[_ Old Earth _] Are you guys serious?

[Barbarian]

ah but we ARE paying tax payer money to fund something that we already know is settled, kinda pointless.

Well no one still does studies to see if evolution is true, just as no one throws a ball up to see if it falls. But there's a lot more to learn about evolution, as there is with gravity.

 

[logical bob]

Bob, do you seriously think it is as obvious and true as gravity or the spherical nature of earth?

Well, the fact of gravity is extremely obvious on a day to day basis. For most of human history, though, we didn't know how the planets move or that they are controlled by same force that makes my spilt coffee fall to the kitchen floor. And our current theory of gravity, which says that objects distort the fabric of spacetime, is extremely non-obvious and not at all easy to get your head around. I would therefore say that evolution is more obvious than gravity.

The roundness of the Earth is perhaps easier to spot - the Ancient Greeks knew about it. Looking at the sea in the right conditions you can see that the horizon is curved and you see the mast of an approaching ship before the hull. So because you need less information to appreciate that the Earth is round that's probably the most obvious of the three. It's slightly different, though, because it's an individual fact rather than a theory.

So, from the most to the least obvious: round Earth, evolution, gravity.

 

[jasoncran]

ah but we ARE paying tax payer money to fund something that we already know is settled, kinda pointless.

Well no one still does studies to see if evolution is true, just as no one throws a ball up to see if it falls. But there's a lot more to learn about evolution, as there is with gravity.

so why bother, then do we need to all the details, if its happening? its not like the study of ancient cultures. where we CAN learn and apply lessons learned.

it hard for me to justify that type of spending in my state when we are suing the feds over the healthcare bill as seniors wont be take care of or the fact that cops are being laid off.

if its studies to prevent or cure disease that's one thing. you forget barb.i live near some entomolgy labs.
that do study the nile virus,st.lous encaphilitis. those are worth it to me. or the hort ones that are used to study the oranges and citrus trees,to fight the canker.

keep in mind you eat a cali orange, but drink the florida ones.

its bad here barb, real bad. my county has 14.2% unemployment the worst in my lifetime.yet we seem to funds for all kinds of unecessary things.

 

[Barbarian]

so why bother, then do we need to all the details, if its happening?

The honest reason? We're curious. God gave us intelligence and curiosity so we would do this for ourselves. The dirty little secret of science is that we do it to satisfy our curiosity, not to do good. The fact is, it does do good, in things like antibiotic protocols, medicine, etc. But that's not re real motivation.

its not like the study of ancient cultures. where we CAN learn and apply lessons learned.

It's a bit more practical than sociology.

it hard for me to justify that type of spending in my state when we are suing the feds over the healthcare bill as seniors wont be take care of or the fact that cops are being laid off.

Cutting research is like eating your seed corn. Short-term benefit. Long time disaster.

if its studies to prevent or cure disease that's one thing. you forget barb.i live near some entomolgy labs.
that do study the nile virus,st.lous encaphilitis. those are worth it to me. or the hort ones that are used to study the oranges and citrus trees,to fight the canker.

How about a study to learn about the sex life of the screw worm fly? Isn't that worth thousands of dollars? That's not a rhetorical question. Why would that be less important?

its bad here barb, real bad. my county has 14.2% unemployment the worst in my lifetime.yet we seem to funds for all kinds of unecessary things.

Sometimes you get a surprise.

 

[jwu]

its bad here barb, real bad. my county has 14.2% unemployment the worst in my lifetime.yet we seem to funds for all kinds of unecessary things.

But why is that so? It's because much manufacturing has moved to China and other similar countries. Given that the west mostly has used up its natural resources, its single biggest asset is its scientific edge over the rest of the world (except Japan, which is in a similar situation). That's what helps us to retain our standard of living as good as we can - engineering and science. And the latter also benefits from unanticipated discoveries in places where one would not have expected them. E.g. the transistor, the little piece that got the whole IT industry started, was such an accidential discovery.

 

[Pard]

Bob, do you seriously think it is as obvious and true as gravity or the spherical nature of earth?

Well, the fact of gravity is extremely obvious on a day to day basis. For most of human history, though, we didn't know how the planets move or that they are controlled by same force that makes my spilt coffee fall to the kitchen floor. And our current theory of gravity, which says that objects distort the fabric of spacetime, is extremely non-obvious and not at all easy to get your head around. I would therefore say that evolution is more obvious than gravity.

