For a biology teacher to tell young kids that both creationism and evolution are valid theories of how we came to be here and say to them 'It's up to you to make up your own minds' is a bit like the French teacher saying 'Le chat means "cat' ? or, it might be "dog" ? why don't you decide for yourselves?'
Caving for infidels
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Pitlamp
Well-known member
Fulk said:
Read my words Fulk; I didn't write anything like what you seem to imply in what you've just typed. Allowing students to consider something and make informed decisions about its validity or usefulness is very different from "telling" them it has equal value with other ideas.
Tony_b; thanks for your latest; what the Americans teach their children isn't something we have a great deal of influence over. My more immediate interest is how we educate our own youngsters. By that I mean teaching them to weigh evidence and think for themselves. This is something which, I reckon, Graham would approve of.
I suspect that very few folk in the UK would concur that all the Old Testament should be taken as "historical fact". (By definition, if several events happened before God created man, then details of these events can't exactly be reliable eye witness accounts.) The New Testament is completely different of course.
As for humans and dinosaurs walking the earth at the same time? But that must be true - as "proven" by umpteen Hollywood films! :-\
I'm very sorry if you thought that I was somehow getting at you, Pitlamp ? that was not my intention at all. My remark was simply prompted by the general tenor of this thread, and was not aimed at anyone in particular. Apologies for any offence caused (however unwittingly).
graham
New member
Pitlamp said:
Although there are those in the current government who have firm links with American evangelical types, including Liam Fox and Michael Gove.
Pitlamp said:
I would indeed, see below.
Pitlamp said:
Why 'of course'? there are no wholly contemporaneous accounts of JC's life and works. The earliest christian texts are the (genuine - not all of them seem to be) letters of Paul, who by his own admission never actually met the bloke. To give one example:
Matthew 27: 51-53:
This remarkable sequence of events is mentioned only in that particular part of that particular book. Pitlamp appears to regard the NT as reliable history. Me, I'd be wholly flabbergasted if a mass resurrection such as this did not make its way into other near-contemporary accounts (Josephus anyone?) if it actually happened.
Now, either it did, and yet it went wholly unremarked elsewhere, or it didn't, which tends to cast some doubt on the historical reliability of the rest.
Pitlamp said:
Visit this place. If you think that's a bit American for your tastes then visit this zoo which is less than a dozen miles from where I sit and type this.
graham
New member
Brains, indeed.
As some of you will know, I have done quite a lot of work on Palaeolithic cave art and have visited a lot of the relevant sites in France & northern Spain. A few years back, searching for one particular cave on the net, I came across an account by this American guy who claimed to have made an illicit trip into the cave and to have photographed an engraving of a sauropod dinosaur, face to face with a mammoth, before being chased off the site by the owner. He claimed that subsequently the site had been sealed & remained 'off limits' to visitors.
Now, this is a cave I know quite well, having visited it several times & being on good terms with the then owner (who sadly died a year or two ago). It was and is open to the public, albeit on a more limited basis than some as he fitted tour guiding around his farming work. it is now owned and run by his younger brother. I therefore contacted the American chap in order to have, or so I hoped, a friendly exchange about what he had, or had not, seen and to put right the more glaring factual errors in his account. Well, within three email exchanges he was warning me that my immortal soul was in grave danger if I persisted with these lies. At that point I concluded that the exchange was pointless and annoying and broke it off.
Yup, ignorance on this sort of level really does exist and really is what we are fighting.
And that (true) story does concern caves and caving 8)
:ang:
As some of you will know, I have done quite a lot of work on Palaeolithic cave art and have visited a lot of the relevant sites in France & northern Spain. A few years back, searching for one particular cave on the net, I came across an account by this American guy who claimed to have made an illicit trip into the cave and to have photographed an engraving of a sauropod dinosaur, face to face with a mammoth, before being chased off the site by the owner. He claimed that subsequently the site had been sealed & remained 'off limits' to visitors.
Now, this is a cave I know quite well, having visited it several times & being on good terms with the then owner (who sadly died a year or two ago). It was and is open to the public, albeit on a more limited basis than some as he fitted tour guiding around his farming work. it is now owned and run by his younger brother. I therefore contacted the American chap in order to have, or so I hoped, a friendly exchange about what he had, or had not, seen and to put right the more glaring factual errors in his account. Well, within three email exchanges he was warning me that my immortal soul was in grave danger if I persisted with these lies. At that point I concluded that the exchange was pointless and annoying and broke it off.
Yup, ignorance on this sort of level really does exist and really is what we are fighting.
And that (true) story does concern caves and caving 8)
:ang:
Alex
Well-known member
That has to be a spoof, Brains surely no one can be that stupid. No videos or pictures well of course not, who would have blooming recorded it as nothing existed to record it. However saying that, with better technology I guess it would be possible to see it, if you can stare far enough in Space say about 8* billion light years? (* Not sure if it is 8 billion, I am sure someone with more knowlegde will tell me what the current theory when the universe started.)
SpeleoTrog
Member
Just googled the question posted by Brains and found this interesting answer -
)
Pitlamp
Well-known member
In certain parts this interview includes some quite interesting reflections from a very respected and well qualified scientist.
Brian May to RT: I still feel Freddie's around
(I hope this works . . . )
Brian May to RT: I still feel Freddie's around
(I hope this works . . . )
graham
New member
I haven't watched the video, however. Well qualified and respected Brain May may be, but his training is in astrophysics. That means that if you are going to accept his opinion on anything, it's either music or astrophysics. Sorry, but there is no scientific evidence, none at all, that supports either the survival of 'mind' after death, or even that a dualistic interpretation of mind/body is valid. Indeed there is quite a lot of evidence that 'mind' is an emergent property of 'brain' and is wholly reliant on the physical brain for its characteristics.
If you wish, I can go into some detail about how this argument works in practice. As the victim/survivor of a stroke, I have taken a high degree of interest in the workings of the brain.
If you wish, I can go into some detail about how this argument works in practice. As the victim/survivor of a stroke, I have taken a high degree of interest in the workings of the brain.
shortscotsman
New member
Alex said:
actually
http://pyweb.swan.ac.uk/~dunbar/PH104/lec20/wmapdata.jpg
is is thought to represent a picture of the universe at about 100,000 yrs. [It's a picture of temperature] 13.75 Billion is
the current consensus - this number has changed quite a bit in the last 20 years (gotten longer) as systematic problems with measuring distance have been (hopefully) ironed out
Although Brian May has a phd in astrophysics I don't think he counts as a "well respected scentist".
Pitlamp
Well-known member
H'm - he must have impressed those who had to consider his appropriateness for his PhD. This must count for something as far as his ability to think scientifically is concerned.
It just struck me, from watching the video, that he had a few interesting remarks germaine to this topic (in and among everything else).
It just struck me, from watching the video, that he had a few interesting remarks germaine to this topic (in and among everything else).
shortscotsman
New member
Getting a Ph.D. is like getting a license to be a scientist - becoming a well respected scientist is quite a long way beyond that.
A lot of science Ph.ds tend to be very technical and are not necessarily about thinking independently
A lot of science Ph.ds tend to be very technical and are not necessarily about thinking independently
TheBitterEnd
Well-known member
bograt said:Just think, all this started with a would-be scout wanting to go caving
Well, if this thread hasn't put that foolish notion out of the lads head, I don't know what will
He probably rather wishes he'd just abandoned his principals taken the promise...
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