Id like to propose a list of you tube videos that help explain evolution for the Links And Information forum. Some people respond better to videos than to scholarly articles.
It's called "15th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism Pt 1"
There are a total of fifteen parts to this series on evolution. Each part, except the last part, is ten minutes long and the last part is divided into two parts each ten minutes long.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add "on Evolution/Creationism" part to topic title.
I recommend this for both believers and non-believers. This is a very good proces of a person who once was a christian but is not anymore. It explains step-by-step.
While this is not about evolution, I think the whole proces is very important for believers to understand science and for non-believers to understand creationists.
Why does he try to explain that it is scientifically accurate to call evolution a theory all throughout both videos, but then ends the video with ''evolution is a FACT'' ???
Also, Fred Hoyle wasn't a creationist as the guy says in his video. Which would seem pretty obvious given that he was a proponent of the steady-state theory in cosmology, which says that the universe never had a beginning (obviously contradictory with any definition of being a ''creationist'')
Why does he try to explain that it is scientifically accurate to call evolution a theory all throughout both videos, but then ends the video with ''evolution is a FACT'' ???
Also, Fred Hoyle wasn't a creationist as the guy says in his video. Which would seem pretty obvious given that he was a proponent of the steady-state theory in cosmology, which says that the universe never had a beginning (obviously contradictory with any definition of being a ''creationist'')
Mind you, I've not viewed the video. But Fred Hoyle is on record as an opponent of "chemical evolution", offering panspermia as his alternative, and is widely quoted by creationists and IDists, especially his "tornado sweeping through a junkyard assembling a 747 by pure chance". From the Wikipedia page on him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle):
quote:Hoyle compared the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." Hoyle also compared the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cube simultaneously.[11] (See the watchmaker analogy for similar reasoning.) Hoyle's statements and this line of reasoning (at various levels of accuracy) appears frequently in support of intelligent design. Mainstream evolutionary biology rejects Hoyle's interpretation of statistics, and supporters of modern evolutionary theory, such as Richard Dawkins, refer to this as "Hoyle's fallacy".
And earlier in the same article:
quote:However, those energy levels, while needed in order to produce carbon in large quantities, were statistically very unlikely. Hoyle later wrote:
quote:Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
Hoyle, an atheist until that time, said that this suggestion of a guiding hand left him "greatly shaken." Consequently, he began to believe in a guiding force in the universe, which led him to a belief in panspermia.[4] Those who advocate the intelligent design hypothesis sometimes cite Hoyle's work in this area to support the claim that the universe was fine tuned in order to allow intelligent life to be possible. Alfred Russel of the Uncommon Descent community has even gone so far as labeling Hoyle "an atheist for ID".[5] Some of Hoyle's thoughts in this area have been referred to as "Hoyle's fallacy" by detractors.
So Hoyle would be better labelled an IDist, even though he was motivated by an form of religious belief.
Interestingly, he co-authored his panspermia book, Evolution From Space, with Chandra Wickramasinghe, who testified at the 1981 Arkansas creationism trial on behalf of the creationists.
PS And the theory of evolution and the fact of evolution are two different things. The fact of evolution is that evolution has happened, whereas the theories of evolution are attempts to explain how it happens.
Those are two separate questions that need to be addressed separately, such that you cannot disprove the fact by attacking parts of the theories. Even Dr. Duane Gish of the ICR acknowledges that in his use of philosopher of science Larry Laudan's article that was critical of Judge Overton's pronouncements about the nature of science in his opinion for the 1981 Arkansas trial: lack of a mechanism to explain a phenomenon does not disprove the phenomenon. Of course, Gish only wanted that to apply to creationism and not to evolution.
So then, the two questions are: 1. Did evolution happen? (the fact) 2. How did evolution happen? (the theories)
{"Links and Information" forum - Not the place for debate on the video content. Find a better place for such. - Adminnemooseus}
Recently someone embedded the first of four Richard Dawkins videos concerning religion run schools in the UK. At the time I watched the first 3 and intended to get back to the forth. Now I can't track down the containing message.
But, using the power of the almighty Google, here is that video.:
Moose
Edited by Minnemooseus, : Tracked it down via Google.
One of his points is that creationist talking points, and outright creationism is taught at some Faith Schools. In the UK, home schooling is rather rare - going to a Faith Schools is much more common. And there are potentially more faith schools, with an even laxer curriculum on the horizon. All great places to find loopholes to get blatant creationism taught at taxpayers expense.
Richard Dawkins writes:
Some faith schools, as I discovered while making my recent television documentary, use their state-subsidised freedoms to undermine the teaching of science. It should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a state-funded school whose science teachers believe the world is less than 10,000 years old, yet that is what I found
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