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Al Frisby has spent the better part of his life in rooms filled with rebellious teenagers, but the last years have been particularly trying for the high school biology teacher. He has met parents who want him to teach that God created Eve out of Adam's rib, and then then adjusted the chromosomes to make her a woman, and who insist that Noah invited dinosaurs aboard the ark. And it is getting more difficult to keep such talk out of the classroom.

"Somewhere along the line, the students have been told the theory of evolution is not valid," he said. "In the last few years, I've had students question my teaching about cell classification and genetics, and there have been a number of comments from students saying: 'Didn't God do that'?" In Kansas, the geographical centre of America, the heart of the American heartland, the state-approved answer might soon be Yes. In the coming weeks, state educators will decide on proposed curriculum changes for high school science put forward by subscribers to the notion of "intelligent design", a modern version of creationism. If the religious right has its way, and it is a powerful force in Kansas, high school science teachers could be teaching creationist material by next September, charting an important victory in America's modern-day revolt against evolutionary science.

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Originally posted by ShyViolet417:
i feel ill now....
whatever happened to separation of church and state?

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According to the Christian Reich, the first amendment is to limit the power of the state over the Church and not the other way around...

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

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I'm going to stick with K/Ar dating and the principles of stratigraphy, thanks.

More apropos, perhaps: Why has not a single dinosaur bone been found within an archaeological site? Am I to believe that these sauropods were wandering around Mesopotamia and no-one, ever, *ever* killed and ate one?

[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: aRoused ]

[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: Snuckles ]

quote:

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Originally posted by aRoused:
Errr, yeah.

I'm going to stick with K/Ar dating and the principles of stratigraphy, thanks.

More apropos, perhaps: Why has not a single dinosaur bone been found within an archaeological site? Am I to believe that these sauropods were wandering around Mesopotamia and no-one, ever, *ever* killed and ate one?

[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: aRoused ]

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According to Leakey Jr. et al, we didn't come down out of the trees for quite a while because ... we'd have been eaten by much larger game than ourselves. We were the ones being hunted. There's evidence of that. And at some point, the trees weren't so homey for some of us. Perhaps there was widescale defoliation of the canopy, according to them.

Hmmmm, what kind of beasty would eat a lot of tree tops away all at once ?. D'yer think? ha ha Anyway ...

Don't forget that big cats were top predators for about 40 million years. Hyenas in Africa can grind and snap the bones of wildebeast with powerful jaws. Hyenas, although they resemble wild dogs moreso, are a distant relative of felines. Just picture a sabertooth cat the size of a big cow and picture the bones staying put for any amount of time. MMMm! bone marrow! ha ha

Besides, think of the size of the spit they'd have had to make for a bbq. No thanks, I'll just help myself to a filet or flank steak o' dino meat and run off before something bigger comes along, thanks.

[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Don't forget that big cats were top predators for about 40 million years. Hyenas in Africa can grind and snap the bones of wildebeast with powerful jaws. Hyenas, although they resemble wild dogs moreso, are a distant relative of felines. Just picture a sabertooth cat the size of a big cow and picture the bones staying put for any amount of time. MMMm! bone marrow! ha ha

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Yes, and there is a substantial archaeological/paleoanthropological literature on the effects of carnivore gnawing on bone, and the potential interactions between early hominids, carnivores, and the 'prey' based on whether the stone tool cutmarks overlie or underlie the gnaw marks. It's now generally understood that very early hominids were scavenging both carnivore kills and dead animals more generally, making use of sharp edges of broken flint to aid in cutting off meat.

The hyenas themselves, while they do contribute to bone destruction, don't do enough damage to render the bones unidentifiable. It's relatively easy to control for the effects of hyena gnawing as well as the effect of bone fragments passing through their guts. If hyenas were as destructive of bones as you suggest, we wouldn't know anything about any other animals from that period because, by the terms of your argument, the hyenas would have ground everything to a fine powder!

Let's take up that sabretooth for a moment, shall we? How come no sabretooth fossil has been found in the same context as a dinosaur fossil, ever? Surely something that large coexisting with dinosaurs would have occasionally brought one down. Unless you're prepared to argue that the dinosaurs just kept to themselves and no predatory mammal ever bothered with them..

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Yes, some scientists would prefer that certain artifacts remain undiscovered. Curiosity is a good thing.

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Fidel, is this just another juvenile hoax like the giant "Human" leg bone you posted a few months ago?

Biology Professor Refuses to Recommend Students Who Don't Believe in Evolution

Sadly the first links are now dead, but the title should give you an idea of what we should be doing, namely, a good old fashioned shunning of a sort. Don't want to believe in science? Ok, no problem, but don't expect a job in science then. Similarly, if you believe that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is 3, you don't get a job in math. Go be a TV preacher or something.

[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
Sadly the first links are now dead...

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

Fidel, is this just another juvenile hoax like the giant "Human" leg bone you posted a few months ago?

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You still won't let me live that down, eh Magoo. ha ha

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If so, what's up with that? Why are you posting Fundamentalist Christian shit? When you purposely post lies like these it, uh, kind of has an impact on your credibility in general. You either come off looking like you're trying to lie to babblers, or else you're not smart enough to know you're lying to babblers. And no, it's not "funny", so don't pretend it's all a joke.

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My god, as Fidel himself points out, no wars or natural catastrophes have caused the numbers of children to starve to death every day, around the world in the last century or this as what free market fundamentalism has.

I just think that some scientists, like televangelists and preachers, go too far when they want to tell children, this is the way it is. That's pretty arrogant, in my POV. The kiddies should be allowed to think and imagine for themselves what may be. I don't like it because it puts children into a learned mindset that they have no reason to question authority. And who in hell knows, really ?. Because I for one don't buy into, "there is no God" religion as much as I don't believe I'm going to spend an eternity in hell for jerking off as much as I did when I was a wee wanker.

And perhaps you can explain to us all how and when those dino-glyphs were made, Magoo. And when you're finished with that, tell us kiddies that all crop circles are a hoax because you have empirical scientific proof that they are. And tell us how primitive cultures around the world moved massive stone blocks that would, today, necessitate the use of massive machinery ?. And if you can't, then at least use some imagination.

[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
The point is that certain aspects of science, like economics and free market theory, is foisted on us all as if it were religion itself.

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I just think that some scientists, like televangelists and preachers, go too far when they want to tell children, this is the way it is. That's pretty arrogant, in my POV. The kiddies should be allowed to think and imagine for themselves what may be. I don't like it because it puts children into a learned mindset that they have no reason to question authority. And who in hell knows, really?

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1. Early humans coexisted with dinosaurs, and painted pictures of them.
2. Early humans found bones of some huge monstrous creature, speculated about what they looked like, and painted accordingly.
3. The paintings are hoaxes.

The third of these is readily testible by radiocarbon dating, so that's the first line to follow, so it can be either confirmed or eliminated from the running. Suppose, for sake of argument, that the paintings are shown to be authentic. Maybe we can't decide absolutely between 1 and 2, but 1 requires a rather big leap of faith- that hyenas or the like ate all dinosaur bones more recent than 65 million years ago. I suppose that's possible, but it requires a BIG leap of faith.

Of course, if someone finds actual dinosaur bones from more recently than 65 million years ago, that changes things, but until we find them, hypothesis 2 is the one to go with.

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Because I for one don't buy into, "there is no God" religion as much as I don't believe I'm going to spend an eternity in hell for jerking off as much as I did when I was a wee wanker.

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2. Early humans found bones of some huge monstrous creature, speculated about what they looked like, and painted accordingly.

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Really ?. When?. Was it before a world wide ice sheet about a mile thick covered these same areas up until approx. 10 thousand years ago or after ?.

Scientists wouldn't appreciate that hypothesis, Mike. Darwin's theory says that change happens over a very, very long time.

I mean, say you've got a population with inheritance of characteristics + a mechanism for producing variation. OK, given a population with variation, some of them would *have* to be a bit better at surviving in their environment than others. OK, and given that not all members of that population survived to reproduce, the ones a bit better at surviving would be slightly more likely to be the ones who did. And given that slight imbalance in survival rate, their traits would be slightly more likely to be passed on. And that means the traits involved would spread. And when the traits involved have spread widely, bam! That's a piece of evolution. It's inevitable that it will happen. How could it avoid happening? And that's the theory of evolution; the rest is details.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Really ?. When?. Was it before a world wide ice sheet about a mile thick covered these same areas up until approx. 10 thousand years ago or after?

