When science and religion collide who sets curriculum?

[GIThruster]

Anybody else read Tacitus 'The Histories', guy was a pagan Roman writing about the destruction of Jerusalem.

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboa ... chap18.htm


13. Prodigies had occurred, but their expiation by the offering of victims or solemn vows is held to be unlawful by a nation which is the slave of superstition and the enemy of true beliefs. In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure. Few people placed a sinister interpretation upon this. The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world. This mysterious prophecy really referred to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, true to the selfish ambitions of mankind, thought that this mighty destiny was reserved for them, and not even their calamities opened their eyes to the truth.

Tacitus was no Bible Thumper.

Yes. There is a similar passage in Josephus Flavius. Again, not a bible thumper.

Skippy, that your grandmother was religious does not in any way mean you understand religion. That's a truly crackpot notion. If you have religious people regularly telling you that you don't understand, couldn't it really be that you don't understand?

[Skipjack]

No, but my grandmother tried to make me a "good christian". I also went to a catholic school, participated in church youth stuff in my early teens. Of course only you know what religion is all about, as a representer of the one true religion.

[Schneibster]

If they allow religion to be taught in grade school I will stop paying taxes for it.

Fortunately I don't have to worry about it. The nutjobs are becoming progressively more despised.

How many jebuses does it take to exorcise a light bulb?

[Diogenes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup

You want someone to blame for Iran/iraq? The roots go deeper than Jimmy C.

Imagine if the US actually fostered relationships within democracies instead of tyrants despised by the populace.

i guess it is easier to demand cheap oil from a dictator in exchange for some military toys.

I haven't yet made up my mind on this, but I am leaning towards the belief that Democratic Republics are not plausible systems in an Islamic Society.

A Culture shaped by Islam is not fertile soil for a system of self governance. If Allah is the Highest power, his servants give the orders, not some consensus of lesser laymen.

I recall reading that years ago when it was attempted to introduce Radio (or maybe it was Telephone) to the Saudis, they got an Imam to read Holy scriptures from the Koran through it. He then pronounced that anything which could carry the Holy word of the Koran, must be a blessing of Allah, or some such.

Dictators are the natural form of government for this sort of society. Trying to push anything else on them is likely foolish.

But Jimmy Carter was the most foolish President we ever had until this current bumpkin came along.



Oh, and get off the "cheap oil" kick. It makes you sound like a fool. *WE* certainly didn't profit from Toppling Sadam. Europe Perhaps, but not us.

[Diogenes]

Fool doesn't cover it. He's also an unrepentant liar and thief.

That's my assessment as well. Beyond that, he isn't even eligible to be President. He's not a Natural citizen. He is at best, a 14th amendment citizen.

[Stubby]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup

You want someone to blame for Iran/iraq? The roots go deeper than Jimmy C.

Imagine if the US actually fostered relationships within democracies instead of tyrants despised by the populace.

i guess it is easier to demand cheap oil from a dictator in exchange for some military toys.

I haven't yet made up my mind on this, but I am leaning towards the belief that Democratic Republics are not plausible systems in an Islamic Society.

A Culture shaped by Islam is not fertile soil for a system of self governance. If Allah is the Highest power, his servants give the orders, not some consensus of lesser laymen.

I recall reading that years ago when it was attempted to introduce Radio (or maybe it was Telephone) to the Saudis, they got an Imam to read Holy scriptures from the Koran through it. He then pronounced that anything which could carry the Holy word of the Koran, must be a blessing of Allah, or some such.

Dictators are the natural form of government for this sort of society. Trying to push anything else on them is likely foolish.

But Jimmy Carter was the most foolish President we ever had until this current bumpkin came along.



Oh, and get off the "cheap oil" kick. It makes you sound like a fool. *WE* certainly didn't profit from Toppling Sadam. Europe Perhaps, but not us.

Cheap oil refers to oil in 1953 not 1990 or 2003.

[Stubby]

Fool doesn't cover it. He's also an unrepentant liar and thief.

That's my assessment as well. Beyond that, he isn't even eligible to be President. He's not a Natural citizen. He is at best, a 14th amendment citizen.

He is in good company. Unrepentant liar and thief describes most if not all 535 elected rep and senators on the hill. Certainly most lobbyists and state politicians.
Seems to be a prerequisite to be a politician. Pretend to listen to the people and then do whatever the money men tell them to do.
What is the current approval rating for the house? All time low of 10%?

