Naturalism has failed, so naturalists resort to legislation.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...UK-public-schools/5631403128922/?spt=mps&or=2

United Kingdom has banned the teaching of creationism as scientifically valid in all schools receiving public funding.

The funding agreement defines creationism as "any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution,"

It is a fact that scientists cannot explain the origin of life or the Cambrian explosion. It seems like they want to outlaw the truth.

There are many, many problems with evolutionary theory. So facing the failure of naturalism, naturalists have had to resort to enforcing it through legislation.

If anyone doubts my claim that naturalism is a failure, I offer the following as supporting references.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_id
  • Problems with the Natural Chemical "Origin of Life" (updated). There is no location where life could plausibly have originated naturally, not in deep sea thermal vents, tide pools, the ocean, volcanic ridges, clay surfaces or extraterrestrial locations. There is no good candidate for the first self-replicating molecule, not RNA, DNA, or protein.
    http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/838

    Primer: Summary of Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution There is no good explanation for the origin of complex biochemical features. Molecular and anatomical homology fail to provide evidence for common descent. The fossil record does not show transition from one species to another. Developmental biology fails to support common descent. Genetics and chemistry cannot explain the origin of the genetic code. Neo-Darwinism does not explain the geographical distribution of species.
    http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1510

    Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories, By: Stephen C. Meyer, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, August 4, 2004. The Cambrian explosion, where many new animal types appeared suddenly 530 million years ago cannot be explained by natural causes. It is best explained by intelligent design, since intelligence is the only known cause that can create information and complex systems.
    http://www.discovery.org/a/2177

    The Politics of Suppression of Intelligent Design.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/05/helping_an_inte085171.html

    Survival of the fakest. Many of the examples claimed to prove Darwinism (the Miller-Urey primordial soup experiment, the similarity of early embryos in different species, the evolutionary tree, homology in vertebrate limbs, peppered moths evolving a darker color as air pollution darkened tree trunks, Darwin's finches, evolution from apes to humans) are false or misleading.
    http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/survivalOfTheFakest.pdf

    Atheists: "Science shows there is no good reason to believe in God". Nobel Prize Winning Scientists: "The scientific evidence is best explained by the existence of God".
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/atheists-science-shows-there-is-no-good.html

    The Cosmological Argument for a Transcendent Designer of the Universe. The discovery that the universe is expanding, the discovery that the universe came from nothing, and the discovery that natural laws are finely tuned to make life possible, all demonstrate that the universe was created and designed by an intelligence outside the universe. The evidence for intelligent design in the origin and evolution of life shows that the designer continued to play a role in the universe long after its creation.
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-cosmological-argument-for.html

    Materialism Cannot Explain the Origin of the Genetic Code.
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/materialism-cannot-explain-origin-of.html

    Top Five Problems with Current Origin-of-Life Theories by Casey Luskin: 1) No Viable Mechanism to Generate a Primordial Soup. 2) Forming Polymers Requires Dehydration Synthesis. Dehydration synthesis does not occur spontaneously in water. 3) RNA World Hypothesis Lacks Confirming Evidence. 4) Unguided Chemical Processes Cannot Explain the Origin of the Genetic Code. 5) No Workable Model for the Origin of Life
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-five-problems-with-current-origin.html

    Life did not Arise Through the Unguided Action of Natural Laws. The genetic code is finely tuned for efficiency (it is not random) and it is unlikely this efficiency could have arisen through evolution because any change in the code would affect every protein in the cell which would be catistrophically fatal.
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/03/life-did-not-arise-through-unguided.html

    The Flawed Evidence for Evolution. DNA analysis fails to confirm the evolutionary tree.
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-flawed-evidence-for-evolution.html

    Why Darwinism is False. The fossil record lacks examples of intermediate species; "early development in vertebrate embryos is more consistent with separate origins than with common ancestry; ... non-coding DNA is fully functional, contrary to neo-Darwinian predictions; ... natural selection can accomplish nothing more than artificial selection—which is to say, minor changes within existing species."
    http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-darwinism-is-false.html

