There are seminaries that provide post-graduate education–typically called major seminaries among the RCC–and seminaries that provide bachelor studies, (and even high school studies in a dwindling number of cases)–typically called minor seminaries in the RCC. I don’t recall the Lutheran school structure. You are probably right that the major seminaries do not have (many) science classes, but one generally has to graduate from a minor seminary to be admitted to a major seminary.
When you’re assigned to write a paper, does the professor usually say, “oh, and make sure it’s good!”?
No- it’s implied. Presumably the kids that produce well-thought out and reasoned posts will get better grades than the ones who post, “science is eeeeeevil!”
Honestly, I really don’t get the point of this pitting.
Congrats on your logic skills. People like Mao are proof positive that liberalism is a failure…
I disagree with your first point. Having someone write something is an extremely persuasive way to get them to actually believe it. The prof is exploiting people’s need to be internally consistent. The Chinese and NVA did this during Vietnam (by having people write little essays about some of the things that were wrong with America; it was very effective technique, and that first step over the line opened a lot of POWs to increasingly communist-sympathetic views)
However, I appreciate your second comment here. It’s good to have people on the SDMB that aren’t simply toeing the party line.
Yes.
Hey Tard, what the fuck are you participating in here? There are plenty of “brave dopers:rolleyes:” who start anti-whatever threads all the time. The groupthink doesn’t work one-way, or something.
You are everything that’s wrong with political discourse today. Any person with a proper education, as alluded to by other posters, should know that religion is not some sort of diametric opposite of science. A large portion of western philosophy (much of which has been embraced here) comes from religious sources, and an incredible amount of science has been and is done by people who are religious. The only thing worthy of insulting bold tags here is your idiotic failure to have more critical thinking than simply parroting the memes of the consensus on this board.
What, you don’t know that in business you need guts and balls?
Well, actually, it is a pretty sound pedagogical strategy… kinda. The point isn’t necessarily to be educated by the people you’re talking to, but to practice persuasive writing when dealing with an audience that you haven’t already won over.
Of course, this specific exercise fails on numerous grounds. For instance, students should be able to research and argue against opposing views without having to argue on message boards; even using debate as a valid tactic doesn’t mean you need to send out trolls to eat up the bandwidth of websites you don’t agree with. There’s also the problem that ID has no rational support or cogent defenses as it’s vile, anti-rational hogwash designed to destroy our educational system and knock us back into the dark ages.
The second bit is a larger pedagogical objection than the first. 
There’s nothing inherently pedagogically unsound about about using debate to teach students how to construct and defend their own arguments as well as analyzing and dismantling opposing ones. The problem comes when the assignment involves using intellectual poison as the starting point. It’s an educator’s job to teach their students how to use and evolve (no pun intended) their minds, not how to destroy them with the worst kind of anti-scientific supernaturalism.
This is completely incorrect. You’re conflating the political/religious movement of biblical creationism with the philosophical underpinnings of an idea that, like your own view, is completely unverifiable.
Of course, you’ve already shown that you are less interested in groping your way to truth than in bolstering your self-perception by mindlessly repeating the common wisdom of your chosen demographic alignment by defining rationality as that which you agree unthinkingly agree with.
Your intellectual failures should embarrass you, but I fear your smug assurance will override any intellectually honest examination of your views that you might undertake.
No, FinnAgain is correct, which is why ID has failed in it’s attempt to be taught in public schools.
It’s not the “philosophical underpinnings” of anything; it’s just a dishonest relabelling of creationism in an attempt to sneak it into schools.
And evolution isn’t “unverifiable”; it’s verified. One of the most thoroughly verified concepts in science. Arguing against evolution is as foolish as arguing against gravity.
Yep. Philosophically, scientifically, whatever-the-fuckally, ID is a profound abrogation of epistemology, the scientific method, intellectual honesty and reason itself.
