He explained they were a coerced lie, proving my point that people say they believe in god out of fear, not because they actually believe.
Sir Isaac Newton, father of modern Physics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_religious_views Newton's conception of the physical world provided a stable model of the natural world that would reinforce stability and harmony in the civic world. Newton saw a monotheistic God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.[6][7]
Mendel's family sent him to the monastery in desperation after he failed at every business and profession they tried to start him in. Religion was the last resort. As the monastery gardener, he began his observations about pea plants and the rest is history. BTW, he fathered at least one child and still has living descendents. It helps to have studied genetics and to have had a college prof who always gave background on the scientist as well as his/her discoveries. Incidentally a religious person can have scientific abilities. Kenneth Miller is a devout Catholic and Rosalind Yalow an Orthodox Jew. But they have to compartmentalize their brains. It's their contradiction. But a fundamentalist cannot; if you accept something written or spoken 2000 or 3000 or 5000 years ago is the final authority on everything, there is no science. Just boredom and the Dark Ages.
On this we agree. I find a couple of redeeming things about religion: social (my grandparents met in church) and as a patron of the arts and science. It also worked as a sort of government in the absence of anything enlightened. I expect virtually all of the great scientists from about 300AD to 1900AD were religious. God of the gaps was the theory of everything until the scientific truths determined otherwise. Interestingly enough, I watched the latest Beyond the Wormhole episode which was about creationism vs. science. They showed this fellow, Michael Behe, who is a professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University. He's also a Christian and one of the biggest proponents of Intelligent Design. A religious person with scientific abilities.
Through the Wormhole shoots for sensationalism, not science. It specializes in finding and featuring proponents of hypothesis that make the audience go wow that blows my mind, but are actually fringe/marginalized within the scientific community, if not discredited. Occasionally MF will say one or two things that are worthwhile, but generally it's not much different than Bigfoot or Alien shows even though the pretense is more scientific. Behe isn't taken seriously within the scientific community. He has an obvious agenda and his hypothesis of irreducible complexity is philosophically/scientifically nonsensical (really just an argument from incredulity). Behe may have "scientific abilities" but he's not actually using them.
Most fundamentalists don't view the Bible as the ultimate authority on everything, just as the ultimate authority on the things about which it speaks. It is understood that there are many things about which scripture is silent.
Is Paul Davies fringe? Saul Perlmutter? Alan Guth? Michio Kaku? Sean Carroll? You know, Kaku was on Art Bell's program sometimes. He is also Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at CCNY. Carroll is a theoretical cosmologist specializing in dark energy and general relativity at Cal Tech. That list is a smattering of the guests from Beyond the Wormhole (not Through the Wormhole). I agree some of their topics are out there, but I don't see them as beyond astrobiology or a number of other fantasy "sciences." I don't think Behe is persuasive in the least. However, he is both religious and a highly trained scientist. In spite of your view of him, he managed to pass all his classes and convince Lehigh to hire him.
Hey crowTrobot, What do you see in this video, in between the scenes of humans talking. [video=youtube;OVwi3YdBvsA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVwi3YdBvsA[/video]
I said the hypothesis the show highlights are (typically) fringe, or are at best presented with unscientific implications than are meant to sensationalize them. The scientists reputations aren't necessarily fringe, although many of them certainly are. Kaku might be the worst offender. He's on TV all the time on various programs and a lot of what he says is mischaracterization of speculative/fringe ideas for the sake of ratings.
Behe was hired by Lehigh long before he was publically advocating ID and hawking a nonstop stream of books on the subject. I assume he is now tenured (?), so it's speculative whether they would hire him today or not. This is from Lehigh's own website -
FWIW, the Wormhole program made Behe look like a fool. I don't think it's biased away from scientific truths. It's sorta funny how they seem to have a show about the topics we discuss here - like "what was there before the big bang?" Didn't answer my question about the video, crowTrobot. It's not a trick question or anything.
Sorry not sure what you're asking. Making a point that the CGI graphics are speculative, meant to popularize science like features on TTW?
not biased - just not clear on what are and aren't fringe/marginalized hypothesis within the scientific community.
It is both a cartoon and a sort of powerpoint-like presentation. The time and distance scales in the animations are nowhere near realistic, but it helps people visualize what the science means. Scientists and NASA and others go to great expense and lengths to make these cartoons. Is it science? Or is it making comic strips? You're right that it's also highly speculative. Nobody has sent a camera to most of the places they generate these movies of.