    The evidence usually said to demonstrate that humans evolved from apes, does not demonstrate any such thing:

    Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html

    Does Genome Evidence Support Human-Ape Common Ancestry?
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/03/does_genome_evi083181.html


It would take more than 100 million years for a small change involving two mutations to occur naturally in humans. The entire primate line has existed for less than that length of time and there are many more mutations that separate humans from apes.
http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/19308937461/bold-biology-for-2009
 
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This has nothing to do with any incompleteness of the ToE (which can still be taught under this legislation as I understand it)

It has everything to do with inserting (without supporting evidence) a Creator to account for that incompleteness.

Additionally, this isn't about outlawing the teaching of creationism, but about how a country budgets it's state sector science teaching. This is a funding issue.
 
I'm glad they've banned teaching it in science classes. Goddidit is not a good explanation. This doesn't rule out consciousness as something fundamental though, Chalmers after all is an atheist, and seems quite open to primordial, fundamental consciousness.
 
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...UK-public-schools/5631403128922/?spt=mps&or=2



It is a fact that scientists cannot explain the origin of life or the Cambrian explosion. It seems like they want to outlaw the truth.

There are many, many problems with evolutionary theory. So facing the failure of naturalism, naturalists have had to resort to enforcing it through legislation. Secondly, Jim, your own blog of self referenced articles does not constitute evidence for intelligent design.

If anyone doubts my claim that naturalism is a failure, I offer the following as supporting references.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_id



It would take more than 100 million years for a small change involving two mutations to occur naturally in humans. The entire primate line has existed for less than that length of time and there are many more mutations that separate humans from apes.
http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/19308937461/bold-biology-for-2009

Sorry, but anything funded by the discovery institute sends up alarm bells for me. It seems a sly attempt by fundamentalist christians to peddle their bullshit into classrooms.
 
This has nothing to do with any incompleteness of the ToE (which can still be taught under this legislation as I understand it)

It has everything to do with inserting (without supporting evidence) a Creator to account for that incompleteness.

Additionally, this isn't about outlawing the teaching of creationism, but about how a country budgets it's state sector science teaching. This is a funding issue.

Although, I think it would be a good thing if (budgets & time permitting) students were to learn about the debate, for example, the arguments that LS and Paul go on about. Would this law permit that? I personally don't see any harm in teaching creationism alongside evolution. This is how people learn to think. This leads to the kinds of mental exercises that we partake in all the time on this forum. How can people think without options? Evolution is also an inconsequential issue. But organized education is worthless anyway, so I don't give a shit. After you can read and write, school just holds you back. School is dumb. Fuck the system.
 
Sorry, but anything funded by the discovery institute sends up alarm bells for me. It seems a sly attempt by fundamentalist christians to peddle their bullshit into classrooms.

Jeez, I kinda like the Discovery Institute. They piss people off. They're good at rooting out authoritarians.

But how about this from the Discovery Institute? Could the innocent children be exposed to such a video without disastrous consequences?

 
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Jeez, I kinda like the Discovery Institute. They piss people off. They're good at rooting out authoritarians.

But how about this from the Discovery Institute? Could the innocent children be exposed to such a video without disastrous consequences?


Of course they can watch it, but it should remain in theology or R.E. classes.
 
But there is no religion or theology in Berlinski! He is an atheist.

Actually I think he's an agnostic. He has some good essays checking the exuberance of materialists to pronounce the human as nothing more than a computer tricked by an illusion, but I don't know if I'd follow him all the way to his claims that Darwin's theory is completely smoke and mirrors.

Although, I think it would be a good thing if (budgets & time permitting) students were to learn about the debate, for example, the arguments that LS and Paul go on about. Would this law permit that? I personally don't see any harm in teaching creationism alongside evolution. This is how people learn to think. This leads to the kinds of mental exercises that we partake in all the time on this forum. How can people think without options? Evolution is also an inconsequential issue. But organized education is worthless anyway, so I don't give a shit. After you can read and write, school just holds you back. School is dumb. Fuck the system.

