keepthefaith Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Well if that's what he actually said then I'd agree with him. My understanding was that he would be against any Muslim- extremist or not- even being eligible to run for President. I know that he backtracked on his original statement to make it a little more politically correct. And we should all be against any Muslim being president as Islam views religion and governing as un-separable. Since Islam and our constitution have incompatible laws and principles, any Muslim president could not be true to his religious beliefs and our constitution. In other words, Islam does not allow for the separation of church and state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azalin Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 In other words, Islam does not allow for the separation of church and state. On the other hand, it does allow for the separation of head from shoulders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keepthefaith Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 On the other hand, it does allow for the separation of head from shoulders. Not only does it allow it, it encourages it and supposedly rewards it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metzelaars_lives Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) Denying Darwin's theory of evolution has no bearing on ability to govern. Who cares? Do we make policy based on what's going to happen a million or 100 million years from now? Because it is indicative of a fundamental lack of deductive reasoning. You are right, there is no direct effect. If a candidate can't spell "potato" or makes up words in speeches as he goes, it has no direct effect on his ability to govern. But it speaks to the fact that he's probably not a very smart guy. And once again, denying evolution is almost always related to a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. And people who interpret the Old Testament literally tend to base their sociopolitical beliefs on the Bible and that absolutely affects one's ability to govern properly. Unless you think that basing opinions and policies off of the Old Testament (with respect to climate change, gay rights, what we teach our children in school, etc., etc.) is the proper way to govern in which case we're probably never going to see eye to eye on this one. Edited November 4, 2015 by metzelaars_lives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azalin Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Because it is indicative of a fundamental lack of deductive reasoning. You are right, there is no direct effect. If a candidate can't spell "potato" or makes up words in speeches as he goes, it has no direct effect on his ability to govern. But it speaks to the fact that he's probably not a very smart guy. Do you believe that a person who attains the position of head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins isn't educated in science and 'probably not a very smart guy'? Have you ever considered that Darwin's theory is still just a theory because no positive proof has yet been offered to back it up? Granted, I believe the theory of evolution is quite likely correct, but to believe in an unproven theory requires faith, the very thing that one must have to believe in creation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metzelaars_lives Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Do you believe that a person who attains the position of head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins isn't educated in science and 'probably not a very smart guy'? Have you ever considered that Darwin's theory is still just a theory because no positive proof has yet been offered to back it up? Granted, I believe the theory of evolution is quite likely correct, but to believe in an unproven theory requires faith, the very thing that one must have to believe in creation. You make a good point. The case of Ben Carson is indeed a puzzling one. Where I come from, we accept the theory of evolution as kind of a fact. Perhaps I am naïve. Personally, I never understood how creationism and evolution were necessarily mutually exclusive- as long as you were willing to consider the possibility that maybe Adam wasn't a 6' tall handsome white man with wavy brown hair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Because it is indicative of a fundamental lack of deductive reasoning. You are right, there is no direct effect. If a candidate can't spell "potato" or makes up words in speeches as he goes, it has no direct effect on his ability to govern. But it speaks to the fact that he's probably not a very smart guy. And once again, denying evolution is almost always related to a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. And people who interpret the Old Testament literally tend to base their sociopolitical beliefs on the Bible and that absolutely affects one's ability to govern properly. Unless you think that basing opinions and policies off of the Old Testament (with respect to climate change, gay rights, what we teach our children in school, etc., etc.) is the proper way to govern in which case we're probably never going to see eye to eye on this one. So I think we did not evolve from this planet. I do not believe we climbed out of the primordial ooze. I think that there is a good possibility that we are the remnants of aliens that visited our planet thousands of years ago. So I'm not a very smart guy? And I and no interpretation of the Old Testament. I deny the existence of God. Can I govern? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireChan Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) Because it is indicative of a fundamental lack of deductive reasoning. You are right, there is no direct effect. If a candidate can't spell "potato" or makes up words in speeches as he goes, it has no direct effect on his ability to govern. But it speaks to the fact that he's probably not a very smart guy. And once again, denying evolution is almost always related to a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. And people who interpret the Old Testament literally tend to base their sociopolitical beliefs on the Bible and that absolutely affects one's ability to govern properly. Unless you think that basing opinions and policies off of the Old Testament (with respect to climate change, gay rights, what we teach our children in school, etc., etc.) is the proper way to govern in which case we're probably never going to see eye to eye on this one. Evolution is a theory, not a fact. You are pretending that denying evolution is like denying gravity. It isn't. What is the difference between someone who denies climate change and evolution because they think it's bogus, and the ones who deny climate change and evolution because they think it's bogus and goes against their religion? I am asking for a functional difference. The answer is.....nothing. Edited November 4, 2015 by FireChan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Evolution is a theory, not a fact. You are pretending that denying evolution is like denying gravity. It isn't. No, actually it pretty much is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireChan Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 No, actually it pretty much is. Macro evolution? No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Because it is indicative of a fundamental lack of deductive reasoning. Y And as I already explained, deductive reasoning is not necessary for the job. Macro evolution? No. Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireChan Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 And as I already explained, deductive reasoning is not necessary for the job. Yes. Tell me, where have we reproduced or witnessed macroevolution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeYouToTasker Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Rereading this thread, I hit on something I missed before: metzelaars_lives, you said that you could never vote for Ted Cruz because of his religious beliefs. What about his beliefs are so unpalatable to you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Tell me, where have we reproduced or witnessed macroevolution? Your question evidences a misunderstanding of what "reproducibility" means in a scientific theory. But nevertheless...it's been observed in several species of insects. And has been observed in process for larger animals in Borneo, Ngorogoro crater, Minorca, Galapagos, and Lake Victoria that I know of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireChan Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Your question evidences a misunderstanding of what "reproducibility" means in a scientific theory. But nevertheless...it's been observed in several species of insects. And has been observed in process for larger animals in Borneo, Ngorogoro crater, Minorca, Galapagos, and Lake Victoria that I know of. My understanding of reproducibility is that being able to reproduce a study is necessary to prove the validity of a result. IE you can drop an apple and it will always fall towards the center of gravity on earth for the misnamed "law" of gravity. The observations you speak of, to the best of my knowledge, only apply to the change in allele frequencies of populations. They may point to a gradual change in species, but they are not indicative of primordial ooze-to-humans type of macroevolution, which I assume is what most religious folks object to. And as I'm sure you're aware, the whole species concept is fiercely debated in scientific communities between splitters(?) and lumpers(?) IIRC. Carson, for example, believes in microevolution but not macroevolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 My understanding of reproducibility is that being able to reproduce a study is necessary to prove the validity of a result. IE you can drop an apple and it will always fall towards the center of gravity on earth for the misnamed "law" of gravity. The observations you speak of, to the best of my knowledge, only apply to the change in allele frequencies of populations. They may point to a gradual change in species, but they are not indicative of primordial ooze-to-humans type of macroevolution, which I assume is what most religious folks object to. And as I'm sure you're aware, the whole species concept is fiercely debated in scientific communities between splitters(?) and lumpers(?) IIRC. Carson, for example, believes in microevolution but not macroevolution. No, they actually don't. I referred to actual, observed instances of speciation or locations where it's been observed. And if they aren't indicative of "ooze-to-humans" macroevolution...that might have something to do with the difference of an observational baseline of some 50-70 years when compared to half a billion years. Pick a short enough time basis, and genetic drift doesn't occur, either. Regarding reproducibility...it's not being able to reproduce a study that counts, it's being able to reproduce a test. I've explained this before...all a scientific theory is, is a model that describes and predicts the observable world. The quality of the theory is measured by the accuracy of how well it describes the observable world. "Reproducability" refers to the ability of a scientific theory to repeatedly give the same result for a repeated test. The key point here being: "test" is not necessarily an active process by which you design and execute a study. A "test" may very well be an exercise of passive data gathering an analysis to compare your model to the real world. For example, you don't have to drop an apple to test gravity. You can observe the moon's path through the sky, and from that and some spherical trigonometry test the theory of gravity. Likewise, you don't have to observe a species evolving. You can observe the current genetics of related species, and by analyzing genetic drift determine roughly when they shared a common ancestor. That's reproducible in that anyone with the same data can execute the same test, and get a result (presumably one that's the same or similar to the original, else it probably shouldn't have been published. It's also one of the reasons climate change is such a hash - testability has been superseded by "consensus," and when the science is tested it much of it turns out to be ****.) And the concept of "species," from an evolutionary point of view, should be questioned, in my opinion. "Species" is a taxonomical definition. It's used to support evolutionary theory, but largely as a convenience. A large part of the public "controversy" surrounding evolution has to do with the confusion caused by treating evolution speciation as punctuated, rather than continuous. That's not a flaw of evolution, it's a flaw of taxonomy, and not exclusive to biology (any discipline that requires discrete classification of a continuum of results has a "lumpers vs. splitters" debate. I can think of three examples from astronomy: stellar classification, planetary classification - e.g. Pluto, and exoplanet classification - which hasn't become a controversy yet, but it will.) Now the obvious rebuttal to the above paragraph is that the evolutionary record doesn't show a continuum of species ("no transitional fossils.") There's three problems with that rebuttal: 1) it's unanswerable. If you claim that fossil B did not evolve from fossil A because there's no transitional fossil, and later fossil C is discovered, you claim that there's no transitional fossil between fossil A and C, and fossil C and B. That's makes it not a rebuttal, but Xeno's paradox. 2) it's wrong. There are recorded transitional fossils. 