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

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:31:17 -0400, "Aerion" <Aerion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
enriched this group when s/he wrote:


"AC" <mojo214@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:slrngbdp3c.pmu.mojo214@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:15:30 -0400,
Aerion <Aerion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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. However, I think claiming that evolution is a fact
is pompous. It also as to potiential for thwarting future advances.
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.

The situations are not analogous. The steady state model was in trouble
pretty much from the moment of inception, so badly so that even Einstein
was
forced to toss in the cosmological constant to keep at bay the
inflationary
aspects of his theory.

Fred Hoyle, along with 2 other scientist was the first to propose the
"steady state" theory of the universe.

Well, not quite. What they did was to come up with a theory that
allowed for an expanding SSU.

Hoyle was born a decade _after_
Einstein advanced his theory of relativity in which he introduced his
cosmological constant.

Which shows you that the SSU idea existed long before 1948.

There are different forms that science takes. Some, like cosmology, are
frequently quite theoretical; that is observations take some time to catch
up to the theories. What finally put the cosmological debate to rest was
the CMBR, which proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the Universe had
once been much hotter and denser. My feeling is that steady state
cosmology
was never on a firm footing,

The concept was not new even when Hoyle tried to put it on a scientific
footing. As you noted Einstein didn't accept the predictions of a changing
universe. Einstein was unsure whether his theory predicted an expanding
universe or a shrinking universe. But whatever it was, it was not changing.

and that every bit of evidence or theoretical
work, from General Relativity through a better understanding of
nucleosynthesis and the discover the Hubble expansion had forced it into a
position that seemed little better than magical handwaving.

The problem with Hubble's theory, there was no mechanism for the
creation of new hydrogen. The Big Bang cosmology changed the
direction of research. No longer was there a search for some creative
mechanism required by steady state theory.

Later on Fred did propose the C-field, he was very saddened when
nobody really took it seriously. Fred was a very nice guy, it was
always nice to talk with him, but he did have a few mad ideas.

--
Bob.

.

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