Forums | MacLife

Oh my goodness.  A real (I stress "real" because if you didn't know, you'd think it was a joke) letter from a Kansas School Board Member.

Don't be drinking any milk while reading it.  It will come out your nostrils.  And don't say that I didn't warn you:

http://www.kcfs.org/standards05/Morris% … 206-05.pdf

She should write for Jack Chick.

jerwin tokes on his weed. he giggles. then he gazes deep into his navel, and withdraws the following post.

Intelligent Design is an excellent example of mind-control. It says to the insatiably curious: Work not your powers of science-- the answers will always remain outside your grasp. Instead, place your trust in the hands of your lords, both temporal and spiritual, and in the lies they tell you.

Last edited by jerwin (2005-11-20 11:23 pm)

Slow Burn wrote:

I also believe that all of the information should be taught in our schools without the slanted biased opinions of those teaching our children.

A) your discredited arguments (when arguments are actually decipherable from that rambling post) have already been broached and wiped off the map in this extensive thread.  Here's a bit of homework, read all 40+ pages preceeding this and then post something that we haven't already heard.

B) As pertaining the the above snippet...ID isn't slanted and biased?  YEC isn't slanted and biased?  WHAT??  If you do want to post something new here, without doing your reading homework first, perhaps you can enlighten all of us on how the heck that is possible (for that is what I believe that you are trying to say).

Evolutionary theory, as it turns out, is not slanted or biased because it is disprovable.  ID is not.  YEC (or Last Thursdayism, as it otherwise might as well be known) is not.  Thus one is science and the other two are not.

ID, at best, belongs in a philosophy and/or theology class.  That is its lone redeeming quality.  However, it is not treated that way these days.

YEC belongs nowhere of repute because it has absolutely no redeeming factor whatsoever.  It is a putrid lie that seems to be meant to decieve sincere Christians and to bring disrepute upon them.

Oh, and by the way, welcome to the Ministry of Free Thought.  Enjoy your stay!  (I always love the fresh meat...)

Hank, makes very good points.
One of the reasons I mention giving all the facts, is.
Several years ago in the caves of Goram a Bedouin found several vessels filled with parchments that we now know as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The odd thing that I find about the discovery of these ancient texts is this,
not only were all of the Books that are in the Bible discovered, in different locations, as if scribes were copying them for posterity, but there seems to be an oddity therein.
It appears there were upwards of 10 to 12 other texts that were found. For some reason these parchments were omitted from the present day Bible.
What was in these texts that was so damaging that went against the present day teachings-Example: EZRA..JUBILEE to mention just 2.
My point to this rambling is that there has always been proof that we have been spoon fed what the powers that be, want us to know, and what to believe and not to believe.
I find it OBSCENE that we are so gullible as to believe everything we are taught so literally.
As in pure science without the repeatability and verification.
Alas' Faith, We are not able to see it, touch it, or prove it, yet we would be insane not to believe through FAITH that there is something. (Divine Intervention) or visitors from distant stars. ( My father has many mansions
Yes bah humbug.
I contend, that there is in fact some sort of Intelligence that we know nothing about... Call it what you will. But there is something and surely we are not so smug as to believe there is nothing.
So, as I said before, wouldn't it be an epiphany to just know all the facts, instead of the one sided bias opinions of those with a underlying agenda's such as Control of your thought's, belief's, and education.
At what point in our history, do the shades come down and the blinders are thrown aside, so that we are finally afforded plain TRUTH, in it's entirety.
Slow Burn

Slow Burn wrote:

Incoherant stuff #2

So you say people who believe in evolution are being spoon fed? Even though when the theory originated it went totally against all knowledge of the time? And some how the churcies who believe absolutely in the bible ARE NOT being spoon fed?

These actually are questions, since you need some work on presenting arguments, or whatever it is you're trying to say.

NAG wrote:

I just had to check to make sure this wasn't someone's "satire" alternate. I'm still hoping it is a satire though.

I haven't seen an IP match yet. 

Slow Burn wrote:

The odd thing that I find about the discovery of these ancient texts is this,
not only were all of the Books that are in the Bible discovered, in different locations, as if scribes were copying them for posterity, but there seems to be an oddity therein.
It appears there were upwards of 10 to 12 other texts that were found. For some reason these parchments were omitted from the present day Bible.

I think someone's just dying for a conversation with resedit.

nice read, jerwin

That is a fine little article.

Now, for some more evolutionary fun.  Back in my days as a kid in Sunday School I was (seriously) taught that the only "evolution" that happened was the lizard to snake variety (because of the incident in the Garden of Eden in which the snake was cursed to crawl on its belly).  The idea was that snakes used to have legs, and then were cursed and lost them.

Well, seems that the Sunday School teacher was correct on that.  Lots can be dug up on snake legs.  But, it now turns out that snake venom is a derived trait from ancestral lizard venom.

This article:
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/20 … _venom.php

nicely describes (and links) a cool recent article in Nature on that subject.

My favorite line from the above link:

Incidentally, I would stress that this discovery does not mean that your pet iguana is going to strike you down tomorrow morning. Lizard venoms are sophisticated, but they typically come in such small doses that they won't cause you any significant harm. And if you do happen to get bit by a Komodo dragon, you'll be able to be distracted from the effects of its venom by the fact that your arm is missing.

I always thought the legless lizard was a pretty bit too on-the-nose to deny the existence of transitional forms.

Edit: Not to mention the lungfish.

Last edited by Metacell (2005-11-23 1:30 am)

lamewing wrote:

Now, from what I understand, the schools want the teachers to mention that biological evolution isn't the only possibility, but that there might be an intelligent force behind the evolution of life on earth (not to mentionthe possilbility in the several billion other galaxies just "hanging" around). Is this correct?

You're pretty much correct.

To put the argument against ID in science classrooms into a four-piece nutshell:

1) There may (or may not) be an intelligence "behind it all".

2) That is an interesting proposition, but it is neither provable nor disprovable.

3) Since that proposition has this characteristic of unprovability (and unfalsifiability), it IS NOT science and thus should not be taught as such in a science classroom.

4) The idea, summarized in #1, is not invalid and is, actually, as ancient as are people.  It is a valid topic of study, but is best taught in a philosophy, religion, and/or theology classrooms where such investigations are not only interesting, but actually valid and relavant.  Those fields have the tools to deal with this sort of problem, science does not as it only deals with the observable and must, by definintion, stick within the bounds of the observable.

Komodo dragons aren't poisonous. They just have a bacteria living in their mouth that causes severe infections that usually lead to a slow and painful death.