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| Following on from an earlier thread on Creationism being taught in schools in the USA, I'm gob-smacked to read this about UK beliefs :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4648598.stm
Fee |
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| Bah! It's another sensationalistic poll from the BBC. Unless they post the question and the options, most of these polls could mean anything. |
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| I always wonder how much manipulation is involved in polls.
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| Well, you can also conduct your own poll using your town or yoga.com community and publish it.
The fact is that: Theory of evolution can not be materially verified ever, because it is the past and can not be reproduced in a material way such as H2+O=water, because evolution is much slower than lives of many a scientists generation in one experiment, and when the last scientist finds it out, the first scientist would not be there. And, very few scientists are doing experiments for their future generations to know the results.
That is what Sigmund Freud left us with. He is gone and we are still confused whether he was completely correct. And, the same with Creationism, or any other nism.
Trying to find impossible while ignoring what is possible, is an Impossible act! |
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| kulkarnn - 2006-01-27 10:01 AM
The fact is that: Theory of evolution can not be materially verified ever, because it is the past and can not be reproduced in a material way such as H2+O=water, because evolution is much slower than lives of many a scientists generation in one experiment, and when the last scientist finds it out, the first scientist would not be there. And, very few scientists are doing experiments for their future generations to know the results.
Actually they've done innumerable experiments with fruit flys which have very short life spans that prove that certain characteristics can be accentuated. You can also look at the breeding of domestic animals such as dogs and horses to see what human intervention can do with regard to genetic material. Haven't seen a dog turn into an ape, but I've see some pretty different looking dogs!  |
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| interesting article/poll.
I think God created evolution.
But He forgot to make money trees.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
 
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | *Fifi* - 2006-01-27 7:58 PM
interesting article/poll.
I think God created evolution.
But He forgot to make money trees.
No he didn't, that is why he created Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, |
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| Yes GJ:
What you wrote is called genetics and breeding. Is that same as evolution? |
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| *Fifi* - 2006-01-27 7:58 PM
interesting article/poll.
I think God created evolution.
Yeah, if there is one, he's probably using evolution, which probably means we'd be lumped with the ID peeps on this poll. |
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| Evolution has it's place when presented as the ongoing effect of, as Neel put it, genetics and breeding. One cannot deny that through natural selection various traits have been bred into and out of almost every species wandering the earth. But when you look behind the curtain evolution, much like everything else, breaks down when it comes to origins of life. Hot Soup, Cold Soup, chrystaline structures, etc... all of these evolutionary theories for how life began on earth still require a tremendous leap of faith and what is, at best, an astonishingly unlikely bit of cosmic luck to get the fire started. Origins of life is, to me, the worst face of science. What is so wrong with simply saying "We don't know how it all started"? Why do we have to choose between a good scientific theory that is stretched way beyond it's means or some type of divine intervention? I would much rather my children simply be taught that no one really knows yet how life began. What is so very wrong with admitting that there is still a bit of mystery left in the world?
Edited by Tsaklis 2006-01-28 12:15 PM
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 2479
 
Location: A Blue State |
Knowledge begins with the admission of ignorance.
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| kulkarnn - 2006-01-27 11:19 PM
Yes GJ:
What you wrote is called genetics and breeding. Is that same as evolution?
My understanding of the theory of evolution is change over time to select certain attributes as being "better" than others. These "better" species are supposed to dominate the gene pool, and insure more offspring.
To give another non man-made example there was a time when New York city was absolutely filthy, mainly due to all the coal fired stoves used for heating. As a result everything was covered in soot. After a while people began noticing that there weren't any white moths, which is odd, since only the mutants tend to be non-white. Turns out that they were getting eaten by the birds because they stood out more again the buildings and trees.
After then invention of electricity a lot of buildings stopped using coal fired stoves, plus there were a number of "clean-air" measures passed in congress which forced New York to clean up their act. Any the buildings became very clean again with all the rain and so forth. As a result all the black moths which had dominated for quite a while were suddenly easy picking for the birds, and the white moths came to dominate again.
