Dems 2008

[Lyion]

I think I understand part of your dilemma. The problem here, Mark, is many in science have made Evolution a big tent including Abiogenisis and The Big Bang which are very dodgy and not nearly as scientific as Darwins original thesis. Likewise, they ignore the many, many glaring holes in a lot of what is postulated.

While Evolution is a strong materialistic theory, in reading my biology literature and speaking with professors it is evident that there is still much to be determined and our knowledge is woeful. That does not change the fact it is the best science has right now and it is a good theory.

It's simple Mark. Believe in your faith. Accept the fact evolution is a sound theory and has a lot of sourcing, and is good science. Reject those who worship at the altar of Richard Dawkins and want evolution to be a 'wedge' anti religion and especially anti Christianity issue. Accept the limitations of what common descent means and ignore the non scientific extrapolations regarding it.

In all probability, with science moving forward, and with the fact we have such a staggering low amount of knowledge about our universe and why things do what they do, the things that are accepted as facts today will change drastically in our lifetime. Especially as our knowledge of genetics increases.

[Eziekial]

[quote="arlos"]The "Laws" of thermodynamics are theories. Plate Tectonics is a theory. Do you doubt either one of those because they are "Only a theory"? Theory in a scientific sense means something completely and utterly different than what you're used to, or how it is used in any other sense. Nothing in science, ever, is "proved" or a "fact", period. It is obvious you have never learned the distinction of how science terms Theories as compared to common useage.

-Arlos[/quote]

Maybe I've been out of school for too long but I learned that "laws" are inargueable facts (until something better comes along). Newton's law of gravity, Ohm's law (seriously, how can you forget V=I x R), even your laws of thermodynamics. As a self proclaimed master of science you just came up with law=theory. Nice equation there. Lets call that a Laory. BRILLIANT!

Science is constantly finding out new ideas, bettering itself. Newton's LAWS of motion gave way to Einstein's. Which may one day give way to someone else. I thought I read something about Hawking challenging some of Einstein's theories. Anyway, point is you can knowledge that as of today, science has a theory on our existance and it's a sequence of events where we evolved from a single celled organism to modern man. I can acknowledge that and yet don't have to believe in it. It's like you acknowledging that people believe in God and go to churchs/synogogs/mosques yet you don't have to believe in God. It's ironic that science uses the term "believe". Asking for faith from those that profess to know (and no) God.

[Eziekial]

OH and by the way. I could never vote for someone who doesn't believe in God.

Damn, Lyion ninja posted me!

[Lyion]

Well, it is accepted as fact by the scientific community, Ziek. Rightly so.

The limited material evidence we have supports scientists conclusions of evolutionary theory, that life on Earth has evolved and that species share common ancestors.

Most biologists are not debating these conclusions.

While I dislike the way scientists with very, very limited knowledge try to be dogmatic about things, the truth is science is based at looking at the world via naturlaistic processes and via materialistic explanations. That is how it should be done.

[Evermore]

there arent any good choises. in either party. Its become more of a question of who do you want stealing from you.

[Snero]

the problem here is that people don't really understand what a scientific theory is. Evolution is the best way we currently have to explain things, it is not 100% correct and complete considering our knowledge is constantly changing and what we know about the workings of evolution is constantly being tweaked. Evolution as a whole is pretty much fact, the inner workings, and mechanisms though are not. There really is no reason that evolution and religion can't coexist, none at all, it could just be the way god chose to create man, it can very much go hand in hand with the notion of a supreme being.

I know it keeps being brought up, but this idea that evolution is "just a theory" is absurd and only people who have no concept of what a scientific theory is would use that argument. A theory is generally an idea we have that best explains what we can observe, it is not set in stone, but the general idea is accepted. A law on the other hand is usually just an equation, a relationship between two properties. Gravity is a theory, we don't know exactly how it works, we just know that it does, hell pythagoras' theorem is still a theorem

[Lyion]

there arent any good choises. in either party. Its become more of a question of who do you want stealing from you.

Yeah, but Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich sure do make things fun with their off kilter message and the fact they completely ignore the mainstream talking points.

[Eziekial]

Bite your tongue! Ron Paul doesn't ignore mainstream talking points. He's the only one up on stage the other day that directly answered every question posed to him.

[Lyion]

Let me rephrase that.. They ignore their parties personal marching orders and talking points!

