dk

I understand the scientific method, but find evolution an unreliable god-head from which to govern human conduct, enterprises or values. My opinion has nothing to do with evolutionary science. It takes 20 years to engineer a public consensus on even rudimentary issues, and by then the science doesn’t match the vision. The track record of the secular social sciences at a micro and macro level is simply horrific. The 20th Century recorded one long world war ravaged by scientific racism, scientific history, and scientific utopia. While the hard sciences continue to progress from paradigm to paradigm by solving problems, the social sciences leap from one exaggerated hypothesis to the next. Creationism is not a science anymore than evolution is a philosophy. The big bang doesn’t address the creative forces of the universe. Science to date can’t pierce the mystery of consciousness, self awareness, beauty, nature/nurture or even the metabolism of a cell. In fact social science virtually runs amuck in a large dark reality, blind except for a narrow spectrum of light the size of pinhead.

dk

The topic is creationism in science education. My point is that evolutionism is the god-head used to unify the social sciences under a philosophy of science. I have no problem with evolutionary science. I object to the closed intellectual monopoly imposed on science by government. Plain and simple the social sciences have become vested and entangled in the failed policies of the Great Society.

You should read the article you reference in a rebuttal, Your historical source supports my historical rendition.
“If any one event created the psychological climate in which Solidarity emerged, it was the visit of John Paul to his homeland in June 1979. From the moment that the Pope knelt in Warsaw's airport to kiss the ground, he was cheered wildly by millions of Poles. John Paul never criticized the Communist regime directly, nor did he have to: his meaning was plain enough. "The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man," he told an enormous outdoor congregation in Warsaw. With that hardly veiled allusion to Communism, a deafening roar of approval filled the great city square. Says a Polish bishop of that day: "The Polish people broke the barrier of fear. They were hurling a challenge at their Marxist rulers."

Buffman

dk

I understand the scientific method,...

That's fine! I provided a reference URL that discussed Evolution and Creationism.

...but find evolution an unreliable god-head from which to govern human conduct, enterprises or values.

What are you attempting to say? I have no idea what you mean.

My opinion has nothing to do with evolutionary science.

OK! However, that does not appear to be consistent with your previous statement.

It takes 20 years to engineer a public consensus on even rudimentary issues,...

And your evidence for this gross generalization opinion is?

...and by then the science doesn’t match the vision.

Is "consensus" a synonym for "vision?"

The track record of the secular social sciences at a micro and macro level is simply horrific.

You appear to be the only one talking about Social Sciences. Care to define "secular" Social Sciences?

The 20th Century recorded one long world war ravaged by scientific racism, scientific history, and scientific utopia.

Which World War was that? The 1st or the 2nd? How was it "ravaged?" I have no idea to what the rest of your opinion alludes.

While the hard sciences continue to progress from paradigm to paradigm by solving problems, the social sciences leap from one exaggerated hypothesis to the next.

Are you now opining about the physical vs biological sciences or the natural sciences vs the social sciences? (Please forgive me. My mind is old and slow. What are you talking about? I read lots of words, but can find few specifics.)


Creationism is not a science...

Agreed!

...anymore than evolution is a philosophy.

It's a theory. Thus you are correct.

The big bang doesn’t address the creative forces of the universe.

What has the Big Bang got to do with what is advisable to teach in the public school biology classroom?

Science to date can’t pierce the mystery of consciousness, self awareness, beauty, nature/nurture or even the metabolism of a cell.

Yesterday science thought that the earth was flat, the center of the universe, had no idea how conception took place, thought that leeches could draw the bad blood out of your body to make you well, had no idea about blood types or Rh factors, could not view inside a living brain, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. Hell, yesterday science didn't even know what cells were, let alone that they had metabolism. What is your point?

In fact social science virtually runs amuck in a large dark reality, blind except for a narrow spectrum of light the size of pinhead.

Now I know your point. You just love to hear yourself talk to yourself regardless of clarity, purpose or meaning. I can find little desire to respond to further posts like this one. Sorry!

