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[2005-01-19 15:11:02] - dave: what you just described is not a feature unique or specific to evolutionists... it's part of the human condition. You can't pretend that religious people don't ignore things that disagree with them as much or more than evolutionists do. - pierce
[2005-01-19 15:10:22] - Pierce: *nod* I don't think he would, or did. Hence my comment that I don't think the fossil evidence proves that he doesn't exist. -dave
[2005-01-19 15:09:55] - all the scripture I've read, with the story of Job being the closest thing to an exception, represents God as making his works clear at best, or neutral at worst. He never explicitly tricked people into thinking He didn't exist. - pierce
[2005-01-19 15:09:43] - Pierce:errr, d'oh, C. S. Lewis being an example of a contradiction to my generalization -dave
[2005-01-19 15:09:08] - Pierce: C.S Lewis being the example that comes to mind -dave
[2005-01-19 15:08:33] - dave: let me talk to you on a spiritual level for a moment, stepping away from evolution as a topic. Why might the typical Christian god implant intentionally misleading evidence contradicting his intelligent design of the earth's creatures? - pierce
[2005-01-19 15:08:22] - pierce: and I also beg to differ on the willingness of most evolutionists to accept a theory that includes some superior being. I think most people make the decision somewhere else along the line, and then just find evidence to support their side and write off the other side. -dave
[2005-01-19 15:06:49] - ... whereas from a macroevolutionary standpoint, apes-to-humans is just another example with no more or less weight than lizards-to-birds or amoeba-to-troglodytes. - pierce
[2005-01-19 15:06:05] - dave: Even christian creationists believe that god created like, plants and animals and everything else right? - aaron
[2005-01-19 15:05:13] - aaron: more or less, yes. - mig
[2005-01-19 15:04:53] - dave: my understanding is that all forms of macroevolution are contrary to intelligent design, because they contradict the idea that each species was created in its developed state. apes-to-humans is a bad example because it unnecessarily brings in a number of other conflicts with religious teachings. - pierce
[2005-01-19 15:04:40] - dave: I'm assuming creationism (unless you're narrowing it down to christian creationism) is a lot more broad than "man was created by god" isn't it? Isn't creationism the theory that the entire universe had to be created by a sentient being? - aaron
[2005-01-19 15:04:38] - pierce: errr, personal board posts -dave
[2005-01-19 15:04:22] - pierce: in reply to your person board posts - I guess I misinterpreted what kris was saying because to me, fossil evidence doesn't equal proof that creationism is false, or that God doesn't exist - least as far as the stuff I've seen -dave
[2005-01-19 15:02:23] - pierce: I dunno, it just seems like it would be more relevant, since the only real problem creationism has with evolution is that man was created by God instead of evolving from monkey. I'm not sure whether creationism would be at odds with an evolving horse -dave
[2005-01-19 15:02:05] - http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html There's this document but it's really difficult to follow and doesn't have any pictures or anything, it just lists different fossilized horses and their differences - aaron
[2005-01-19 15:00:47] - aaron: hehe yeah, I empathize. I think I briefly tried to look awhile back, but got discouraged because I coudln't find anything, and the stuff I found was clearly biased one way or the other -dave
[2005-01-19 14:59:34] - dave: All i can find are a few very scientific papers which are hard to read, and a lot of pages talking about how the fossils don't show evolution because they were found in different parts of the world
- aaron[2005-01-19 14:59:00] - dave: why would apes to humans be better, may I ask? - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:57:20] - aaron: apes to humans would be even better if you can find it -dave
[2005-01-19 14:56:26] - pierce: the point I was trying to make with the brontosaurus is that (intentionally or unintentionally) incorrect conclusions were made from the fossils. It took 100 years for someone to disprove it. So my point is fossil evidence isn't a 'concrete' science, in that there is a large amount of interpretation that probably goes into it. -dave
[2005-01-19 14:55:29] - dave: I think I remember learning a lot about various branches of horse evolution in one of my college geology classes, let me see if i can find something nice in google - aaron
[2005-01-19 14:54:09] - pierce: like you've said many times, religion and science are two different things, so judging one by metrics of the other doesn't work -dave
[2005-01-19 14:53:10] - pierce: I have never tried to justify christianity or any other religion by evidence. Furthermore, I have repeatedly agreed that evolution instead of creationism in school is probably correct, my problem was just with the presentation of it -dave
[2005-01-19 14:51:04] - pierce: right, I don't know how many cases there are. But at the same time, to my knowledge there isn't an abundance of true 'transitional' forms that conclusively show evolution between species. Feel free to provide evidence to the contrary, I just haven't seen too much info on it -dave
[2005-01-19 14:49:45] - so I win! - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:49:32] - a: don't feel too bad, I'm missing snow too, and I'm sick. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:44:02] - ... not to mention that you'd have to dismiss the world's religions a million times over, for every falsified miracle, abuse of fabricated "divine doctrines", and whatnot. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:42:45] - Even combined with the Lucy incident, you'd have to ignore that those cases are just a tiny minority of the otherwise-solid work of archaeology. Most archaeology, especially these days, is well documented and verified by peers. You can't just dismiss it because of a few faulty cases, or you'd have to dismiss all the sciences. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:41:22] - dave: so that particular argument against fossils as a useful foundation for macroevolution is that someone intentionally falsifying evidence can trick people about one particular extremity of one species? - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:35:07] - pierce: because he couldn't find the head to it -dave
[2005-01-19 14:34:51] - pierce: apparently the guy who discovered the 'brontosaurus' intentionally just stuck a head on it from a different dinosaur, and then duped everyone for awhile -dave
[2005-01-19 14:31:13] - pierce: http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/brontosaurus.html about the brontosaurus. "The body is primarily that of an Apatosaurus...But the head of Brontosaurus was actually from a Camarasaurus " -dave
[2005-01-19 14:28:30] -
thanks. - pierce[2005-01-19 14:27:46] - a: yeah, that's what I thought, but I didn't want to make any assumptions. None of the four of us would seem to have any incentive to convince people about evolution in particular. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:27:44] - btw, i love your mathematical usage of the word "infinite". ~a
[2005-01-19 14:26:26] - as are we all. ~a
[2005-01-19 14:25:59] - I'll be honest though... I'm less concerned with promoting evolution than I am with making sure kids realize what is science and what isn't. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:25:15] - a: I agree that aaron and I are ardent (wow, an abundance of alliteration), but Dave specifically mentioned you and aparna. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:23:50] - a: I also copied the name colorations. I wanted to make everyone feel at home.
