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#36 – Ah, that old straw man. As #42 correctly states, you’re an idiot.
Alfred1, “As a believer in scripture, I believe OUR MATRIX came into existence in the mind of God about 6-7000 years ago…the apparent age of the universe…just that…only apparent.”
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. With all the data opposing this view, you stick to it?
Good Grief! Go look at real data from COBE and WMAP, and tell me the universe is less than 13.65 billion years old. WIth all the data we have, tell me the Earth is less than 3.5 billion years old.
As a professional astronomer of some 35 years, I’m profoundly offended by your position and the weakness of your so-called arguments.
“The MIND OF GOD?? Our ‘matrix’?” How about the mind of the Tooth Fairy? Or Gandolf?
You need to read some better sci-fi than wacko articles from New Scientist.
Final quote in the article you cited, “Check out other weird cosmology features from New Scientist.” Even they admit the article was “tongue in cheek.”
Alfred, you were born 1000 years to late. You would have really fit in in 1009.
This is what my tax dollars are paying for?
This is why schools need to be private or why the state should issue vouchers for parents to send their kids to schools of their choice.
When the state is in charge of the schooling, they are in charge of what they teach you.
If alfie in #41 actually agrees with #39, then he’s finally figured out that his religious beliefs are also fiction. QED.
#45 how bout this:
http://tinyurl.com/6m8rop
What you seem to be saying is that there is no way an eye could just spring into being, right?
Well I completely agree.
You also seem to think that it COULD just spring into being with magic, along with the whole organism, because of course God = magic.
Well that, I don’t agree with.
As soon as you replace ANY part of a not-yet-completely-understood process with “then magic happened” instead of a simple “we don’t know yet” your whole argument is immediately in tatters. And yours, is certainly that, flapping merrily in the breeze (or should that be god’s flatulence).
#45 “Therefore if the parts of an eye, by themselves, are NOT beneficial to an organism”
Which is incorrect, as any 8th grade biology student could tell you. Read the article. Eyes are not “irreducably complex.”
These young-earthers will never admit anything, so arguing with Alfred is like arguing with a broken lamp….the damn light just isn’t ever going to come on. He’ll claim there are fundamental mistakes and discrepancies in science and the scientific method, and blah blah blah whatever other nonsense and complete lies, because the christian web world is loaded with this crap so they can sound like they have a clue.
Lately he’s resorted to projecting, which makes him even more fun.
#36 – My god that shows total lack of reading and understanding. You were just educated by chain emails from religious conservatives or did you go to any actual schools? Eyes didn’t just “pop” into existence. They CLEARLY evolved and there are nearly limitless ‘types’ of eyes throughout the animal/insect kingdom. They just don’t teach any fancy book learnin’ in Texas do they?
Evolution is NOT a debate in science, ONLY in religion. But heck, the Catholics know the Hindu’s are wrong. The Hindu’s know the Jews don’t have the right picture. All religions think they’re right and all other religions are wrong. Why should science/reality be any different. You’re magically right and everyone is wrong and facts will never get in your way.
Dude, for a silly analogy, even human created things don’t just “pop” into existence, but ‘evolve’. LOL. Take the car, it’s not the product of just a single moment of creation. Watch the original series Connections and see how many accidents, inventions and whatnot had to come together to make any one thing. Modern cars required someone figuring out how to mine and process metal centuries ago, create rubber, plastic, paint, electricity, work out internal combustion engine for decades, etc. So even when humans “intelligently” design something, it’s an evolution of a sorts…an initial design that’s built up over time with corrections and additions.
Evolution as with all theories is incomplete, HOWEVER, I think humanity has seen what happens when religous zealots impose dogma over well accepted scientific fact. Not a good idea.
“The PHILOSOPHY of evolution request mutation be beneficial to an organism…result in it surviving rather than those without the mutation.”
Actually that’s a false statement. The philosophy of evolution merely dictates that mutations will occur, whether or not they are beneficial to an organism. Some mutations will be *more likely* to be beneficial to an organism than others, and are therefore *more likely* to be passed on to the next generation.
Hence why we have developed eyes. If we were living in caves, where light wasn’t to be found, then perhaps we wouldn’t have photoreceptors attached to our heads. Or perhaps we would have evolved glowing skin so that we could create light to feed our eyes.
Also, you have clearly not read the article you posted on quantum holograms. It’s really not a big shocker to anyone – or at least it shouldn’t – the idea that if you go to a small enough level things stop looking solid and instead look like dots. Quantum holograms do not posit the existence of some other intelligence creating an “illusion”. Merely that we detect something a particular way… say, with our eyes.
