OT - For those that like political discussion on rmr - you can even discuss religion with this one

I saw this on alt.fan.heinlein. Enjoy.

Customer: Hello. I wish to complain about this so-called 'scientific theory' what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very establishment.

Salesman: Oh yes, 'Intelligent Design'. What, uh... what's wrong with it?

Customer: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. Its vacuous, that's what's wrong with it!

Salesman: No, no, uh... what we need now is to 'teach the controversy'...

Customer: Look matey, I know an empty 'argument from incredulity' when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Salesman: No, no, it's not empty: it's just being elaborated. Remarkable theory, 'Intelligent Design', innit, eh? I mean, just look at all these books and articles: millions and millions of words...!

Customer: The verbiage don't enter into it, my lad. It's stone dead. It's a non-starter. Empirically untestable, it belongs in metaphysics. This 'theory' makes no predictions; has no contribution to make beyond extended polemics; and can't even be honest about who it thinks the 'Designer' was.

Bereft of all logical and epistemological credibility, it has no scientific status! If certain right-wing and fundamentalist pressure-groups hadn't hit upon it as a way of opposing decades of uncomfortable scientific and social progress, it'd be pushing up daisies! It's off the table. It's kicked the waste-paper bucket. THIS IS A NON-THEORY!

Salesman: Well, I'd better replace it then. [takes a quick peek around] Sorry, squire: looks like that's all we've got...

Customer: I see, I see. I get the picture.

Salesman: I've got a piece of coal that looks quite a bit like a human tibia, if you squint at it...

Customer: Pray, is it part of a theory that unifies the paleontological and biological sciences and leads to a powerful understanding of observed homologies and the nested hierarchy of life?

Salesman: Not really.

Customer: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT FOR DARWINISM THEN, IS IT?

yep

Ah, but is it pinnin' for the fjords?

Whats funny is that there is not one shred of evidence that proves evolution is fact yet they teach it like its science. I mean, the only thing Darwin ever saw was different kinds of finches, and no one has ever seen a dog produce a non dog. Everything else is believed on faith. So how is evolution not a religion, science is things we can observe, test, and demonstrate. Oh and Miller did not produce life in the 50's, all he did was produce some organic chemicals which is not life. If you take a frog and put it in a blender, and shred it for a million years, you will have a very stinky frog goo, but you will not have new life.

Oh and evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, because the second law states that all things tends toward chaos. Evolution teaches that things go from disorder to order. So which is right? You know we all have a job because of the second law of thermodynamics. Take the highway system in the US, and let no one touch it for 100 years. Much of it you wouldn't be able to find, let along drive on it.

No I dont think anyone should call evolution science. I am not against anyone believing in evolution, but it is unfair for schools to force the kids to learn them at taxpayer's expense. Plus there has never been a law against teaching creation... look at

if you want to know more.

-- TAI FU

"Whats funny is that there is not one shred of evidence that proves evolution is fact"

Ever heard of vestigial stuctures? Ever heard of intermediate species? Have you ever actually read Darwin's paper, or read about the years of research he did in order to come to his concusions? How about selective breeding, ever hear of that? If we can do it artificially with dogs and horses, what prevents it from happening in nature? Nothing.

Evolution is more of a science than ID or Creationism ever will be. We can replicate the conditions (animal breeders do it all the time), we can observe it on a micro-scale (bacteria and viruses evolve), and we can look at the fossil records. We CANNOT go ask God if he made the world in 6 days, nor can we ask the Flying Spaghetti Monster if he designed the human eye.

"Oh and evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics"

Bullshit. Creationists try to use this argument all the time, and they have no clue what they are talking about.

If the earth was a closed system, then yes, evolution would violate the

2nd law. BUT, the earth is NOT a closed system!!! It is continually powered by the sun, and will continue to be for the next 5 billion years. Nice try.

Some people just don't want to face the fact that we are gravitating more and more towards a secular society. Religion and spirituality will always have their place, but that place is not in the science classroom. There is nothing to teach about it anyway; you either believe it or you don't. With evolution, there are mathematical models, and QUANTITATIVE predictions that can be studied and observed.

"Whats funny is that there is not one shred of evidence that proves evolution is fact"

Ever heard of vestigial stuctures? Ever heard of intermediate species? Have you ever actually read Darwin's paper, or read about the years of research he did in order to come to his concusions? How about selective breeding, ever hear of that? If we can do it artificially with dogs and horses, what prevents it from happening in nature? Nothing.

Evolution is more of a science than ID or Creationism ever will be. We can replicate the conditions (animal breeders do it all the time), we can observe it on a micro-scale (bacteria and viruses evolve), and we can look at the fossil records. We CANNOT go ask God if he made the world in 6 days, nor can we ask the Flying Spaghetti Monster if he designed the human eye.

"Oh and evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics"

Bullshit. Creationists try to use this argument all the time, and they have no clue what they are talking about.

If the earth was a closed system, then yes, evolution would violate the

2nd law. BUT, the earth is NOT a closed system!!! It is continually powered by the sun, and will continue to be for the next 5 billion years. Nice try.

