|
Help defend science: flunked not expelled
Author: cbit on April 18 2008 Viewed 8190 times. 29 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
People who enjoyed reading this: EsromCole, yghartsyrt, bodo, Zanf, Analog, Logo, hecanjog, crabster, bleen, license, Otterfan, minisystem, mlbot, Jetsom, subset, 11t1, zach, monty, Spark, SenorFrio, Fredo, ignatius, delete, tantan, p, tylth, jp, sAMsKi, flies
-->
Apologies, a completely non-music related post.
The creationist/ID friendly pseudo documentary called Expelled will be screening near you soon. In the film, Ben Stein claims that scientists critical of the theory of evolution are being silenced by the powers behind "big science". Through ham fisted montages the film also tries to establish a link between the theory of evolution and Nazism and other genocidal ideologies.
Christian fundamentalists are lobbying hard to promote this film, even offering incentives to school groups to go and see it.
A counter site has been launched by the national center for science education that lists, and refutes, the lies and important omissions of the expelled film.
Publishing hyperlinks to the expelled exposed site, using 'expelled' as the visible link text, will help make the counter site more visible in search engines, and help ensure that people really do hear 'both sides' of the story. If you can, please help out.
Here's a review of the film:
link
Digging this page will help spread the word too (there's a subtle digg link beneath this blog post)
edit: "help defend science" == shorthand for 'help protect people from being robbed of the chance to understand the scientific method, to understand the crucial importance of evidence based reason in evaluating truth claims, to understand the principles or critical thought, to appreciate the enormous weight of evidence in support of evolutionary theory.' | |
Comments
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
flies
from link
this egnor guy blogged in opposition to an essay contest on the topic 'Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution'.
from the link,
The Claim
Michael Egnor says in Expelled that he expected criticism, but was shocked by the “viciousness” and “baseness” of the response.
The Facts
Michael Egnor had apparently never been on the Internet before.
hehe
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
kenrestivo
And here is the hero who will save the day and defend science: link
SCIENCE!!
Sorry, just trying my best to bring it back on-topic to electronic music again.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
flies
"dach" said: "Science itself begins to support this idea also. My maths is not all that great so feel free to correct me if i stray, but doesn't Gödels theorem show that all logical systems are incomplete, and that there are propositions that are true and false, but demonstratably unproveable? Ie that there are True statements and that there are False statements, but that you can prove that a proof of these is not possible? Surely this is just another way of describing faith.. "
i am an atheist but i find such ideas extremely compelling. Compelling because i find that the ideas of mystery and more importantly paradox to be one can shape my life and inform my choices, and i welcome such influence. Specifically, i believe that the identification of self with body is arbitrary, and i find that tools from religion (eg actions such as meditation or certain concepts such as dao and also god) help me to apprehend/integrate this idea. In this way i almost 'believe in god', insofar as i find it to be a good tool for certain tasks. FWIW, i find 'dao' and the related daoist concept 'the one' much more useful than god.
Atheist because the idea that there could be things which i don't/can't understand emphatically does not imply that anything that i couldn't understand must exist. The acknowledgment of the limits of the human condition doesn't mean that thor and fairies exist, nor god. I think the flying spaghetti monster is real. I think his noodly appendage is touching me now.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
flies
i believe that the identification of self with body is arbitrary
perhaps "believe" is too strong in this context. maybe i should say that this idea is one that i enjoy exploring, that such exploration is inherently satisfying.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
elronhubbard
cbit said: " spark said: "That is the type of power that religion and science both want to be able to use on humanity"
Science doesn't 'want' anything. Can you rephrase?"
of course science as a method of discovery doesn't want anything. science as a community, however, is subject to the same political tos and fros of any other community of people.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
elronhubbard
our universe was created by the energy waves of some multi-dimensional being's sneezing fit. don't blame him. he had allergies.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
eevvrr
like i give a shit if some1 knows who i am. i just don't always like the whole name everamzah. btw, the long version is foreveramzarah. how many times have u seen me type it? stop assuming. has nothing to do with anonymity.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
dach
Science is so narrowminded and missing out on so much that i have no idea where to begin to describe it. It is locked in chicken-and-egg methodology for describing the universe, and not able to just accept that shit is the way it is. Turtles all the way down? sure.
