The science thread - Controversial

chevy

chevy

Marvelous Da Vinci
Staff member
Mod
This is what I was missing on macosx Café: a science thread. We have a lot of threads about all subjects from non-sense to politics... I would like to add my contribution: science.

I propose a first (controversial as we are in a Café) lecture... and let's speak about it.

Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
 
I loathe creationists, self-proclaimed modern Christian missionaries, and everybody of that ilk with a passion. I'm not saying they're bad people or anything, but it's the mindset of "God is the ultimate power, etc." that precludes any other rational thought.

Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.
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**********!! This is the one that really gets to me. What kind of nerve to Christian creationists have to proclaim evolution to be unscientific when they base their entire belief on a single book (well, a bunch of books bound together—not the point)? There is little if any proof that much of anything in the Bible actually happened the way it is described, while there is much proof supporting evolution... ugh, blind faith bugs me.

The book Space by James Michner really sums this kind of tragedy up well. In one facet of the storyline, a scammer somehow manages to get much of the population of the US to reject evolution, despite all the evidence. It's quite a good thing it didn't happen, I must say.

Unless it did, and I missed it... :confused:

[edit: arden, don't swear please. there are kids out there, and santa's little helpers, i don't want santa to not bring you a g5 only because he sees you swearing... -gia.]
 
The creationists have significantly influenced the Ohio State Board of Education. Up for review is the issue of including a creationist theory of the origin of life in science text books, and placing a sticker (a warning!) on the front cover of some science books that evolution is included in the text. I think this is completely WRONG! Science and Religion do not mix, just like Church and State, the two should be seperated from one another permanently. I admit that I have had little exposure to religion, have attended a few Sunday sermons at local Lutheran churches, but I never once heard anything about evolution.

Peronally, I think that some people either do not understand the science (in general) behind these theories, or that they are "brainwashed", influenced, or willingly deny the theories. The problem I see that most people have with science is that they think a theory is absolute, it IS the WORD of explanation. A theory is just a hypothesis that has (some) evidence to support the idea, has been reviewed by the scientific community, and is accepted as a good explanation for the data. That's all it is.

I have a really good friend who is VERY religious, goes on missions to South America, and helps spread The Word. We had one very heated debate about the origin of life on Earth. In his opinion to this day I AM WRONG! I explained to him from a chemist's point of view that certain elements form with other elements under the RIGHT CONDITIONS to make molecules, that certain REACTIONS take place between molecules under the RIGHT CONDITIONS and make more complicated molecules, and that life will be present on other planets with similar conditions, providing the elemental makeup is similar to Earth. He went ballistic! He screamed that God created life and I agreed, but I also said that God created the universe, and laws of the universe, and life could very well exist elsewhere (that statement suggests that humans are NOT the center of God's attention, and that seemed to be problematic) provided the conditions are right for it.

Well, enough ranting, this is a very heated subject, but I think that science should be taught in the science class room and religion taught in either church or a religious class room.
 
I have very religious frineds (I was very religious) who think that is scientists have good reasons to beleive that life came through evolution, that man is the result of an evolution (and probably not the final result), then this is probably the truth, and this does not endanger their religiosity neither does it endanger God's as creator of everything.
 
My dad borrowed a Jehovah's Witness book (I think it was them) that basically tries to refute evidence pointing toward evolution. I didn't read much of it, but it made points on very shaky ground.

I'm sorry if I seem emotional about this, but I really can't stand devout religiousness. Yes, I am Jewish, and Jews have many of the same beliefs as Christians and Muslims, but I consider myself more of a social Jew and not a religious Jew. I take science as the first possibility and religious explanations as secondary, unproven hypotheses, and I hate (yes, hate) it when people try to present stuff the other way around.

chemistry_geek said:
Well, enough ranting, this is a very heated subject, but I think that science should be taught in the science class room and religion taught in either church or a religious class room.
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Most definitely. Alas, we live under the spying gaze of the Bush administration, and they are unlikely to do much to improve this situation.
 
I am a somewhat religious man. I still do not know what I believe about the creation of man. Many parts of evolution are shakey and not totally explained, yet I don't believe that God just created life as we know it in a snap. I think he allowed the laws of science that he set (like chem geek said) to do the dirty work. I know many religious that believe in Evolution, including 3 priests and 2 nuns, so don't think that all religious think that evolution is BS.
 
I think science should be taught in science class, and religion in church.

I disagree with the policy that the kid has to be taught religionally whatever his/her mum believes in untill s/he is 18. so sorry if my post below this line goes to religious anything, questioning, rant etc, but it is just one more slow response to having been taught christianity as the truth in the school untill i was 18 .. the religious liberty for people under 18 at least in europe is an oxymoron. so you have to be taught whatever your mum or parents want. with no one (of the teachers etc) giving any satisfactory answers to any of your questions.

Anyway, I was curious. So I saw these 15 points, and just points of a complete religion-ignorant view. (In the sense: blieve in whatever you believe, just don't bug me with it. And keep even my funerals religionfree please). Sorry if my point hurt anyone's religious or other views, they are not meant to.