So even without direct human intervention it's possible for evolution to proceed. |
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| In a way it doesn't matter one atom who created the universe, does it? But it's interesting to ponder. I enjoy reading everyone's thoughts on this topic.
Personally, I believe in God, evolution and mutation. One thing, though, that I cannot accept deep down in my consciousness is the big bang theory. There is no way things become more organized after an explosion. What I was taught in geology class (which was by far one of the most interesting classes) is that gravity collapsed on itself, creating a really big explosion that formed gases and the planets and atmosphere here on earth.
Here's another weird fifi tangent - I read the book "Hotspot", about an outbreak of a highly contagious form of hemorrhagic fever (worse than the ebola virus; I forgot the name but I think it began with an 'M'). The outbreak occured when a French traveller went hinking, by himself, in uncharted territory. He found an interesting cave and decided to check it out. There seemed to be something special about this cave, even the animals knew something was cooking in the cave. The way the book read was that the conditions were exactly right in the cave to spawn new life - the awful "M" virus that causes hemorrhagic fever and certain death in humans. The cave came across as very primordial soup-like to me. But then I think, if God created everything,why would He create such a disgusting virus? My New Agey friend says it's because we're in a free-will zone and God wants to see how we act when we're under pressure.
What do you all think?
(I am still holding a grudge against Adam and Eve) |
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| The Marburg virus?
If there's a God, why do bad things happen? I've discussed this many times with my husband, and we never can come up with a great answer. We've hashed over the Free Will argument, and most recently the idea of reincarnation and karma. We're still confused. We can't even begin to work evolution into the discussion.
Which totally ticks my husband off. He wants solid answers. Faith alone doesn't cut it for him.
An online Fundie friend of mine manages to tie everything that happens into the Bible, including viruses. He even made a connection between the Bible and DNA.  I'd love to be able to share his thoughts with you guys, but I can't remember enough of the details (and it's ALL in the details). |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Fifi - I think you need to look at the Big Bang again. I am not espousing ay particular view, and if you knew me you would be amazed that I even venture to understand any of this stuff, OTOH, I guess those who know me here know I can almost always find something to add my $.02 to. 
But if you look at even a small explosion - set off a firecracker on a smooth patch of sand, for example - you will see that yes, it does at first appear to be chaos, but the big picture includes a very obvious and "organized" pattern. Now, how that in turn creates people, critters, iPods and Hagen Das I dunno. We'll need those smarty guys to tell us about that bit... |
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| Hagen Daz is actually the "Dark Matter" that scientists have been looking for all these years. That's the reason why it tastes so good, and adds so many pounds so quickly. iPods are just another distraction invented by the Secret Chiefs who run the world to keep the sheep distracted, and make the dissemination of subliminal messages easier. |
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| I am always open to the smarty guys' views on science.
I'm beginning to agree with the view that iPods, tv, cable, etc...are distractions to keep us preoccupied. I've been on a no tv/cable diet for the past 2 weeks and I feel good.
I haven't had the strength to forgo my walkman yet.
And thanks for the virus name, Kabu. |
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| *Fifi* - 2006-01-29 1:45 PM
I'm beginning to agree with the view that iPods, tv, cable, etc...are distractions to keep us preoccupied. I've been on a no tv/cable diet for the past 2 weeks and I feel good.
I'd like to make a similar claim for the past few months, but the truth is that I have watched TV. In particular Battlestar Galactic, and a two hour movie. Frankly most of the stuff that's on bores me, and I'm much rather spend my time surfing the web, and talking to you guys. Survey's also say that I'm not alone, TV viewing is down across the country, with many people turning to the web instead. |
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| There is an interesting bit in the Aitareya Upanishads, which tells a story of how the cosmic powers (here this is what deities means), which later become the human faculties, came to put into the human body. The Upanishad starts with (Aurobindo's translastion which is generally awkward but its nice for this kind of passage for the language):
"1. Hari OM. In the beginning the Spirit [he translates Atman as Spirit] was One and all this( universe) was the Spirit;
; there was nought else that saw. The Spirit thought, "Lo, I will make me worlds from out my being".
