dagblog - Comments for "Joy Behar advocates child abuse charges for teaching creationism over evolution - I take it one step further"

All the religious symbolism

Darwin Eyeinstien — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 21:19:11 +0000

In reply to Joy Behar advocates child abuse charges for teaching creationism over evolution - I take it one step further

All the religious symbolism aside (or idolatry if that's how you see it), debate over evolution vs creationism at the limits of either argument boils down to whether the force that sparked the big bang had agency. Was the Big Bang a wilful act by some force we witlle peeps naively describe as God, complete with a baby son, a manger and adoring donkeys? Or was it the cosmic coincidence that atheists allege? Maybe even a figment of our imagination as your local Tarot card reader might claim? (Never mind that Common Core graduation tests will soon require rewrites to accommodate modifications to evolutionists' creation story in light of physicists recent discoveries that cast doubt on the Big Bang theory.)

No matter how much you express hatred of depublicans in an effort to look cool to your hip friends, you are probably not smart enough to have more than a guesswork opinion about that cosmological question.

And those people who describe creationism as the seven day, 6,000 year story line espoused by only the a few members of the most magical thinking sects are probably the same ones who say it is culturally condescending - read "racist" - to criticize canibalistic cultures or those that practiced ritual human sacrifice. Those anti-christian-mythology opions most often come from speakers who idealize some past time where aboriginal Celtics or (insert ethnic group here) lived in perfect harmony with nature, only to be victims of genocide by gluten-intoxicated Anglos bent on colonizing all that is good in the name of a racist patriarchy.

They would have us believe none of these idealized pastoral cultures from the past had their own improbable creation stories, and their own oppressive habits, or discredit us from comparing them with those of our time because racist patriarchy so blinds us, we are disqualified from any valid historical analysis unless we repent and join the ranks of those who have seen the light in neo-Marxist critical theory.

As for that morning show named to evoke ideas of female genitalia (the V), if you think it is anything other than producers' efforts to pander to midmorning female audiences, largely comprising stay at home moms, on behalf of advertisers pitching products to the gender that controls a substantial majority of consumer spending, you might discover you have embraced a few implausible myths of your own.

"1. Macro-Evolution is not a

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:44:38 +0000

In reply to 1. Macro-Evolution is not a

"1. Macro-Evolution is not a fact it is a theory

2. Intelligent design is not a fact it is a theory

Which theory is true? NO ONE KNOWS!!! that is why it is called a theory. Should one theory be taught in schools over another? Absolutely not"

Wrong!!! Figures you'd get something like that wrong since you believe in creationism, a belief in which also requires bad logic. To simply say that they are both theories and thus equally valid is like saying a plane is the same as a bird because they both fly in the sky. Intelligent design is not a theory. A theory is based on something, an observation (can be tested), math or inferrences based on past observations. ID is based on nothing, literally. It's supports say "well evolution lacks this or that", they never say what physical evidence supports it aside from "Well gee this looks complex! Someone must have made it!". That's not evidence, a little signature or something inside a cell that says "GOD" would be evidence. Evidence is something physical that would lead to a supposition, ID does the opposite, starting with a supposition that because we create things and we're intelligent everything must have been by something intelligent. There is nothing physical that shows that animals or humans were created by intelligence (if there were then science would've accepted it), complexity does not denote intelligence, patterns are as likely to occur as are "non patterns". If you look at any weather beaten rock under an electron microscope it looks complex.

A theory says that something is possible, that is the only way in which ID is a theory. Even if you give it that, "because I think you're not entirely right that makes you wrong and me completly right" is not good logic or scientifically valid. Precisely why ID/creationism should be kept out of the science class

I have found that it is quite

DF — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:03:00 +0000

In reply to So, are you saying that your

I have found that it is quite common for ID proponents to confuse the theory of evolution with teleology, perhaps because their purpose is teleological. Evolution doesn't say anything about how life began, so the criticism that it doesn't deal with origins is, as you've said, "not even wrong".

Macro-evolution is a fact.

