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Journal the_mad_poster's Journal: Superyooser 41

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This man has no idea what he's talking about, but that sure isn't going to stop him from talking.

I'm really sorry, but I just can't understand how someone can be so abysmally ignorant and still take themself seriously.

First of all, on the subject of the stupid stickers, whether they were unconstitutional or not, they shouldn't have been put into the books in the first place solely on the basis that they don't make any sense. The equivalent for a younger age group here is putting stickers into "See Spot Run" books that say "Spot is a dog, not a leg".

No kidding... a dog's leg is a part of the larger whole that makes up the dog and helps it stand. Likewise, facts are among the things that are a PART of a theory and help it stand up.

Regardless, this man clearly has no idea what he's talking about. A watch? Evolved from sand? What? Well, now... if the watch contained 98.5% the same makeup as the sand, and it was a living organism capable of rendering offspring with mutated genes (for better or for worse), and there were other watches around that showed more characteristics of being sand than watch with various gradations in between the dated fossils... that analogy might have made sense rather than serving only to make the writer look like a dunce spitting nonsense about an idea he clearly hasn't the tiniest grasp of. Based on his statements, I probably know more about brain surgery than he does about evolution. You don't see me trying to tell brain surgeons they're not doing their job right, though.

In addition, I find it painfully ironic that he would choose to berate an issue regarding science classes for not involving "critical thinking". How, exactly, scientific thought isn't critical is beyond me. I mean... we're talking about an establishment here that THRIVES on questioning people's ideas and forcing them to defend them with proofs. Continuing the irony, the longstanding enemy of progress - religion - is exactly the opposite. You MUST NOT question the ideas handed down to you from miscellaneous authority figures. In fact, part of what makes it impossible to prove the christian religion wrong is that you're expressly forbidden from questioning the existance of god and forewarned that you cannot know that god exists through earthly means. Not only that, there's no logical way to reconcile religious beliefs like "god made everything" because then you have the problem of "what made god" and you can't just say "he just existed" because that runs contrary to everything our sense tell us about how the universe works.

Yea, that's some critical thinking right there.

Superyooser is a shining example of why a lot of people, myself included, feel that religion is the shelter of the weakest minds and a mortal enemy of progress and rational thought. You can get upset about that if you want if you're a religious, but the fact is that the loudest people in your group right now are complete and total dumbasses who wouldn't know what they were talking about if someone printed out a fact sheet for them and nailed it to their hollow skulls. If you have a problem with the fact that religious people are, by and large, being portrayed BY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE as uneducated, backwater jackasses, than I suggest you start helping to put a smarter face on things and helping to keep your dumber members away from microphones and media outlets.

Does religion have to be a social enemy? No. Of course not. I don't think any scientific discovery has ever brought the general belief of any major religion into question. The problem is always the church. The church got pissy when it turned out to be a FACT that the earth revolves around the sun. The church got pissy with Galileo over his findings. It got pissy over Darwinism. It got pissy over the modern evolutionary theories that Darwin's postulates eventually spawned. It got pissy over the mathetmatical models and readings that point to evidence of a big bang.

None of these things actually threatens the generality of religion, of course, it just threatens specifics. For example, adam and eve is almost certainly (if you believe, you know, truth, not stupifying dogma) either a fantasy interpretation of the process of evolution, or a crock of shit. Same goes for the "blink->universe" idea. Fantasy. Or crock of shit.

You choose for yourself. I'm going with the shit filled crockpot interpretation though.

This discussion was created by the_mad_poster (640772) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

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  • Evolution is wrong anyway.

    It it beginning to look a lot more like things don't evolve as much as they start and stop and start.

    Think :: **Costume Changes**

    And what's wrong with the stickers anyway. I mean who gives a fuck?

    Is it worse for kids to have Religion say, "It is this way," or Science to say, "It is this way."

    You know both Science and Religion have pretty bad track records regarding accuracy:

    Religion == Shroud Of Turin
    Science == Phrenology
    • Evolution, like any good scientific theory, has almost no chance of being "wrong" because it adapts. Evolution, with the requesite that you specify how it stood at a specific point in time, could be wrong, but it will never be flat out "wrong" in a general sense unless something comes along to completely upend everything that forms the core portions of it.