- pierce[2005-01-19 14:23:20] - That texas lawmaker does now that the formula for BMI is terribly flawed, right? - mig
[2005-01-19 14:23:08] - pierce: i'd say you and aaron are pretty ardent too. ~a
[2005-01-19 14:20:36] - haha. you even used the same background color?
~a[2005-01-19 14:19:00] - Incidentally, can you give me a source for the brontosaurus controversy? From what I found from a brief search, it doesn't seem like they found a fossil of two dinosaurs, but rather that they hadn't yet agreed on what they were going to call the dinosaur they found. What we used to know as brontosaurus is just synonymous with apatosaurus. - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:17:22] - Dave: I prepared a whole sequence of responses to your comments on evolution, but then I remembered someone yelling at me that I have my own website, so I put them there. They're still in msgboard form, but read from top-to-bottom. http://ph0.org/documents/ev.html - pierce
[2005-01-19 14:14:21] - wait wait . . . PAWTUCKET, Rhode Island is a place? so the pawtucket patriot is actually referencing a place? ~a
[2005-01-19 14:05:36] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/19/television.haysbert.reut/index.html Dennis Haysbert (Palmer) is back on Fox's "24." (for the last 6 episodes) -dave
[2005-01-19 14:03:32] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/19/child.obesity.bill.ap/index.html Texas lawmaker wants body mass index listed on student report cards -dave
[2005-01-19 14:01:58] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/01/19/tater.doll.ap/index.html Darth Tater: The dark side of Mr. Potato Head -dave
[2005-01-19 13:59:15] - aaron: I got mixed up because they talk about the lawsuit in Dover, but the headline says Harrisburg, PA. I guess Dover is the county or something -dave
[2005-01-19 13:57:16] - aaron: I take it back, I guess I missed it the first time, but I guess there is a lawsuit about it. I thought the lawsuit they were referring to was the sticker one, but apparently not -dave
[2005-01-19 13:45:20] - It sounds like students and teachers were all given full "veto rights" if they didn't feel comfortable with it. I don't know if that makes it more okay but I think that may have helped it go over more smoothly - aaron
[2005-01-19 13:44:52] - dave: That is interesting. Shouldn't that kind of thing be more controversial in PA? Maybe it's because the nature of how it was brought up - aaron
[2005-01-19 13:18:54] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/19/evolution.debate.ap/index.html 'Intelligent Design' taught in PA. Surprising no lawsuits or anything have been raised -dave
[2005-01-19 13:18:48] - http://www.time.com/time/gadget/20050119/ IPod shuffle - $100 ipod downloads 500 MB of random songs from your library and plays them in a random order... 12 hour battery life, no LCD screen. - aaron
[2005-01-19 13:16:48] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/01/18/fbi.carnivore.ap/index.html FBI cuts carnivore -dave
[2005-01-19 13:07:31] - it's snowing here too, hehe -dave
[2005-01-19 11:19:10] - mig: I believe it lets you look at DVDs your friends have rented etc. -dave
[2005-01-19 11:10:55] - what does the "friends" feature do? - mig
[2005-01-19 11:09:00] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/16/nailgun.accident.ap/index.html nail embedded in man's skull for six days - aaron
[2005-01-19 11:08:54] - what emails do people use for Netflix? Figured I'd try out their new "friends" feature and need email to invite. My email is d_tsou@hotmail.com -dave
[2005-01-19 10:36:48] - dave: I saw that article yesterday, it was hilarious. I love the juror who's like, "everyone on my street knows if you get x lawyer, you're guilty. . ." hehehe
- aaron[2005-01-19 10:31:13] - a: It's coming down pretty nicely here in Reston right now and there is enough on the parking lot so that you can almost not see the lines. -Paul
[2005-01-19 10:28:33] - what?
i'm missing snow? ~a[2005-01-19 10:26:40] - "he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew. He said he was provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed."
