International opinions: USA on science!

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Twice.

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Once.

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Maybe not even that.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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I would like do discuss the opinions among americans about the ID theory and their political image outside the US.

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As an American, I am rather embarrassed by all this myself. However, this is one issue that is an internal matter, and it is up to us whether or not we will look foolish.What you should be more concerned about is the U.S. hyper-aggressive, unilateral foreign and military policies that definitely affect other people.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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Jar

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But I want to play, too!-

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if I'm misrepresenting that evolution is at the base level an atheistic excuse, then you must misrepresenting that creationism represents a religious view.

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Why? The only people who push for creationism are people who do so based on their religious beliefs. That makes creationism a religious belief. On the other hand, those who accept the theory of evolution span almost every denomination of every single major religion. That would seem to indicate that the theory of evolution is independent of religion; indeed, it is based on evidence and the logical inferences that can be made on the evidence.-

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Look at how many proponents of evolution are atheists as opposed to thiests.

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It would be interesting to see the statistics on which you are basing this on.-

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Here are the first 10 clauses in the Humanist Manifesto.

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Why should anyone who is not a humanist care about the opinions of the humanists?

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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You are assuming that most people only believe in Creationism because of their religious affinities.

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Since all of the creationists that I know personally are creationists for religious reasons, and since I have seen no statistical studies showing that this does not describe most creationists, I think this is a good assumption.-

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But the same could be said of evolution. some people lost their faith in God because of the evidence presented in favor of evolution.

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You are getting mixed up here. Creationists accept creationism because of their religious beliefs; very few, if any, looked at the actual scientific evidence and decided that the earth had to be created only 6000 years ago. On the other hand, there are people who, like me, were creationists but on studying the science came to accept the theory of evolution. If, as a result, some of these individuals then become agnostic or atheist, that is a different phenomenon.-

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Creationism is simply the belief that an Artificer created all life simply by looking at the big picture, and weighing odds between what is in the realm of possibility and what is not.

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Actually, creationism consists, in part, in confusing ignorance about processes with overall impossibility.-

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But as you said, evolution is independant of any mainstream religion. Surely, however, you realize that it is in itself a religious belief,

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Now you are making no sense. A body is found in a locked room with a bullet hole in its chest and no firearms in the room. The most logical inference based on these facts is that someone shot the individual, took the gun with her, and locked the door after her. A fundamentalist, a liberal Christian, a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist will all come to the same conclusion. Of course, further examination may supply additional details, or we may find that the described scenario isn't quite correct, but the conclusion is a logical reading of the facts as known. It is independent of religion; now, for some bizarre reason, you are claiming that this makes it religious in nature.The main assumptions that go into the theory of evolution are the same ones that go into any other scientific theory; physical data do not "lie" -- they are there and can be examined by anyone, and that one can infer logical deductions about the physical world from the data; and that simple logic and further observations can distinguish reasonable interpretations and unreasonable interpretations. If the theory of evolution is somehow "religious", then there is nothing that is not religious. That can be true, I suppose, if you define "religious" in such a way, but then being religious and not being religious loses any usefulness.-

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Why should anyone who is not a humanist care about the opinions of the humanists?

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...I care about them for the same reason they care about me.

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You have trouble sticking to a point, don't you? Your original point was that the theory of evolution was somehow linked to atheism, and you quoted the Humanist Manifesto to support that contention. I don't see how that supports your claim in any way, especially when the majority of people with religious beliefs have no trouble accepting the theory of evolution.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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Obviously, to keep God completely out of the picture, evolutionists/atheists had to invent their own cosmology and their own version of creation events.

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Perhaps. But since most evolutionists/atheists don't care enough to keep God completely out of the picture, they never got around to "inventing" neither their own cosmology or their creation myth. They merely let the evidence lead them where it did.-

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Miller posited that simple amino's could have arisen in a prebiotic soup.