The roundness of the Earth is perhaps easier to spot - the Ancient Greeks knew about it. Looking at the sea in the right conditions you can see that the horizon is curved and you see the mast of an approaching ship before the hull. So because you need less information to appreciate that the Earth is round that's probably the most obvious of the three. It's slightly different, though, because it's an individual fact rather than a theory.

So, from the most to the least obvious: round Earth, evolution, gravity.

OK, I am glad to say that is a far more rational response than I had expected, which is why I did ask you.

Let me explain it from my way, perhaps we can come to some form of agreement, maybe...

I'd think that gravity is more obvious than either of the others. I can demonstrate gravity very easily. Even before they had a word and a definition of gravity I should think people knew that when you jump up, you come down. When you throw something up, it comes down. The history we learn that led to the "discovery" of gravity is rather misleading (referring to gen. science in middle/high school). They had some understanding of gravity, they had too. I am sure, like you said, that they had no idea the same force that kept them on the ground also kept the earth in orbit and the moon. Still, the basic idea of gravity, the stuff that pertains to our lives on a daily basis, is something ever toddler learns at a very early age.

I should think that gravity is far more obvious than evolution. I can demonstrate gravity. Watch me drop something... Watch me fill a bucket with water and spin around (OK, that's inertia, but it can be used to demonstrate gravity)... As for evolution, I'd like to see someone demonstrate how a cell turns into a human, or how a finch evolves over a few generations. It may be able to be shown, but not in the time frame that involves "obvious"!

As for the spherical nature of earth, I totally agree. I'd also like to point out that the Bible speaks of our earth being a ball.

Isiah 40:22 " It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. "

Job 26:10 "He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters,
At the boundary of light and darkness. "

 

[Barbarian]

Isiah 40:22 " It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. "

This is about a circle, with a covering spread over it, not a sphere. Most of the ancients knew the Earth was round, but apparently, whoever wrote Isaiah thought it was a circle rather than a sphere.

 

[jwu]

And let's not forget this one.

Matthew 4:8
"Again, the devil takes him up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;"

That too wouldn't work with a spherical earth. The usual apologetics about it is that that mountain and the act of showing all the kingdoms of the world have nothing to do with each other. But frankly, that's quite a lame excuse. That the author believed the earth to be flat is a much more reasonable explanation that that mental (and grammatical) gymnastics.

 

[jasoncran]

its bad here barb, real bad. my county has 14.2% unemployment the worst in my lifetime.yet we seem to funds for all kinds of unecessary things.

But why is that so? It's because much manufacturing has moved to China and other similar countries. Given that the west mostly has used up its natural resources, its single biggest asset is its scientific edge over the rest of the world (except Japan, which is in a similar situation). That's what helps us to retain our standard of living as good as we can - engineering and science. And the latter also benefits from unanticipated discoveries in places where one would not have expected them. E.g. the transistor, the little piece that got the whole IT industry started, was such an accidential discovery.

true, but then be honest then rename paleotology to something else. you dont need to study somethinng that you believe is already settled.

 

[jasoncran]

barb, then why was harbor branch defunded , after they are reaserch real time apps, not some study of this or that to satifisy intellectual curiousity.


they were trying to repop the local lagoon of fish.

really barb studying dead apes, and ancient creatures is more important then the study of say hitlers regime or the bolshevek revolution or the roman conquests. thing that people actually did?


we can study things to save lives with that in purpose. unless you think that the growing of the mosquotes for reasearch is wasteful and instead fund the study of the mosquitoe came to be


for jwu, being, florida has never had an industry, what ship out our beaches, tourism

that is why we are hurting, from lack of tourism and the housing bubble. florida has no income tax, tourists pay for it.


still not sold on why we study something if we know it happened and its settled. why then do we look for the way man evolved? to know how when we dont need to ask cause we already have enough evidence.
sorry.
if the question is answered then ask something else.

barb. i know why men look. but when you claimed its settled and done, then why bother it doenst add up when we are using the discovieries to fill in the blanks.

 

[Barbarian]

barb, then why was harbor branch defunded , after they are reaserch real time apps, not some study of this or that to satifisy intellectual curiousity.

Hard to say. Funding is mostly a function of grant writing. And the reputation and quality of the researcher has a lot to do with it.

really barb studying dead apes, and ancient creatures is more important then the study of say hitlers regime or the bolshevek revolution or the roman conquests. thing that people actually did?

You don't know. Funny things come out in research. Who would have guessed Darwin's theory would help keep you from dying of infection?

why then do we look for the way man evolved? to know how when we dont need to ask cause we already have enough evidence.
sorry.
if the question is answered then ask something else.

