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Old 10-03-2002, 04:02 PM   #141
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I find it odd you beleive planets unrelated to evolution. Here I thought the people of earth lived on the planet earth
Okay, so astronomy is important to evolution because living things live on planets? Therefore any problem with astronomy is a problem with evolution?

Think about that one for just a second.

You know what else is only on earth? Politics. Therefore problems with astronomy should cause strife to the political theory of democracy.

Also the arts are so far confined to planets, so problems with astronomy should be causing some nasty pertubations amongst the impressionist movement.

Seriously, Astronomy has no bearing on evolution at all, except maybe for things like commenting on the possibility / probability of inhabitable planets forming, or perhaps making suggestions about meteoric mass extinctions at a stretch.

You could prove that plantetary systems sprang fully formed from the void 5 billion years ago, and while it would put the wind up the physicists and astronomers, biologists would not need to bat an eyelid.
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Old 10-03-2002, 04:57 PM   #142
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Originally posted by dk:
<strong>
Whether and how and what it means to say “people evolved from apes” doesn’t necessarily contradict Biblical Doctrine.
You want to try and explain that to Ken Ham?

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The Bible says people are created in God’s image from dirt, and evolution claims people evolved from dirt.</strong>
A picture is worth a thousand words. I suspect most people here are thinking the same thing I am.

[Edited by Kevin Dorner: Ad-hom removed]

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" /> <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]

[ October 05, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]</p>
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Old 10-03-2002, 05:15 PM   #143
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Hey Tgamble, You've somehow got my name on a quote from dk.

Edit: Post 666! clearly a sign that the devil made you do it.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Doubting Didymus ]</p>
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Old 10-04-2002, 06:55 AM   #144
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<ol type="1">[*]Xixax: So, if a religion found young human sacrifice important, the law would be to blame for their lawlessness?
dk: History records many religions that sacrifice people to the gods. Sadly, they all met with ruin.[*]Xixax: Keeping state funds from sponsoring/endorsing/teaching religion in -no- way effects their ability to practice that religion. Children can bring their Bible to school, they can even witness to other children about it ( obviously not on class time ). The schools are open to them for clubs after hours..
dk: The Berger Court prohibited students from carrying a Bible and Christians clubs from assembly on campus. The Warren Court denied the petitions of Christians. The Rehnquist-Court finally heard the grievances, and found public schools hostile to religion. What do you think the place of religion in US society?. permit me 2 questions
1) Does the constitution prohibit or protect the right of religious speech?
2) Does the constitution prohibit or protect the right of religious groups to organize?[*]Xixax: I mean, this mock persecution you seem to present just doesn't exist. So... you can't have spirituality and the super-natural taught to children in public school:
dk: In communities that are 90%+ Christian children should be treated as sacred gifts from God, and expected to act in the manner of Jesus Christ. I think that is what the vast majority of Christian parents expect of public schools. To the extent public schools deviate from Christian doctrine as a matter of policy needs to be publicly posted for discussion.[*]Xixax: I can't have strict naturalism taught either. However, both of us should be able to agree that the sciences, history etc., is something that should be taught. In that way, evolution is a perfectly acceptable subject matter. It has no opinion or stance on human spirituality. None. It does conflict with literalist interpretations of some particular religions holy books, but that hardly makes it something that should be kept from schools.
dk: I don’t believe strict naturalism is taught as a doctrine. But if you want your children treated as strict naturalists, then you need to know where public schools deviate on policy. Lets be clear, to cover a child parents need the open support schools, and visa versa. When parents and schools don’t have a clue who’s responsible for what, then the child is more often than not left uncovered.[*]Xixax: Not only that, what tactics are you talking about anyway? Teaching? Heh.... you are still in this "evilutionist conspiracy" mode were you somehow feel there is a large group of people hiding "the truth" from everyone else. That isn't the case. How could such information be stopped?
dk: I oppose the “Closing of the American Mind” under the auspices of pseudoscientific evolutionary social doctrines.[*]Xixax: It's so easy to release and publish information these days, that if there were any truth to any of the garbage your spewing out about a lack of evidence for evolution, it would be widely discussed, and thought would change! It may very well happen. It's extremely unlikely considering the overwhelming amount of positive evidence for evolution, but the fact that it's not a dogmatic religious belief means it can be overturned by evidence. Not by whining, not by wishing it away, not by thinking we must be more special than just another evolved species on this planet, but by evidence. Until that happens, and it more than likely never will, evolution belongs in the biology classroom.
dk: NO evidence? Public schools have devolved over the last 40 years into armed camps secured by armed guards, metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs, zero tolerance policies and random drug tests. Public schools are secular institutions that suffer from their own doctrine.[*]Xixax: The problem you have with evolution is all you. Evolution is a science. It's facts, theory, mechanisms and observations. It has no morality or amorality. It doesn't need or deny a God. It doesn't speak to any social ills or causes.
dk: People repeat doctrine over and over to establish doctrine.[/list=a]

