Evolution and science...

[Polycarp]

@Razorsharp

No, it is not a false premise at all. When school administrations forbid the use of historical documents in the classroom, because the documents contain references to God, that is liberal hostility towards religion.

As a liberal and a devout Christian, I call BS on this one. What “historical documents” are you referring to, in what schools, under what circumstances? If you’re saying that no public official, including school teachers and administrators, are permitted to force the teachings of the Bible on students who may not believe in it, I say, fine. I came to my faith through free thought and education; let them have opportunity to do likewise, instead of being force-fed someone else’s beliefs. Other than that, I know of no instances where “school administrations forbid the use of historical documents in the classroom, because the documents contain references to God.” In short, Cite?

When robed dictators decree that the Pledge of Allegience is unconstitutional because of the phrase “one nation under God”, that is liberal hostitlity towards religion.

First, I would presume that any “robed dictators” are in countries other than the U.S., since we don’t have any dictators here, robed or not. And they’re perfectly entitled to hold whatever views they care to about the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

Now, as for judges, appointed by elected officials or in the case of some states themselves elected, not a one of them has ever ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. It is well within the ambit of any state legislature’s powers to decide what shall be standard patriotic symbols; while it would be rather difficult to point to a given Article I power that gives Congress like authority, no one, liberal or conservative, has ever objected to Congress setting forth official symbols for this country, nor are they likely ever to do so.

What has been declared unconstitutional is school board regulations compelling or coercing the recital of the Pledge of Allegiance by public school children, and the reasons for that are clearly set forth in the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Unless you are arguing that children have no citizens’ rights, a point the most conservative lawyer in the country would be happy to set you straight on.

When communities with a tradition of Christian observance are ordered to remove century-old plaques of The Ten Commandments from their local courthouses, that is liberal hostility towards religion.

“Communities” don’t have traditions of Christian observance in this country; their citizens do. And their citizens are entitled to recognize the Ten Commandments as whatever they choose to recognize them as, including the graven word of the Lord God of Hosts, the foundation of their legal heritage, or anything else.

Although again I don’t personally know of any cases where “century-old plaques” have been removed from courthouses. I do know of one where a political-activist Presbyterian minister gave a monument containing the 10C to a state chief judge; that’s been all over the press. But the only thing centuries old about that item was the rock it was made of. Personally, I like the approach taken in Nash County, NC, recently. A trial involving religious freedom was being conducted; at the request of the defendant and with the consent of the prosecution, cloth was draped over the bas relief of the Ten Commandments at the side of the courtroom, which was left in place, to avoid their influencing the court’s deliberations one way or the other.

Enviornment plays a significant role in the theory of evolution, and enviornment plays a significant role in the different cultures of the world, which, in turn, contribute to the differences in social behaviors and intelligence of the different groups within the human species.

Cite? From a reputable anthropologist or ethnologist, not a blog, please!

Second, although you have a habit of using the word, you don’t exhibit having knowledge of the true meaning of the word 'lie". See, Tom, a lie is a deliberate deception, not an opinion that you may disagree with. So, why would it be a “lie” to say that many evolutionists say that black sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ somewhere near 70, when the scientific method of IQ measurement bears that statistic out?

It is a lie because “many evolutionists” say no such thing. Maybe many rabidly conservative and racist sources say that they do, but that is not proof of anything except your ability to evaluate your source material.

[/quote]
And don’t give me that, “IQ tests are biased or flawed” nonsense. Despite the many attempts at developing “bias free” IQ tests, they always render the same racial statistics. If IQ tests can be biased, why is it that there has never been a test biased in such a manner that Blacks excel over Whites?
[/quote]

Let’s see some cites on this one. Considering that there are several intelligent black members of this board, you are off to a good start on providing evidence of the counterexample you request, here.

In short, you are in my unofficial and not authoritative opinion spreading lies, insulting Tom~ for questioning them, and about one step from being banned as a racist. Produce proof of your allegations, and you may actually get someone to listen to you. Repeating them yet again, or citing someone who said them without evidence that you find interesting, is not proof. Produce that proof.

[Aagramn]

@Razorsharp

And speaking of lies, how 'bout this whopper.

The claim is not that the races are equal but that we cannot even accurately identify who belongs in which race.

From here.

“There’s about a 15 percent genetic variation between any two individuals,” according to science writer Deborah Blum. “Less than half of that, about 6 percent, is accounted for by known racial groupings…A randomly selected white person, therefore, can easily be genetically closer to an African than another white”

From a genetic point of view, the idea of skin colour being a dominant factor in determining “race” is absurd. It’s mearly a very visible characteristic. Culture is the biggest factor in differentiating groups of humans.