      The problem with the stickers is that they don't make sense. Why on earth would you want to send your kids to school with textbooks that start right off
      • Here's the thing. You clearly have a major relgion chip on your shoulder. I don't trust any religion either but I do not immediately lable those that believe in their religion as stupid. To do so is silly and suspect you know that.

        The fact of the matter is that neither relgion nor science is every really right.

        But more to the point the stickers are not nonsensical. They don't say God created all the beings on the Earth. They simply state that Evolution is just one of many theories regarding the orgin
        • Scientifically speaking that is correct.
          Strictly speaking, it's as correct as just arbitrarily saying "1 is not 0". It's also as meaningful. You could just as easily put "theories are not bumblebees" on the sticker instead of using "facts" and it would still be just as meaningful and 100% correct.

          It seems to me that in an age when religion is on such a huge PR push to devalue the concept of a theory in the public's mind, it's irresponsible to the point of misconduct to do something that has the potential

          • Is there a good book out there for a psuedo-layman (just made that up) on what the current prevailing theories regarding the mechanism behind evolution? I noticed you said something about Darwinism not being a valid competitor, so that confuses me. Most of the mechanisms I've heard discussed always come back to natural selection of some sort (which I've always thought of as Darwinism).

            Thanks.

            • Is there a good book out there for a psuedo-layman (just made that up) on what the current prevailing theories regarding the mechanism behind evolution?

              Anything by Richard Dawkins [world-of-dawkins.com] would be a good start. His website has a bazillion links [ox.ac.uk] about current ideas WRT evolution.

              Darwin is perhaps best seen as the father of the theory of evolution (though actually there were precursors of it even before he published The Origin of Species), but the theory itself has, er, evolved. ;-)

              Cheers,

              Ethelred
              (who's goin

          • Undermine the Theory of Evolution?

            What does that even mean?

            I'd expect the other side to say that The Theory of Evolution is attempting to undermine the Word Of God.

            There's nothing sacred about TToE! It's not even particularly compelling. Where are the middle species? Where are the slight mutations? Don't bother looking for them they are not there. Evolution doesn't really work like we think it does if it does at all.

            If what you are hoping for is for Science, through the TToE to quash Creationism fo
            • Question to you who so adores ZOMBO COM:
              This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.
              What do you believe that means. In particular, the second sentence.
              • I don't know about the first two sentences, but that third one should be written on everything that has a surface. Especially in public schools.
              • I don't know how it has come to this... I really don't. I don't know how the Right has come to be black and white and the Left shades of gray.

                I read it to mean simply:

                Evolution is only a theory
                You should consider this when you are studying it

                I know what you are reading into it. I can't stop you. I'd like to but I can't.

                Later tonight/weekend I'll be espousing my beliefs on this country and religion in a JE. It will be long ranty and beer fueled.

                Look for it!
                • "Only a theory" completely misunderstands and misconstrues the whole of what science is about. The key word is: ONLY. In fact, unless something is measurable and demonstrable and repeatable, it is not a fact. It is "only" a theory. But here they are taking the idea of a theory in science, and replacing it with the idea of a theory in common parlance, where "only a theory" means "hardly likely at all" or "at best a guess". That's not how science uses the word theory! And the fact that the creationists
            • THERE ARE OTHER THEORIES BESIDES EVOLUTION.

              Name any other scientific theory to explain the origin of the species, besides evolution, that has not already been thoroughly debunked (e.g. Lamarkism or whatever it is, where each generation inherits learned attributes from its parents doesn't count).

              There are details that are not understood and still actively being worked, and there are apparent facts that current theories do not fully explain. But I want you to enumerate what other theories are actually being

        • They simply state that Evolution is just one of many theories regarding the orgin of species.

          We have Evolution, and we have Creationism (which in my mind hardly qualifies as a THEORY because it has hardly any LOGIC or FACT to back it up). Where are all the others?