There's a lot we still don't know. Where we came from is a worthy question. It is very poorly funded, BTW, compared to most other scientific work.

barb. i know why men look. but when you claimed its settled and done, then why bother it doenst add up when we are using the discovieries to fill in the blanks.

Still a long way to go. And because funding is tight, it's going to take a while.

 

[jasoncran]

still not satisified, no it was defunded when the economy did well. more then five yrs ago. fau and another picked up the slack, the state did fund it directly, but pawned it off to others. then fau on other picked it up.

darwin kept me dying from a virus, thats a stretch, true that his theory got people looking but to say that without darwin living at all we wouldnt be alive..

the cure of malaria was found by walter reed, would you say that we should go to war to make discoveries, yet truth be told war has done more for medicine then the entire toe could have.

blood tranfusions from ww2
nerve gas treatments, various wars. lead to the ephidrene
jap torture of americana in china lead to discovery of cures and treatments for frostbite
the disemination en mass of immunizations i believe as well.
and numerous burn treatments and artifiical limbs.


sounds like job justification to me. i aint buying. be glad i'm not on the state senate! i would ask that you show me the probable benefits of paying for your reasearch, and it better be a good sale!

 

[Barbarian]

darwin kept me dying from a virus, thats a stretch, true that his theory got people looking but to say that without darwin living at all we wouldnt be alive..

A lot of people are alive today because evolutionary theory showed how to apply antibiotics to minimize the evolution of resistance.

the cure of malaria was found by walter reed, would you say that we should go to war to make discoveries, yet truth be told war has done more for medicine then the entire toe could have.

Until the 20th century, war was the primary transmission of epidemics. The Four Horsemen always rode together. If you can find it, a good read is Rats, Lice, and History. It's dated, but a good summary of the way wars parasites and illness interacted.

jap torture of americana in china lead to discovery of cures and treatments for frostbite

I believe it was Nazi physicians who mainly did experiments on Russian POWs. A lot of very useful information on hypothermia was obtained. There was a rather vigorous argument about using the data, as (unlike most of the quack "research" done by the Nazis) these studies were well-designed, and adequately documented. What's the moral trade-off?

sounds like job justification to me. i aint buying. be glad i'm not on the state senate! i would ask that you show me the probable benefits of paying for your reasearch, and it better be a good sale!

We'll learn more about the world. And every now and then, in unexpected places, we find something critically important to our health and/or welfare.

Sounds good to me.

 

[jasoncran]

but with war we learned things more quickly

without the space program how would ever know about the stars or the internet.

wasnt evo that did that. and no i'm not saying war is good.

its the japs not the germans that did that to the americans. they did that in china.

so wasting digs that have nothing to do with a virus or or anything else but to satifisy intellectual curiousity is a wasted when the questioned and evidence is settled.

if its unfalsiable then why look? its the toe unfalsifable to you?fact implies unfalsifable.

still not sold. be glad i'm not on the state senate in florida, you wouldnt get a grant to do reasearch.

 

[Barbarian]

http://www.jewishnaturecenter.org/html/ ... ments.html

 

[jasoncran]

http://www.jewishnaturecenter.org/html/nazi_experiments.html

yes, i was confused, i cant find the story on the japs doing that. but i did find that they did gas persons to see what they would do, and we used that data :verysick

http://www.enotes.com/genocide-encyclopedia/japan

and i have one more to add, on a fsu experiment if i can find the link agian.

 

[jasoncran]

wrong college but still in florida and what do you know working on the sythentic cell to find support for something they already know is settled,. odd.

http://news.ufl.edu/2004/02/20/artificialdna/

 

[Barbarian]

wrong college but still in florida and what do you know working on the sythentic cell to find support for something they already know is settled,. odd.

No one doubts cells. But the way cells came together is still a field with a lot of questions.

 

[David505]

The one scientist who eventually may overturn it [ToE] will earn a nearly guaranteed Nobel prize...

Thanks jwu,

I'd like to nominate Jesus (1) for the prize based upon His creation of species which reproduce according to their kinds, as recorded in Genesis (2).

1. John 1: 3

2. Genesis 1: 20-25

 

[Pard]

The one scientist who eventually may overturn it [ToE] will earn a nearly guaranteed Nobel prize...

Thanks jwu,

I'd like to nominate Jesus (1) for the prize based upon His creation of species which reproduce according to their kinds, as recorded in Genesis (2).

1. John 1: 3

2. Genesis 1: 20-25