Which would you rather be taught in schools ?
22 Oct 2013, 3:30 am
Nothing of that has lost anything in an public school. Teaching about religion should be done by churches and their priests, not by schools and teachers. Nothing bad about general social ethics education, where as well priests of different religions can be invited to present their believings and answer question of students, but an religion is something privately, not something that should be forced on you by a school? O_o
22 Oct 2013, 6:48 am
adifferentname wrote:
puddingmouse wrote:
When British people think of philosophers, they don't generally think of British philosophers - or if they know about British philosophers, instead of calling them philosophers, they call them political theorists, economists or scientists. Adam Smith is always thought of as an economist, Burke as a political theorist, Bacon as a scientist, Locke and Mill as political theorists more than philosophers (even if that's inaccurate). Hobbes, Hume and Russell are the exceptions - and they (wrongly) aren't regarded as 'great' in the same way as Descartes is.
John Lennon is thought of as a musician, Douglas Adams as a novelist, and yet both of these men were arguably great philosophers. One is not defined merely by the job one does.
Philosphy (with a capital P) is currently defined as an academic discipline. Everyone who thinks about anything beyond their routine life is a philosopher to some degree. I think to be a philosopher that gets studied on a philosophy curriculum, you have to have contributed a great deal and spent a good portion of your life thinking/discussing/writing about philosophical ideas in a way that definitively says 'this guy came up with this.'
John Lennon had a vague philosophy that was an amalgamation of various ideas that were floating around at the time - so he did philosophy but was not a philosopher in the sense that you would seek out his work mainly for this reason. He was much better at songwriting. Douglas Adams had a clear philosophy on many things and could write entertainingly about it, but none of his philosophical were things he came up with himself. He came up with Shoe Event Horizon and the Babel Fish ideas himself, but he didn't invent his own brand of atheism or ideas about how to live the 'good life'. His ideas about how to live life were shared by thousands of other people who were young in the 60s and 70s.
As for the philosophers I was talking about before, they really are academic philosophers because they came up with their own stuff and did it in the realms of an academic discipline. Burke had novel things to say about aesthetics, Mill had novel things to say about ethics, etc.
_________________
Zombies, zombies will tear us apart...again.
22 Oct 2013, 5:37 pm
Schneekugel wrote:
Nothing of that has lost anything in an public school. Teaching about religion should be done by churches and their priests, not by schools and teachers. Nothing bad about general social ethics education, where as well priests of different religions can be invited to present their believings and answer question of students, but an religion is something privately, not something that should be forced on you by a school? O_o
I don't mean teaching religion as in teaching students to follow a specific one (unless it's a private school I suppose), but teaching about religion (so many people are religious, it's crucial to understand the more prevalent religions to understand people) like key beliefs, texts, events, people and whatnot. And I think that's what just about everyone else means when they say that.
22 Oct 2013, 5:55 pm
LKL wrote:
Ok, here it goes.
Sounds like very poorly trained teachers without much background in science. The earth, like the other planets, originated from the gravitational settling of the early solar disk, and started out quite hot due to the friction and compression of multiple impacts of very high energy.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/scitech/dis ... ?ST_ID=446
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12161&page=R1
http://faculty.weber.edu/bdattilo/fossi ... earth.html
Note that the links above include the data, observations, and experimentation that has lead scientists to think that the Earth started out hot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tr ... al_fossils
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... e/lines_03
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... vograms_03
http://chem.tufts.edu/science/evolution ... lution.htm
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/ardi-2/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571304/
http://www.livescience.com/19333-homini ... alism.html
The geologic column is proven geology, observed in various forms all over the planet. Transitional forms are proven biology, observed not only within genera (extensively, in great detail), but also between families, orders, classes, and even phyla. Charts that show stages of human evolution all having modern human feet are inaccurate artistic interpretations; heck, even all modern humans don't have the same feet and ankles. One of the most recent discoveries, 'Ardi,' had feet with grasping large toes.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... evolution/
Yes, different disciplines use the word in completely different ways, referring to completely different processes.
Most biologists don't make a distinction between macro and micro evolution, since the former is simply the accumulation of the latter; information does not need to be added, only changed. The distinction between 'macro' and 'micro' evolution is a creationist gambit invented when popular knowledge of small-scale changes in species became too widespread for creationists to deny as believably as they had in the past; they changed their song from, 'evolution doesn't happen' to, 'large steps in evolution don't happen.' They used to claim that 'micro evolution' doesn't result in new abilities or new organs, but now are having to abandon that as well since observations have proven them wrong.
You are simply incorrect; the fossil record is both the origin and the best supporting evidence for evolution (see above), and predictions continue to be borne out over and over as new fossils are discovered. For the 'millions of years' concept to be wrong, atomic physics would have to have changed at some time in the past.
Your entire set of arguments betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the subject, as if you have been trained entirely by the ICR and never bothered to look up the subject beyond that. What's the matter, are you afraid? Go read those links thoroughly, I dare you.