We should also remember that ID, aside from being a non-hypothesis, is part of the Discovery Institute’s “Wedge strategy”, designed as an actual and deliberate assault on our educational system, our powers of reason, the scientific method, etc, etc, etc. It’s unsurprising that this relentless idiot is shilling for it, as its entire goal is the complete destruction of ‘scientific materialism’ and its replacement with pure woo.
The term ID was created when creationism was, rightly, thrown out as religious indoctrination in our public schools. And it was created by a simple ‘search and replace’ command. Of course, these frauds are so incompetent that
even their lies are sophomoric. Those who waste time assuming that IDiots aren’t generally lying scumfucks should remember cdesign propentists.
Nuh unnnnh, we have to Teach The Controversy and not smugly dismiss anti-scientific anti-rational assaults on our educational system and rational thought itself with, ya know, facts, reason, logic and knowledge. Just imagine that a non-hypothesis that demands that we just make shit up to explain anything we don’t (currently) grok is on the exact same level as the same methodology which gave us everything from clock radios to space flight to nuclear power.
And, coincidentally, the internet.
Man, how I wish all these annoying idiot assholes who challenge “materialism” would try to gnaw at our ankles by the power of prayer…
You just gave me a migraine 
This is the problem; you can’t see past your own bias. Evolution and Intelligent Design as philosophical theories have nothing to do with one another; in fact, many forms of ID embrace the theory of evolution (which, by the way, is not proven – there are very few, if any, real examples of macroevolution like there are for microevolution.) Of course, the debate isn’t about evolution, you are simply attempting to structure the debate by forcing ideas into neat little boxes which you can simply dismiss uncritically.
Creationism is the idea that God came down and created the Earth 4000 years ago and that dinosaurs are simply divine tests of our gullibility, etc. Intelligent design, on the other hand, is an idea that does not necessarily adhere to any religious principle. It’s sort of a pathetic indictment of either our educational system or your own personal failings that you have to parade your own unverifiable beliefs (athiesm or whatever) as scientific truth and present opposing ideas as a strawman for you to knock down.
Certainly, the religious right has tried to take the term, and the thought behind it, and make it into something its not. But Stalin being a mass murderer cloaking himself in the flag of Marxism-Leninism does not make Marx less of an intellectual, nor did Malcom X’s militant politics destroy the value of the civil rights movement. Your and the other dipshit’s glib asides about “teaching the controversy” are nothing more than the same type of weak anti-intellectualism that pervades the moron choirs on the fringes of any debate.
Finnagain isn’t even worth the time to respond to, as he seems to be more heavily invested in being able to pigeonhole everyone into various categories of insanity, but perhaps you can step up to the plate and do a little bit of critical thinking on this issue, if you’re able to put aside your asinine knee-jerk dismissal of anything that you’ve classified as religious fervor.
Let’s start with a very basic premise for you to think about. Imagine that the universe as we know it, with consistent internal rules, is finite. Current physics theory supports the fact that we had the big bang, and the universe as we know it did not exist (in this form) previous to that. There are certain physical rules in our universe that allow life as we know it to exist, and are in fact the driving factors for evolution and intelligence and science.
None of these statements should be in any way controversial.
Ignoring any Christian ideals about how things were created, posit some intelligent entity of any sort you like that existed outside our universe prior to the big bang. Such an entity need not be benevolent or even particularly interested. Posit that this entity had some sort of input into the formation of our universe, and tweaked the physical parameters in order to accomplish some sort of goal, which again need not be related to us at all. Such a being is unverifiable either way. Nonetheless, that is one type of intelligent design theory, and note that it doesn’t contradict evolution or include any references to the Christian mythos. In fact, many scientists have explored that idea, including Carl Sagan (and he was smarter than you).
Before just declaring that “religious nuttery”, maybe you should put a little thought into it as well, or at least be more specific in the types of ideas you are addressing as you preach your sermon of right-wing-fundies-bad to the choir.