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In the afternoon, visit to the Bernifal cave (walk in the woods for the access to the cave) wwhich houses more than 110 engravings and paintings, above all a huge mammoth drawn in clay.

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In any case, there is a precedent for the hypothesis I've put forward (assuming it's not a hoax, that is). Many people believe that the legend of the unicorn arose when people discovered the horns of Narwhals and speculated about what kind of creature it would have come from, so it's not a big leap to suppose that they might have done the same with dinosaur bones.

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Scientists wouldn't appreciate that hypothesis, Mike. Darwin's theory says that change happens over a very, very long time.

So how did we manage to evolve from using stone tools to landing on the moon in about 50K years time ?. That's breakneck speed according to evolutionaries.

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Ya, and the Sphynx, once described by Alexander and others as buried up to its head in sand, is about 3-4 thousand years old. Ya rrrright. The weathering patterns on it are consistent with heavy rainfall. But there has been any significant duration of rainfall in Egypt since the ice age ended. Ssssplain that one to us, please.

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[ 07 February 2005: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

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So how did we manage to evolve from using stone tools to landing on the moon in about 50K years time ?. That's breakneck speed according to evolutionaries.

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Originally posted by nonesuch:
... also consistent with being machine-gunned by a Turkish soldier, circa 1911 - which is one story i've heard.

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I ran into similar thinking to Fidel's in Tom Flanagan's crappy book on the First Nations; not content to include some crappy history under the pretense of being a historian who knew what he was talking about, he also made anthropological comments such as that when Europeans arrived in North America, they were 5000 years ahead of the First Nations [or more advanced, or more evolved, or some such nonsense.] Funny thing, he didn't notice that First Nations people can now write and drive cars and even surf the internet; they evolved 5000 years' worth in a few centuries!

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Yes, some scientists would prefer that certain artifacts remain undiscovered. Curiosity is a good thing.

Dino-glyphs

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he also made anthropological comments such as that when Europeans arrived in North America, they were 5000 years ahead of the First Nations [or more advanced, or more evolved, or some such nonsense.]

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Funny, how many people - even self-proclaimed scholars, who ought to know better - confuse technology with evolution.
What's ahead of what? All people are essentially the same; their lifestyles differ. If you're a nomad, you don't want to carry a lot of stuff; you learn to use whatever the environment provides. If you're settled, you tend to build and accumulate things. If you have reverence for the land you live on, you don't gauge holes in it or make messes. If you have a proprietary attitude, you subdue and change everything. These difference in approach have nothing to with intelligence or advancement.

[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]

One more explanation for this 'dinosaur' imagery [some of which may be a hoax but I think not all of it] is that imaginary beasties are not uncommon in visual representation through the ages. They may develop from third- fourth- or fifth-hand traveller's accounts of things like alligators or komodo dragons. In fact I'm fairly certain that Thutmose's seal featured an alligator, and the monster on that second Greek vase looked a great deal like other Greco-Roman representations of dolphins (which don't really correspond to the way dolphins actually look, but developed into a good visual shorthand).

A crocodile or a whale don't even have to be astronomically huge to cause fear. But that fear may come out in an oversized representation of a 'monster'. And a good story about something like that can make it into someone's heraldic crest, where it is further reimagined and refined through the centuries into something quite spectacular.

As for the petroglyphs, ancient rock art is a difficult thing to research except through ethnographic analogy, but some of the major theories on it include representations of dreams or visions. While these images may be aspects of an important emotional reality, or even mythology, they are by no means restricted to the realms of biological reality.

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
Napoleon's army supposedly used the Sphynx for target practice and knocked off its nose.

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That's not how a geophysicist and one geologist from the Boston area are explaining the weathering patterns on the Sphynx. Newer conservative estimates put its age at 8000-10000 years old. And you wouldn't want to know the upper limit.

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I ran into similar thinking to Fidel's in Tom Flanagan's crappy book on the First Nations; not content to include some crappy history under the pretense of being a historian who knew what he was talking about, he also made anthropological comments such as chapter...

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I'm not Tom Flanagan, and I believe that native North American's came from all over the world by different routes to both east and west coasts, not just a land-ice bridge. White Euro's were last to arrive.

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Funny thing, he didn't notice that First Nations people can now write and drive cars and even surf the internet; they evolved 5000 years' worth in a few centuries!

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Have you ever thought that maybe we haven't taught native people much of anything worthwhile except how to fill out government forms in triplicate; segregate whole nations of once proud, communal people onto reserves along our highways and introduced them to liquor stores ?. Allowed them to live in third world conditions with absurdly high infant mortality rates ?.

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Can Tales of Sirius Be Taken Seriously?
Jay Ingram, The Toronto Star

As winter rapidly approaches, sky watchers look forward to seeing Sirius, the brightest star visible in the Northern Hemisphere. Sirius is also the subject of one of the most enduring - and most farfetched - claims of extraterrestrial visits to Earth.

The story revolves around the Dogon people of west Africa. In the late 1940s, Dogon leaders laid out much of their tribal knowledge for two French anthropologists. Contained in that lore were intriguing references to Sirius - not just to the familiar, bright star, but to an invisible companion.

This second star was said by the Dogon to be composed of an extremely dense material ("all earthly beings combined cannot lift it") and to move in a 50-year orbit around Sirius. The anthropologists estimated that this knowledge had been part of the Dogon mythology for several centuries.

What struck westerners as remarkable about these beliefs is that it wasn't until 1862 that astronomer Alvan Clark discovered that Sirius did indeed have a small, barely visible companion star. The Dogon had apparently beaten Clark to the punch by several hundred years.

This sensational discovery was turned into an even more sensational book in 1976 called The Sirius Mystery. Author Robert Temple took the easy route to explaining the mystery by postulating that amphibious (!) aliens came to Earth 5,000 years ago and brought with them the secrets of the galaxy, including the existence of Sirius' companion.

The scientific community ridiculed Temple's explanation, and prominent astronomers, among them Carl Sagan and Ken Brecher, came up with the following explanation.

French missionaries had been active in the region where the Dogon lived since the 1920s. In Europe at that time real public excitement had been generated by Sirius.

Close examination of the light spectrum arriving at Earth from Sirius' tiny companion star showed that the light had escaped from an enormous gravitational field. This proved that the tiny star was indeed - as the Dogon had apparently maintained - extremely dense.

Brecher and Sagan argued that somehow the missionaries of the 1920s had conveyed that information to the Dogon, who in turn had incorporated it into their legends. Brecher suggested a scenario in which a Dogon tribesman asks a Jesuit for his myths, and the missionary replies, "See that star? It is actually two stars and the invisible star is the heaviest thing there is."

There are precedents for the incorporation of recent information into mythic formats. However, this explanation, while it preserves scientific sanity, has nothing like the romance of the original. And it hasn't gotten any better today.

Most of this theorizing and fantasizing I've described above took place in the 1970s. In the 1990s, the Dogon story lives on, although Robert Temple's aliens have been replaced by claims that the Dogon had incredibly powerful eyesight (beyond any known human capability) or that they learned about the stars from the ancient Egyptians, who had powerful telescopes (somehow overlooked by Egyptologists).

The counter-arguments these days are based on doubts about the very basis of the story. Some anthropologists today suggest that the original French researchers from the 1940s, not the Dogon, might have imprinted knowledge about Sirius on to stories gathered in interviews.

A Belgian named Walter van Beek, who has worked with the Dogon recently, found that the vast majority of these people know nothing about Sirius having an invisible companion, let alone anything about its mass or its orbital period.

He and his colleagues have noted the Dogon propensity for consensus, making it unlikely that the original story was one only a few elders might have known.

Perhaps the original anthropologists, aware of the existence of the massive, compact star, read too much into the Sirius legends related to them. Pick your favorite explanation.

You'll never be proven wrong.

Jay Ingram hosts the TV program @discovery.ca on the Discovery Channel.

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[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

But you do exhibit more than the usual dose of human wonder of the things around you. You have the basic drive of scientific exploration. Fine tune it with some reading on modern scepticism.

Which brings me to a more general point on science education.

I blame the teachers for the encroachment of religious ninnyism in high schools, and postmodern falderal in universities.

