Ben Stein Expelled

[Arakkis]

Originally Posted by Lefazz

I don't necessarily agree with this. I believe empathy is an evolutionary trait that help helped us survive. We're not especially adapted to exist in the wild alone, you know. We are a social species and obviously if anyone had a genetic tendency to harm individuals in the group they would've been weeded out pretty quickly. We could have not been successful if the majority of us were killing each other.

So, yeah, I think basic moral codes are a selective trait via evolution.

Tell that to Africa.

Originally Posted by Jedah

I don't at all agree with a word coming out of Arakkis' mouth at this point, but science is inherently amoral. Science hasn't done a thing to advance morality because thats not the role or scope of science; ethics and morals are intangible values, and science deals exclusively with the physical and the readily observable.

That's cool. I hope that I at least provoked some thought in people that had previously decided they were unchangeably on one side or the other. I do however agree with your point. However I would say that the pursuit of science can have a morality attached to it. Nailing a dog's feet to a board to see how it reacts is immoral no matter the future applications the data produced from such an experiment could have.

[Jedah]

Originally Posted by Arakkis

However I would say that the pursuit of science can have a morality attached to it. Nailing a dog's feet to a board to see how it reacts is immoral no matter the future applications the data produced from such an experiment could have.

Any morality attached to science is superficial; it doesn't innately spark from science itself. This is not to make the case that religion is thus necessary, but rather that science is, ultimately, not able to answer questions concerning how best to live as a society or as an individual. It can provide data and information that is useful to that end, but it cannot, in and of itself, answer those questions.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

You are a moron.

Do you honestly believe people with a religion entirely shun the scientific community and all of it's achievements as if it's some anti-thesis to what we believe?

Science may not share some of the answers we have for certain questions about existance and life, but that doesn't mean we don't believe any of it altogether, and to think so is entirely juvenile. It's this one sided view of the opposing side which makes having conversations on this topic all the more innane. What do you think our answer for gravity is? God did it?

I'm sorry, I hate to disappoint, but not all people with a religion are Amish.

You misunderstood my post, which makes sense because I was talking about applying scientific method (which you do not understand) to two people only. The result would be that the scientist lives a normal life, and the religious guy either starves to death or lives like a caveman.

People have been both making observations and doing/thinking things based on them, and making shit up so they can have power since we could think and speak. Which one has gotten us to where we are technologically today? The whole point is that religious people actually do not shun science, in fact many scientists in the past have been religious or even monks. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

It is totally fine for people to use the scientific method to make airplanes, medical procedures and spacecraft, but not to explain how life changes over time? If science is so flawed then you should get the hell away from your computer and live in a cave, because it is going to go badly wrong just like evolution apparently is.


Actually it is totally possible that some kind of intelligence has had a hand in evolution, wether it is some kind of biological process or god/aliens. What the problem is, is that we should only think that if we have evidence for it. At the moment the evidence is a 5000 year old book which by historical fluke is not regarded by most as the fairytale that it actually is.
What is scary are the people who want to stop scientific thought in favour of beliving what some guy said 5000 years ago to get people to obey him - and then teach it in schools...

If you are not convinced by evolution and the massive weight of evidence behind it, what you need to do is get qualified in biology, palentology or geology and knock down evolution by finding one peice of evidence that contradicts it. That's all you need, one thing and the theory will have to change.

Yay for late night posting, the guys who posted hard evidence where much more eloquent than me. Unfortunatly you mysteriously dissapeared from that section of the thread. Perhaps you where just waiting for someone easier to argue against?

[Lefazz]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

If you are not convinced by evolution and the massive weight of evidence behind it, what you need to do is get qualified in biology, palentology or geology and knock down evolution by finding one peice of evidence that contradicts it. That's all you need, one thing and the theory will have to change.

And get a Nobel prize to boot...

[Asmadai]

Oh I believe in evolution. I don't believe God specifically created each species of animal that did/does/will exist on the day of creation. Some of them evolved based on territory, etc and I can fully support that.

