Monday, October 01, 2007
“The use of the word ‘theory’ can mislead those not familiar with science..”
With Lisburn Council encouraging post-primary schools to teach neo-creationists’ untestable hypotheses as alternative theories to evolution, and the NI Department of Education apparently unsure about what they should do about it, James Randerson at the Guardian’s Science blog has pointed to the government’s new guidance to teachers in another part of the UK. And that guidance couldn’t be clearer - creationism and intelligent design are not alternative scientific theories to evolution and “should not be taught as science.” Perhaps someone could tell the spokeswoman for the Department of Education here?
From the post by James Randerson
The new guidelines could not be clearer:
“Creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science.” [added emphasis]That doesn’t mean it cannot be mentioned of course, but the guidelines state that it should only feature as part of discussions about what does and does not make a scientific theory.
The use of the word ‘theory’ can mislead those not familiar with science as a subject discipline because it is different from the everyday meaning of being little more than a ‘hunch’. In science the meaning is much less tentative and indicates that there is a substantial amount of supporting evidence, underpinned by principles and explanations accepted by the international scientific community...Creationism and intelligent design are sometimes claimed to be scientific theories. This is not the case as they have no underpinning scientific principles, or explanations, and are not accepted by the science community as a whole.
And also from those guidelines
Creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science. However, there is a real difference between teaching ‘x’ and teaching about ‘x’. Any questions about creationism and intelligent design which arise in science lessons, for example as a result of media coverage, could provide the opportunity to explain or explore why they are not considered to be scientific theories and, in the right context, why evolution is considered to be a scientific theory.
If the Northern Ireland Department of Education haven’t issued these guidelines to schools here, they should do so now.
Adds here’s another snippet from the guidelines to teachers elsewhere in the UK
Which subject should deal with creationism and intelligent design?
Teachers of subjects such as RE, history or citizenship may deal with creationism and intelligent design in their lessons. If such issues were to arise there might be value in science colleagues working with these teachers in addressing them.
Pete Baker @ 08:45 PM
Sean
I am not surprised you are confused as you don’t even know what the Bible is!
KMan/Circles
When you have lost the argument don’t retreat to silly points like “cryptic words for Hebrew” - the words are very plain in both English and Hebrew - you just do not like the implications. It is ironic that the words of Magellan are treated by you as fact and, when it suited you before I pointed out the two references, you clearly believed that you could undermine the veracity of Scripture.
I think another quotation is in order to show the obtuseness of the illiterate Darwin Fundamentalists here,
Agnostic biologist, Dr. Michael Denton explains the complexity of the brain:
The human brain consists of about ten thousand million nerve cells. Each nerve cell puts out somewhere in the region of between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibres by which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain. Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches a thousand million million. ... a much greater number of specific connections than in the entire communications network on Earth.
If a computer simply takes in information, processes it, stores it and gives it out (and no sane person would deny that it is the product of design and creation), then why would anyone think the infinitely more efficient and impressive brain “supercomputer” was designed and created by chance? If the building of the IBM’s Blue Gene/L (which incidentally took the best minds in the world 3 years to construct) is described as “a real tour de force in engineering,” then why does any rational person think the brain is not also? It does not take a major extrapolation of logic to see the inductive parallel here.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 03:06 PMSam you are missing the point. And missing it completely.
Nobody (read it slowly and move your lips if you must) NOBODY is denying the marvels of nature, the complexness of the human brain, the wonders revealed by the changing of the season, the magnificence of a star filled sky etc. etc. etc.
However complexity and majesty are in no way proof that a single omnipotent entity (with or without beard) sat down one day and drew the whole thing up on a cosmic drawing board, which he must have created simply for that purpose as there were no drawing boards before.
The term cryptic phrases did not refer to any language in particular but rather to the PHRASE (not the words!). The quotes you used were like many others in the bible in that they were not categoric in their meaning. It was unclear. I noticed you didn’t go into the “people were as grasshoppers” thing, but decided to focus on the other bits that pleased you better. That is of course your prerogative when reading a book. But please do not try and palm off your interpreted version of ancient texts (or indeed somebody elses interpretation) as any kind of absolute truth. You don’t even understand Darwinism that is just over a century old, how can you pretend to understand what people thousands of years ago meant in their texts?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 03:55 PMcomplexness - oh la la!