Most elementary and high school teachers take a clock punching ethic to their jobs. They sit their students down and think that they are teaching science when they get the students to memorize the periodic table of the elements, or a fruit chart, or Newton's laws of motion.

That's not teaching science, that's teaching memory work.

Without teaching the basic idea of science as a method of determining what is reasonable to accept as a provisional truth and what isn't, science teachers are sending kids out into the world like lambs to the slaughter. Setting them up to be the guilible rubes for employers, retailers, professionals, politicians and preachers.

This sin of ommission has allowed postmodernism to creep into universities. It's allowed people to sieze upon silly ideas like creationism.

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Originally posted by aRoused:

Yes, and there is a substantial archaeological/paleoanthropological literature on the effects of carnivore ...

Let's take up that sabretooth for a moment, shall we? How come no sabretooth fossil has been found in the same context as a dinosaur fossil, ever? Surely something that large coexisting with dinosaurs would have occasionally brought one down. Unless you're prepared to argue that the dinosaurs just kept to themselves and no predatory mammal ever bothered with them..

Honestly, let's get Occam's razor out on occasion, okay?

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Can you please explain for us what postmodernism is, Tommy_Paine?

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In art-- which I take no issue with-- it is a movement where substance takes precedence over style.

However, when we go looking for short-- or even long-- deffinitions of post modernism as a philosophy we run into difficulty.

And perhaps that's rather fitting that we can't get a deffinition from post modernists themselves. Maybe that's the deffinition there-- in a post modern way of thinking.

So, I attach my own arbitrary deffinition, which is a school of thinking that relies heavily on jargon and tangled sentences to hide the dearth of substance; it disdains empiricism. Postmodernism likes to wear the lab coat, but doesn't want to earn it, avoiding things like peer review.

Unlike it's namesake in the arts, the short deffinition in philosophy therefore could be style over substance.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Twice in the above posts, Fidel, you appeal to a poster to prove you wrong. That isn't regarded as reasoned thinking. The onus of proof lies with the person making the claim. It is up to you to supply the evidence required to make your claim part of the realm of accepted, provisional truth.

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Well that's very flattering, Tommy, but I didn't realize that this was a scientific debate. I'm afraid I wouldn't fare very well if it were. I'm not firmly on one side of the creationist or scientific explanation for all things. I like evolution, and it generally satisfies my curiosity about where and how far we've come. But there are some artifacts lying around the world that astounds scientists even today.

As Catje points out, many cultures around the world have encorporated myth and wild imagination into their folklore and tradition in explaining what must have been awe inspiring events during their time. The legend and folklore of some tribes would make some modern science fiction stories seem tame by comparison. And yes, sometimes the right answer is the most obvious one, remember this.

Something as benign as the seasons changing for old civilisations was so important to them that they should worship a sun or fertility god. Understanding the seasons was key to their survival. Many cultures share similar beliefs even though separated by oceans as well as oceans of time. Common to many are legendary beliefs in where their people originated from. Indigenous people from around the world have pointed toward various parts of the sky but in a general direction toward the heavens. They were never short of imagination by any means. For them, that is the truth.

[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

How pointless would a chess game be if the players could arbitrarily change the moves the pieces can make during the game? Non scientific debates are just like that. There have to be "rules" for what is reasonable to accept as provisional truth and what isn't, or the whole debate is rather pointless, because the horse I chose in last night's harness race won, and therefore everything I say must be right.

See what I mean?

Unfortunately, this often caters to the people who look at such debates as a game, like chess, where there is a "winner" and a "loser".

It is difficult, but it really helps if debates can be looked at as a "win-win" situation. Even when proven "wrong", the loser "wins" by acquiring a better base of knowledge.

Ya loser.

You castled through a line of check

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Have it your way, Tommy. You're the man, but I castled king side first.

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Don't get me too wrong. I'm not "the man". I don't come to science because I'm smart. I come to it because, truth be known, I ain't so bright and I need all the help I can get.

When I was 14 or so, I eagerly swallowed up the ideas of Erich Von Daniken, he of "Ancient Astronauts" infamy. Until I read a "Playboy Interview" where the interviewer slowly took him to task on his ideas, asking for evidence etc.

You post a link to a series of pieces of rock art and other images that are purported to be of dinosaurs. I say 'I'm going to stick with the chronometric dating of fossils and volcanic tephras that provide direct evidence that humans didn't see dinosaurs and then make pictures of them. You then come back with:

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Hmmmm, what kind of beasty would eat a lot of tree tops away all at once ?. D'yer think? ha ha Anyway ...

(snip)

Besides, think of the size of the spit they'd have had to make for a bbq. No thanks, I'll just help myself to a filet or flank steak o' dino meat and run off before something bigger comes along, thanks.

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Which implies pretty directly that you think it was dinosaurs eating hominids out of their treetop refuges, especially when you posit the hominids 'helping themselves to dino steak'.

THEN you have the temerity to say 'Whoa, I didn't say those things!' Bullshit, you did, and now you're trying to squirm your way out of it 'cause everyone's called you on it.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
That's not how a geophysicist and one geologist from the Boston area are explaining the weathering patterns on the Sphynx. Newer conservative estimates put its age at 8000-10000 years old. And you wouldn't want to know the upper limit.

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Meanwhile, unless your geophysicist and geologist publish a scholarly article in a peer-reviewed journal on the matter, I question their rumoured existence, their putative views, and their implied qualifications to make a reasoned judgment of the evidence.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I'm not Tom Flanagan, and I believe that native North American's came from all over the world by different routes to both east and west coasts, not just a land-ice bridge. White Euro's were last to arrive.

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I think the current scientific thinking is that they either came by the land bridge or by boat along the west coast [or maybe both]. I am not sure what DNA studies show, but I doubt if they show a source outside of Asia [unless you go way back to our common ancestors].

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Have you ever thought that maybe we haven't taught native people much of anything worthwhile except how to fill out government forms in triplicate; segregate whole nations of once proud, communal people onto reserves along our highways and introduced them to liquor stores ?. Allowed them to live in third world conditions with absurdly high infant mortality rates ?.

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My point was that First Nations people are not less evolved than any other people. Most geneticists will tell you there is no scientific reason to consider any "race" more or less evolved; there is no meaningful biological difference.

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Most geneticists will tell you there is no scientific reason to consider any "race" more or less evolved; there is no meaningful biological difference.

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[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
I was citing the Napoleon story as part of the general conversation, not to explain any weathering that may or may not be present on the Sphynx. That might have been caused by wind, sand, rain, air pollution, souvenir hunters, camels using it for a side-scratcher, or yearly flooding of the Nile over thousands of years; or a combination of all these things.
Meanwhile, unless your geophysicist and geologist publish a scholarly article in a peer-reviewed journal on the matter, I question their rumoured existence, their putative views, and their implied qualifications to make a reasoned judgment of the evidence.

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That's just it, the Sphynx and pyramids have been studied by Egyptologists for many decades, and they all tend to be experts in language and ancient culture. In this case, it's modern science making Egyptology uncomfortable with their own views. The Egyptologist is Anthony West. Geologist is Robert Schoch from Boston U and geophysicist Thomas Dobecki from Houston.
Ever wonder why the head of the Sphynx is out of proportion with the body?. The head is too small, as if chiselled away to resemble a Pharaoh.

Roman engineers were purported to have covered massive temple foundation stones with marble at Baalbek, Lebanon. One of the quarried pieces is the largest carved stone in the world and weighing over 1200 tons. It's quite impressive.

How old is the Sphynx ?

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I'd be interested in any real evidence reported by real archaeologists that native peoples arrived on the east coast of North America by any other means than walking or canoeing east across the continent; ditto for Central and South America.
I think the current scientific thinking is that they either came by the land bridge or by boat along the west coast [or maybe both]. I am not sure what DNA studies show, but I doubt if they show a source outside of Asia [unless you go way back to our common ancestors].

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Well your self-confident "maybe" is probably a good instinct. Fairly recent studies of a dig in Virginia have shown that Clovis people were probably there at the end of the last ice age, and they made arrow heads in a similar fashion to indigenous methods found the world over. They probably came along the edge of an ice sheet connecting North America with Europe. In fact, they're finding Clovis arrow heads on both the east and west coasts of the N.American continent. The American's are hypothesising that ocean's were not a barrier for ancient cultures and that they were adept at building ocean going "canoes." They're thinking now of the Pacific and Atlantic more as highways several millenia ago. As mid-western native beliefs have stated, we may all be more related than once thought.

