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Author | Topic: Why should ID be taught in science classes... | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
WK writes:
I know I'm risking an Admin's ire for slipping off topic again. Sorry. But I'm confused about how Shannon information and entropy could apply to genetic information. Information theory of the Shannon variety is about the stochastics of communication from a source signal to its destination with noise interferring along the way. Is there an equivalent measure of information or entropy that flows from the encoded gene to its decoded destination as a protein? We could measure the size of the genome, the number of genes, the proportion of coding to non-coding DNA or any number of things that might be colloquially considered measures of genetic information and that is before we get onto the information theoretic measures like Shannon information, Shannon entropy, Kolmogorov complexity, etc... ”HM
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Is there an equivalent measure of information or entropy that flows from the encoded gene to its decoded destination as a protein? There probably is but that isn't what I meant. There has been a discussion of what genetic Shannon information might be in the Irreducible Complexity and TalkOrigins thread, it might be less off topic there. TTFN, WK
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.0 |
Hi Hoot,
I get what you're saying about using creationism/ID as an example of science vs. pseudo-science, but I think that the phlogiston theory makes a much better and less contentious example. No-one believes in phlogiston today, but it was adhered to at one time with as much certainty as any modern creationist. Indeed, some of the arguments employed in phlogiston's favour sound very reminiscent of religious arguments, I seem to recall one that went; "You cannot measure the phlogiston, because it will shrink your measuring equipment.". Unfortunately, many people around today still believe in creationism, which is going to undermine the message you are suggesting we try to teach. Before you know it we are knee-deep in controversy and the fundamentalist groups will immediately declare victory and start wondering where they can next chip away at education and science. Mutate and Survive
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
GM writes:
Paraphrasing what I have said before: You can't get a pig to fly over the barn and you can't get a true believer to see over the wall of blind faith. Unfortunately, many people around today still believe in creationism, which is going to undermine the message you are suggesting we try to teach. Before you know it we are knee-deep in controversy and the fundamentalist groups will immediately declare victory and start wondering where they can next chip away at education and science. ”HM
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5930 Joined: Member Rating: 5.8 |
DWise1 writes:
I don't know why a real scientist should give a sh!t about any of this. Science has a much to do with religion as a volcano has to do with the uplifting powers of salvation. Scientists don't ever go to religion for validation, but the reverse certainly is true. That's what creationism and ID are attempting to do”to invoke scientific principles to "prove" their points. The most important thing a biology student can learn is difference between empiricism and faith.
The main point being to touch on the relationship between science and religion (eg, Wikipedia article at Relationship between religion and science - Wikipedia) to show that there should be no inherent conflict or antagonism between the two. No, of course a real scientist wouldn't. A real scientist would already know how to properly practice his profession. A real scientist would know that religion has nothing to do with the scientific method. Yes, in his personal life he may need to ponder the relationship/interactions-within-society between science and religion as he deals with his own religious beliefs and religious life, even though in his professional life he knows that religion plays no role in science. And as he interacts with his non-professional life with people of other professions or none and especially with people of various religious persuasions, then he will also need to deal with questions of the relationship between science and religion. In short, science and religion are both very much part of society and play parts in nearly everybody's life, so all the time there is between them either a relationship or interactions. There is no relationship between me and my ex, but there is a history. Similarly, while one might argue that there is no relationship between science and religion, there is still a history. And that history creates consequences in the present. That link provides more detail, but simplistically speaking in the West we went from a pre-scientific view in which religion was in charge of all knowledge, both religious and "scientific", and then over the centuries science effectively usurped a lot of the knowledge territory once held by religion. While we view that as a natural and sensible progression, many in the religion camp, especially fundamentalists, view it as a hostile take-over and a "long war against God" (the name of a late-1800's book that the late Dr Henry Morris would use) and they still hold a lot of animosity towards science of that. So science, feeling that it's doing nothing at all wrong, is bewildered by religion's open animosity, much as my ex absolutely despises me and has gone out of her way to express how she feels, while I have absolutely no idea what the frak her problem is. However, the topic here is not what real scientists think, nor is it about what society thinks. Rather, it is about science education. Now, real scientists already know what's what, but students don't. They still need to learn that. While going through things like the relationship between science and religion and their common history or the difference between philosophical and methodological materialism may be a waste of time for a real scientist, those are very important lessons for science students. Especially since almost all of fundamentalist religion's animosity towards science and most of their complaints and arguments against science are squarely on their ignorance, wouldn't it be a good idea to try to help them disspell some of that ignorance? True, those who are completely pig ignorant and damned proud of it probably won't be swayed, but those on the fence that the creationists keep seeking to sway will be less likely to be so swayed if they have a better understanding of science -- with a better understanding they would be better able to see through the creationists' lies.
