On April 28 2012 01:05 SaintBadger wrote: 3. Regarding humanity's common ancestry with apes, there is a reason the people in the Northwest call Sasquatch "The Missing Link". While it is heavily heavily likely (like REALLY heavily) that humans and apes share a common ancestor, even today that is still properly considered a theory. The reason we don't call that a FACT is that we've never found a link in the fossil record chain that could be considered "the half-way point" between humans and something else. Maybe one day we will, but we haven't yet.
Oh, my.
No theory will ever "graduate" and become something greater. It doesn't work like that.
On April 28 2012 01:05 SaintBadger wrote: 3. Regarding humanity's common ancestry with apes, there is a reason the people in the Northwest call Sasquatch "The Missing Link". While it is heavily heavily likely (like REALLY heavily) that humans and apes share a common ancestor, even today that is still properly considered a theory. The reason we don't call that a FACT is that we've never found a link in the fossil record chain that could be considered "the half-way point" between humans and something else. Maybe one day we will, but we haven't yet.
Oh, my.
The Theory of Evolution will never be called a fact in scientific parlance because it isn't. It is a theory, a predictive explanation of facts, and it will remain so. No theory will never "graduate" and be referred to as a scientific fact or law. It doesn't work like that.
He talks about missing links, but he neglects the missing link between Creation and Intelligent design. (Which he calls different.)
Of People and Pandas, the book the Dover school board tried to fob off, had it's various drafts subpoenad for that particular trial. Funny thing, they found a spot where a draft (in the process of having creation related terms changed to intelligent design) had the terms creation and intelligent design all painfully meshed together.
Intelligent Design is creation, which is religion. Doesn't belong in a science class. Even the ID "experts" admitted that for it to be considered "science", we'd have to change the definition of science in a way that would also make Astrology a science. In court.
Great documentary on that is Nova's Intelligent Design on Trial.
I'll admit that I had federal level politicians in mind when I responded to your post, but let's not go overboard on the point in the state level. For one thing, a lot of the states that allow same-sex marriage do so because courts have forced the issue on equal protection grounds. I don't think political parties today get much credit for drafting state constitutions. For another, Iowa is a liberal state? New Hampshire is a liberal state? While California, of all places, has decided by petition, legislation, AND COURTS, that marriage is between men and women.
After looking at wikipedia "same-sex marriage status in US by state", I agree with you that there is SOME edge to the Democrats at the state level. When you axe the states that didn't do anything and just had the issue forced by courts, it's a pretty close thing, but there is definitely an edge for the Blues.
I apologize. I keep my eyes on the feds most of the time, and I think the point stands at that level.
On the subject of you talking to Republicans, again I don't speak for everyone who sets an R by his name. Constant focus on this issue has caused me to drift away from representing conservative thought to a more partisan defense of my party. That was not really my purpose in starting this blog, but I do gladly represent Republicans as best I can, and I am very convinced that Republicans stand to benefit the country as a whole far more than our opposition. As I've said, I suspect the same-sex marriage issue will be resolved in the next few years, and I will be very relieved. At that point, the Dems will cease to have this issue to wedge in between me and the votes I so desperately want.
STOP READING NOW IF YOU WANT TO STAY ON PARTISAN STUFF I don't want to stop talking about this issue, but I do want to point out something else interesting.
You bring up a very interesting philosophical point when you say political leaders ought to be affected by their constituents. Did you know the US might not exist if the Georgia delegate to the Second Continental Congress agreed with you?
Somewhere around Spring of 1776 (don't quote me, I'm not looking this stuff up and running off stuff I learned years ago), John Adams brought a motion to discuss independence from England. John Dickinson was PN's rep along with Ben Franklin, and he was a huge royalist. He opposed even discussing it, and he had a lot of Southern votes, because they knew that some of the independence folks wanted to do away with slavery. However, GA had not yet sent a delegation to the Congress. When the dude from GA got there, I think his name was George Walton, they were deadlocked 6-6 on discussion of Independence. When they first called his vote, he abstained, saying,
"I have a problem. Georgia is against independence and I'm for it."
What followed was an interesting debate with Ben Franklin over the nature of a republican (not the party, the system) government. Are the elected officials "representatives" who are sent to vote the will of the people, or "delegates" who are selected to serve and vote their own wisdom and understanding? Obviously, the GA man eventually decided he was a delegate. But it is an interesting question.
