is a glorified trade school. My degree (Business Administration, with a focus in management) doesn't train me for any one specific task or set of tasks that are essential to my success in my field; this is obvious, as you can look all over America to see various small businesses ran by people who don't know all that much about GAAP, or understand the difference between Theory X and Theory Y approaches to management. The content, while great to know, isn't essential to one's success in the field.

A vocational school, however, typically focuses on that which is essential. If college were a book, vocational school would be the cliff notes. You get exactly what you need to go on in what your profession is, for better or worse. There is an obvious difference between the two; one offers a more rounded approach, while the other offers a more direct approach. At least, that's my two cents on the matter.

Oh, and since we've been talking about it... http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid ... 27;cmt=111

His decision proper is linked on the site.

Yes, and if you went to a decent college, you'd know this. Do you think philosophy, English, biology, chemistry, and physics are essential to a computer science or engineering major? They're all required at CMU, for example, and it's not the exception.

:o Did you just spout back at me the exact thing I said? That you're taking some courses that have no bearing on your chosen major, but are required to take regardless? And honestly, from working in both the fields you mentioned, physics, English, and even a little chemisty, if you're an engineer, have some usage. Biology and philosophy however, you can forgo, unless you can explain, citing real-world experiance, why they have a presence in both those majors.

Fixed.

*blinks, looks at Rusty, looks at the ongoing debate with him and Babar, and decides to conceed*

Damn you Rusty. Damn you.