A Compromise about ID in Biology Classes

[RJT]

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There is no absolute meaning without a God. ( And he is right .)

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This one has been done to death. And since you are right there is no point arguing. Let's just agree to disagree.

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I don’t mean to sound argumentative. I have asked this question before in this subject: If there are absolute morals/meaning to life what are they? (I really want to be corrected in my thinking.) Do you have some in mind? I am not saying that one’s own meaning is not enough, either. (Although, it is isn’t for me, but that is irrelevant.)

I only say matter of factly “And his is right”, because I have yet to be educated that it is not right relative to absolutes.

[purnell]

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In fact evidence to show the world is irrational maybe the only way tp prove the existance of a God who can direct outcomes that are beyond our ken (reason)?

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It seems obvious to me that we are very limited in our ability to understand the universe. We start with our senses, and we use imagination and reason to leverage them into a greater ability to predict natural phenomena. But we have already run into phenomena that, it seems, break the rules of rationality. That is, they seem to be actually unpredictable by reasoning. This is why I say the universe is not rational (not reasonable, chaotic). I think it will turn out that the tool we are using (reason) is too crude, and "making sense" of the universe is not really possible.

[NotReady]

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So no meaning implies no God does not imply irrational universe.


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I don't see anything except a technical distinction between meaninglessness and irrationality. I'm not speaking formal logic here, but I consider the two words as virtually synonymous. But I'm also talking about ultimate meaning and ultimate rationality. As has been discussed already, humans have relative morality, rationality, meaning and purpose. But those things are themselves meaningless, empty of content, if chance (irrationality) is ultimate.

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HOWEVER, a God that can affect things so as to make happen outside natural law, ie, in principle, makes them unpredictable by any rational investiagation.


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I would say "by any rational, human investigation".

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In fact evidence to show the world is irrational maybe the only way tp prove the existance of a God who can direct outcomes that are beyond our ken (reason)?


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I don't agree with this. I believe God is ultimate reason (and much else). The difficulty is that we are finite so that our knowledge and ability to reason are finite. Absolute reason may appear irrational to finite reason, much the same as the commands of a parent may seem irrational to a child.

[Trantor]

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So no meaning implies no God does not imply irrational universe.


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I don't see anything except a technical distinction between meaninglessness and irrationality. I'm not speaking formal logic here, but I consider the two words as virtually synonymous.

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What is the technical distinction that you see? It could be the all important distinction

[NotReady]

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What is the technical distinction that you see? It could be the all important distinction


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It's just a fine point of definition. Irrational means not based on reason. Meaninglessness means having no ultimate reason. But something irrational(to us) at the relative level still has meaning at the ultimate level. I think they are synonymous at the ultimate level.

If chance is ultimate (the universe is irrational), there is no ultimate meaning.

[maurile]

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Allow the ideas of creationoists in the biology clasroom except make sure that ALL OF IT is discussed. Not just the 5% that throws some doubt onto certain small specifics of evolutionary theory.

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There is no legitimate doubt about the basics of evolutionary theory, but there are still plenty of "small specifics" that are unknown. None of them have anything to do with creationism, though.

In this worthwhile article, Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne point out some actual controversies in evolutionary biology that are being played out in the science journals. Notice that "Intelligent Design" is not one of them. But here are some of the hot issues they list:

The "Cambrian Explosion"

Although the fossil record shows that the first multicellular animals lived about 640m years ago, the diversity of species was low until about 530m years ago. At that time there was a sudden explosion of many diverse marine species, including the first appearance of molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms and vertebrates. "Sudden" here is used in the geological sense; the "explosion" occurred over a period of 10m to 30m years, which is, after all, comparable to the time taken to evolve most of the great radiations of mammals. This rapid diversification raises fascinating questions; explanations include the evolution of organisms with hard parts (which aid fossilisation), the evolutionary "discovery" of eyes, and the development of new genes that allowed parts of organisms to evolve independently.

The evolutionary basis of human behaviour

The field of evolutionary psychology (once called "sociobiology") maintains that many universal traits of human behaviour (especially sexual behaviour), as well as differences between individuals and between ethnic groups, have a genetic basis. These traits and differences are said to have evolved in our ancestors via natural selection. There is much controversy about these claims, largely because it is hard to reconstruct the evolutionary forces that acted on our ancestors, and it is unethical to do genetic experiments on modern humans.

Sexual versus natural selection

Although evolutionists agree that adaptations invariably result from natural selection, there are many traits, such as the elaborate plumage of male birds and size differences between the sexes in many species, that are better explained by "sexual selection": selection based on members of one sex (usually females) preferring to mate with members of the other sex that show certain desirable traits. Evolutionists debate how many features of animals have resulted from sexual as opposed to natural selection; some, like Darwin himself, feel that many physical features differentiating human "races" resulted from sexual selection.

The target of natural selection

Evolutionists agree that natural selection usually acts on genes in organisms - individuals carrying genes that give them a reproductive or survival advantage over others will leave more descendants, gradually changing the genetic composition of a species. This is called "individual selection". But some evolutionists have proposed that selection can act at higher levels as well: on populations (group selection), or even on species themselves (species selection). The relative importance of individual versus these higher order forms of selection is a topic of lively debate.

Natural selection versus genetic drift

Natural selection is a process that leads to the replacement of one gene by another in a predictable way. But there is also a "random" evolutionary process called genetic drift, which is the genetic equivalent of coin-tossing. Genetic drift leads to unpredictable changes in the frequencies of genes that don't make much difference to the adaptation of their carriers, and can cause evolution by changing the genetic composition of populations. Many features of DNA are said to have evolved by genetic drift. Evolutionary geneticists disagree about the importance of selection versus drift in explaining features of organisms and their DNA. All evolutionists agree that genetic drift can't explain adaptive evolution. But not all evolution is adaptive.