Nevertheless, there is still an issue of evolution vs. creationism in schools. Most of the time today, it's not a fight over whether evolution is going to be taught. It is. Now it's a fight over whether creationism or intelligent design (not quite the same thing, but close) is mentioned as well. I think the reason this is such a fight goes back to what I said in #3 of disclaimer. Evolution is a likely explanation for the origins of complex life, but it is a theory. A theory backed up by lots of evidence, but not proven. Now, people of faith believe that there is evidence of God's existence on Earth. I will readily admit that sometimes, that requires an act of faith to accept in the first place. But people of faith here this message, "Oh how quaint, they believe in GAWD! How cute and ignorant!" and then immediately, "How stupid can you be? Don't dare question evolution!" and it doesn't compute, and it engenders a lasting resentment. And when they get the chance to fight to have their children exposed to religious teachings, they go for it. Always.
A Theory has nothing to do with proven or unproven or true or false. It has to do with the idea of depth and explanation. It's to contrast a Law which is a simplistic statement about the world that seems to be true. For instance, the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. We don't know why it's true. It just is. Shrug.
Theories are explanations. They have far more depth. Atomic Theory, Gravitational Theory, Relativity Theory. They encompass much larger ideas and have lots of intricate detail. Theories however remain Theories whether or not they are proven or disproven. The Plum Pudding Model of the Atom is a theory and it's disproven and wrong. String Theory is completely unproven.
Evolutionary Theory, on the other hand, has been proven. It is just as much a fact as Atomic Theory. Yes there are details that are still being looked into, but it is a fact. It is a Theory. It has also been proven.
I don't ever recall hearing evolution was proven as regards to life more complex than bacteria. I definitely could have missed it somewhere. And technically, at a stage where life reproduces at that speed, the "proof" of evolution vs. random mutation is a little suspect. You may be referring to something else.
I should have done a better job of saying what I meant. It has not been proven that humanity shares a common ancestor with apes.
I'm not quite sure that paradigm of "theory" is correct. I think you're correct that it doesn't denote proven or unproven, but it certainly doesn't denote fact. Relativity theory and gravitational theory have both been disproven at certain levels of atomic physics and speeds respectively. Not going to pretend to understand why, but I read Time Magazine, and that makes me smart
On April 28 2012 01:05 SaintBadger wrote: 3. Regarding humanity's common ancestry with apes, there is a reason the people in the Northwest call Sasquatch "The Missing Link". While it is heavily heavily likely (like REALLY heavily) that humans and apes share a common ancestor, even today that is still properly considered a theory. The reason we don't call that a FACT is that we've never found a link in the fossil record chain that could be considered "the half-way point" between humans and something else. Maybe one day we will, but we haven't yet.
Oh, my.
No theory will ever "graduate" and become something greater. It doesn't work like that.
I wasn't equating the specific ancestry of humanity with evolution in general.
I should have said, that is still properly considered an ASSUMPTION or GUESS. You are correct in pointing out that "theory" was misused.
On April 28 2012 01:59 SaintBadger wrote: @ JingleHell
I was the one who first said creationism doesn't belong in a science class.
You also tried to distinguish between Creationism and it's false front, ID. You work for a politician, semantics is your game. You'll understand if I expect to need to read between the lines a bit.
This is sort of the reason I didn't want to go into evolution.
My purpose is not to hold myself out as a geneticist. I'm not. I'm trying to explain the psychology behind the creationism fights in school boards across the country.
I hope some readers appreciate the difficulty of doing politics. Those who try to be elected leaders are called upon to address a nearly infinite set of issues, and the politician will NEVER be the most knowledgable person on that issue. I know exactly what I've read in some laymen books and magazine articles about evolution, plus what I've been taught about genetics at a high school level. So, I'm happy to be corrected about the misuse of a word (e.g. theory), but be careful about extrapolating the wrongness of a position from laymen errors. I don't know if anyone is doing that, but it's a common pitfall in my work.
On April 28 2012 01:51 SaintBadger wrote: @triangle
I'll admit that I had federal level politicians in mind when I responded to your post, but let's not go overboard on the point in the state level. For one thing, a lot of the states that allow same-sex marriage do so because courts have forced the issue on equal protection grounds. I don't think political parties today get much credit for drafting state constitutions. For another, Iowa is a liberal state? New Hampshire is a liberal state? While California, of all places, has decided by petition, legislation, AND COURTS, that marriage is between men and women.
