The Growing Disbelief in Evolution Among Republicans

[ImmortalFlame]

But seriously,
The difficulty, IMHO, is that people tend to create strawmen for the opposing side and then, knock them down.
You state "conservatives can pretend that creationism is a science," which has two strawmen involved.
One is that people believe your statement is true.

I'm not entirely certain that you know what a strawman is, based on this response. At the very least, you could say "the implication that conservatives are necessarily creationists is a strawman". A claim being false doesn't make it a strawman. Not that this claim is false.

It's not and, not even the current question says that it is. You have extrapolated this opinion from your particular viewpoint on the question.
Secondly, the implication is that "unlike evolutionists where evolution is absolutely a science."
This is also untrue as, of course, there is no possible way to apply the scientific method of repeatable experimentation to the theory of evolution.

If this is what you believe, then you clearly need to learn more about evolutionary theory. Evolution has made thousands of testable, falsifiable claims and scientists have conducted thousands of experiments intended to explore, utilize and falsify the theory of evolution, and every single one has made the theory stronger. Evolution can be, and absolutely is, the subject of repeatable experimentation.

One is certainly free to extrapolate that gene patterns and physical characteristics have changed and mutated over different periods of time. Ergo, one chooses to extrapolate that, given enough time, Matter must have coalesced from Energy; Life must have mutated from non living matter; and higher functioning animal life must have mutated from lower functioning biological life; and that Man must have mutated from this animal life.
Peachy.
And, that has just about as much validity as if one claimed that an Alien Creator from another Universe created various aspects of Life in This Universe and tweaked the process over several billion years from time to time to get to homo sapiens...
The only difference is that one theory insists on Random Chance and Accident whereas the other claims that in order to create Order, intelligence must be involved.

Again, you need to brush up on your biology. Evolution requires random mutations, but those random mutations must be filtered through a selection process in order to produce speciation. That's why it's called "natural selection", not "natural accidents".

(Now, of course, as I sure you are aware, it is a repeatable and measurable scientific fact that the Universe tends towards Entropy or disorder. Without outside influences imposing order, Everything decays and becomes random. Which leaves one wondering how a Random Universe became Ordered... scientifically speaking.)

Because, as you should understand being somehow who is clearly so verse in thermodynamics, the Universe isn't necessarily a closed system. Like our bodies, the Universe may tend towards an entropic state, but that state is not a constant. For the exact same reason that a human body doesn't just decay from the moment it leaves the womb, but in fact grows in complexity, finds new uses and even grows new parts over time before eventually exhausting itself. Entropy is not a constant, and it doesn't apply to open systems.

I suggest you do some personal reading on all of these subjects, and find out just where your arguments fall down.

 

[1robin]

The Genius of Ronald Reagan: Direct Quotes from the Gipper Himself

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." -- Ronald Reagan, 1981
source



​

These are a little more representative of one of the greatest leaders in history.

40) "A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah."
39) "The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become."

38) "When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."

37) "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."

36) "A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a civil-service exam."

35) "One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."

34) "I am paying for this microphone…!" (When a debate moderator threatened to cut off his mike at a debate he paid for.)

33) " I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.” (To Walter Mondale at a debate)

32) "One legislator accused me of having a nineteenth-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government's primary concerns."

31) "There you go again." (Reagan to Jimmy Carter in a debate)

30) "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting."

29) "Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement."

28) "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."

27) "If you're explaining, you're losing."

26) "I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

25) "We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

24) "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

23) "The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated."

22) "If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth."

21) "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

20) "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" (Speech about the Challenger disaster).

19) "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

18) "It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so."

17) "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

16) "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

15) "Trust, but verify."

14) "I hope you're all Republicans." (to surgeons as he entered the operating room following his assassination attempt)

13) "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." (Said during a radio microphone test, 1984)

12) "The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray to God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest."

11) "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

10) "Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."

9) "History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."

8) "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

7) “Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”

6) "Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong."

5) "Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

4) "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

3) "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

2) "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

1) "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
The 40 Best Quotes from Ronald Reagan - John Hawkins - Page full

 

[Moishe3rd]

I'm not entirely certain that you know what a strawman is, based on this response. At the very least, you could say "the implication that conservatives are necessarily creationists is a strawman". A claim being false doesn't make it a strawman. Not that this claim is false.