Some people just don't want to face the fact that we are gravitating more and more towards a secular society. Religion and spirituality will always have their place, but that place is not in the science classroom. There is nothing to teach about it anyway; you either believe it or you don't. With evolution, there are mathematical models, and QUANTITATIVE predictions that can be studied and observed.

whoops, sorry about the double-post!

Oh wow...

Chris Taylor? Paging Chris Taylor...

Oh man oh man oh man..

Tod "Anti-non-dog" Hilty

No problem - it *needed* to be said twice!

Also, the second law applies to the energy in a closed system. It doesn't say everything must become chaotic, or else cleaning your room would violate the second law.

Hey Tai....

What do you think about this whole "theory of gravity" nonsense that Newton came up with? I mean, nobody has ever been able to prove what causes gravity. In fact, if you look at the Newtonian equations that govern planetary bodies, you'll find that they break down in the presence of large bodies like the sun. Mercury, for example, precesses in its orbit ahead of where straight Newtonian calculations say it should end up.

So in light of these problems with the whole theory of gravity, I propose that we throw out all that nonsense that Newton came up with, and go straight back to the Earth being the center of the universe, and put the Sun, planets, stars, etc., back on those crystal spheres where they belong.

Gravity? Non-science? ROFLMAO oops that is right I cannot roll on the floor as gravity does not exist. There is the major prem that Intelligent design is brown. Also a minor prem that fecal matter is brown (depending on input intems of course). Therefore Itelligent design is fecal matter. Q.E.D.T.P.

OK, and I agree. But, Earth is a part of the solar system which is part of the Milky Way, which is part of the Local Group which is fundamentally part of the Universe as a whole..

So then would the "Universe" (as we know it) be a closed system?

How can it be a "closed system" if it's infinite?

And *if* somehow an infinite Universe *could* somehow be considered a closed system, wouldn't the Second Law of Thermodynamics apply?

DISCLAIMER: Personally, thus far, I think ID is complete crap, but I'm keeping an open mind (unlike lots of others). Plus, it's generated some *excellent* (ID and the 2nd law of TD) discussion with my 15yo who thinks he knows everything...

tah

There is no such thing as gravity, I read it in the Onion...

Mario

I've watched endless nature programs on television about this sort of thing and I still do not see how the endless complexities that these programs demonstrate to me could possibly have happened by chance. If they could then the universe should be teeming with life. The fact that it is not seems to indicate we are so unique that 'something' had to have created us or at least 'got the ball rolling'.

Dan Cox wrote:

This is a followup to my prior post above: Evolution depends on mutation. Ok, so one day a single fish is born with air breathing lungs as opposed to gills AND he grows legs. He has kids. That's one fish. He can't possibly produce an entire line of air breathing fish. If it was so random and so against the odds for evolution to have even occurred on our remote little planet how is it so possible that the same mutation that allowed aquatic animals to breathe air happened thousands of times? Or however many is necessary to create a viable air breathing gene pool without inbreeding? That very fact is NEVER explained in any of the evolution programs. Even the bit about the mutations being necessary is almost never mentioned. The animals in question are simply stated to 'evolve' yet how? How does a fish one day decide to breathe air and walk on land? AND, more importantly magically pass this learned non genetic BEHAVIOR on to it's offspring? Mutation of it's dna by solar radiation explains it but it doesn't explain how it happened by chance often enough for all of the fish to do the same thing. And that's just ONE organism. So say you had one solar flare that screwed up 1000 fish for round numbers,, those fish can now breathe and walk on land. What about the other millions of organisms that evolved along with it? It makes no sense. The scientists say that the odds of us even existing are so low that it's incredible yet somehow magically we ended up with millions of organisms all evolving into other things. We do know one thing,, there must have been infinite numbers of organisms that didn't succeed, so we do know what didn't work,, meaning everything that is not US. However even with 300 million years of evolution it's just not enough time when you factor in the incalculable number of chance mutations that had to have occurred.

However: I certainly don't believe history occurred as told in the Bible. I do think much of it's moral teachings are relevant to society and always will be. The fairy tale stuff like noahs ark though and jonah and the whale is what really ruins it for me. The fact that people believe in stuff like the Ark for instance is what boggles my mind. Things like the Ark are based on probably small scale events,, farmer loaded all his animals up in a boat during a flood(lets call him noah) and it gets told and retold in taverns across the ancient world till some wiseass writes it down only on a grander scale. That's where the bible really goes wrong.

Just curious but how do you know the universe is NOT "teeming with life?" Last I checked we hadn't really looked much beyond this tiny little piece we call home.

I have no problem believing that the complexities that we see could have evolved given the billions of years they've had to work with.

Mario

Well at least on earth life has been around for something like a billion years give or take a few hundred million. Given the number of successful organisms and the variety that we now have seems like we've had an awful lot of luck when you consider the number of successful random mutations that had to have occurred and in enough numbers in any given species to create enough viable offspring.

As far as the universe goes,, well we haven't heard from them yet either in person or by radio so...I have my doubts. I know the klingons are out there somewhere though..

If You're afraid of Klingons, maybe You should try ultra charmin. :)