After looking at wikipedia "same-sex marriage status in US by state", I agree with you that there is SOME edge to the Democrats at the state level. When you axe the states that didn't do anything and just had the issue forced by courts, it's a pretty close thing, but there is definitely an edge for the Blues.
I apologize. I keep my eyes on the feds most of the time, and I think the point stands at that level.
On the subject of you talking to Republicans, again I don't speak for everyone who sets an R by his name. Constant focus on this issue has caused me to drift away from representing conservative thought to a more partisan defense of my party. That was not really my purpose in starting this blog, but I do gladly represent Republicans as best I can, and I am very convinced that Republicans stand to benefit the country as a whole far more than our opposition. As I've said, I suspect the same-sex marriage issue will be resolved in the next few years, and I will be very relieved. At that point, the Dems will cease to have this issue to wedge in between me and the votes I so desperately want.
STOP READING NOW IF YOU WANT TO STAY ON PARTISAN STUFF I don't want to stop talking about this issue, but I do want to point out something else interesting.
You bring up a very interesting philosophical point when you say political leaders ought to be affected by their constituents. Did you know the US might not exist if the Georgia delegate to the Second Continental Congress agreed with you?
Somewhere around Spring of 1776 (don't quote me, I'm not looking this stuff up and running off stuff I learned years ago), John Adams brought a motion to discuss independence from England. John Dickinson was PN's rep along with Ben Franklin, and he was a huge royalist. He opposed even discussing it, and he had a lot of Southern votes, because they knew that some of the independence folks wanted to do away with slavery. However, GA had not yet sent a delegation to the Congress. When the dude from GA got there, I think his name was George Walton, they were deadlocked 6-6 on discussion of Independence. When they first called his vote, he abstained, saying,
"I have a problem. Georgia is against independence and I'm for it."
What followed was an interesting debate with Ben Franklin over the nature of a republican (not the party, the system) government. Are the elected officials "representatives" who are sent to vote the will of the people, or "delegates" who are selected to serve and vote their own wisdom and understanding? Obviously, the GA man eventually decided he was a delegate. But it is an interesting question.
Actually, I meant "ought" in the positive rather than normative sense, which was just bad word choice on my part. I guess "one would expect" would be better wording. If a politician's constituents make certain demands, I suspect most successful politicians will accept those demands.
Also, on that site many of those issues were legislative, not court issues. Gay marriage seems to come up more in the courts than say, bullying protection for transgender students (or maybe we just hear about it more). The overall picture is not a "slight" difference. In some cases, the courts do play a major role, but a lot of this progress is not court mandated. Court cases just get more attention.
Anyway, you've done an extremely good job preventing this thread from degenerating into the usual abysmal levels of political discussion on forums, so you deserve congratulations for that.
On April 28 2012 01:59 SaintBadger wrote: @ JingleHell
I was the one who first said creationism doesn't belong in a science class.
You also tried to distinguish between Creationism and it's false front, ID. You work for a politician, semantics is your game. You'll understand if I expect to need to read between the lines a bit.
Actually, the difference is far from semantic. Most people call "Intelligent Design" a false front because a few wayward folks have tried to put forward ID as a scientific theory. Those people were wrong, and you are correct to oppose them.
However, there is a useful, nonsemantic reason to speak of Intelligent Design instead of creationism. Creationism connotes the belief that God created the universe and all things in it from a void of nothing approximately 7,000 years ago. Intellgent Design connotes the acceptance of Big Bang or whatever universal beginning theory one subscribes to, and the billions of years of development from then to now. It simply includes a belief that these events were set in motion by a higher deity of some sort.
I don't know if you honestly believe there is no difference between the terms, or if you just assume I'm trying to deceive. But this is what I'm talking about in assuming motives in arguments. We're sitting here getting nowhere.
Ah, I see what you mean now. Well, thanks for the excuse to tell the Congress story.
I honestly don't believe there is such a huge gap between parties on this, but I will admit that Republicans probably made a poor political choice and definitely made a poor choice with regards to constitutional fidelity in aligning so closely with the religious zealots. And I don't say "zealot" to include all religion. It may have been a bad calculation, but a lot of us are working to undo some of that damage.
Again, I'm a conservative. I work for Republicans because that's how best I can express myself. As a conservative, I don't particularly like the stance on same-sex marriage that we find ourselves supporting. As a Republican, I don't see it as a big enough issue to abandon the party when I believe the whole resistance to acceptance of same-sex marriage will evaporate. One might say a bit of social evolution is at work, breeding out reluctance.