PS: Thank you for reading that reference concerning who contributed the most to the breakup of the Warsaw Pact. (Personally, I think that NATO, the Free Enterprise System, the debacle in Afghanistan and the endemic corruption within the USSR, had more to do with it than either of the other two.)

dk

:
dk - Cool, then evolutionary science needs to persuade students on the evidence, not doctrine. By disengaging from the debate evolutionary science undermines its own credibility. In fact postulated equilibrium is a modification to explain the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record. It’s called an epicycle. I don’t have a problem with epicycles, exceptions, competing theories, or the contradictions that appear throughout evolutionary science. In time I’m confident the science will sort out the specifics. My problem is with the social doctrines and laws fashioned upon overstated oracle like visionaries. For example the incomplete works of Boas and Margaret Mead linked human development, child psychology with cultural relativism under the auspices of cultural anthropology/evolutionary philosophy. Science no longer supports the theories, yet Laws have institutionalized the obsolete doctrine in Civil Rights. There are billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, huge bureaucracies all vested in Civil Rights. The social sciences cut their own throats because where the rubber meets the road the science appears unreliable. Misinformation is far and away the greatest obstacle to evolutionary sciences because what gets disseminated to the public through public schools and self help books bares no resemblance to the actual science. I find it very strange that an educational system racked with apathy, boredom and disentrancement would stifle an opportunity to engage students on a substantive issue. Go figure.
dk: - That’s because so much of evolutionary science is taught as doctrine, and students are slammed when they challenge the dogma.
dk: - I was taught there’s no such thing as a dumb question. I mean you just claimed there are plenty of transitional forms in the fossil record, yet punctuated equilibrium is a widely accepted scientific theory fashioned to explain the absence of transitional forms. This kind of abrasive denial of fact really makes evolutionary science look bad and insecure about the findings of science.

dk

You must have educated in a cave. Over the last 50 years evolutionary psychologists, biologists, anthropologists and sociologists have written thousands of articles, and hundreds of books on the subject. Dozens of web sites are dedicated to the topic. Here are a few references to make the point. I’m not sure what makes people argue from a position of denial, when denial is simply counterproductive.
<a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Ridley_on_Pinker_97.html" target="_blank"> Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company </a>
“ I am persuaded by Pinker's main claims, that our minds evolved by natural selection and that our mental abilities require elaborately designed programs. However, I have some fairly high-level disagreements. I could pick an argument with his theory of the emotions, with his idea that our mental adaptations are out of date in modern Western society, with his evidence from questionnaires, with his generally dismissive attitude toward cultural influence. But I'll pick on another issue: modifiability. Pinker includes in a list of the idiotic beliefs held by other scholars "that people could just as easily be conditioned to enjoy the thought of their spouse being unfaithful as to be upset by the thought." He discusses how natural selection will theoretically favor sexual jealousy, and how the facts (Margaret Mead and disciples notwithstanding) match the theory. Sexual jealousy, I agree, is a Darwinian adaptation that enabled some ancestral humans to outreproduce their more relaxed contemporaries, who did not end up among our ancestors. ”
------------------------------------------------------
<a href="http://human-nature.com/science-as-culture/dusek.html" target="_blank"> THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTHROPOLOGICAL RELATIVISM </a>
“[i]Another event, more directly linked to sociobiology, was the widely broadcast "discrediting" of the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead, and her cultural relativism. The reigning anthropological view from the end of W.W.II through the ascendance of sociobiology was the cultural variability of human behavior and norms. Margaret Mead, a student of Franz Boas. Boas was important in pioneering anti-racist theory earlier than the British anthropologists. Mead was a major proponent and popularizer of anti-racist as well as anthropological relativist views, influential not only in professional organizations but in popular media. (For instance, she wrote a column of advice and opinion in the women's magazine Redbook.) The discrediting of Mead was an important step in the propagation of sociobiology in America. Shortly after Mead's death, Derek Freeman published a book (1983), largely prepared decades before, that he had feared to make public while she was still alive to reply. Freeman claimed to show that Mead's account of sexual freedom in Samoa was a myth. The press widely publicized Freeman's claims. Evolutionary psychologists casually refer to Freeman's work ass disproving Mead's claims that sexual and violent behavior are culturally relative.”

Buffman

The lights work in "my" cave.

galiel

Folks, you gotta learn to recognize the code words.

dk brings up the utterly irrelevant Great Society in his very first post on this thread, tying it to "a secular multicultural curriculum" (code word for non-white European) and saying that public schools "become forts secured by armed guards, metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs" (Of course, he is referring to inner-city, mostly minority schools).

