Invisible wrote:
> As for people who oppose genetic engineering, they will argue that 
> bananas are OK, because the gene alteration happened "naturally".

I always giggle at the food store proclaiming "Seedless Grapes! No GMO!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Invisible wrote:
> Personally, I would make the separation that "Euclidean geometry" is a 
> mathematical theory, while "the real world conforms to Euclidean 
> geometry" is a scientific theory.

Exactly this. There are all kinds of geometries that are *not* useful 
outside mathematics, *because* they don't conform closely enough to the real 
world.

Which is more scientific: Newton's equations, or Einstein's equations?

It's just that mathematical theories that can't be related to something 
useful predicting how the world works get talked about only in very abstruse 
and rare situations. Hence, all the "math" that most people know is math 
that's somehow equatable to some subset of reality, making it seem like math 
is about reality.

Generate random text strings until one compiles. What good is that program? 
It almost certainly doesn't do anything useful. But it's just as valid a 
program as one you've carefully crafted from a detailed specification.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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John VanSickle wrote:
> Actually, it does.  It predicts, among other things, that the genetic 
> code for organisms may have features of no present use, but which may be 
> of use by descendant creatures. 

Then the proponents should be able to point out a whole bunch of genes that 
were present in older species that turned on in newer species without any 
mutation when the environment changed.

Which gene would that be, then?

> Be that as it may, I am against the teaching of life's origins on the 
> public dime, because it is a matter of public debate,

No it's not.

I guess we shouldn't teach about the holocaust either, or whether the USA 
won the civil war, or whether Hawaii is really a state of the USA?

> and is therefore 
> incompatible with the principles that underlie a free society.  What 
> invariably happens, when the government is allowed this power, is that 
> the people who are in the wrong will go running to the government to 
> have their view imposed by fiat, and all conflicting views suppressed to 
> one degree or another. 

Nobody is suppressing your ability to teach ID outside of science classes or 
in your own schools. The problem is that the issue was looked at, in detail, 
by those responsible for deciding what gets taught in public schools, and 
those looking at it decided it isn't science, after a long and public debate.

 > At the present moment a person who is skeptical
> that natural selection is sufficient to explain the entirety of 
> observable living systems is subject to exclusion from participating in 
> scientific and educational endeavors, even when the topic has no bearing 
> on the origin of life.

I think there are plenty of educators who teach math or social studies or 
english and believe God created man. In what way are they being excluded?

> "But we're not ignorant like they were then."  Actually, it's because of 
> a shift in political connections.

Um, no. It's the scientific method.

> As a practical matter, I of course oppose the teaching of views I 
> disagree with, but I also oppose the forced teaching of views that I 
> agree with, because that breeds resentment--especially if someone gets 
> drunk with power and exceeds his authority--and I don't want my views 
> getting blamed for some idiot's power trip.

So you support teaching only 100% non-controversial subjects? So you'd skip, 
say, the holocaust as part of history class?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Invisible wrote:
> You seriously expect me to believe 

That's a terrible argument.  "I couldn't imagine how something as complex as 
predicting the future that way could have happened" is just as bad an 
argument as "I couldn't imagine how hemoglobin came about."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Invisible wrote:
> Actually I think you'll find it's that all tetrapods are descendants of 
> a single fish ancestor, which just happened to have 5 digits. By now it 
> would be far too difficult to change it.

Sure. But we grew lungs, and new digestive systems, and homeostasis, scales 
and skin and fur and feathers, wings and hooves and talons, but we still all 
have five fingers, including the animals whose fingers are in a stiff and 
unbending mitten of cartilage. Look at the vast range of shapes out there, 
and tell me that it makes sense that none of them got rid of the pinky 
finger, or put on another bone somewhere.

> In short, I suspect that tetrapods all have 5 digits because there are 
> now highly complex, well-developed and extensively inter-dependent 
> systems of gene regulation for building 5 digits. You'd have to change a 
> hell of a lot of stuff to make it, say, 6.

No, that's the point. From what I read, you'd only have to change one gene. 
Except it's a gene in the middle of *another* sequence as well, which 
regulates development of the reproductive system.

> If you look at things that aren't tetrapods, you find that 5 isn't so 
> special.

You may be missing my point. Not that 5 is special, but the *persistence* of 
5 fingers when all else is changing is unusual.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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John VanSickle wrote:
> On 1/7/2011 1:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> I'm not sure why you have a job in IT instead of a job in teaching.
> 
> I taught computer literacy to fifteen-year-olds.

It's entirely possible to teach adults. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Invisible wrote:
> On 10/01/2011 04:01 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> 
>> Teaching requires, in addition to subject matter competency, skill in
>> classroom management and lesson planning and presentation. I was hired
>> having a CIS degree, but with no training in the other areas. If you
>> don't know what to watch for, the kids will go crazy. Toss in the kids
>> who weren't raised right (for whatever reason), and the situation
>> becomes unmanageable.
> 
> I would have thought the biggest problem is that kids don't want to 
> learn anything, don't give a damn what you're talking about, and will 
> basically go to any lengths to avoid being taught.
> 
> _That_ is why I'm not a teacher.

Don't teach kids. Teach adults.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Interestingly enough, all the "evidence" for ID is equally explained by 
> evolved outer-space aliens doing genetic engineering on Earth. Even *if* you 
> accept that evolution couldn't have produced the eye, or flagellum, or 
> whatever, you *still* don't get to say it must have been God, unless you 
> also rule out life anywhere else in the universe.

  That's also the major problem in all of the arguments for the existence
of God (such as the cosmological, transcendental and ontological ones):
Even if you accepted all the postulations of the arguments as valid (which
they aren't, but even if), they are simply giving the unknown origin of
the Universe the label "God", without telling anything at all about this
"God". It's just a meaningless label for the unknown.

  Further claiming that this "God" is the god of a modern religion is a
typical argument from ignorance.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> > On 10/01/2011 04:01 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> >
> >> Teaching requires, in addition to subject matter competency, skill in
> >> classroom management and lesson planning and presentation. I was hired
> >> having a CIS degree, but with no training in the other areas. If you
> >> don't know what to watch for, the kids will go crazy. Toss in the kids
> >> who weren't raised right (for whatever reason), and the situation
> >> becomes unmanageable.
> >
> > I would have thought the biggest problem is that kids don't want to
> > learn anything, don't give a damn what you're talking about, and will
> > basically go to any lengths to avoid being taught.
> >
> > _That_ is why I'm not a teacher.
>
> Don't teach kids. Teach adults.

wise suggestion.  Adults seeking education are eager to learn because most
likely were the types of kids who didn't want to learn back then and because of
that took quite a beating in life.  They are much more humble now.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > Be that as it may, I am against the teaching of life's origins on the 
> > public dime, because it is a matter of public debate,

> No it's not.

  Just read a funny anecdote of what happens when things are considered
"a matter of public debate":

"In Brockport, N.Y, in 1887, M.C. Flanders argued the case of a flat
Earth for three nights against two scientific gentlemen defending
sphericity. Five townsmen chosen as judges voted unanimously for a
flat Earth at the end."

  You can really come up with "proofs" of any argument you want. For example
in 1864 an author named William Carpenter published a book named "Theoretical
Astronomy Examined and Exposed - Proving the Earth not a Globe", and later
in 1885 another book named "A hundred proofs the Earth is not a Globe". He
was being serious.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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