Paul makes me lolzer in debates. So does Kucinich. Especially at his press conferences, explaining how he does not stand alone.. While he is standing by himself...

[Eziekial]

Paul is absolutely right though. He's got guts telling it like it is and I find that a very important for a leader of our country.

[Arlos]

What the theory of Evolution gives us is the broad strokes of how things happened. We KNOW species evolve, we know how it happens (mutations in DNA), and we know that species will adapt to their environment, to better compete for their ecological niche. Just by studying the decoded genomes of different species we can tell how similar ALL life is, if by no other reason than shared genes for such fundamental things as the production of hemoglobin. You examine a flatworm and a human, and at the specific spots for producing the heme (the molecule that binds to oxygen), and the genes are THE SAME. What do you think the odds are that that would happen if we were utterly unrelated? You think we'd even have similar methods of genetics?

What we do not (and in some cases can NEVER have) is some of the fine granularity. We know genes mutate, we know some factors that cause mutation, but can we ever say what factor caused Mutation X in species Y 10 million years ago? Nope. You want to say God made that mutation happen, I cannot even begin to argue with you, because that becomes the realm of faith, and the mutation agent leaves no record, so science can ever only speculate.

We know that the early earth, post-collision with Orpheus that created the Moon, had a specific type of atmosphere called a "Reducing" atmosphere, oceans full of chemicals, and lots of energy entering the system in the forms of heat, light, lightning, etc. Now, in experiments in the lab, you take the kind of atmosphere we had and th ekind of oceans, and you pass electricity through it, before too long you get Amino Acids spontaneously forming. Now, as everyone (should) know, every single protein of every single living organism on the planet is created by combinations of Amino Acids, so they are quite literally the foundation building blocks of Life. Now, what we do not know here is how we got from Amino Acids to the first primitive single celled organisms. If again here you want to say, God is what bridged that gap, I likewise cannot argue with you, as once again you are making a statement of faith, and with no evidence Science can say nothing.

As has been said several times, there is nothing whatsoever about Evolution that is incompatible with a belief in God. Even as early as 400ish AD, Saint Augustine (and everyone on NT should know who he is by now) was telling people not to read Genesis literally at the expense of science. Just remember that Faith and Science are two entirely seperate entities, and neither one is ever a substitute for the other.

As for Mark, remember, not only is he anti-Evolution, he's a Young Earth creationist, believing the planet is only 6000 years old. Now THAT is silliness on the level of flat-earthism. To believe everything started in 4004 BC, on October 23rd as Usher calculated IS to utterly reject science at the level of the flat-earthers. In that there is NO question.

-Arlos

[Evermore]

Ron Paul 4tw...

[Arlos]

Oh, and Zeek, the "Laws" of thermodynamics are just observational theories that fit all observed data. They are as fundamental as things get. That still doesn't mean that someone couldn't come along tomorrow and find an exception.

That's just the thing, nothing in science is *EVER* proven. We already know Newton's law of gravity doesn't work on quantum mechanical scale, but then quantum mechanics don't work on an Einsteinian/Newtonian scale. (and BTW, Einstein's work on Gravity has basically replaced Newton's, because it is more general. Newton's work is earth-specific in most cases). The only place you can PROVE anything is in mathematics.

Hell, if you want really far out there theory on gravity, listen to some of the String theorists. One of their more recent theories postulates that Gravity is not a native force to our universe. That the only reason we have gravity in our universe is because of leakage across a universe/universe boundry called a membrane or just "brane". That would explain, for example, why gravity is so vastly weaker than the other 3 forces. Gravity, for example, takes many seconds to accelerate something to our atmosphere's terminal velocity. Electromagnetic force interaction between the atoms that make up our body and the atoms that make up the ground stop you instantly.

-Arlos

[Jeddas]

Vote Nader.

[Eziekial]

That's my point. In order to say we got here by evolution you have to have faith in the assumptions of individual people. The wearing of a lab coat, having a lot of beakers and a bunsen burner doesn't change the fact those people are just like you and me.

[Arlos]

No, you have to believe in the mountains of data we have supporting evolutionary theory. Denying evolution requires you to explain away much of that data, such as genetic similarities between wildly dissimilar species, etc. etc. etc. So far, the only counter-proof to evolution that has been submitted is a page or so of a document produced by semi-literate tribesmen from 4000 years ago. Sorry if I take our knowledge of speciesation, genetics, inheritance, ecology & biology over that of early bronze age middle-eastern tribesmen.