Moviefan2k4 wrote:
When I was in school about 20 years ago, I remember being taught that the Earth started out as a big ball of molten rock, but no one bothered explaining where they got that idea. The teachers would read from the books instead of using their own words to help anyone understand what we were being exposed to, almost like they were afraid of losing their jobs over the slightest deviance from the text.
Sounds like very poorly trained teachers without much background in science. The earth, like the other planets, originated from the gravitational settling of the early solar disk, and started out quite hot due to the friction and compression of multiple impacts of very high energy.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/scitech/dis ... ?ST_ID=446
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12161&page=R1
http://faculty.weber.edu/bdattilo/fossi ... earth.html
Note that the links above include the data, observations, and experimentation that has lead scientists to think that the Earth started out hot.
Quote:
Throw out unproven junk like the geologic column,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
Quote:
transitional forms,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tr ... al_fossils
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... e/lines_03
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... vograms_03
http://chem.tufts.edu/science/evolution ... lution.htm
Quote:
and charts that show different "stages of evolution" all having human feet.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/ardi-2/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571304/
http://www.livescience.com/19333-homini ... alism.html
The geologic column is proven geology, observed in various forms all over the planet. Transitional forms are proven biology, observed not only within genera (extensively, in great detail), but also between families, orders, classes, and even phyla. Charts that show stages of human evolution all having modern human feet are inaccurate artistic interpretations; heck, even all modern humans don't have the same feet and ankles. One of the most recent discoveries, 'Ardi,' had feet with grasping large toes.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... evolution/
Quote:
I've heard from many people that the word "evolution" actually has many different meanings, divided as follows:
Cosmic (the origins of time, space, and matter)
Chemical (how hydrogen gave birth to other elements like helium)
Stellar (how planets and stars came into existence)
Organic (the origin of life itself)
Macro (molecules to man, i.e. "the goo to you via the zoo")
Micro (small variations within set structures)
Cosmic (the origins of time, space, and matter)
Chemical (how hydrogen gave birth to other elements like helium)
Stellar (how planets and stars came into existence)
Organic (the origin of life itself)
Macro (molecules to man, i.e. "the goo to you via the zoo")
Micro (small variations within set structures)
Yes, different disciplines use the word in completely different ways, referring to completely different processes.
Quote:
When most use the term "evolution", they're usually referring to Macro, since that's what a lot of universities and such champion (to say nothing of the media). The only visually conclusive evidence actually points to Micro, and mutations don't add existing information, which would be needed for anything to change very far from its original state.
Most biologists don't make a distinction between macro and micro evolution, since the former is simply the accumulation of the latter; information does not need to be added, only changed. The distinction between 'macro' and 'micro' evolution is a creationist gambit invented when popular knowledge of small-scale changes in species became too widespread for creationists to deny as believably as they had in the past; they changed their song from, 'evolution doesn't happen' to, 'large steps in evolution don't happen.' They used to claim that 'micro evolution' doesn't result in new abilities or new organs, but now are having to abandon that as well since observations have proven them wrong.
Quote:
A common example is bacteria, where one variant becomes resistant to different medicines, but most ignore the obvious conclusion: they don't change into anything beyond other bacteria. Nothing visible in nature supports the "millions of years" concept, not even the fossil record.
You are simply incorrect; the fossil record is both the origin and the best supporting evidence for evolution (see above), and predictions continue to be borne out over and over as new fossils are discovered. For the 'millions of years' concept to be wrong, atomic physics would have to have changed at some time in the past.
Your entire set of arguments betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the subject, as if you have been trained entirely by the ICR and never bothered to look up the subject beyond that. What's the matter, are you afraid? Go read those links thoroughly, I dare you.
Being antagonistic is not likely to develop a love of science in him.
However, evolution is totally awesome and it just makes sense. It's a blast to study - and if you believe in God it is no threat to your beliefs.
Here's a great place to go learn about it. Intelligently, simply written, lots of graphics and examples.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01
They also update it frequently and there are examples of current evolution both macro and micro - they explain thoroughly possible reasons why these new mutations took hold and brought about new species.
22 Oct 2013, 8:04 pm
LKL wrote:
He's too old to develop a love of science, but I would like to see enough respect for reality that he isn't advocating shoving pseudoscientific, debunked hypotheses down the throats of public school students.
It very well could be that he sincerely thought his information was correct. IF evolution were the way creationists describe it on their web sites, of course it is ridiculous. But those web sites ignore much of the strongest evidence for evolution and deny or distort what they do not ignore. They create endless "straw man" arguments to knock down, and some people read that garbage and swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Creationist sources also misrepresent science and the scientific method, and frequently quote famous people out of context in such a way as to make it look like the person being quoted means the opposite of what they really said when you read the whole quotation. That is a very sneaky and dishonest thing to do, unless the creationists are so stupid they don't realize they are doing it, which is a possibility.
