On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:34:20 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:41:54 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

BTW, I let you off easy. Science may attempt to prove facts. It has
not done so. Science has yet to show when, where, or how man came to
be, let alone with an ability to reason.

The science of evolution deals with all living organisms not just man.
It is interesting to note that even with all of our advanced science
no one has yet synthetically produced even the simplest one cell
living organism. That may change but it just shows how difficult it
is.

It is pretty clear that mankind has evolved over the years, up from
the relatively recent cro-magnons and others to the present day. Where
the cro-magnons and other early human forms came from may never be
precisely known since it happened over hundreds of thousands of years.

It may turn out that the ability to reason is not limited to humans.
Our real unique specialty (in addition to complex reasoning) seems to
be the ability to manipulate symbols, record history, learn from it,
and pass it on to the next generation.

No fair, I said you couldn't use porpoises.

The other attributes just add credence to the theory that something
special happened to get man started.
--
John H

All decisions, even those of liberals, are the result of binary thinking.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:12:21 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:38:48 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

There's nothing wrong with disagreeing, and there's nothing wrong with
presenting the viewpoint of many billions of people throughout the
world.

Science is not based on viewpoints and it is a mistake to get that
confused.

Um...er...huh?

All science is based on "viewpoints". What the heck do you think
drives scientific inquiry? One scientist's view is that Global Warming
is real. A different scientist looking at the same data calls
bulls**t. Openheimer felt that testing an atom bomb would set the
atmosphere on fire. Others didn't.

It wasn't until late in the 17th Century that the heliocentric -
geocentric argument was finally over when Newton finally developed his
universal Law of Gravitation - that one had been going on since
Archimedes and Pythagor despite all the evidence supporting
heliocentrism.

It was in the 20th Century that scientists believed that people would
die in horseless carriages because nobody could breath going faster
than 15 mph. Supersonic flight was impossible. Man coulnd't possibly
go to the moon. Remote controlled war? HA!!

Science is driven by viewpoints.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:12:21 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:38:48 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

There's nothing wrong with disagreeing, and there's nothing wrong with
presenting the viewpoint of many billions of people throughout the
world.

Science is not based on viewpoints and it is a mistake to get that
confused.

Are not the 'wrong' viewpoints of early scientists presented in
science classes? Should Ptolemy never be mentioned in a science class
because his theory that the earth was the center of the universe was
proven incorrect?
--
John H

All decisions, even those of liberals, are the result of binary thinking.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:41:54 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:08:10 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:57:35 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:09:17 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:36:03 -0400, JohnRant
wrote:

Why should public school students be subjected to the faith based
beliefs of others?

Why should students not be told of the beliefs of others?

That's fine if you're teaching a course on religion, not so fine if
you're teaching a course called science.

There's nothing wrong with mentioning the controversy in a science
class.

We'll have to disagree on that. Once you accomodate the faith based
belief of your choice in science class, where do you stop? There are
quite a few different interpretations of the Book of Genesis, not to
mention all the other religions of the world. Science and the
scientific method are about provable facts. Everything else is
religion or philosophy.

BTW, I let you off easy. Science may attempt to prove facts. It has
not done so. Science has yet to show when, where, or how man came to
be, let alone with an ability to reason.

Aliens. It's the only answer.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:34:20 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:41:54 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

BTW, I let you off easy. Science may attempt to prove facts. It has
not done so. Science has yet to show when, where, or how man came to
be, let alone with an ability to reason.

The science of evolution deals with all living organisms not just man.
It is interesting to note that even with all of our advanced science
no one has yet synthetically produced even the simplest one cell
living organism. That may change but it just shows how difficult it
is.

Aliens.

It is pretty clear that mankind has evolved over the years, up from
the relatively recent cro-magnons and others to the present day. Where
the cro-magnons and other early human forms came from may never be
precisely known since it happened over hundreds of thousands of years.

Aliens.

It may turn out that the ability to reason is not limited to humans.
Our real unique specialty (in addition to complex reasoning) seems to
be the ability to manipulate symbols, record history, learn from it,
and pass it on to the next generation.

