Barak Hussein Obama? or Barak Hussein Osama?

On 13 Dec 2006 20:16:27 GMT, Scott Seidman
wrote:

wrote in news:qum0o2975niv3nl54pu7e5gbraqs7d6e8d@
4ax.com:

That said, I agree that people should be "taught" about both,
as well as about religion.

Exactly. Children should learn about evolution in science class, and about
intelligent design in whichever class they learn about Apollo dragging the
sun across the sky with his chariot.


The major things I find wrong with intelligent design are A: it
implies a designer. Okay. Wouldn't that equate with a god or
committee of gods? Spooky. And then there's B: where this
intelligent design leads. Are we what it was supposed to lead to? The
absolute best that this god / these gods could come up with over
billions of years? Not very good at their work, in that case.

Or do we have to pull back our egos and admit that there are stages
and stages to go and we aren't the top of it all? I can't see most
humans, much less the very religious who back intelligent design being
willing to do that.

I can't say I'm in favour of either A or B. I'll go with evolution
for $50, Bob.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

wrote:
On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:47:39 -0500, GM wrote:

McCain lost me when he said he thought Intelligent Design should be
taught alongside Evolution. I know he was pandering and they all have to
do some of that, but I don't believe he needed to do it then, on that
particular issue. My opinion opinion of him was further diminished when
he folded under pressure on Military Commissions Act 2006.

First, people cannot be "taught evolution" or "intelligent design," they
can only be informed about them (or "taught _about_ them, if you
prefer). That said, I agree that people should be "taught" about both,
as well as about religion. I don't think "intelligent design" is the
way life came about and evolution is the more-reasonable explanation,
but I'm certainly aware of both, and I'd make sure my children were as
well. And I think you'll find that most voters would want their kids as
well-educated as possible, and many of those would truly believe that
intelligent design is the more-reasonable explanation.

I'd agree. Intelligent design and religion should be taught, but only
in philosophy or religious/world studies types of classes.
Taught alongside all the other creationism mythologies there's a
chance that children will be educated...even if their parents are
not.
- Ken

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:47:39 -0500, GM wrote:

First, people cannot be "taught evolution" or "intelligent design," they
can only be informed about them (or "taught _about_ them, if you
prefer). That said, I agree that people should be "taught" about both,
as well as about religion. I don't think "intelligent design" is the
way life came about and evolution is the more-reasonable explanation,
but I'm certainly aware of both, and I'd make sure my children were as
well. And I think you'll find that most voters would want their kids as
well-educated as possible, and many of those would truly believe that
intelligent design is the more-reasonable explanation.
R

If you allow your children--heaven forbid that you actually have any--to be
taught "intelligent design," it's no wonder that you say the **** that you
do! And yes, people can be "taught" evolution and they can be taught about
it too.

Op

wrote in message
...

First, people cannot be "taught evolution" or "intelligent design," they
can only be informed about them (or "taught _about_ them, if you
prefer).

At first glance that sounds about as stupid as the rest of the horse**** you
spout. But when one stops to reflect on the evidence, one can hardly deny
that YOU, at any rate, can't be taught anything. Then again, you can't be
taught ABOUT anything either. Looks like you're still just a punching bag
either way.

That said, I agree that people should be "taught" about both,
as well as about religion.

Sure, people should be taught "about" (hee, hee, hee) all kinds of things.
Trouble is, they aren't interested in learning. Look at you, for instance.

I don't think "intelligent design" is the
way life came about

Oh? Really? You don't think so? Hm.....yet another position I have to
reconsider.

and evolution is the more-reasonable explanation,

Gosh......ya think? Seriously?

but I'm certainly aware of both,

Thus providing yet more ammunition to religious zealots......miracles DO
happen.

and I'd make sure my children were as well.

You're a liar. You'd fill their heads with the same dithering and
blithering angst as your own.

And I think you'll find that most voters would want their kids as
well-educated as possible,

Horse****. They want their children to believe the same crap they do.

and many of those would truly believe that
intelligent design is the more-reasonable explanation.

THAT is true......they noes it in ther hahrts.

Giuliano is polling better then McCain right now.

"Giuliano"...was that the guy in the porno with Paris Hilton, or the guy
Tony, Bruce Springsteen's guitar player, and the guy with the
Fraankenschteen's Bride hairdo whacked in the season finale of the
Sopranos?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wolfgang

wrote:
That said, I agree that people should be "taught" about both,
as well as about religion.

By the way you phrase the statement, I infer you do not consider ID as
religion?

I don't think "intelligent design" is the
way life came about and evolution is the more-reasonable explanation,
but I'm certainly aware of both, and I'd make sure my children were as
well.

