What is your #1 issue?

[rogue06]

Easy one. The use of MY tax dollars in public schools that teach crap I don't believe in. Like evolution and other liberal garbage.

Derail bait.

[Sea of red]

I have no problem with science.

I have a problem with the THEORY of evolution being taught as fact.

Etc.

Relativity, quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and nuclear physics are also theories.

A theory in science is a reliable well established framework of ideas that is supported by physical evidence.

[rogue06]

I have no problem with science.

I have a problem with the THEORY of evolution being taught as fact.

Etc.

Seems like this needs to be re-posted

Apparently the lack of understanding by many of what a theory is in science leads some to talk about how things like evolution are "only a theory" and therefore dismiss it on those grounds. But as the National Academy of Science explains, "theories are the goal of science" (see below) not, as the author and biochemist Isaac Asimov so eloquently put it, "something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."

Noted biologist Douglas J. Futuyma explains in his book "Evolution":



This article from LiveScience also makes clear what theory means in the scientific sense:

Source: What is a Scientific Theory?

Source

© Copyright Original Source

And as the prestigious National Academy of Sciences explained:

Source: Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998)

Why isn't evolution called a law


Laws are generalizations that describe phenomena, whereas theories explain phenomena. For example, the laws of thermodynamics describe what will happen under certain circumstances; thermodynamics theories explain why these events occur.

Laws, like facts and theories, can change with better data. But theories do not develop into laws with the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the goal of science.


Source

© Copyright Original Source

And before anyone gets their underwear all bunched up because I'm citing what they might call "pro-Darwin" sources perhaps these will help:

Source: American Heritage Dictionary

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: Dictionary.com

1. a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: Wikipedia: Scientific theory

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, and repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.

© Copyright Original Source

In science theories explain facts. Without them facts are merely isolated data points with no relation to one another. Science without theory is useless since facts without explanatory principles are meaningless. This is why that in science theories occupy the highest tier of knowledge.

So when scientists use the word "theory" they don't mean a "guess," a "conjecture" or a "hunch" (like when someone says "I have a theory why Susie doesn't like broccoli"), but rather a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.

IOW, in science theory means an overarching framework that has been carefully constructed, based upon facts and encompassing many tested hypotheses, used to explain a variety of observations concerning the real world.

So when someone grumbles about how evolution is "just a theory" it isn't a valid objection to it, but rather a persuasive point in its favor.

[mikewhitney]

You have confirmed my original problem. It is because of this view of science based on ancient mythology is what our education system needs to separated from.

At least you recognize that evolution was ancient mythology that was reinstated in the 1800s

[Sea of red]

At least you recognize that evolution was ancient mythology that was reinstated in the 1800s

How about you actually go and read a biology book.

Seriously, do it.

[Sea of red]

It amazes me that despite all of the evidence from homology, DNA sequencing, bio-geography, chromome-2, intermediate forms, and current on going examples of natural selection that people do not accept evolutionary theory.

[mikewhitney]

How about you actually go and read a biology book.

Seriously, do it.

What does that have to do with Shuny's rare astute observation?

[rogue06]

At least you recognize that evolution was ancient mythology that was reinstated in the 1800s

facepalm3.gif Yup. That's it. Exactly

tumblr_my4c9hJPCp1rzyxuro1_500.gif

[mikewhitney]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21910[/ATTACH] Yup. That's it. Exactly

Sorry Rogue,

I was just trying to interpret Shuny's remark in the best light.

[Zymologist]

How could anyone have an issue with #1?

Riker.jpg

[rogue06]

Umm, mossrose, common ancestry is one of the most well established theories in science. It has nothing to do with liberalism in any way shape or form -- which is why Christian biologists accept it too. It is taught for the simple reason that it is established science.

I don't think that anyone would ever call Charles Krauthammer a liberal and here was what he wrote about evolution and Intelligent Design back when Kitzmiller v. Dover was going on:

Source: Phony Theory, False Conflict

Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.

Newton's religion was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.

Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation -- understanding the workings of the universe -- as an attempt to understand the mind of God.

ad_icon
Not a crude and willful God who pushes and pulls and does things according to whim. Newton was trying to supplant the view that first believed the sun's motion around the earth was the work of Apollo and his chariot, and later believed it was a complicated system of cycles and epicycles, one tacked upon the other every time some wobble in the orbit of a planet was found. Newton's God was not at all so crude. The laws of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine.

Which brings us to Dover, Pa., Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education, and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.

Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" -- today's tarted-up version of creationism -- on the biology curriculum. Pat Robertson then called the wrath of God down upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city." Meanwhile, in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.

Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase " natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.

The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?

He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

© Copyright Original Source

[rogue06]

Sorry Rogue,

I was just trying to interpret Shuny's remark in the best light.

And that was your first mistake

[mossrose]

Derail bait.

No, it was shuny's post flipped around to the other side of the coin.

[Cow Poke]

I would have the First Amendment truncated to just its first 5 words.

[Starlight]

Mine would be to replace the first past the post voting system we have here.

America could use a replacement for that too, I think.

I don't know about that issue.
Would you explain?

"First Past the Post" aka "plurality voting" is the name for the voting system that both the UK and the US currently have where the candidate that gets the most votes wins. It has all sorts of problems but its three main problems are:
(1) it tends to make it really hard for 3rd parties to ever win anything and tends to lead to 2 main parties dominating politics
(2) it leads to disproportionate outcomes on the national scale - e.g. where one party might get 60% of the votes nationwide, but they only get 40% of their people elected because of how the votes happen to be distributed among regions
(3) you can know in advance your vote will be meaningless if you're a blue voter in a solid red district or vice versa.

There are all sorts of good alternative voting systems that fix this. The one I recommend for both the UK and for US is called STV (single-transferable vote) or "fair vote", and it involves merging existing electorates into bigger 3-5 member electorates and multiple candidates from each party run in each electorate, and then when people vote they write numbers beside the candidates (1,2,3 etc as many as they feel like) ranking their order of preference. The computers then do the math and crunch out who the most-liked candidates are by different groups of voters and the 3-5 seat electorates then get filled based on popularity of the candidates among the voting blocs. This system fixes all 3 of the above problems. It's reliably proportional, so if your district is 60% Red and 40% Blue you'll get 3 Red congressmen and 2 Blue ones, and the voters will also have chosen which of the 3 of 5 Red candidates they liked the best, and same with the Blues. (People who don't know one Red candidate from another but just know they like Red and hate Blue can just put 1,2,3,4,5 down the list of Red and leave the Blues out and randomized ballot orderings will balance out their votes with other voters in their situations)

Here in NZ we use another system which I don't think is quite as good called MMP (Mixed-member proportional) where you add to the ballot a party vote, and then if the Green party gets 10% of the party vote on the ballot, then it will be awarded 10% of the total seats in the parliament. (The identity of the individual congressmen/MPs is determined by a combination of who won local electorate seats plus pre-published official party lists where the parties themselves specify individuals to represent them) This voting system also solves the 3 problems listed above, but I don't think it's as good as STV (we use STV here in some local elections, but MMP is used in national elections).