Keith Devens .com

That's a good comment from any predestinationalist.

What happened to my FSM comment?

"... evolution from the simplest life to more complex life is so astronomically implausible that the idea should be basically rejected out of hand."

Well... that's a religious statement as good as any, since no-one can really comprehend or gauge the astronomicalness of the named implausibility.

Also... it must be worth noting that the universe itself can be assumed to be astronomically big, at the same time as the universe probably can be assumed to have existed for an astronomical amount of time.

So, how do you compare or measure the different amounts of astronomicalness? It's impossible, of course..... wich is why I'd say the statement is religious in it's core to begin with.

Dr. Lee Spetner makes arguments to this effect, even taking into account what's thought to be the age of the universe and so on, in his book Not by Chance.

What happened to my FSM comment?

I deleted it.

I thought that by definition a theory is subject to challenge and scrutiny by the academic community. Any scientific theory can be supplanted by a better or more cohesive one, as long as it is achieved through scientific methods and review. I think we get into idiocy when we say,"In the case of this theory (and because many chistian groups feel threatened by it) we need to remind you that it is 'only a theory' and you shouldn't assume that it's a settled matter..." I'm hoping we all agree that teaching or suggesting any non-scientific alternative theory would be completely out of line in Science class.

Keith: I haven't read this book... but probably he makes the assumption that there is only one universe, in the way we know it. And probably he also assumes that there was "nothing" before the big bang.

And even so... I doubt that he manages to measure the different probabilities up against each other in any scientifically correct manner. It's just too big... and there are just too many parameters.

we need to remind you that it is 'only a theory' and you shouldn't assume that it's a settled matter...

I've argued against the whole "it's only a theory" argument myself. It's stupid in that it equivocates on "theory" and shows an ignorance of what scientific theories are. I also think it's a particularly lazy line of argumentation.

I'm hoping we all agree that teaching or suggesting any non-scientific alternative theory would be completely out of line in Science class.

As I wrote above, I agree. But as I've argued before, I don't think evolution itself is a scientific theory. (This huge-ass thread is basically the best reference point for my thoughts on that matter.) My point here is that, ignoring the fact that people unwittingly treat evolution as a scientific theory, there is dissent within the scientific community about evolution, and there are legitimate issues brought up by the ID movement that would be worth discussing in class. However, as I also mentioned, evolution tends to not actually be discussed in class^[1], but instead is merely assumed. It really is a form of religious indoctrination of its own masquerading as science.

Keith: I haven't read this book... but probably he makes the assumption that there is only one universe, in the way we know it. And probably he also assumes that there was "nothing" before the big bang.

Not sure why those issues are relevant. IIRC, it's more along the lines of "given known mutation rates, the probability that a mutation is harmful, the amount of time we think this all happened in, and so on and so on, are the claims of evolution even plausible?"

Footnotes:
[1]: given that (what I call 'creative') evolution has no relevance to the subject matter of any biology course except as a means of offering ad hoc historical explanations of some biological feature or another

FYI, here's an ok review of Spetner's book that'll give you a little more information about his approach.

"[...] Not sure why those issues are relevant. [...]"

They're relevant because improbable things become probable, given an infinite amount of time and space. So... in other words, it makes no sense to say that the probablity is "too small".....

As for the book, his main point seems to be that information has to come from somewhere, and that information cannot arise from nothing. And then he goes on to conclude that the information must have come from a creative force. And there his argument ends.

The followup, of course is then to say that the information of the creative force ALSO must have come from somewhere, and his argument could be re-applied to say that the creative force must have been created by yet another creative force... and so on, and so on...

So, yes... his whole statement is more of a religious statement than any scientific one, I'd say. Certainly... He does POSE as being scientific... but the issue he's dealing with really is a religious one.

Intelligent Design, Incompetence Design, Guided Evolution, Pure Evolution. Which one do you believe in?

I'll reproduce your options from your post here to make it easy to follow the discussion in case your site ever goes away:

For example, from pure Creationism to pure evolution, we can have the following strains.

1. Intelligence Design. God created every species from scratch.

2. Incompetent Design. God created every species. However, he’s not so powerful that he got it right the first time. ...

3. Guided evolution. God doesn’t create new species. He just guides evolution. So species show up by it self... [and after] a while, the species that survive in the gene pool are the one that God prefer.

4. Pure evolution. There was never a God. Life happened by it self.

From your options, I'd pick #1. However, what we refer to today as "species" is not the same as what the Bible refers to as "kinds" when describing the Creation.

Steven Turner

I don’t know where to start, but I need to start somewhere, thus would you take the time to read this? My name is Steven Turner, and I am a physicist in my own right. I started writing about psychology when I was thirteen years old and continued until I was twenty-two. I had not had a teacher of this, so I did all my examinations alone. When I was about twenty-three, my mind began changing focus towards the way our universe works. Again having no teacher, I had to figure it out alone. I wanted to determine how our atom works. I began testing personal theories about simple mathematical codes that the universe could use. Instead of trying to actually see what was going on in an atom, I tried to establish the only possible code that an atom could operate with. This seemed easier for I had no access to a collider, which I had no idea even existed at the time. I spent roughly three years figuring out a code that worked easily, simply, and well. Once I got this done, I signed up for a few classes at a college in order to slightly test my theories. I took a simple algebra class and a psychology class. I tried to show the math teacher some of my work, but not only did he seem to look at me as lesser than him, but he also seemed completely uninterested with my years of work. I suppose I really cant expect more from a teacher that’s just wants to teach his class, and pass no judgment, but I attained multitudes of universal information during attendance of the class. During my psychology class, it was as if I were at home, seeing things I had never noticed before. Within a few classes I noticed that the makeup of the mind was tightly comparable to the composure of the atom. I began connecting the known knowledge of psychology, with my theories of what I now call atomics, or universal mathematics. Soon I had begun creating something I would like to introduce to the world of science, as ((Psychological Atomics)). I believe I can explain how our minds follow the exact nature of atomic signatures, signals, transfers, disturbances, equations, and much more. I may not be a professional in the eyes of acknowledged world scientists, but I do have a great deal of heart for this. I believe that the universe is so simple that it may be easy to decipher its mechanisms by comparing everything we see around us. Mathematics is universal and associates with every natural world existence. Instead of just breaking the atom down I went straight for what I like to call the ((Bottom)). After briefly reading into some reports, I found that many call the bottom, the ((God particle)). I am trying to crack the atom code in a mobile home, within a small town of Arizona. I CAN DO IT!! All I need is a little time with professionals that I don’t know how to get in touch with. I have put atomics into algebraic and geometric formats and although I don’t have this code complete, I think I am closer than I should be. I can easily explain why light travels faster than sound, and why we don’t age while traveling at the speed of light. Time measurement is easy to define and calculate with this theory. I can make it complex enough to evade many, or easy enough for a grade school student to understand. I have over five hundred pages of journalism and diagrams to share with the scientific world, and whether or not it can ever be taken seriously, I would like to share it with someone. I am also timid to share it, in possibility that it will be stolen, but we all deserve and share the same knowledge together do we not? It doesn’t matter who figures these things out, it only matters that we do. I believe that I have a good idea of what happened seven steps before the Big Bang. This is all I am comfortable sharing at this point.

Thank you,
Your fellow physicist
[E-mail address redacted to protect you from spam]

Wow it's another Tim.