You want to believe in that, fine, be my guest, but you really should go all the way and see exorcists for the flu, since after all, according to people of the time it's sickness demons that caused you to be unwell, not germs.

-Arlos

[Eziekial]

Right, just like a few decades ago we used electric-shock therapy for speech-impediments and drill holes in the skull to relieve pressure from head trauma or cure psychosis.

As for you mountains of data arguement: are you saying that since a majority of a community agree or have similiar conclusions and they create documentation supporting their conclusions that automatically makes them right?

[10sun]

I'd have to say that there is more evidence pointing towards evolution than evidence pointing towards an allpowerful dude in the sky saying, "Let there be life!" & the world suddenly being populated.

That doesn't mean either correct, although Evolution can be called a Theory, whereas Creationism cannot.

[Lyion]

This is a dude who you should read and listen to. He's smarter than pretty much any of the scientists out there now who are posit'ing on both sides of the debate:

He's a Nobel Prize winning Physicist and he co-invented the Laser.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/rele ... wnes.shtml

Q. If science and religion share a common purpose, why have their proponents tended to be at loggerheads throughout history?

Science and religion have had a long interaction: some of it has been good and some of it hasn't. As Western science grew, Newtonian mechanics had scientists thinking that everything is predictable, meaning there's no room for God — so-called determinism. Religious people didn't want to agree with that. Then Darwin came along, and they really didn't want to agree with what he was saying, because it seemed to negate the idea of a creator. So there was a real clash for a while between science and religions.

But science has been digging deeper and deeper, and as it has done so, particularly in the basic sciences like physics and astronomy, we have begun to understand more. We have found that the world is not deterministic: quantum mechanics has revolutionized physics by showing that things are not completely predictable. That doesn't mean that we've found just where God comes in, but we know now that things are not as predictable as we thought and that there are things we don't understand. For example, we don't know what some 95 percent of the matter in the universe is: we can't see it — it's neither atom nor molecule, apparently. We think we can prove it's there, we see its effect on gravity, but we don't know what and where it is, other than broadly scattered around the universe. And that's very strange.

So as science encounters mysteries, it is starting to recognize its limitations and become somewhat more open. There are still scientists who differ strongly with religion and vice versa. But I think people are being more open-minded about recognizing the limitations in our frame of understanding.

[Arlos]

Though you have misrepresented me many times in this, Lyion, I steadfastly maintain I have never claimed in any way that science is anti-faith whatsoever. My main point is that science and religion are, almost by definition, two entirely seperate entities from each other. Saying evolution never happened and the earth is 6000 years old because I read it in the bible is wrong, period. However, it is just as wrong for someone to say that because science shows us that we all evolved from more primitive life forms it thus means there is no room for Faith.

Science looks at data and uses it to explain what and how. What science can NEVER truly do is answer the Why. Faith, however, is all about the Why, and should never touch upon the how and what.

-Arlos

[Tacks]

edit

[Eziekial]

Hey, I can totally accept that! Mark your calenders people. Arlos and I agree!

[araby]

did someone say Ron Paul??

hehe I like him too. Actually, I like Tom Tancredo even more. but, I liked it the other night when he (Ron Paul) was firm in his response to Rudy Guluiani's BARK at him and I would NOT have been one in the audience applauding him (RG) for it.

To be honest, I am sick of RG playing the "I know a thing or two about security" card by now. WE KNOW your city was attacked. WE KNOW you did a great job. Doesn't deserve you the presidency and it doesn't give you the right to BARK at another person for expressing their views, especially when Ron Paul's perception of 9-11, coincides with mine.

oh..I voted none of the above. the dems are not impressing me at all.

[Lueyen]

I think the none of the above was added later. I marked Hillary, some of the things Obama has said have bothered me beyond some of the typical Democrats talking points. Of the other three I eliminated Kucinich right away. That left Gore or Clinton... and while I'd like to say I'd rather deal with socialized health care then carbon taxes.. in the end it was the thought of the entertainment value of Hillary dealing with Amdenajad or the like.

oh..I voted none of the above. the dems are not impressing me at all.

Frankly the GOP candidates aren't impressing me either. I'm holding out for Thompson to get into the race.

[10sun]

Women shouldn't even be allowed to drive. Let alone lead a country.