~a[2005-01-19 10:06:17] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/18/shallow.jury.pool.ap/index.html heh heh. Jury pool from hell -dave
[2005-01-19 09:46:47] - aaron: kk, great discussion! talk to you later! -dave
[2005-01-19 09:45:39] - Thanks for the discussion dave! - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:45:27] - That's a really good argument and I don't have an immediate response to it really. But i haven't done like, anything all day at work. I should go - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:43:56] - aaron: that wouldn't happen. If he tried to come up with a new theory that was opposed to evolution, he'd be crucified academically and shunned by his peers. It's happened many times in other fields where someone has presented something like that. -dave
[2005-01-19 09:43:25] - dave: I don't know about that one, you're right that is a problem. I would hope that evolutionists in general would present their evidence, and say "well here's this fossil we found here, which suggests x" and not say "here's this fossil, therefore x" - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:42:14] - aaron: ok, my respone would be this. If evolutionists are just trying to raise smart kids, why don't they list reasons/problems for the hypothesese they make and ask the students to really exame it for themselves, rather than just present some evidence and proclaim it fact? -dave
[2005-01-19 09:41:28] - dave: And I think you're underestimating the human capacity to find some enormous problem with a scientific theory which can get you a lot of attention or money to research a new theory of the origin of species - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:40:41] - aaron: hmmm, you may be right about the motives thing. Haven't thought it through too much -dave
[2005-01-19 09:40:18] - I think that may be an unfair generalization but I would gather it's probably correct %95 of families touting the sticker - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:39:56] - Parents in religious communities (harsh generalization warning) aren't promoting creationism in schools because they want smart kids, they're promoting it because they want what's best for their children, which involves raising their child with religious beliefs which conflict with evolution - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:39:36] - aren't willing to make -dave
[2005-01-19 09:39:31] - aaron: and I think you're underestimating the human capacity to bend evidence they see to conform with what they want to believe. I believe the vast majority of academic evolutionists would rather do some extreme explaining rather than say evolution is wrong. Because if it is, then it can possibly lead to other 'religious belief' changes that most
[2005-01-19 09:38:45] - dave: Right, but I guess what I was trying to argue is that the scientific motive to keep evolution in schools is less questionable than the "religious" motivation to get creationism in schools - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:37:47] - dave: Well okay, then yes their motives stop at converting more christians. - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:37:30] - aaron: so it's not like there's evidence sitting there that definitely proves things one way or another and both sides outright ignore or try to hide it away -dave
[2005-01-19 09:36:56] - aaron: ok, I think the answer to what you're asking is that fossil evidence etc, is such an imprecise art that interpretation plays a huge role. Creationists and evolutionists just interpret the evidence in favor of their respective beliefs. -dave
[2005-01-19 09:34:29] - aaron: besides, giving to a church is entirely voluntary. Many members of churches don't even give the biblically prescribed 10% of income -dave
[2005-01-19 09:34:02] - aaron: ok, I think you have the primary motives of at least christianity mixed up. Money doesn't really factor into it. Converting other people to Christianity does. If a church makes more money, then it spends more in outreach programs trying to convert more people. It's not a money making business -dave
[2005-01-19 09:32:00] - dave: I agree, but in our example before (finding evidence against evolution) you seemed to imply there was a strong motive to conceal or lie about the findings to remain an evolutionist - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:31:21] - Wheras if promoting evolution school causes x% more of the students to be atheist, like you said, evolutionists get y% more zeal, or more clout in the scientific community maybe. I don't think that's as clear to me yet - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:30:49] - dave: I mean that if promoting creationism in school causes x% more of the students to become religious/attend church, then churches around the world make y% more money - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:30:45] - aaron: I don't understand what you're saying about believing your own theory is wrong. It seems like if you believe it's wrong, then you'd probably start to believe the other theory, changing camps so to speak -dave
[2005-01-19 09:29:45] - aaron: so we're both members of schools of thought that want to disprove other theories and promote our own -dave
[2005-01-19 09:29:43] - Psychologically, there's motivation to not want to turn your back on your own opinion, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're talking about. You're talking about trying to get people to agree with you even if you think you're wrong, I think that's unusual although I guess it could happen. It's definitely not as clear a motive imho - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:28:39] - aaron: let me put it this way, the most ardent evolutionists I know (adrian and aparna) have the same zeal for disproving creationism and making people believe in evolution that I have for disproving evolution and getting people to believe in creationism -dave
[2005-01-19 09:27:11] - aaron: by more money do you mean more people believing in creationism giving them more money somehow? -dave
[2005-01-19 09:27:09] - But then, Citizen Kane made the AFI's top 100 movies, so maybe that kind of motivation is enough for some people - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:26:46] - dave: But there is no specific religion/church for evolutionism. I guess having more people agree with you could be a motive, but I don't think that's strong enough motivation on its own - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:26:05] - dave: Maybe that's a possible motive. - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:26:00] - aaron: I'm saying that evolutionists (to greatly generalize) ahve the ultierior motive of converting people to their religion/church of evolutionism. It's natural for both sides to want to get people to believe in their belief -dave