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It's a two-way street; we have taught them things, good and bad; we have also learned from them. Many of the reserves predated highways and the motivation for making them included good and ill intentions. Many do suffer the effects of their treatment throughout Canada's history and of present racism; but a growing number are getting educated and becoming computer programmers, lawyers, artists, etc.
My point was that First Nations people are not less evolved than any other people. Most geneticists will tell you there is no scientific reason to consider any "race" more or less evolved; there is no meaningful biological difference.

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Leakey junior says we all came from Africa and outmigrated from there, the cradle of civilisation. Skin colour and eye colour changed within the last two or three hundred thousand years or so as lab experiments have shown possible with minute exposure to cold and lack of full light. Someone on this web site didn't like my saying once that we are all related with African's, and I found that to be very entertaining as well.

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I dunno, Mike. I've never used the term, "race" in this context before.

[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Someone on this web site didn't like my saying once that we are all related with African's, and I found that to be very entertaining as well.

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[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
That makes Fidel part of the human species.

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Sure. Believing in stuff unsupported by credible evidence is a very human characteristic.

[ 08 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

Another one I found that looks good is The Hall of Maat about ancient history including some sceptical book reviews.

The problem with West is that he seems to be linked with theories of Atlantis and predictions by Edgar Cayce, though I'm not going to spend time reading his stuff to see if he believes them or his friends think he does. Both of those should ring loud alarm bells.

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Originally posted by rocco:
A sign that the end is near:
Bush's administration has approved the sale of books written on the formation of the grand canyon. These books claim the canyon was formed from the water run-off after the great flood. These books are placed in the natural sciences section of tourist bookstores near the grand canyon. Books contradicting this theory have been banned.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Fairly recent studies of a dig in Virginia have shown that Clovis people were probably there at the end of the last ice age, and they made arrow heads in a similar fashion to indigenous methods found the world over.

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They probably came along the edge of an ice sheet connecting North America with Europe.

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I think you're confusing this with the 'Ice-Free Corridor' theory on how the Americas were populated. For most of the 20th century archaeologists believed that 'paleoindians' migrated over Beringia (which, if you look at the continental shelf below the Bering strait, would have been more of a subcontinent than a land-bridge) and south through a gap between the retreating Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Geographic research in the 90's proved this to be a fairly unlikely event, (the corridor did not open soon enough to explain Clovis or pre-Clovis habitation sites further south, and when it did it was far to barren of resources to support anyone making the trip)and some archaeologists are now suggesting a coastal migration route through the Pacific Northwest.

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In fact, they're finding Clovis arrow heads on both the east and west coasts of the N.American continent. The American's are hypothesising that ocean's were not a barrier for ancient cultures and that they were adept at building ocean going "canoes." They're thinking now of the Pacific and Atlantic more as highways several millenia ago. As mid-western native beliefs have stated, we may all be more related than once thought.

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Migration over the Pacific on some sort of water craft is a possibility, but not as likely as via Beringia. As the DNA of most Indigenous North and South Americans is much closer to that of Northeast Asians than to Europeans, Atlantic migration is fairly unlikely. Eastern North American habitation sites are a result of overland migration from the west.

[edited to spelling and to insert random thought.]
[random thought] on the Dogon knowledge of Sirius- Wade Davis once wrote of indigenous groups who still relied on hunting/gathering for subsistence having better eyesight than your average urbanite. The example cited (and I've completely forgotten it now- anybody know?) could see and navigate by stars invisible to our eyes, because we don't need eyesight that good anymore. Use it or lose it . . .[/random thought]

[ 09 February 2005: Message edited by: catje ]

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Originally posted by catje:

This is generally believed to be true, although more recent evidence suggests that there were earlier people than Clovis (still at the end of the last ice age though). However, the fact that some of their tool technology is fairly common in other parts of the world says more about what you can logically and conveniently do with a certain type of rock than any more significant connection.

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Ah, but something about Clovis arrow heads are unique to other arrow heads found around N. America. They were chipped on both sides and thinned to a taper at the base. Smithsonian Institute's, Dennis Stanford, speculates that it was so that the shaft could be retrieved and reloaded with another stone arrow, and perhaps characteristic to big game hunters. The stone arrows are thought to have been used for bringing down bison, mammoth and horses.

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I think you're confusing this with the 'Ice-Free Corridor' theory on how the Americas were populated. For most of the 20th century archaeologists believed that 'paleoindians' migrated over Beringia (which, if you look at the continental shelf below the Bering strait, would have been more of a subcontinent than a land-bridge) and south through a gap between the retreating Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Geographic research in the 90's proved this to be a fairly unlikely event.

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Yes, I've read where finds in Alaska have them realizing that Siberian-Alaskan settlements were most likely not fore-runners to Clovis. "Microblades" are being excavated in the corridor, Alaska, west coast and Siberia.

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Migration over the Pacific on some sort of water craft is a possibility, but not as likely as via Beringia. ... Eastern North American habitation sites are a result of overland migration from the west.

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Ah, maybe a year ago, I would have had to agree with you. I watched a PBS special that talked about Clovis and an excavation site at Cactus Hill, Virgina. They've found various artifacts that are characteristic of Solutrean's of France and Spain, about 5000 years older than Clovis. We already know that the Norse came to N.A. by open air boats over a thousand years ago. And our Haida and Innuit are known to have been boat builders. I agree, it would have been a long and arduous journey without maps or navigational aids. They must have been adventurous people.

A Solutrean arrow wrench has turned up at Cactus Hill, Virginia.

Were the first American's European ?.

[edited to spelling and to insert random thought.]
[random thought] on the Dogon knowledge of Sirius- Wade Davis once wrote of indigenous groups who still relied on hunting/gathering for subsistence having better eyesight than your average urbanite. The example cited (and I've completely forgotten it now- anybody know?) could see and navigate by stars invisible to our eyes, because we don't need eyesight that good anymore. Use it or lose it . . .[/random thought]

Use it or lose it ? Yes, . I read an interesting book by an American doctor entitled, Mutant Message. She insists that the book is pure fiction. However, she insinuates around the idea that the events in the book may have been her experience in Australia with a small tribe she calls, "the Real People" of the Outback. She claims to have witnessed some impressive displays of extra-sensory perception and inexplicable healing of a broken leg. She says the elders of the tribe never met a white person until she "arrived." If nothing else, it's a wonderful story.

[ 09 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Papal Bull said:
I hate strong atheism just as much as I hate fundamentalism. Both of them suck. I say that the schools should be secularized, let the churches teach kids creationism and intelligent design.

You know. The way it is supposed to be. Stupid reactionaries.

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I think atheism requires just as much certainty — faith, if you will — as a belief in God, which is why I’m an agnostic. I don’t think I know all the answers, but I don’t think anyone else does either. However, atheism, strong or weak, is not the opposite of “fundamentalism”, it is the opposite of “theism” — the latter is a belief in the existence of a god or gods, while the former philosophy denies any faith in supernatural beings. One can be a theist without being a fundamentalist, PB — I believe that description would fit you, for example.

Also, we already have secularized schools, as distinct from the church-run ecclesiastical schools, such as the Catholic or Jewish ones. I have no problem if these ecclesiastical schools choose to teach creation myth to their students in place of scientific theory. They have that right, and places like Prairie Bible College have been merrily doing just that for years. However, as Magoo points out, professors have the right to refuse to recommend students who graduate from these schools, professional bodies have the right not to accredit them, and HR managers have the right to refuse to hire them.

Any move by proponents of creationism (or the euphemism “intelligent design”) to have their propaganda foisted into the secularized public school system as part of the curriculum should be resisted with vigor. Society has enough problems with illiterate high school graduates because some damn fools thought “whole language” was just as good as learning phonics and spelling. We don’t need to also be hip-deep in doctors who eschew insulin and prefer the laying on of hands, or earth scientists who believe the planet is only 5,000 years old.

And sorry, Fidel, but I don’t consider the Leakeys and all their devotees to be the be-all and end-all of paleontology, either. For an interesting read, not to mention a most fascinating debunking of a lot of the “Tarzanist” sexism in this field of study, try checking out Elaine Morgan’s The Descent of Woman.* I don’t agree with it all, but it’s logical, well thought out, and explains a lot of anomalies far more cogently than the “Tarzanists” have ever managed.