2.These were the worlds he made : ambhah, of the etheral waters, maricich,
of light, mara of death and mortal things, apah, of the lower waters.
Beyond the shining firmament are the etheral waters and the firmament is their base and resting-place;
Space is the world of light ; the earth is the world mortal ; and below the earth are the lower waters.
3.The Spirit thought , "Lo, these are the worlds, and now will I make me guardians for my worlds"
Therefore he gathered the Purusha out of the waters and gave Him shape and substance.
4. Yea, the Spirit brooded over Him and of Him thus brooded over the mouth broke forth, as when an egg
is hatched and breaketh ; from the mouth brake speech and of speech fire was born.
The nostrils brake forth and from the nostrils Breath and of Breath air was born. The eyes brake forth and
from the eyes Sight and of Sight the Sun was born. The ears brake forth and from the ears Hearing and of
Hearing the regions were born. The Skin brake forth and from the Skin hairs and from the hairs herbs of healing
and all trees and plants were born. The heart brake forth and from the heart Mind and of Mind the moon was born.
The navel broke forth and from the navel apana broke forth and of apana Death was born.
The organ of pleasure broek forth and from the organ seed and of seed the waters were born."
So at this point out of the archetypal macroscopic Person, the various deities representing the powers that will later enter the human body have been extracted. Then:
"1.These were the Gods that He created ; they fell into his great Ocean, and Hunger and Thirst leaped upon them.
Then they said to him, "Command unto us an habitation that we may dwell secure and eat of food."
2. He brought unto them the cow, but they said, "Verily, it is not sufficient for us". He brought them the horse,
but they said, "verily, it is not enough for us".
3. He brought unto them Man, and they said , "O well fashioned truly! Man indeed is well and beautifully made."
Then the Spirit said unto them, "Enter ye in each according to his habitation".
4. Fire became Speech and entered into the mouth ; Air became Breath and entered into the nostrils ; the Sun
became Sight and entered into the eyes ; the Quarters became Hearing and entered into the ears ; Herbs of healing
and the plants and trees became Hairs and entered into the skin ; the Moon became Mind and entered into the heart
; Death became apana, the lower breathing, and entered into the navel : the Waters became Seed and
entered into the organ."
This reminds me of evolution to some extent because the idea here is that sSpirit manifested progressively more advanced forms of animals. In this case, the cow and the horse are not sophisticated enough to contain the Cosmic Powers. This seems like a nice reconciliation of bodily evolution with Spiritual reality since it suggests that the human body evolved so as to form the basis for spiritual practice.
Also consider that humans have the ability to have mystical experiences and so on and there is great consistency between one human and another in this. What I mean is that if they follow the system they will go through the same mental stages (for instance, the Samadhis as numerated by Patanjali or the Buddha). For the point of view of natural selection, mystical experience is a big wastage. So at whatever point the ability for mystical experience evolved (perhaps it was pre-human but we can be quite sure that amoebas don't have such experiences - so it evolved at some point), such an evolution does not make sense in terms of natural selection. Mystical experience does not help in attracting a mate and usually the strong desire for this kind of thing subsides so it probably lessens a person's usefulness from the point of view of natural selection (so why would the possibility of such experience evolve at all?). One could argue mystical experiences evolved as a gateway for cult leaders to get sex (just joking)!
Anyway, just some random thoughts. I like evolution except for the fact that most of its strong proponents are materialists (and believe that there is no mind, or that the mind is an epiphenomenon) and draw some conclusions from their ideology and not the actual science,
Regards. |
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| tourist,
But if you look at even a small explosion - set off a firecracker on a smooth patch of sand, for example - you will see that yes, it does at first appear to be chaos, but the big picture includes a very obvious and "organized" pattern.
