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shafique wrote:No, there is no difference between evolution hypothesis and science to me (the hypothesis is part of science).

It's a wrong statement. The hypothesis became science only after it would be proven in appropriate boundaries. Feeling you weekness you use right word "believe" because as I said there is no evidence.
Moreover, scientists are not interested in formation the "picture of the World" but only satisfying their own curiosity at gonerment expense.

Unfortunately, Greeks don't have powerfull religion and so invented another pastimes like science, theatre and sport. Leave those concepts for them.

Well, one of my favourite hypotheses about creation is:

"We were all created 5 minutes ago with ready-made memories"

This theory can't be disproved (or proved) but it is one I choose not to believe to be true. Similarly, whilst evolution hypothesis hasn't been proven in all details, it is what I choose to believe. We now know that Newton's laws are not completely correct, but they are not completely wrong either - but science is essentially about discovering the nature of the universe and accepting theories that fit observations, and those theories do change when we get more data.

So, is evolution theory science? I say yes, despite the fact that it hasn't been proven yet - I mean Einstein's theories were out there and accepted before there was physical evidence that the theory was right.

As for leaving science to the ancient Greeks - I'm not sure what to answer to that suggestion!

Cheers,
Shafique

shafique wrote:We now know that Newton's laws are not completely correct, but they are not completely wrong either - but science is essentially about discovering the nature of the universe and accepting theories that fit observations, and those theories do change when we get more data.

It's wrong again. Newton's laws are absolutetely correct in their boundaries. Simply it isn't easy to find this boundaries just after descovering the law.

On the other hand science has own limit. Some things are not going to be discovered and it's not the matter of time.

As for suggestion, I offered you to understand foreign terms from the practiced people, not from Quran.

-- Tue Jul 13, 2010 11:06 pm --

shafique wrote:Well, one of my favourite hypotheses about creation is:

"We were all created 5 minutes ago with ready-made memories"

He-he. My friend on the statement of tutour that we know for sure that there had been dinosaurs on the Earth million years ago replied him that we know only that there had been bones of dinosaurus.


-- Tue Jul 13, 2010 11:20 pm --

event horizon wrote:BTW, Red Chief, as a neutral outside observer, what is your take regarding Chomsky's claim that Americans are more fundamentalist than the Taliban, Pakistanis, or the Saudis?

I'm not realy neutral because I don't connect evolution hypothesis with foundamentalism. Having MSc diploma on my shelf, I believe that Sir Shafique was made according to some moral pattern which is incompatible with known apes or monkey but more close to demiurge. Shame on me!

shafique wrote:

event horizon wrote:In any event, I don't feel all that compelled to prove my case to a whack-job. This thread is here more for those who aren't loons and who would roll their eyes at Chomsky's dumb comment.

Translation:

"I started a thread quoting Chomsky, and when shown the latest Gallup poll evidence that backs up Chomsky's claims - indeed showing that 73% of my fellow Republicans reject science and believe we were created a few thousand years ago - I turn all righteous and say 'I don't believe it'."

It would have been much quicker to say you can't dispute the Gallup stats.

As for the Quran and evolution, again I refer you to the thread linked to above (and it appears from what RC has written, that he may not believe your ancestor was a monkey.. but let's ask him to see. What is clear is that 73% of your brethren don't believe they descended from monkeys - whereas I do believe in evolution.)

Cheers,
Shafique

Sorry, let me know when you want to address the fact that 25% of Turks accept the theory of evolution compared to 40% of Americans.

Turks are as educated as Americans, so we can't blame their creationist views on other reasons - such as conflating evolution with atheism. And if we do, then there is no reason why this shouldn't apply to Americans.

We've already discussed the scientific errors in the Koran - the Koran is anti-evolution and says that Noah was over 950 years old.

Red Chief wrote:

shafique wrote:We now know that Newton's laws are not completely correct, but they are not completely wrong either - but science is essentially about discovering the nature of the universe and accepting theories that fit observations, and those theories do change when we get more data.

It's wrong again. Newton's laws are absolutetely correct in their boundaries. Simply it isn't easy to find this boundaries just after descovering the law.

Ah, but before it was discovered that Newton's laws weren't universal - the belief was that there were no boundaries to Newtonian physics. Therefore it wasn't a law as believed by scientists at the time.

