Caliann the Elf <calianng_graves at yahoo.com> writes: [snip a number of points that we seem to have reached reasonable understanding of each other's positions on] > > Jastrow once said that it takes more faith to believe in > > evolution than it does to believe in creationism, because at that > > point, there was less evidence to support evolution. What's your > > point? > > > That last, at least, is nonsense. There is a tremendous volume of > evidence to support evolution. The argument is about details and > mechanisms; nobody that gets taken seriously doubts the basic fact of > evolution. Starting with the fossil record, and following through > with our growing understanding of DNA, and the experiences of people > doing selective breeding for millenia. > > **************************************************************************************** > > Please note that the last, about evolution, was a quote. It was > also mentioned that Jastrow said that because AT THE TIME, there was > not enough evidence to support the theory. What evidence was there for creationism? The fossil evidence, at least, was known from *very* early in the history of the idea of evolution (which, remember, goes back well before Darwin; the idea was around for a long time before he assembled all that evidence for it). > However, I might point out that evolution is STILL a "theory" and > that it has NOT been "proven" to scientist's satisfaction. Once it > HAS been "proven", it will no longer be put forth in scientific > circles as the "theory". You're misunderstanding scientific terminology. Evolution will always and forever be a theory. Science doesn't prove things; it *dis*proves things. A theory that's compatible with the known facts stays around, because it doesn't get disproved. Or stays around for use in special cases where it's adequately precise, the way Newtonian mechanics does, even though we *know* it's wrong in general. It's confusing, because "law" *used to* be used in science to describe simple relationships -- Boyle's Law, for example (gas pressure). (Cue Flanders & Swan). Meanwhile, the theory of evolution is the foundation of pretty much everything in biology; you can't do much of anything in modern biology without it. > Science teaches skepticism and the importance of reproducible tests. > Religion teaches acceptance of authority, and the importance of > authority. > > > Hhhmmm, in that, let me put forth that scientists have still not > been able to reproduce "life" in tests which the enviroment is > consistent with those of ancient Earth. They have been able to > reproduce "life" in those tests, but they have had to remove said > "life" from the enviroment so that it wasn't destroyed. So? The current theories are that it took probably billions of years over the entire surface of the planet to do that. Even if the theories on how it happened are precisely correct, I'm not surprised that in the few thousand hours of testing done to date, we haven't stumbled upon the situation that does it. I find it very convincing that the same basic chemicals are being produced *at all*. Not "proof", no; but lack of dis-proof, which is there best it ever gets. > In this, many scientists believe in evolution based on "faith", not > "fact", as it has not been reproducable in even it's simplist forms > AS OF YET. Anybody who's done selective breeding has reproduced evolution in it's simplest form. There's no credible alternative to evolution out there. Most of the alleged "creationist" theories are non-falsifiable, so they're not scientific theories at all, let alone ones with any adherants. > Once, of course, evolution is no longer a theory, but a fact, then > they will not be basing their belief on faith. In ordinary English, evolution is a fact now. In scientific English, it never will be -- "fact" is not used to describe theories about how things work. > Mathematics professors agree a lot more than priests do. > > ******************************************************************************************** > > <chuckles> True. Evolutionary biologists disagree MORE than priests do, however. :) *Maybe* more than Catholic priests do. Not more than Christian priests do, though and *certainly* not more than priests in the broad sense, including the analagous figures in all world religions, do. > I'd say the people who did the actual deed are to blame, and the > people who financed them (knowingly) are to blame, and the people who > helped them (knowingly) are to blame. > > I'd also say that, to a lesser extent, the leaders of mainstream Islam > are to blame for allowing this perverted offshoot to exist among them > (and, in fact, often *encouraging* it). > > ****************************************************************************************** > > Ageed. Completely. > > > > And I'd point out that religion was a tool that they used to justify > their actions and to motivate themselves for those actions. > > ***************************************************************************************** > > A religion twisted out of recognition from the original. I think > the offshot would be considered a "cult", not a "religion". > However, tentatively, agreed. So far as I can tell, the islamists and much of the body of mainstream Islam both recognize this nasty, virulent, form as valid Islam. The voices saying otherwise are rare and weak. > I'm so used to opposition on this topic I hardly notice it. It's > something I've been thinking about for about 40 years, so I'm hearing > less and less new, and finding it more and more annoying. > ****************************************************************************************** > > <chuckles> Different upbringing, I would guess. There is an old > stand-by, which many children are taught: > > If you can't say something nice....................... I was raised in an agnostic household; religion was always *other*. There are places for being "nice", but I don't find serious discussions to be a valid one. The issues are too important to suppress my own viewpoint just because I disagree with somebody else. On the other hand, I do think it's important to be polite in the discussion, and even that it's *possible*. As others have observed, we seem to have been having this large fast discussion about deeply-held and strongly-felt opinions very largely without real nastiness, which has made it great fun. > Thank you for answering this. Hey, I *like* these deep discussions. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/ John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info