zzang

OK, so I don't know all the details but then again I'm a layperson.

Albion

Well, in the last little while I've heard about one college professor who was told that she should drop references to an ancient universe in her astrophysics classes because it was upsetting the students (many of whom were young-earth creationists) and another who received death threats for teaching evolution (serious enough death threats to be passed to the FBI, and she wasn't the only member of her department who's received them). They're attacking the colleges and universities alright.

If children go through school not hearing about all the branches of science that the Religious Right doesn't like, they woun't be properly equipped to take degrees in science and to follow careers in it. They woun't be equipped with the basics of critical thinking, for one thing. And if you think you can make up the shortfall with imported scientists, I wonder if that's realistic. People aren't going to want to come over here to do science if it means having their children attend schools where science is mutilated beyond recognition.

It'll be very nice for European and Asian countries if their scientists stay there rather than moving here, of course. But that doesn't help the USA, does it? Although maybe as long as this country has a godly culture, it won't matter if it's scientifically illiterate. Who needs cures for congenital diseases when thay can just pray about it instead?

Wyz_sub10

zzang, so what's your point in all of this? Do you wonder why evolution seems to attract more ardent defenders than any other area of science? It is simply because it has more attackers than any other area of science. I don't see what the mystery is.

Dr.GH

Well you can rest easy. Before a regulated drug or chemical product can be sold, it must have been tested on humans. One problem is, however, that effects that only occure after years of exposure can not be tested for on humans. Oh well...

A tradition in drug labs is that the first human subgect is always the head of the project. This harkens back to the days of Erlich.

Doubting Didymus

Hey, what?

Please explain this a little more, why should drift impact more on speciation than selection?

Doubting Didymus

Hang on, I think I get it.

Selection can only work on mutations with a direct positive or negative impact on the organisms fitness. Drift can alter all factors equally, with neutral impact on fitness but just as large an impact on the species' ability to interbreed.

So drift involves mutations that are neutral within the conditions that the isolated group finds itself in, but are 'secretly' removing the ability to interbreed with the parent group. So its like a cave fish, where eye-destroying mutations are neutral within the conditions that the fish finds itself in, but are actually altering features it is just not using at the moment.

Am I right?

ps418

Zzang, why did you spend so much time and energy earlier this month religiously defending the flawed YEC argument from magnetic field decay (<a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001478" target="_blank">Creationist student and magnetic fields </a>), as if it were your mother? Does it hurt your ego when someone disbelieves or attacks YEC nonsense? You seemed too attached and emotional about your belief in decaying magnetic fields.

By the way, you never responded to my last post in that thread (October 08, 2002 05:18 PM), where I showed just how badly you misrepresented the conclusions of Tarduno et al (Science 291, pp. 1779-1783) regarding Cretaceous magnetic field strength, and how you managed to totally contradict yourself in the process.


Patrick

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>

Nataraja

Ok, Mr. Hydrogen Breather, here's an answer for you. Just knowing that there are people in the world who are so ignorant is shocking to some of us. We find it even more depressing that some of them are even willfully ignorant. Dispelling such people of their ignorance is like trying to solve a puzzle with no apparent solution.

Asha'man

Actually, as an amateur astronomer, I attack astrology every chance I can.

But there just aren't that many idiots advocating it seriously.

zzang

I didn't, and the fact that you continue to insist that I did shows that you didn't really read my posts. Nowhere in that post did I say the Earth is 6000 years old because of the decaying magnetic field nor did I defend that proposition. Statements such as those are the reason I abandoned that thread. Too many people were pigeonholing me as a creationist as well as claiming that I said or believe things that I actually don't.

<strong> Nope.

<strong> Maybe it seems that way, but I'm not really that concerned with whether or not the field is decaying or oscillating.

<strong> Uhm, that wasn't your last post in the thread but regardless I didn't respond because I abandoned that thread due to all the misrepresentations of myself and my position (which I see still continue based on this post of yours).