I dont see why putting it to a vote doesnt make sense….Isnt that the way theories in science come to be the accepted theory? They are the ones with the most support. For any question, there may be many different theories, many of which oppose each other, most of which have facts supporting them. The only difference between accepted theories and other theories is that more people will beleive the accepted theory to be more accurate based on observatiosn. Those that treat science as if it is religion will call accepted theories “facts”.
The only difference here is that science makes observations and then comes up with theories which best fit what is seen, whereas creation science starts out with a theory and then tries to find observations which support it.
“The PHILOSOPHY of evolution request mutation be beneficial to an organism…result in it surviving rather than those without the mutation.”
Not quite that simple. Mutations are just mutations, they happen NOW (re: swine flu). IF they happen to beneficial, then they are more LIKELY to be carried forward. If they are detrimental, they are less LIKELY to be carried forward. If they’re neutral, then there’s an even chance they’re be carried forward. Simple probability.
But it’s not THAT simple. Organisms in reality usually contain numerous mutations, not just a single one. So many that are neutral or negative may STILL be carried forward if OTHER mutations or external circumstances allow the overall survival of the organism. It’s really quite complicated and, well, organic.
God this is nuts. You can’t have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. These religious idiots will argue science ALL day long unless it’s in support of a Reagan like DoD project, or new stealth fighter, than the science is ALL good. LOL
Texas and the rest of these reality challenged folks should be loaded on the “B” rocket with the telephone sanitizers and sent to the new world.
re post by me:
Texas wants to succeed from the Union? Tired of paying those EVIL Federal taxes? Cool! The idea seems to be that Texas, as an independent nation not part of the United States, will make out like bandits because they don’t have to pay Federal taxes and would be free of ‘government’, and as a bonus don’t have to put up with interracial marriages, Jews or gays likely. The problem is…this is part of that 5 year old “I want something for nothing” mentality. Texas will be swamped with HUGE new taxes (initially far exceeding the current Federal ones).
Maybe eventually they’ll pay 10% less than now, or maybe more, who knows, as they’ll have to rebuild an entire national infrastructure and pay for it ONLY out of Texas, not shared among the rest of the U.S.
Don Pardo, tell them what they DON’T get…
1. You get to build your own military from scratch! All of those aircraft carriers, submarines, Navy Seals, spy satellites, Marines, tanks and nuclear weapons belong to the United States, not Canada, Mexico or Texas. So Texas will have to ‘raise’ the money to build their own military. I wonder if they’ll want to be a nuclear nation? If they want WMDs we might have to invade to stop them. Anyway, it shouldn’t cost more than $250 billion for a small country, then $25-50 billion a year to keep it up (Canada spends $20 billion a year). This will require new taxes, unless they’re assuming the United States will protect them for “free” out of the goodness of our hearts, paid for by the tax payers of Iowa and Oregon.
2. You also don’t get security! No boarder patrol agents (paid for by national immigration office), FBI or CIA agents. When someone robs a bank, no FBI agents to investigate, you’ll have to do it yourself, pay for the officers out of new Texas taxes. No more DARE program or drug program money, if you want to keep pot illegal and fight drugs, you’ll have to pay for it entirely yourself. No more CIA/NSA/DIA to stop “terrorists”, create your own secret service. If you want all that manpower replaced, just higher more ‘state’ troopers (and raise taxes).
3. You also don’t get Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare (regular and drug benefit)! Those are programs of the United States, not Canada, Mexico or Texas. So Texas will have to start it’s own social security, unemployment (replace Federal money), and replace Medicare and Medicaid. You can do this out of the new taxes you’ll have to enact…or just drop those programs entirely. Again, Iowa and Oregon tax payers don’t fund unemployment insurance and drug benefits for the nations of Mexico, Canada or Texas.
4. You also don’t get any federal help with transportation! Need a bridge replaced? No more having your Senator or Congressman pull a Ted Stevens and get a rider/amendment attached to a bill to have the Federal government pay for it. You have to be totally self sufficient with all projects. This applies to airports too. No more FAA (have to “build”
your own FAA, new national radar support, rules and logistics center, pay for employees, etc). No more Federal grants to build runways or expand airports. You’ll have to do that entirely out of NEW local taxes now.
5. No space program! NASA will have to pull out from Houston, and move to New Mexico, as we don’t launch the Space Shuttle or any rockets from Canada, Mexico or Texas. All of those high paying engineer jobs are paid for by NASA and American tax payers (Oregon, Iowa, etc) and we won’t be paying for them to operate in foreign nations.
6. Sandbag yourself! Did you just have a hurricane? Oh…sad. Did you want Federal help, or National Guard troops from other states to come help out? Nope. We don’t send Iowa National Guard troops to Canada or Mexico to help with their problems, nor Texas now. Pay for your own help…unless like a 5 year old, you want them to help out for “free” and get their support, but just not pay for them (in taxes).