_________________
?When you ride over sharps, you get flats!?--The Bicycling Guitarist, May 13, 2008
22 Oct 2013, 10:42 pm
puddingmouse wrote:
adifferentname wrote:
puddingmouse wrote:
When British people think of philosophers, they don't generally think of British philosophers - or if they know about British philosophers, instead of calling them philosophers, they call them political theorists, economists or scientists. Adam Smith is always thought of as an economist, Burke as a political theorist, Bacon as a scientist, Locke and Mill as political theorists more than philosophers (even if that's inaccurate). Hobbes, Hume and Russell are the exceptions - and they (wrongly) aren't regarded as 'great' in the same way as Descartes is.
John Lennon is thought of as a musician, Douglas Adams as a novelist, and yet both of these men were arguably great philosophers. One is not defined merely by the job one does.
Philosphy (with a capital P) is currently defined as an academic discipline. Everyone who thinks about anything beyond their routine life is a philosopher to some degree. I think to be a philosopher that gets studied on a philosophy curriculum, you have to have contributed a great deal and spent a good portion of your life thinking/discussing/writing about philosophical ideas in a way that definitively says 'this guy came up with this.'
John Lennon had a vague philosophy that was an amalgamation of various ideas that were floating around at the time - so he did philosophy but was not a philosopher in the sense that you would seek out his work mainly for this reason. He was much better at songwriting. Douglas Adams had a clear philosophy on many things and could write entertainingly about it, but none of his philosophical were things he came up with himself. He came up with Shoe Event Horizon and the Babel Fish ideas himself, but he didn't invent his own brand of atheism or ideas about how to live the 'good life'. His ideas about how to live life were shared by thousands of other people who were young in the 60s and 70s.
As for the philosophers I was talking about before, they really are academic philosophers because they came up with their own stuff and did it in the realms of an academic discipline. Burke had novel things to say about aesthetics, Mill had novel things to say about ethics, etc.
I wouldn't actually be surprised if either one of them was being taught in philosophy classes in universities now. Academia is expanding its horizons, trying to draw in the young kids. I think Harvard (or was it MIT) did a class on Philosophy and The Simpsons.
23 Oct 2013, 6:38 am
TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
LKL wrote:
He's too old to develop a love of science, but I would like to see enough respect for reality that he isn't advocating shoving pseudoscientific, debunked hypotheses down the throats of public school students.
It very well could be that he sincerely thought his information was correct. IF evolution were the way creationists describe it on their web sites, of course it is ridiculous. But those web sites ignore much of the strongest evidence for evolution and deny or distort what they do not ignore. They create endless "straw man" arguments to knock down, and some people read that garbage and swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Creationist sources also misrepresent science and the scientific method, and frequently quote famous people out of context in such a way as to make it look like the person being quoted means the opposite of what they really said when you read the whole quotation. That is a very sneaky and dishonest thing to do, unless the creationists are so stupid they don't realize they are doing it, which is a possibility.
I do think most creationists sincerely believe that what they say is correct.
I think the common-or-garden creationist (like Moviefan) probably hasn't gone beyond the creationist sources that support his worldview.
Then there's the people who create the creationist sources. These are usually the really dangerous people who deliberately set out to mislead.
There are a small selection of scientists who believe in creationism despite having a good working knowledge of evolution. They tend to be quite insular and don't trust the opinions of "evolutionists", but they're the ones I have the most respect for. There's an Australian who thinks trees buried in mud are evidence for the Great Flood, for example.
(I think you'd enjoy The Heretics by Will Storr- it's a great examination of why various creationists hold their beliefs. I gave my copy away before I could finish reading it but it was really interesting)
23 Oct 2013, 6:51 am
It just amazes me, considering that creationist web sites claim to be representing God's truth, how blatantly DISHONEST those web sites are and how much they misunderstand science and misrepresent the evidence. They certainly bring no honor to God or Christ by spreading lies in His name.
I am even more amazed that up to half the adults in the USA have doubts about evolution because those lies are so widespread. It is just as ridiculous and just as wrong as if half the adults in the USA had doubts about whether or not the earth is flat in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. It is THAT stupid! I feel like I am living in the twilight zone when someone makes such ignorant statements about evolution. This is the 21st century, not the 11th!
_________________
?When you ride over sharps, you get flats!?--The Bicycling Guitarist, May 13, 2008
27 Oct 2013, 2:32 pm
TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
I feel like I am living in the twilight zone when someone makes such ignorant statements about evolution. This is the 21st century, not the 11th!
Actually, the concept of evolution was suggested as early as the 7th-6th century BC by Anaximander.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximande ... _humankind
Similarly, the Earth being round is considered to have been suggested in the 6th BC century by Pythagoras (a student of Anaximander).
Darwin and Galileo weren't the first ones. They were just the first ones that could not be silenced by the Powers That Be.
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