AFAICTell Creationism is beyond the remit of science, as it asks people to ignore available evidence...at which point anything becomes possible. Why not the Norse/Hindu/Inca/etc creation stories instead of the one in Genesis?

Though it would probably be a good idea to tell kids what the controversy is, what facts are available, and what the major issues are. Go over science based alternatives to naturalism like Josephson's 'Real M-Theory', Wallace's Spiritualism, Nagel's atheist teleology, Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance and some of what the ID folk talk about. If you really want to get kids into science, tell them they can help in the search for answers to the Big Questions...or at least as far as science can take us toward such things. Explaining the limits of science and the important role secularism plays in the field is also valuable, along with some discussion of people like Nancy Cartwright who question both the reducibility to, and universality of, the laws of physics.

Beats the government treating children as stupid sheep to be herded to the naturalists' conclusion.
 
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Fer cryin' out loud. There isn't creationism on the one hand and evolution on the other, with nothing in between. I'll argue against anyone who asserts that evolution hasn't occurred. It's as plain as the nose on your face that it has: just look at the fossil record. That said, I'll also argue against anyone who asserts that the Darwinian New Synthesis is enough to explain explain it, particularly at the level of macro-evolution.

It's this kind of false polarisation that is perennially used to create a straw man enemy to beat over the head. I think that creationists, particularly of the young earth variety, are headbanging religionists; no less than those who believe neo-Darwinist explanations satisfactorily address something like the Cambrian Explosion. A pox on both their houses, I say. There's no place for either in the science curriculum. They're equally woo-merchants.

So what should we teach? IMO, simply this: evolution has occurred. No doubt about that, but no one currently knows how, and neo-Darwinism, though it has wide support, is as much a crock as religious explanations are. There may or may not be a better materialist explanation for evolution than neo-D, but if so, we've yet to come up with it. Indeed, the fact no one has yet been able to come up with something better despite the overwhelming evidence that it's a crock tells its own story: that there might not be a better materialist explanation, and hanging on to it like grim death merely reflects the fear that were it abandoned, the floodgates would be opened for the religionist headbangers to step in to replace the neo-Darwinist ones.

It's no secret that at the moment, I favour the idea that intelligence in some way plays into evolution. IMO, it's currently a better explanation than neo-D. The principal piece of evidence--and we've argued this ad nauseam on this forum in the past--is the DNA code: no current materialist argument can explain how something other than intelligence can produce a sophisticated digital code that owes nothing to the known laws of physics or chemistry.

What is not widely known yet is that there is in fact a new movement within biology, called the Third way, which states on its web page:

The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon supernatural intervention by a divine Creator. The other way is Neo-Darwinism, which has elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems. Both views are inconsistent with significant bodies of empirical evidence and have evolved into hard-line ideologies. There is a need for a more open “third way” of discussing evolutionary change based on empirical observations...

The Third Way web site provides a vehicle for new voices to be heard in evolution debates. It will be a forum for accessing empirical data on areas that have been glossed over by the Creationist and Neo-Darwinian viewpoints. The goal is to focus attention on the molecular and cellular processes which produce novelty without magical interventions or sheer luck.

Sounds a tad more open-minded and scientific to me. Let the evidence lead where it may. If such an approach comes up with a plausible argument explaining how the DNA code arose without any intelligent influence, I'll modify my current opinion. I completely agree there is no supernatural explanation for evolution: but intelligence isn't supernatural, is it? You have it and I have it; it's as common as muck, even though there's also no materialist explanation for how it arose in human beings, or even what it is.
 
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Fer cryin' out loud. There isn't creationism on the one hand and evolution on the other, with nothing in between. I'll argue against anyone who asserts that evolution hasn't occurred. It's as plain as the nose on your face that it has: just look at the fossil record. That said, I'll also argue against anyone who asserts that the Darwinian New Synthesis is enough to explain explain it, particularly at the level of macro-evolution.