As for your other claims, do you have any cites to back them up?

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Razorsharp

When school administrations forbid the use of historical documents in the classroom, because the documents contain references to God, that is liberal hostility towards religion. When robed dictators decree that the Pledge of Allegience is unconstitutional because of the phrase “one nation under God”, that is liberal hostitlity towards religion. When communities with a tradition of Christian observance are ordered to remove century-old plaques of The Ten Commandments from their local courthouses, that is liberal hostility towards religion.

And when the hysterical bullshit flows freely on the SDMB, that is Razorsharp (and occasionally Diogenes the Cynic or Reeder).

[Aagramn]

@Razorsharp

Despite the many attempts at developing “bias free” IQ tests, they always render the same racial statistics. If IQ tests can be biased, why is it that there has never been a test biased in such a manner that Blacks excel over Whites?

Some more evidence from here that strongly supports the notion that cultural factors have a greater bearing on IQ than genetics.

“As Herrnstein and Murray concede, children from very low socio-economic status backgrounds who are adopted into high socio-economic status backgrounds have IQs dramatically higher than their parents.”

“…average IQ in Holland rose 21 points between 1952 and 1982.”

I don’t see how genetics could account for such a large leap in average IQ over a single generation. Do you believe that only the cleverest people were having children over this period?

[sqweels]

Razorsharp, have you bothered to notice all the forms of religious expression in this country that are not being attacked by liberals? Are liberals demanding that religious displays be removed from private homes or commercial billboards, etc? Are they picketing churces? The only time churches get picketed is when they become too gay friendly. Indeed there is tremendous religious hostility toward liberalism.

[Twoflower]

@Voyager

In my experience creationists are either ignorant, stupid, or liars.

At least **Nolies **made an honest effort to make his argument, misguided though it was. All I’m seeing from **Razorsharp **is name calling. I think the evidence here favors Voyager’s postiion …

[tomndebb]

When school administrations forbid the use of historical documents in the classroom, because the documents contain references to God, that is liberal hostility towards religion.

If this ever happens,(as opposed to being one more utter distortion by WND or whoever), it is not the action of liberals, but the actions of idiots who are frightened of reactionary propaganda that distorts the actual rulings of the courts–the same courts that have never banned the Declaration of Independence (for example) from the class room and have supported the rights of students (defended by the ACLU) to read the bible on their own time in school.

Bull-oney. Enviornment plays a significant role in the theory of evolution, and enviornment plays a significant role in the different cultures of the world, which, in turn, contribute to the differences in social behaviors and intelligence of the different groups within the human species.

Speaking of bologna, your utter lack of comprehension regarding the differences between adaptive behavior in a particular situation and genetic natural selection as a response to physical environments over long periods of time disqualifies you from even participating in any serious discussion on the topic. And using this to not respond to my actual statement proves that you are way out of your depth, here.

Second, although you have a habit of using the word, you don’t exhibit having knowledge of the true meaning of the word 'lie". See, Tom, a lie is a deliberate deception, not an opinion that you may disagree with. So, why would it be a “lie” to say that many evolutionists say that black sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ somewhere near 70, when the scientific method of IQ measurement bears that statistic out?

The lie, as I made pretty clear to those who can grasp English, was not that there have never been odd people wandering around pretending that they can measure intelligence, effectively, but that the people engaging in that odd behavior are not “evolutionists.” The people who are really big fans of psychometrics tend to stick to their own field and do not actually engage in genuine research or analysis of evolution. Dawkins never plays with IQ games. Eldridge and Wilson never play around with IQ measurements. Mayr, Poirier, Weiner, Clark, and others never spend(spent) any effort pushing IQ propaganda. Gould wrote a whole book arguing against IQ games and wrote numerous critiques of works that purported to identify IQ. This is not to claim that no one who recognizes the fact of evolution also engages in the hunt for the wild IQ, but it is not something that any honest person can describe as “many evolutionists” championing. Your source was a liar.

[dropzone]

@Razorsharp

When communities with a tradition of Christian observance are ordered to remove century-old plaques of The Ten Commandments from their local courthouses…

Funny you should mention that since stories like this (selected from the first one I found through Google) have been all over the media lately:

E.J. Ruegemer was a believer in the Ten Commandments.