[2005-01-19 09:25:39] - aaron: well, evolution to some people invalidates religious beliefs, so there is a atheist/agnostic motivation there. - mig
[2005-01-19 09:25:02] - dave: I'm not trying to paint religious people as you know, maliciously trying to get more money for their cause or anything - but it just seems like from a group standpoint, the incentive is there. If they get creationism in schools, they get more money, But no such motive exists for the "scientific" community - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:23:48] - dave: I'm saying that while creationists could have an ulterior motive of trying to convert people to their religion / church, no such ulterior motive exists for atheists - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:23:45] - aaron: oh I don't know. Maybe being kicked out and shunned by all his peers, that might be motivation not to. You can see the same dynamic in most areas of academia -dave
[2005-01-19 09:23:41] - aaron: some would i guess, but i have to agree with dave there are definitely dogmatic evolutionists out there who won't listen to any contrary evidence against evolution. - mig
[2005-01-19 09:22:39] - aaron: what's in it for the evolutionists is the same thing that's in it for the creationists, getting more people to believe in your beliefs. Not sure what you mean by the second part about touting it if they think it is wrong -dave
[2005-01-19 09:20:40] - dave: Like if an evolutionist found a fossil of I don't know, a single species with no recorded ancestors, wouldn't they still want to publish it and be like 'Possible evidence against existing theory of evolution', that's great publicity and attention from the scientific community regardless of their beliefs - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:19:54] - mig: I've said several times that I don't really have a problem with evolution being taught. I just feel it should be taught from a more open point of view, e.g. not saying that Lucy is the proof for evolution without explaining the problems or jumps in logic you have to make to get there -dave
[2005-01-19 09:17:28] - dave: But what's in that for the evolutionists? If they really thought evolution might be wrong, why would they continue touting it? - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:15:47] - dave: have there been other scientific theories (i.e. not creationism) that go against evolution that have been excluded? - mig
[2005-01-19 09:15:17] - mig: right, that has come up before, and the rebuttal being it's because this issue is more important to people than history, hence the heightened scrutiny and attempted stickers -dave
[2005-01-19 09:14:00] - aaron: really? I would say evolutionists have a clear agenda, promoting evolution as the right theory and excluding all other theories from being presented -dave
[2005-01-19 09:13:59] - dave: while, true evolutionists seem to have an agenda, but so does everybody in education it seems. I think it's kind of silly that we need warning stickers for a biology book and not for other books where the author might have had an agenda (history books, for example). - mig
[2005-01-19 09:13:00] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/19/fired.officer.ap/index.html fired police officer awarded 1.6 mil. Apparently he got taped punching a black kid and was fired for it -dave
[2005-01-19 09:12:28] - dave: That wasn't a sentence. What I meant was, while it's easy to say "creationists are just trying to push their religion so their churches can get support" it's tough to label evolutionists with a similar agenda (except for fame, or money or something similar) - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:11:15] - dave: That's true, but I guess since it's tough to label them with an agenda. Although obviously everybody has the agenda of, badly wanting scientific recognition, as Lucy skeptics would point out - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:09:10] - (not trying to liken creationism to those two groups in any way, just trying to come up with groups which we would both be against dictating kids education) - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:07:36] - aaron: point taken, but at the same time, the authors of the textbooks are also very biased in their non-religion, evolutionist stance. It's just that they aren't officially labeled as a religion -dave
[2005-01-19 09:06:58] - Like if NAMBLA was petitioning for condoms to be given out to younger students, or if the FOX network were petitioning for less homework over the weekends. I think we've gone this route before. How boring! - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:02:58] - dave: I don't have a problem with the stickers, I just have a problem with the fact that the stickers are clearly being motivated by religious individuals who shouldn't be dictating what our students are being taught - aaron
[2005-01-19 09:01:07] - aaron: right, I can definitely understand evolution being taught. I'm just frustrated with the way that it is taught, my point in case being Lucy being taught to us as 100% concrete proof. I mean, heck, at least put a sticker there saying take this with a grain of salt, HEHEH ^_^ -dave
[2005-01-19 08:59:25] - they were mixing up bones from two dinosaurs -dave
[2005-01-19 08:59:04] - aaron: I think that's precisely it though. I don't believe fossil evidence is a very hard science at all, in fact, I believe it's a pretty shaky one. My example would be the brontosaurus. For years and years we were told that a dinosaur existed called the brontosaurus. But later, they figured out they were wrong about the fossils and -dave
[2005-01-19 08:57:54] - dave: Fair enough, I still agree that evolution is a theory and students have a right to know that, just like a lot of other topics in school are theoretical, or not completely proven - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:56:44] - dave: I saw that (about the knee bone.) I guess fossil parts can be found that far apart, it would be weird if two bones from different animals fit together but I'm hoping they wouldn't be so dim as to pick two bones from different animals and assume it was an evolutionary link - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:51:14] - who knows, that may be 'normal' for fossil evidence to be spread that far, but I think the students are entitled to hear it and any explanation for it -dave
