DSM explains how Xian fundimentalism is in the Amer Const

Originally posted by DSMyers1 Guys, I just don't have time to go through all this...and Christian Fundamentalism is not in the American Constitution.  However, the idea of inalienable rights is basic to Christianity, where each person was created by God.  The Bill of Rights was added due to an outrcry over the lack of an explicit guarantee that these rights would not be violated.  As for European nations--just note that the Reformation led pretty directly to the freer governments based on the equality of mankind.  It took a while... Notice also that now they are progressing towards socialism, government responsibility rather than personal responsibility, and moral degredation.  If the government assumes too much responsibility, hello communism!  And there is no longer any moral basis to guarantee human rights.  It is now just expedient to do so, based on international pressures.  If it is no longer expedient, the rights will likely disappear...

 

ok before I get off topic, I just want to say, as I said in another thread, Americas political evolution of rights has more to do with contact with native Americnas such as the Iroquois in combination with secular European thought then it has in any religious or even previous European movement. blah

Whose to say we're not all attached to the earth by invisible strings. Can you prove that wrong?

All scientific hypotheses should be falsifyable.

Science has a positivist paradigm, and a modus operandi which defines a number of criteria in order to decide which hypotheses are scintific and which ones are not. A non-falsifyable (theoretically the same as 'non-provable' but operationally more sensible) hypothesis or theory is not a scientific theory, and thus stays out of the scope of science, and along with it, the school curricula.

So, coming back to your question, it depends on the properties of your 'invisible strings'. If they are invisible to the human eye, but let's say are visible in infra-red, I can detect them using a infra-red camera. Similarly, if they create a magnetic or electric field, I can detect them using suitable equipment. In short, if something affects our universe, it is possible to measure/detect/observe. When you define the properties of your 'invisible strings' scientists (and you) will rush to make experiments to see if the theory survives experimental results. If it doesn't it is discarded as wrong. But the point is that it should lend itself to empirical evaluation of its validity.

On the other hand, if you claim that your 'invisible strings' (or candles in space) are so that there exists no means of experimentally falsifying their existence, or a 'god', a 'great ethereal demon hamster spirit', etc. intervenes whenever we try to observe them and makes it impossible (of course the intervening deity and intervention itself cannot be detected either), it means that your theory is non-scientific. Anyone can come up with a non-scientific explanation for anything, but they have no place in institutions of scientific learning, such as schools or universities. 

Another feature of scientific paradigm is called 'Occam's razor'. This principle states that if 2 or more hypothesis can explain a phenomenon equally well, other things being equal, the simpler hypothesis is valid.

Different forms of Creationism (or 'Intelligent Design') fail to confirm these criteria at various points. Most of them are not scientific because they involve a metaphysical agency a 'god', 'tooth fairy', 'mega demon bunny spirit', 'aliens from another dimension' etc. Even if a scientific 'intelligent design' theory is designed (probably involving aliens or prehistoric intelligent species), which can explain evolution as good as modern Darwinism does, it would be cut by Occam's razor principle, because it complicates the matters (assuming no evidence of ancient alien laboratories are found by archeologists).

Creationism as a plausible explanation of life is as dead as a Trilobite fossil from the Paleozoic.

I agree with Tobodei that the humans have this tendency to place themselves at the centre of the universe. Anyone who knows anything about the universe knows that we are semi-intelligent monkeys living on a speck of dust revolving around an insignificant star in the suburbia of an insignificant galaxy. The universe is full of galaxies and each galaxy is full of stars. They were there before our sun started shining, and they will be there after our sun will stop shining.

And it is so vast and empty that we cannot even hope travelling to the nearest stupid star in a thousand years (btw the chances of getting hit by anything larger than a hydrogen atom in interplanetary space let alone interstellar is negligable- the space is REALLY empty). Yet people are quite confident in their beliefs that all this was created by some mysterious spirit who somehow looks like us (like a monkey), to function as some sort of romantic background, some sort of friggin' celestial wallpaper...

Btw, Darwinian theory of evolution is NOT about complex life occuring randomly from scratch. It says the randomly occuring combinations are subjected to a selection process, and those that fit the environment survive. Evolution is not a random process at all. That this theory involves random creation of complex structures is a creationist straw-man. 

Originally posted by JanusRook To those that thought creationism didn't have intelligent explanations I found this: http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/top.htm Here's the homepage: http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/

After reading three of their pieces of "evidence" I gave up because it was crap.  They obviously don't know anything about science.

Originally posted by BattleGlory They can be altered by mutation, but no one has EVER seen a mutation that increased genetic information.  It only loses part. Down syndrome .  That's one whole more chromosone.  Not too shabby for something that can't increase genetic information As to your comment about radiocarbon dating, stop twisting information.  Carbon-14 dating is only good to 40,000 years, it's not the only system to date things with.

Down's Syndrome does not increase genetic information, it duplicates a piece already there, causing problems:

Most people have 22 pairs of ordinary chromosomes plus the pair of sex chromosomes (XX or XY). Down�s Syndrome people have instead of a pair at 21, a triple, hence the term trisomy 21. But there is no new information, any more than two copies of an encyclopedia contain twice as much information. Here this results in an imbalance. Note that many reactions in the body require a precise sequence of enzymes � Down�s Syndrome people have an extra copy of the superoxide dismutase gene which breaks down the very reactive superoxide ion (O2�). Its product is peroxide (O22�), which is normally broken down by the next enzyme. But in this case, with the extra production, there is too much to cope with.

As for Radiocarbon dating:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dating.asp

 

I think the problem with communication in the wording. I think this is what's trying to be said. Down's Syndrome does not increase separate(new, different, I can't think of a good word) genetic information. It merely duplicates existing information so although there is technically more information its old news as it were.