Lets just replace that with complexity shall we and pretend it never happened?Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 04:17 PMSam:
Agnostic biologist, Dr. Michael Denton explains the complexity of the brain:
The human brain consists of about ten thousand million nerve cells. Each nerve cell puts out somewhere in the region of between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibres by which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain. Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches a thousand million million. ... a much greater number of specific connections than in the entire communications network on Earth.
You seem to be confusing randomness with evolution.
If evolution was entirely random then the following mathematical example disproves your example of the human brain:
1 chance in 1,000,000,000 X 1 change in 1,000,000,000 X 1 chance in 1,000,000,000 etc is greater than 0. i.e. it never equals zero.
Darwins theory of natural selection suggests that evolution is not random, meaning that the chance of something complex developing over millions of years (like a human brain) is greater than that of the mathematical example above. Which might explain why such complexity, many examples if which you have cited, exists on earth.
There are those who can accept evolution, and yet have enough faith not to condemn those who don’t accept it. Plus the other way around.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 04:31 PMNow, repeat after me (enough times for it to sink in):
I will not feed the troll.Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 04:50 PMSo, my atheist friend, you scoff at belief in God because of six characteristics: invisible, supernatural, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and self-existent. Let me ask you, then: how did the universe get here?
“It just happened.”
Think about what that means. You’re saying that there was a series of forces, processes, and events operating without any particular purpose over billions of years. Let’s use the term “Random Chance” to summarize the whole series. Here’s my first question for you: What does Random Chance look like?
“What are you talking about? You can’t see random chance!”Interesting! You believe in something you can’t see. Random chance can only be detected by what it does. It is invisible. Let’s think about some other characteristics of your series of forces, processes, and events known as Random Chance.
- Suppose random chance set the laws of nature into effect. Then it is not subject to those laws; it is above nature, or supernatural.
“Gulp...”- If the universe is the result of random chance, then random chance has been here since before the universe began. It is eternal. - Now, tell me: where is random chance found?
“Everywhere.”Oh, you mean it’s omnipresent.
- Next: even if Random Chance is directly responsible for only some things, it is indirectly responsible for everything else. If I drop a pen Random Chance doesn’t grab it and force it to the ground. However, it is indirectly responsible because it set up the laws of gravity. Since it is either directly or indirectly responsible for everything in the universe, it is omnipotent.
- One last question. Who made Random Chance? Nobody. It is self-existent.
So, dear atheist, you don’t believe in God because He has six unscientific characteristics: invisible, supernatural, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and self-existent. Yet you believe in Random Chance which has exactly the same characteristics: invisible, supernatural, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and self-existent. No, my friend, you have no scientific advantage over me. I worship the God of the Bible, but you worship a god known as Random Chance. There is no possibility that God does NOT exist, whether a personal being as revealed in the Bible or a series of impersonal forces as you rely on.
Can I prove the existence of the personal God I believe in? No. Can you prove the existence of Random Chance? No. We both take a step of faith. So what’s the difference?
http://www.originsresource.org/creacorn.htm
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 05:15 PMSam:
Resorting to cut and paste (especially of someone having a conversation with themselves) inst making your argument any more convincing.
You dont believe in mathematics? If not, you should go get you money out of the bank right away.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 05:25 PMActually McGrath you have clearly never studied mathematics as you would know that all reputable mathmaticians accept that odds outside ten to the power of minus 50 are outside the realm of possibility by chance. The odds for instance that the the probability that the 122 constants of the laws of nature such as speed of light, electromagnetic force etc the earth requires to exist could exist for any planet (including earth) by chance in the universe as: one chance in 10 to the power of 138! There are only 10 to the power of 70 atoms in the whole of the known universe!
Darwinism is, is a wild extrapolation from limited data and cannot be falsified or even exist mathmatically. It is ironic that the very persons here who insist upon keeping religion and science separate are eager to use their science as a basis for pronouncements about religion. The literature of Darwinism is full of antitheistic conclusions, such as that the universe was not designed and has no purpose, and that we humans are the product of blind natural processes that care nothing about us.
Darwinists accept that the genetic variations that the magic “unguided” process of natural selection works through is simply a product of chance. So please be honest and stop retreating behind the argument that the fundamental root of evolution is not chance!
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 05:42 PM“However complexity and majesty are in no way proof that a single omnipotent entity (with or without beard) sat down one day and drew the whole thing up on a cosmic drawing board, which he must have created simply for that purpose as there were no drawing boards before.”
