Quote: kjkent1" meant "disprove" not "falsify". Learn English; learn to think clearly. Invoking some obscure scientist ... funny how you did not first jump onto that as your well poisoning instead of stalking my every word My comments were not smearing intent as the record shows once I got chance to finish what I was saying....enough of this -back on topic...
kj, Z10 doesn't know how privileged he is being engaged in debate with you. Too bad he can't get anything out of your arguments. I don't know how much longer you can maintain this but it's a pleasure to read your posts. Did I mention the total value of the real estate held by the Christian churches here in Toronto?
I wasn't going to reply to "stu" as his post was childish or puerile. Note "kjkent1" never replied. Given my demonstrated command of language, my spelling of "postor" was either borne of ignorance of AHD's spelling--"poster"--or an argument against a rather confused spelling. Note that "poster" can mean an ad pasted on a wall or one who posts. Before judging me, note also that my misspelling was done all times with an "o" thereby making unlikely my spelling to be a typo. For those who still don't get it, why don't we say "acter" instead of "actor"? The "or" ending is taken directly from latin as in "testator" or "protector". Stu: when someone checks and raises you in poker he could either a) been so stupid as to not have known his cards' value when he first checked or b) been setting you up. Stu: you're a net loser in markets, aren't you?
Go read the reply you say kjkent has not made. That covers the nonsense you have come up with so far , pretty well I think
I did reply, however, I've now deleted it, in favor of a reply here: 1. One of the definitions of "falsify" is to "declare or prove to be false." See http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/falsify. 2. One of the definitions of "disprove" is "to prove false or wrong." See http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/disprove. 3. Therefore, either "disprove" or "falsify" would have been correct in the context of my prior comments. 4. On point, The leading scientist proponent of Intelligent Design is William Dembski, Ph.D.. His mathematical works describing what he believes is proof that evolution could not have produced the complexity of life forms that exist on Earth, is based upon the mathematical principles of "Information Theory." Likewise, the "obscure" scientist, Thomas Schneider, PH.D (whom you claim I appeal to as authority to rebut Dembski and in general, the proponents of the theory of Intelligent Design), is one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of Information Theory as it applies to evolution and biology. 5. And, it is not Schneider to whom I appeal, rather it is his scientific work, and in particular his published peer reviewed monograph on "Ev", which is a computer model of the evolutionary process by which chemicals form into more complex structures, via mutation and natural selection. See http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/ev.pdf. 6. I think that about covers all of your concerns, except for your concern regards my apparent lack of education. To that concern, my response is to thank you for your concern, and I wish you a happy holiday season.
Who's Afraid of Intelligent Design? By Jay Mathews Wednesday, March 23, 2005; Page A15 My favorite high school teacher, Al Ladendorff, conducted his American history class like an extended version of "Meet the Press." Nothing, not even the textbooks other teachers treated as Holy Writ, was safe from attack. I looked forward to that class every day. My biology class, sadly, was another story. I slogged joylessly through all the phyla and the principles of Darwinism, memorizing as best as I could. It never occurred to me that this class could have been as interesting as history until I recently started to read about "intelligent design," the latest assault on the teaching of evolution in our schools. Many education experts and important scientists say we have to keep this religious-based nonsense out of the classroom. But is that really such a good idea? I am as devout a Darwinist as anybody. I read all the essays on evolution by the late Stephen Jay Gould, one of my favorite writers. The God I worship would, I think, be smart enough to create the universe without, as Genesis alleges, violating His own observable laws of conservation of matter and energy in a six-day construction binge. But after interviewing supporters and opponents of intelligent design, which argues among other things that today's organisms are too complex to have evolved from primordial chemicals by chance or necessity, I think critiques of modern biology, like Ladendorff's contrarian lessons, could be one of the best things to happen to high school science. Drop in on an average biology class and you will find the same slow, deadening march of memorization that I endured at 15. Why not enliven this with a student debate on contrasting theories? Why not have an intelligent design advocate stop by to be interrogated? Many students, like me, find it hard to understand evolutionary theory, and the scientific method itself, until they are illuminated by contrasting points of view. And why stop with biology? Physics teachers could ask students to explain why a perpetual-motion machine won't work. Earth science teachers could show why the steady-state theory of the universe lost out to the Big Bang -- just as Al Ladendorff exposed the genius of the U.S. Constitution by showing why the Articles of Confederation went bust. Amazingly, neither pro- nor anti-intelligent design people like the idea of injecting their squabble into biology classes. John West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which promotes intelligent design, said that requiring its use in schools would turn their critique of evolution "into a political football." Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education Inc. in Oakland, Calif., said it would distract from proven evolutionary research, crowd out other topics and create confusion. Some fine biology teachers said the same thing. Sam Clifford in Georgetown, Tex., said that intelligent design is "a piecemeal, haphazard concoction" that he does not have time for. Dan Coast at Mount Vernon High School in Fairfax County said that a dissection of intelligent design in his class would be seen by some students as an attack on their religion. They all seemed to be saying that most U.S. high school students and teachers aren't smart enough to handle such an explosive topic. But how do we know if we keep paying expensive lawyers to make sure the experiment is never conducted? The intelligent-design folks say theirs is not a religious doctrine. They may be lying, and are just softening up the teaching of evolution for an eventual pro-Genesis assault. But they passed one of my tests. They answered Gould's favorite question: If you are real scientists, then what evidence would disprove your hypothesis? West indicated that any discovery of precursors of the animal body plans that appeared in the Cambrian period 500 million years ago would cast doubt on the thesis that those plans, in defiance of Darwin, evolved without a universal common ancestor. That is the start of a great class, and some teachers are doing this, albeit quietly. John Angus Campbell, who teaches the rhetoric of science and speech at the University of Memphis, has been trying to coax more of them into letting their students consider Darwin's critics. Like me, Campbell reveres the 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill, who said good ideas should be questioned lest they degenerate into dogma. Turning Darwin into an unassailable god without blemishes, Campbell said, doesn't give student brains enough exercise. "If you don't see the risks, if you don't see the gaps," he said, "you don't see the genius of Darwin."
What Are They Afraid Of? Nov 19, 2005 What Are They Afraid Of? By Dr. John Morris, Ph.D. Creation/evolution issues have been a constant subject in the news media recently, much of the reporting slanted and poorly-informed, all of it negative towards creation. Nevertheless, the events are real and warrant our attention. A school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, a small farming community, recently voted to allow a brief mention of Intelligent Design in biology classes. ID was not to be âtaught,â nor was evolution removed, and most certainly Biblical creation was not mandated, but evolutionists reacted with a fervor reserved for this one issue. In an ACLU-orchestrated move, several local parents filed a lawsuit to maintain an evolution-only perspective, inviting the testimony of well-known evolutionists. Meanwhile, evolution-supporting individuals and organizations poured money into the district, mounting a successful political campaign against the âerrantâ school board members, replacing them with others leaning towards evolution. ID advocates had their champions too, leading to a media frenzy quite overshadowing the minimal facts of the case and size of the school district. Similarly, debate has been raging in Kansas. There the state school board had established new state curriculum guidelines, which neither introduced creation nor removed evolution. Rather it allowed all the data to be taught, not just that supporting evolution. It permitted the exquisite design of living things to be acknowledged and studied. Once again, the same aggregate of partisans began crusading in support of evolution. Knowing the school boardâs majority was behind the new guidelines evolutionists boycotted the hearings and instead took their case to a sympathetic press, who almost never correctly reported the facts. The question arises then, if evolution is so solidly proven, what are evolutionists afraid of? Why must evolution be protected from scrutiny? Why must students be shielded from other views? Why not present all the pertinent facts and encourage the students to think critically, as a good scientist should? Would this not be a good educational technique? Would this not produce better citizens and scientists? Evolutionists purport that there is no real science supporting intelligent design, that ID is just religion, or at least a âbackdoorâ to religion. But the facts are that many secular scientists, through observation and experimentation and based on the scientific evidence and data theyâve obtained, have come to the conclusion that life has been designed, not created by mere chance from nothing. Science involves conducting research, using the scientific method in various disciplines, and reporting on the data and results. Thereâs no religion in the facts. ICR has recently discovered groundbreaking evidence about rock dating, carbon-14 in diamonds, excess helium within zircons, and other geologic data supporting a young earth. ICR is adamant that this science be available for scrutiny by critical thinkersâthat students, specifically, are able to evaluate the evidence and formulate their own beliefs If the science points to a designer, so be it. But if the evidence suggests otherwise, which weâre sure it does not, then so be it. Let the chips fall where they may. Perhaps evolutionistsâ avoidance of these kinds of data exposes a basic insecurity in their position. ICR has long held that evolution cannot stand the test of scienceâit must avoid the light of open inquiry. Only by limiting the debate can evolutionists hope to maintain their monopoly on education. Yet, it serves us well to recognize that the debate involves a deeper issue than just control of academic content. If evolutionists admit that science does indeed support intelligent design, then they are admitting that there is a possibility of a Creator. Perhaps what evolutionists are truly afraid of are the implications of the presence of a higher power. Higher power means higher authority and, ultimately, higher accountability.