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Sorry, but this is likely to be a drive-by, as I have many personal things pressing on me right now and won't likely have time to have a lengthy discussion... but I wanted to throw this out there for your consideration.You keep going on about "good" science having a "practical" use, while "useless" science is just the acquisition of knowledge just for the sake of knowledge. It seems you are confusing science and technology. Science IS the acquisition of knowledge and that knowledge need not have an immediate practical application to be "good" science. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge to create products that benefit human civilization. Here is a good explanation of the differences between science and technology with some good comparative charts.

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Science:
The word science is explained as a system of obtaining knowledge, through experimentation and observation, so as to elucidate natural phenomena. It is a methodical and rational approach to exploring,

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Technology:
Technology is a combination of technique, skills, processes, design, products, etc. which is dedicated to creating instruments or gadgets or to complete scientific investigation. It is a set of knowledge that has practical application in the creation, designing and utilisation of products for industrial, commercial or everyday use.

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You are referring to technology rather than science when you describe "usefulness."I think part of the problem is we talk about "basic science" and "applied science" and the two are often thought of as mutually exclusive. In reality, they are on a continuum; some questions are very fundamental such as "how do single celled organisms use the assembly and disassembly of actin filaments to produce motility?" to very applied questions such as "which fungicide is most efficacious against a particular fungus on a particular crop type?" My personal research interests fall somewhere in the middle of those extremes. Although we tend to categorize scientific questions into these two categories, it is not really accurate to think of a research question as one or the other.The other point is that while fundamental research may not have an immediate, obvious application, it can produce answers and raise new questions that do have very important applications for human civilization. For example, the actin filaments question above would seemingly have no real world application, especially since researchers were studying the system in amoeboids. However, with the answers that came from that work and the new directions of research that it produced we are now exploring how we can target actin filaments in cancer cells to help limit their growth and spread. Now that the research has a practical application it is "good," but prior to that you would disparage the principles?Science is a systematic methodology of acquiring knowledge, nothing more, nothing less. The perceived usefulness of that knowledge is irrelevant. Science is designed to build on previous knowledge, to make discoveries on the backs on the 1000's of scientists that came before you. While the primary purpose of scientific literature is to disseminate scientific discoveries/knowledge, there is a second, almost equally important function that is typically overlooked; and that is to tie your work into the greater body of knowledge. Not only do you need to recognize the work that others did that laid the foundation for your work, but you need to describe how your work fits into the bigger picture and what questions and research possibilities your work raises. No scientific discover/knowledge is an island, but a part of an interconnected web of knowledge.Your continued mantra about applied science being practical and therefore somehow "better" is akin to the nonsense distinction between operational and historic science. What you should be arguing is methodologies; that's what scientist care about. If you could show that the methodologies used are insufficient to produce reliable results, you may gain some traction. But this is how creationists usually argue methodologies: "Where you there???" And now you are going on about "Is there a practical application?"As a research scientist myself, those arguments have so little merit as to be laughable. Those that make those types of arguments demonstrate that have little to no understanding of the scientific process or how we approach scientific questions, and as such, those arguments are of no use to practicing scientists... fundamental or applied.HBDEdited by herebedragons, : No reason given.

