“Do we still think Sarge was Buddha Bear? Or was that dropped in favor of somehting else...”

“I curse you for reviving this hateful thread! TROLL TROLL TROLL!”

“Haha”

“You just miss S-rge don't ya? Just trying to root him out from under his rock aren't ya? LOL!”

“Well, it is going before a judge today, I believe.”

“When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was more than 96 percent identical to the human genome. Charles Darwin had deduced more than a century ago that chimps were among humans' closest cousins.

But decoding chimpanzees' DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests.

If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species' DNA and the two animals' population sizes.

"That's a very specific prediction," said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project.

Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.

Their analysis was just the latest of many in such disparate fields as genetics, biochemistry, geology and paleontology that in recent years have added new credence to the central tenet of evolutionary theory: That a smidgeon of cells 3.5 billion years ago could -- through mechanisms no more extraordinary than random mutation and natural selection -- give rise to the astonishing tapestry of biological diversity that today thrives on Earth.

continued...”

“Ha! That was a good one, Nigal!”

“I think public schools should be intelligently designed – Hire smart architects”

“It would be great to see some intelligence in our schools!!”

“HARRISBURG, Pa ... have you been following this case? They had a witness that testified that the text book in question contained many references to "creationism" and that, basically, when objections were raised someone did a replacement of "creationism" with "intelligent design".

Whoops!

From an ABC news article:

Forrest reviewed drafts of the textbook as a witness for eight families who are trying to have the intelligent design concept removed from the Dover Area School District's biology curriculum.

The families contend that teaching intelligent design effectively promotes the Bible's view of creation, violating the separation of church and state.

Intelligent design holds that life on Earth is so complex that it must have been the product of some higher force. Opponents of the concept say intelligent design is simply creationism stripped of overt religious references.

Forrest outlined a chart of how many times the term "creation" was mentioned in the early drafts versus how many times the term "design" was mentioned in the published edition.

"They are virtually synonymous," she said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1187731”

“Just because they did that stupid thing doesn't refute that ID should be taught in school. It has nothing to do with refuting that. They just argued that that book originally said "creation". Wow! Got news for you ... If there is an IDer, then He created us! Duh! That's the point. We were created by an Intelligent Designer. If there is an IDer, how else could we be here other than if we were created?! How is being "created" a religioun anyways? Guess what ... it's not folks. Nothing to see here ... move along.”

“OK this is funny. Pitts sites pretty powerful evidence that "intelligent design" is is a substitute for creation science. The folks selling it have a new product... not so obviously religious and potentially compatible with more many different religeons.... but it is part of the same sales program.

The only thing potentially empirical about intelligent design is it says... "we can't figure out anyway this could have arisen from random genetic mutation." It's a minor hypothesis - generally hard to test. I've studied embyonic development.

Most ID adhereents don't even seem to understand the notion of incremental change.”

“Here's a good article for ya:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002522889_evolution27.html”

“Just because they did that stupid thing doesn't refute that ID should be taught in school.

Stupid? I think not. Actually it was a pretty smart thing to do if they wanted to have a chance of this book getting sold into the public school system. Their initial attempt (a book called “Biology and Creation”) was shot down by the Supreme Court in 1987. So they edited the book, renamed it “Of Pandas and People”, and changed “Creationism” to “Intelligent Design”.

Here is another article better written than the last:

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A textbook advocating "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in high-school science classes was written originally as a biblically based creationist text, a philosophy professor testified yesterday in a federal trial over the teaching of evolution.

Barbara Forrest, who reviewed early drafts of the book, "Of Pandas and People," said the term "creationism" was later replaced by "intelligent design" when the book's first edition was published in 1989.

"My conclusion is that [creationism and intelligent design] are interchangeable, that they are virtually synonymous," said Forrest, who teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University. She was the first witness called by the plaintiffs in the second week of the trial in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The book, published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics, was originally titled "Biology and Creation" in a 1986 draft. But its authors, Dean Kenyon and Perceval Davis, shifted to the use of "intelligent design" after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1987 banned the teaching of creationism in public schools, Forrest said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002542689_design06.html

The Foundation for Thought and Ethics offers this textbook as a "supplement" for biology classes: http://www.fteonline.com/pandas.htm

They are a proponent of Intelligent Design that offers publications on the topic, including the one book by William A. Dembski that I have read. Take a look at the list of publications they sell: http://www.fteonline.com/idpublications.htm”

“How is being "created" a religioun anyways?

