[X] My Assistant

[ljk4-1]

The Charlie Rose Show
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005 at 11:00 p.m. ET. (Topics subject to change.)

Please go to http://www.charlierose.com/ for an updated show schedule

- Tonight's Show


A LOOK AT THE LIFE & WORK OF CHARLES DARWIN WITH:

E.O. WILSON, Harvard University
JAMES WATSON, Scientist / Author
NILES ELDREDGE, Curator, "Darwin",

American Museum of Natural History


To order tapes and transcripts go to:

http://www.charlierose.com/shop/

[ljk4-1]

Paper (*cross-listing*): hep-th/0512148

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 22:04:17 GMT (23kb)

Title: Is Our Universe Natural?

Authors: Sean M. Carroll

Comments: Invited review for Nature, 11 pages
\\
It goes without saying that we are stuck with the universe we have.
Nevertheless, we would like to go beyond simply describing our observed
universe, and try to understand why it is that way rather than some other way.
Physicists and cosmologists have been exploring increasingly ambitious ideas
that attempt to explain why certain features of our universe aren't as
surprising as they might first appear.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/hep-th/0512148 , 23kb)

[dvandorn]

This just in -- a Federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that a school district there does *not* have to teach ID as a scioentific theory. The judge who ruled was a Bush appointee, by the way.

He he he he he...

-the other Doug

[ljk4-1]

This just in -- a Federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that a school district there does *not* have to teach ID as a scioentific theory.  The judge who ruled was a Bush appointee, by the way.

He he he he he...

-the other Doug

The details here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10545387/

To quote from the article:

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," [Judge] Jones wrote. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

...

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

ID itself is interesting as a speculation, but this kind of behaviour cannot be accepted. Anyway it hampers any open discution on this subject rather than fostering it.

[ljk4-1]

Vatican paper raps ‘intelligent design’

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying “intelligent design” is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10932031/

[ljk4-1]

In a 2005 Gallup poll, 53% of US citizens said they believed the Biblical
account of human origins to be true.

-------------------------------------------------------

In this week's BBC Science & Nature newsletter

** Belief in science **
** Download one museum **
** Text one ladybird **
** TV & Radio choices this week **

-------------------------------------------------------

** Belief in science **

'Intelligent design' is a term popularised in the 1990s by opponents of the
science of evolution by natural selection.

ID combines an attempt to use scientific methods with a refusal to accept living
organisms could come about without a designer.

Some evolutionary biologists suspect that ID is a front for people who want to
supplant agnostic science with a more religious view.

The argument is most polarised in the USA, where it has been played out in court
cases hinging on what the US constitution allows schools to teach.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4152374.stm

Research for BBC Two's Horizon series shows views in the UK are split as well.
48% of respondents in a survey of over 2,000 people said evolution theory best
described their view of the origin and development of life. 39% expressed views
relying on some kind of higher intelligence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4648598.stm

Tonight's Horizon examines how much science there is in the arguments put
forward by ID's proponents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/horizon

-------------------------------------------------------

** Download one museum **

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History was the venue for one of the
classic early debates between supporters and opponents of Charles Darwin's ideas
on evolution.

This week it features in BBC Four's new series Take One Museum.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/take_one/

The programmes offer you glimpses of the wonders displayed and stories relayed
in British museums from Hampshire to Orkney. Your guide is explorer and
engineer, Paul Rose.

Visit the website to download free audio guides for each venue, in MP3 format.

You can take them to the museum on a portable player, if you wish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes...downloads.shtml

[helvick]

Research for BBC Two's Horizon series shows views in the UK are split as well.
48% of respondents in a survey of over 2,000 people said evolution theory best
described their view of the origin and development of life. 39% expressed views
relying on some kind of higher intelligence.

I find this hard to believe. I may be particularly weird in my cross section of acquaintances but even thinking hard I can't think of any of them who would actually believe any flavour of creationism\ID\mystic watchmaker myth of your choice. Now my position on this is a fairly secular western European one admittedly but this is supposed to be the UK and I can't see that the average person on the street there would be more inclined to that way of thinking than the average person on the street here in Ireland.