You know, we have a name for "applied science": engineering. Funny thing about some engineers: they hate science and scientists, especially scientific theory. One of the funnier things about those "scientists who were creationists" lists that creationists keep posting is that many of those "scientists" were actually engineers. Plus I've seen some lists that include a half dozen theologians as "scientists" and even a couple "food scientists" (check out O'Reilly's Cooking for Geeks, which should still be available online as a free PDF).On active duty I was trained as an Electronic Computer Systems Repairman, which led to my working on and earning my computer science degree at my permanent duty station. To supplement my technician training, I also took a number of electrical engineering courses for fun. In the electrical circuits class, one chapter covered convolution and its use in analyzing the response of a circuit to an input. That input was a delta function whose curve has an area of one (ie, its integral is 1) and its Δt is zero, which makes its amplitude infinite. Now, that's a tricky concept and our instructor, a professional engineer, told us how it was engineers who came up with the idea and then laughed at those stupid scientists who had to take 100 years to prove that the delta function was valid while engineers continued to use it without a second thought.I also saw the same attitude on the job. At one company that designed and manufactured computerized greenhouse controls, the chief engineer, being strictly an analog guy, depended on me to explain the digital data sheets to him. One common task was to take a new sensor and determine that conversion factor for output voltage to whatever it was measuring (eg, temperature, light, humidity). I remember one in particular in which the data sheet only gave us a few values. So there I was trying to work out a conversion formula, the theoretical approach, and the chief engineer came in, made a disparaging remark about theory, and instructed me to do it as a table look-up (ie, an array of 255 values that we index by the output voltage output by an ADC). "We don't need to understand it! We just want to use it!"An engineer doesn't need to understand why a design works; he just needs to get it to work. Reportedly, most of Edison's inventions were just him trying every possibility until he accidentally found one that worked. On active duty, our training NCO told us that nobody understands how electronics work and that it was all just FM ("fucking magic"), but we had our test procedures to tell us how to fix it. It was during that time that I read Isaac Asimov's first Foundation book in which the Foundation exported its technology to its barbarian neighbors as a religion. You would send them your candidates for the priesthood, the Foundation would train them, and they could then operate the equipment and perform basic maintenance: to start up the fusion reactor, you say the proper prayers with the appropriate hand gestures and push that red button.Of course, when those procedures do not exist and you have to actually figure it out yourself, then it would really help to know how it works. For example, I was training on the printer and there was an interlock circuit that the TO didn't explain very well, so I started analyzing it. Because almost everything we worked on was digital, we worked from logic diagrams (gate logic) instead of regular electronic circuit diagrams and therefore most of us forgot most of the electronics we had been taught, mainly transistors. This circuit used a lot of transistors, but knowing that they'd be operating at either saturation or cut-off conditions I went through and figured out just how that circuit worked. I started explaining it to a sergeant who was amazed that somebody knew how transistors worked. Of course, the alternative would be that nobody could have figured that circuit out.Or when you need to come up with a new and novel design. That's when the engineer really needs the scientist, as much as he will deny it.So you don't want to understand how anything works? Fine, I'll leave you to spend all day sitting there with your thermos trying to figure out how it can tell whether to keep its contents hot or cold. Yes, that is true. It is also very true that religious explanations can be wrong. In fact, you know that is true because you can point to all the other religions and their explanations and denounce them all as being wrong.The difference between science and religion is that science knows that it can get something wrong, so it also knows that it needs to test its results and detect those errors and then correct those errors. Furthermore, science and scientists are very motivated to find and eliminate errors. What about religion? When errors creep into religion as they inevitably must, how does religion handle them? It doesn't! Religion has no protocol for testing, error-detection, nor error-correcting. And it is strongly motivated to ignore its errors, or at the very least absolutely no motivation to eliminate errors. It just careens more and more off-course. Of course, the Protestant way of handling it is to splinter even further and form new churches, but they still carry those theological errors with them, still failing to make the necessary corrections.I started on a web page which is not ready for publishing yet: Fundamental Differences Between Scientists and Creationists. Basically, the goal of science is to learn more about nature by trying to make a new discovery or testing a previous discovery. Scientists test each other's research thoroughly because their own research depends on that other guy's research so they want to make sure that that other guy got it right. And if a scientist is discovered to be performing substandard or dishonest work then he loses his credibility and his standing in the scientific community.It's very different for creationists whose goal is to convince both others and themselves. The only test for another creationist's work is whether it sounds convincing. Even if they know that a claim is completely false, if it still sounds convincing then they will continue to use it. If a creationist is found to be doing sloppy and/or dishonest work, then that will have absolutely no effect on his standing in the creationist community so long as his claims sound convincing. The only thing that will cause a creationist to lose standing in the creationist community is if his religious beliefs don't seem quite right.Edited by dwise1, : Added story of analyzing a printer circuit. Tweaked delta function story.

Notice how the article says some rats have "evolved" resistance to warfarin. I was involved with rats and their poisoning in a former life, and no one in that sphere uses that terminology - only evolutionary biologists do. Everyone else says the rats "developed" resistance. The purpose of using "evolved" is to promote their cult of evolution's theology that says, if evolution happens in real time, it is an irrefutable fact, and therefore all life on earth shares a common ancestor. Surprise, surprise, one of the authors of the article is Kenneth Miller, a "Catholic" who thinks millions of years of evolution is compatible with the Bible. (Catholics who worship Scientism and give lip service to Holy Scripture aren't true Catholics, imo).Evolution cultists use the same "loaded" terminology when discussing antibiotic resistance: the medical profession says bacteria "develop" resistance, but evolutionary biologists say bacteria "evolve" resistance. In their bizarre cult of voodoo science, natural selection is "evolution".Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

I agree. But thinking you understand something when in fact you don't is never useful. Hence, the theory that all life on earth shares a common ancestor is useless to applied science. Please note that "evolutiondidit" is an extremely poor answer that has contributed absolutely nothing to the advancement of science. Kettle, meet pot. What on God's good earth are you talking about? I stated that the theory that all life on earth shares a common ancestor is useless to applied science ... and you have somehow come to the conclusion that I therefore consider ALL scientific theories to be useless! No wonder you find it easy to accept ToE - extrapolating wildly to arrive at an absurd conclusion comes naturally to you.