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>
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Old 10-04-2002, 09:44 AM   #145
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Originally posted by dk:
<strong>I oppose the “Closing of the American Mind” under the auspices of pseudoscientific evolutionary social doctrines.</strong>
Yeah, me too, but I do have a question: what exactly is a "pseudoscientific evolutionary social doctrine"?

<strong>
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Public schools have devolved over the last 40 years into armed camps secured by armed guards, metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs, zero tolerance policies and random drug tests. Public schools are secular institutions that suffer from their own doctrine.</strong>
Don't forget global warming, rap music, reality TV, and Martha Stewart; my god, the list of evils obviously attributable to evolution is limitless.

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Old 10-04-2002, 10:12 AM   #146
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Xixax: So, if a religion found young human sacrifice important, the law would be to blame for their lawlessness?

dk: History records many religions that sacrifice people to the gods. Sadly, they all met with ruin.
Sadly they all met with ruin? How about, "Happily they all met with ruin." It would still be inaccurate, but at least it would hide your preference for religions with human sacrifice.

Judaism/Christianity has a history of human sacrifice.... perhaps you consider that because it was so infrequent it excuses it?

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What do you think the place of religion in US society?. permit me 2 questions
1) Does the constitution prohibit or protect the right of religious speech?
2) Does the constitution prohibit or protect the right of religious groups to organize?
Religion has a place in our society. I personally feel that a more natural basis for morality would be a much better choice, but considering most people following a religion only adhere to the 'good' points anyway, knowing little of it's past and thinking even less of it's overall consequences, it provides positive experiences for them.

It doesn't make it real.

1) It protects the right of religious speech.
2) It protects their right to organize.

( Note: Neither however is protected if taking funds from taxation etc., it must be sponsored and paid for by the groups in question )

Quote:
Xixax: I mean, this mock persecution you seem to present just doesn't exist. So... you can't have spirituality and the super-natural taught to children in public school:

dk: In communities that are 90%+ Christian children should be treated as sacred gifts from God, and expected to act in the manner of Jesus Christ. I think that is what the vast majority of Christian parents expect of public schools. To the extent public schools deviate from Christian doctrine as a matter of policy needs to be publicly posted for discussion.
You do understand the difference between tolerance, disagreement, and persecution right? Just because they aren't thumping a Bible in class doesn't mean you're being persecuted.

That schools 'deviate' from Christian doctrine is an IRRELEVANCE, as much as it is irrelevant how it deviates from Muslim doctrine, Hindu doctrine, and the doctrine of the great IPU or IWA's.

It's irrelevant, and doesn't deserve serious discussion.

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But if you want your children treated as strict naturalists, then you need to know to what extent to which public schools deviate. Lets be clear, to cover a child parents need the open support schools, and visa versa. When parents and schools don’t have a clue who’s responsible for what, then the child is more often than not left uncovered.
No, I don't have to know how they deviate. They aren't addressing issues like whether or not a child should believe in the supernatural in a classroom! Hopefully they are instilling critical thinking skills, but stopping short of telling them what to believe. I'll do that when they get home.

The best bet is to make sure the school does not deviate into -any- religious doctrine, unless the child enrolls in a class where the discussion of those issues is expected. In those cases, I would then hope the teacher does not lay any bias on the children during grading, but I would be fine with the teacher expressing their personal beliefs and even defending them. So long as it doesn't get molded into a math class, a chemistry class, or a biology class etc. Keep it in classes where those issues are in context and I'm fine with it.