[Schneibster]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup

You want someone to blame for Iran/iraq? The roots go deeper than Jimmy C.

Imagine if the US actually fostered relationships within democracies instead of tyrants despised by the populace.

i guess it is easier to demand cheap oil from a dictator in exchange for some military toys.

I haven't yet made up my mind on this, but I am leaning towards the belief that Democratic Republics are not plausible systems in an Islamic Society.

A Culture shaped by Islam is not fertile soil for a system of self governance. If Allah is the Highest power, his servants give the orders, not some consensus of lesser laymen.

I recall reading that years ago when it was attempted to introduce Radio (or maybe it was Telephone) to the Saudis, they got an Imam to read Holy scriptures from the Koran through it. He then pronounced that anything which could carry the Holy word of the Koran, must be a blessing of Allah, or some such.

Dictators are the natural form of government for this sort of society. Trying to push anything else on them is likely foolish.

But Jimmy Carter was the most foolish President we ever had until this current bumpkin came along.



Oh, and get off the "cheap oil" kick. It makes you sound like a fool. *WE* certainly didn't profit from Toppling Sadam. Europe Perhaps, but not us.

Cheap oil refers to oil in 1953 not 1990 or 2003.

So is there anybody on here but meshbacks? To be fair I found one guy who can actually talk sensibly about fusion. One. You should call the site "Talk-Polywell.org NOT, psych, gotcha."

[Teahive]

Again, just saying this was my experience in biology class, which is entirely anecdotal, but. . .we were not taught about the problems with the proposed biogenesis. We were not taught about stereoisotopes and racemic (mixed) production of amino acids. We were not taught that science has no idea how this mixture could have been separated out into left and right handed isomers. We were taught "science says this is what happened" and that was not true. I remember, because I tutored micro-bio and it wasn't until years later I learned much of what I had taught was bullshit.

Now if the system is designed such that kids don't learn about stereoisomers, racemic production and the missing polarization mechanism required for the atheist story to be true, then they ought to be taught that--whether the atheists like it or not.

My knowledge of biology is lacking. Is this separation of isomers you're describing something that needed to happen only once for life as we know it to begin, or is it something that happens all the time?

[GIThruster]

Amino acids are combined by peptide bonding--the reverse of hydrolysis--a water molecule is forced out and two aminos connect. This is also known as hydration synthesis. The reverse is more easy to get--hydrolysis breaks down polypeptide bonds into smaller amino groups. So in theory, it is far easier to break proteins into their amino acids than to combine them into complex proteins.

What we were taught in high school was, that chaos is enough to explain how tens of thousands of amino acids could be so combined to create a simple protein, and that this was proof that such stuff could eventually lead to thousands of proteins leading to simple life cells--biogenesis. Read "abiogenesis" on wiki and the Miller-Urey experiment in 1953. They threw lots of aminos onto some hot rocks and showed that this creates peptide bonding. However, no one in the field looked at the racemic or chiral production of these acids (left and right handed) until the creationists of the 60's forced them to.

The short is, that non-living systems generate these amino acids in two types--levro and dextro-rotary or chemically equivalent but mirror images--in equal numbers. Every amino acid has two forms: left and right handed or "stereoisomers". Non-living systems always produce amino acids in equivalent left and right handed numbers because non-livng systems don't have a way to tell the two apart. However, all life is composed of exclusively left handed acids, and there is no known non-living mechanism for isolating left and right handed acids.

So really, the story I was told in high school, and what most are told 3 years into college--is bullshit. Throwing acids on hot rocks NEVER creates proteins that can lead to life. It only creates proteins with tens of thousands of aminos that are both right and left handed, and all the right handed acids block protein replication--chaos produces poisons.

Fact is, all life is made up of proteins with tens of thousands of left-handed (levrorotary) amino acids. Any single right handed (dextrorotary) acid in a chain of ten thousand aminos that make a simple protein, creates a poison that cannot lead to life. In fact, proteins with ten thousand left handed acids and a single right handed acid are indeed "poisons".

Evolutionists can't explain how this situation could possibly lead to life by "accident". Indeed, this separation of left and right handed acids need to happen at 2^10,000 power for a single life supporting protein and with tens of thousands of proteins for a single cell, and then again for many cells for anything past an amoeba. And then you have the difficulty of amoebas turning into people. Same trouble all around--no mechanism found.

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.