1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
# I assume that the bible is more than theory then? The (hi)story book itself does not make the things that are written in it to be 100 % true. Prove them to me.
2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest.
# I don't see a controversy here. Where is it?
3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.
# Please, re-create the stories of the bible. I am very curious, I would want to test and observe them.
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.
# Maybe because there are no such things as a 150 y old theory that has remained the same? X rays have developed since they were invented, so has pasteur's techniques .. etc.
5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution.
# Well, i still fail to see how religion, in the sense of litteral interpretation of the (hi)stories of the bible, could be supported by science either.
6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
# Well, humans created red potatoes and there still are normal potatoes. So? Or there are rabbits and jack rabbits .. or lions and tigers and housecats.
If god created the humans, why is the human body so buggy then? Isn't he ever going to fix his bugs, and release a new human?
7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.
# bible does not explain the origin of the god. "eternal" or "has lived forever" are not satisfactory answers.
8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance.
# and mathematically, something as ... simple then?? as god, obviously exists.
9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa.
# well, humans are more disordered than amebas.. the use of the second thermdynamics law, the first really specified law, is interesting. well, as something letteral to point .. well, read apocalypse and explain it to me. it sounds like something written under substances, and on the same time old, meant to just scare the people so that they would not stand against the church.
10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.
# i disagree with this one. in a really long term, the mutations can create new features. like wings to the birds, they were kind of mutated hands .. but in a really, really long time.
11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life.
# explain the higher orders of life, plese?
12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve.
# nobody that i know, has ever seen god or jesus or moses or anyone described in the bible.
13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance.
# those who interpret bible litterally can't find noah's ark or a proof of mary's virginity either.
14. Living things have fantastically intricate features--at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels--that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution.
# .. i've had enough of the bugs of the human body. when will the new version with bug fixes be released? don't tell me someone made just the human beta and left the programming on the beta level. you can sure love your appendix, fat, poor sight and intelligence, unwanted erections and periods etc etc etc but i want fixes to those and so many other bugs. as species, not individually.
15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution.
# they cite a few phrases of a research. i don't follow how they come to this point 15 from that part of the research they cite.
 
I kind of remember my Great, Great, Great, Great Grand Parents being Apes. :)
 
I sometimes feel like an ape myself. And I shall not disclose what I sometimes think looking at my boss :)
 
i was brought up catholic and thoroughly brainwashed into believing and not questioning anything the catholic church taught me, until that is i went through confirmation and stopped going to church, heh. Then i started questioning just about everything...which is sometimes a good thing, but now i'm more confused than I ever was...and that reason alone makes people just stick to what their religious backgrounds taught them...why question things when it just leads to more confusion? heh....
 
having questions is more a sign of intelligence than having answers
 
Sometimes I think that hardcore religious folks are their worst enemies.

Like TK, I was brought up pretty darn Catholic. And even after I joined the military and met my future wife, we always talked about bringing our children-were we to have any-which we do-10 month old Jasmine, and one in the oven-up with Christian goings on. Then I went back to college and studied history, with a bend for religious studies. Man, that really messed me up...or freed me, whatever you want to call it.

Maybe it's my pragmatism, but religion is pretty much over in my life. Spirituality isn't, which I consider to be very different, but religion is out. Thankfully, while I was getting screwed up in college, my wife and I continued our discourse about this subject. We still agree, but we agree that we'll deal with spirituality for ourselves and for our children how we see fit, not how someone else thinks it should be.

All that said, I still love my mom-sure, she believes and all that, which I am actually very happy for, for her sake. I basically look at it like this:

Organized religion (or any religion) lost the battle for me...sorry. But that doesn't mean that I expect others to feel like I do. If it makes people better people to believe what they want, then good on them. It might be hard for someone whom has always been told about life after death to think about nothing after death. I understand that that would make people uncomfortable. But I am ok with it. Believe what you want so long as it doesn't (or you don't use your beliefs to) infringe or restrict others beliefs and liberty's.

Go to church/synagogue/mosque/etc...I'll still meet you for breakfast afterwards! :)
 
I was also brought up Catholic.

The Catholic Church and the US Government are sort of alike now. They both have leaders that don't know what theyre doing.
 
bobw said:
I was also brought up Catholic.

The Catholic Church and the US Government are sort of alike now. They both have leaders that don't know what theyre doing.
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I've heart the same sentence, but it was about the Italian government.

For my part I think the US and the Italian governement know exactly what they are doing. The electors may not know.
 
I like people the same, whether they are religious or not(not fantatical religious people) and I love debating certain things with them. I do this often with my mother and I have at least opened up her mind to some things she never thought of, which is good, considering she's from the "old world" and has believed the bible for 60 years now....so i take that as a big step...i'm not trying to push things on people, but even a religious person should have an open mind to other theories and possibilities for certain things that are otherwise unexplainable. :)
 
I know bobw. do i need to use only the ;) smile instead of all the others to indicate something is more in the humoric/sarcastic/light/justplaindumbhumoric sense?
 
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