Of course, it will be far easier for you to maintain your comfort zone by typing tl;dr, and making a snide remark about me being a scientologist or a fundie or whatever your demon of the week is than for you to be a little bit intellectually honest and not just lump everything into a big box that you declare wrong. I’m sure you would say it was racist to say that all blacks are loud or that all asians are smart, because they are not homogenous groups. Apply the same sort of analysis to metaphysics and you might find something that is, if not true or verifiable, might at least be interesting and important.
Yes yes, you tell us more about these untestable, unfalsifiable, unverifiable, undefinable, working-via-magic entities that constitute a “theory”, you bottom feeding intellectual poseur.
And, as always, some fact checking to cure the spread of deliberate misinformation: macroevolution is thoroughly based on evidence.
Anybody who tells you otherwise is either ignorant, stupid, or shilling for ID/hostile to reason, logic and the scientific method itself.
Sometimes they’re all three.
Oh, and, I figure it’s worth it to actually note what Sagan thought as opposed to some anti-intellectual poseur’s smarmy deception.
The very idea that the author of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, the man who gave us the phrase “evolution is a fact, not a theory” would have supported this type of woo is truly reprehensible, agenda-driven dishonesty. That someone would slander the memory of a dead man who could not even defend himself is as filthy as any other form of grave robbing.
This was the man who gave us the parable of the Dragon in My Garage, and it’s the same intellectually sloppy wooism that ivn, in his unrepentant and unrelenting flood of mendacious stupidity, seeks to use Sagan to support.
Etc, etc, etc.
Ivn is a vile little worm whose delusions of competency lead to the embarrassing spectacle of him sneering from his dung heap as he squawks about how others are the ones who are anti-intellectual and intellectually dishonest. Good bit of turnspeak, though.
Pardon me, and I do understand that passions are running high in this, um, debate. But that’s not true about Ockham’s Razor — or at least it can be misleading. For example, in determining the reduction of 16/64, the simplest way is to cancel out the 6s. So, 1[del]6[/del]/[del]6[/del]4 = 1/4. But that’s not the correct way. Ockham said (and it wasn’t actually he who said it) do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Sometimes entities, even while making a problem more complex, are necessary.
No. Evolution is a proven fact; creationism is a myth; and “Intelligent Design” is simply a dishonest version of creationism. Anyone - without exception - who buys creationism/ID is a fool, ignorant or a liar.
Evolution is the truth, and ID is a lie; so in that sense they have nothing to do with each other. “Macroevolution” is not a scientific term; it’s a manipulative rhetorical term like “death tax” or “partial-birth abortion”. And yes, evolution is proven whether you like it or not. There is no scientific debate left on the subject.
That’s a lie. It’s an attempt to shove religion into the classroom, nothing more; creationism under another name. And it has no evidence for itself,explains nothing, and makes no useful prediction. It’s religious propaganda.
This conversation is about evolution not atheism. But the fact is the evidence DOES support atheism, just as it supports disbelief in goblins and fairies.
Nonsense. ID has NEVER been anything but a religious concept. Never.
You support ID, and you use the word “macroevolution”. Both of those are religious terms. That marks you as someone pushing religion; just someone who is dishonest about it.
And how do you know it isn’t the correct way?
Because when you try to use it to explain what 17/74 is, it gives the wrong answer. IOW you know it’s wrong because it doesn’t explain the data as well as other methods. And that is precisely what Sagan said: when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well … choose the simpler."
Bullshit. You are obviously speaking on a topic about which you are grossly ignorant.
Without even bothering to look I can tell you that I can find dozens of articles published in the highest impact evolutionary and genomics journals in the past 12 months that use the term “macroevolution”
If you don’t understand understand that that macroevolution is a scientific term in common use amongst evolutionary biologists and geneticists then you really have no place in this debate.