I suspect that the exact wording of the questions may be very relevant, I think I'll go and see if I can find out a bit more before continuing.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I think that in polls and votes you can ask a question about anything, you will nearby all the time get about 50%/50% even if real people (the ones you meet) are 90% in a direction. I have on my site a poll on summertime, which regularly gives 75% cons, but polls and the government also regularly say 75% of people are pro. Misteries.

[Ames]

I think the keywords here are "of respondents in a survey".

What sort of people respond to surveys?

I certainly don't. Ever!
But my views are well founded and important (I hope )

I can imagine (applying steriotypes and prejudices here) the type who would respond and yes they would probably be biased towards the Horizon findings.

I am saddened every time I watch (or more often storm out after 10minutes muttering under my breath) Horizon.
What used to be pinnicle of balanced scientific documentary has declined into a Shock Horror freakshow of pseudo science and sensationalism. Complete with random images of "Simulations", clicking dials and Dave (Who happens to be an Astronomer) riding his bike to work!

Ddont gggget me sstarted abbbout HORIZON (Spit!)



Nick
Annnnnnd Rest! Phew!

[Bob Shaw]

I think the keywords here are "of respondents in a survey".

What sort of people respond to surveys?

I certainly don't. Ever!
But my views are well founded and important (I hope )

I can imagine (applying steriotypes and prejudices here) the type who would respond and yes they would probably be biased towards the Horizon findings.

I am saddened every time I watch (or more often storm out after 10minutes muttering under my breath) Horizon.
What used to be pinnicle of balanced scientific documentary has declined into a Shock Horror freakshow of pseudo science and sensationalism. Complete with random images of "Simulations", clicking dials and Dave (Who happens to be an Astronomer) riding his bike to work!

Ddont gggget me sstarted abbbout HORIZON (Spit!)



Nick
Annnnnnd Rest! Phew!

Nick:

Sit down, and have some homeopathic whisky, demagnetised to make your chakras throb in time with your inner wossisnames.

Bob Shaw

[Ames]

Thanks Bob

A snifter of my homemade Sloe Gin should put me to rights.
Violent magenta and the burn of paint thinners - good stuff!

Seriously - a lot of people will not stop in the streets to answer a survey.
And as for postal or telephone surveys - you would have to be mad!
What with fishing, scamming and identity theft.

Watch yer back!

Nick
gibbiidibiiibdiidiibgd

[The Messenger]

In a 2005 Gallup poll, 53% of US citizens said they believed the Biblical
account of human origins to be true.

Depending upon how the question is phrased, the number can even be higher. Barbara WAWA dedicated a couple of hours to this topic a few weeks ago, and paraded collar after collar in to tell us what heaven would be like.

I think that a couple of decades ago, when Carl Sagan stood up and declared evolution is a scientific fact, he did a dis-service to the U.S. Scientific community. I don't disagree with him, I just know many Americans have very poor exposure to biological evolutionary concepts, and they really do not understand what he is saying.

For the far religious right, this was a 'shot across the bow", and they have been brooding, breeding and festering ever since. Now they have engaged their significant and intolerant political muscle to declare war on a fraction of the public that is vulnerable to funding blackballs: Planetary Science and research institutions.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I think that, as always in such cases, religious extremists are beating themselves with their hard stance on ID. This stance can only but to create an opposite reaction, making scientists more closed to spiritual explanations, and people less likely to accept them.

As long as it don't directly contradicts the theory of evolution, Intelligent Design can be posed as an hypothesis. An hypothesis certainly untestable for now, and thus scientifically useless, but mind-challenging and worth considering it. (This was the statute of the... atom hypothesis, for two millenia. Untill a crafty one noticed that...)

The problem is not this hypothesis itself, but that its proponents present it as an accepted scientific fact, and try to enforce it through sheming and manipulation. Making this shows that their position is dogmatic, so they are the first harmed. But everybody is harmed, people sincerely involved in spirituality who lose their credibility, science-illiterate people who are fooled, and science-literate who will try do defend science. But defending oneself against a fundamentalist attack is very tricky (see in politics) as the risk is to become oneself a dogmatic or fundamentalist.

[Bob Shaw]

There *are* two sides to the question (well, a top and a bottom, anyway!).

Bob Shaw

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