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Help defend science: flunked not expelled
Author: cbit on April 18 2008 Viewed 8183 times. 29 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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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.' | |
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04/18/08
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astroid
LOOK WHAT YOUR GOD HAS CREATED
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04/18/08
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Jetsom
cbit said: "atheism = 'i don't believe that a god exists', and nothing more."
Without getting bogged down, isn't the atheist postion: "I believe that belief in god is false". Atheism is a belief set too, right?
I think having 'i don't believe' in the definition gives the tag an empowering appeal. To be honst i'm too drunk to be on this blog/website.just now
04/18/08
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Jetsom
ignatius said: "scientists need to quit being pussies and man up. instead of the "theory" of evolution they should call it what it is the "LAW" of evolution. i mean really.. what's the deal? you have the LAW of gravity don't you??? newtons laws, right.. why not quit pussy footing around and put the right language on things.
religion?? aaarggh.. there's a dozen of them out there all claiming to be the one. why bother? why can't people stick their religion someplace deep inside and keep it out of the ether.
what it comes down to is we're all just floating through space on this big rock and we're stuck here. believe what you want but lets not go overboard. i mean.. what's the use of fighting about it really.. we're all just gonna be dead some day and buried in the ground or burned up or burned up and shot into space or whatever.. so keep your mouth shut about it and quit making things more complicated than they need to be. there's work to be done damnit and we don't have time to dick around trying to answer to a dozen gods every time someone needs to put one foot in front of the other.
fucking ay. bring on the soma. i'll take brave new world over any possible religious future freak out any day. bring on our alien or cybernetic robot overlords!"
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04/18/08
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astroid
mlbot said: "A much better example of Science is Science.
They have an article this week that Astroid might enjoy, link
"
he might, if he deemed it fit to subscribe
04/18/08
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mlbot
aw too bad.
It describes the secret to computer-assisited modular composition.
Oh well, I guess you'll never know the secret.
04/18/08
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astroid
THER IS NO GOD
04/19/08
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fakeBlooper
could you argue for an idea that you knew was wrong in order to make lots and lots of money?
actors do it all the time.
04/19/08
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jp
dach said: "Science very often has the huge flaw that it expects everything to be proveable, or logical.
"
i don't know what you mean by logic. if you think boolean logic, then you are right. the universe does definately not only have yes & no. there's also a lot of stuff in between.
but i am certain that everything that has an effect on reality (if you accept the concept of reality) can be observed. you can invent theories about reality. and only theories. no serious scientist will say that evolution is PROVEN. they'll say it is likely to be true. and evidence supports it (fossils, radiocarbon dating). but if there are better theories... newtonian physics seemed to be proven. unless they discovered the speed of light. then einstein came. but there are still problems with gravity. so scientists are looking for something new. science is changing. religion is not.
religion never looks for new facts. they only want to support their belief. and if facts contradict their beliefs then their either not true or placed by god to irritate the faithful.
and what use is it to think about things that are itself unprovable or that cannot be observed? then we can say the flying spaghettimonster is existing but it is not provable.
see occam's razor.
04/19/08
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crabster
I fucking hate post modernism.
04/19/08
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cbit
dach said: "Science very often has the huge flaw that it expects everything to be proveable, or logical."
Science, the provisional the body of knowledge we have through scientific research has no such flaw.
Science, the method has no such flaw.
Of the *people doing science*, some of them may be guilty of scientism. But how could we really know if they've placed too much confidence in science without hindsight?
So it's not at all clear what you mean here.
dach said: "That this is simply not the case has been ignored by science in much the same way as science has been ignored by religions. " can you give an example of what you're talking about?
dach said: "and scientists who mistakenly call themselves atheists"
How do you know that they are mistaken in calling themselves atheists without having read their minds?
rr said: "I agree that an individual that does not appreciate the merits of both science and philosophy can be deemed a fool. What I don't like is a method of deriving truth from ancient dogmas with their roots in formed in superstition, fear, guilt and self-righteousness."
absolutely.
edited: Apr 19 2008
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cbit
Jetsom said: " cbit said: "atheism = 'i don't believe that a god exists', and nothing more."
Without getting bogged down, isn't the atheist postion: "I believe that belief in god is false". Atheism is a belief set too, right?"
Not quite. Atheism is the absense of theism. Theism is belief in god(s). Within atheism there are diff types, strong atheism is a positive belief. Other varieties aren't.
We are born as implicit atheists (having no knowledge of the concept of gods, and lacking belief in them).
If we hear about the concept of gods, but don't accept the idea, we are probably agnostic atheists, or 'weak atheists'. Lacking a positive belief in gods, but not claiming that none exist.