[Stubby]

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB040.html

Claim CB040:
The twenty amino acids used by life are all the left-handed variety. This is very unlikely to have occurred by chance.
Source:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, pg. 43
Response:

1. The amino acids that are used in life, like most other aspects of living things, are very likely not the product of chance. Instead, they likely resulted from a selection process. A simple peptide replicator can amplify the proportion of a single handedness in an initially random mixture of left- and right-handed fragments (Saghatelian et al. 2001; TSRI 2001). Self-assemblies on two-dimensional surfaces can also amplify a single handedness (Zepik et al. 2002). Serine forms stable clusters of a single handedness which can select other amino acids of like handedness by subtituting them for serine; these clusters also incorporate other biologically important molecules such as glyceraldehyde, glucose, and phosphoric acid (Takats et al. 2003). An excess of handedness in one kind of amino acid catalyzes the handedness of other organic products, such as threose, which may have figured prominently in proto-life (Pizzarello and Weber 2004).

2. Amino acids found in meteorites from space, which must have formed abiotically, also show significantly more of the left-handed variety, perhaps from circularly polarized UV light in the early solar system (Engel and Macko 1997; Cronin and Pizzarello 1999). The weak nuclear force, responsible for beta decay, produces only electrons with left-handed spin, and chemicals exposed to these electrons are far more likely to form left-handed crystals (Service 1999). Such mechanisms might also have been responsible for the prevalence of left-handed amino acids on earth.

3. The first self-replicator may have had eight or fewer types of amino acids (Cavalier-Smith 2001). It is not all that unlikely that the same handedness might occur so few times by chance, especially if one of the amino acids was glycine, which has no handedness.

4. Some bacteria use right-handed amino acids, too (McCarthy et al. 1998).

Links:
Jacoby, Mitch. 2003. Serine flavors the primordial soup. Chemical and Engineering News 81(32): 5. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8132/8132notw1.html
References:

[Schneibster]

Again, just saying this was my experience in biology class, which is entirely anecdotal, but. . .we were not taught about the problems with the proposed biogenesis. We were not taught about stereoisotopes and racemic (mixed) production of amino acids. We were not taught that science has no idea how this mixture could have been separated out into left and right handed isomers. We were taught "science says this is what happened" and that was not true. I remember, because I tutored micro-bio and it wasn't until years later I learned much of what I had taught was bullshit.

Now if the system is designed such that kids don't learn about stereoisomers, racemic production and the missing polarization mechanism required for the atheist story to be true, then they ought to be taught that--whether the atheists like it or not.

My knowledge of biology is lacking. Is this separation of isomers you're describing something that needed to happen only once for life as we know it to begin, or is it something that happens all the time?

The creation of isomers happens by random chance. Which one a particular autocatalytic network fastens on as "food" is random, but the RNA-world hypotheses that use autocatalytic networks fasten upon nutrient and structural molecules that are of the opposite handedness from themselves, IIRC. And the simpler protein autocatalytic networks of course favor molecules of the same handedness; likely there were dextro- and levo- life, and our kind won out, purely by chance, probably depending on the first RNA to find a protein network it could get feed and feed upon. Once established there's nothing to knock it off kilter and the preference would endure forever, or anyway as long as there's anything alive. If both kinds existed they'd compete until one or the other were eliminated, pretty much, just like aerobes and anaerobes fought almost to the death. The only anaerobes left are the ones that are the most deadly poison in the absence of oxygen. Like Botulinum Notatum for example.

Another fairy tale by the creationists: handedness is so incredibly important a choice! Who decided? It has to be Jebus Claus! Just like Jebus Claus chose oxygen-breathers over anaerobes.

Sillyness. Nothing but. Childrens' fairy tales.

[GIThruster]

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.

[Schneibster]

I haven't read any of it since the 80's.

Snicker. Of course nothing's happened in biology in the last 30 years. (Hint: sequencing of the human genome, duh.)

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.

You recall wrong; he had no answers, he just tried to deny everything and wound up looking like an idiot to anyone but an idiot like you.

However, I think Smith is a young Earth creationist so obviously I don't agree with him.

But you said he beat Dawson.

You're waffling.

I merely note he is a good source on the amino issue.

If you can explain it I can debunk it. I doubt you'll try though; you've been pwnt too thoroughly by now.

[Diogenes]

Methodology?

Too subtle for me. I've been trying to understand your comment, but I am apparently woefully inadequate to the task.