Who cares? The real question is, how is it science, when absolutely no evidence - direct or inferred - of a designer exists?”

“I thought S-rge said we were boring and TT sucked and he was leaving again?

Man of his word.”

“Meh, Sarge's pretty much right. Most of the regulars can be interesting occasionally. Sarge has a knack for creating interesting exchanges. Welcome back.”

“This is a good review that was done of that Intelligent Design book "Of People and Pandas" that is the subject of that lawsuit currently in motion.

"Pandas" is at the center of the current "Scopes II" litigation in Dover, PA. The judge there will soon discover that Pandas, like most creationist books (see my other reviews), is completely stupid.

First, make no mistake, Pandas is a creationist book. Pre-trial hearings showed that Pandas' authors called their alternative theory "creationism" in the early drafts, then changed it later to "intelligent design," but without changing the original data or analysis. So the only difference between creationism and ID is the name. Pretending they are substantively different is a sham.

Pre-trial proceedings also exposed dishonesty by FTE, Pandas' copyright-holder. FTE's President, Jon Buell, denied that FTE was a religious organization, but FTE's tax records and other corporate documents showed that FTE describes itself as a tax-exempt, religious organization. Buell denied knowing about that, but the tax paperwork had Buell's initials on it. Also, the tax exemption has been in effect for over a decade. Was Buell so clueless that he didn't know his organization hadn't paid taxes for over a decade? The judge dismissed Buell's arguments, calling them "disingenuous," which is a polite word for "lies."

Bible-thumping, creationism, and lying have been close companions for decades. The courts in two previous decisions, McLean v. Arkansas (1981) and Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), both commented on creationist dishonesty.

Creationists rely very heavily on dishonesty, which explains why they do so well in public debates, but so poorly in court. In debates in front of science-illiterate Bible-thumpers, where they aren't subject to cross-examination under oath, creationist demagogues like Duane Gish and Michael Behe can use the most blatant falsehoods without fear of repercussion. Under oath, however, facing cross-examination by knowledgeable opponents, the penalty for perjury forces creationists to abandon their normal falsehoods, leaving them empty-handed. Stephen Meyer and William Dembski, two prominent, vocal creationists, (Meyer actually wrote part of Pandas) lost their nerve when faced with the prospect of being cross-examined under oath in the Dover case and refused to answer questions.

Wise choice. Running away is cowardly, but better than being publicly slaughtered in court trying to defend demonstrably stupid and dishonest arguments. (In Meyer's essay, for example, he cites Dmitri Kuznetsov as one of his supporters. But Kuznetsov was a con artist, whose "research" included fabricated citations of non-existent articles.)

Pandas spends an inordinate amount of time on origin of life issues, even though abiogenesis receives little, if any, mention in mainstream textbooks and classes. Abiogenesis is a highly speculative area on the frontiers of science. Spending so much time on speculative areas is pedagogically indefensible in an introductory, high school-level class, even if Pandas had gotten their facts right, which they didn't. The presence or absence of oxygen is an important issue in abiogenesis, and Pandas gets its facts completely wrong.

Pandas' treatment of the fossil record is badly out-dated and blatantly biased, simply ignoring thousands of transitional forms found over the past few decades. There are fossils of dinosaurs with feathers, dinosaurs with respiratory features similar to birds, and dinosaurs with reproductive processes similar to birds, which strongly supports the evolution of birds from dinosaurs. There is a beautiful sequence of fossils leading from fully terrestrial artiodactyls to fully aquatic whales, a beautiful sequence showing the transition from fishes to amphibians, and an even better record of the reptile-mammal transition. Pandas dishonestly conceals the vast majority of that data.