Tellingthetruth — Sat, 09 May 2009 22:59:13 +0000

In reply to <!-- /* Style

Macro-evolution is a fact. You seem to believe in micro-evolution, But what you don't realize is that they are the same thing. Macro is micro over many generations. (Micro = change occurring as an adaptation without a new species being formed. Macro = where a species has split into two or more distinct species.) Ex: If groups of the same species are isolated from one another over many generations, food sources will change, mutations and genetic drift (as occur in micro-evolution) will occur and adaptation will ensue. If the species are re-introduced to eachother they will have become different species. They may have developed slightly different colours, mating rituals, or their genetic material may be slightly incompatible (like horses and donkeys) due to drift and adaptive mutations. In any case, they are different species. Hence, macro-evolution. Now, you know.

This guy is slick. First of

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:42:35 +0000

In reply to "...But seriously, dagblog is

This guy is slick. First of all he does his research, becoming the first person in the history of the internet to quote from our about page. (Ding, ding, ding, give that man a half-eaten bagel.)

Second, he has cleverly staked out a reasonable middle ground between the extremist ideas of fundamentalist theologians and incompetent modern scientists. Where do I sign up?

"...But seriously, dagblog is

Harry Dale Huffman — Sat, 09 May 2009 13:08:28 +0000

In reply to Joy Behar advocates child abuse charges for teaching creationism over evolution - I take it one step further

"...But seriously, dagblog is five guys and a woman who don't get enough attention in their personal lives and want to post anonymously about issues of common concern, to get your attention...."

The creationism/evolution debate is medieval, thoroughly incompetent at both ends of the debate spectrum ("6,000 year-old-Earth" at one end; "design is indicated throughout the natural world, but it's non-falsifiable so we refuse to discuss it" on the other), and obsolete, since a great design of the Earth's surface has been found and verified as fact:

http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com,

http://www.lulu.com/hdhsciences.

"Our world is quite literally a jigsaw puzzle, on every level of observation"- ----from the introduction to "The End of the Mystery"

So, are you saying that your

Nebton — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:54:27 +0000

In reply to <!-- /* Style

So, are you saying that your whole argument was about abiogensis in the first place, and that you have no problem with the theory of Evolution? Were you defining "macro evolution" as abiogenesis? If so, that's a pretty unique definition of it.

Also, don't take "I don't know" as "no one knows". I might be arrogant, but I'm not that arrogant.

Thanks for your definition. So we come full circle back to no one knows.

Have a nice day…

You have to wait for someone

Nebton — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:49:47 +0000

In reply to <!-- /* Style

You have to wait for someone else to tell you it’s a scientific theory before you will look at it?

No, I don't. I'm quite capable of telling that it's not a scientific theory on my own.

Shouldn’t you always pursue knowledge even if it does not fit with current thinking?

Absolutely. However, there's no knowledge there. Just faith pretending to be knowledge.

If that was the process then Einstein would never have reworked Newton’s theory on gravity and we wouldn’t have general relativity.

Einstein presented his theories in such a manner that it could be refuted. He didn't start redefining things like "macro evolution" in order to prevent people from challenging his theory. He also didn't disregard evidence he didn't like, as the ID'ers do with the fossil record and genetic analysis (not to mention radiological dating).

To answer that question

Nebton — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:46:26 +0000

In reply to <!-- /* Style

To answer that question requires leaving the theory of evoution and looking into hypotheses regarding abiogenesis. There are multiple competing hypotheses about how life began, and there is little evidence to support one over another. I should qualify that I am no biologist. I have advanced degrees in astrophysics and computer science and do research in the field of neuroscience (models of the hippocampus), but have never studied evolution in a professional manner, so my explanations should not be given much weight. Nevertheless, I do have a solid scientific background and know the difference between a scientific theory and things pretending to be scientific theories, with String theory being a notable exception. It's somewhere near the boundary, in my opinion. (Again, although I have written papers on astrophysics, my expertise is in general relativity, not String theory, so there's a bias there.)