* Morgan also wrote a couple of follow-up books, such as The Aquatic Ape, but for my money these just largely recycled her original theories that were in The Descent of Woman. Save your money/time, and check out TDOW first.

The new "Collapse" book sounds pretty interesting, too. However, his argument about the collapse of Nordic civilization in Greenland seems weak to me. From what he said on the radio, his argument is that the settlers, who came from a country which fished for a living, "stubbornly refused to do so" in Greenland.

That's hard for me to believe. I think it is more likely that they didn't know how to make boats since there was no wood there.

I know that doesn't explain why no ice fishing.

Maybe he is right. But after spending a few minutes checking out his claim that the Norse on Greenland "refused to eat fish", I begin to have some doubts.

For example, Christian Keller, Norway's reigning expert on the Greenland settlement, says this:

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Isotop-analyser viser at den norrøne befolkningen på Grønland spiste mer og mer fisk ut gjennom middelalderen. En erkebiskop (som jo var norsk) hadde spist 30 prosent marin føde. Norrøne grønlendere generelt ca 50-60 prosent. De senere norrøne grønlendere hadde spist 80 prosent marint. Nitrogen-analyser har så fastslått at av de 80 prosent var ca 40 fisk og 40 sjøpattedyr.

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(Analysis of isotopes found in their skeletons shows that the Norse population of Greenland ate more and more fish as the Middle Ages continued.
An archbishop who lived in Norway had eaten 30% seafood; the later ones had eaten about 80% seafood. Norse Greenlanders had generally 50-60%. Analyses of the nitrogen has clearly shown that of
the 80%, half was fish, and half turtles and other.)

Stanford's connections between Iberian and Clovis tool technology is an interesting one, but I think it speaks more to his subtle racism than his research.

Part of the reason that Clovis people were held up as the earliest North Americans for so long was that their image appealed to American nationalism. Here were these rugged big game hunters arriving through an 'ice free corridor' just in time to populate the US. Evidence of pre-Clovis habitations were more or less repressed by certain figures in the discipline itself (which my archaeology prof has taken to calling "the Clovis Police") until Monte Verde came along to refute them. So the field is wide open right now to all sorts of interesting theories on the peopling of the Americas.

I suppose that what this tangential little argument is really bringing to this thread is the reminder that one can no more fully trust science than one can fully trust religion. Both are confused by politics.

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I don't know Diamond's own academic background; I had the impression his earlier book was popularised history, but haven't read it and could not be sure.

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Actually, I don't think it is really "popularised" history; rather it is history written at a level of generalization which one rarely encounters.

For example, he attempts to answer the question of why the technology, seeds, etc. of Mesopotamia spread, while those of the Aztecs or of Zimbabwe did not.

His answer, convincing to me, was that a continent which stretches north and south, such as Africa or America, present large differences in climate, so that animals or plants cannot be easily husbanded and used over vast differences. Eurasia, on the other hand, stretches east west over vast distances, so that there is more room for innovations to spread.

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Originally posted by catje:

I suppose that what this tangential little argument is really bringing to this thread is the reminder that one can no more fully trust science than one can fully trust religion. Both are confused by politics.

now back to my actual homework . . .

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Isn't that a rather general and silly thing to say? When can't you trust science? Which science? All science? Is mathematics confused by politics? Do you trust science when, say, you hop on a plane or use a computer? Is it a selective thing i.e. you don't trust it when its results go against your world view?

These kinds of assertions fucking annoy me. Look, the methods of science are nothing but trained and organized common sense! If scientific truth is open to philosophical doubt, it is no more so than common sense truth.

Is science as confused by politics as is religion? I don't think so. Of course, there are political aspects to science, more so in those sciences that directly concern human behaviour. But there are irreducible facts and observations that are quite independent from politics.

You know, I think I could safely say that politics is all there is to religion! Science is not like religion in that aspect either!

[ 09 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:

Isn't that a rather general and silly thing to say? When can't you trust science? Which science? All science? Is mathematics confused by politics? Do you trust science when, say, you hop on a plane or use a computer? Is it a selective thing i.e. you don't trust it when its results go against your world view?

These kinds of assertions fucking annoy me. Look, the methods of science are nothing but trained and organized common sense! If scientific truth is open to philosophical doubt, it is no more so than common sense truth.

Is science as confused by politics as is religion? I don't think so. Of course, there are political aspects to science, more so in those sciences that directly concern human behaviour. But there are irreducible facts and observations that are quite independent from politics.

You know, I think I could safely say that politics is all there is to religion! Science is not like religion in that aspect either!

[ 09 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by catje:

Surf, m'dear, I highly doubt from your rant that there is anything I can say to you in defence of religion. If you wish to believe that "politics is all there is to religion" you are welcome to do so, but please do not swear at strangers about it.

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Now that was not my main point, now was it?

Anyway, I will rephrase that: I think it could be argued that politics is the main force behind much of religion, if not all. How's that?

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:

Now that was not my main point, now was it?

Anyway, I will rephrase that: I think it could be argued that politics is the main force behind much of religion, if not all. How's that?

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Sounds alright to me. I was responding more to the vehemence of your tone than to your arguments, because you were fair enough in your arguments (at least on the fallibility of science) that I mostly agreed with them.

However, what I had meant in my original point is that placing one's faith unquestioningly in anything can be trouble. Sure, science is objective, but when drug companies fund 'independent' testing of their products which ignores, glosses over, or represses those drugs' dangerous side effects, then science is being misused.

Likewise, when homophobic bigots preach hate from their pulpits, religion is being misused.

And just as the homophobic bigots may be supported by their superiors, the pharmaceutical-funded chemists may be published in peer-reviewed journals.

Scientists can also make honest mistakes, as can people of faith, which is not to imply that being a homophobic bigot is an honest mistake- those losers choose to be that way- but it's another example of chances for fallibility on both counts.

Where you and I would seem to differ is that I place value on the shared sense of the numinous, of community, of culture, history, and ethics which many practitioners get from religion. The public faces of religions are often mostly political because the private faces are just that- private.

I'm a witch, for the record, and it's not an easy thing to be, but in matters of opinion over things like this I try and stay with the old witch's creed- 'do what thou wilt, an [provided that] it harm no one'. Something along the lines of Mark Twain's "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

So I try not to slag other people's religions without due cause (and given the sort of reverence many people express over it, science may at times be considered a 'religion'- economics certainly is- ) in the vain hope that they'll stop slagging mine.

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For example, he attempts to answer the question of why the technology, seeds, etc. of Mesopotamia spread, while those of the Aztecs or of Zimbabwe did not.

His answer, convincing to me, was that a continent which stretches north and south, such as Africa or America, present large differences in climate, so that animals or plants cannot be easily husbanded and used over vast differences. Eurasia, on the other hand, stretches east west over vast distances, so that there is more room for innovations to spread.

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Originally posted by catje:
Stanford's connections between Iberian and Clovis tool technology is an interesting one, but I think it speaks more to his subtle racism than his research.
...

I suppose that what this tangential little argument is really bringing to this thread is the reminder that one can no more fully trust science than one can fully trust religion. Both are confused by politics.

now back to my actual homework . . .

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You're probably right. In my view, I see scientists like Schoch and West as being third party investigators to a crime scene that has left too few clues. I think that study grants are hard to come by for Egyptian digs and competition is tight. I've noticed this same phenomenon about certain scientific research happening in and around Ottawa and Southern Ontario. Various charities, and what federal funding there is, never offered to newcomers in a field of study in favour of the usual donees. Finding legitimate new medical treatments and techno-innovations are like finding a needle in a haystack or winning a lottery. And they save up all their pennies to buy just one ticket for the big draw.

Religious people believe in what they believe for three reasons: tradition, authority and revelation. Three bad reasons, I think, for believing anything.

The misuses of science (there have been many misuses of science) are often exposed, redressed and corrected, simply because results and evidence can always be independently checked.

How do you redress the wrongs of religion? There is no objective way of finding out if something is wrong with this or that religious doctrine. In religious doctrine, something becomes wrong when some figure of authority says so, when some tradition gets changed or someone has a vision.

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
Religious people believe in what they believe for three reasons: tradition, authority and revelation. Three bad reasons, I think, for believing anything...

... In religious doctrine, something becomes wrong when some figure of authority says so, when some tradition gets changed or someone has a vision.