Of course an easy riposte to this type of village philsophical twists is to simply point out that they don’t disprove it either so we are at stalemate!
The question then has to be asked can unguided and randomn natural processes account for the fact that we see irreducibly complex organisms. The evidence so far has to be zero as even guided natural processes such as brain surgery cannot even get close to producing 1% of a brain.
Lets face it - you believe by faith your belief in evolution and I believe mine in Creation. You cannot demonstrate or describe in any detail explain how the brain was created and neither can I. On the balance of probabilities, it is reasonable to infer that I am closer to the truth as the organised complexity cannot be explained at all by natural processes currently which is suggestive that it appears to be designed because it was designed!
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 05:49 PMSam
as: one chance in 10 to the power of 138! There are only 10 to the power of 70 atoms in the whole of the known universeSteady on their mate, there are probably that many atoms in a single human body
You really shoul go through and check your maths
And when did you have time to count all these atoms so that you can definatively state the total lol your math is worse than my understanding of the bible the difference is maths is real the bible is a really bizarre, sick and twisted fairy tale. Much more disturbing than anything the Brothers Grim could dream up
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 06:27 PM“Actually McGrath you have clearly never studied mathematics as you would know that all reputable mathematicians accept that odds outside ten to the power of minus 50 are outside the realm of possibility by chance.”
And if so, the theory of evolution is the best explanation of such remote changes to date. This theory, like all theories has been rigorously tested and stands until proven wrong. The theory of evolution has withstood thousands of scientific tests; nothing has disproved it since Darwin first proposed it. Various scientific advances in physics, genetics, chemistry, and biology have supported, refined, and expanded evolutionary theory further than anything Darwin could have seen. Your own personal health has been improved partly because of it.
What tests are there for ID? None. As such, it isn’t even a theory.
I have noticed you haven’t even described ID as a hypothesis.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:33 PMI fail to understand why Sam is routinely excused his personal attacks on those who disagree with him. He almost unfailingly includes personally insulting statements in his posts, and, though it illuminates certain aspects of his character, it’s getting a tad much......
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:48 PMCare to comment on Snakebrain’s remark Pete.
You can’t have failed to notice that quite a few people have withdrawn from the “debate” due to Sam’s snide insults.Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:59 PM‘The literature of Darwinism is full of antitheistic conclusions, such as that the universe was not designed and has no purpose, and that we humans are the product of blind natural processes that care nothing about us. ‘
And Darwin certainly got that right . When was the last time that the Great Designer intervened to save his ‘designer’ babies from mass starvation /famines/wars etc?
‘Darwinists accept that the genetic variations that the magic “unguided” process of natural selection works through is simply a product of chance.’
Natural selection is always at work . The prime function of DNA is to replicate itself . Any genetic mutation which improves it’s chances of reproduction will tend to survive . Living organisms including man as an animal are also moulded by environment . Which is why people who live close to the equator have dark skins and those livinging in temperate zones have lighter skins . Sexual selection is the main driving force behind the present day varieties of the human animal .
Darwinism is far more ‘intelligent ‘ than ID which is in all honesty utter bilge -forgivable as a credo perhaps a century ago but not in light of the most recent advances in the biological sciences or in evolutionary psychology.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:03 PMjoeC
Those comments haven’t been exclusively one-way, and they’ve been directed at me too.
And, while they’re not the worst we’ve seen on Slugger, I tend towards A C Grayling’s previously noted point.
There is no excuse for ill manners and insults, though of course there is an explanation: usually, the impotence and weakness of the insulter and his or her case. Insult an idea or an institution, by all means, if you have serious grounds to do so; but not individuals: that is the bottom line.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:06 PMSean,
“And whos interpretation of said bible? especially as they are all written 100’s of years after the death of the ‘son of god’...”
Likely you mean scores of years when you refer to the New Testament.
“… who is rumoured to be gay.”
And this is a problem for you?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:12 PMfail to understand why Sam is routinely excused his personal attacks on those who disagree with him. He almost unfailingly includes personally insulting statements in his posts, and, though it illuminates certain aspects of his character, it’s getting a tad much......
Posted by snakebrain on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:48 PMI think Sam’s commentary has something to do with fundamentalists considering anyone that doesn’t share their view as insulting.
Don’t get scared off Sam, you’ve been great craik so far.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:15 PMDespite your arrogant attitude, you would be well advised in taking a 101 Philosophy of Science class at Queens.