[2005-01-19 08:50:48] - dave: Oh okay, I can buy that (about both arguments having plausible explanations) - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:50:41] - stuff like "The knee bones were actually discovered about a year earlier than the rest of Lucy). Dr. Johanson answered (reluctantly) about 200 feet lower (!) and two to three kilometers away (about 1.5 miles!). " -dave
[2005-01-19 08:50:02] - no discussion over the specific on how the fossil evidence could be explained another way, or the possible problems with it. -dave
[2005-01-19 08:49:40] - aaron: that's really what I have against evolution being taught in schools. To me, it seems so wrong to lead all the students to believe that stuff like that is 100% sure, where (I believe) most in the scientific community later admitted it wasn't so definite. But in school, all they say is, here is evidence that evolution is right. -dave
[2005-01-19 08:47:29] - aaron: I remember being taught about Lucy in freshman bio at TJ. what I was slightly upset at was that it was presented as a 100% definite proof of evolution. They had a video of a recreation of lucy walking around and everything. But when I looked stuff up on the net, it was far from conclusive. -dave
[2005-01-19 08:45:50] - aaron: oh, right, maybe I misspoke. I didn't mean to imply that 'evidence' proves God exists. What I meant was that both creationism and evolution have plausible explanations for the evidence we have -dave
[2005-01-19 08:45:16] - dave: I hadn't heard all that about lucy, but come to think of it i do remember some of the details about her discovery coming under scrutiny - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:42:07] - dave: Can you describe (or just estimate) how physical evidence suggests that god a supreme being created animals, instead of animals creating other animals, because I'm not completely clear on that - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:40:48] - http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0714_Lucy_fails_test.html an article on Lucy. Keep in mind that the article probably has no authority whatsoever and is almost assuredly biased -dave
[2005-01-19 08:39:38] - dave: What was the story with lucy? I thought she was like, a fossilized human frozen in an iceberg, estimated to be ~10,000 years old - did they get the age wrong or something? - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:37:46] - not sure if that's an example or not, but that's what comes to mind ^_^ -dave
[2005-01-19 08:37:35] - aaron: I think the actual 'evidence' for evolution and creationism are the same. They take the same evidence and explain it differently. From what I vaguely remember, all of the'evidence' that has clearly pointed to evolution have been proved to be hoaxes, or mistakes. For some reason the word 'Lucy' comes to mind when I think of these -dave
[2005-01-19 08:34:24] - "Mr. President, isn't there anything you could do about Brad and Jennifer?" -dave
[2005-01-19 08:34:12] - I found this extremely funny "Darrell Hammond, who took advantage of his position on stage to issue a personal plea. "Not many Americans get a chance like this, so I'm just going to go for it," he said, directing his gaze to the president. " -dave
[2005-01-19 08:32:59] - dave: Is there any evidence for creationism, except for a lack of evidence of evolution? - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:32:58] - aaron: dang, ya got me ^_^ -dave
[2005-01-19 08:32:42] - aaron: I don't have any hard evidence of this, but I believe the actual fossil evidence to be much less than popularly believed. I think Paul, Adrian and I had a discussion of this awhile back. -dave
[2005-01-19 08:31:48] - And as far as the practical benefits of macroevolution, two words: jurassic park
- aaron[2005-01-19 08:31:37] - aaron: I don't think creationism will ever be a scientific belief. For one thing, the vast majority of academia is extremely liberal and would sooner claim that their mother was a horse -dave
[2005-01-19 08:30:36] - I think it's unfair to say that "our god did it, and here's a document" is as good an argument as "things evolved that way, and here's a progression of simpler creatures whose bones we found" - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:27:20] - If there were like, some sort of historical evidence of creationism, like for example all fossils stopping at 3,000 bc, then I think creationism would be more plausible as a scientific belief - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:26:28] - dave: The difference between evolutionists saying "it evolved that way" and creationists saying "god made it that way" is that there's fossilized evidence of a progression of simpler eyes and brains demonstrating that small beneficial changes over time have taken place over time to create things that complex - aaron
[2005-01-19 08:07:35] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4181629.stm leaving bed unmade my keep you healthier -dave
[2005-01-19 07:48:21] - kris: kinda like a parent who sees a kid royally mess up their life again and again by deliberately not taking a parent's advice. Yeah, I'd definitely not want to be God -dave
[2005-01-19 07:44:43] - kris: I think it'd suck to be God (the Christian version anyways). Having all these people who love you and/or say they love you consistently and deliberately not doing the things you ask them to do out of love for you, that you are only telling them to do because that's what's best for them (whew! what a sentence!) -dave
[2005-01-19 07:41:02] - kris: so all a 'religious' person does is step in at that point and say, well, those fundamental laws were put there by God. So in many ways, science and religion aren't at odds at all -dave
[2005-01-19 07:39:56] - kris: so in the end, science doesn't give a reason for why those fundamental laws are the way they are. It's explanation is, well, it just is and it always seems to be that way as far as we can tell at this time -dave
[2005-01-19 07:39:07] - kris: "people can just accept and want "cause God made it that way" to be their answer" again, I agree that this "excuse" can be frustrating when used in the wrong situation, but at the same time, no matter how many explanations it gives, science is really just built on observations of some fundamental laws -dave
[2005-01-19 07:35:17] - Pierce: yeah, I know half voted for bush, but still, I'm surprised by 2/5 dem's saying that -dave
[2005-01-19 07:34:18] - pierce: because having "even if it means compromising on their party's principles" is definitely a negative thing. making the 7 out of 10 more impressive -dave
