It sickens me how many people in this country don't believe in evolution. I heard a statistic that it's around half, but I doubt it's that many. Science is about rational thought and testable ideas and experiments. Rejecting the scientific theory of the origin of the human race is like not believing in friction, saying something like that it's god's will that things don't move infinitley. Even though most fundamental scientific principles are proved indirectly at first (like the spherical nature of the earth), when we are able to directly observe it, we are right because it has been tested indirectly so much. Religious extremists dismiss evidence like fossils as "tricks by god to test our faith" or something like that. I bet if someone took a born again christian or another religious extremist in a time machine back 65 million years ago, observed dinosaurs, and returned, they would still reject their direct observations as "hethanistic trickery" or something like that. Courts have ruled in some places that scientific arguments in favor of creationism can be taught in public schools, what will they have to show? This intelligent design theory they yammer about is nothing more than pseudoscience, and a lazy underestimation of the power and magnitude biodiversity, natural selection, and time can accomplish.
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Anonymous2005-01-28 6:51
warota
Most of them suck, but the last two win. Especially the last.
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AahpandasRun2005-01-28 23:55
holy crapola this thread has like infinite comments
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Anonymous2005-01-29 5:10
123 > inf
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Anonymous2005-02-01 8:45
The essential problem isn't that evolution is 'a theory, not a fact'; it's that creationism is 'a fabrication, not a theory'.
...you didn't me expect to read whatever the hell the other 123 posts said, did you?
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Anonymous2005-02-01 16:38
Well, yas. The scientific approach is:
"These are the facts. What conclusions can we draw from them?"
The creationist approach is:
"Here is the Bible. What facts, half-truths, and out-and-out lies can we come up with to support it?"
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Anonymous2005-02-01 17:19
>>125
for scientific... what if the all the facts are yet uknown
for creationist... pff the bible is fairy tales STFU && GOMP
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Anonymous2005-02-01 18:40
>>126
That's why they try to find out facts. They go gather facts, as effectively as they can, and then from THOSE facts, try to draw conclusions.
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Anonymous2005-02-21 1:22
Man is this long. But, if you want to go back to the consciousness deal... there is no real reason to believe consciousness exists outside of the body any more than the Platonic 'ideals'. Consciousness, as far as science can see, is merely a feedback loop between sense and environment. In the end, the human mind is no different than a carbon-based computer, eager for data and able to transfer files to its copies; even though upload time can take awhile.
On creationism v. evolution, the main subject of the thread (and totally unrelated as far as I can see to consciousness), there are many problems. First, creationism and evolution CAN coexist; Pope John Paul II had reconciled the origin of the species with church doctrine, saying that God injected the soul upon the fusing of two ape chromosomes into (iirc) chromosome 2. Evolution deals with how life changes over time; creationism deals with how life came about. It is consistent to say that God created life and left it, like a clockmaker, to work with the springs and cogs of evolution. Now, as to the veracity of creationism itself, there is no logical dispute. Abiogenesis theory is still in the early stages, but there is no doubt that the presence of an 'intelligent designer' is not necessary. Besides, even if we did find out "Hey, amino acids were created by lightning in Earth's early atmosphere," would it matter? Natural phenomena have always been attributed to gods and goddesses, whether it be a volcano or water condensing on a window in the shape of the Virgin Mary. You can always take the magic out and still have a creator; he just used a saw and hammer (i.e. evolution, lighting) instead of a wand. Nonetheless, when you find all the basic reasons for everything, is it necessary to add in the deity? Then you get into intrinsic value of religion, after the empirical truth has been eliminated.
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Anonymous2005-02-22 20:09
>>128
The General Theory of Relativity can coexist with a belief that the Earth is flat, for someone sufficiently ignorant or insane. So?
>>Then you get into intrinsic value of religion, after the empirical truth has been eliminated.
When empirical truth has been eliminated, what remains?
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Anonymous2005-02-22 22:11
>God injected the soul upon the fusing of two ape chromosomes into (iirc) chromosome 2
LOL WHAT
so the soul is injected into a chromosome? then we should be able to observe it... a chromosome is a relatively massive biological structure, we have the capability to analyze them completely
creationism is entirely fairy tale
apparently intelligence is what results from endless variation on random chaos, leading to ever more complex constructs
the force driving intelligence is the mystery, not the statistical mechanics of probability explaining how the first biological life formed on this particular clump of orbiting matter... quite likely it was lightning, but that is entirely beside the point
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Anonymous2005-02-23 14:33
as far as i can tell, anyone who is a creationist has just given up on being rational anyway, and is not really worth talking to. there is so much evidence supporting evolution that dismissing it all or trying to come up with some psuedo science explanation is just avoiding the "unpleasant" truth.
the creationists who belive that some intelligent being set the universe in motion (before the big bang) and something else altogether. no one has any idea what happened before the big bang, so its anyones guess, and you might as well belive whatever you want.
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Anonymous2005-03-09 21:48
>> you might as well belive whatever you want.
sounds like the best plan.
there seems like too many from both sides who wish to enforce there ideas on others.
and both have lacking evidence and so both require a little "faith" like what was there before the big bang? what was there before god? there had to be something to start with or there would be nothing here now. perhaps the 2 are linked in together.
i "belive" there is more to us then the phy body. but i also belive theres no way to prove ether. which leads me back to that word "faith" in what u belive in and >>131's reference: you might as well belive whatever you want.