Pandas separates causes into two types, natural and intelligent. That distinction is arbitrary and unjustified, since the only documented "intelligent" causes they cite are human, and humans, of course, are natural beings, whose actions can be investigated by the scientific method, not supernatural beings beyond the reach of science. Furthermore, human design-processes are radically different from the processes allegedly used by Pandas' "intelligent designer," so Pandas' analogizing human and non-human designers is simply stupid.

Pandas uses many fatally flawed analogies, including analogizing DNA, the "genetic code," to a human-designed code. But human codes deal with communication of non-physical ideas, while DNA has nothing to do with communication of non-physical ideas; rather DNA involves the physical properties of physical arrangements of physical matter. Also, human codes work in many different media: voice, print, film, electronic, or purely mental images; while DNA works in only one medium, the medium of biological organisms. The two "codes" are completely different, and equating them is simply stupid.

Pandas' bizarre definition of "evolution" comes from a young-earth creationist book, not from a standard textbook.

Pandas insists there are limits to evolution, but never explains what they are or how they operate. Maybe it's magic!

The chapter written with Michael Behe's help (he confessed during pre-trial proceedings) is as stupid as the rest of the book. The theoretical discussion of irreducible complexity (IC) is so dumb that even other creationists, like William Dembski, reject it. IC's factual claims have also been demolished. Contrary to Behe's claims, all of his allegedly "irreducible" systems have been found in reduced forms, still functioning just fine.

Since evolution is a historical theory, a legitimate, alternative theory should also be historical. Pandas, however, never gives a timeline for the mysterious "design" events it postulates. That's also stupid, like teaching U.S. history without ever mentioning any dates.

An entire, major section on molecular biology is completely wrong. Pandas claims that evolution predicts a pattern of cytochrome c differences that corresponds to differences between living species. Wrong! Evolution actually predicts a pattern of differences that corresponds to distance from a last common ancestor. (Evolution is a HISTORICAL theory. Duh!) Since the molecular evidence confirms evolution's historical hypothesis, this entire section of Pandas should be taken as strong support for evolution. For the authors and their so-called "expert," Michael Behe, to screw this chapter up so badly shows how incompetent and/or dishonest Behe and his Pandas co-conspirators are.

Bible-thumping and stupidity have been close companions since the Dark Ages, when Bible-thumping idiots enforced flat-earth and stationary-earth dogmas. The ID ID-iocy in Pandas follows in that shameful tradition. ”

“~experiencing technical difficulties~
last edited: 10/11/05 4:51:31 PM”

“are you trying to bring s-rge back?”

“Ever hear of Drake's Formula, Carl Sagan popularized it in his 'Cosmos' series.

Drake postulated there might be one trillion 250 billion sites of intelligent life in the universe.

His formula generalized to the extreme and was very optimistic.

He assumed all galaxies are equal when in fact it appears only galaxies with the characteristics of the Milky Way galaxy, namely a spiral galaxy not in competition (gravitational wise) with any other nearby galaxies are capable of producing planets which allow life to appear,

OK, only 6% of galaxies are spirals and only 1% of those are not in clusters which compete (gravitationally) which cuts Drakes estimate by 99.0004 %.

Care to read why the estimate can be cut to less than one chance in the Cosmos of a planet with intelligent life appearing?
last edited: 10/11/05 6:23:50 PM”

“I'm game... whatcha got for us lonesurveyor?”

“I have him on ignore so what do I care... until 11 November. So let him pound sand.”

“His formula generalized to the extreme and was very optimistic.

The best ones always do...”

“no, lonesurveyor. why dont you tell us instead of leaving hanging.




































































































god that is so annoying”

“i mean




















































































































really annoying”

“I just got disk 2 of the Penn and Teller show Bullshlt! where they debunk and expose sacred cows. This disk has creationism on it so I'm interested in seeing how they handle it. Show be funny as hell.”

“Care to read why the estimate can be cut to less than one chance in the Cosmos of a planet with intelligent life appearing?

Why do I get the feeling this is going to devolve into some lame teleological argument?”

“The entire argument is somewhat ridiculous. The Universe is 13 billion years old and is made mostly of empty space. Taken in this context you can play "rounding games" comparing short time-scale events with the age and scope of the Universe to make pretty much anything appear so improbable as to appear “miraculous”.”

