Hi all, For those who are lost a little bit in this exchange, there is a detailed article on Wikipedia on creationism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism Two lines or sections attracted my attention when I quickly scanned through this article: “Since the 1920s, creationism in America has contested scientific theories, such as that of evolution,[5][6] which derive from natural observations of the universe and life.” ... “ID [Intelligent Design] originated as a re-branding of creation science in an attempt to get round a series of court decisions ruling out the teaching of creationism in U.S. public schools, and the Discovery Institute has run a series of campaigns to change school curricula.[23] In Australia, where curricula are under the control of State governments rather than local school boards, there was a public outcry when the notion of ID being taught in science classes was raised by the Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson; the minister quickly conceded that the correct forum for ID, if it were to be taught, is in religious or philosophy classes.” And then there is another detailed article on Intelligent Design itself on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design Creationism fell out of favor (both public and legal) in the mainstream science education long ago, so factions of the American religious community has revived creationism in several forms in the past few decades. Intelligent Design is its latest avatar, and the Discovery Institute is its biggest, loudest, richest organized proponent. Eventually, like other religion-based pushes, this will come and go. In terms of generating new ideas and evidence, Intelligent Design and other non-science-based movements have historically done little. This was just to give background on these two movements. I will not go into the details of their arguments and misinterpretations because this is really going far far away from the goals and purpose of this group. Cheers, Krushnamegh. ________________________________ From: Pat <[email protected]> Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 12:39:51 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion Folks, For the purpose of giving another view, I will give all of you a link. http://www.discovery.org/ Intelligent design is a field of scientific reasoning that examines the evidence and asks whether it could have come about by chance. The formation of new species requires new genetic information. The information has to be helpful to the organism and not harmful. Intelligent design does not identify the designer, which could be God, or little green men from Andromeda. It merely demonstrates that new genetic information cannot come about by random chance. People who adhere to this viewpoint come from all religious perspectives. It is said that mutation provides new genetic information that will result in the development of new species. I am still looking for one example of a mutation that did anything more than modify an existing species. Most of the time, mutations are harmful. I hope people will examine all sides of the question. Keep in mind that everyone who approaches this question does so with a worldview and a set of presuppositions. The worldview and presuppositions of many scientific creationists is not concealed in any way, but evolutionists also have a worldview and a set of presuppositions. There is nothing wrong with having this; we have to have a framework on which to base our reasoning. The important thing is to be open about what yours is. People have recommended Dawkins to me on several occasions. I have not been impressed with Dawkins for lots of reasons, and I have discovered not all evolutionists are impressed with him, either. One of the major problems I have is his virulent hostility toward anyone who disagrees with him, especially on the topic of religion. If any of you want to discuss this with me privately, feel free to email me directly. I will be happy to go into more detail. Pat Goltz Kunte, Krushnamegh wrote: Re: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion Thanks, Vishnu. I am glad that it wasn’t just Pat and I who were reading our emails. I hope that our exchange has helped a little bit, and that at least some of you will read on in books, wikipedia and other sources. Krushnamegh. ________________________________ From: Vishnu Pk <[email protected]> Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 11:09:20 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion Thanks Krushnamegh and Pat, I have been following this thread eagerly, eventhough i didn`t understand the terms much.But i shall look them up elsewhere.But in my view this discussion was and would be interesting and not entirely out of scope of this forum. Cheers, Vishnu ________________________________ From: "Kunte, Krushnamegh" <[email protected]> To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, January 9, 2011 8:50:34 PM Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion Ashwin, I am glad to see some interest in these subjects as well. For starters, I would recommend reading Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. This book explains many basic concepts in evolutionary biology lucidly. It was written for non-biologists with college degrees, so this should be easily accessible for most people on this group. I do want to start writing articles on biology for non-scientists keenly interested in organism-level biology, ecology, evolution, genetics and conservation. Perhaps I will use such discussion threads as inspiration to write articles on these subjects in the future. Cheers, Krushnamegh. ________________________________ From: Ashwin Baindur <[email protected]> Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 07:39:41 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion Hi Krushnamegh, Please do not stop such discussions on this group because all of us cannot immediately comprehend it. This presents us with "stretch" to motivate us to learn more and rise up in knowledge levels. Today, the world of buttefly science has humungous amounts of this kind of genetic stuff. So the right thing to do is as Nelson requests - please provide a simple explanation and point us to a few resources so we can all understand this subject. At the very least point us to the relevant articles on Wikipedia. I have absolutely no objection to the discussion taking place because it has now motivated me to learn more about this. Hox genes are new to me and almost immediately I came across it in again while rereading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Everything. If it is in that book, then it is obviously something we should expect a reasonably well informed person (who aspires to like science) to know. My only point is please rename the discussion in such cases. The topic was an attempt to bring forth a serious subject up for discussion and the evolution discussion should have redirected to another thread. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ________________________________ From: Kishen Das <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, 9 January, 2011 5:34:54 Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion As long as we stick to biology, we should be fine. Initially I was afraid that it will be an evolution vs creationism argument, but very glad that its not !!! Once in a while its ok to indulge into topics related to evolution. Kishen On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 12:33 PM, Kunte, Krushnamegh <[email protected]> wrote: Nelson, I agree that this was a bit too outside the circle of things that we discuss on this group. But there is Wikipedia if you want to know about these terms and concepts. Pat’s last email took it away from butterflies, so I won’t write about it on the group any more, anyway. With best wishes, Krushnamegh. ------------------------------------------------- Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD Post-doctoral Research Fellow FAS Center for Systems Biology Harvard University 52 Oxford St Northwest Lab Room 458.40-3 Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Ph: (617) 496-0078 Cell: (512) 577-1370 Fax: (617) 495-2196 Email: [email protected] <http://[email protected]/> Other emails: [email protected] <http://[email protected]/> , [email protected] <http://[email protected]/> Personal website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/index.htm <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ekunte/index.htm> Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/ Google profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/krushnamegh ------------------------------------------------- ________________________________ From: Nelson Rodrigues <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 01:59:59 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > Subject: [ButterflyIndia] kk and pat discussion pardon me for being an ignoramus, but what the stuff you are discussing is going way above my head , can someone simplify it for me please nelson rodrigues -- Enjoy