If this is what you believe, then you clearly need to learn more about evolutionary theory. Evolution has made thousands of testable, falsifiable claims and scientists have conducted thousands of experiments intended to explore, utilize and falsify the theory of evolution, and every single one has made the theory stronger. Evolution can be, and absolutely is, the subject of repeatable experimentation.


Again, you need to brush up on your biology. Evolution requires random mutations, but those random mutations must be filtered through a selection process in order to produce speciation. That's why it's called "natural selection", not "natural accidents".


Because, as you should understand being somehow who is clearly so verse in thermodynamics, the Universe isn't necessarily a closed system. Like our bodies, the Universe may tend towards an entropic state, but that state is not a constant. For the exact same reason that a human body doesn't just decay from the moment it leaves the womb, but in fact grows in complexity, finds new uses and even grows new parts over time before eventually exhausting itself. Entropy is not a constant, and it doesn't apply to open systems.

I suggest you do some personal reading on all of these subjects, and find out just where your arguments fall down.

Now, now, no need to get all snarky.
Life is beautiful all the time, no matter it's origin.

To wit: a straw man argument is misinformation which is then proposed as the basis of the claims of the view that you are opposing.
It's misrepresenting an opposing viewpoint in order to show how it is false.

And, I would humbly suggest that your "open system" idea can be refuted by restating the 2nd Law as such: "In any ordered system, open or closed, there exists a tendency for that system to decay to a state of disorder, which tendency can only be suspended or reversed by an external source of ordering energy directed by an informational program and transformed through an ingestion-storage-converter mechanism into the specific work required to build up the complex structure of that system."

And, I would also humbly suggest that speciation is limited to biological systems and cannot be applied to the "evolution" of energy to matter and of non living matter to living matter.
There is also the statistical odds department as to the various complexities of life as we know it coming about by random chance.
It would take a few billions of trillions of years longer, statistically speaking, to get the statistical results necessary.

However - nonetheless, when all is said and done, you are correct.
Everything could, indeed, be random and accidental and it all "just happened."

My personal preference is a more ordered, "scientific" explanation of how things work.

 

[LuisDantas]

Interesting bit about the history of religion and science though it is my belief that all of this has nothing to do with current thinking among Republicans. I read a fascinating article some months ago that suggested that the Republicans that are rejecting science mostly are the college educated ones. (Did a quick look and could not immediately find the article).

Ergo ipso facto colombo oreo, the ones rejecting science are the ones who have had, in theory, access to actual science in their educations. Now why would this be?

In my personal opinion this has occurred because we in the U.S. have taken what was once one of our basic freedoms and perverted it into something it was never meant to be. Specifically Americans believe that everyone had a 'right' to their opinion. Which is true.

But that concept has been warped into the idea that someone's opinion transcends any evidence to the contrary. That is, when it comes to views, personal opinion trumps facts. This is why Republicans can see that a large majority of the world's scientists believe climate change is partly the fault of humanity pumping crap into the atmosphere, and they can summarily reject that opinion. They can because it is not what they want to believe.

This is why conservatives can pretend that creationism is a science, even though creationism follows none of the precepts of the scientific process. They can because that is what they want to believe.

A very wise man once said "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts". Daniel Patrick Moynihan. We as a nation and as a society are doomed to fall into irrelevance as long as this betrayal of basic intelligence is allowed to continue.

I fear you have nailed it. There is some dangerous self-delusion seriously widespread.

I suppose that is why Ronald Reagan was ever taken seriously.

These are a little more representative of one of the greatest leaders in history.

I thought we were talking about Ronald Reagan? He in no way whatsoever can clain to have known "one the greatest leaders in history", much less having been one.

Heck, he can't even compete with Jimmy Carter or Mikhail Gorbachov.

 

[Alceste]

These are a little more representative of one of the greatest leaders in history.

40) "A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah."
39) "The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become."

38) "When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."

37) "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."

36) "A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a civil-service exam."

35) "One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."

34) "I am paying for this microphone…!" (When a debate moderator threatened to cut off his mike at a debate he paid for.)

33) " I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.” (To Walter Mondale at a debate)

32) "One legislator accused me of having a nineteenth-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government's primary concerns."

31) "There you go again." (Reagan to Jimmy Carter in a debate)

30) "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting."

29) "Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement."

28) "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."

27) "If you're explaining, you're losing."

26) "I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

25) "We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

24) "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

23) "The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated."

22) "If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth."

21) "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

20) "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" (Speech about the Challenger disaster).

19) "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

18) "It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so."

17) "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

16) "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

15) "Trust, but verify."