Quote:
Xixax: Not only that, what tactics are you talking about anyway? Teaching? Heh.... you are still in this "evilutionist conspiracy" mode were you somehow feel there is a large group of people hiding "the truth" from everyone else. That isn't the case. How could such information be stopped?

dk: I oppose the “Closing of the American Mind” under the auspices of pseudoscientific evolutionary social doctrines.
Ahhh.... I read a few reviews and notes from that book by Allan Bloom your'e referring to. What I read sounds eerily similar to the same crap you're spewing on this forum. For instance:

Quote:
From Blooms book:

blacks are not sharing a special positive intellectual or moral experience; they partake fully in the common culture, with the same goals and tastes as everyone else, but they are doing it by themselves. The heat is under the pot, but they do not melt as have /all/ other groups." "Affirmative action now institutionalises the worse aspects of separatism. The fact is that the average black student's achievements do not equal those of the average white student in good universities and everybody knows it." "Those who are good students fear they are equated with those who are not, that their hard-won credentials are not credible. They are the victims of a stereotype, but one that has been chosen by black leadership."
<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Quote:
Xixax: It's so easy to release and publish information these days, that if there were any truth to any of the garbage your spewing out about a lack of evidence for evolution, it would be widely discussed, and thought would change! It may very well happen. It's extremely unlikely considering the overwhelming amount of positive evidence for evolution, but the fact that it's not a dogmatic religious belief means it can be overturned by evidence. Not by whining, not by wishing it away, not by thinking we must be more special than just another evolved species on this planet, but by evidence. Until that happens, and it more than likely never will, evolution belongs in the biology classroom.

dk: NO evidence? Public schools have devolved over the last 40 years into armed camps secured by armed guards, metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs, zero tolerance policies and random drug tests. Public schools are secular institutions that suffer from their own doctrine.
What the hell are you talking about? You even took the time to C&P my post, why not respond to it instead of this? I never said "NO Evidence", nor was I saying a damn thing about social decline. I was talking about the evidence in support of evolution. You have a serious reading comprehension problem.

Quote:
Xixax: The problem you have with evolution is all you. Evolution is a science. It's facts, theory, mechanisms and observations. It has no morality or amorality. It doesn't need or deny a God. It doesn't speak to any social ills or causes.

dk: People repeat doctrine over and over to establish doctrine.
And people repeat bullshit over and over to remove any doubt about them being an idiot.
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Old 10-04-2002, 11:41 AM   #147
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Let's stay on topic here please - To remind everyone, the title of this thread is, "Critiquing creationism is good science education."

Thank you,

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Old 10-04-2002, 02:22 PM   #148
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dk: In communities that are 90%+ Christian children should be treated as sacred gifts from God, and expected to act in the manner of Jesus Christ. ...
As opposed to being depraved original sinners?

And I don't see how being descended from long-ago apes is any more demeaning than being automatically guilty of Original Sin and thus deserving of eternal damnation.

Quote:
dk: I don’t believe strict naturalism is taught as a doctrine. ...
So should schools devote a lot of time to demonic possession and exorcism?