Further quotes are full of the classic racist hate-codes.

"reliance of Civil Rights upon cultural relativism rooted in obsolete concepts of evolutionary theory."

"cultural value of education"

"special interest groups that parade and sensationalize the social sciences through media mud"

"public school campuses are artificial egalitarians environments"

"We exist in a world increasingly dependent on science as a crutch for degenerate morals and ethics."

"social science virtually runs amuck in a large dark reality, blind except for a narrow spectrum of light the size of pinhead"

"closed intellectual monopoly imposed on science by government"

"social sciences have become vested and entangled in the failed policies of the Great Society"

"There are billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, huge bureaucracies all vested in Civil Rights."

dk is an apologist for white supremacy theory based on Biblical justifications. My bet is that he didn't win a cushy academic position and that he blames affirmative action for the minority person who was hired instead.

He also shows how a little, narrow education, as opposed to a full education, is a dangerous thing. He is clever, using quotes from a progressive UCLA cultural studies program in order to justify precisely the opposite thrust of that progam. Never mind that the quote is an utter non-sequetur to the Buffman comment challenging his assertion that the Pope was responsible for the fall of the USSR. Never mind that the Pinker book that the quoted writer reviews is about how computational models, derived from modern artificial intelligence research, are revolutionizing our understanding of cognitive brain mechanism.

By the way, the "New York Times Copyright" link name he uses implies that this is an NYTimes related site, which of course it isn't.

dk has folks here all tangled up in rhetoric, because he knows all the technical evolutionary terms, even if not their correct meanings.

He starts off falsely placing evolution in the "soft sciences", as opposed to "hard sciences". He calls the theory of evolution "evolutionary science", as if it were a completely separate field of inquiry from the natural sciences. And, when pressed on actual theory, he cleverly attempts to shift the focus from "evolution science" to "folk evolution", which is just another modern-supremicist-theory code word to discredit the theory of the common ancestry of man. He also uses this false distinction to try and put "creation science" on par with "evolution science" and "creationism" on par with "folk evolution", stealing a tactic from the ID people and trying to endear himself to scientists frustrated with the lack of general science education.

This is all classic misdirection. Note the code words, follow the progression, and all becomes clear.

Final note: anyone who can post the following with a straight face:

"Christianity brought Western Europe out of the Dark Ages into the High Middle Ages."

Hardly deserves the time or energy expended in this thread. Classic Christian Apologist cant.

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited to correct Freudian typing of
"Creationism" as "Cretinism" by: galiel ]

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: galiel ]</p>

Buffman

Thanks galiel. That was all rather obvious for anyone who has been in these forums for any length of time. However, I attempt to allow even bigots to have their say. Their own thoughts and words are usually the best ammunition we can have in advancing our own philosophies.

That is also the reason that theists are not only allowed to express their views here, but are actually encouraged to do so.

My particular problem with this 'dk' person is his/her inability to stay on topic in the C-SS forum... and this string in particular. However, I can certainly appreciate your concern when no one seemed willing to publicly expose all the racist garbage he is spewing. I used to attempt to expose these people just as you have. Then I discovered that I was merely providing them a broader stage from which to spread their self-anointed superiority and intolerant hate. But then, I have made my own fair share of posting screw-ups and misinterpretations...and certainly have no lock on the absolute truths.

(Added aside)

Still hoping for a similar critique of that which I forwarded to you.

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]</p>

galiel

(other good points snipped)

Guess I still underestimate folks here. Too many years of dealing with the irrational superstitious world, flying solo, without the kind of support ii represents.

People like dk cause so much harm in the world. So much teaching hate, so much perpetuating ignorance, so much polarization and division, all wrapped up in fancy rhetoric and clean-cut suit and tie. Most of the time, in most circumstances, they hold all the political power and own the microphones, all the while spreading the Big Lie about some "secular humanist"conspiracy to eat their young and steal their women, or something. I guess I just felt like turnaround was fair play--or at least deeply satisfying

Clutch

galiel,
Not just evolutionary terms. You might not have been here yet when dk confidently asserted that Logical Positivism was partly responsible for the moral breakdown of American society!

Yep, once the suburban moms started believing that all statements are direct or indirect truth-functions of a base class of observation statements... well, how could they possibly raise their kids right?