I posted this as a comment to another diary but it got buried under 90 comments while I was revising it, so I decided to post an expanded version. Detail after the bump.
- Why Science is not just another opinion
- Why Intelligent Design is laughable as a scientific theory
- Why Evolution the concept is in no dispute whatsoever
- How Evolution the Origin theory disproves Genesis, not God
- How Social Darwinism leads to Eugenics, and Eugenics leads to suf-fer-ing
- Why Murder by Spreadsheet is For-Profit No-Fault Eugenics
- How Murder by Spreadsheet reveals hypocrisy in the "Culture of Life"
- Science is not just another opinion. Science is the set of opinions that survive the process of hypothesis (mutation) and experimental verification (natural selection). It's what is left over after you give every serious challenger a fair opportunity to discredit it. That makes it the exact opposite of divine revelation. And not surprisingly, this is the reason why science has delivered on modern civilization, and dogmatic religions have not.
- Intelligent Design cannot be accepted as a Scientific Theory because it has not made multiple predictions of unexpected fact which were then confirmed by multiple independent experiments. Real scientific theories don't just explain what we see -- they correctly predict things we have not yet seen. Relativity had a lot less doubters after Einstein's predictions were verified by other scientists.
Until Intelligent Design tells us where to look, and we do find new discoveries there, it will not be worthy to lick Evolution's feet, let alone be taught in Science class.
- Evolution as a process of natural selection is not in dispute, period. It proves its worth on a daily basis as a conceptual tool for understanding how stateful things change over time as they interact with their environment. It is useful as a process concept in almost any field, not just biology, and not even just in the sciences.
- Evolution as a theory of Human Origin disproves the Young Earth of scripture, not the existence of God. Evolution is perfectly compatible with deism (which has a better claim to our founding religion than Christianity does).
Quantum philosphy allows for omniscient beings as the only entities who can violate the Uncertainty Principle, by observing things without interacting with them. However, omnipotent beings would only be allowed to control how quantum wavefunctions collapse. This is a plausible mechanism for change and even miracles -- consider for a moment how RoveWellian politics grabs little advantages from all over, and tips the overall balance.
- Social Darwinism was the Nazis' justification for practicing real Eugenics on real people. The Nazis were heavily into racial purity and practiced Eugenics on criminals (because good people would never do that), "degenerates" (perverts, or maybe just the sexually liberated), dissidents (you're with us or against us!), the feeble-minded, homosexuals, the idle (slackers), the insane, people of other religions, and the weak. They also targeted Gypsies and (of course) Jews. If you were lucky you got forcibly sterilized, otherwise you got a free train ride to Nazi day camp.
The fundamental dilemma of Social Darwinism is that "survival of the fittest" seems to suggest that society is improved more by accelerating the process through deliberate removal of the less fit. But less fit by whose standards? And is society as a whole really better served by reducing diversity, ignoring opportunities to learn more about ourselves, and ignoring talented contributors who are not "fit enough"? Perfect example: Stephen Hawking.
- Murder by Spreadsheet could also be called No-Fault Eugenics for Profit. By denying payments to the less fit, profits are enhanced and the not-so-fit have less chance to survive. We must admit that helping the less fit does cost society. But by virtue of requiring health insurance at all, we are also admitting that at least some of that cost is justified. We as a people must decide how much of that cost we are willing to pay. Murder by Spreadsheet takes that decision away from us.
- Murder by Spreadsheet reveals hypocrisy in the "Culture of Life". Suppose the Terry Schiavo case had been an instance of insurance coverage being cut off. Would the GOP still have championed it? The obvious "Culture of Life" dodge would be that Murder by Spreadsheet is only God's will being allowed to run its course. But wait, there's a human decision to save people involved. Is choosing not to save someone with medical treatment the same as killing them?
The "Culture of Life" as practiced by the GOP is a deceptive tactic to (a) perpetuate the dangers of non-procreative sex, and (b) force poorer families to bear the burden of raising cannon fodder for the Military-Industrial Complex while also keeping parents too busy to cause trouble as politically active citizens. A true Culture of Life would disapprove of Capital Punishment and War.