“Excuse me, I was interupted while writing that post last evening and did not notice the number I posted amounting to 1% of 6% of a total would actually be a 99.94% reduction of the total, but of course 1.25 trillion times 0.0006 would still result in 750 million sites of intelligent life in the universe

but this all a guessing game.

'All the science, I don't understand
Its just my job 5 days a week'

Consider the line from the movie contact which stated something like:

'Well, if the Earth is the only place of intelligent life in the Cosmos, it sure seems like a waste of Cosmos.'

Well, there are astrophysicists who claim that a Cosmos of slightly less matter would have resulted in all the matter being hydrogen and helium

and a Cosmos of slightly greater mass would have resulted in all the matter being heavy metals

so, for life to appear at even one place at one time in this Cosmos, the Cosmos must be of the size within a very narrow range that it is, but of course this does not rule out multiple sites.

BTW, I am plagarizing from what I have read and seen on TV from the work of astronomer Hugh Ross, search that name and find out for yourself what he says.

OK, now mathematical improbabilities:

Awhile back, Hugh Ross published a list of 154 Conditions necassary for the the sustained existence of life (not higher or intelligent life - just life even in simple(still very complex) forms) within the Evolvement/Creation that we can perceive.

Being within a spiral galaxy is one of the conditions.

Being on a planet revolving around a stable and benign star is another, you get the idea.

Many of these conditions cannot be answered as merely true/false, they are a matter of degree such as if revolving around the right type of star, still must be within a very narrow range of distance from said star.

But, discounting the matters of degree, let us consider each of 154 conditions as true/false situations (Hugh Ross now has 200 conditions in an updated list).

What are the randomly generated chances of even one place fulfilling the 154 conditions with the correct condition,

it can be expressed as being about as likely as flipping a fair and balanced quarter 154 consecutive times and getting heads everytime, possible but not likely.

How unlikely, consider the number resulting from the mathematical function factorial,

154factorial (you know 154 x153 x152 etc)

The result is a very large number having 272 integers ahead of the decimal point

and as a matter of comparison the number of sub-atomic particles in all the Cosmos is estimated to be a number with only 130 integers in front of the decimal point.

'Maybe the question is not, Why are we here? but rather, Are we here?'
last edited: 10/12/05 4:05:54 PM”

“One chance in 154 factorial which can also be expressed as 154!

is one chance in

30897696138473508879585646703
63240465920190704088882047787
15892898655056878866662203004
47285640952619071680544337494
10926464999468018759136131107
27379514546955256768910356408
63743200899694758450943586711
06857102203101122832010731061
24800000000000000000000000000
00000000000.0
last edited: 10/12/05 4:23:43 PM”

“we may not be alone in the universe, but im pretty sure that means we aint NEVER gonna meet our nearest neighbors”

“Or in the words of Popeye:

'I ain't no phyziskists

but I knows whats matters.'”

“lone, the stuff u just posted is why i get kind of annoyed when i read or watch science fiction, and they got galaxies just teeming with intelligent life on every planet, and everyone just a half-days drive from each other. but its all in fun”

“Well the Penn and Teller segment wasn’t as good as I was hoping for. It was pretty off balanced. For the creationist’s side they had like people from Georgia in bib over hauls railing on about the judgment of g-d and this that and the other. I do think creationism isn’t a science though and shouldn’t be taught side by side with evolution.”

“a penn and teller bit is no fun if nobody dies”

“The media and TV/film industries have created the impression that intelligent life is common in the universe, not necassarily as a conspiracy, its just what sells,

which downplays the signifigance of the rarity and possibly unigueness of intelligent life.

There is a book out there called 'Rare Earth'. When I find the authors name, I might provide a link.

The annoying thing to me, in reference to the statement by CrazyPace about life being found every half days drive across the Cosmos,

is that travel at the speeds used in Star Trek for example (ya know, Warp Factor 9, Mr. Zulu) involves millions of years passing on back on the home planet during the half days drive for the space ship and further the concept of a day has absolutely no meaning anywhere but on Earth, not to mention that at those velocities striking a bit of space debris the size of a pea would devastate a spaceship.
last edited: 10/13/05 7:13:06 AM”

“Maybe the question is not, Why are we here? but rather, Are we here?'