7. No more wrapping yourself in “the flag” and pretending to be patriots. You’re no longer patriots, you’re a foreign nation. The “heroes” of WWI and WWII and our current “War on Terror” and our brave troops are no longer yours, you’re a foreign nation like Canada. You don’t get to kiss as by supporting “our troops”…they’re not your troops anymore. You’re not PART of the war in terror, unless you want to raise some taxes, build a military and become a member of the “coalition of the willing”. You’ll also have to burn all of those American flag hats, tee-shirts, and bumper stickers. You’ve got the Alamo and that’s it. You’re now a competing nation to the United States, not part of it.
8. And MORE!!! You’ll have to replace the REST of the national infrastructure entirely on your own (out of new taxes). No more Agriculture Dept food inspections (pay for that yourself from new taxes). No more FDA drug monitoring (pay for that yourself out of new taxes). Those bio-tech companies in Houston now are in a foreign nation and can’t apply to the FDA for approval, you’ll need to ‘create’ some equivalent in Texas. You’ll have to create your own money, printing plants for bills/coins, create a ‘Fed’ bank equivalent and pay for all of it. Want mail delivered to your ranch in the middle of Texas? I’m sorry, the United States Post office doesn’t deliver mail in Canada or Mexico. You’ll have to create your own mail system, buy the delivery trucks, create rules/regulations/manuals, a stamp system, and hire drivers….all from new taxes you’ll have to raise. By the way, getting your magazines delivered just got more expensive because you’re a foreign country. By the way, calling New Orleans or St. Louis just became and “international” call, don’t care if you had “unlimited” domestic calling on your home or cell phone, you’re not part of THIS “domestic” country anymore.
And that’s just the START.
These retards love to bitch about the government, and LORD KNOWS there
is waste in ANY system involving more than 1,000 people (public or
private). But the idea that they can replace ALL of the functions and
features of the Federal government “for free” and just not pay for it is
laughable and childish. Go for it idiots…become a “separate nation”
and see how that works out for you. LOL
Alfred, you lost before you started. Science classes in Texas will teach science, not religion. Deal with it.
#69 “Coherence is a terrible thing to waste”
It was very coherent to anyone over 10. You DENY science when it’s physics ages the earth, sun or universe. You ACCEPT the same physics when it’s used to build nuclear weapons, x-ray lasers or other military projects supported by the conservatives.
Do you not understand?
Good they are raising the next batch of Texas presidents with a proper view of science. All of their wars will be based purely on scientific needs and realities. I’m glad we will have a future as broadly viewed as any the Taliban can instruct their subjects about. Now when do we start with the wearing of burkas or you get beat with a stick. Religion is so wonderful.
#76 – LOL
Texas is a wasteland…a few cattle farm and oil derricks. Without the oil, like Saudi Arabia, there would be NO ONE there.
You WANT us to ‘send’ you our entrepreneurs and free marketers? Why would we do that? No. They’re going to stay here with the rest of the smart people. Microsoft, IBM, and Apple will stay here. You get to become the new Christian Afghanistan. A radical anti-science wasteland nation full of hostile dumb people.
Why do you think Microsoft has it’s HQ in Seattle and not Mississippi? They need educated employees. They care more about intelligence than mythology. Mythology doesn’t make new iPods or jet fighters, science does. And business rely on science to make things, so they can sell things.
Texas doesn’t believe in science, so how will you make ANYTHING? Just prey for god to ‘create’ new jet fighter for you to sell? LOL
Well, I thought everyone was doing a great job with Alphie, but after #63 popped up, I think I’ll take a stab at it.
The fundamental premise of evolution is beneficial change gets passed on…harmful changes do not survive…
Quite wrong. Eyes, for example.
Humans generally have black irises. That blocks the light and allows us to protect the eyes from too strong a light. European Caucasians have this thing where they have evolved less melatonin (color) in their irises. Since most are dark brown it doesn’t really matter much. Northern Europeans however, have little (green) or no (blue) melatonin in their irises. This is not a beneficial mutation and is potentially harmful. Yet it happened and humans with fair colored eyes have thrived despite the handicap.
Another adaptation is our appendix. While many believe the appendix might have some use to store bacteria, it actually can cause more harm through infection than any good. Yet we still have them. People with removed appendixes have no other side effects.
Hair color in most animals does little . Very few animals have color sight. An indifferent mutation?
Wild boars have tails. They are useless for any purpose except being bitten during fighting.
Polydactyl is neither beneficial nor harmful. It is seldom passed on to offspring but is a mutation.