However, do I believe Man evolved from hairy ape people? No.

Picking and choosing is a bitch sometimes.

[voodoochile78]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

Oh I believe in evolution. I don't believe God specifically created each species of animal that did/does/will exist on the day of creation. Some of them evolved based on territory, etc and I can fully support that.

Great!

However, do I believe Man evolved from hairy ape people? No.

What the fuck?

Picking and choosing is a bitch sometimes.

I guess with religious training, picking and choosing becomes a lot easier.

[Lefazz]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

However, do I believe Man evolved from hairy ape people? No.

If God designed us independently from the other creatures of Earth then he did a fucking shitty job.

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Lefazz

If God designed us independently from the other creatures of Earth then he did a fucking shitty job.

You are right. We are just the only creatures on the planet who can reason, speak, socialize, rationalize, know consciously what the hell we are...the list goes on. We're not so different, them and us.

[Lefazz]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

You are right. We are just the only creatures on the planet who can reason, speak, socialize, rationalize, know consciously what the hell we are...the list goes on. We're not so different, them and us.

Other animals can do the same thing. Just differently or more limited.

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Lefazz

Other animals can do the same thing. Just differently or more limited.

Limited by whom?

[Screamfeeder]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

You are right. We are just the only creatures on the planet who can reason, speak, socialize, rationalize, know consciously what the hell we are...the list goes on. We're not so different, them and us.

Oh the hubris of homo-sapian!

Animals do speak(just not the language of humans like a certain snake does), socialize and they do have the capacity for planning and the association of cause and effect. They can even make plans based on that association.

You simply didn't know that. An animal knows to run from fire, but since they don't know what the letters F-I-R-E are, you assume they cannot think.

Originally Posted by Asmadai

However, do I believe Man evolved from hairy ape people? No.

Then where do you think man came from?

[Smocca]

Originally Posted by Screamfeeder

Then where do you think man came from?

Obviously god made us and made apes absurdly similar to us and left a remarkably detailed path of "evolution" as a way to test our faith. See god really loves us. Like, A LOT. So much that he goes to a huge amount of effort to fool us into making the wrong decision about him and then as soon as we do make that wrong decision for that blip in eternity, he sends us away to burn. Forever. Jesus christ god really loves us.

See. I can post ridiculously stupid anecdotes and distortions too. Do I win something?

[Pancreas]

I watched an Elephant paint a more accurate picture of an elephant than I could hope to accomplish, in less time than it would take me to find the brush.

There are examples of animal intelligence spread over a vast range of the animal kingdom that are being discovered or recently recognized nearly every week.

Man does have the unique ability to circumvent nearly every natural balancing agent that all other animals are subject to. (lack of food, over population, disease)

Well... we HAVE been able to circumvent those limitations thus far. If things don't change we may very well be put back into our place and then it could become painfully apparent how little we can differ from our more feral neighbors.

Animals are great agents for heralding natural change. To think ourselves entirely above them is to believe ourselves to be removed from our own world. Ironic that such a misconception could in-fact prove itself to be true.

[Leadsalad]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/wo...ce&oref=slogin

They're making fake nests to fool the people trying to hunt them down. Clearly they are incapable of rational thought.

And then there's http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/sc...ml?ref=science which is pretty much proof that your god has no plan.

[Schatze]

Morality, or at least behaviours indistinguishable from morality, are hardly the sole province of human beings. Almost every single intelligent (say, use monkeys as a baseline) social animal has characteristics of what we term morality.

Intelligence, or even abstract reasoning, doesn't seem to be the sole domain of man either.

Complex communication is not the sole domain of man.

But to assume morality is a simple construct is idiotic. There are certain behaviours and compromises that need to take place in any complex society, human or animal. There will always be those who attempt to cheat the system; therefore, the ability to detect those who cheat is a valuable attribute. Basic morality is intrinsic.