Not going to come right out with a design conclusion, eh?

is that travel at the speeds used in Star Trek for example (ya know, Warp Factor 9, Mr. Zulu) involves millions of years passing on back on the home planet

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought relativistic effects were supposedly avoided by the warping of space, as opposed to sailing through it at high speeds.”

“OK, 'warp drive' overcomes relativistic effects

and I guess it must overcome the levels of accelleration from still to zillions of miles per hour attained in just a matter of seconds with so little g-force that Kirk could sit in his chair without even blinking.

I heard William Shatner wrote a book called

something like "We are working on that'

in which he discussed the speeds and acclellerations that the Enterprise supposedly was capable of in order to get from this place to that place in the amount of time indicated

and it was many, many times the speed of light.”

“they used the force”

“That is hi-frickin’-larious! I normally don’t fall for catch phrases or the like but the thing that made me realize how fukcing stupid this argument is was a statement made by one educator,

“For creationism to be taught in science class is like a history class that teaches about the Holocaust being forced to give equal time Holocaust deniers.””

“Wow, that is fierce bit of rhetoric. Of course - I tend to think of the Holocaust deniers as, almost by definition, hateful and evil - so there are limits to the analogy. There are lots of creationists and ID believers I would gladly invite to my home for dinner with my family. I doubt I could say that about a Holocaust denier.

Besides. ID isn't religious and is different from creationism because it doesn't say whose imaginary friend it was that did the creating (which is what FSMD does).”

“Of course unless it happens to be Eris? LOL! I put ID and creationism on the same level as sex education. Teach at home.

A book you would find absolutely amazing Ped is called The Rebbe's Army. It is about the Chabad Hassidic movement. Of interest is the chapter on education and how they go about teaching what they believe (6,000 year old earth created by G-d) and how they at the same time meet the requirments of the state on evolution and such. They have pieced together text books and where it talks about things they don't believe in they have post its saying things like, "But we know from Gen 1 that G-d created the earth".”

“Alright, now I'm offended!

Eris is a way kewl imaginary friend!
And she didn't create the earth, she justs help keep it interesting. For example, she created the Trojan War - and without that, no Iliad, no Oddysey, and a lot of the finest surving Greek Tragedies (like the Agammennon trilogy) would never have happened. Even worse, the Cream would have never recorded "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and we'd have some other brand name for the best known condoms.

And the number 1 college football team would be the USC Myceneans.

Well maybe if USC had a name like that, the # team would be the UT Longhorns. So maybe Eris is a lousy trouble maker after all.
last edited: 10/14/05 4:11:43 PM”

“The Rebbe's army thing does sound interesting.

Personally, I'd have no problem with biology textbooks that teach evolution containing one of those little blue boxes that deals with ID and creationsism. It might say something like (in a couple paragraphs), "Many people believe that evolution is only part of the story, or that it is patently false. Many believe that the biblical account of creation is literally true and that God created all the species about 6,000 years ago, others believe X, Y,and Z. There is a school of thought that believes many living organisms are too complex to have arizen through chance variation and natural selection and that this could be demonstrated scientifically."

It think it would be inappropriate to have any government impose that, but I wouldn' find it appropriate for a government agency to reject (or select) that textbook on the basis of that section alone.”

“That is hi-frickin’-larious! I normally don’t fall for catch phrases or the like but the thing that made me realize how fukcing stupid this argument is was a statement made by one educator,

“For creationism to be taught in science class is like a history class that teaches about the Holocaust being forced to give equal time Holocaust deniers.” - FrankeN-gal

Yeah, well, one thing that is f-k-g stupid about THAT argument is that the IDers aren't asking for equal time.”

“"Yeah, well, one thing that is f-k-g stupid about THAT argument is that the IDers aren't asking for equal time.”

No Nancy, in the case I was quoting they want full and equal time. Please try and keep up. :)”