Human heads have changed their shape. We used to have a lot of room for all our teeth. Yet modern man is developing a shorter jaw and thus needs their wisdom teeth removed to avoid complications. This has evolved from our ability to raise and process our own food. Our simian cousins spend hours every day (as do most herbivores) masticating tough plants. We spend minutes chewing cooked or soft vegetables.
Is that enough or would you like some more examples of evolutionary mutations that aren’t beneficial?
#77
Ah dude…who would want to get INTO a boiling hot desert wasteland with no jobs run by religious zealots? You don’t see a stream of folks from Seattle or Iowa City trying to get into Pakistan or Afghanistan do you?
The fence would be to keep YOU away from us. We’d still have all the factories, jobs, universities.
Seriously…FUN argument! No idea if you believe what you’re saying or just playing devils advocate, but FUN! Thanks…gotta get to work. Those of us who don’t work in Texas actually have jobs and are productive. I can’t listen to 5 hours of AM talk radio a day. Back to work, but thanks again!
I reached this women a bit…she wants to encourage students to think for themselves and be open minded. Ok, how about a class that studies the bible, from a scientific angle. Let’s weight the supporting scientific facts, for and against all the great stories in the bible. Let’s also do a compare and contrast between the bible, mythology, and mother goose.
I think this is an opportunity to beat creationists at their own game. The overwhelming amount of data that is not there to support 99% of the bible’s content. Let’s start with “where did Adam and Eve’s grand children come from?”
#56
> surely what exists
> “by accident”, as it
> is “simple”, can be
> made by us “on purpose.”
You mean like the weather? Stars happen by accident and they’re not so simple to create. That we can understand how something came to be constructed is a far cry from saying we posses the engineering knowledge to actually manufacture it. So much for you critical thinking skills.
#59
They call that sophistry.
#63
> The fundamental premise
> of evolution is beneficial
> change gets passed on
You really are showing your ignorance. You are mistaken in thinking this is the fundamental premise of evolution. The fundamental premise is that species change over time in reaction to their environment and that, **generally** speaking, species that are better suited to their environment have a better survival rate than those that do not. How that happens and what “better suited” means is a lengthier discussion. I suggest you go to TalkOrigins.org.
As people have said, that evolution happens is an observable fact. It is the equivalent of observing that when the sun rises, it gets hotter and when it goes down it gets cooler.
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Space, is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.
from the late great Douglas Adams
geesh if just let science and astronomy be taught in science and astronomy classes and have the fiction can be taught in theology and Sunday school classes
tell me this is some kind of alternate universe
sorry if any one else as used the adams quotes no time to read all this yet.
The thing that irks me most is the complete lack of understanding of critical thought and the scientific method.
Science is about observing the real world, all of these observations and measurements are recalculated and verified by other scientists. Science is without bias, and it is the closest thing we have to “Truth” as we can get.
Established Scientific theories rarely get proven false, more often they get “corrected” with new observations.
This is the scientific world view
People that selectively choose what scientific facts and theories to accept and what to reject are not part of the scientific world view.
This debate is over whether schools should teach the scientific world view or another world view. Regardless of the opinions of electorate, public schools must teach the scientific world view.
Never interrupt an opponent when they are making mistakes. Alfred is really on a roll.
Here’s a solid question for you Alfie – Can you please prove to us that there is a God so we all can benefit?
Anxiously waiting for your answer.
This is why we need nationalized education. Our students will never compete in the world with localities voting on things like the age of the universe. It is not subject to vote.
Do we want to remain a technological country?
Perhaps we want to become a Christian version of Iran.
The age of the universe is 13.73 billion years plus or minus 120 million years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe#WMAP
Note how the error bars around the age keep shrinking as new technology allows a more and more precise answer. We’re now down to error bars smaller than 1% of the value.
This is not subject to vote!
Perhaps God needs to send Texas a memo too.
http://tinyurl.com/cmacv8
#7 – Alfred1,
Where’d the mind of your creator come from? Is it really any easier for you to believe in a fully formed highly intelligent being popping into existence against all known laws of physics than a quantum universe popping into existence in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
Did you know that quantum mechanics allows your computer to work?
Perhaps you should turn it off if you believe too strongly in cause and effect.
Your god hypothesis fails to answer anything or make any predictions. In fact, as the turtles all the way down argument shows, it is not even a valid hypothesis. To put it bluntly, the hypothesis flies up its own asshole in endless recursion.
More importantly though, why would you want to raise a generation of Americans incapable of competing technically against the rest of the nations of the world? Why would you want a generation of blithering idiots like yourself who do not even know what science is and cannot tell the difference between science and religion?
Alfred. If you cannot answer my question just say so, you won’t go to hell. Well, maybe you will if this isn’t dealt with correctly. Hmmm….tread lightly here.