EDIT: I'm actually very humbled by the amount of civil debate going on here. I don't know if I'm convincing anyone of anything, but the opportunity to try and the interaction that resulted is very heartening. I was actually the only one who has snapped during this whole experience after an early misread of DoubleReed's tone, but other than that, I'm very happy with the content here.
On April 28 2012 01:59 SaintBadger wrote: @ JingleHell
I was the one who first said creationism doesn't belong in a science class.
You also tried to distinguish between Creationism and it's false front, ID. You work for a politician, semantics is your game. You'll understand if I expect to need to read between the lines a bit.
Actually, the difference is far from semantic. Most people call "Intelligent Design" a false front because a few wayward folks have tried to put forward ID as a scientific theory. Those people were wrong, and you are correct to report them.
However, there is a useful, nonsemantic reason to speak of Intelligent Design instead of creationism. Creationism connotes the belief that God created the universe and all things in it from a void of nothing approximately 7,000 years ago. Intellgent Design connotes the acceptance of Big Bang or whatever universal beginning theory one subscribes to, and the billions of years of development from then to now. It simply includes a belief that these events were set in motion by a higher deity of some sort.
I don't know if you honestly believe there is no difference between the terms, or if you just assume I'm trying to deceive. But this is what I'm talking about in assuming motives in arguments. We're sitting here getting nowhere.
No, Intelligent Design does NOT connote acceptance of any specific origin. It's a red herring for Creation, using terms that aren't as blatantly religious. It doesn't matter how you couch the terminology, it's the same thing. "A rose, by any other name" and all that. Creation, a higher deity, that's creationism. It may not automatically reflect a Biblical ahistorical creationist viewpoint, but it IS clearly a creationist viewpoint, and it's not science, it's philosophy.
If religious proponents want philosophy taught in schools, I'm fine with it as an elective. But it needs to be done honestly, as a philosophy class, not mandatory, and not introduced as a pseudoscience alternative to evolution. Evolution may not have all the answers, but at least it involves LOOKING for answers.
I honestly DO believe there's no difference between the terms, and given your job you claim, I honestly do believe you're very carefully considering your words so you can say something that sounds nice and moderate, and leave unspoken the actual belief. That's just politics. I don't think ill of you for it, but I do know I need to read between the lines.
Should economic policy be geared specifically toward increasing GDP?
I think in a capital-driven system, economic policy can afford to play it a bit reactionary. If you have a stable production base in your own nation, you don't need to constantly be tweaking your policy in order to keep things running, and you are able to direct most of your attention to international markets. There, I think the best way to go is to willingly go for parity of bargaining position and parity of currency (adjusting for the relative stability of various economies). When a nation like China plays with devaluing currency, there's some element of retaliation that may be called for, but in general, I think you don't need to drive GDP domestically. Exports are a little difficult to generalize, but I think that's where most of the effort belongs.
On a side note, I wish John Huntsman got a little more press for his views on a potential trade war with China. He is an intelligent guy, and I hope that if we do win in November, we use him well.
Nevertheless, there is still an issue of evolution vs. creationism in schools. Most of the time today, it's not a fight over whether evolution is going to be taught. It is. Now it's a fight over whether creationism or intelligent design (not quite the same thing, but close) is mentioned as well. I think the reason this is such a fight goes back to what I said in #3 of disclaimer. Evolution is a likely explanation for the origins of complex life, but it is a theory. A theory backed up by lots of evidence, but not proven. Now, people of faith believe that there is evidence of God's existence on Earth. I will readily admit that sometimes, that requires an act of faith to accept in the first place. But people of faith here this message, "Oh how quaint, they believe in GAWD! How cute and ignorant!" and then immediately, "How stupid can you be? Don't dare question evolution!" and it doesn't compute, and it engenders a lasting resentment. And when they get the chance to fight to have their children exposed to religious teachings, they go for it. Always.
A Theory has nothing to do with proven or unproven or true or false. It has to do with the idea of depth and explanation. It's to contrast a Law which is a simplistic statement about the world that seems to be true. For instance, the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. We don't know why it's true. It just is. Shrug.
Theories are explanations. They have far more depth. Atomic Theory, Gravitational Theory, Relativity Theory. They encompass much larger ideas and have lots of intricate detail. Theories however remain Theories whether or not they are proven or disproven. The Plum Pudding Model of the Atom is a theory and it's disproven and wrong. String Theory is completely unproven.
