Al Gore is not a scientist. He is a politician. And yes, he got a lot wrong.
That doesn't mean the science is wrong.
Well, that is certainly the case. Especially in home schools and by people who don't know the first thing about evolution.
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Why is the Right Wing Anti-Science?
- Thread starter Secret Chief
- Start date
Al Gore is not a scientist. He is a politician. And yes, he got a lot wrong.
That doesn't mean the science is wrong.
Well, that is certainly the case. Especially in home schools and by people who don't know the first thing about evolution.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Al Gore isn't a scientist. But I'm not sure what fraud you think he's been involved with?
Citation needed.
Politicians aren't scientists either. Maybe that's the problem here - you're getting your science info from politicians?
Nice pre-emptive cop-out. You haven't posted any informed facts here yet.
It's mean to explain the diversity of life, as noted.
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Audie
Veteran Member
So, you just can't admit you are wrong,
so you point your finger at others.
If you have an example of
anyone teaching your mistake it would
probably be one run by creationists.
We noticed of course that a million people
being as ignorant and wrong as you would
help your case.
Intellectually honest people accept their
mistakes, learn from them, and move on.
Try it.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Nope, as that is only one aspect of what we do in science. Ever hear of "forensics", for example?
Secret Chief
Very strong language
It isn't. Origins of species; yes.
Not quite. For example, the life cycle of a star cannot be duplicated, but it is definitely science.
The main thing that distinguishes science from not-science is the ability test via observation. In particular, there should be some possible observational result that, if it occurs, shows the hypothesis to be wrong.
In the case of the life cycles of stars, we can duplicate the basic nuclear reactions, we can duplicate the basics of gravity and electromagnetism. But, because stars last from millions to billions of years, we cannot duplicate the entire life cycle.
The basic laws can be tested and the results about those can be duplicated. But the application of those basic laws in many cases cannot be duplicated because of any number of constraints.
In the case of evolution, we can test how and why mutations occur and what their effects are. These results can be duplicated. But we cannot duplicate the results of applying these laws over the millions of years required involved in evolution. But, we *can* test them in any number of ways, including the fossil record, genetic comparisons of living (and some extinct) species, comparative anatomy, biogeography, etc.
And that makes the conclusions reached by looking at ALL of the evidence science.
Furthermore, many specific instances, while consistent with the overall laws we have discovered, are not *dictated* by those laws. So, while we can duplicate the conditions for speciation and verify the actual dynamics follows our predictions, we do not expect that any particular evolutionary pathway would be duplicated.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Quote the related parts of the articles. It appears that you did not read them. For example the second one does not say that Fauci lied. Let's analyze them. The second one was about how Fauci recommended against closing a lab down that had nothing to do with the origin of the virus.
Where was his "lie"? What did he supposedly lie about? You appear to be relying on far right sources that often distort the facts. You have to be specific and it needs to be well supported by a reliable source.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
That is incorrect. Observations must be repeatable. Events do not need to be.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No. Mere existence is not "evidence" at least not for an idea.
The rules for evidence in science are very clear. Scientists are human so they often make the same sort of ignorant denials that creationists make. To keep that from happening the concept of evidence is well defined in the sciences. To keep them honest the first step is to require a testable hypothesis. Once one has that this definition applies:
Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis,
Scientific evidence - Wikipedia.
So if you do not have a testable hypothesis or theory by definition you do not have evidence. That keeps people from making ad hoc explanations where they keep changing their claims for different situations.
If an observation supports a scientific hypothesis or theory then that is by definition evidence for that hypothesis or theory. Also that puts the burden of proof upon those that oppose the theory. If someone does not like the evidence simple denial will not do the trick. That person has to show why the evidence is wrong.
The only place it is being taught badly is by creationists. Evolution explains the diversity of life "abiogenesis" is how life started... Now remember that word "abiogenesis", i may ask questions later.
To say that evolution covers the origins of life is false,
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, he was actually wrong not lying. If you call trying to get more people to take a vaccine that has saved millions of lives "lying" then I do not understand what your problem with them is.
By the way, your second to the last article was about how the risks from vaccines are almost nonexistent. The risks are so low that they cannot be accurately measured. That is what that headline meant.
And we never got to herd immunity from vaccines. That is largely due to the dishonest of Trump. He should have been pushing for everyone to get the vaccine. He should have supported mask mandates and social distancing more vigorously but he was more concerned with getting reelected than the health of the people that voted for him.
That it came about spontaneously from the previously existing chemicals? That is different than 'coming about on its own'.
Well, one limit is that evolution doesn't deal with the beginning of life. That is the topic of abiogenesis, not evolution.
Good so far. We can get smallish changes over the course of a few generations, with new characteristics appearing.
Applying those to much longer time periods allows those small changes to add up, each stage being not too different than the one before it. In other words, microevolution added up over a few million years *is* macroevolution.
