Re: Can any Darwinist in the forum produce an argument showing

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:15:30 -0400, "Aerion" <Aerion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
enriched this group when s/he wrote:


"r norman" <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:c9i8b410lgo7l5vu5um32pcqpahq0phd4e@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:51:29 GMT, Ye Old One <usenet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:23:08 -0400, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
enriched this group when s/he wrote:

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:16:07 GMT, Ye Old One <usenet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:22:54 +0100, Ernest Major
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> enriched this group when s/he wrote:

In message <c0b7b4hqoi8do0tglkdp4mc20pl7n71rnn@xxxxxxx>, Ye Old One
<usenet@xxxxxxxxx> writes
If you did you would see that demanding that students pledge
allegiance to the god of science is entirely out of place as an
educational objective or as something to be used in evaluating the
students performance.

There is no god of science.

Are you incapable of recognising an obvious metaphor?

Was it one?

You seem to have elevated science to the status of godhood by
requiring that students bow in obeisance to it.

Please, don't talk stupid.

I don't know of any
reasonable biology department that lists as one of its educational
objectives to have students swear their belief in the truth of what
they have been told and no reasonable instructor should ever fail a
student for simply saying they don't believe a portion of the material
to be true.

I would, and have, failed people who clearly show they have not
learned the facts. I don't teach very often these days, I mostly give
the occasional lectures. My own field is cosmology, for someone to
turn round and say that they do not accept the Big Bang would earn
then a fail. Argument of fine details is OK, but to reject the core
fact would show they have not learned what I taught.

I believe you would lose a court case if the student produced exams
and papers demonstrating correct answers consist with what you taught
except for that one statement. I also think you might have to work
at getting the institution to support your action, if they would at
all. Of course I also think you are completely wrong, but we have
already gone through that.

This was my main point. I have no problem with evolution being
taught as a theory.

You need to understand what a scientific theory is.

However, I think claiming that evolution is a fact

Evolution is a fact. The ToE is, currently, our best explanation of
the processes involved. You need to separate the facts from the
explanations.

is pompous. It also as to potiential for thwarting future advances.

How do you work that out?

If it was declaired by scientist that the steady state universe was a
fact, the big bang and the expanding universe might never have been
advanced or seriously considered.

Now you are in to my domain - cosmology. The Steady State Universe
(SSU) and the Big Bang Universe (BB) are both theories that were put
forward to explain the facts. As time went by more facts were found
that supported the BB, and these facts were not explainable by the
SSU. During that time no new facts were found to support the SSU which
were not better explained by the BB.

What you appear to miss is that evolution is the fact. The ToE
explains it better than the only alternative - creationism. For 150
years the ToE has grown and explained all the facts of evolution while
at the same time creationism has withered and died because it relies
on one statement only - goddidit.

--
Bob.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Everything is a religion (was Re: New Riding Buddy (heheh))
    ... you ascribe more moral importance to YOUR "religion" and don't ... Science is a way of understanding and cataloging facts. ... evolution: evolution is a fact. ...
    (alt.mountain-bike)
  • Re: Kerry voters and Evolution ...
    ... >> Creationism is not science, ... > Neither is Evolution since you cannot test the past by definition which gets ... >> not proof that said mountain of facts does not exist. ... > arrogant assumptions about my side and writes off evidence presented from my ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Kerry voters and Evolution ...
    ... > the reality of "creation science" coming out of the creationist ... Neither is Evolution since you cannot test the past by definition which gets ... > not proof that said mountain of facts does not exist. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Is Evolution a Law like the Laws of physics?
    ... After reading what Tom said my view is that we have many facts ... >>> science ... > which is all I suspect most students can handle. ... I had the privelege of teaching a course in Physics for the Terrified ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: On the Nature of Science
    ... Objective persons know that science is not defined by ... nor the theory of evolution. ... science, from scientists, and never have studied the scientific evidence for ... that flies in the face of facts. ...
    (talk.origins)
Loading