If we know about the idea of gods, and there is something about that idea that is incoherent, or self-contradictory, then we can say with certainty that gods don't exist. That's strong atheism or positive atheism (strong atheism often rests on demonstrating the incoherence of the idea of the supernatural).
People can also be positive atheists while believing that existence of a god cannot be disproved. People in this category make the case that lack of conclusive evidence against the existence of any god is not a good reason to suspend judgment about the existence of gods. They point out that we reject the existence of all kinds of things which we cannot prove do not exist -- the flying spaghetti monster, leprechauns, invisible unicorns, tiny teapots floating in space too small for our best telescopes to see, etc.
Strong and weak atheism
Explicit and implicit atheism
04/19/08
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Jetsom
cbit said: " delete said: "also, a few pages ago Spark told that religion is a totally personal matter and i agree 100%."
I'm not sure exactly what you might mean here. If a person's religion is kept personal, yes it's a personal matter. As soon as you make your views public, you have to be prepared for them to be criticised."
If you are viewing a person or group of people through the filter of religion or sex or any other filter, I think it's still affecting, even if you don't attempt to make this public. Say for example, I create an image in my mind about you, because you're gay or you're stupid. I might not even be that aware of my thought and feeling, a lot of the time we're not, and then I continue to live around you while attempting to keep this private and under the carpet.
When I'm not intending to come clean with this judgement, I don't give the chance to you to confront my thinking, and 'energy' for want of a better word, which is inevitably detectable through my behaviour, affecting your life. The images I create of you, through my identification with religious ideology or any ideology, affect other people too of course.
So when we say if we don't make something public it's a private matter, in the generally accepted way of taking that, yes it is, and my sentiment is that you should feel free to do whatever you want in your mind, what happens there is your own. But delving a bit more, you can never keep this stuff private. Minor point, poorly expressed.
04/19/08
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Jetsom
cbit said: "We are born as implicit atheists (having no knowledge of the concept of gods, and lacking belief in them)."
No Knowledge. So we're born in a state of not knowing? agnostia = not knowing. Belief is knowledge also, as it is stored in the brain. Knowledge is all that is stored.
I wonder with all the evolution that has taken place now and the structure of the mind having developed in the way it has, whether we do have knowledge of these concepts or the 'pathways' in place to accept them (stored information), on some level, in the unconscious mind (which will affect the conscious mind).
I'm going into vague territory now. I'm just curious.
04/19/08
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crabster
Jetsom: We are pattern seeking animals, just look at the face on mars people to see what we're capable of.
edited: Apr 19 2008
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cbit
Jetsom said: " cbit said: "We are born as implicit atheists (having no knowledge of the concept of gods, and lacking belief in them)."
No Knowledge. So we're born in a state of not knowing? agnostia = not knowing."
We're born with no knowlegde of the concept of gods, yes. Just like we're born without knowledge of the concept of ipods. (Nb this agnostia is something different to the claim that the question of the existence of gods cannot be settled--agnosticism, which by the way, is always atheistic or theistic ;))
jetsom said: "I wonder with all the evolution that has taken place now and the structure of the mind having developed in the way it has, whether we do have knowledge of these concepts or the 'pathways' in place to accept them (stored information), on some level, in the unconscious mind (which will affect the conscious mind)."
There is speculation about whether there might be an innate human tendency to attribute agency to non sentient things. If this turns out to be true, it would go a long way towards explaining why most pre-scientific cultures believed in a magical person 'behind' nature.
Daniel Dennett calls this hypothesised 'function' in the brain the Hyperactive Agent Detection Device. There's a very plausible account of how this habit of mind would have increased the chances of our ancestors' survival.
Here's some guy talking about it:
link
Why do people believe in myths? One possibility is that people are simply prone to see causal agents in an event, even when these agents are non-existent. Barrett (2000) mentions Guthrie’s ideas on a Hyperactive Agent-Detection Device (HADD) as a possible reason for imagining causal agents. The HADD could serve as an inbuilt or early-acquired) propensity for humans to understand any change in their environment as an action-response situation which is inflicted by an agent’s actions upon its environment. Seeing an agent behind actions certainly makes a lot of sense in a world that is both predominantly social and full of hidden predators. In a social world, most activity is centered around intentional agents (other people) and fosters understanding as to how actions lead to reactions, which is essential for our understanding of the world around us. In addition, intentional agents allow us to understand intentions: changes around us occur as a result of actions by an agent, with certain needs driving its behavior. Having the ability to infer an agent as causing a situation helps in survival: knowing that an action is linked to an agent allows us to predict its future behavior and to respond accordingly.
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