[2005-01-19 07:33:29] - pierce: yeah, the wording of the question is important. When I read it, the reason I thought it was decent was because of "seven in 10 Americans agree that Bush's victory means that congressional Democrats should compromise with him -- even if it means compromising on their party's principles" -dave
[2005-01-19 07:28:33] - pierce: my point being, I don't really see the need to teach macroevolution or creationism in schools. Microevolution I could definitely see a reason for -dave
[2005-01-19 07:27:13] - pierce: "despite the fact that it's unfalsifiable and 100% useless as a descriptive or predictive model of the development of species" speaking of macroevolution, how has it changed or benefitted anything in practical science? -dave
[2005-01-19 07:25:05] - so, the same class of people who would throw around 'God did it' as an explanation, throw around 'it evolved that way' if they hold the other belief -dave
[2005-01-19 07:23:46] - have evolutionists just explain it away by saying, well, if there was enough time, mebbe it could have evolved to that -dave
[2005-01-19 07:23:14] - kris: I empathize and agree with you that people who default and just say "God did it" to everything can be frustrating. Not to say that the analogy is perfect, but by the same token, creationists can be just as frustrated when scientists discover something truly complex (say the human brain, or eye, etc etc, not sure of exact examples) and -dave
[2005-01-19 07:18:28] - kris: and for the record, I don't see how fossils are at odds with creationism? I believe this was talked about earlier -dave
[2005-01-19 07:16:33] - kris: if you're gonna disbelieve something, disbelieve that God created hundreds of billions of galaxies and stars, not some rock in the ground -dave
[2005-01-19 07:16:01] - kris: not that I'm trying to convert anyone, but from the 'other' point of view: if there really is a God who created everything, the earth, the galaxy, the universe, the human body, the human brain, etc etc, do you really think it'd make much of a difference to him one way or another to put some fossils in the ground? -dave
[2005-01-19 01:24:04] - "Maybe now a judge will press Georgia schools to remove the 'Mr. Yuk' stickers from books by black authors." Priceless! - pierce
[2005-01-19 01:23:25] - Also funny, and topical! http://theonion.com/wdyt/index.php?issue=4103 - pierce
[2005-01-19 00:04:04] - Maybe that's why I'm so attracted to science; it really is the pure essence of the search, founded on the idea that no theory is ever fact; our understanding must be constantly challenged and updated to reflect our experiences. - pierce
[2005-01-19 00:02:30] - I wish our culture valued the search for answers as much or more than the "answers" themselves, since I think most of the answers given are incomplete at best and outright false at worst. - pierce
[2005-01-19 00:01:32] - I think one of the conflicts for parents with no specific religious beliefs is that it's hard to get kids to understand and accept an ambiguous spirituality. A lot of people want their kids to believe in something greater than themselves, but don't want to bias the child towards a specific dogmatism. - pierce
[2005-01-18 23:48:44] - God, one of the things I love about Futurama is all the jokes that are hidden in the background of the normal action. One of the jokes in tonight's adult swim rerun was a one second shot of the New New York sewage treatment plant. Motto? "Our duty is clear."
- pierce[2005-01-18 21:13:59] - (don't tell my neighbors... sacrilige!!)
[2005-01-18 21:13:37] - i think it'd be fun to be god. -kris
[2005-01-18 21:05:15] - kris: And anyway, god has to keep us eggheads busy - aaron
[2005-01-18 21:04:44] - kris: My aunt and uncle are raising their two kids (7 and 9) unitarian. For some reason I thought that was really cool. - aaron
[2005-01-18 21:03:24] - *** kris shakes religious southerners who shook their heads at her for going to a unitarian church boo on them.
[2005-01-18 21:02:42] - you know, cause if i was a deity, i'd spend all my time hiding fossils for people to find so i could trick them into thinking the earth was older than it really was. -kris
[2005-01-18 21:02:16] - why are there fossils? God did it.
[2005-01-18 21:01:48] - what really gets me is that (yes, i'm slower than all of you) people can just accept and want "cause God made it that way" to be their answer. -kris
[2005-01-18 18:06:29] - I'd say most people prefer some level of compromise, which makes those results make sense if people saw it as "compromising on" rather than just "compromising". - pierce
[2005-01-18 18:05:27] - I think the word choice there is important, I wish these stories had links to the actual questions asked... "even if it means compromising on their party's principles" is a very different statement from "even if it means compromising their party's principles". - pierce
[2005-01-18 18:04:09] - ...which means that it's more like "two out of five people who voted against Bush think that democrats should compromise with him even if it means compromising on their party's principles." - pierce
[2005-01-18 18:02:10] - Moreover, isn't it important to note that statistically, about five of the "seven out of ten" probably voted for Bush in the first place? - pierce
[2005-01-18 18:01:47] - dave: regarding the statistics about congressional democrats and Bush, the wording seems important. Regardless of political affiliation, aren't people more likely to say "no" to a question that's concluded with "even if less gets accomplished"? - pierce
[2005-01-18 17:57:19] - That's where evolution advocates get mad, when creationism is treated as if it's appropriate for a science class despite the fact that it's unfalsifiable and 100% useless as a descriptive or predictive model of the development of species. - pierce
[2005-01-18 17:56:39] - Dave: I agree that one can reasonably justify creationism within one's own context, but it is not comparable to evolution as a scientific theory because it isn't a scientific theory. - pierce
[2005-01-18 17:27:08] - Aaron: I guess, it's just the "largely" part that makes me wonder. -Paul
[2005-01-18 17:24:02] - paul: It could still be a good first draft, even if parts of it are factually inaccurate, I suppose - aaron
[2005-01-18 17:03:30] - I have to wonder, if the information is largely incorrect, wouldn't it be better to just not have it there at all? -Paul
[2005-01-18 17:03:00] - Heh, I just found a wiki article that has a section prefaced with "This section is largely incorrect and should not be relied upon."