Evolutionary Theory, on the other hand, has been proven. It is just as much a fact as Atomic Theory. Yes there are details that are still being looked into, but it is a fact. It is a Theory. It has also been proven.
I don't ever recall hearing evolution was proven as regards to life more complex than bacteria. I definitely could have missed it somewhere. And technically, at a stage where life reproduces at that speed, the "proof" of evolution vs. random mutation is a little suspect. You may be referring to something else.
I should have done a better job of saying what I meant. It has not been proven that humanity shares a common ancestor with apes.
I'm not quite sure that paradigm of "theory" is correct. I think you're correct that it doesn't denote proven or unproven, but it certainly doesn't denote fact. Relativity theory and gravitational theory have both been disproven at certain levels of atomic physics and speeds respectively. Not going to pretend to understand why, but I read Time Magazine, and that makes me smart
No, relativity and gravitational theory have not been disproven anywhere. There are just small details here and there. Those details are part of those theories.
Theory doesn't denote fact. It doesn't say anything about certainty whatsoever. The statement "but it is a theory" means literally nothing. There are theories that are true. Saying it is a theory says nothing positive or negative about it's truth value.
We have sequenced the Human Genome. We can trace our ancestry through our genes. Yes it has been proven.
Well, I definitely do believe in Intelligent Design as I described it in the last post.
How about we say this? Not everyone uses those terms as you expect them to mean. I am certainly not the only one, and this discussion is really not on the clock for me (that is to say, I'm not really in campaign mode).
I was the one who said creationism doesn't belong in a science class. It is unfortunate that our party has a history of fighting for that cause. The vast majority does not embrace it.
You may be very correct that some still have deceitful purposes when using the term Intelligent Design. But I didn't make up my definition for it. I was taught that. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that everyone doesn't understand it as that. I haven't heard someone use ID as a scientific alternative to evolution in several years. Not saying no one uses it that way, just that I certainly don't and no one I work with does.
On April 28 2012 01:05 SaintBadger wrote: Evolution is a likely explanation for the origins of complex life, but it is a theory. A theory backed up by lots of evidence, but not proven. Now, people of faith believe that there is evidence of God's existence on Earth. I will readily admit that sometimes, that requires an act of faith to accept in the first place. But people of faith here this message, "Oh how quaint, they believe in GAWD! How cute and ignorant!" and then immediately, "How stupid can you be? Don't dare question evolution!" and it doesn't compute, and it engenders a lasting resentment. And when they get the chance to fight to have their children exposed to religious teachings, they go for it. Always.
"They believe we came from apes?! Haven't they ever read the Bible? That's all the evidence anyone should ever need."
I'll take a theory backed by scientific evidence over any religous theory that ultimately comes down to blind faith and I would like to believe any rational being who objectively thinks about the two would come to the same conclusion.
Anyways, I see you've acknowledged (on a few occasions) that this need to appeal to the religous right is a pretty big hindrance in the GOP's attempt to appeal to a broader range of voters so I guess there's nothing else that can be really said here. If there's one thing you should try working towards in the future, it would be addressing this. Thanks for the time.
I agree with you about word use, except to say that the distinction between "disproven" and "changed to include things that were discovered to disprove earlier iterations" is somewhat hazy to me.
If we've proven common ancestry, it's news to me. Please direct me to the appropriate reading. I'm not being sarcastic; I would honestly like to know. I've already learned a lot here.
I think we are agreeing here. I'm not advocating the position these people take; I'm just trying to answer your question. And I think that most people have come to realize that if we actually read scripture through the lens of questionable translations and the inability to be exact in time before man back then, there really isn't a contradiction between the idea that God created the universe and the theory of evolution. You obviously don't need to subscribe to religion, but the idea that somehow natural selection disproves God is as strange to me as the idea that the Bible disproves Darwin.
After a quick review of the wikipedia article on "Intelligent Design", I have more appreciation for your intolerance of my use of the term. Is there an accepted term that simultaneously encapsulates big bang/cosmic/drift/evolution and the concept of a prime mover? I need to start using it instead of ID.
EDIT: This is a fairly large development for the past page or so of blog posts. I was clearly mistaken on the use of that term and I apologize.
By the way, anyone want to defend the concept of totally forgiving student loans? Lots of stuff on the wire about that today.
EPT