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...Where you and I would seem to differ is that I place value on the shared sense of the numinous, of community, of culture, history, and ethics which many practitioners get from religion...

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Also, although the sense of the numinous might lead some to religion, religion isn't about the "sense of the numinous". In fact, I think that most religious beliefs are all about snuffing out this sense of the numinous. The mindless superstitious drivel that is the usual fare of most religions has very little to do with mystery or awe. Religious practices tend to be more about feeding the masses with self-satisfying gobbledygook to make the disquieting doubts and questions go away and preserve the status-quo.

Tradition is not the same thing as authority. For instance, if the pope says that homosexuality isn't a sin anymore, catholics priests are supposed to obey him. That's authority. However, because it is a tradition of the catholic church to consider sex in general, and homosexuality in particular, as something repugnant, the pope's authority will indubitably be questioned.

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
...Also, although the sense of the numinous might lead some to religion, religion isn't about the "sense of the numinous". In fact, I think that most religious beliefs are all about snuffing out this sense of the numinous. The mindless superstitious drivel that is the usual fare of most religions has very little to do with mystery or awe. Religious practices tend to be more about feeding the masses with self-satisfying gobbledygook to make the disquieting doubts and questions go away and preserve the status-quo.

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Originally posted by Contrarian:

Yes, I figured that you didn't actually know much about religion; this post proves it.

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Well, if you don't want to be dismissed as another joker posting pointless drivel, you better explain yourself! Why don't I know anything about religion?

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
Religious people believe in what they believe for three reasons: tradition, authority and revelation. Three bad reasons, I think, for believing anything.

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Do you have a better reason for believing in this list? Would you claim that this list has been scientifically validated?

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The misuses of science (there have been many misuses of science) are often exposed, redressed and corrected, simply because results and evidence can always be independently checked.

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I would say that's not supported by the history of scientific practise. I would agree that results and evidence can be independently checked, and this is a strength of the scientific method. But when old theories are overturned in favour of new ones, it's often because all the proponents of the old theory have passed on.

When an important result comes along that looks like it will change everything, many established scientists slam it. I mean, of course they would, because they've got their own thing going on and they don't want the rules to change. Some will even cry heresy.

But the younger scientists, who don't have so much invested in the old theory, will be more able to appreciate the usefulness of the new one. There's a rough period for a while where there's a lot of back-and-forth, until eventually the old guard isn't around anymore and the new theory wins out. The new theory is often accepted many years after the important experimental result.

I'm not saying that the "misuses" of science aren't often corrected, I'm saying it's not simply because scientists are objective about repeatable results. And if it only takes science a generation to "correct" its misconceptions, it's still better than religion.

Also when we're talking about the misuses of science, I think it's important to note that a lot of what we refer to these days as science is more like industry-driven engineering.

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How do you redress the wrongs of religion?

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the wrongs of religion vs. the misuse of science. That seems like an odd way to frame a real comparison.

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There is no objective way of finding out if something is wrong with this or that religious doctrine. In religious doctrine, something becomes wrong when some figure of authority says so, when some tradition gets changed or someone has a vision.

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No, there is no objective way of finding out if a religious doctrine is "wrong". A religious doctrine or spiritual practise (doctrine is really only part of religion) either speaks to someone or it doesn't. For many people, this isn't a problem.

There is also no objective way of finding out if an application of science is wrong. Sure, we can determine quite reliably whether and how a given reaction will occur. But we can't determine whether causing some specific reaction to occur is "wrong", and by that I guess I mean we can't determine if the application of science will be good or bad for society.

I think there's a popular belief, at least in the west, that modern technology will eventually solve all our problems. This seems very close to faith to me. I know it's cliched, but there's that line from jurassic park, "Scientists are so concerned with whether or not they could that they never stopped to think whether they should." This is the kind of question that science can't answer for us.

I think the scientific method is useful for some things but not all. And I think the idea that some have that science will eventually yield absolute knowledge is a trap.

Science is particularly poor at handling subjectivity, and like it or not, subjectivity is what being human's all about.

Edited to add:

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The mindless superstitious drivel that is the usual fare of most religions has very little to do with mystery or awe.

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Well yes, once we've decided that something is mindless superstitious drivel, it tends not to evoke much sense of wonder or mystery. Funny that.

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: wage zombie ]

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There is also no objective way of finding out if an application of science is wrong. Sure, we can determine quite reliably whether and how a given reaction will occur. But we can't determine whether causing some specific reaction to occur is "wrong", and by that I guess I mean we can't determine if the application of science will be good or bad for society.

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That's why we need a scientificly literate society, so we can participate in deciding if this technology or that technology is benificial to us or not.

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
You express a superficial view of religion from outside, without showing any understanding of why individuals may hold religious beliefs or what those beliefs are.

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Of course a new idea initially gets slammed! And that's the way it should be: if it survives scrutiny and keeps coming back, that indicates that it's valid. But change always comes when there's an accumulation of new observations that support the new view and invalidate the old one. That's the base.

[ 10 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Oh I know perfectly well why people have religious beliefs: the overwhelming majority of religious people are religious because that's what they've been taught to believe by their parents, grandparents and society when they were children. Now, you're going to bitch and scream bloody murder, but that's the truth.

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Don't underestimate the sense of comunity religion provides. People in working congregations do more than just pray together. They help each other emotionally and economicaly, and provide an outlet for people to reach out and do things for others.

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
Oh I know perfectly well why people have religious beliefs: the overwhelming majority of religious people are religious because that's what they've been taught to believe by their parents, grandparents and society when they were children. Now, you're going to bitch and scream bloody murder, but that's the truth.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Typically, this isn't about science vs. religion; it's about pretending to the high ground. But smugness is such an obviously weak faith, whether practised by religious people or, for lack of a better word, "scientists." To me, it's the best encouragement to look more carefully for merit in whatever or whoever's being sneered at.

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No smugness here. Just pointing out that most religion is more ritual than spiritual, and that most belief is blind and self-serving. And hopelessly outdated and silly. If pointing out the bloody obvious is being smug....

As for the sense of community: that's an indirect reason for belief, I think. And that sense of community is fortunately not restricted to religious congregations... Too bad that the sense of community given by religion often involves conformity to a narrow set of views.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

It is around the phenomenon of global warming where there has been a gradual realization that something is happening.

There are still a few nay sayers, most with economics degrees, but the realization is gradually dawning that humans are having an effect on the earth's climate.

As this proceeds, the methods of tracking and modelling become more and more detailed and predictive.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Typically, this isn't about science vs. religion; it's about pretending to the high ground. But smugness is such an obviously weak faith, whether practised by religious people or, for lack of a better word, "scientists." To me, it's the best encouragement to look more carefully for merit in whatever or whoever's being sneered at.

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Oh, and I'm not doing the science vs. religion thing. To me, it's apples and oranges... Sometimes even apples and bullshit.

I started writing here precisely because someone was putting the two on the same level.

I would love it if all religious people would keep their beliefs out of the material world! But many, if not most, don't... And often, when religious people use the old "separate magisteria" line, I always have the feeling that deep down they wouldn't mind to go back to the old days of absolute religious truths and literal interpretations... Curiously, this feeling of "bad faith" (bad pun!) is more acute with followers of monotheistic religions. Wonder why?

I know, I know, it's impolite to be so outspoken about such a subject. I should be more understanding and so forth... And meanwhile, while we are all being very comprehensive and open minded, a bunch of goobs are shoving their fundamentalist crap down the throats of the next generation, increasing their numbers and influence. And they can count on the apathy, if not the consent, of the "moderatly" religious...

I'm kind of tired of being polite. I feel like heckling the public preachers and insulting the jehovah's witnesses and tell the mormons to go fuck themselves.

But I won't, you know... I'm polite.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

You declare that “I started writing here precisely because someone was putting the two on the same level,” yet what you’ve written here is precisely what you accuse that someone of doing: “There is no objective way of finding out if something is wrong with this or that religious doctrine…”

You declare further, “No smugness here,” then back up that claim with the following remarks (and more): “Just pointing out that most religion is more ritual than spiritual/that most belief is blind and self-serving/hopelessly outdated and silly/If pointing out the bloody obvious is being smug/Sometimes even apples and bullshit/most religious beliefs are all about snuffing out this sense of the numinous/I would love it if all religious people would keep their beliefs out of the material world! But many, if not most, don't [duh!]/And they can count on the apathy, if not the consent, of the "moderatly" [sic] religious...”