If you don't think ID is the way life came about, why would you want it
taught to your kids?

And I think you'll find that most voters would want their kids as
well-educated as possible, and many of those would truly believe that
intelligent design is the more-reasonable explanation.

Many of those might believe the earth is flat; but that doesn't mean we
should squander resources teaching it in school.

"rb608" wrote in news:1166043073.560987.269080@
73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com:

Many of those might believe the earth is flat; but that doesn't mean we
should squander resources teaching it in school.

Turns out that this flat earth thing is a myth, tracable to Washington
Irving's book about Columbus!! By about 50BC, everyone generally believed
that the Earth was spherical.

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

Scott Seidman wrote:
"rb608" wrote in news:1166043073.560987.269080@
73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com:

Many of those might believe the earth is flat; but that doesn't mean we
should squander resources teaching it in school.

Turns out that this flat earth thing is a myth, tracable to Washington
Irving's book about Columbus!! By about 50BC, everyone generally believed
that the Earth was spherical.

Swap it for sun orbiting the earth, the result is the same.
- Ken

" wrote in message
ps.com...

Scott Seidman wrote:
"rb608" wrote in news:1166043073.560987.269080@
73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com:

Many of those might believe the earth is flat; but that doesn't mean we
should squander resources teaching it in school.

Turns out that this flat earth thing is a myth, tracable to Washington
Irving's book about Columbus!! By about 50BC, everyone generally
believed
that the Earth was spherical.

Swap it for sun orbiting the earth, the result is the same.

O.k., is it just me, or does anyone else have an uneasy suspicion that that
sentence might mean something or other?

Wolfgang

"Scott Seidman" wrote in message
. 1.4...
"rb608" wrote in news:1166043073.560987.269080@
73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com:

Many of those might believe the earth is flat; but that doesn't mean we
should squander resources teaching it in school.

Turns out that this flat earth thing is a myth, tracable to Washington
Irving's book about Columbus!! By about 50BC, everyone generally believed
that the Earth was spherical.

Actually, the story isn't quite that simple. The flat versus spherical
debate (not to mention infinite variations) raged for a long time. It
certainly IS true that most educated people knew a long time ago that the
question had been settled, but it was by no means a dead issue as late as
the mid-15th century......any more than evolution versus intelligent design
is today. Washington Irving may have popularized the myth about Columbus,
but many of the sailors aboard his vessels undoubtedly had serious concerns
about this spherical Earth "theory."

Incidentally, while Columbus was obviously right about the shape of the
Earth, he was WAY wrong about its size (thus leading him to believe that
he'd arrived at the East Indies).......which had been pretty accurately
estimated by a number of folks centuries earlier.

Wolfgang

"Wolfgang" wrote in
:

Actually, the story isn't quite that simple. The flat versus
spherical debate (not to mention infinite variations) raged for a long
time. It certainly IS true that most educated people knew a long time
ago that the question had been settled, but it was by no means a dead
issue as late as the mid-15th century......any more than evolution
versus intelligent design is today. Washington Irving may have
popularized the myth about Columbus, but many of the sailors aboard
his vessels undoubtedly had serious concerns about this spherical
Earth "theory."

Incidentally, while Columbus was obviously right about the shape of
the Earth, he was WAY wrong about its size (thus leading him to
believe that he'd arrived at the East Indies).......which had been
pretty accurately estimated by a number of folks centuries earlier.

Wolfgang


"Settled" might be an overstatement-- after all, we still have flat
earthers today. There do seem to be some historians that hold that the
flat earth theorists were influential at the later Middle Ages, but most
historians seem to agree that based upon a relative scarcity of traceable
reference to a flat earth after about 800AD, the influence was marginal.

As for Columbus, if he did in fact use a flat vs spherical Earth
hypothesis to bilk Spain out of funds, it certainly wouldn't be the last
time a scientist set up to disprove a straw horse to secure funding (but
it might have been the first!)

Size was a different matter. I think that the Late Middle Age "natural
philosophers" had a fair problem understanding scale, and the fact that
people didn't understand that the distance of stars was so vast as to
preclude parallax errors was responsible for geocentrism holding on as
long as it did.

This isn't what gave Columbus problems, though. Indeed, his estimation
of how far he travelled is remarkably accurate given his dead reckoning
preference (see http://www.columbusnavigation.com/v1a.shtml). The
problem was that he used Ptolemy's huge underestimation of circumference.
Almost 500 years before Ptolemy, Eratosthenes had an estimation of
circumference to within 8%.

While he preferred dead reckoning, Columbus also had a quadrant on board.
I would think that a well developed technique for quadrant based
navigation at Columbus' time would indicate a well developed sense of a
spherical earth.
--
Scott
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