Then how do you explain it being published in peer reviewed science journals? I’m more inclined to trust the editors and reviewers of those journals than I am some anonymous internet poster who doesn’t even know that macroevolution is a clearly defined scientific term in common use amongst geneticists and evolutionary biologists.
And the fact that you think that macroevolution is a religious term when it is used regularly in all the highest impact evolutionary biology journals marks you as an arrogant moron, pontificating loudly on a subject of which he is grossly ignorant.
This is one of those times when I really wish that someone wasn’t on my side in a debate. You embarass those of us who actually understand what evolution and intelligent design are.
“Canceling the sixes” is not an hypothesis in anything but the oddest nomenclature.
Moreover, even if we stretched the definition, “canceling the sixes” is not equal to the actual mathematics of the problem. They are not, in fact “two hypotheses that explain the data equally well”. One is a valid mathematical method with a valid proof to support it that is testable and repeatable on numerous divergent examples, the other is not.
The razor is an ancient heuristic that, as Sagan correctly noted, serves as a rule of thumb. It’s the rule of parsimony. It doesn’t mean that the simplest hypothesis is correct, simply that all things being equal it is preferable.
Blake: you’re right that macroevolution is a term used in scientific literature to discuss, for instance, cladogenesis. But it’s also true that those who attack science often use the exact bogus method that ivn has evinced, that of trying to pretend that macro and micro evolution are somehow vastly, irreconcilably different and that we only really have proof for one.
In point of fact, ‘there’s only proof for microevolution!’ is a regular creationist talking point. I’m still wondering how many more we see in this thread. We’ve already seen a few others, including but not limited to puerile jabs at “materialism”.
It’s only a matter of time before we see “If you can’t tell me exactly how Structure X evolved, then my alternate answer of A Magical Extra-Dimensional Entity Did It! is equally valid as real science.”
It’s the same pattern we often see… where holes in a fantastically well supported theory are used to somehow hold up the fallacy of bifurcation and the argument that if the theory has holes, that a second claim, a not-even-hypothesis… must be true. Or at least on the same level as actual science.
Want to lay odds on how long it’ll take to see a Gish Gallop or someone JAQing off?
It’s the very driving force behind the IDiots movement to “Teach The Controversy!” alleging that any gaps in our understanding merit a God-of-the-gaps style approach, or at least teaching that evolutionary biology might be wrong in some fundamental way.
How does ID getting through the peer review process somehow disprove its religious basis? Who, exactly, are they alleging the “designer” is? Even if its space aliens, that just kicks the can a bit further down the road and then we have to identify the evolutionary processes that created them. Otherwise it’s turtles all the way down. Do you contend that when people talk bout ID, they’re not talking about some sort of transcendent, magical intelligence at the start of the process? Who do you believe they’re alleging that the “designer” is, specifically?
There’s also the fact that, as already cited, ID is indeed part of the Discovery Institute’s strategy to attack science, reason and our education system and that the American ID movement spearheaded by *Of Pandas and People * was indeed an effort to get creationism re-branded as “Intelligent Design”. Now, ivn may want to play with the fallacy of equivocation, but it’s quite clear exactly what we’re really talking about when we discuss Dembsky’s advocacy of ID.
Further the facts of ID’s published history hardly bear examination.
I actually don’t object to the idea of participation in Internet discussions as a form of authentic engagement, but the teacher doesn’t seem interested in engagement, just in mobilizing his class to spread ID dogma. On the other hand, I’m surprised at the honesty of his syllabus in acknowledging that their position is theological and not scientific.
Where?
From the syllabus for PHILO 2483:
I didn’t notice that part: “cosmological and biological origins”.
How many times does it have to be explained that evolution doesn’t describe (or attempt to describe) “cosmological origins”?
Ah, well I was mainly noting that the final paper is about the “theological significance” of ID, and that the main objective listed on the syllabus is “to help students understand how evolutionary theory and intelligent design fit within a Christian worldview.”
I doubt he’s a very good teacher.