Those unsupported remarks are preceded by a little word that’s renowned for its ability to make outrageous cant (that is, “insincere pious or moral talk”) seem reasonable. I’m talking about the word “Just.”

You take exception to an opinion that you found “a rather general and silly thing to say,” and yet use words like “most,” “all,” and “nothing but” when asserting your own. You use those words in order to persuade, the same way you use the word “Just.” In lieu of evidence, you substitute rhetorical devices like these words as if they’re “on the same level.” Such misleading use of language does seem to support, in this case, a “blind and self-serving” belief.

'Cause, you know, I sure need to prove what I'm talking about. I mean, I could be wrong! Religious fundamentalism might, in fact, not be increasing its influence! And yeah, maybe virgins births, resuscitations and miracles (all things found in "moderate" christianism, for instance) actually happened! Maybe god listens when you go to church and pray! I mean, I have no empirical proof that he doesn't and that miracles don't happen...

Ok, I'll stop being smug and annoying the righteous believers. I mean, it's the polite thing to do. I shouldn't go around saying that discussing religion with the religious is a pointless and frustrating endeavour. Believe me, I've tried, and in much more civilised terms than those that I am employing now. You see, my "vehement" language is due to frustration. And I wouldn't want to be of disservice to empiricism, no, no, no! So I'll just shut up.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

I also agree that a lot of scripture/religious truth, if taken literally, seems like superstitious nonsense. When understood metaphorically though I think myth has a lot of value for individuals and society. It seems like you're ignoring this value, which I think is why bittersweet said that you're confusing fundamentalism with religion.

In response to the notion that you're misrepresenting religion as fundamentalism, it seemed like you tried to ridicule religion by talking about how ridiculous fundamentalism is. I agree that it's ridiculous to think the world is six thousand years old...but that's fundamentalism, not all religion.

I'm not trying to convert you and I don't practise any organized religion. I don't think that you need to be saved or anything like that. I agree that there are a lot of really dumb things people when trying to peddle their faith. The reason I'm responding to you is because I don't think you have a very full understanding of religion and you'd probably benefit from some other perspectives.

I think when bittersweet says you're doing a disservice to empiricism, he's not insulting you, he's trying to help you. Because you're ranting, man. Now maybe you don't care about empiricism (or whatever)--that's not the point. The point is that many people with spiritual inclinations will read your posts and write them off as someone who quite clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. The wingnuts who come on here and say stuff like "NDP wants Canada to be communist even though we know it doesn't work," aren't winning people over. I think there are a lot of valid, powerful criticisms to be made of religion, but I don't think you're making them (setting science up as a sacred cow probably doesn't help).

I was raised Catholic but I haven't been a believer for quite a while. Personally I think the feelings of guilt and shame that the church encourages in its members is much more detrimental than believing in men walking on water. I'm more bothered that Chri$tianity has been a tool to accumulate power and profit for most of its history than I am that Christians and/or horror fans are imagining people coming back to life.

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Oh I know perfectly well why people have religious beliefs: the overwhelming majority of religious people are religious because that's what they've been taught to believe by their parents, grandparents and society when they were children.

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Do you really believe this?

Every society in history up until very recently has been religious. And you want to dismiss this all as indoctrination. Or I suppose human irrationality.

Every society in history. To me this suggests that humans have religious impulses. What would you think if someone said that people like having sex because that's what they've been taught to believe?

Every society in history has pursued religious activity.

I've been reading a collection of essays by John Gray (he's a British philosopher, I don't know too much about him). And he looks at the more recent era where countries have becoming more and more secular. He would argue that marxism and liberal humanism (in all their various forms) are secular religions which are based on Christianity. If we look at the societies that have secularizes, they are dominated by one of these two ideologies.

Evidence which suggests this:

- Marxism and liberal humanism both put human values above all others. This importance on human values is shared by Christainity and is quite atypical of religions

- Marxism and liberal humanism inherit the notion of salvation from Christianity (also atypical of religion). Heaven on earth once the revolution or modernism is complete.

Most moderate religious belief tries to justify gobbledygook with the "allegory" excuse, but I don't buy that. It's a cheap cop-out designed to preserve the whole rotten thing. And I just can feel the religious leaders squirming and sweating when they have to admit that it's all "allegory". I just can feel how much they would love to go back to the days of absolute truths, to the days when their authority was uncontested!

And they say one thing in public, but go to any Sunday school, where they teach religion to the kids, and believe me, they won't bother with the allegory stuff!

Yeah, I'm ranting a bit. So what?

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Could you possibly offer a less cogent argument, or distance yourself any further from the value you supposedly champion? The empty rhetorical techniques and the prejudice they support are consistent. "Politeness" isn't the issue. The issue is about putting aside smugness, which blots out all possibility of nuanced thought, and pausing to reflect on the possibility that religion, at least, might be more than you take it for. And probably science, too. Doing so would be to act as if "empiricism" meant more to you than a rhetorical tool to promote your own presumptions about the world.

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In case you haven't understood yet, I'm not in a mood to be "nuanced". The good things about religion (the community aspects, etc.) are not unique to religion. And the price to pay to have those things is, I believe, too high.

Oh, and I'm not ranting against religious feeling, the "sense of the numinous", the influence of religious feeling on society, all that.

I'm ranting, to be precise, against the "typical" traditional religious feeling, the institutional religions, the sects, the religions that demand obedience to a narrow set of usually stupid beliefs.

"The pioneering psychologist William James called religion a 'feeling of being at home in the Universe". Our tendency has been[...] to pretend that the Universe is how we wish our home would be, rather than to revise our notion of what's homey so it embraces the Universe. If, in considering James' definition, we mean the real universe, then we have no true religion yet".

Carl Sagan, last chapter of "Pale Blue Dot".

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:

In case you haven't understood yet, I'm not in a mood to be "nuanced".

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Spoken like a true fundie.

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Originally posted by Surferosad:

I'm ranting, to be precise, against the "typical" traditional religious feeling, the institutional religions, the sects, the religions that demand obedience to a narrow set of usually stupid beliefs.

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The "typical" religious feeling? What does that mean?

How do you determine or measure what is typical for religious feeling? You call that precise?

You may be interested to hear that there are many religions that don't demand adherence to doctrine.

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Originally posted by Surferosad:

"The pioneering psychologist William James called religion a 'feeling of being at home in the Universe". Our tendency has been[...] to pretend that the Universe is how we wish our home would be, rather than to revise our notion of what's homey so it embraces the Universe. If, in considering James' definition, we mean the real universe, then we have no true religion yet".

Carl Sagan, last chapter of "Pale Blue Dot".

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By that logic I don't think we will ever have "true religion" because there's no way science will ever be able to completely represent the universe (according to Godel).

Obvious bullshit for those that haven't been indoctrinated. Regular christian dogmas for those who have. What's there to "nuance"? A true fundie, eh? Why is that? Because I'm really sceptical of religion? So, if I had more respect for obvious drivel, if I was accommodating and willing to consider that, maybe, such things are possible, then I wouldn't be called a fundie, right? Well, sorry, It's just that I don't feel like playing that game. Bullshit is bullshit, no matter how you look at it. I don't even have to talk about science to say it's bullshit. Common sense will suffice! Face it, most religions, and the monotheistic ones in particular, are holding desperately to a set of hopelessly outdated beliefs. That's what dogma does to ya!

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by ronb:
Wow. Pissing on people from a great height really turns you on, don't it surf? Nice to feel so superior, innit?

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Who's feeling superior? Superior to whom? You talk like if I was alone on the bitching against religion. Gee, I'm not even being that original. I don't feel superior, I just feel sadness (and heaps of rage) that awe and wonder is being turned into superstition.

And I have to tolerate it! Be nice! Not call things by their name!

You know what I really hate? This wishy-washy "tolerance" that the irreligious are supposed to adopt regarding "institutionalised" (hey another bad pun) religion.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by ronb:
That'd be "whom" rather that "what" dear heart - they're people, although you like to think they're not.

