re: #227 arcatan

And you rant about creationists. Most creationists would be amenable to a singular statement something to the effect that some people believe that theories of evolution do little to address the actual origin of life.

Yeah, right, shuuuuure…that’s why they are trying to get laws passed in a dozen ststes that would allow ID to insinuate its ugly antiscientific head in public high school science classes, and why Disco Institute fellows keep writing their anti-evolution ‘science’ texts for schools.

And origin of life is dealt with, for the umpty-umpth time, by origin of life theory; evolution deals with what happens when already-present populations of organisms possessing high but imperfect copying fidelity are confronted by surrounding environments containing specific challenge and opportunities. And what happens is random genetic mutation and nonrandom environmental selection - in other words, evolution.

re: #223 Zimriel

No, in fact real scientists know that they don’t know everything, there is certainly much they cannot explain. Creationists merely put a name to the inexplicable, making no more claim.

Once again the argument from ignorance rears its ugly head. And once again, I answer that just because we don’t know EVERYTHING doesn’t mean we don’t know SOME THINGS. And some of the things we DO know are that evolution is an empirical fact - species populations have indeed changed over time, as any perusal of the fossil record can conclusively demonstrate - and that the core mechanisms by means of which evolution occurs are, beyond rational statistical doubt, random genetic mutation and nonrandom environmental selection.

I’m a practical atheist, I have no religious belief at all, but I do know there is more than just material reality in the universe, I just don’t know what it is. And in this point alone, that traditional science is not the whole answer, students get an education that’s a little closer to humanity.

The argument from ignorance again, rooted in a handy denial of bias, leavened and spiced with a pinch of incredulity and a dollop of emotional appeal.

I am no more pleased that the material rationalists seek to indoctrinate the children with a one dimensional world view than I was to see religious dogmatics do so. There a little room for questions here.

There is NOT room for religious dogma in public high school science classes. PERIOD. And ‘one-dimensional worldview’ is an illegitimate and unwarranted slur. There are many different rich and awe-inspiring dimensions to and disciplines within the scientific enterprise (besides which, Einsteinian spacetime itself is four-dimensional).