14) "I hope you're all Republicans." (to surgeons as he entered the operating room following his assassination attempt)

13) "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." (Said during a radio microphone test, 1984)

12) "The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray to God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest."

11) "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

10) "Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."

9) "History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."

8) "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

7) “Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”

6) "Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong."

5) "Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

4) "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

3) "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

2) "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

1) "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
The 40 Best Quotes from Ronald Reagan - John Hawkins - Page full

Wow, what an idiot.

 

[1robin]

Wow, what an idiot.

That certainly says a lot about you and nothing about him. Unless you being funny, which I hope to God you are, because that kind of crazy is incalculable.

 

[no-body]

These are a little more representative of one of the greatest leaders in history.

40) "A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah."
39) "The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become."

38) "When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."

37) "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."

36) "A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a civil-service exam."

35) "One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."

34) "I am paying for this microphone…!" (When a debate moderator threatened to cut off his mike at a debate he paid for.)

33) " I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.” (To Walter Mondale at a debate)

32) "One legislator accused me of having a nineteenth-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government's primary concerns."

31) "There you go again." (Reagan to Jimmy Carter in a debate)

30) "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting."

29) "Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement."

28) "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."

27) "If you're explaining, you're losing."

26) "I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

25) "We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

24) "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

23) "The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated."

22) "If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth."

21) "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

20) "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" (Speech about the Challenger disaster).

19) "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

18) "It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so."

17) "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

16) "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

15) "Trust, but verify."

14) "I hope you're all Republicans." (to surgeons as he entered the operating room following his assassination attempt)

13) "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." (Said during a radio microphone test, 1984)

12) "The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray to God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest."

11) "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

10) "Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."

9) "History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."

8) "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

7) “Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”

6) "Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong."

5) "Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

4) "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

3) "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

2) "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

1) "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
The 40 Best Quotes from Ronald Reagan - John Hawkins - Page full

Alzheimer's is a hell of a thing.

 

[LuisDantas]

That certainly says a lot about you and nothing about him. Unless you being funny, which I hope to God you are, because that kind of crazy is incalculable.

We are derailing the thread, but what is so surprising about being unimpressed or disappointed by Reagan anyway?

 

[1robin]

Alzheimer's is a hell of a thing.

So is tearing down the wall, having unemployment in the 3.?% range, having the most powerful military in history and the greatest economy of the time. Even while getting us out of the Carter recession in the middle of a cold war. I wish Obama had a little of it. The day Reagan was inaugurated the hostages Carter could not get back were returned out of fear of Reagan. That says it all.

 

[1robin]

We are derailing the thread, but what is so surprising about being unimpressed or disappointed by Reagan anyway?

If you have to ask then you shown spend time in a few books first. See the post above for .01% of the reasons why.

 

[LuisDantas]

If you have to ask then you shown spend time in a few books first. See the post above for .01% of the reasons why.

Are we talking about some other Reagan perhaps? Not the POTUS from 1980-1988?

That one is hardly worth a lot of respect, let alone admiration.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Not quite sure how President Reagan got in here. He was a fool, and a genius, and despised, and admired. In short, he was a mortal. There have been worse Presidents and there have been better.

Perhaps the most important thing he ever had to say was #8.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

We have had two Presidents in a row now who have done their best to achieve that extinction, and have succeeded fairly effectively. That one is a Republican and one is a Democrat should tell all of us something we should be paying attention to. Give it another ten years and those of us who remember will be able to say what it was like when men (& women, too) were free.

And now back to our regular programming.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not quite sure how President Reagan got in here. He was a fool, and a genius, and despised, and admired. In short, he was a mortal. There have been worse Presidents and there have been better.

Perhaps the most important thing he ever had to say was #8.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

We have had two Presidents in a row now who have done their best to achieve that extinction, and have succeeded fairly effectively. That one is a Republican and one is a Democrat should tell all of us something we should be paying attention to. Give it another ten years and those of us who remember will be able to say what it was like when men (& women, too) were free.

And now back to our regular programming.

I'll make that 3 presidents, since Clinton also worked hard to fight free speech, due process, & privacy.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Moishe, all that can be said is that we obviously have very different ideas of what facts are. Many of my comments you held as my opinions were nothing of the sort. They were facts.

Republicans want creationism taught in schools as if it were science. That is a fact.
Creationism is in no way based on the scientific method. It is not science. That is a fact.
Evolution is a fact, as has already been pointed out to you.
Global warming is held to be real by 99.9% of scientists. Fact.
58% of Republicans think Global warming is false. Fact.