This really doesn't apply to Big Bang. When your firecracker goes off in the sand it is the universe itself that creates the order from the chaos. The grains of sand will all be similar in size, shape, and mass so their areodynamics will be similar. Gravity will exert a nearly equal amount of force on each grain as will atmospheric pressures as they fall back to earth. In the case of Big Bang, everything explodes into nothing. There are no forces at work, at least in the beginning, and there is nothing to regulate the outcome.
As you can tell I'm not a believer in Big Bang. While it does answer some questions (red shift, a cooling universe), it poses countless more. For instance, we know that everything in the universe is ordered into clusters. Everything from atoms which clump together into molecules, on up to planets clumping around a sun to form a solar system. Big Bang works for all of that, but, it breaks down completely beyond the level of solar system. We know that stars clump together to form galaxies, and that galaxies clump together to form clusters, which clump together to form superclusters etc. With Big Bang the physics breaks down at the galaxy level. There is just no reason for galaxies to form at all.
The funniest part of all is that for as much grief as it gets from the creationists, I can't think of a better arguement for Intelligent Design than Big Bang. The theory is based entirely on the first few seconds of the universe's existance, and even the most atheistic person, looking closely at those few seconds, would either have to reject the theory or believe in some kind of devine guidance. Essentially, the theory says that in the first one trillionth of a second all of the base particles are formed.... bosons, muons, quarks, etc. along with each of their antiparticles. Ok, fair enough. But, still in that first trillionth of a second or so these superheated particles begin smashing into one another, cancelling each other out. Ah, but fortunately for us when all of those particles were formed there were roughly 1,000,000,001 quarks for every 1,000,000,000 antiquarks. Yeah, after all the colliding is finished we are left with one quark for every billion quark - antiquark pairs that collided and cancelled each other out. If that ratio is off by one, if it's even or there are more antiquarks, then matter never forms and the universe is simply nothing but light.
Then, in the next billionth of a second or so those remaining quarks started bonding to form protons, neutrons and the like. Of course, the remaining antiquarks did the same in their little antiworld. So, you guessed it, these critters start colliding and cancelling one another out. Fortunately again, there were 1,000,000,001 protons formed for every 1,000,000,000 antiprotons. So, for every billion collisions we had an extra proton, an extra neutron, etc. Again, if that ratio is short no matter forms.
Ok, so that first second was a doosey. The next two are even better. That's when the electrons and their counterparts, the positrons, come into existance. And yes, they start colliding and.... cancelling one another out. But wouldn't you know it... when the electrons and positrons popped onto the scene there were extra electrons as well. Care to guess the ratio? Yup.... 1,000,000,001 electrons for every 1,000,000,000 positrons. The result? Matter.
So basically, according to Big Bang itself a universe containing matter requires three separate billion to one coincidences, which puts the odds against at roughly 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. And that's before you even begin talking about things like the shape of the universe, etc. I'm not a creationist by any stretch, nor am I a fan of ID, but the fact that Big Bang is so well accepted today has a lot more to do with egos and reputations within the scientific community than it does with being "right". I guess I fall back to Kuhn on that one. I really think that we can do better, but we never will so long as the best minds are all focused on ways to make Big Bang work. Personally, I'm ok with just saying that we don't know right now how the universe came into being. I mean hey, everyone loves a good mystery. |
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| Nice post steve, let me sum up. Something from nothing is a miracle. Something from nothing with a high degree of order is a god's way of winking at us. My father, the fundie Christian loves the Big Bang. |
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| Grrr...I wish I was better in Science. The minute someone says, "The theory of..." or something even remotely scientific, my mind goes completely blank.  I tried watching NOVA specials in an attempt to learn a little ~ darn near put me in a coma.
*tries reading Tsaklis's post again*
Edited by Kabu 2006-01-31 2:14 PM
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| sorry? |
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| Nah, it's me.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| OK Steven, I bow to your superior knowledge (since my science is at the preschool level  ). I just like explosions - which is why I like Mythbusters, I guess |
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