When science and religion collide who sets curriculum?

[Diogenes]

50 atheist or agnostic famous scientists talk about god if "diogenes" video link does not work

Looking through the names, they all appear to be relatively Modern. How did they get here standing on the shoulders of Religious nuts?

[Stubby]

"diogenes", you provided a link that did not work here. I provided the same video (95% sure that it is the same video) from another source. you are welcome.

I have no idea why you would provide the link since it shows 50 eminent scientists to be agnostics or atheists.

What bush are you referring to?

[Diogenes]

I was wondering about the Gallup surveys that were cited. I went to the link but didnot find an obvious methodology statement.
Makes me suspect of the scope.

"Brevity is the soul of wit", but sometimes you can put too much weight on a single pier.

[GIThruster]

I read this back in the 80's. As I recall it was very good.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Intellectuals ... 0895268272

[Diogenes]

"diogenes", you provided a link that did not work here. I provided the same video (95% sure that it is the same video) from another source. you are welcome.

I have no idea why you would provide the link since it shows 50 eminent scientists to be agnostics or atheists.

I shall be surprised if anyone bothers to watch it anyway.

What bush are you referring to?

Do try and keep up. I said out of a forest of trees, you pick a bush to chop on. My meaning was that you have a tendency to seize upon the most trivial aspect of a topic because the larger point is apparently insurmountable for you.


You are like a little ankle biting Chihuahua. Just a little nibble here or there, but never any serious wounds.

[Stubby]

double post

[Teahive]

Of course, not finding such a mechanism is not the same as finding there is no such mechanism--so "evolutionary biogenesis" is not a falsifiable theory.

You just need faith to believe that life simply "came to be". Or you can believe in "intelligent design". Theres no rational difference between them.

Using Occam's razor I'd pick the former, though I realize it's a personal choice.

Future experiments may show that we can create life both through chaotic processes and deliberate production of designed molecules. And neither result can prove the past. But doing that is irrelevant. After all, even believing that some intelligence designed life tells me absolutely nothing about how to live life in the present.

Apathetic or militant Atheism inspires no great passion to attack an invading religion. Such will be utterly helpless, ergo such will be converted or eradicated.

European ennui towards Christianity is slowly being transformed into European acceptance and dominance by Islam.

So militant atheists aren't zealots?
I think you're discounting the mechanisms by which people become atheists or agnostics.

[Stubby]

I would not personally trust the Watchtower for science information. That's the publishing arm of the Jehovah's Witnesses and they are extremely anti-scientific and uneducated in all their work. I can't really recommend a good ID source as I haven't read any of it since the 80's. I do recall Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith had some interesting work and he is one of those who debated Sir Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker) back in the 80's. Smith trounced Dawkins pretty badly as I recall. However, I think Smith is a young Earth creationist so obviously I don't agree with him. I merely note he is a good source on the amino issue. I do recall there were some other books about that time that were written by PhD biochemists for biologists that make the ID argument pretty forcefully.

I would note too, that although I haven't followed any of this since the 80's, at that time; the Creationists both young and old Earth, were regularly taking the evolutionists to the woodshed. As a philosopher I find this amazing, and more than decent example of Thomas Kuhn's thesis in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Evolution is an orthodoxy and those who prove heretical will be punished regardless of the strength of their arguments. If you are not an evolutionist, you can forget getting your PhD in many fields, from micro-bio to anthropology. Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Goulde, Richard Dawkins--all soundly defeated in open debate and yet 30 years later, there is no difference because evolution is the current religion.

Who is trusting the watchtower for scientific information?

The claim you made about left handiness was also made by the watchtower.
The responses to claims about left handiness being evidence of design are all cited.
Did you even read them? You sure misinterpreted the source of the responses.

and to top it off, you appeal to authority by claiming some PhDs endorse ID. Some people with letters after their name endorse the ecat ffs.
Most ID claims i have seen are based on arguments from ignorance.
Why do intelligent people have such a fear of saying 'We don't know' and instead use "We can't figure it out, therefore it has to be designed'? Classic example would be the 'irreducibly complex' argument.

A philosophical debate provides what amount of evidence towards the truth of a scientific claim? And I suspect an evolutionist would say Dawkins trounced Smith.
In any event, from the very brief look at his ideas, they mostly seem to be the argument from ignorance variety.

[Stubby]

I was wondering about the Gallup surveys that were cited. I went to the link but didnot find an obvious methodology statement.
Makes me suspect of the scope.

This is for their last survey.

Survey Methods

Results for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 10-13, 2012, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

[Stubby]

Getting back to topic

Should the government be allowed to tell americans that their religion is wrong? Even if the science is demonstrably true?
And lets not get into another evolution debate please, there are plenty of other scientific disciplines that conflict with religious teachings so pick one of those if you need one to make a point.