NOBODY claims that snakes can turn into horses. Snakes are a type of reptile and are very specialized. Horses are a type of mammal. We do not expect specialized species on one branch to change into species on other branches.
In fact, if that happened, it would show that the theory of evolution is *wrong*.
Why is it that so many creationists *completely* misunderstand what the theory of evolution actually says happens and what it says cannot happen? And then they focus on exactly those things that the theory says cannot happen?
Well, the common ancestor would have been a bacterium if you want to include all of these. If you only include birds and horses (oddly specific about horses compared to the general classification of bird), it would have been a much more recent vertebrate that lived before mammals and dinosaurs branched off from the other reptiles.
Actually, we have a great deal of evidence concerning many steps in the transition. In particular, the way birds branched off of certain dinosaurs is now incredibly well established. And the evolution of horses from a small, non-hoofed animal is also very well documented (but usually misunderstood by creationists, that seem to think that evolution occurs in a straight line according to the theory).
Life is a complex chemical process. The basic building blocks are common in the universe and spontaneously form the types of structures that would be expected in the early stages of the formation of life.
The life we have *today* shows the remnants of previous metabolisms based on RNA.
So, yes, the idea that the chemical process of life can come about via chemical processes that existed on the early Earth is a reasonable *hypothesis* to test.
On the other hand, to postulate an intelligent being involved begs the question of how that intelligent being, which would clearly be very complex, came about. It simply pushes back the same questions of the origin of life to another location that we have no evidence for, not way of determining the conditions, and no way to test the ideas. Furthermore, we have no idea of the metabolism of this creature, no evidence such creatures exist, no idea how its intelligence arose, and no way to test *any* of those notions.
Furthermore, it fails to address *how* that intelligence directed the beginning of life on Earth. What techniques were used, what precursors, what steps were taken?
In other words, the intelligent direction theory doesn't even answer what it sets out to explain, let alone address the numerous other questions that immediately arise.
So, yes, it is a MUCH smaller leap to say life came about through testable chemical processes that we can see even in life today than it is to postulate an unknown and unknowable intelligence that directed everything.
If you cannot see why that is a smaller leap and just how large the leap is for a directing intelligence, you need to sit down and learn a bit more science and how to go about testing ideas.
Heyo
Veteran Member
That seems to be a problem with education in the US and other countries with too many churches or mosques. The understanding of evolution in Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. isn't exactly stellar but so much better. Might be homeschooling, might be poor education of the educators.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Home schooling is not all that common here. Only 3% to 4%. A lot of the teachers in some areas are creationists or poorly educated themselves. I think the problem may be what is required to teach in our schools. I was shocked when I was talking to a man that was planning on becoming a high school science teacher. He wanted to teach physics. I asked him how he was handling the calculus and he told me that it was not required! Now one may be able to teach formulas that students can regurgitate without calculus, but there is no way to understand even simple Newtonian physics without a basic grasp of calculus.
It's the same way for math teachers. To actually *understand* why the things in high school are taught, you need to go through *at least* calculus, and, if teaching geometry, you should have one of the proof based classes.
Instead, prospective teachers have degrees emphasizing *how* to teach and not *what* to teach and why.
And this is assuming the math or science teacher has *any* training at all in math or science. All too often, they do not.
I don't know what happens for history, but I would not be surprised if it is similar.
Truth in love
Well-Known Member
Un huh. So the peddlers to force the pseudo scientist can lie all they want, but we should "trust the science" which we can't actually look at for ourselves and when we do look at it ourselves and the number don't add up at all we are told that we are wrong.
Boy, I'm sure glad that not running like a wacky religious cult or anything.
Truth in love
Well-Known Member
LOL that's great, so science is now trust the expert, don't think critically, don't see for yourselves"?
Gee why would anyone question that mindset?
It's usually a good idea not to trust politicians or journalists when it comes to science. The first usually has an agenda and the second usually doesn't understand what they are writing about.
You can certainly look for yourself *after* you have done the necessary preliminaries of understanding the overall topic and how the current situation fits into the general scheme.
For example, you don't get to criticize the Big Bang model unless you first understand general relativity since the BB model is *based* on general relativity. And, of course, to understand general relativity, you should first understand differential geometry.
You don't get to criticize evolution unless you first understand the basics of genetics, paleontology, and comparative anatomy. Which means you need to first understand taxonomy, some geology, and some biochemistry.
Your numbers don't add up because you use addition when you should use multiplication. You do that because you are ignorant of *why* multiplication instead of addition is used. If you correct your ignorance first, you wouldn't have that problem.
The good thing is that the necessary materials to learn from are out there and freely available. There are even people who will answer questions you have. But you do still need to do the preliminary work or you simply won't have the background to understand either the claims being made or the answers that are given.