Motorcycle Mama

Scigirl,

I've chosen to respond to your post more as a matter of convenience and apologize for using you in such a way, there is nothing malicious intended.

I'm out of here. It's been enjoyable and educational. Those who want to accuse me of posting and running fine, I will accept the criticism. I will close with one comment. The arguments of the YEC are religous, inspite of being clothed in scientific lexicon. The main weakness in the creationists arguments, especially those that invoke ID, is that they are God of the gaps arguments and thus theologically flawed. IF I believed that God was calling all the shots in a personal way I would not want to treat that God as a substitute player in those instances where science, for the time being, is inadequate. Or, it is a tremendous insult to God, and even huger inflation of the human intellect, to use a God of the gaps argument.
Motorcycle Mama

Pseudonymph

Allright you know what? To me this is the only thing that needs to be said to sciteach. He/she is not here to debate the creation of eukaryotic cells or anything scientific of any sort. This person seems to be bent on pushing some sort of bizarre agenda on his/her students....

Rick is right...when you teach something like science, you are hurting your students if you put an agenda before just straight up teaching the facts.


edited to add that it doesnt look like sciteach is around anymore...oh well.

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: SirenSpeak ]</p>

sensate

I say we close this thread when the week is up.

gravitybow

Motorcycle Mama:

Unless I'm misreading you somewhere, you're starting to scare me. Not like sciteach, mind you, but it seems that you were lecturer of some sort at the University of British Columbia, correct?

You said:
You're saying that the way your listed cultures/religions practiced science changed after the introduction of Christianity. But Happy Wonderer points out:
Meaning that your analysis couldn't possibly apply to one group on your list. Do you see it now?

You also claim an interest on the history and philosophy of biology, but:

Gould does much much more than imply. He and Niles Eldridge coined a term for their mechanism of modification, and it has been hotly debated in evolutionary circles. Hint: P.E.

I would think that, as a historian of biology with an expressed interest in evolution, you would readily mention it.


(edited to keep Wonderer from being a Wanderer. )

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: gravitybow ]</p>

Dr Rick

I believe I just had an out-of-body experience...

Rick

Ergaster

I realize you said you were "out of here", but I may as well respond anyway. Nothing too lengthy (I hope).


Try reading the article again. You will find that G&E's argument is closely tied to the notion of falsifiability: not only is the idea that *all* possible attributes of organisms MUST be the result of adaptation wrong, BUT ALSO the how so many of the "stories" of how these attributes arose as adaptations fail the falsifiability test. There is a whole discussion of this (on page 152, to be exact). Now I know that they do not explicitly use the word "falsifiability", but the discerning reader will understand that it is implied. After all, they do discuss how, if one hypothesis fails a test against reality, practitioners of the adaptationist program immediately get busy forging excuses for that failure, instead of examining the hypothesis and its assumptions.

You do need to read the article more closely. It simply is not about the "adequacy" of natural selection in any way, and it is spurious to try to claim that it is.

I think I have already indicated tht most modern evolutionists are not strict Darwinians in that the role of other mechanisms in evolution are rather well-known and accepted. Now, Gould had (and Eldredge still does, I think) some curious ideas about selection at the species level (they liked to regard species as being somehow like individuals), but that is not quite what we are talking about here.

I've seen the book you refer to, but I haven't read it. Nor was any reference to thermodynamics ever made by him in class, so I can't comment further, not knowing what you might mean by "driving force".

Boy, does this sound like evasion, or what?

Are you trying to imply that anti-evolutionists actually know better? If so, then IMO you are flat wrong. I've seen the statement often enough, and followed it up often enough with enough different creationists to know that it is almost inevitably based on deep ignorance of what "theory" means in science. Sounds like you might not be too clear on the meaning, yourself.

Pseudonymph

lol...Hey man don't make me stick a thin needle in your eye! You never know...you just may start to believe! (incredibly lame inside joke...sorry guys)

Albion

Darwin apparenty agreed with him. He said quite specifically that he thought natural selection was the major, but by no means the only, mechanism going on.

MOJO-JOJO

okay, very quickly (because it's really another topic), you're getting in to that weird theology that believes mankind was not "Man' until god came along and breathed his 'spirit' into him. Prior to this, when he was just 'Og in a Cave', he was simply an evolving mammal that god was not done with. Many Catholics and other "thinking Christians" buy in to this notion. If you believe this though, then the next question is 'why would god do it this way when he can blink like Jeannie and poof matter out of thin air?' and 'why doesn't it comport with the bible?'

The obvious answer to most is that it is all further evidence that religion and god-beliefs are the construct of man, his imagination and his love of mythology.

Bubba

Which makes man a pretty noble creature in his own way, with or without a creator.

Chris