          • Intelligent Design and I was going to use Lamarck's but you said I couldn't
            • Educate me then: how is Intelligent Design not a slight variant from Creationism? Lamarck's doesn't count, as I say, because no serious scientist believes its accuracy any longer. 100+ years ago, I'd have given that one to you :-)
              • OK the first thing I have to get out of the way here I don't have a huge problem withour current ideas on Evolution. I am really arguing the sticker just isn't that big a deal.

                Now explain to me how Evolution is God's will.

                We can play this game for hours. It's just not that much fun.

                The fact of the matter is we cannot in any way shape or for prove Evolution exists as we think it does. Where is the fossile evidence to back it up?

                Why haven't sharks, or crocodiles, or roaches evolved?

                Why are there still
                • Now explain to me how Evolution is God's will.

                  That's actually pretty easy. I don't know for a fact that it is, except that there's lots of evidence that it occurs, and if I believe that everything is God's will then evolution must be too. You might as well ask me why someone you love dying is God's will.

                  Why haven't sharks, or crocodiles, or roaches evolved?

                  Evolution is usually in response to environmental stress, as I understand it (though I won't claim to be an expert). Those animals have found their

                  • that's the thing science should probably be trying to say to the Religous.

                    "There's no reason Evolution and God can't be the same thing."

                    As for dragging the topic off.

                    Your clear anger towards religon makes it necessary to fight outside the topic. You don't really care about the sticker you care about who put it there and its implications.

                    I believe in mob rule at the local level. I really do. 6 people representing 5 children out of the entire Community complained about this. It is likely no one would
                    • Your clear anger towards religon

                      Whatever. Anger towards religion comes from those who are saying that the religious ought to shut the fuck up, which I haven't said once in this.

                    • Come on. Seriously now.

                      You haven't said the very words "the religious should shut the fuck up" but you have used phrases like "their trying to teach it to a whole community" and whatnot.

                      You want the religous to shut the fuck up. You want a more secular society, which is different than a _completely_ secular society.

                      You don't like religion. Maybe not in the Communist way of sheer hatred of religion but clearly you have so chip on your shoulder about religion and the religous. I did too for a while.

                      It
                    • You want a more secular society, which is different than a _completely_ secular society.

                      You aren't paying any attention to what I'm saying, are you? I want a particular set of religious people to stop telling others how to teach science, when their actions make it clear they haven't the first clue about what science really is.

                      clearly you have so chip on your shoulder about religion and the religous.

                      Go read the journal entry we're talking in here, and tell me who has a chip on their shoulder. My reactin

                    • let's no go down this road. We have both been relatively civil, which given the hot buttons of this topic is actually surprising to me. On most sites this would already be an all out flame fest wherein your "side" would be calling me an idiot pretty quickly.

                      I am not projecting. The fact remains that you don't care about the sticker and its actual words you care about who put it their and what you "know" they are "really" saying despite what they are actually saying. Besides "they" must be idiots becaus
    • Is it worse for kids to have Religion say, "It is this way," or Science to say, "It is this way."

      Given that Science has facts and logical arguments on it's side, and Religion has "God Told Me", and given that I can, to a large extent actutally validate the claims Science makes for myself, I know which one *I* think is worse. No, I can't go back in time to prove evolution once and for all. What I Don't Get is why the hell it matters? God is or isn't. The MECHANICS of how he made the world are really FUC

  • I saw an article a little while back that said that some office of the Catholic Church had announced that it is now the official position that the origin of species through evolution is not incompatible with scripture. For as long as I can remember, I have understood that much of the Old Testament is comprised of the melded creation myths of a group of Middle Eastern tribal peoples (though I would not have expressed it in exactly that way when I was ten). The point of the Bible is the message, not the wor
  • You mean how like the Big Bang is fundamentally a blink->universe idea :-)

    Sure, the Big Bang has evidence supporting it, but there's still nothing telling us what caused it or what existed before it. Lots of theories, no facts.

    Anyways, I don't generally disagree with you on the evolution thing, but that blink thing would have been better off left off.