PS
@GIThruster
i missed this earlier when you used the term 'atheist story' and I want to clear up some misconceptions


Atheism does not have a 'story'. It is a response to theistic claims. Religions have stories. Atheists don't believe the stories.
Atheism does not depend on the evolutionary theory of life, abiogenesis theory or the BB theory being true. It doesn't depend on anything being true. Atheism would not even exist if theists didn't say 'Gods exist!". As soon as someone makes a claim there will be those that do not believe the claim whatever it happens to be.

[DeltaV]

Yet again, certain scientists forcing their polytheistic religion upon us (with taxpayer dollars):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)

The spacecraft also carries three LEGO figurines representing Galileo, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno. In Roman mythology, Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. From Mount Olympus, Juno was able to look into the clouds and reveal her husband's real nature. Juno holds a magnifying glass as a sign for searching for the truth and her husband holds a lightning bolt. The third LEGO crew member, Galileo Galilei, has his telescope with him on the journey.

Although most LEGO toys are made of plastic, LEGO made these figures of aluminum to endure the extreme conditions of space flight.

[ladajo]

I was wondering about the Gallup surveys that were cited. I went to the link but didnot find an obvious methodology statement.
Makes me suspect of the scope.

This is for their last survey.

Survey Methods

Results for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 10-13, 2012, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Thanks.
Do you see any issue with question wording and practicial difficulties possibly introducing error or bias? How about that 60% of the survey was done via landline. What demographic group is primarily represented in landlines? How about the "weighting"? How is this done and on what basis? What is the methodology for that?

[GIThruster]

Should the government be allowed to tell americans that their religion is wrong? Even if the science is demonstrably true? And lets not get into another evolution debate please, there are plenty of other scientific disciplines that conflict with religious teachings so pick one of those if you need one to make a point.

Atheism does not have a 'story'. It is a response to theistic claims. Religions have stories. Atheists don't believe the stories.

Yes but. . . there's always a but. . .science is never a settled issue the way we pretend. When a high school teacher explains protein synthesis and then declares "this is how life was formed" he is both violating the religious rights of the students and doing very poor science. What he (and the text) ought to say is "this is how many believe life was originally formed by chance." Fact is we're doing the former. That's how the texts are written and what the ID people want changed. I am in some small measure sympathetic with them. It's noteworthy that this is what we do and despite this 47% don't buy the atheistic story.

Atheism does have a story. It relies upon the mighty (pewney) god "Chaos" stroked by the god "lots of time" to give birth to "natural selection". Its a good story. The weak link however is abiogenesis. That's the part that is for many, completely unbelievable.

[Stubby]

Evolution of current life forms from a common ancestor has a story as told by available evidence. Evolution itself has been observed with fruit flies.
Abiogenesis has a story, parts of which have demonstrated to be possible by Miller-Urey and most recently by others. Of course there is no way to prove it beyond all doubt.

Both are theories that most scientists of the relevant fields believe to be the best fit for the available evidence.

Atheism does not require either these theories to be true. Again, atheism is the response to the claim: There is/are a god or gods!. As simple as that. If nobody makes the claim, atheism doesn't exist.

Atheism most certainly DOES NOT have a god named chaos, or time.
Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.

meanwhile
YEC requires both theories to be false because they both contradict a literal interpretation of the bible.
OEC requires abiogenesis to be false but some believe evolution was started by a deity. Whether it was guided along the way is also matter for debate.

[Schneibster]

Classic example would be the 'irreducibly complex' argument.

I believe the evolution of each of those have all been shown. TalkOrigins has good data, and I know of at least two "irreducibly complex" debunkings there.

A philosophical debate provides what amount of evidence towards the truth of a scientific claim? And I suspect an evolutionist would say Dawkins trounced Smith.

You bet yer sweet bippy. I live with a molecular biologist.

In any event, from the very brief look at his ideas, they mostly seem to be the argument from ignorance variety.

Actually, at this point they're more "jebus of the gaps," that is, they seize on whatever the biologists haven't gotten around to studying in detail yet and point at it and chant "irreducible complexity." Every creationist I've ever debated didn't understand how evolution works in any way at all, at the molecular biology level. They claim things like the mutation rate not being high enough, without realizing most mutations are in noncoding DNA, and most of those in DNA that has no function but to collect-- I say again, to conserve-- mutations so they can be dragged out later when the species is under stress. The mutation rate is an evolved quantity and varies with environmental pressure. This is known fact. The argument is over.

As far as biogenesis we're already making artificial bacteria; the first organism whose entire DNA was synthesized has already been created. The greenies had a fit about it. It was in 2010. Remember Craig Venter? Yep, he did it.