GameBanshee Forums

I don’t think the reason a scientist who disputes evolution, or leans more towards the intelligent design argument, will find it difficult to secure a university position because he believes what he believes. His credentials should speak for themselves, irrespective of his convictions.

If a geologist by profession is seeking a job and is a creationist, he throws al lhis scientific credibility into question by refusing to trust in the very tools he's been trained to use. This can be extended across all the practical sciences, at least, where "test and verify" is a phrase heard repeatedly. Simply believing a minority literal interpretation of a chapter in a document favored by one religion to explain the beginning of the earth because it says so is not good scientific theory.

Despite the increasing secularism, the fact that a significant majority of the American population (about 70% the last time I checked) still believe that human beings are a product of creation, and not of evolution, doesn’t seem to faze them one bit.

What's the source for your figure, above?

BTW, has evolution, and evolutionary changes, been empirically tested and verified?

Originally posted by EMINEM
BTW, has evolution, and evolutionary changes, been empirically tested and verified?

@Eminem, haven't you read the evolution thread in which you and CE took a very active part? As she explained, no, it hasn't been verified, and no, that wasn't the point. We're not considering which theory is verifiable, but rather which theory uses scientific tools in a way which most closely matches what we can measure in the world. It is this wilingness to use scientific tools to their fullest extent and without inherent religious bias that is a problem with creationist scientists. Scientists are supposed to look at evidence without having to first believe in some minority viewpoint of a religious book. If they fail this test, they have a problem, IMO.

One can argue that "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man" are religious books disguised as scientific treatises. IMO, once a theory or hypothesis becomes propogated as the established truth without empirical, observable evidence to support its conclusions, it ceases to become scientific and enters the realm of faith. No wonder the history of evolution is pockmarked with hoaxes designed by evolutionists to suit their "findings" to their theories. They possessed the same fervent desire to villify and prove the other side wrong, and weren't above compromising their integrity to achieve that end. I think inherent religious bias affects ALL people, Evolutionist and Creationist alike. It's just a question of what "religion" (or cult - gotta stay on topic after all ) you're devoted to.

They possessed the same fervent desire to villify and prove the other side wrong, and weren't above compromising their integrity to achieve that end. I think inherent religious bias affects ALL people, Evolutionist and Creationist alike. It's just a question of what "religion" (or cult - gotta stay on topic after all ) you're devoted to.

I have known paleontologists who have checked and rechecked their date findings on sites, then sent off samples to various labs around the world independent of one another to get verification, then invited in other scientists to get further confirmation before announcing a "probable" date. I repeat, this is not bias. Again, it is the method that makes the difference, not the inherent belief system of the person, scientist or otherwise, who uses it. Creationists are famous for not applying this method of test and retest, triple test, double-blind test, send out for tests to labs, etc.

If a creationist started from the basis that they were gathering evidence and that the bible might not be right, they applied the scientific method, I suppose their reputations would be considerably higher. But of course, to do so would not make them good biblical literalists, or as an acquaintance of mine of Eastern Orthodox extraction used to sneer, "Biblians."

What!? I'm away for a while, and then I find my cult thread has evolved into yet another evolution v creation thread?

Originally posted by EMINEM
BTW, has evolution, and evolutionary changes, been empirically tested and verified?

The Theory of evolution, as I described in the evolution thread, includes several different parts, so it depends on what parts of the theory you are referring to. As you know, we cannot go back in time, and we cannot replicated the exact conditions, over more than 3.5 billion years, that led to life as we see it today. This however is nothing particular for the theory of evolution, when we explain how the earth was created, how different phenomena like for instace a hurricane came to be, we can't go back in time either. Still, historical events leave traces that can be interpreted and that may form a accurate picture of what has been going on. Collected evidence from many fields like biology, anatomy, paleontology, genetics etc has led to the forming of the theory of evolution. If you by empirically tested and verified mean the standard scientific procedure of replicating, it is of course impossible to verify theories of this kind, that explain events that has happened over such long time spans. But remember, many cultures knew that earth was round (and not flat, even though some cultures thought so) long before we could study the earth from space and verify it was indeed not flat. Verification of a theory is much more than simply seeing something with your own eyes - in fact, what we think perceive with our own eyes is not always accurate.