Quote:
dk: NO evidence? Public schools have devolved over the last 40 years into armed camps secured by armed guards, metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs, zero tolerance policies and random drug tests. Public schools are secular institutions that suffer from their own doctrine.
O dk, tell us what this has to do with evolutionary biology. I note that European schools also teach evolutionary biology -- and that they do so without becoming war zones. As do many American schools. O dk, it seems as if you have been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>
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Old 10-04-2002, 02:37 PM   #149
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<ol type="1">[*]lpetrich: Because some things are well-established. For example, the existence of the force of gravity, not only microgravity that pulls us to the Earth, but also macrogravity that pulls the Moon toward the Earth. Someone who accepts the existence of microgravity but not macrogravity would be justifiably laughed at.
dk: I had no idea gravity exerted two forces, macro and micro. If you can write down the equations we have something to discuss, else the force gravity exerts is “F = G(m1*m2)/s**2”, and will get a kid into college and through most PHD and post doc programs.[*]dk: - I don’t know, on the planetary scale there’s catastrophe verses gradualism; ice sheets from Greenland show wild temperature flip-flops, the discovery of extra-solar planets deconstruct existing planet formation theories, the absence of plate tectonics on Venus. On a macro scale astronomers find about 1/5 the matter needed to counteract expansion, ...
lpetrich: I don't see the connection between these oddities and biological evolution.
dk: I’m told asteroid impacts, ice ages and volcanoes affect the evolution of life.[*]dk: By direction I mean moving from greater to less complexity, or visa versa. Happenstance doesn’t explain up line processes.
lpetrich: However, nonrandom selection can produce change in the direction of greater order. Try putting a lot of toy magnets into a box and then shaking it. Notice how the magnets tend to stick to each other, forming chains.
dk: Putting a lot of toy magnets into a box isn’t a random event, but a designed experiment. This does present an interesting question. Can random events be designed?[*]dk: Since the institution of public education transmits cultural values from one generation to the next, education concerns evolution. To the extent public schools replace the family as the basic unit of culture, education becomes a causal agent of evolutionary science.
lpetrich: What you have presented, O dk, has nothing whatsoever to do with biological evolution. Your making a villain out of the public schools and a hero out of "the family" is a totally separate issue.
dk: I’m stating the obvious.[*]lpetrich: ... And the metabolism of a cell is actually fairly well-understood, especially for bacteria. No special life-stuff is necessary. Although there are still gaps in our knowledge, a life-stuff of the gaps is a superfluous hypothesis.
dk: How well people understand “life-stuff” is relative. By 18th Century standards our material understanding has improved tremendously, yet relative to the 23rd Century today’s knowledge may be considered offish, egocentric and criminal. ...
lpetrich: I would not lose much sleep over that, because science is cumulative. Newtonian mechanics was not overthrown by modern physics, but was shown to be a relatively-accessible special case of it. And the same would hold true of the present-day understanding of cellular metabolism. Future generations would simply fill in the gaps, and it is reasonable to extrapolate that no special life-stuff will ever be found.
dk: Newton’s Laws have proven reliable because they are straight forward and simple, whereas the laws of biology and sociology are complex and speculative, therefore less reliable. The biological sciences have a spotty history, but have made substantial progressive. The social sciences have proven unreliable and backward leaving an accumulation of tragedies in their wake. A sleeping pill called thalidomide caused thousands of severe birth defects. Just a few score of years ago 4.5 million Dalkon Shields were removed from the US market then shipped unsterilized by to 3rd World Countries. The health affects of long term female hormones have recently come under scrutiny. Nobody knows the long term health affects of psychotropic therapies on children. MDR microbes threaten to set medicine back 70 years. The life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa has regressed to pre-colonial days because of the AIDs pandemic. There has been progress, but it has not been on a straight line, more like 5 steps forward, and 4 backward. There’s no guarantee civilization hasn’t peaked precisely because science has lost the war against MDR microbes.[*]dk: 1) macroevolution Evolution above the species level, i.e. the development of new species, genera, families, orders, etc. There is no agreement as to whether macroevolution results from the accumulation of small changes due to microevolution, or whether macroevolution is uncoupled from microevolution. -----A Dictionary of Earth Sciences, © Oxford University Press 1999
lpetrich:. Typical quote-mining.
dk: Typical denial.[*]dk:... Likewise Mendel’s research lay buried on a shelf while the Pillars of Science were busy debating Darwin’s exotic finches & Galton’s Eugenics as a rationalization for persecuting inferior peoples like Jews, Blacks and Armenians. Go figure, but most people think there’s a lesson to be learned here. I quite frankly don’t understand your apathy.
lpetrich: However, evolutionary biology was not a common rationalization for these persecutions, which had started long before Charles Darwin was born. Anti-Semitism is a centuries-old Christian tradition; Jews had long been labeled "Christ-killers", and were even suspected of using in matzohs the blood of Christian babies. Adolf Hitler had simply gone farther than most anti-Semites had been willing to. And blacks were considered to have the curse that Noah had placed on his son Ham for being a Peeping Tom.
dk: More finger pointing, race bating and innuendo. Scientific racism was a rationalization, and more severe than anything the world had ever known. The fact is Christians evangelized indigenous people around the world because they were created in God’s image. Jews have been persecuted, enslaved and oppressed since the dawn of history, and if their survival proves anything its that they are God’s chosen people, and a stiff necked people at that. .[*]lpetrich:The origin of life has NOTHING to do with the Big Bang.
dk: So life first existed in some non-existent place (eternity), then created the real universe (with a big bang). ...
lpetrich :No, the origin of life had happened AFTER the Big Bang, and has no direct connection to it.
dk: If there’s no connection between the origin of life and the Big Bang, then its possible life originated before he Big Bang, right!!!! hehehehe[*]dk: The conventional wisdom of the day stemmed from Aristotle, not the Bible. And even today most people see the sun set, not the earth rotate. I can’t ever remember anyone saying, “let’s go watch the earth rotate away from the sun”. In fact Kepler published his findings before Galileo and Galileo publicly attacked and scorned Kepler. Newton worked from Kepler’s calculations because Galileo made some grave errors. Check it out.
lpetrich :Lots of misunderstandings. Aristotle and the Bible agreed on the Earth being stationary, though not on the shape of the Earth; Aristotle was one of the first to state the Earth's approximate sphericity, while the Bible implies in some places that the Earth is flat.
dk: Which again demonstrates that doctrine is relative, while the particular shape and orbit of the earth are cylindrical.
lpetrich And where had Galileo attacked Kepler? These two gentlemen had been good friends, and they had shared some chuckles at the expense of their Aristotle-thumping colleagues. Also, Galileo had never done the sort of celestial-mechanics calculations that Kepler had done -- and he continued to believe that the orbits of the planets are circles, despite Kepler having shown otherwise.
Newton worked from Kepler's laws of planetary motion because these were regularities that had been found in the planets' motions -- and working from these was a lot easier than working directly from the planets' observed positions.
dk: Galileo attacked Kepler after he published his findings because they disagreed on the evidence, and embarrassed Galileo. Ironically Galileo became famous for his errors, when his work in optics, gravity and oscillation was groundbreaking.[*]scigirl: ... Again, the churches just outright rejected the theory - NOT because of evidence, but because the Bible says "God created the earth in 6 days blah blah blah."
dk: What churches? Certainly the Catholic Church never published such a Papal Encyclicals ex cathedra. I’ll bet you can’t produce dogma from Orthodox Jewish or even Islam to declare evolution unChristian, unJewish or unIslam. I think you’ve been hooked by rumor, propaganda and fairytales. By and large the resistance too evolutionism comes from people offended by the tactics employed by evolutionists.[*]lpetrich :There are lots and lots of fundamentalists who believe that the Universe is only 6000 years old, simply because that's what the genealogies in the Bible add up to.
dk: There’re a lot of agnostics and atheists that believe professional wrestling is a science, rap is music, and Galileo proved the earth orbited the sun.[/list=a]