Yes, creationism and ID should be discussed in an entry-level biology class that adresses evolution. It would be the best way I know of to break that senseless notion that science and religion are compatible or related to each other. Rather, the notion I would want to see disspelled is that science and religion are totally incompatible and inherently hostile towards each other. A person can indeed be both a scientist and deeply religious at the same time. Science is not inherently hostile towards religion, nor should religion be towards science. If more people could come to realize that, then we wouldn't be seeing anywhere near as much of this creationism/ID nonsense. For example, there's Carl Drews, a fundamentalist Christian I met on-line. He has never seen any conflict between his faith and science. However, he has very definite problems with creation science and the extent to which it leads other Christians to abandon truthfulness. His research into creation science claims has repeatedly shown him that those claims are false and that creationists routinely misquote and misrepresent their sources. This issue of truthfulness and other Christians' abandonment of truthfulness ended up driving him from his church. In relating his story at No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.theistic-evolution.com/mystory.html:
quote: What I was saying is that we need to produce more students like Carl. {When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy. ("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984) Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world. (from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML) Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles) Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5930 Joined: Member Rating: 5.8 |
Paraphrasing what I have said before: You can't get a pig to fly over the barn and you can't get a true believer to see over the wall of blind faith. But while the true believers are lost causes, we can still innoculate the vast majority from the true believers' lies. {When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy. ("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984) Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world. (from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML) Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles) Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
dewise1 writes:
Science shouldn't care a twit about religion, period. Science had to be invented to cast off the falacies and foolishness of religion. I differ from you in my opinion that religion is totally unnecessary, or even worse. It's a crippling enterprise because it forces the faithful into gastly intellectual compromises. Instead of being serious about learning about nature the faithful must believe in spirits and doctrines and miracles and omnipotent powers. I don't want to see that kind of stuff encouraged. Do you? I regard it, on balance, and a useless and costly institutional burden on our society. Rather, the notion I would want to see disspelled is that science and religion are totally incompatible and inherently hostile towards each other. A person can indeed be both a scientist and deeply religious at the same time. Science is not inherently hostile towards religion, nor should religion be towards science. If more people could come to realize that, then we wouldn't be seeing anywhere near as much of this creationism/ID nonsense. But then again I am not a spiritual person, unless empirical knowledge of nature has its own spiritual value, which I doubt. ”HM
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
What I'm basically saying is that by briefly discussing ID, it would be an opportunity to cover some concepts with the class. Basically a "here's why these statements are wrong". So no concept is entirely useless ... it can always serve as a bad example .
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5930 Joined: Member Rating: 5.8 |
This topic isn't about science, but rather about science education. About how we are to teach science to the students.