A juvenile court judge in Minnesota in the 1940s, he presided over a case of a boy who stole a car and struck and injured a priest. Ruegemer sentenced him to learn the Ten Commandments.

That seemed to help the boy, which spurred Ruegemer to launch an effort with the Fraternal Order of Eagles to post them in schools and courtrooms.

snip

In the mid 1950s, the effort got a boost from Hollywood. Director Cecil B. DeMille decided the displays would be a good way to promote his film, The Ten Commandments, and urged the Eagles to build monuments instead of posting paper copies.

The Eagles reportedly built 4,000 of them; Demille dispatched Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, the stars of the film, to appear at some of the dedications.

"There are scores of newspaper clippings in which the local newspaper says things like “Moses Comes to Fargo,’ with a picture of Heston flying into the small town,” Finkelman said.

snip

Hundreds of the Eagles monuments are still standing and countless others have been built by other groups.

Not exactly “hundreds of years old.” Heck, many of them are not even as old as me, much less the venerable David Simmons. And not placed there entirely because of a need to improve American morals but also as a publicity stunt for a fairly lousy Hollywood movie.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

So, why would it be a “lie” to say that many evolutionists say that black sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ somewhere near 70

As has already been pointed out, the lie is that “many evolutionists” don’t say this.

when the scientific method of IQ measurement bears that statistic out?

Rushton. Uh huh. I know you don’t want us to tell you about “cultural bias”, but everybody else can check out Page 3.

The first half of the data for this study are taken from an African Zimbabwean educational psychologist, Fred Zindi (1994) who carefully matched 204 Black Zimbabwean pupils and 202 White British children from London inner-city schools for age (12-14 years old), sex, and educational level, both samples being characterized as “working class”. All students were tested individually and efforts were made to form a well-functioning and representative sample…Although the Zimbabwean scores might have been depressed by by a language factor since English was not the Zimbabwean’s children’s first language, it could not have been by much because Zindi (1994) found almost the same magnitude of difference on the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, a much less culturally loaded test.

Scientific procedural mistakes here include:
[ul]
[li] Zindi hand-picked his sampling group.[/li]
[li] He deliberately tried to make up a “representative” group. [/li]
Thus his results are not a sampling of “Zimbabwean black children”, but are only a sampling of “Zindi’s hand-picked Zimbabwean black children”.
[li] He gave half of his subjects a test in a language they were not familiar with.[/li][li] A sweeping, non-scientific generalization is then made: that the fact that half the children did not speak the language the test was given in did not signify, because, we are told, they did almost as badly on a different test. [/li]
The two things do not logically follow, however, since we are not told exactly what their scores were on the Raven, so we have to take Rushton’s word for it that they were “almost the same magnitude of difference.”
[/ul]

[Voyager]

@Twoflower

At least **Nolies **made an honest effort to make his argument, misguided though it was. All I’m seeing from **Razorsharp **is name calling. I think the evidence here favors Voyager’s postiion …

Thank you. As a matter of fact, I observed this when I was a card-carrying Republican. Second of all, Razorsharp seems to be implying that creationist is equivalent to religious, which is quite a slap at our very religious and very intelligent non-creationist posters on this thread.

Considering the sad state of science education in the US, and education about evolution in general, saying that someone believes in creationism out of ignorance is not an insult. It might be all they have heard, and heard from what they believe are reliable sources. Anything more I’ll be happy to discuss in the Pit if anyone so wishes.

By the way, I followed the so called banning of religious documents case. Though the school administration is not talking, it appears that the teacher was presenting his class with a highly selective set of documents to show a religious, not historical, point of view. Want to bet that he never bothered to distribute the Treaty of Tripoli? Or Jefferson’s version of the NT? Especially since the class was too young to do research by themselves, this was highly inappropriate - and would be so for any subject. I believe I remember reading that the parents of non-Christian students objected to this guy. I know that when my daughter was in the 7th grade (in California) she got an excellent overview of world religions in social studies, which acknowledged the importance of religion in history but did not attempt to claim that one was more correct than the other.

[Voyager]

@tomndebb

The lie, as I made pretty clear to those who can grasp English, was not that there have never been odd people wandering around pretending that they can measure intelligence, effectively, but that the people engaging in that odd behavior are not “evolutionists.” The people who are really big fans of psychometrics tend to stick to their own field and do not actually engage in genuine research or analysis of evolution. Dawkins never plays with IQ games. Eldridge and Wilson never play around with IQ measurements. Mayr, Poirier, Weiner, Clark, and others never spend(spent) any effort pushing IQ propaganda. Gould wrote a whole book arguing against IQ games and wrote numerous critiques of works that purported to identify IQ. This is not to claim that no one who recognizes the fact of evolution also engages in the hunt for the wild IQ, but it is not something that any honest person can describe as “many evolutionists” championing. Your source was a liar.