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>
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Old 10-04-2002, 04:31 PM   #150
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<ol type="1">[*]dk: In communities that are 90%+ Christian children should be treated as sacred gifts from God, and expected to act in the manner of Jesus Christ. ..
lpetrich: As opposed to being depraved original sinners?
dk: As opposed to being the property of government.[*]lpetrich: And I don't see how being descended from long-ago apes is any more demeaning than being automatically guilty of Original Sin and thus deserving of eternal damnation.
dk: I’m not sure where you picked up this misinformation, but I hope it wasn’t at pubic school. Adam and Eve committed original sin, through baptism a person is reborn to the word of the Holy Spirit.[*]I don’t believe strict naturalism is taught as a doctrine. ...
lpetrich: So should schools devote a lot of time to demonic possession and exorcism?
dk: No, is that what you learned in public school?[*]dk: NO evidence? Public schools have devolved over the last 40 years into armed camps secured by armed guards, metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs, zero tolerance policies and random drug tests. Public schools are secular institutions that suffer from their own doctrine.
lpetrich: dk, tell us what this has to do with evolutionary biology. I note that European schools also teach evolutionary biology -- and that they do so without becoming war zones. As do many American schools. O dk, it seems as if you have been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh.
dk: I have no idea what Europeans nations teach about evolutionary biology, but would guess it varies from nation to nation. You asked for evidence, and I provided it. In 1950 US schools were esteemed institutions. In 1970 US public schools were the crown jewel of the Great Society, and promised to rid the nation countless social ills. Today public schools are widely regarded as failures, and the government threatens to take them over lock, stock and barrel if they don’t straighten up. What happened?[/list=a]
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