What religion has going for it is that, in general, it's saying people should be nice to each other. Science doesn't do this (and basically permits the opposite) so I'm gonna say that despite all the great things it's given us recently, science is unable to give us what we will need most during the next century.
edited: Apr 20 2008
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
cbit
shaunryder said: " cbit said: "I'm not aware of any such evidence. Instead i hear accounts of kids raised in atheistic homes being gently introduced to the idea of gods and replying 'that's silly!' or similar. In these cases at least it seems safe to assume that the kids are implicitly atheistic, ergo: implicit atheism exists."
Because anecdotal eveidence is fine for your own POV. ergo: You are a prick."
Read it through again. Slowly. Did i say that anecdotal evidence was inadmissible to make the case that *some* people may not be born implicit atheists? No. I said i was not aware of any. The fact that there is credible evidence (anecdotal) that at least some people are born without knowledge of the concept of god strongly supports the existence of implicit atheism. A simple point that you seem to have missed in your eagerness to flame.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
cbit
dach said: "Science is so narrowminded and missing out on so much that i have no idea where to begin to describe it. It is locked in chicken-and-egg methodology for describing the universe, and not able to just accept that shit is the way it is. Turtles all the way down? sure.
What religion has going for it is that, in general, it's saying people should be nice to each other. Science doesn't do this (and basically permits the opposite) so I'm gonna say that despite all the great things it's given us recently, science is unable to give us what we will need most during the next century." Here's where you're getting confused: science can't give us ethics (but it can help inform ethical choices). and 'Science' doesn't claim anything, least of all that it can. Meanwhile religion is like cheap training wheels for a genuine ethics.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
crabster
dach: Concerning Gödel, his incompleteness theorem proves that within all sound and usable algebraic systems, you can have statements that are true yet unprovable. That is, every internally consistent arithmetic system is incomplete. That is a property of algebraic systems, not the world at large.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
crabster
dach said: "What religion has going for it is that, in general, it's saying people should be nice to each other. Science doesn't do this (and basically permits the opposite) so I'm gonna say that despite all the great things it's given us recently, science is unable to give us what we will need most during the next century."
dach: Describing what is does not imply a wish that it be so.
With the risk of Godwinning the entire thread.
This is a statement of fact: "Nazi Germany embarked on a program of systematic murder of civilians on an industrial scale". We know it to be true because of archaeological artifacts and contemporary (to the events) written and oral accounts from multiple sources.
Stating that fact does not make me wish it were so. There is a clear distinction.
A theory does not have to nice to be valid.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
crabster
flies: If you like paradoxes I can recommend taking a course in formal logic, lot's of fun!
Take for example the liar paradox.
This statement is a lie
If it's a lie, it is true and therefore not a lie.
If it's not a lie, it's false and therefore a lie.
04/20/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
cbit
dach said: "[science is] not able to just accept that shit is the way it is."
lol It takes some gall to post a message via the internet opining that we shouldn't be asking questions about how the universe works!
edited: Apr 20 2008
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
cbit
elronhubbard said: "of course science as a method of discovery doesn't want anything. science as a community, however, is subject to the same political tos and fros of any other community of people."
To me it's doesn't seem helpful to call that 'science', 'parts of the scientific community' would be more accurate. It causes unnecessary confusion to conflate the two imo. (i guess im guilty of some conflation in the title of this blog too, but i hope it's clear what was meant there)
Register / login
|
^
EM411 is Copyright 2001-2008 EM411.com
All rights reserved. | Contact | RSS
|