3) It confuses "completeness" with falsity. Better theories are more complete, but a theory is not false for being incomplete, nor true for being complete. And only a fool would claim that the fossil record is complete - people claim that we should see "billions and billions" of transitional fossils if evolution is true, conveniently ignoring the fact that we shouldn't see billions and billions of any fossils, transitional or not, since fossilization is a rare and inconsistent process subject to geological dynamics (in fact, if we did see "billions and billions" of fossils, that would arguably disprove evolution by throwing a major wrench into tectonic theory and the age of the earth - the planet would either have to be very static, or too young for evolution to happen, to see that sort of fossil record.) And getting back to your original statement, that's why your original statement that "denying evolution isn't like denying gravity" is incorrect. As scientific theories go, they're of roughly equivalent quality: both accurately describe and predict the observable world in a manner that is testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. And they're both significantly incomplete (yes, gravity is an incomplete theory. Woefully so, in fact. It's incompatible with quantum theory, which means we can't apply it to the vast majority of physical interactions we observe.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 No, they actually don't. I referred to actual, observed instances of speciation or locations where it's been observed. And if they aren't indicative of "ooze-to-humans" macroevolution...that might have something to do with the difference of an observational baseline of some 50-70 years when compared to half a billion years. Pick a short enough time basis, and genetic drift doesn't occur, either. Regarding reproducibility...it's not being able to reproduce a study that counts, it's being able to reproduce a test. I've explained this before...all a scientific theory is, is a model that describes and predicts the observable world. The quality of the theory is measured by the accuracy of how well it describes the observable world. "Reproducability" refers to the ability of a scientific theory to repeatedly give the same result for a repeated test. The key point here being: "test" is not necessarily an active process by which you design and execute a study. A "test" may very well be an exercise of passive data gathering an analysis to compare your model to the real world. For example, you don't have to drop an apple to test gravity. You can observe the moon's path through the sky, and from that and some spherical trigonometry test the theory of gravity. Likewise, you don't have to observe a species evolving. You can observe the current genetics of related species, and by analyzing genetic drift determine roughly when they shared a common ancestor. That's reproducible in that anyone with the same data can execute the same test, and get a result (presumably one that's the same or similar to the original, else it probably shouldn't have been published. It's also one of the reasons climate change is such a hash - testability has been superseded by "consensus," and when the science is tested it much of it turns out to be ****.) And the concept of "species," from an evolutionary point of view, should be questioned, in my opinion. "Species" is a taxonomical definition. It's used to support evolutionary theory, but largely as a convenience. A large part of the public "controversy" surrounding evolution has to do with the confusion caused by treating evolution speciation as punctuated, rather than continuous. That's not a flaw of evolution, it's a flaw of taxonomy, and not exclusive to biology (any discipline that requires discrete classification of a continuum of results has a "lumpers vs. splitters" debate. I can think of three examples from astronomy: stellar classification, planetary classification - e.g. Pluto, and exoplanet classification - which hasn't become a controversy yet, but it will.) Now the obvious rebuttal to the above paragraph is that the evolutionary record doesn't show a continuum of species ("no transitional fossils.") There's three problems with that rebuttal: 1) it's unanswerable. If you claim that fossil B did not evolve from fossil A because there's no transitional fossil, and later fossil C is discovered, you claim that there's no transitional fossil between fossil A and C, and fossil C and B. That's makes it not a rebuttal, but Xeno's paradox. 2) it's wrong. There are recorded transitional fossils. 3) It confuses "completeness" with falsity. Better theories are more complete, but a theory is not false for being incomplete, nor true for being complete. And only a fool would claim that the fossil record is complete - people claim that we should see "billions and billions" of transitional fossils if evolution is true, conveniently ignoring the fact that we shouldn't see billions and billions of any fossils, transitional or not, since fossilization is a rare and inconsistent process subject to geological dynamics (in fact, if we did see "billions and billions" of fossils, that would arguably disprove evolution by throwing a major wrench into tectonic theory and the age of the earth - the planet would either have to be very static, or too young for evolution to happen, to see that sort of fossil record.) And getting back to your original statement, that's why your original statement that "denying evolution isn't like denying gravity" is incorrect. As scientific theories go, they're of roughly equivalent quality: both accurately describe and predict the observable world in a manner that is testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. And they're both significantly incomplete (yes, gravity is an incomplete theory. Woefully so, in fact. It's incompatible with quantum theory, which means we can't apply it to the vast majority of physical interactions we observe.) You must be a blast at parties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 Listen man, we're all Bills fans and adults here. Can we ease off the "retard" talk? And AGAIN, yes, while I do think it would be INSANE for the leader of a modernized, westernized country in the year 2015 to not embrace Darwin's theory of evolution (there aren't any and there isn't going to be one anytime soon), I wouldn't deny the legitimacy of their position if they won an election fair and square. And I have expounded again and again on why I find that to be an insane notion. Let me ask you this: do you think a creationist is even electable (for president, specifically) in the US in the year 2015? I don't. Dude- just, no. So, you must agree with me, eh? I'll admit I wouldn't want to be put in a position of having to defend them either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reddogblitz Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 (edited) Some make the news. Most don't. Who cares? The bigger issue is the blatant security breach. This is what I was wondering. Doesn't look like all their **** would fit in one bag. When they were up there before the sign was unfurled I figured it would be an anti-fur sign. Edited November 5, 2015 by reddogblitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 You must be a blast at parties. I don't get invited to parties. But my family loves listening to me bloviate about this **** at holidays. Between the six of me, my siblings, and our spouses, we have eight graduate degrees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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