Of course an easy riposte to this type of village philsophical twists..
I am not surprised you are confused as you don’t even know what the Bible is!
Actually McGrath you have clearly never studied mathematics
And so on, and so on.....
It’s not that bad but a gentle admonition might be in order
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:26 PM“What tests are there for ID? None. As such, it isn’t even a theory.”
That is strange as all the militant atheist fundamentalists have been telling us all throughout this debate that ID can be falsified by the “overwhelming” evidence for evolution. Can we have some consistency in this debate instead of shifting the goalposts at every opportunity when cornered.
How you can blazenly state that there no tests for ID when you clearly are confident that it can be dismissed as non-design is beyong me. You obviously feel you have objective criteria to do so.
Thirdly, ID inferences are an intergral part of modern scientifc investigation. Let me repeat for the umpteenth time for the slow learners here making design inferences is an established and a fundamental part of modern science. We
see this in many disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology, forensics, criminal jurisprudence, copyright law, patent law, reverse engineering, crypto-analysis, random number generation, and even to the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).The answers are very easy to come by if you just think.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:28 PMGraduation Ceremony Queens
Woman : ‘That’s me son up there -He’s now graduating as a Doctor ‘
Womans’s Sister : A Doctor ! A Doctor of what ?
Woman (proudly ): A Doctor of Philosophy !
Woman’s Sister : What sort of a disease is Philosophy ?
Greenflag
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:39 PMGreenflag
Just think before you write - please do not expect the rest of us to be as gullible as you are over these hollow claims.
“Natural selection is always at work”
No one disagrees with this - that is a long way short of jumping between a unicellular amoeba to the most complex machine on earth by a chance magic process.
“The prime function of DNA is to replicate itself”
Err.... any evidence apart from your opinion? The prime function is to carry the genetic material that makes up the design of the cell.
“Any genetic mutation which improves it’s chances of reproduction will tend to survive”
Not true...we all know that most mutations do not aid survival eg haemophilia yet pass through into the next generation.
“Darwinism is far more ‘intelligent ‘ than ID”
Kind of you to admit that this is a guided process of intelligence. Strange as the only “thing” that has intelligence is someone with the nature of personality. So Darwinism is your god - this is what I thought all along. Well, you are welcome to you faith - I will keep mine.
“Living organisms including man as an animal are also moulded by environment . Which is why people who live close to the equator have dark skins and those livinging in temperate zones have lighter skins.”
That is odd as whites have been living in South Africa for centuries with no discernible change of skin colur, blacks in the UK etc etc.
“When was the last time that the Great Designer intervened to save his ‘designer’ babies from mass starvation /famines/wars etc?”
What would this prove? He has already set up the Laws of nature and provided us with abundant evidences of His Design and handiwork. He left us to run the planet and look at the stupid conclusions atheists and evolutionists have come to. Don’t worry, one day He will intervene and right every wrong - that is why all humans are afraid of death as inherently we all know deep down that there will be a price to pay for all of our wrong doing.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:41 PMSam
If I am reading you right, your basic argument is that life is too complex to have arisen without a designer.
If that is the case, then why does this argument not also apply to the designer? Is the designer also too complex to have arisen without another designer? If not, why not?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:44 PM“have been telling us all throughout this debate that ID can be falsified by the “overwhelming” evidence for evolution. Can we have some consistency in this debate instead of shifting the goalposts at every opportunity when cornered.”
ID has to be a theory first in order to be proven false. Are you now calling into question what defines a theory?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:45 PMStiofan
I have already answered this question in various forms but I will indulge you again.
Einsteins’ Theory of Relativity delineates that all space, time and matter come into existence in a fraction of a second - they have a BEGINNING and therefore need a CAUSE. They evidence DESIGN that is IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX therefore they need a DESIGNER. They are guided by intricate and complex natural LAWS that are INTERDEPENDENT which are FINE TUNED to a nth degree so they need a LAW GIVER and a LAW MAINTAINER.
The one who gave us these LAWS, and DESIGNED this universe created time so logically transcends time so HE does not need a DESIGNER or a CREATOR. I hope this is clear and I don’t have to go over this very basic philosophical point again and again!
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:52 PMWhat would this prove? He has already set up the Laws of nature and provided us with abundant evidences of His Design and handiwork.
Ever considered the possibility that He set up evolution?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:53 PM
