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Author Topic:   Discovery or Ignorance: The Choice Is yours?
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 368 of 402 (474581)
07-09-2008 12:52 PM
Reply to: Message 366 by ICANT
07-09-2008 12:10 PM


Re: Scientist
Read further down, ICANT. It's right here.
With a bit more context:
The case is regarding:
quote:
The Louisiana Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act (the "Act") violates the Establishment Clause, as incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Act's illegitimate bias toward the outlook of a particular religious sect is reflected in two separate provisions. One calls for the presentation of the religious tenets of "creation-science" in public-school science classes. The other singles out the domain of evolutionary science for special pejorative treatment.
And the quote Dr. A provided, in context, is:
quote:
The Act's false dichotomy between "origins" and all other scientific concepts not only invites students to mistake all those other concepts for "proven facts"; it actively deprecates evolution. By so doing, the Act grossly misrepresents the status of evolutionary theory within the universe of scientific theories. The evolutionary history of organisms has been as extensively tested and as thoroughly corroborated as any biological concept. E.g., E. Mayr, Populations, Species and Evolution 1 (1970) ("The theory of evolution is quite rightly called the greatest unifying theory in biology."); National Academy of Sciences, Science and Creationism 14-22 (1984); P. Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism 54 (1983); Dobzhansky, Nothing in Science Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, 35 American Biology Teacher 125 (1973).
The Act thus singles out evolutionary theory for more disparaging treatment than other scientific theories that are actually no more robust and reliable. It encourages teachers to erroneously label the proposition that tides are caused by the gravitational attractions of the sun and moon, for example, a "proven scientific fact," while labeling the proposition that species evolve through time a mere "theory." The reason for this scientifically indefensible legislative posture is clear: Whereas the reason for tides is not an issue of significance to adherents of certain religions, evolution is.
Emphasis obviously mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 366 by ICANT, posted 07-09-2008 12:10 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 372 by ICANT, posted 07-09-2008 4:08 PM Rahvin has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 373 of 402 (474611)
07-09-2008 5:14 PM
Reply to: Message 372 by ICANT
07-09-2008 4:08 PM


Re: Scientist
Hi, Rahvin,
Thanks for the info, I couldn't see the trees for the forest.
But can that quote be attributed to those 70 Scientist?
Or was it something that had been put in the brief that their names are attached to?
Just wondering.
God Bless,
Seriously?
I don't know, ICANT. Was the Declaration of Independence something that can be attributed to all of the signatories, or is it something all of their names are "attached to?"
From what I can tell, the brief was filed by the 72 Nobel Prize winners as a clear statement of the opinion of actual scientists on the matter being discussed. They were demonstrating to the judge that the "controversy" and doubt contained in the law regarding the Theory of Evolution does not actually exist among actual scientists, and that to teach evolution as some sort of halfassed "it probably isn't true" hypothesis that many scientists disagree with is completely dishonest and inaccurate.
And what do you mean by "their names are attached to" anyway? Do you really think some lawyer wrote up the brief and then just randomly chose the names of 72 Nobel Prize winners to "attach?" Do YOU sign documents related to court trials that you don't agree with? I know I certainly wouldn't.
It's amusing that your question seems intended to cast doubt on the veracity and the support of the Nobel Prize winners of this document, in much the same way the law they were fighting intended specifically to cast doubt on the Theory of Evolution. The fact is that this was a legal brief filed witht he support (and likely authorship) of those Nobel Prize winners specifically to affirm that the Theory of Evolution is one of the strongest theories in all of science, on par with any other biological theory, and that attempts to cast doubt specifically on the Theory of Evolution because it is (in part) a theory of human origins but not on any other theory demonstrates a clear religious motivation.
The truth is, the Theory of Evolution is considered to be as reliable in the accuracy of its predictions as the Theory of Gravity - both are theories backed by mountains of evidence, and yet no reasonable person would question the Theory of Gravity. Questions pertaining to the Theory of Evolution are solely the purview of those whose religious beliefs run counter to the predictions of the Theory of Evolution, in exactly the same way that the Heliocentric model of the solar system was once persecuted by religious authorities.
The questions asked of the Theory of Evolution in this thread have been mindbogglingly idiotic and inconsistent, so much so that I've avoided the thread until now. Our "friend" John has run nearly the full circuit of dishonest and ignorant arguments commonly used by Creationists who argue against evolution, not because they comprehend it and have found some legitimate flaw, but rather because they don't like it.
Shifting the goalposts to insist that biologists be prepared to demonstrate the evolution of not only a new species (which has been done and examples given in this thread), but completely new classifications even above families and genera within the lifespan of human beings is something that any scientist or even moderately educated layman would disregard with prejudice. Applying a double-standard by accepting other scientific theories supported by similar amounts of evidence and held with exactly the same tentativity as the Theory of Evolution simply because John disagrees with evolution on religious grounds is the mark of extreme bias, and demonstrates his complete and utter lack of objectivity.
The phrase "true science" is his worst addition, however. That phrase has been brought up by nutjobs and idiots before in many places, and its actual meaning is painfully clear: "true science" refers to anything a scientist says that John agrees with. Anything not in that category, including the Theory of Evolution (and likely all of geology cosmology, astronomy, and most of physics to name a few) is not "true science.[/i] This is the argument of someone completely ignorant of science in general and the topic in particular. Agreement is a subjective, emotional response that can be affected by predetermined worldviews such as those of Creationists as well as personal incredulity.
Whether John agrees or not, the Earth orbits the Sun, water is wet, and the Theory of Evolution is an extremely accurate explanatory framework derived from the factual direct observation of real-world populations evolving over generations. Extrapolating the predictions of the Theory of Evolution backwards in time predicts a fossil record exactly like the one we observe in reality. Johns equivocation over "true science," his insistence on shifting the goalposts, applying double-standards, arguing from ignorance and incredulity, arguing against insipidly constructed strawmen, and his complete and utter lack of objective reasoning as it pertains to science and the Theory of Evolution are completely irrelevant to the fact that the Theory of Evolution accurately fits the evidence to an extremely high degree.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 372 by ICANT, posted 07-09-2008 4:08 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 375 by ICANT, posted 07-09-2008 5:36 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 389 by ICANT, posted 07-09-2008 10:28 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 376 of 402 (474618)
07-09-2008 5:42 PM
Reply to: Message 375 by ICANT
07-09-2008 5:36 PM


Re: Scientist
The sun also orbits the earth. It just takes 200 million years to make the trip. If I am wrong feel free to correct me.
Perhaps you could try responding to a relavent portion of my post, rather than latching on to a minor part of a single sentence that serves only to redirect the topic on a compeltely unrelated tangent?
However, you're mistaken. The Sun does not orbit the Earth, even over 200 million years (its wrong on SO many levels; the Earth is not a gravitationally significant entity relative to the Sun, producing only a tiny wobble, not an orbit). Perhaps you are referring to the Sun's orbit of the galactic center? I don't know the timeframe of that one off the top of my head, and being off-topic here I'm not even going to bother looking it up.
Do you have a response to my post relevant to the topic ICANT, or are you content to snipe at sentence fragments?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 375 by ICANT, posted 07-09-2008 5:36 PM ICANT has not replied

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