Evolutionary scientists read into the evidence whatever they want to see - this quackery is applied to everything from the the fossil record to geology to embryology to genetics, etc, etc. These snake-oil merchants fool a lot of people, but they don't fool me or millions of other creationists.Even when the inevitable arrives and genetics nails the the lid shut on evolution's coffin, there will be many atheists who won't accept the evidence. Why? Because, as Jack Nicholson's character said in A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!"Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Oh, I get you ... as in, why did AC/DC appear and not AB/AC? Or why ABBA and not BAAB? This is a fascinating subject and I'm glad you brought it up.Here is another thought: If you check the bass tabs of popular songs played by professional bass players, you find that notes are very rarely played higher than the twelfth fret. Yet you cannot find an bass guitar built that has less than twenty frets. Why all these extra frets if they're rarely used? The answer is, the "junk" frets (13-20/24) are vestigial; remants of a bygone era - perhaps billions of years ago - when all frets were used equally (not by humans , of course, but by some kind of musical monkey-man). Evolution is fascinating, n'est-ce pas?Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

This is excellent advice that every atheist should consider.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

I've used this analogy before, but evidentlyit has been ignored: Your reasoning is no different to claiming that since humans are running the 100m sprint faster than they were twenty years ago, eventually humans will run the 100m in one second. That is too say, since a small change is observed, this means a massive change is possible - this amounts to an absurd extrapolation. In case you haven't noticed, ToE is dependant on an absurd extrapolation.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Whew, that's a relief, but that really doesn't solve the problem that the creationists want to drown us in bullshit. When do you think the "inevitable" will arrive? I can hardly wait....it will mean a Nobel for sure! So, you must have some inside information, huh? Care to share a little?

Notice that breeders have not managed to produce black or red budgies - and I predict they never will, because there are limits to variation. Due to these genetic limitations, macroevolution is impossible and ToE is nonsense.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Yes, which is why science constantly tests its conclusions, detects errors, and corrects those errors.And do remind me again how and when religion tests its conclusions, detects errors, and corrects those errors. Oh, that's right, you never have responded to that question which I've asked, what, four or five times. Because, unlike science, religion doesn't. Not ever. Yet again, that is not part of evolutionary theory, but rather a logical conclusion. You already know that, so what you just posted is a deliberate lie. Why do you "true Christians" insist on lying? According to Christian doctrine, which deity is served by lies and deception? Five letters, starts with an "S" and ends with an "n". Whom are you actually serving? Except that that's exactly what you are doing and not at all what we are doing.Evolutionary science can explain exactly what it is talking about in detail.Do please explain in detail how "goddidit" can explain how anything in nature actually works. And I do mean in detail and how it works. That is exactly what your argument has been, that if it is not directly applicable to practical purposes, to "applied science", then it is bullshit that must be ignored.You are not free to cherry-pick at will! If you choose to apply one criterion against accepting one theory, then you must also apply that exact same criterion against all other theories.Your refusal to do so and to specifically target one particular theory exposes your true intent (religious bigotry) and the fact that you have no valid argument against that theory.

Have you always been such a fucking idiot, or did you have to work at it? If the latter, then I can tell you that it's not worth the effort.That quote is directed directly at believers who think they have God figured out.Do you have God figured out? Completely figured out? Really? Then show us! Show us how you could achieve what no human could ever possibly achieve. Show us!

Oh please, stop your idiocy now! And try to learn something before spouting even more such nonsense!Here is what you are "replying to", what Taq wrote in Message 785: Basic physics, Dredge. Basic physics! As in practically the first thing that they teach you in physics, kinematics, the study of motion.You have the distance traveled as a function time, displacement. Differentiate that with respect to time and you get the velocity. Differentiate that with respect to time and you get acceleration.In the reverse direction, start with the acceleration. Integrate that and you get the velocity. Integrate the velocity and you get the displacement as a function of time.Basic, basic physics.Taq was talking about displacement, but you switched it to velocity. You thought that nobody saw you palming the pea, but we did see you. You are trying to pull a dishonest trick here, to lie, to deceive.Which god are you actually serving? According to standard Christian doctrine, which god is served by lies and deception?

So what? What is the mechanism for "developing resistance?" What do doctors think that mechanism is?

Seriously Dredge. Haven't you already acknowledged that this is a hypothesis? How about making the same claim about the theory of evolution?