It's this kind of false polarisation that is perennially used to create a straw man enemy to beat over the head. I think that creationists, particularly of the young earth variety, are headbanging religionists; no less than those who believe neo-Darwinist explanations satisfactorily address something like the Cambrian Explosion. A pox on both their houses, I say. There's no place for either in the science curriculum. They're equally woo-merchants.

So what should we teach? IMO, simply this: evolution has occurred. No doubt about that, but no one currently knows how, and neo-Darwinism, though it has wide support, is as much a crock as religious explanations are. There may or may not be a better materialist explanation for evolution than neo-D, but if so, we've yet to come up with it. Indeed, the fact no one has yet been able to come up with something better despite the overwhelming evidence that it's a crock tells its own story: that there might not be a better materialist explanation, and hanging on to it like grim death merely reflects the fear that were it abandoned, the floodgates would be opened for the religionist headbangers to step in to replace the neo-Darwinist ones.

It's no secret that at the moment, I favour the idea that intelligence in some way plays into evolution. IMO, it's currently a better explanation than neo-D. The principal piece of evidence--and we've argued this ad nauseam on this forum in the past--is the DNA code: no current materialist argument can explain how something other than intelligence can produce a sophisticated digital code that owes nothing to the known laws of physics or chemistry.

What is not widely known yet is that there is in fact a new movement within biology, called the Third way, which states on its web page:

The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon supernatural intervention by a divine Creator. The other way is Neo-Darwinism, which has elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems. Both views are inconsistent with significant bodies of empirical evidence and have evolved into hard-line ideologies. There is a need for a more open “third way” of discussing evolutionary change based on empirical observations...

The Third Way web site provides a vehicle for new voices to be heard in evolution debates. It will be a forum for accessing empirical data on areas that have been glossed over by the Creationist and Neo-Darwinian viewpoints. The goal is to focus attention on the molecular and cellular processes which produce novelty without magical interventions or sheer luck.

Sounds a tad more open-minded and scientific to me. Let the evidence lead where it may. If such an approach comes up with a plausible argument explaining how the DNA code arose without any intelligent influence, I'll modify my current opinion. I completely agree there is no supernatural explanation for evolution: but intelligence isn't supernatural, is it? You have it and I have it; it's as common as muck, even though there's also no materialist explanation for how it arose in human beings, or even what it is.
I hope this wasn't aimed at me. If you read what I wrote we are broadly in agreement.

The article in the OP does however specifically reference 'creationism' which is why I brought it up.
 
Sorry, but anything funded by the discovery institute sends up alarm bells for me. It seems a sly attempt by fundamentalist christians to peddle their bullshit into classrooms.

Sigh. What do you know about the Discovery Institute? Sure, some (by no means all) of its members and supporters are Christians, and may even think that the intelligence involved in design is the Christian God, but they aren't fundamentalists despite the attempts to cast them in that light in the Dover trial. They aren't the same thing as the creationists. It's exactly this bigoted polarisation that I deplored in my previous post. Rather than engage with their arguments, take the route of the bone idle and say there's no need to because they're crypto-creationists: they think God did it in six days and all that crap. Well, they don't.

One of the Institute's most prominent members, Stephen C. Meyer, is on record as saying he doesn't want creationism taught in schools, certainly not in science classes. Neither do I: but I also don't want neo-Darwinism to be taught uncritically in schools: that bullshit has been successfully peddled in science classes for ages: I was taught it at school and swallowed it then, and later at university. What first aroused my scepticism was the discovery of the mammalian radiation, which nobody told me happened so fast. How on earth could standard neo-D explain it, I asked myself, and that was well before (c. 1993) I knew anything about the creationist movement in the USA.

Thing is, bullshit seems okay to its peddlers if they are paid-up members of the church of scientism who never learnt the fine art of critical thinking; why bother to challenge their own sheep-like acceptance of pre-digested pabulum? How boring they are, and how dull and unexciting their intellectual lives must be. That's one reason I don't bother arguing with many so-called sceptics on this board: they haven't got a microgram of curiosity. I've yet to encounter one with an independent think-bone in their body.
 