Keep religion out of science. Yes, of course! Been my position all along. Lie about science being the enemy of religion? Being antagonistic towards religion? Hell, no! Does no good whatsoever. Let the natives know that science is not their enemy, despite the lies their preachers tell them. Let them know that they don't have to reject religion in order to accept science, nor do they have to reject science to accept religion -- well, if their religion does require them to reject science, but then that would be the mark of a false religion. In the public school science classroom, we will always have students with a religious background. Do we teach them that science is their enemy? Or that science is not antagonistic towards their religion, it just does not use religion because it cannot? Throw down before them barriers to their learning science or show them that the way is clear? What good could possibly come from inciting the natives to further violence against science? {When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy. ("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984) Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world. (from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML) Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles) Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
dewise1 writes:
What lie? Science is the enemy of religion from a religion's standpoint, but science itself doesn't care about religion, only about its own operational principles; excepting Richard Dawkins, of course, who thinks scientists should attack religious dogma with a vengence. I think most scientists see themselves as some sort of enemy of religion. Lie about science being the enemy of religion? ”HM
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
...and as for inciting the natives to riot, I say let 'em do and get what's coming to 'em.
dewise1, maybe the power of mass hysteria is what needs to be brought out in high-school education. How much difference it there between a woman in Somalia who is threated with public execution for naming her stuffed animal "Mohammed" and the ongoing threat from evangelists that we will burn in hell forever if we don't get saved properly by the Lord Jesus? Hysteria 101 would be a useful high-school course. ”HM
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5597 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
bananas were not created by god for the sole purpose of human consumption What might plantains have been created for?
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5597 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
Natural selection or human selection selects -it does not create. That is what mutation is for So are you saying that mutation creates? As far as I know, mutation is like spelling mistakes in the genetic code. They are the sort of thing that happens when you expose yourself to an overdose of x-rays.Evolutionists imagine that it has some sort of creative power because 'we're here aren't we.' Besides, mutation must create because there's nothing else left to explain it.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2641 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
I will repost Admin's Message 46 for your benefit, Beretta:
Hi Beretta, I know you're getting lots of help going off-topic, but it all seems to begin with you, so here's the deal. In this thread, please do not mention evolution or any evidence related to evolution. Address yourself specifically to the topic, describing positive reasons why ID should be taught in science class, and absolutely avoiding to complete exclusion negative reasons why evolution is wrong. Each failure to follow this request will receive a 24 hour suspension. There are plenty of threads that address the problems with evolution, please use one of those if that's what you'd like to discuss. The broken link from Dwise1 has been fixed, you can go to that thread if you like, or choose from dozens of others, or propose a new thread over at Proposed New Topics. Only post to this thread if you'd like to discuss why ID should be taught in science class. Take your plantain question to the appropriate thread.
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5597 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
What Behe/Dembski will not tell you is that mutations subtract characteristics just as much as they add them. It's only ever been proven that mutations subtract or distort information or are neutral in effect. It is however imagined that they must also add information somewhere along the line 'because we're here, aren't we?'
And when our wings were just getting started, of what value would they be? Is natural selection likely to select them if they are halfway there and have no purpose yet. Yes. Haven't you heard of gliders? Flying squirrels, flying fish, etc. A squirrel jumps spreadeagled for wind resistance. Even a small bit of skin between it legs and body will give it more resistance, and could be selected for if jumping long distances is more advantageous than being a good runner on the ground However squirrels and fish have helpful characteristics that may have developed by chance or may have been created for that specific species.Skin being used for gliding isn't quite like turning scales into feathers. What kind of proof do we have that reptile's scales turned into feathers? None and it makes sense -a reptile only has information for scales and a bird has genetic information for feathers. This information for each is even on different parts of the genome so the one could not have developed into the other.Birds appear suddenly and fully-formed in the geologic record as do reptiles. Only a belief in evolution allows anything else to be imagined. In the words of Stephen Jay Goulddespite being an evolutionist)"The history of most fossil species includes two feature particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1)Stasis -most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2) Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." (The Panda's Thumb) Evolutionary theory is the only origins theory that fits the evidence. In short, the outstanding characteristic of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution. It's things like this that convince me that ID should be taught in science classes -otherwise the false impression is given that the evidence lines up absolutely with the conclusions when in fact the opposite is generally true.
I have yet to see criticism of the kind you're doing of evolutionary theory that wasn't based on superstition and desire Perhaps it is the evolution religion that succumbs to superstition and desire? Edited by Beretta, : No reason given.
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