However, if you by verification mean empirical observation, there are parts of the theory of evolution that goes of before your very eyes every day, and that you can read about in links I posted in the evolution v creation thread. Speciation, when a species change into another species, has been observed and reported many times. I posted a few of the most well known in the thread, such as the mice in Madeira.

As I have explained previously, evolution is simply change in the gene pool of a population, and this you can hardly deny since it happens all the time. What I assume that you deny, is the part of the theory of evolution that states that all life on earth has a common ancestor. This is, as I've also posted previously, something that is among the most well founded theories in all of science.
Perhaps you also do not believe in the mechanisms of evolution, ie that changes in the gene pool can occur by mutations or genetic drift and that different types of selection (such as natural selection, sexual selection etc) act on these variations.

I'm sure the Aristotelian academic establishment thought similarily when Copernicus and Galileo proposed their ridiculous theories about the solar system.

Ehrm, several pre-christian ancient cultures knew that the solar system was heliocentric because they studied the movement of heavenly objects and deducted that earth must be orbiting around the sun. This knowledge was lost however, and the catholic church was the dominating power in Europe in Copernicus' and Galileo's time. You are well read in philosophy, you must know that the geocentric worldview, as suggested by Aristotele and Ptolemaios was adopted by the Roman catholic church as was many other ideas from Aristotele. When Thomas of Aquino in the end of the 13th century concluded that the world was indeed geocentric, the Roman catholic church regarded the geocentric world as a sign of god's glory. That's why the catholic church found Copernicus and Galileo's theory's threatning and unacceptable. The Roman catholic church did not accept a heliocentric worldview until the 19th century. The Roman catholic church further accepted evolution in the 1950's (with the exception of man's special status) and the theory of Big Bang in the 1980's, I think (with the excpetion of the exact moment of creation).

So the heliocentric worldview is IMO more similar to the position the theory of evolution holds today, than it is an example of how creationism will prove to be the correct interpretation of how different life forms on earth came to be.

MM, you mentioned that the history of evolutionary science has been filled with hoaxes? What hoaxes do you mean? I am aware of some hoaxes, where as in all sciences (remember cold fusion?) a single person/small group of people have wanted to make themselves famous and created false fossiles, like the "transitional fossile" between birds and dinosaurs that a Chinese group created (in the 1980's or 90's, I don't remember since it was refused by all scientific journals and published only in National Geographic), or the infamous Piltdown man (in the early 1910's). Dishonest, greedy people who look for fame and fortune can be found everywhere, in science or in religion, but those few persons do not change a the massive body of non-faked evidence that 10ths of thousands of scientists have worked with and draws the same conclusions from.

Yet another chat with Elegans and fable. One day I might actually get the hang of this!

It may be surprising for many to learn that the Catholic Church was NOT Galileo's #1 adversary, but rather his jealous fellow scientists; the Aristotelean intelligentsia who declared (and eventually convinced the Pope) that challenging Aristotle was heretical. I suppose that if Aristotle became obsolete, these guys would have lost their prestigious posts and lucrative tutoring gigs. Like Communist academics in Eastern Europe who invested a lifetime in Marxist theory, they had a lot more to lose from change. But I mention Galileo primarily because I'm starting to see the same kind of reactionary attitudes from the evolutionary priesthood, who demonstrate behavior more akin to religious zealots in their struggle to maintain and defend the orthodoxy. If the theory of evolution is comparable to, say for example, the theory of Relativity, or some other cogent idea that should be regarded as "theory" in name only because of "overwhelming" evidence, as you would have me believe, why such gut-level reaction, such intellectual intolerance, such vehemence to cast as foolish and irrational not just the opposing view, but the individuals themselves who hold these views? I think because evolutionists are so locked into their worldview (and yes, evolution is not just a theory - it posits a holistic worldview), they are psychologically unable to give a fair and sympathetic hearing to any alternative hypotheses.

Regarding the thousands of scientists and their body of work; you make me wish I majored in biology instead of history and English! I'd love to go over these studies one by one and judge for myself how they came to their conclusions. But really, I don't think credibility can be derived from the number or experts in the field, or the accumulated amount of inter-referential studies. If the beginning of the equation is wrong, it doesn't matter how well the middle and end portions of it are formulated. Zero + zero + zero + zero + zero + zero + zero + zero + zero + zero … will still equal zero.

Despite the increasing secularism, the fact that a significant majority of the American population (about 70% the last time I checked) still believe that human beings are a product of creation, and not of evolution, doesn’t seem to faze them one bit.

The source for my figure above was an commentary (I think William F. Buckley) I read in the Yahoo editorial round-up several months ago.

First, this is (again) "somebody" saying "somebody" said "something." That's not a decent source for any figure to be posted, IMO. Secondly, the figure doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense on the face of it. If 70% of the US felt this way, we'd have had a constitutional amendment requiring the teaching of creationism and removing evolution from curriculae years ago for the entire nation. The fact that nothing like this has happened should in itself say something about the continued scientific viability of the nation, and the extremely small and angry profile cut by creationists.

Originally posted by fable
Despite the increasing secularism, the fact that a significant majority of the American population (about 70% the last time I checked) still believe that human beings are a product of creation, and not of evolution, doesn’t seem to faze them one bit.

The source for my figure above was an commentary (I think William F. Buckley) I read in the Yahoo editorial round-up several months ago.

First, this is (again) "somebody" saying "somebody" said "something." That's not a decent source for any figure to be posted, IMO. Secondly, the figure doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense on the face of it. If 70% of the US felt this way, we'd have had a constitutional amendment requiring the teaching of creationism and removing evolution from curriculae years ago for the entire nation. The fact that nothing like this has happened should in itself say something about the continued scientific viability of the nation, and the extremely small and angry profile cut by creationists.

I tried, but could not find Buckley's article, but a quick browse of some national surveys showed pretty much the same results. One such link you can find here, though I have no illusions that it will remotely disabuse you of the notion that the number people who believe humans were created by God comprise an insignificant and angry minority.

Originally posted by EMINEM


I tried, but could not find Buckley's article, but a quick browse of some national surveys showed pretty much the same results. One such link you can find here, though I have no illusions that it will remotely disabuse you of the notion that the number people who believe humans were created by God comprise an insignificant and angry minority.

LOL! We're not discussing whether the human race was "created by God" or any god, goddess, or other noumenal entity. If it were a matter of that question, I'd have voted Yes, too. We're discussing creationism and evolution, which has to do with a very tiny minority of Christians, their literalist interpretation of their holy book, and their unwillingness to use scientific methods to research their "theory." The two are definitely not synonymous, as almost any Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or any other American with a religion will tell you.

@Fable,
Sorry, I have been unable to post for a few days, but my reasoning regarding the Masons is as follows.
In the UK, the membership of the Masons is predominately white male. Like all clubs, there is a comminality of interests to some extent. I am quite prepard to accept that the majority, if not all, of the members are good, law abiding people who are motivated by altruistic goals. I also do not beleive that there is any Illuminati like plot to take over the world associated with them and I beleive you when you say that they have done a lot of good things. The issue I have with them is when it comes to equality in key social areas such as policing and law.

There is an acknowleged problem in the UK police forces that there is not enough diversity in personel on the forces. The majority are still white males. This probem is even worse when you look at the ranks of senior officers. This has been one of the causes of major civil unrest amoungst the Black and Asian populations here. (It is not the only one, but it is a big one).

It is also acknowleged that a high percentage of senior police are also Masons. The exact percentage is not known as it is not a requirement for anyone other than politicians (I think) to declare membership. That leaves the senior police in this country beeing part of a boys club that has a tendency to exclude others. I do not think that there has been any intentional or planned exclusion of other points of view, but when you look for a replacement, it is human nature to try to find someone who thinks like you. This is particuarly so when you have a social agenda - all be it one that you think is moral and right. If you are a square wheel and try to buck the trend, you don't get picked for the job. You join the club or you get no where seems to be the case.

The direct problem here is that you have a situation where a predominately white anglosaxon police force is policing comunity groups that they do not have any real understanding of and these same community groups see a white police force and become resentful of the enforcement of the rule of law.

I am not trying to blame all social problems in the UK on Masons, but I do think that, as a group, they are entrenched in many key, non democratically elected, positions. In a multi ethnic, multi cultural society such as the UK, they have not helped intergrate these groups. Asian, Jamacan and African groups tend to think of themselves as Asian/Black first and British second because they have been denied any real representation in the social structure of this country.

While the Masons have such a strong and disproportionate voice in UK society, they will be a danger to the democratic process and a catalyst to social unrest (IMHO).

The direct problem here is that you have a situation where a predominately white anglosaxon police force is policing comunity groups that they do not have any real understanding of and these same community groups see a white police force and become resentful of the enforcement of the rule of law.

I am not trying to blame all social problems in the UK on Masons, but I do think that, as a group, they are entrenched in many key, non democratically elected, positions. In a multi ethnic, multi cultural society such as the UK, they have not helped intergrate these groups. Asian, Jamacan and African groups tend to think of themselves as Asian/Black first and British second because they have been denied any real representation in the social structure of this country.

While the Masons have such a strong and disproportionate voice in UK society, they will be a danger to the democratic process and a catalyst to social unrest (IMHO).

@Jace, thanks for taking the time to reply. I have no problem with your remarks above until you get to your last paragraph. You make the jump from "a lot of the senior police force are Masons" to "the Masons are cultlike in behavior and a threat to the demos." I don't see A as having proved B. I'm willing to consider this if you can forge some missing links, here:

1) Show us that the white, senior police force is deliberately plotting to remain exclusionist, and keep women and non-Anglos outside the upper ranks.

2) If there are facts backing 1) (and there may well be), then show us that the white, senior polic force has a widespread, deliberate, and verifiable impact on the policies of UK Masonry. If your bobbies are just using the Masons as a social hall, that doesn't make Masonry itself cultlike.

In the US, most fraternal organizations had an unstated white-only policy for years. The Knights of Columbus, one national fraternal club that has been very popular in the 20th century, was for years opposed to Jewish membership. While this made membership policies bigoted, it did not mean that the members themselves were plotting non-democratic activities or engaging in cultlike behavior.

Incidentally, you may want to see if Masons are truly all white males. Masonic lodges typically have a separate organization for women, and it's very popular in the US.

Originally posted by EMINEM
I tried, but could not find Buckley's article, but a quick browse of some national surveys showed pretty much the same results. One such link you can find here, though I have no illusions that it will remotely disabuse you of the notion that the number people who believe humans were created by God comprise an insignificant and angry minority.

I followed your link, and the reported survey question was:

Do you believe that the human race was, in some way, created by God?

yes 82%
no 9%
not sure 8%

So this question doesn't say anything at all about the creationist - evolution issue. Many religious evolutionary biologists, geneticists or other people who strongly believe in a god as the creator of mankind, also views evolution as the method this god used. What the US creationist movement does, it that they postulate a dicotomy between evolution and god - you have to choose, either you believe in god or in evolution. This is not representative for European christians, neither is at representative for other world religions such as islam.

I read in a New Scientist article (1-2 years old) that polls in the US showed that the US was world leading in believing evolution has not occurred, which is kind of strange considering other polls showed that Americans were the least knowledgable about evolution. :confusion: (I'll look up the figures and the exact formulation of the questions when I come home - I'm at the lab now.)
Anyway, data from polls are always difficult to interpret - one Gallup poll says 95% of Americans believe in god, another says that 14% don't know who Jesus was. Either there must be something wrong with the polls, or there are many people in the US who believe in other gods and have very little knowledge of world religions in general. Anyway, the 95% is believing in any godly figure, whereas according to other polls, about 70% of Americans believe in a personal god such as the christian and muslim god.

Either there must be something wrong with the polls, or there are many people in the US who believe in other gods and have very little knowledge of world religions in general. Anyway, the 95% is believing in any godly figure, whereas according to other polls, about 70% of Americans believe in a personal god such as the christian and muslim god.

I suspect rather we are dealing with what Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) once referred to in saying, "There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damn lies, and statistics."