Sigh. What do you know about the Discovery Institute? Sure, some (by no means all) of its members and supporters are Christians, and may even think that the intelligence involved in design is the Christian God, but they aren't fundamentalists despite the attempts to cast them in that light in the Dover trial. They aren't the same thing as the creationists. It's exactly this bigoted polarisation that I deplored in my previous post. Rather than engage with their arguments, take the route of the bone idle and say there's no need to because they're crypto-creationists: they think God did it in six days and all that crap. Well, they don't.

One of the Institute's most prominent members, Stephen C. Meyer, is on record as saying he doesn't want creationism taught in schools, certainly not in science classes. Neither do I: but I also don't want neo-Darwinism to be taught uncritically in schools: that bullshit has been successfully peddled in science classes for ages: I was taught it at school and swallowed it then, and later at university. What first aroused my scepticism was the discovery of the mammalian radiation, which nobody told me happened so fast. How on earth could standard neo-D explain it, I asked myself, and that was well before (c. 1993) I knew anything about the creationist movement in the USA.

Thing is, bullshit seems okay to its peddlers if they are paid-up members of the church of scientism who never learnt the fine art of critical thinking; why bother to challenge their own sheep-like acceptance of pre-digested pabulum? How boring they are, and how dull and unexciting their intellectual lives must be. That's one reason I don't bother arguing with many so-called sceptics on this board: they haven't got a microgram of curiosity. I've yet to encounter one with an independent think-bone in their body.
All this coming coming out of the mind of yours that argues against human caused climate change. That doesn't mean your are wrong, but whom should we consider has more weight behind them? Those who study evolution professionally or the lone free thinker?
Now, I'm going back to dragging my knuckles.
 
Sigh. What do you know about the Discovery Institute? Sure, some (by no means all) of its members and supporters are Christians, and may even think that the intelligence involved in design is the Christian God, but they aren't fundamentalists despite the attempts to cast them in that light in the Dover trial. They aren't the same thing as the creationists. It's exactly this bigoted polarisation that I deplored in my previous post. Rather than engage with their arguments, take the route of the bone idle and say there's no need to because they're crypto-creationists: they think God did it in six days and all that crap. Well, they don't.

One of the Institute's most prominent members, Stephen C. Meyer, is on record as saying he doesn't want creationism taught in schools, certainly not in science classes. Neither do I: but I also don't want neo-Darwinism to be taught uncritically in schools: that bullshit has been successfully peddled in science classes for ages: I was taught it at school and swallowed it then, and later at university. What first aroused my scepticism was the discovery of the mammalian radiation, which nobody told me happened so fast. How on earth could standard neo-D explain it, I asked myself, and that was well before (c. 1993) I knew anything about the creationist movement in the USA.

Thing is, bullshit seems okay to its peddlers if they are paid-up members of the church of scientism who never learnt the fine art of critical thinking; why bother to challenge their own sheep-like acceptance of pre-digested pabulum? How boring they are, and how dull and unexciting their intellectual lives must be. That's one reason I don't bother arguing with many so-called sceptics on this board: they haven't got a microgram of curiosity. I've yet to encounter one with an independent think-bone in their body.
The article in the OP specifically mentions the teaching of creationism in science classes. That would be "stuck on stupid" (like teaching ark technology).... Are you (or anyone on here) saying that creationism should be taught in science classes? This is a non-story.
 
The article in the OP specifically mentions the teaching of creationism in science classes. That would be "stuck on stupid" (like teaching ark technology).... Are you (or anyone on here) saying that creationism should be taught in science classes? This is a non-story.
But read the next lines:

The funding agreement defines creationism as "any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution,"
 
The article in the OP specifically mentions the teaching of creationism in science classes. That would be "stuck on stupid" (like teaching ark technology)....

Ark technology? Sounds fascinating. You got any kewl links?

Are you (or anyone on here) saying that creationism should be taught in science classes?

I am. That would be awesome. What difference does it make? If anything, the results could be very positive.
 
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