    Of course, I'm also of a mind that evolution and God are not mutually exclusive - God could have either set up things to evolve, or maybe He even direc
    • Failure to understand the underlying concepts of physics does not excuse your fundamental error right in your first thought. The idea of the big bang is not a "blink -> everything" idea at all. It is a statement saying "here's what we know, here's our math, here's the conclusion, we still have no sound idea explaining where everything actually came from, nor how it existed during its time as a singularity and the fraction of a second after it began to expand". Any statement as to the origin of the univer

    • What upsets me about how modern Christians in our country react with the Big Bang is that it most certainly gives more credence to the Genesis account of creation than what they think. It's quite interesting that when the Big Bang was first theorized by someone associated with the Catholic church (name fails me right now), it was dismissed as trying to give scientific credibility to Genesis (singularity -> Universe). Unfortunately, Christians today hear the term "big bang" and thing it has to mean bio

    • A watch? Evolved from sand? What? Well, now... if the watch contained 98.5% the same makeup as the sand, and it was a living organism capable of rendering offspring with mutated genes (for better or for worse), and there were other watches around that showed more characteristics of being sand than watch with various gradations in between the dated fossils...

    You do realize that you are arguing his point for him here, right? This was the point he was making...

  • Is an amusing JE header for an entry professing blind faith.

  • Yuck (Score:1)

    by grub ( 11606 )

    He's so indoctrinated into his religion he actually sounds scared in his JE. It happens a lot when people's irrational beliefs start to be chipped away by facts and proof.

    Seriously (and my friends/foes email will be a good read tonight I bet) I feel sorry for them. They're so afraid to let go of their invisible man that they'll lash out at anything which questions it. For centuries science has been chipping away at superstition so now about the only thing left is the whole existence of deities. Take away
  • (y'know, I really wish /. had their "reply to" button as a link, rather than a button, as LJ does it. Anyway)

    Evolving Watches
    It's an interesting rebuttal to the "evolution as fact" argument. Last I heard, it is somewhat supported by the lack of success in science turning a bunch of organic compounds into life.

    Factually, we can prove that evolution happens. We cannot prove that this is how we got to where we are -- although, since evolution is simpler than any other answer, we must agnostically run wi
    • (And Galielo was told to stay home for actual heresy. And he did recant. And he did very truly believe in Christianity. I suspect he'd be rather offended at being pulled out as a champion of atheism.)

      I wanted to throw Angels & Demons across the room over this very basic misunderstanding or misuse by Dan Brown.

    • Regardless of what it was that got Galileo put under house arrest, the fact remains that powerful members of the church fought most vehemently against his interpretation of the structure of the solar system.

      Now then....

      Point #1: Evolutionary theory attempts to explain how life got into its current state. It does not adequately explain what started life. There are other hypotheses that attempt to address that. As far as I know, none have been sufficiently testable or observable to turn into theories.

      Point
      • Let me make this part clear:

        Stickers shouldn't be necessary. Not because evoltuion is "TRUE!", but because science education should be more science, less facts. Ideally, instead of rote memorization we would have student-led scientific exploration of topics posed in order by the instructor.

        But if wherever wants to use stickers, all the more power to them.

        Point #3: At the core of religion, and this is what makes it a faith-based institution, is the fact that you must, at some point, cease to questoin t
  • I've already made some comments about the sticker and evolution in general in the comments to the /. article. I just wanted to respond to one comment you made.

    How, exactly, scientific thought isn't critical is beyond me. I mean... we're talking about an establishment here that THRIVES on questioning people's ideas and forcing them to defend them with proofs.

    Much science in elementary and middle school is more concerned with teaching facts - plants grow toward upward and toward light, this animal is a c
  • So, if what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, bible-thumpers shouldn't complain if we go around sticking the following warning in all bibles:
    This Bible contains material on creationism.

    Creationism is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of the world.

    This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
    I think I'll repost it there myself :-)
  • The church got pissy when it turned out to be a FACT that the earth revolves around the sun. The church got pissy with Galileo over his findings. It got pissy over Darwinism. It got pissy over the modern evolutionary theories that Darwin's postulates eventually spawned. It got pissy over the mathetmatical models and readings that point to evidence of a big bang.

    "The church" isn't really true. I presume you mean the Roman Catholic Church at any rate; other branches of Christianity have long taken a rather

  • Don't click here [landoverbaptist.org].

    Your head just might a-splode!

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