Science is all about hypotheses that fit the available data. The 'laws' change with data. Quantum mechanics is not fully understood, theories about super-strings and multiple dimensions are there and are yet to be proven/disproven - yet they fit the observations. No one would seriously argue that super-string theory is NOT part of science.

Same goes for the theory of evolution - it is part of science, even though it is not classified as a 'law'.

Red Chief wrote:On the other hand science has own limit. Some things are not going to be discovered and it's not the matter of time.

Totally agree with you. This is what God says in the Quran - the more we look the more we'll discover. This is actually what scientists are continuously discovering - it's actually sobering when scientists tell you that there is a limit to their understandings (and it is laymen who actually believe that science DOESN'T explain most of the observable world).

Red Chief wrote:

shafique wrote:Well, one of my favourite hypotheses about creation is:

"We were all created 5 minutes ago with ready-made memories"

He-he. My friend on the statement of tutour that we know for sure that there had been dinosaurs on the Earth million years ago replied him that we know only that there had been bones of dinosaurus.

Ahh, but under my favourite theory, that is just a memory and the evidence was also created 5 minutes ago



Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon wrote:Sorry, let me know when you want to address the fact that 25% of Turks accept the theory of evolution compared to 40% of Americans.
...

Please try and keep up eh - I've already addressed your points in the thread where you first selectively quoted this passage. And besides, it is 73% of religious Republicans who reject science and believe the Bible's account of creation.:

shafique wrote:I refer you back to the conclusion I quoted from the same paper.
[url]philosophy-dubai/muslim-religious-beliefs-t42480.html#p341618[/url]
You will recall you were exposed in your old trick of selectively quoting.

[url]philosophy-dubai/muslim-religious-beliefs-t42480.html#p341618[/url]

Basically, you have quoted Chomsky saying that given so many of your fellow American Christians (73% when it comes to Republicans) in particular believe the Bible over science, that makes you more fundamentalist than say Saudi Arabia. At the end of the day you haven't disputed the basis of his statement - the high proportion of your population which reject science - far higher than any other Western nation, for example.

Given that the Quran does not contradict evolution or is interpreted by Muslims in favour of 'Young Earth Creationism' (that's all your Christian friends) - Muslim's can't agree with the 73% who say that we were created within the last 10,000 years.

Cheers,
Shafique

I thought we were comparing Americans to the Saudis, the Taliban and everyone else.

Why the sudden need to shift the goal posts to now only refer to religious Republicans?

Could it be that the evidence that the US is more fundamentalist than other countries is less than evident?

I mean, posting the creationist beliefs of Turks and comparing those with the creationist beliefs of Americans must have blown your rather dumb belief out of the water.

But to be fair, I doubt anyone besides the usual loons thought Chomsky was accurate.

Now you're suddenly saying that Saudis (not Turks, mind you) are more secular than American Republicans?

LoL. (Yeah, let's see the evidence)

Supposedly 73% of religious Republicans (why the sudden switch from American Christians to only religious Republicans?) are creationists.

Hmm, well, the Saudi government officially teaches Creationism. So, I guess we can conclude that the % of Saudis who are creationists is higher than religious Republicans.

Then again, I thought we were talking about Americans in general or, at the very least, American Christians.

I'm just quoting the stats.

73% of YOUR peers reject science and believe the Bible's version.

The same poll gives the proportion of those in the General population. This is what should be compared with Saudis and Afghanis - and so far you haven't shown that half of Saudis or Taliban/Afghans reject science and believe that humans were created less than 10,000 years ago.

So, Chomsky is right to say that on the measure of rejecting science in favour of a Biblical theory of creation, the US is more fundamental than Saudi etc. And for good measure I've even quoted what Chomsky has to say about fundamentalism in the USA (so there'll be no loony misinterpretations of what he's arguing).

He's the one whose provided evidence.

cheers,
Shafique

Hold on there, snowflake.

Why the sudden attempt to change the criteria from Americans who are Creationists to only 'religious' Republicans (what about independents, democrats or Republicans who do not attend church every week)?

I don't think one needs to have a lot of experience in numbers to know you're just BSing.

I'm just pointing out one of the results of the survey that's quite telling -i.e. that 73% of your fellow brethren reject science and believe the Bible's account (i.e. you are in a minority when we look at your peers). Whilst the general population the rate is in the 40s (percent), the rate rockets up in your peer group. GOP supporters who go to Church reject science in a ratio of 3 to 1 - that's pretty amazing.