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Noted and corrected. Sorry, english is not my first language. By the way, I am not attacking religious feeling (the sense of the numinous), I'm attacking traditional religious belief, which tends to be a debased and perverted form of this religious feeling. Although, I'm sure, some bablers are going to say the contrary.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
Scientists generally believe in something because there is tangible evidence. And Fidel: "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence". Who knows, your heretic scientists might not be crancks, but it's up to them to provide tangible, irrefutable evidence. Until then, why should they be taken seriously?
[QB][/QB]

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That's the nature of geology; it's an inexact science. And Egyptology has tended to rely on cultural and archaeology study. If anything, West and Schoch are forcing Egyptology to be even more scientific.

Petroglyphs show him with the dorsal blades of the stegosaur and Indian legends speak of him using his "great spiked tail" as a weapon

You need an accumulation of evidence. Bones in the right strata, dates obtained by reputable scientists, correlation of human remains with dinosaur bones... And not just a few clues. Lots! Nothing like that has ever been presented in any rigourous way.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

But Benny implored my namesake not to publish a rant against religion. Franklin believed, even if religion was nonesense, that it kept people in line.

That was more than two hundred years ago. Pity we've not progressed much further.

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I'm attacking traditional religious belief, which tends to be a debased and perverted form of this religious feeling. Although, I'm sure, some bablers are going to say the contrary.

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I for one, Surferosad, agree with you. Religion has no monopoly on morality, or the numenous, any postitive-- or negative-- one would care to attribute to it.

And, truth be told, if we can catagorize such things as John Edwards or Mary Brown being able to "talk" to the dead as stupid and silly, then beliefs that have as much evidence to support them as that are fairly catagorized as stupid and silly.

And religion falls into that catagory, most assuredly.

In fact, I will go further, and re-iterate what I have said many times in the past here. When religious dogma is taken as metaphore, when people of similar belief congregate for sense of comunity or protection, this is human. Even you and I, and the rest of us sceptics, Surferosad, harbour silly notions.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

That's the nature of geology; it's an inexact science. And Egyptology has tended to rely on cultural and archaeology study. If anything, West and Schoch are forcing Egyptology to be even more scientific.

Petroglyphs show him with the dorsal blades of the stegosaur and Indian legends speak of him using his "great spiked tail" as a weapon

ha ha

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Originally posted by Surferosad:
Thanks Tommy. Sure I harbour silly notions! Heck, lots of them actually. But i don't claim that they're the immutable truth!

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Originally posted by wage zombie:

).

Is Sagan's implication that we should revise our notion of how it feels to be at home if we want to feel at home in the universe? This seems more dishonest to me.

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Well even if that was Sagan's implication how is it dishonest?

People thought the earth was flat and had 4 corners at one time; that if ships sailed south (from Europe, down Africa's coast) they would burn up, because the clime got warmer and warmer. People thought the Earth was the center of the universe, and people thought that women were made by god/s to satisfy and serve the needs of men. People thought the heavens were like a one dimensional matte painting. People through-out history changed their way of seeing themselves in relation to the universe when they examined the evidence and found or developed new tools to observe the natural world.

Wishing a thing does not make something so.... Wishing that the Earth is the center of the universe does not make it so, and the implications of the earth not being the center of the universe are profound (remember to some within Christiandom it was considered heresy to question God's order).
Why is it dishonest to deny the wish/myth that the earth is the center of the universe when confronted with a lot of evidence to the contrary?
Being the center of the universe makes me feel safe, and I have a special home on a special planet made for special me by a loving God with whom I can develop a personal relationship with. Whoops! There is evidence that my home is not the center of the universe... I must not let obsevations and evidence influence my feeling of specialness... It would be dishonest to change my perspective of self and my planet's special place in the Universe.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

Earlier you mentioned that one negative of religion was that it was a device to control people. I wish my books weren't all packed away. I have a history book with a quote from a guy who observed the very same thing-- in 200 B.C.

It's rather timeless, and gives me the impression tthat perhaps arguing with religious people along this line and others is futile.

One of the more profound experiences I had as a sceptic was when I attended a "psychic fair" here in London some years ago. I'll cut to the chase, and leave out the observations that lead to my conclusions, but it struck me that what was really going on here was that people were paying someone to be a friend. Of course, the idea of paying someone to be your friend is repugnant to most, so these people-- "psychics" and their "clients" have to pretend they are there for something else.

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Originally posted by Contrarian:

That is exactly what you have been doing all through this thread.

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Originally posted by wage zombie:

...Every society in history. To me this suggests that humans have religious impulses. What would you think if someone said that people like having sex because that's what they've been taught to believe?

Every society in history has pursued religious activity.

I've been reading a collection of essays by John Gray (he's a British philosopher, I don't know too much about him). And he looks at the more recent era where countries have becoming more and more secular. He would argue that marxism and liberal humanism (in all their various forms) are secular religions which are based on Christianity. If we look at the societies that have secularizes, they are dominated by one of these two ideologies.

Evidence which suggests this:

- Marxism and liberal humanism both put human values above all others. This importance on human values is shared by Christainity and is quite atypical of religions

- Marxism and liberal humanism inherit the notion of salvation from Christianity (also atypical of religion). Heaven on earth once the revolution or modernism is complete.

He makes a pretty good case and I've found this really intersting to think about. Can anyone think of a secular society (preivous or current) that is not dominated by one of these two ideologies?

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All interesting ideas, but I doubt that humans have religious impulse akin to sex drive.

Humans make sense and categorize their surroundings. We try to interpret what information our senses pick up from our environments for our self-preservation and the preservation of our species. Our incredibly efficient minds are prone to organise, categorise, and interpret dangers and pleasures. Our brain developed to meet our needs... and religions were created by those that wanted to consolidate power taking advantage of our brain and the way it processed information. Do human's have genuine spiritual experiences? I don't know. But I would say organised, state sponsored, consolidation of power was a result of smart people figuring out that the human's one advantageous asset for meeting a human's needs, was also a tool that could be maniplated for the goals of rulers of cities and states, for better or for worse.

[ 11 February 2005: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

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Originally posted by TemporalHominid: I must not let obsevations and evidence influence my feeling of specialness... It would be dishonest to change my perspective of self and my planet's special place in the Universe.

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Originally posted by TemporalHominid:

All interesting ideas, but I doubt that humans have religious impulse akin to sex drive.

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I'm not sure but lately I'm leaning towards believing that they do.

Every society in history (arguably until recently) has been religious. How come?

Or for a different take--would natural selection have favoured the propagation of humans with religious impulses over those without over the hundreds of thousands of years of human prehistory?

Aside, I would probably include artistic impulses in with religious impulses. Any impulse for the transcendental.

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Originally posted by TemporalHominid:

Humans make sense and categorize their surroundings. We try to interpret what information our senses pick up from our environments for our self-preservation and the preservation of our species. Our incredibly efficient minds are prone to organise, categorise, and interpret dangers and pleasures. Our brain developed to meet our needs... and religions were created by those that wanted to consolidate power taking advantage of our brain and the way it processed information.

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This seems backwards to me. Which scenario seems more likely to you:

A) Religion develops on its own (or is created for reasons other than power). Eventually it occurs to someone that they can exploit religion for power.

or

B) Religion does not exist. Someone comes up with the idea of religion as a tool for gaining power and proceeds to implement it.

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Originally posted by TemporalHominid:

Do human's have genuine spiritual experiences? I don't know.

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Spiritual experiences are pretty tricky to talk about. I think sticking "genuine" in there makes it trickier.

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Originally posted by TemporalHominid:

But I would say organised, state sponsored, consolidation of power was a result of smart people figuring out that the human's one advantageous asset for meeting a human's needs, was also a tool that could be maniplated for the goals of rulers of cities and states, for better or for worse.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Scientific observation and evidence are obviously open to interpretation. When I read about these things, I find them bracingly supportive of the conclusion I keep drawing from my own observations and collected evidence, which is that we are all fantastically unique, and yes, special. I allow science to "influence" my "perspective of self," my "feeling of specialness," yet haven't needed to change it. On the other hand, scientific observations and evidence clearly don't strike you the same way. You don't think they corroborate your "feeling of specialness," and so they've "influenced" you to reject it. Now, I think such a conclusion warps a natural, healthy impulse in the same way certain religious dogmas do. I think it's the result of trying to wrench science to fit a role it was never intended to serve.

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The question then is, how comfortable are we with that possibility, and what are its implications with respect to finding meaning in our lives?

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I'm going to have to give notice of imminent thread closure. Anyone who wants to continue may do so on the thread I am about to create.