Unfortunately, the people advocating creationism as an "alternative" to evolution aren't trying to reconsile one with the other. They want Christian Biblical Creationism to trump over evolution.
Political issues aside, from a scientific viewpoint, creationism is bogus. It has no evidence, and would only make things unnecessarily complicated.
Now, if you want to reconsile your beliefs with the available evidence, go for it. Hey, maybe somebody's religion does have it right, we don't know. It's okay to merge science and religion for spritual reasons. The problem comes when people deny and ignore facts to avoid changing their religious orientions.
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Mistour Potatamoto2005-03-28 12:49
Courts have ruled in favor of Creationism because there is no large pissed off armada of scientists to defend Evolution, the same is not so for Creationism. It's simply easier to give the green light to Creationism. I personally believe in the coexistance of science and God.
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Anonymous2005-03-30 7:13
>>134
I don't know any courts have ruled in favor of Creationism. If anything, they've ruled against it, doing away with those silly "Evolution is just a theory" stickers. It's school boards which are the problem. Instead of trying to determine cirricula from experts, they try to decide it based on popular opinion. Because everybody knows popular opinion determines truth, not reality.
Shut up, fag. I've heard enough apathetic hand-waving agnostics who just want to get along. There is a way to prove shit; it's called the Scientific Method. And in case you start shooting of on what is unprovable, we have Occam's Razor to knock you back into reality.
In short, pulling shit out of your ass to fill gaps in your understanding is not a valid logical approach. You use the scientific method, gathering data, testing hypotheses, and if there are multiple explanations you pick the simplest one until that is proven wrong.
I live in Cobb County, where the sticker thing took place! I feel special.
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Anonymous2005-06-26 20:35
we have Occam's Razor to knock you back into reality
Not that I disagree, but please don't forget that Occam's Razor is a guideline, not a law. Just because Occam's Razor eliminates several possibilities does not make those remaining ones true. There are a myriad examples in science where Occam's Razor was wrong.
This is purely pedantic, but if you're going to argue for or against God/Creationism/whatever, you'd better have watertight semantics. Using Occam's Razor to "knock [x] back into reality" is egoistic argumentative bullshit.
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Mothra2005-06-26 21:31
True that Occam's Razor is a guideline and not a rule, but the specific uses of it I'm referring to are when creationists and new-age bullshitters keep crying "BUT YOU ADMIT THAT IT'S POSSIBLE GOD EXISTS" shit. Occam's Razor serves as a simple method of telling people that some possibilities are far more plausible than others.
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Anonymous2005-06-27 12:59
pulling shit out of your ass to fill gaps in your understanding is not a valid logical approach
Best quote in this thread. Belief defined in 12 words.
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AahPandasRun2005-06-30 14:51
HAHAHA, DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS!
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Anonymous2005-06-30 14:52
Belief defined in 12 words.
It also defines what a hypothesis is - which is a valid logical approach.
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Mothra2005-07-01 1:46
>>142
If you test your hypothesis. Belief as 140 defined it is forming a hypothesis and calling it fact.
Come on, you can come up with a better troll post than that sorry thing.
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1452005-07-03 2:59
I truly don't know that the world is round. I am just unquestioningly beleiving the words of a bunch of books.
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Anonymous2005-07-03 16:50
Does "Belief = Fallacy" disprove "Belief = Fact" by definition?
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Anonymous2005-07-03 17:14
Belief = Shit
Get a brain morans
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Anonymous2005-07-04 3:23
>>147
No, it's not just that - you're also believing that humans behave a certain way, and that if someone could prove, or even make a good case for the world being flat, they would surely do so for money, fame, the sake of being right, or perhaps even some high ideal of truth.
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Anonymous2005-07-04 7:10
Belief means taking things to be fact upon no evidence.
There's no evidence for "knowledge" or "truth in science", either.
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Anonymous2005-07-04 12:19
I think this thread just jumped from the makes-sense road
Actually this thread is making a charming, adolescent convulsion into real problems of epistemology, which is a good and beneficial thing for all involved. Even if you do not 'believe' in God, because you cannot prove Him, and even if you do not believe in the infallibility in your senses, you most likely believe that your senses and faculties are in good enough shape enough of the time to arrive at facts, from which you can conclude true knowledge. Nor could humans operate if they didn't tacitly 'believe' certain primitives. But this is probably something Hume covered.
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Anonymous2005-07-07 14:28
Berkeley > Hume
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Anonymous2005-07-07 22:08 (sage)
It's sickening how people in the country don't believe in BOTH. OMG Black-and-White either or!!11
Now you're getting into a different issue. That is the issue of trust. Trust is how much credibility you assign a person versus how extraordinary their claim is. I claim there is a street sign across the road from my house. Now, I am an anonymous poster on the internet, so I don't have much credibility, much a street sign is a very mundane claim, so a rational person is justified in believing I have a street sign across the road from my house. Now, I claim there is a fire breathing dragon in my garage. That's a very extraordinary claim, and with my uncredibility, you are justified in not believing me. As for the round world, people you take to be very credible, your family, your friends, scientists, etc. all make the claim that the world is round. That's somewhat extraordinary as it contradicts the first impression from your senses, but a huge number of very credible people claim it, so youu are justified in believing it.