-Paul[2005-01-18 16:45:49] - paul: i figured someone did but i don't have time at work to sort through everything you guys post - travis
[2005-01-18 14:52:08] - Mig: Too bad football games are so much more popular than baseball games. -Paul
[2005-01-18 14:51:58] - i prefer mvp to espn baseball, but since i usually buy the pc version getting up to date real rosters isn't as much of an issue. - mig
[2005-01-18 14:50:31] - http://sports.ign.com/articles/580/580468p1.html vc tries a counter punch by trying to get mlb to give them an exclusive license. - mig
[2005-01-18 14:30:55] - travis: in your defense, i think the deal sucks enough to be worth posting twice - aaron
[2005-01-18 14:13:49] - Travis: That would be me.
-Paul[2005-01-18 14:13:41] - Aaron: Oh, ok. I wasn't trying to say you were wrong, I just didn't think the article was very much in favor of the scientist and his "findings"
-Paul[2005-01-18 14:08:56] - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/sportsbusiness/news/story?id=1969067 ea and espn make 15 year deal, i guess not allowing sega to use real players/teams wasn't enough, ea had to steal sega's entire presentation (sorry if i missed someone else posting this) - travis
[2005-01-18 14:05:33] - The article said that the boy adopted some feminine traits, like being cleaner than his brother. But i hadn't realized at the time that it was a possibility the "scientist" taught him all of those traits manually - aaron
[2005-01-18 14:03:59] - paul: Well on second thought, i guess given how polluted the experiment was, it doesn't really prove anything at all. - aaron
[2005-01-18 13:57:30] - Aaron: How do you think that article demonstrates that some amount of the difference between boys and girls is societal and not genetic? -Paul
[2005-01-18 13:55:31] - paul: This article demonstrates imho that some amount of the difference between boys and girls is societal and not genetic (not that that was under dispute, but. . .) - aaron
[2005-01-18 13:55:09] - ohhh.. jesus, i can't belive i forgot about that. - mig
[2005-01-18 13:49:19] - Aaron: The case I know about was done because the boy had a botched circumcision and would've needed medical help anyway to be "normal". -Paul
[2005-01-18 13:48:25] - Aaron: Yeah, ok. I just thought of that when you said something about conducting humane studies to see how boys and girls are different. -Paul
[2005-01-18 13:48:07] - mig: It was a study done on children who had already been born, they did not perform the sex changes for the sake of the study (did they?) - aaron
[2005-01-18 13:47:49] - Mig: http://www.reason.com/links/links052404.shtml You hadn't heard about that? -Paul
[2005-01-18 13:47:40] - paul: Yes, iirc most of them grew up with problems related to sexual identity and depression - aaron
[2005-01-18 13:46:44] - paul: that's actually happened? how horrible if it has. - mig
[2005-01-18 13:13:44] - Aaron: Have you heard about the experiments that were done on identical males where one was essentially given a sex change operation (I think) soon after birth? -Paul
[2005-01-18 11:32:12] - mig: Oh, okay. - aaron
[2005-01-18 11:02:47] - the first one was guy/girl i thought. kelly and that justin guy. - mig
[2005-01-18 10:52:44] - mig: I'm trying to remember if they've ever had a male/female finale. The first one was two women, the second one was two guys, and the third one was two women again right? - aaron
[2005-01-18 10:36:51] - an interesting idea, but one that could easily backfire on them, especially if some of the guys who go on aren't nearly as good as the females that end up getting left out. - mig
[2005-01-18 10:29:25] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/18/tv.american.idol.ap/index.html american idol adopts affirmative actionesque techniques for picking its contestants - aaron
[2005-01-18 10:26:57] - I agree with him that there needs to be more research in that direction, but it's impossible to conduct a study like that (a humane one, anyways) - aaron
[2005-01-18 10:25:11] - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6834079/ no evidence exists that any wmds were smuggled out of iraq, according to usgov officials. - mig
[2005-01-18 10:24:17] - dave: It also discourages women, somewhat, from attempting a career in science. There's the vibe that they could contribute their whole life to chemistry, but they'll still be inferior to a male chemist because of genetics - aaron
[2005-01-18 09:41:17] - Dave: Most schools of feminist thought teach that most of the differences between men and women is based on nurture, not nature. -Paul
[2005-01-18 09:40:12] - Dave: Because one of the foundations of most feminist thought is that there are no real innate gender differences between men and women. -Paul
[2005-01-18 08:55:33] - speaking of which, the article mentions he's no longer pressing for the federal marriage amendment. - mig
[2005-01-18 08:54:55] - http://www.keralanext.com/news/?id=94241 bush claims election vindicates his policies in iraq, even though most people voted for him did so for his stances on homosexual marriage and abortion. - mig
[2005-01-18 08:23:03] - this surprised me "nearly seven in 10 Americans agree that Bush's victory means that congressional Democrats should compromise with him -- even if it means compromising on their party's principles. Only one in four said Democrats must not compromise on things they find objectionable, even if it means less gets accomplished. " -dave
[2005-01-18 08:22:39] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16073-2005Jan17.html Poll stats on Bush and sundry issues regarding his second term -dave
[2005-01-18 08:15:53] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/17/obscured.cartoon.ap/index.html Fox blurs a character's posterior in a rerun of Family Guy -dave
[2005-01-18 08:14:24] - so, I don't really get why some women get so upset about this. As far as I can figure, the only reason I can think of is that they think math and science is more prestigious than other areas so people are implying women are inferior when they say this -dave
[2005-01-18 08:12:28] - http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/17/harvard.president.ap/index.html Harvard prez gets blasted for suggesting that differences in numbers of women in math and science may be because of innate differences -dave
[2005-01-18 07:50:15] - And just like with any other topic that has several valid theories to it, I just think it's unreasonable for one side or the other to say that their theory is fact. I for one am definitely not saying that concrete proof on the same lvl as mitosis etc exists for creationism -dave
[2005-01-18 07:48:19] - pierce: I just don't think it's a close-and-shut case, and I personally like to believe in creationism which I think can also reasonably be justified. To me, this is no different than people believing in different theories on other things. -dave
[2005-01-18 07:45:27] - pierce: I also agree that there are plenty of other theories etc that are also difficult to concretely demonstrate (you gave examples of ecology etc). I don't even mean to suggest that evolution is an entirely outlandish, way-out-there, sort of theory. It definitely has reason and a lot of thought put into it. -dave
[2005-01-18 07:41:13] - pierce: *nod nod* I didn't mean to bundle microevolution into the "uncertain" category. -dave
[2005-01-17 19:57:22] - "I can barely handle the three minutes of waiting involved in microwaving a frozen pizza pocket, and I’m 30."