Your comments on the term 'climate change' are of particular interest as it was a Republican political strategist, Frank Luntz, who suggested to use this phrase as it was not considered by the public as frightening as the term global warming. This first came up in a controversial memo Luntz wrote advising conservative politicians on communicating about the environment. I.E. use the term that doesn't sound as dangerous and scary.

This too is fact.

You may not like my facts. That does not magically alter them to my opinions.

 

[Gordian Knot]

I'll make that 3 presidents, since Clinton also worked hard to fight free speech, due process, & privacy.

Yeah, I know conservatives love to hate Clinton. There is no conceivable way he can be included in the level of destruction of the Constitution as Bush and Obama though.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yeah, I know conservatives love to hate Clinton. There is no conceivable way he can be included in the level of destruction of the Constitution as Bush and Obama though.

To name a few police state type actions...
- The Petty Offense Doctrine gives courts the ability to waive a defendant's right to jury trial (with some limitations).
- He attempted (& failed) to eliminate the right against warrantless search & seizure for public housing tenants.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

And, I would humbly suggest that your "open system" idea can be refuted by restating the 2nd Law as such: "In any ordered system, open or closed, there exists a tendency for that system to decay to a state of disorder, which tendency can only be suspended or reversed by an external source of ordering energy directed by an informational program and transformed through an ingestion-storage-converter mechanism into the specific work required to build up the complex structure of that system."

Congratulations on revealing your ignorance of physics. The second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems. If any individual or organization is telling you that it applies to all systems "open or closed", then they are lying to you. It only ever, and can only ever, be applied to closed systems which receive no energy from an external source, as it deals exclusively with the transfer of heat from a hotter to a cooler body. Anybody with a rudimentary grasp of physics understands this.

Second law of thermodynamics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And, I would also humbly suggest that speciation is limited to biological systems and cannot be applied to the "evolution" of energy to matter and of non living matter to living matter.

Well, obviously. When did I (or anyone else, for that matter) suggest otherwise?

There is also the statistical odds department as to the various complexities of life as we know it coming about by random chance.

Which is completely meaningless because, if life arose naturally, it was produced by a natural chemical process in a state governed by physical laws; not by "random chance".

It would take a few billions of trillions of years longer, statistically speaking, to get the statistical results necessary.

In the exact same way that it would take, on the same statistical basis, any formation made from anything to form by sheer chance. But that doesn't happen, nor is it what is proposed to happen. All things exist in a state that is subject to the fundamental laws that govern their behavior. They do not happen "by chance", and to formulate a calculation based on them existing "by pure chance" is a pointless exercise.

However - nonetheless, when all is said and done, you are correct.
Everything could, indeed, be random and accidental and it all "just happened."

I never said that.

That, my friend, is what we call "a strawman".

My personal preference is a more ordered, "scientific" explanation of how things work.

You say this, despite clearly not understanding biology and completely misrepresenting the second law of thermodynamics. You are clearly not educated enough to tell me that your explanation is the least bit scientific. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you went to Intelligent Design websites for just about all of your "science". Might I suggest, in future, you try actual scientists?

 

[dust1n]

Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama.... all pretty deploring really, but if I had to choose more overrated, I'm going to go with ol' Ray there.

 

[Revoltingest]

Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama.... all pretty deploring really, but if I had to choose more overrated, I'm going to go with ol' Ray there.

At the risk of derailing the thread, I must point out that it's impermissible
to merely nominate a most peccable prez. We need deeds...qualifications!

 

[metis]

I'm not very interested in delving deeply into Buddhist theology. I've done some general reading about it and that satiates my current curiosity. I don't think eastern religions are any deeper or better than western ones, though it seems to be a vogue in the west to think so. I'm not accusing you of this by the way, but it is my general observation that people are attracted to them, and I suspect in part because they don't see enough of it to see the potential ugly sides as they can readily observe in something like Christianity.

To me, all religions are a mixture of pros and cons, so I agree with you in general. However, I do believe some religious approaches are more compatible with science than some others. And yes, some of the attraction to the eastern religions may be attributed to fad, but certainly there are a great many who do believe that the general approach with these religions is generally more open to science and less reliant on hearsay. Also, what many are doing is taking ideas from these religions and using them to help them in their own Abrahamic faith, such as what Thomas Merton did, for example, and this is also the technique I use.