h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bingo!


(or should I say 'craps'? )

i think science is crap, the lesson mainly, but also i don't see why it's so blinkin important, why do i care how a pendulem works or why rocks don't breed? they do, or don't, that should be enough.

um...you...wouldn't be able to type that without science..or...well a god damn lot of things, you wouldn't be able to do..or see...or use....you probably wouldn't even have been able to read hhgg....WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE???
(i'm not perverse - i've just finished school)

Perhaps, but at least you started out coherently.

> Its just so easy to say that the earth is millions of years old - there is absolutely no way to prove that - scientific
> experiments themselves are based on nothing but faith.

You should always read the FAQ before posting to a forum http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

> "The Missing Link" have been forged by scientists. With the
> masses aamounts of old bones and stuff - how comes none of it can actually show the eveolution of man?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

There is a very interesting chart in "How the Mind Works" by Steven Pinker which sets australopithecus/homo evolution against a timeline and lists advances in tool use, brain cavity size etc. at each stage.

> Some schools around the world are not even teaching evolution

I know, it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. "Suffer, little children".

I think the fact that some schools in America (where else) are teaching creationism as science is a load of crap. The fact is that we should all have thrown out the bible when Copurnicus first revealed that the earth goes around the sun, and not vice versa.

The book of Genesis was disproved as soon as radio carbon dating revealed that terrestrial rocks were more than a few thousand years old.

And the myth of a benevolent diety is disproved every hour, one the hour on the news.

Is this blaphemy? No, because there's no such thing.

> Faith has no way of explaining how things happen,
> but it does try to answer why they happen. Science has no way of explaining why things happen, but is essential to
> find out how things happen.

What is the difference between a how question and a why question?

Let's say, for example, that I ask two wise men "why" I have two arms. One says that it is because I was created in the image of a divine being who happened to have two arms. The other says that it is because of the way that gene switching networks controled the expression of various protiens and therefore the development of particular cell types while I was dividing in the womb.

"But that's 'how'. I want to know 'why'.", I say. So he goes on to say that lateral symmetry was favoured by selection as the most efficient way of getting across the landscape, and that primate arms used to be legs but became far more useful for manipulating tools.

I have a number of books on the evolution of life on Earth and/or about dinosaurs. I agree, it is possible to prove the evolution of man from the fossil evidence. The 'Missing Link' is just a phase between the more ape-like 'man' and mankind as we know it that whe haven't been able to find fossils for. Not all the evidence of human evolution has been forged. Very little, to my knowledge has been forged. The only notable case that springs to mind is 'Piltdown Man' and that was about a hundred years ago!

The reason there are so few fossils of any kind is that you need special conditions to create fossils. For example, the creature (man, dinosaur, whatever) should die in gently flowing water, decompose without the body being disturbed, there should be sediments in the water that gradually fill the small gaps in the bone, turning it to stone ... I could go on, but you get the picture. These conditions don't occur very often, hence the scarcity of fossils, particularly of complete skeletons.

>"But that's 'how'. I want to know 'why'.", I say. So he goes on to say that lateral symmetry was favoured by selection as the
>most efficient way of getting across the landscape, and that primate arms used to be legs but became far more useful for
>manipulating tools.

That why is only explained by evolution between species, which, as has been stated elsewhere in this forum, some Christians do not believe can happen, me being one of those.

Almost all other why questions lead to the big bang, and why that happened. Science has no answer as yet, and may never have one. Faith provides the answer that God created the universe. He then created man to give himself friends.

> That why is only explained by evolution between species, which, as has been stated elsewhere in this forum, some
> Christians do not believe can happen, me being one of those.

Despite (or in spite of) evidence that it is happening now?

> Almost all other why questions lead to the big bang, and why that happened.

Quite an achievement, don't you think?

> Science has no answer as yet, and may
> never have one. Faith provides the answer that God created the universe. He then created man to give himself
> friends.

So, in the absence of an answer supported by observation, we invent something that atleast makes us feel good about the fact that we don't know.

>>Some schools around the world are not even teaching evolution<<

And some schools are thinking of mandating that pi be set equal to 3. Just because _some_ people do something, does that mean it's anywhere near correct?

but teaching is about Informing, so that a student may make independent decissions based on logic and knowledge. each theory on 'How We Got Here' is just as subjective as the next, why should we be denied the option? this 'pi' bussiness is irrelevant, as it is fact against ludicrousy.

Some people would argue that not teaching evolution is also fact against ludicrosity. But the point I was trying to make (no, it's not irrelevant) is that the fact that _some_ people refuse to teach something--whether it be evolution or the true value of pi--is not evidence that it is false.

And some people would also argue that all theories of human origins are not equally subjective, since some are based on faith while others are based on scientific evidence. But yes, we should not be denied the option to learn about all the theories out there, including evolution--which is why it's such a shame that schools are being forbidden to teach it.

But surely, PI = 3.142...... is just a theory and is only as valid as PI = 3 or PI = 17.

I hate to be pedantic here, but the value of Pi is not just a theory; it is a mathematical constant calculated by dividing the cirumferences of a circle by the diameter.

I hate to be pedantic here, but the value of Pi is not just a theory; it is a mathematical constant calculated by dividing the cirumference of a circle by the diameter.

Pi is Pi. It may not be rational, but it *is*. This is a fact that is easily tested with piece of string, or even a good towel.
The only viable reason I can think of to justify the assertion that science is crap is that 99.9% or so of the TV watching population do not know how it works, in even the simplest terms. But this is not the fault of science.

As for the age of the earth - in Genesis the original language uses a word which means 'time' eg: the earth was created in six 'times' - not six 'days' as the young-earthers say. There is no record of how long a 'time' is/was, and nothing to say it was merely a poor choice of the words an ancient scribe used to express the concept of 'mind-bogglingly huge'.

As for the fossil record of humans, I went to the link and couldn't help but notice a few things:

most, if not all ages of the remains are "estimates"

there seem to be certain 'species' found in each locality ie: one species comes from Africa, one from France, one from China...

an awful lot of the evidence is fragments... leading me to think that maybe the element of imagination might have crept into some reconstructions.

Just my .05c worth.

Ah, then I take it you wouldn't be interested in my scientific musings on the existence of romantic love? It's my latest guide entry, accessible from my page. I welcome any and all input on it; I'm sure it's full of holes.



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PI *sometimes* isn't 3.14159265359 etc....We could get into a complicated explanation about curved space and drawing circles on balloons, but then everyone would end up desterting the thread before their minds imploded from boredom.

(I only just avoided this by missing lectures and going down the pub).