[2005-01-17 19:55:36] - re: josh reads the sexual pressure comic. "the only thing duller than drawing two people walking and talking is drawing two people walking and talking about not having sex."
~a[2005-01-17 19:43:39] - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/sportsbusiness/news/story?id=1969067 EA gets deal with ESPN. -Paul
[2005-01-17 17:35:08] - On the other hand, the lack of certainty is limited to macroevolution... AFAIK, microevolution has been observed in a lab and is as certain as mitosis or photosynthesis. - pierce
[2005-01-17 17:33:40] - But many, many of the "conclusive" biological theories, such as the ones concerning population dynamics or ecology, are on the same tier as evolution. They're scientific theories in that they're based on observation and are the best descriptive models of their subjects, but they aren't as discretely defined. - pierce
[2005-01-17 17:32:21] - dave: you're right that evolution has less certainty than, say, mitosis, but that's because they come from two very disctint subsciences of biology. Molecular biology/biochemistry is more certain because it is a quantifiable "hard science". - pierce
[2005-01-17 17:28:39] - a+dave: I think kris was being ironical.
- pierce[2005-01-17 17:25:35] - http://joshreads.com/ Josh reads the comics so you don't have to! - pierce
[2005-01-17 16:03:59] - kris: seriously? you don't have any idea why? i always thought it was the direct and indirect conflict with the non-scientific theories (many religions have their own) that cause the trouble. ~a
[2005-01-17 15:55:43] - dave: i meant that it was tho only scientific theory that explains parts of the history of species under a fair amount of critical examination. ~a
[2005-01-17 15:39:30] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050116-4527.html Connecticut State Rep. proposing legislation to require theatres to post the actual starting time of movies (not starting time of commercials, previews, etc) -dave
[2005-01-17 15:29:32] - kris: well, almost definitely because it's the theory that is seemingly at odds with one of the largest religions (if not the largest) in the US -dave
[2005-01-17 15:07:25] - none of the rest of the theories cause as much trouble though. gots to wonder why. -kris
[2005-01-17 12:53:08] - I suppose evolution may be the only theory that is taken by many to be fully-verified that is also taken by many to be not fully-verified though -dave
[2005-01-17 12:52:18] - a: and I highly doubt evolution is the only scientific theory under a fair amount of critical examination. Black holes, the human brain, all sorts of other things/theories are still critiqued and not taken as fully verified -dave
[2005-01-17 12:50:47] - so in other words, I thought miller's statement was quite far off from my point of view, but I was curious as to whether believers of evolution thought so as well (apparently not) -dave
[2005-01-17 12:49:11] - kinda like theories on black holes and other things like that, the theory may be true, but it's been difficult to verify because of the nature of the problem -dave
[2005-01-17 12:48:41] - seems much more like a theory trying to explain something that hasn't been able to be verified yet -dave
[2005-01-17 12:48:25] - a: ok, I was just wondering about your opinion. From my point of view, the certainty about evolution is less than the certainty about other things that would be in the biology book. Like structure of a cell, DNA, etc. In my mind, those things have been quite thoroughly explored and experimented with, if you will, whereas evoluttion (to me)... -dave
[2005-01-17 12:43:14] - dave: that miller quote is pretty good, i agree. ~a
[2005-01-17 12:39:30] - dave: probably. why does it matter? why it matters might influence my decision. . . . and being called an "evolution advocate" might not be the right words. we all believe that evolution is a scientific theory and the only one under a fair amount of critical examination. ~a
[2005-01-17 09:11:14] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13439-2005Jan16.html "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that the new Palestinian political leadership was "not lifting a finger" to stop attacks against Israelis.", well, that decides that -dave
[2005-01-17 08:40:12] - question for the evolution advocates, do you believe the certainty in the theory of evolution is the same as the certainty in the rest of biology (whatever would be in a HS biology book) -dave
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