Chomsky's point is to look at the proportion of the total population - and that's the figure we need to compare against Saudi and Afghanistan, and what I'm still waiting to see. I've also quoted Chomsky in full where he clarifies what he means by fundamentalism in the USA.

Noam Chomsky: We must bear in mind that the US is a very fundamentalist society, perhaps more than any other society in the world – even more fundamentalist than Saudi Arabia or the Taliban. That's very surprising. About half of the [US] population believes that all living species were created 6,000 years ago in their current form.

Had he said this after the Gallup survey, he might have added 'and within certain segments of US society, such as religious republicans, the rate who believe all living species were created 6,000 years ago is 73%!!' That would strengthen his point. (And it's factual)

Notably, you're not addressing any of these points - even though you started this thread.

Cheers,
Shafique

Red Chief wrote:I'm not realy neutral because I don't connect evolution hypothesis with foundamentalism. Having MSc diploma on my shelf, I believe that Sir Shafique was made according to some moral pattern which is incompatible with known apes or monkey but more close to demiurge. Shame on me!

So then Chiefster what's ur stand on evolution?

When taking a look at the Turkish population, we find that only 25% of Turks accept evolution - compared to at least 40% of Americans.

Pray tell, have you already forgotten that I provided these stats when you claim "you're not addressing any of these points - even though you started this thread" ?

In relation to the Turkey statistic, again:

I refer you back to the conclusion I quoted from the same paper.
philosophy-dubai/muslim-religious-beliefs-t42480.html#p341618
You will recall you were exposed in your old trick of selectively quoting.

So, I haven't forgotten that you selectively quoted this report and ignored what he said about the Quran, evolution etc.

Now, what you are not addressing is:
1. Gallup survey shows that 73% of YOUR peers reject science and believe that man was created less than 10,000 years ago - because they put the Bible above science.
2. Because of these people, the overall average of such science deniers in the population is about half of the population.
3. Chomsky is quoted in full explaining what fundamentalism in the USA means,
4. Chomsky uses point 2 in the quote you give in the first post to make point 3
5. You have not shown that Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan reject science when it comes to the creation of humans (or age of the universe/earth) in the same proportions as 2.

Chomsky 1 - eh 0

Cheers,
Shafique

My bad, perhaps I have forgotten.

Did the author claim that the Koran supports the theory of evolution or did just he say that YEC is not a 'problem' in the Muslim world - though support of stoning, flogging, amputations, honor killings and harsh punishments for proselytizers, apostates and blasphemers are ........?

1. Gallup survey shows that 73% of YOUR peers reject science and believe that man was created less than 10,000 years ago - because they put the Bible above science.

Hey, if I change the parameters of what I want to conclude, I can also find that brown ducks weigh more than yellow ducks.

4. Chomsky uses point 2 in the quote you give in the first post to make point 3

Let's see the quote where Loonsky only mentions Church going Republicans when he said Americans.

You have not shown that Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan reject science when it comes to the creation of humans

Well, we can arrive at that conclusion through extrapolation.

Very few Muslims in the Muslim world accept the theory of evolution. There is more or less a correlation between countries known for their fundamentalism/conservatism and low support for evolution.

Turkey, touted as a modernized, educated and secular Muslim majority country only has twenty five percent of its population that accepts the theory of evolution.

The percentages plummet in the more religious Arab countries, Pakistan and elsewhere.

It would be safe to conclude that your average Saudi citizen is even more likely to oppose evolution than your average Turk.

But wait, it gets better. I don't have any surveys from Saudi showing the % of citizens who accept evolution, but we know (because I've mentioned this in the past several times) that Creationism is officially taught in Saudi Arabia and a few other Muslim countries.

Actually, I learned that in 'moderate' Indonesia, 'biology' teachers use books published by Harun Yaya (whatever his name is) in their classrooms.

But hey, why let facts (like the fact that Saudi Arabia officially teaches Creationism and evolution is most likely banned) get in the way of a good loon rant?

So, no refutation of the fact that 73% of your peers reject science.

No refutation of the fact that of the general population of the US this figure is almost half the population! No actual evidence that a higher proportion of Saudis or Afghans believe we were created in the past 10,000 years.. just bluster and 'beliefs'!

No refutation that that this is what Chomsky is quoted to have said (and therefore is correct) or any refutation of the longer quote about the fundamentalism in the US.

Fair enough. When you do have something to say on these points, let me know. Otherwise, knock yourself out with your attempts at obfuscation.

Cheers,
Shafique