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And Miller and Urey showed that they could. So their experiment was a success. You claimed it was a failure. Miller and Urey made a hypothesis, and the experiment confirmed their hypothesis. That is a success. If life arose on earth without divine intervention, then the simplest hypothesis would be that relatively complex organic molecules would have to exist first. It was not really known how easy it would be to produce the necessary organic molecules without intelligent intervention. Miller and Urey (and all the subsequent experiments) showed that it is no big deal for organic molecules to be produced. This experiment did exactly what it was supposed to do, and we all (well, maybe not the creationists) learned something from it. That is an extremely successful experiment; I can't imagine how the experiment could have been more successful.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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But as I alluded to, the same exact thing could be said of evolutionists who chose the theory because it satisfies some urges to reject God.

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But evolutionists don't chose the theory of evolution because it satisfies any urge to reject God. The theory of evolution has nothing to do with God. Whether or not evolution is a fact has nothing to do with whether or not there is a god.(1) There may have been a god who created the universe, and this god may have created the universe a few thousand years ago more or less as we see it now.(2) There may have been a god who created the universe, this god may have created the universe several billion years ago, and the history of the universe after this creation may be as described by modern science.(3) The may not be any god at all; the universe may be only a few thousand years ago, having come into existence more or less in the state that we observe it today.(4) There may not be any god at all; the universe may have come into existence several billion years ago, and modern science has an accurate description of the history of the universe after it began.Each of these four scenarios is a possibility; there is no a priori reason to accept one and reject any of the others. The only way one can make any attempt to choose one or the other is based on evidence. The evolutionist will choose (2) or (4) because the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence shows that the universe has a great age and a definite, long history. The atheist will choose (3) or (4) because she feels that there should be some evidence for the existence of a god when there is none.If the scientific evidence did not indicate an ancient universe, then there would be no way the atheist could choose between (3) and (4). If the scientific evidence indicated that the universe was only a few thousand years old, then the atheist would choose (3) over (4). I don't see why this is so hard for you to understand. I don't understand why you fundamentalists think you know atheists so well you can tell us what our motivations are and what are reasoning processes are, when you clearly don't understand atheism at all.However, as it turns out, the evidence is quite clear that the universe is billions of years old. That is why an atheist will choose (4) over (3), and why a Christian will choose (2) over (1).-

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virtually everyone believed in a Creator(s) in the not-so-distant past. And the only reason they believed it was because of the complexity around them.

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Just like in the not-so-distant past everyone believed that the stars and planets went around the earth -- the only reason they believed that was because of the motion they observed in the skies.-

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Without ToE there is no reason to be an atheist in confidence.

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Sure there is. There is no good evidence that a god exists, and if a god existed (especially one that was concerned about humanity) I would expect there would be better evidence than a self-contradictory text worshipped by people claiming to "feel" an invisible presence. I could quite easily and happily be an atheist with full confidence even if we did not know anything about the history of the world before our known historical records.-

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Now you are making no sense. A body is found in a locked room with a bullet hole in its chest and no firearms in the room. The most logical inference based on these facts is that someone shot the individual, took the gun with her, and locked the door after her.

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A fundamentalist, a liberal Christian, a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist will all come to the same conclusion. Of course, further examination may supply additional details, or we may find that the described scenario isn't quite correct, but the conclusion is a logical reading of the facts as known. It is independent of religion; now, for some bizarre reason, you are claiming that this makes it religious in nature.

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The reason I quote passages from your post is so that you will remember the point to which I am replying. I wrote the above passage in response to a specific claim that you made, namely, that my statement that the theory of evolution is independent of religious belief is somehow a religious belief in itself. I replied that it is not. It is not a religious belief to think that one can examine actual physical evidence and that it is reasonable to make the obvious deductions based on that evidence. Since so many different people who have so many different religious backgrounds can accept the theory of evolution shows quite definitely that the theory of evolution is independent of religious view.-

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People learned not to question it. It became a very powerful dogma.