Considering that Asians score higher than Caucasians on the same IQ tests these guys put so much stock in, I’ve always wondered why they don’t sentence themselves to menial labor and reduced education, just to be consistent. But that difference doesn’t seem to count, does it?

[lekatt]

I think this debate will be endless for a number of reasons. The main one is most people have their story and they’re are sticking to it. So, naturally everyone else has to be wrong. I wrote a page on this debate to see how it would come out, it is my opinion, not backed up by science or religion, and guaranteed to ruffle the feathers of both sides of the debate.

http://www.aleroy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46

[FinnAgain]

@lekatt

not backed up by science or religion

It sure as heck aint based on science. And if it’s not, why is it any better than any other charming fiction?

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

So we have come to a logical conclusion that “Intelligent Design” or “Higher Intelligence” was the most likely cause that brought forth, from nothingness, our universe.

If there was a “logical conclusion” there, I missed it, sorry. I saw a lot of assumptions, but not a “logical conclusion”.

There is order and cooperation evident in the world

“Order” and “cooperation” are assumptions on your part. Other people look at the world and see “chaos”.

All these things are self-evident of the order/intelligence working in our world.

“Order” and “intelligence” are assumptions on your part. Again, other people look at the world and see random chaos.

Order appears only through intelligent direction.

This is an assumption on your part, and one which is incorrect. Order can appear through randomness, too: For example, the way pebbles and sand of different sizes sort themselves out at the beach, through nothing more intelligent than wave action and physics.

Order is the product of intelligence,

This is an assumption on your part, and one which is incorrect. Many intelligent people are also the most disorderly and untidy people.

the more intelligence the more order.

This is an assumption on your part, and one which is incorrect. Go through the halls of academe and see how many professors’ desktops are a total mess of undone paperwork.

The order observed in our universe implies intelligence,

This is an assumption on your part. Other people see the order in the universe and see “randomness”, not “guiding intelligence”.

My own feelings are that randomness never existed.

Right, so it’s your opinion that the world is composed of Intelligent Order. But that’s not a “logical conclusion” that follows a chain of logical reasoning–it’s just a summary of your own assumptions.

The only place to look for the Creator is within the creation.

Only if it’s your assumption that what you see around you was “created”. If you assume that what you see around you is a “creation”, then you look around for a Creator. But if you assume that it sprang into being through randomness, then there’s no place to look for a Creator.

Love is what you feel, Love or God is a spiritual event.

Many people who are not “spiritual” and who do not believe in a god at all feel “love”.

Thousands of near death experiencers will tell you they have been in the presence of God, felt God’s love for them and experienced many things.

Researchers will tell you that NDEs are just a construct of a stressed or dying brain. NDEs, and “feelings of love”, do not prove the existence of God.

[Twoflower]

@lekatt

most people have their story and they’re are sticking to it. So, naturally everyone else has to be wrong.

I have to disagree. A point that has been made repeatedly in this thread is that scientists will be the first to reconsider their opinions when presented with valid contradictory evidence. None has been presented.

[tomndebb]

guaranteed to ruffle the feathers of both sides of the debate.

Sorry. Most of us are laughing too hard to get upset by something so impossible, improbable, implausible, and inane.

[David_Simmons]

@Duck Duck Goose

Researchers will tell you that NDEs are just a construct of a stressed or dying brain. NDEs, and “feelings of love”, do not prove the existence of God.

Please, I beg you, don’t get lekatt started on NDEs by discussing them in any way. We won’t get home before breakfast.

[Sample_the_Dog]

Just curious…

Why is it that nolies, and at least one other poster I can think of who espouses similar positions, is allowed to continually post blatant falsehoods and misrepresent the statements of other dopers?

Is it because of guest status? Does that put a poster beyond the reach of banishment? Or is it a warped sensitivity to the subject matter?

nolies = insole = lesion = lies on = is lone

[dropzone]

All of the above. We want him to pay before we rip him apart.

[lekatt]

@dropzone

All of the above. We want him to pay before we rip him apart.

I guess this means you didn’t like my opinion. Oh well, someone has to put forth different ideas or the world would stagnate. too much logic or too much emotion is boring.