Alien intervention.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:56:15 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:41:54 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:08:10 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:57:35 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:09:17 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:36:03 -0400, JohnRant
wrote:

Why should public school students be subjected to the faith based
beliefs of others?

Why should students not be told of the beliefs of others?

That's fine if you're teaching a course on religion, not so fine if
you're teaching a course called science.

There's nothing wrong with mentioning the controversy in a science
class.

We'll have to disagree on that. Once you accomodate the faith based
belief of your choice in science class, where do you stop? There are
quite a few different interpretations of the Book of Genesis, not to
mention all the other religions of the world. Science and the
scientific method are about provable facts. Everything else is
religion or philosophy.

BTW, I let you off easy. Science may attempt to prove facts. It has
not done so. Science has yet to show when, where, or how man came to
be, let alone with an ability to reason.

Aliens. It's the only answer.

But which One, or Ones, or one - therein lies the question.
--
John H

All decisions, even those of liberals, are the result of binary thinking.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:22:58 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:34:20 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:41:54 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

BTW, I let you off easy. Science may attempt to prove facts. It has
not done so. Science has yet to show when, where, or how man came to
be, let alone with an ability to reason.

The science of evolution deals with all living organisms not just man.
It is interesting to note that even with all of our advanced science
no one has yet synthetically produced even the simplest one cell
living organism. That may change but it just shows how difficult it
is.

Aliens.

It is pretty clear that mankind has evolved over the years, up from
the relatively recent cro-magnons and others to the present day. Where
the cro-magnons and other early human forms came from may never be
precisely known since it happened over hundreds of thousands of years.

Aliens.

It may turn out that the ability to reason is not limited to humans.
Our real unique specialty (in addition to complex reasoning) seems to
be the ability to manipulate symbols, record history, learn from it,
and pass it on to the next generation.

Alien intervention.

Which leads us back to the question....Which One?
--
John H

All decisions, even those of liberals, are the result of binary thinking.

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:55:29 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

All science is based on "viewpoints". What the heck do you think
drives scientific inquiry? One scientist's view is that Global Warming
is real. A different scientist looking at the same data calls
bulls**t. Openheimer felt that testing an atom bomb would set the
atmosphere on fire. Others didn't.

None of those "viewpoints" are science however, just opinions or
hypotheses. They become science, or not, after evaluation of the
underlying theory (if any), experimental proof by multiple
individuals, and peer review. Then it's not a viewpoint any longer.

On 10/5/09 3:56 PM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:55:29 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

All science is based on "viewpoints". What the heck do you think
drives scientific inquiry? One scientist's view is that Global Warming
is real. A different scientist looking at the same data calls
bulls**t. Openheimer felt that testing an atom bomb would set the
atmosphere on fire. Others didn't.

None of those "viewpoints" are science however, just opinions or
hypotheses. They become science, or not, after evaluation of the
underlying theory (if any), experimental proof by multiple
individuals, and peer review. Then it's not a viewpoint any longer.


There isn't a thimbleful of evidence of any sort to support creationism.


--
Birther-Deather-Tenther-Teabagger:
Idiots All

On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:48:40 -0400, JohnH
wrote:

It may turn out that the ability to reason is not limited to humans.
Our real unique specialty (in addition to complex reasoning) seems to
be the ability to manipulate symbols, record history, learn from it,
and pass it on to the next generation.

No fair, I said you couldn't use porpoises.

Actually I've seen some dogs and cats that seem to have the ability
for basic reasoning. Here's an example: Back in the early 90s we
inherited a cat from my mother. We took the cat to our home which the
cat had never seen before. Almost immediately he got up on the back
of a sofa and started looking out the front window as a dog walked by
the house. The dog turned down our driveway heading for the back yard
and the cat immediately ran into the kitchen on the back of the house
and waited at a window for the dog to show up. Is that reasoning or
not?

The other attributes just add credence to the theory that something
special happened to get man started.

I'd argue that quite a few special things happened over a long period
of time, hundreds of thousands of years. Every time that one of
those special events resulted in a smarter, more adaptable, more
survivable being - the resulting offspring tended to do better, live
longer and have more offspring with the same special trait that they
inherited. There were other "special events" that didn't work out so
well. Their offspring didn't do so well and are no longer around.