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What are you talking about? People question it all the time. There is a significant industry ministry in the U.S. that exists simply to question it. Furthermore, for over 150 years working scientists have questioned it, both the entire theory and significant portions of it. The reason that it is accepted is because people have questioned it, people continue to question it, but it continues to pass every single test that people put to it.Edited by Chiroptera, : Accidentally hit submit instead of preview.Edited by Chiroptera, : I think I had it right the first time.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

Yes, another fundamentalist trying to explain how atheists must think and feel. Without, it seems, even speaking with an atheist (or, at least, not listening to what she has to say).

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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No, sorry... The entire premise of the experiment was to prove that life could have come about all on its own.

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What? You yourself stated:And that is what the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated. That complex organic molecules (like amino acids) can come about in conditions roughly similar to what is believed to have existed on the earth way back in the day. I don't see how you can claim that an experiment that succeeded in validating the hypothesis of the experimenters is a "failure". Miller and Urey posited that under conditions believed to have existed on the ancient earth, relatively complex organic molecules can be formed. That is all that they posited. And the experiment confirmed it. Subsequent experiments also confirmed this, using different energy sources and different atmospheric compositions. When someone makes a prediction, and the experiment confirms that prediction, the experiment (or hypothesis) is considered a success.-

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So, now complex organic molecules were eternal in order to make simpler ones?

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I'm not sure how you got this from what I wrote. A reasonable hypothesis is that organic molecules should exist before life does. That means that there should have been organic molecules on earth before life arose. So it must be possible for organic molecules to form without life to produce it. The Miller-Urey experiment showed that, indeed, one can produce organic molecules without life. Subsequent experiments have also managed to produce, abiotically, in conditions that are believed to have existed on the very early earth, a wide range of organic molecules -- just the sort that would have to exist before life can arise.So there you have it. This is how science works. One has a hypothesis, one makes predictions based on the hypothesis, and then one tries to confirm or falsify the hypothesis by observing whether the predicted phenomena are seen.Here is how the science works:The hypothesis is that life arose on the early earth through natural processes. The assumption is that there would have to have been organic material from which life can be formed before there was life. So we predict that it is possible for organic material to be formed, through natural processes, under the conditions that existed on the early earth.This is a prediction that can be tested. A laboratory experiment that is believed to mimic the relevant conditions of the early earth is set up, and then it is seen whether or not organic molecules of the type believed to be necessary for life is formed spontaneously. Urey and Miller did this experiment. They observed that organic molecules can be produced exactly as they had predicted! This counts as a confirmation of the hypothesis that life arose on the early earth through natural processes. Because if life did arise through natural processes, organic molecules should have been produced first, through natural processes. So if life did arise through natural processes, then it should be possible to produce organic material abiotically under conditions relevant to the early earth.This is how science is done. One has a hypothesis, one makes predictions based on that hypothesis, and then one tests whether the predicted phenomena are observed. The Urey-Miller experiment is a classic example of good science.Edited by Chiroptera, : correct typo; add clarity

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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We don't have to think of worship to simply mean somebody bowing down in submission or an act of oblation.

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No, we don't, but seeing that is what most people mean when they use the word in a conversation about religion, thinking that worship means something else is apt to create a bit of confusion.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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To combine atoms to create life is a highly improbable event without the intervention or aid from many other subatomic particles.

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To be able to state whether something is probable or improbable, one needs to actually calculate (or at least estimate) the probability of the event. That will require knowing about the processes involved. Since science is still working out the possible processes, it seems to be a bit premature to make definite statements about probabilities.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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here have been several attempts to quantify probability using a plethora of variables.

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And unless it can be claimed that all of the possible processes relevant to abiogenesis have been taken into account, those calculations are worthless. Since science has not yet figured out all the processes that are possibly relevant, it cannot be claimed that they have been taken into account. Therefore, those calculations are worthless.By the way, the form of this syllogism is called "modus ponens", if you want to learn something about logic.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline