Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America'

Originally posted by John Matrix
Oh my! Those poor children being taught about God,

God -which one? Theres a veritable pantheon of gods (and goddesses) to choose from -why be so insecure as to condition them with only one opinion?

Originally posted by John Matrix
the Bible,

Yes,why not let them learn about all the homicidal,psychopathic instructions in Deuteronomy and Leviticus too?

Originally posted by John Matrix
moral accountability,

Religious beleif in no way guarantees moral integrity - if anything being in a fundamentalist cult whose members beleive they are somehow more saved/special/superior to other human beings actualy detracts from it.

Originally posted by John Matrix
divine purpose

Here we go -mindlessly proselytizing again.
If you're honest with yourself then you will concede that no theological arguments are 'factual' and you have absolutely no idea what
'divine purpose' is as all your opinions are firmly based in speculation,conjecture,heresay,guesswork and rumour.

You wouldn't have to have faith in something if it was a fact would you?

Originally posted by John Matrix
self esteem

You honestly think the adults in this video deserve to have self esteem?
www.youtube.com...

To my mind they are dangerous,delusional cultists who should be kept as far away from children as possible.


[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by Stylez


Since you don't like the nylon eating bug, instead claiming "It always could", shall we move on to the London Underground Mosquito? Study of this insect has shown that has become sufficiently genetically isolated from it's above ground counterpart that they cannot mutually reproduce any more. Here we have a classic textbook example of speciation.
Wiki
Talkorigins
Talkorigins
Talkorigins

The associated wiki page.

The rabbage.


Seek and you shall find. Ask and people may begrudgingly supply.

It didn't "evolve" this ability pal, it merely adapted within the variance of what is already coded it had a lattitude to adapt to in its DNA. If you think it added more information to the genome without "assuming" it "must have" then I suggest YOU PROVE IT!

What do you mean "more" information. Who is suggesting that a new evolved ability needs new information. Organisms don't just have the amount of basepairs to do everything that they can do. Some simple bacteria have in the order of hundreds of times of pairs that humans do. There is no shortage of superfluous genetic information out there.

users.rcn.com...

The Amoeba dubia also has the largest genome known to date. This protozoan genome has 670 billion base pairs of DNA, over 200 times larger than the human genome. The genome of a congener, Amoeba proteus, has 290 billion base pairs.

Wiki

One does not need to spontaneously create new information for mutations to produce new properties and behaviours.

Where there is no intelligence allowed their is no possibility for a God much less a religion hence where there is no religion, would there be any atheist's?

Only when someone suggests a God did it. Then lets see how 'Un atheistic" science becomes sheesh man get real.

Hardly. Saying "goddunnit." in naturalistic science is not only unnecessary, but counter productive because one has to then make room for a god. When something is shown to be completely naturalistic there is no reason or need to insert god into the theory. So far we haven't detected a puppet master, ergo the theory makes no claims about god.

Which was exactly my point and evolutionists do it all the time

Where? Show us.

This is the old "No fossils ever found, disprove evolution" canard.

Dude do you realize I can say the SAME EXACT thing about it not disproving God ? I don't care about proving negatives pal, I only care about what you can prove DID happen, not what doesn't prove it didn't.

You should realise that what science does find which further lends itself to evolution is fulfilling predictions made in the theory. The theory predicts that Humans and chimps have a common ancestor and so should be very proximal genetically. Cats, lions, tigers, etc. Dogs, wolves, foxes, Coyotes, etc. Cows & whales. Genetically one can establis, very nicely, these family trees which show common ancestry. Then you can see a more physical representations of this in the fossil record as ancestors are found in their expected layers. Fulfilling predictions is something that a good theory does.

So what? It isn't the same standard according to you creationsim isn't a science to begin with so get off its neck

So what?! Creationism has a hypothesis and you guys really really wanted to prove it then you should do research and novel studies as dictated by the scientific method. All you do now is make claims.

Why? You confuse evolution for science, so why can't I confuse facts for the truth.

Presuming your conclusions. Nice.

Tell mainstream science we are fine with them, it is evolution and their constant switching of the goal posts that has us unable to switch gears fast enough to keep up with the latest fake fraud and hoax

Evolution doesn't change much now because we know more. There have been a handful of hoaxes that barely overshadow the theory. So show me all the latest hoaxes and why they are all fake. Or shall I just give you a soapbox to make more slander.

examples?

Lucy and Ida come to mind. Archaeopteryx does as well because it's an oldie but a goodie but mainly because that some of you like to claim it's a dinosaur and some of you like to claim it's a bird and since it's discovery many have sought to prove it's fraud but it's survived all academic claims of this sort.

Not NEW species pal, NO way No how never been seen or observed and don't waste your time using the plethora of slick semantics I have seen in this thread, they NEVER get past me.

Not much will get past you if you stick your fingers in your ears and shout.

not the same thing, talk about a bad analogy. Plate tektonics bringing about the formation of all the buildings in New York is what I don't believe and that is about as far a reach as evolutionists would suggest plate tektonics in an analogy for macro evolution would suggest.

It's hardly a bad analogy. Evolution is about change over time in biology. The greater the time; the greater the change. In geology, this is homologous to plate tectonics as it's change - in the form of drift - over time and the greater the time; the greater the change. Macro evolution is microevolution over greater orders of time, so to say that macro evolution is impossible and no evidence of it can been seen is exactly like sayings the plates in the earth move but only so much.

still don't understand what a theory is do you. Still don't seem to get why historcal predictions are not predictions of the future but but assumptions of the past based on answers already given by history. Not all that hard to figure out and certainly not the same thing at all.

The history side of things are the bits we observe and try to explain. The predictions are dealt with in todays experiments mostly in genetics (because results in genetics come faster) and recording new mutations and speciation events (be them complete or partial like in the many many ring species out and about) and in experiments regarding artificial selection.

No pal what YOU don't recognise is that God has already been a forgone and discriminated against possibility by your so called unbiased evolution.

No pal, the science simply does not indicate the involvement of a supernatural being. Most religious people can see that evolution doesn't conflict with their idea of god and have no trouble believing both. It's not an atheistic theory! Get over it.

Yeah I saw you try this tactic on someone else and I had to chuckle as it reveals just how slick you can get with semantics. Umm gee Prof. I guess you must be talkin about how Donald Trump is more Live than me cus he can afford to "live it up" while i can just barely pay it forward.

The rest of that paragragh is just more of the same Bluster. Like this one:

"Reason dictates that the source of life wasn't always alive"

WTF??? who you trying to kid pal? what is that "stuff" ?? Here let me be more specific so you can finally answer me without using all kinds of rhetoric.

Ready? What is that source?

You really do like to mock, don't you. As I said; a virus is not completely alive. Some forms of life are technically more alive than others and that is not difficult to see. This indicates that the first form would have barely been alive at all.

Current abiogenesis theory suggests that the first form of life would have been some RNA, or other self replicating form of genetic material, encased in a lipid shell. This form would have been able to reproduce and feed on nearby proteins in the primordial ocean bed. This kind of simple organic chemistry is found virtually everywhere today including outerspace and would have been abundant around the thermal vents of the primordial ocean. Given a billion years in time and the masses of environment it had available, the proto-life wouldn't have had much trouble eventually beginning.

[edit on 29-9-2009 by Welfhard]

reply to post by Stylez


So you are basically saying that all mutations are harmful. This is also proven wrong long ago on Talkorigins:
www.talkorigins.org...

The harmful mutations do not survive long, and the beneficial mutations survive much longer, so when you consider only surviving mutations, most are beneficial. Harmful mutations does not matter in the long run, because they get eliminated by natural selection.
Thats a common mistake among people trying to disprove evolution. They say its random so its damaging for the population, but they forget that random mutations are only one side of the coin, which supplies variability. The other very important and non-random side is NATURAL SELECTION.

Here is another interesting lab example of using beneficial mutations for testing new drugs for mutagenic effects. Only mutated bacteria survive in this test:
www.fda.gov...

reply to post by Welfhard


Think it's worth adding this link but it's too late to add to the post so..

en.wikipedia.org...

The discovery of nylon-eating bacteria has been used by critics of creationism and intelligent design, in both print articles and on websites, to challenge creationist claims. These bacteria could produce novel enzymes that allowed them to feed on by products of nylon manufacture that had not existed prior to the invention of nylon in the 1930s,[1] and critics of creationism have stated that this contradicted creationist claims that no new information could be added to a genome by mutation, and that proteins were too complex to evolve through a process of mutation and natural selection.

reply to post by Welfhard


Welf time and again you have presented reason and fact, with NO religious self propogating belief.
I dedicate this to your smackdowns. (that are completely ignored anyway lol)




[edit on 29-9-2009 by zazzafrazz]

A great documantary to watch! I got it from torrent site but I do think some of the episodes are on Youtube!

Title: Darwin's Dangerous Idea
en.wikipedia.org...'s_Dangerous_Idea

Evolution Ep1: Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1/11)
www.youtube.com...

a MUST watch!

Karl 12 (I think) has just about wrapped it up for the poor Fundies...most of whom do not even know they are blindly worshpping YHWH the post Exilic middle eastern clan god of the Jews....whose hobby seems to be exerminating Amalekites, if one actually has the stomach to read the supposedly ancient Torah in Paleo....

Keep these demented personages from innocent children at all costs...it's child abuse to teach them that virgin births and talking snakes and hard-stopping suns & moons are historical realities, Dawkins was right on !

Well, I think it was my 1st reply in this thread where I speculated upon what else the 61% of Americans who dont believe in evolution theory also dont believe. We've seen herein that the scientific method is, @best, poorly understood by American creationists. We've seen the same regarding logic.
In the last few pages we've seen home schooling defended & 1 room schooling advocated, both by vocal American creationists. From this evidence I think its reasonable to put forward the hypothesis that such people also dont believe in an education that can equip a person to outstrip their parents; which, I submit, would be entirely in keeping with the conservative mindset.
You know what though? Being educated poorly is very good for something: infantry.
Of course, these ideas are subject to being disproved by evidence that refutes them...

Originally posted by Bunken Drum

In the last few pages we've seen home schooling defended & 1 room schooling advocated, both by vocal American creationists. From this evidence I think its reasonable to put forward the hypothesis that such people also dont believe in an education that can equip a person to outstrip their parents; which, I submit, would be entirely in keeping with the conservative mindset.

Bunken, my friend! Did you miss this information about home schooling? Perhaps you aren't aware of the sorry condition of U.S. schools, so I will cut you some slack.

Quote from Wikipedia: "Numerous studies have found that homeschooled students on average outperform their peers on standardized tests.[68] Home Schooling Achievement, a study conducted by National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), supported the academic integrity of homeschooling. Among the homeschooled students who took the tests, the average homeschooled student outperformed his public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects. The study also indicates that public school performance gaps between minorities and genders were virtually non-existent among the homeschooled students who took the tests.[69]

New evidence has been found that home schooled children are getting higher scores on the ACT and SAT tests. A study at Wheaton College in Illinois showed that the freshmen that were home schooled for high school scored fifty-eight points higher on their SAT scores than those students who attended public or private schools. Most colleges look at the ACT and SAT scores of home schooled children when considering them for acceptance to a college. On average, home schooled children scores eighty-one points higher than the national average on the SAT scores".

Originally posted by freighttrain
A great documantary to watch! I got it from torrent site but I do think some of the episodes are on Youtube!

Title: Darwin's Dangerous Idea

a MUST watch!

Thanks for mentioning that, it is a great series!

I also thought segment 9 of 11 was relevant to some of our discussions about whether we have to choose between believing in God or believing in evolution:

The first few minutes of this segment contains the following statement and similar material relevant to the debates in this thread:

"I find this absolutely wonderful consistency with what I understand about the universe from science, and what I understand about the universe from faith." Dr. Kenneth Miller, author of: Finding Darwin's God: A Scientists Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution

reply to post by novacs4me How come you left the "Citation Needed" tag off that last sentence? For the same reason as leaving out the following part?

Criticism of supportive achievement studies
Although there are some studies that show that homeschooled students can do well on standardized tests,[78] some of these studies compare voluntary homeschool testing with mandatory public-school testing. Homeschooled students in the United States are not subject to the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.[79] Some U.S. states require mandatory testing for homeschooled students, but others do not. Some states that require testing allow homeschooling parents to choose which test to use.[80] An exception are the SAT and ACT tests, where homeschooled and formally-schooled students alike are self-selecting; homeschoolers averaged higher scores on college entrance tests in South Carolina.[81] When testing is not required, students taking the tests are self-selected, which biases any statistical results.[82] Other test scores showed mixed results, for example showing higher levels for home schoolers in English and reading, but lower scores in math.[83]

I had a quick look @ NHERI's website & it seemed a bit biased. Also I wasn't impressed with their peer review from a journal which only exists free online, but I'll confess that I couldn't be bothered to find out who actually funds that journal.
I have heard that US public education is terrible tho, from friends as well as what I read online, so, since the figures seem to suggest that the parents of the home schooled are themselves better formally educated than average, maybe its not such a bad idea academically. Still, my partner is a teacher & she tells me girls in particular perform better in mixed education. Then there's the whole socialisation issue & of course the pseudoscience...

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
reply to post by novacs4me

 

How come you left the "Citation Needed" tag off that last sentence? For the same reason as leaving out the following part?

I left it off because I didn't trust whoever put that phrase there to be doing anything but trying to discredit homeschooling. And I didn't read the whole article, so missed the other part you provided. I'll admit to bias because my nieces and nephews who came through public school had their heads filled with 'self-esteem' instead of with reading, writing, and arithmetic, which as an old fogy I still consider the primary purpose of education. My stepsons, on the other hand, who went through a self-paced church provided program, are excelling in IT and engineering in the workforce.

At least I provided some reference for my bias against public schools. You didn't provide any when you denigrated home schooling.

Originally posted by jd140
You guys don't reall believe that is the reason the US distributors passed on this movie do you?

Tell me if its because putting down religion is taboo in the movie industry why do we have these films?

www.lionsgate.com...

www.imdb.com...

www.snopes.com...

This is probably just a bad foreign movie that a distributor didn't want to pick up, so they are trying to make some headlines so that more people will watch it.

Thank you. That is exactly correct. Foreign movies often have a difficult time hitting the U.S. market.

And for the record, evolution is a THEORY. Not a fact. Just like creationism is a THEORY. People who fully believe in evolution are as brain addled as people who believe only in creationism.

There are as many gaps and holes, problems and inconsistencies in evolution as there are religious creationism. I know ALOT of nonreligious people, even some atheists, who simply have big problems with Darwin's theory of evolution, and several of them are highly educated as well.

So before jumping in to the fashionable, yet moronic and cliche bashing of America's religous population, I would suggest denying a bit of ignorance and looking in your own backyards at the problems of your own "beliefs". Yes. Belief. Because that is what evolution is. Theories are beliefs based on observation of a fraction of the needed data, much like religions are.

Evolution and Darwinism can not intelligently explain human consciousness, the physical complexity of multicellular organisms and animal consciousness, any more than creationism can intelligently explain dinosaurs, fossils, and geological strata.

reply to post by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Go look up what the scientific 'Theory' means.

And for the record, evolution is a THEORY. Not a fact.

Gravity and atoms are theories too. Theory is the highest degree of truth that science achieves. Evolution is a theory, but it is also a phenomenon observed, making it fact.

Just like creationism is a THEORY.

Creationism doesn't even constitute a hypothesis, let alone a theory.

Belief. Because that is what evolution is. Theories are beliefs based on observation of a fraction of the needed data, much like religions are.

There is a difference between a belief based on empirical evidence and a faith based on nothing but wishful thinking. Religions are based on dogma.

Evolution and Darwinism can not intelligently explain human consciousness, the physical complexity of multicellular organisms and animal consciousness

Yes it can. Where are you getting this info from?

reply to post by novacs4me

I left it off because I didn't trust whoever put that phrase there to be doing anything but trying to discredit homeschooling.

Well, Wikipedia does like to have sources cited for assertions. Thats 1 reason its worth reading: we can evaluate the credibility of those sources... or lack thereof. So, whatever motive a person may have had for adding a "Citation Needed" tag hardly matters. Personally, I found most of the entry to be very pro-homeschooling, which was why I not only read past the figures you quoted, but investigated their source (NHERI) where cited & the people that source used for peer review. I wasn't impressed.

At least I provided some reference for my bias against public schools. You didn't provide any when you denigrated home schooling.

Guilty as charged! Oops! I'll add tho that my own thinking that going to school is self-evidently better than not was not pure prejudice, even before I hooked up with a teacher recently. Rather, I'm looking to the explosion of technology & the better lifestyle that has continued to gather pace since the advent of compulsory school education, & the continued development of said, & comparing that to both times prior & countries without such advantages. IMO, if the schooling isn't providing the quality of education we would choose, then the school system needs fixing; taking kids out of it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Still, since something like 3/4 of parents who do homeschool cited religion or morality as an important reason for doing it (according to that Wikipedia entry), I'm not convinced academic standards are that relevant, compared to the social agenda, which I'll freely admit to being almost violently opposed to; again as a result of comparing times past & current religious societies to modern culture, which has problems, but better to go forward than backward, I say.

My sister was homeschooled, and I can say that if one of the parents has enough free time (doesnt work..) and is motivated, it is better than in schools, but ONLY to certain age.

Also, the parent must stick to the state-controlled curriculum (no creationism), and child has to go to mandatory tests every year.

Originally posted by Welfhard
reply to post by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Evolution and Darwinism can not intelligently explain human consciousness, the physical complexity of multicellular organisms and animal consciousness

Yes it can. Where are you getting this info from?

Although I agree with most of the things you are saying, welfhard, I will have to disagree with evolution being able to explain human and animal consciousness. That is the work of psychology, which by the way also happens to be under attack by religion for the idea that most of our actions are based on instinct and past experience more so than by free will.

reply to post by newworld


When psychology and neurology are built on biology and are seen as part of the study of life, they are subject to evolution. There isn't a divide between psych and bio, like there isn't a divide between chemistry and physics - one is built on another.

for the idea that most of our actions are based on instinct and past experience more so than by free will.

There is no such thing as freewill. The outcome to every decision is determined by a myriad of factors.

[edit on 2-10-2009 by Welfhard]

Originally posted by Welfhard
reply to post by newworld

 

When psychology and neurology are built on biology and are seen as part of the study of life, they are subject to evolution. There isn't a divide between psych and bio, like there isn't a divide between chemistry and physics - one is built on another.

for the idea that most of our actions are based on instinct and past experience more so than by free will.

There is no such thing as freewill. The outcome to every decision is determined by a myriad of factors.

[edit on 2-10-2009 by Welfhard]

yes that's true, psychology is based on evolution, so I have made an small error there.

However, free will exists up to an extent. for example, imagine you are in a room with 50 other people, and someone comes to the room and tells everyone that those who dance on top of a desk will receive one dollar. Some will do it, most won't. now it raises to five dollars, then 50, and 100, then 1000 and so on.

Clearly whether you decide to dance on a desk for the money is a decision your mind makes; in fact you might not do it at all if the reward is not convincing enough.
It is up to your free will if you accept a reward or not. Factors such as necessity, wants, and mood will have an effect on your decision, but it is up to your mind if you accept the reward or not.

reply to post by Maslo Well, I coached my kids in some subjects & their mother in others, but if there's anything I've learned about trying to impart knowledge to them or trainees, its that whilst I'm considered an expert in what I do, that doesn't always mean I'm any good @explaining it to anyone else. So I put my trust in people who have a BEd to do the bulk of that.
I agree that either of us could have taught them primary school subjects, until age 7 or so, but with 2 incomes, we were also able to take the kids to all sorts of interesting places around the world. There's also the issue of both parents having a fulfilling life outside the home too. We think it was best for our kids to grow up seeing that. We also thought it best for them to see us sharing their care & that of our home, rather than that be 1 parent's job or role in life. I particularly dreaded us ending up in a "wait til your father gets home" type situation.
They're both doing well. There's plenty about them I'd change if I could wave a magic wand to do so... but hey... negotiations continue!