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Currently 61F here in New York City.
The same people who are against the belief that the climate is changing seem to be many of the same people who believe in creationism, and the belief that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago.
Do I see a reenactment of the Scopes monkey trial occurring soon ?

When the earth starts cooling in the future, as it surely will, will global warming be blamed as the cause?

Climate never stops changing, Ryan. Its the "doom and gloom and that humans are responsible for it" is what drives sane people nuts. Please adjust tin foil hat

Ryan, If you can create life from inanimate matter, I'll look into evolution. Until then its just your religion and I much prefer my own.

mandy, evolution could not be further from religion. You don't know what you are talking about. The fact that you would consider "looking into" evolution and that you don't already have a thorough understanding of the difference between science and religion is proof that you are ignorant and that you have recieved substandard edcation....but We've been through this.

Christianity has ALWAYS been anti-science, and anti-rationality. Listening to christian fundamenatlists rant about scientific theory is the same as listening to a whore give tips on romance.

Ah me hearties, retro-Ryan but obscures and detracts from the issue at hand!

This climate change madness has afflicted far too many relative to its scientific substance. Global warming is a tool of tools, designed to gather the fearful into the bosom of government toadies who will shield us all from harm. The name of the game is POWER, the very same flame that consumes the political candidates now scurrying about the country. Scare 'em all in fly-over country, invoke political change, get elected and then entangle everything in the government that's "here to help you!"

"Christianity has ALWAYS been anti-science, and anti-rationality."

Tell that to Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and Blaise Pascal. All Christians.

"It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." - Sir Francis Bacon

I live in the SF bay area (moonbat central) and have found that MOST people who express an opinion on global warming, while in disagreement over whether or not it is man-made, are in agreement that the subject is being blown out of proportion by the media and politicized to the point where the average person has no clue what the scientific evidence really shows.

Science is not infallable, so why are the "global warming is man-made" advocates so intent on shutting down debate?

"Christianity has ALWAYS been anti-science, and anti-rationality."

I guess we should not believe in gravity, the solar system, and pretty much every scieitific discovery for the past hundred years. Most scientists in theolden days were Christian. they were mainly monks and other educated Chsritians.

Read a little history before spoutingout all the dribble about hoe Chrisianity is ant-science.

And Evolution and Religion have nothing to do with each other. Most people that believe in the Creationism or that the Eartyh is 10,000 old are small sects of Christianity of the Mormons.

Evolution is the best theory we got today on how we came to be and until it is proven otherwise, it is what should be taught. You can actually use the Bible and Evolution together, and no where in the Bible does it say the Earth is 10,000 years old, that was done by someone in the 18th centuryand was not accepted by most scientists.

To some extent this story is overblown. The bill in question would essentially add 2 words to Section 33541 of the Education Code:

33541. (a) The State Board of Education
state board and the department shall revise, as necessary, the framework in science to include the necessary elements to teach environmental education, including, but not limited to, all of the following topics:
(1) Integrated waste management.
(2) Energy conservation.
(3) Water conservation and pollution prevention.
(4) Air resources.
(5) Integrated pest management.
(6) Toxic materials.
(7) Wildlife conservation and forestry.
(8) Climate change.

This section of the Education Code does not, in any way, mandate HOW those topics should be taught, only THAT they be taught. The HOW is handled by other agencies.

Oh Hashfan, what I ask is so,so simple.

Just a little proof of life being created spontaneously from inanimate matter. Now, if evolution is scientifically true, and not just another religion, that shouldn't be a tall order. Unless of course no such event has ever been observed and thus the "scientific" basis of evolution falls apart at the seams.

Simian? scimian? SCIMIAN? This guy is a monkey? Teachers are being led around by a chimp? Guess that's what happens when you beleive in the Church of Darwin.

Mandy's point fails when you realize that the Earth's atmospheric composition billions of years ago was not the same as it is now. The high levels of oxygen in the atmosphere would prevent the type of "soup" chemically interacting to create life that was probably in existence back in the day. Oxygen is a corrosive element (consider rust, for instance), and anaerobic (non-oxygen using) organisms that were probably the first to develop couldn't survive in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

So there's no real chance of life spontaneously evolving on Earth today, even if we had billions of years to sit and wait (and the human race has only had a few hundred thousand). Scientists have tried to recreate in labs what they think were the conditions back when life began to try to create life from non-life, but again, the actual process (probably) took hundreds of millions of years and we've had less than a century. Now that is a tall order.

In any event, just because we don't have every answer doesn't mean we should throw out all the available evidence that we have (fossils, evidence of the chemical composition and age of the Earth, DNA in bacteria evolving through natural selection before our eyes) and call everything a religion.

Then again, if you want to believe in a Creator guiding the process, very few people will try to stop you. But don't confuse that belief with the rational process going on in studying evolution.

And man-made global warming is much less substantiated than the general idea of evolution.

"john Ryan at February 18, 2008 8:44 AM"

Stix has already addressed the "10,000 year old" MYTH and I will only add that even SHAKESPEAR had a character mention that the Earth (Perhaps he ment CIVILAZATION) was only 60,000 years old. A better estimation than the one you Christian-phobes love to quote.

Do you want another "monkey trial"? Let me warn you that the origonal was a FARCE made up to put Daton, Tennesee on the map! The indigtment was "did John Scopes teach elolution contray to the laws of Tennesee?". Had they stuck to that, the trial would have lasted no more than an hour. It didn't because it was the main show in a CIRCUS. The trial wasn't a battle between "reason and superstituion", it was a JOKE, played on the world by some "small-town hicks".
Yes, Scopes taught evolution, but so did AT LEAST SIX OTHER TEACHERS IN TENNESEE at the time. The course was approved by the local SCHOOL BOARD, who were not charged with anything and helped choose Scopes to be "the sacrifice". Scopes was chosen because he was not a local and was not married, therefore, his FAMILY would not have been hurt by any possible backlash.
Clarence Darrow was not some Liberal hero, he was a MERCINARY. In the "Monkey Trial", he argued that UNRESRTICTED education was important, yet in the earlier Liepold and Loeb murder case, he argued that unrestrited education was BAD, because it had caused L+L to think that they were "the intellecual elete" and above the rules and laws of society.

JOHN RYAN, I'll bet you watched "Inherit The Wind" and thought you were seeing the REAL EVENTS playing out with 100% accuracy.

Ted, Why is it OK to throw out the scientific method in this one area of science? In order for something to be considered "proovrn" it has to meet certain criteria including being observed and experiments must be reproduced.

I'm not interested in stopping anyone from believing that life randomly formed with a bolt of lightning hitting some primordial amino acid stew.

But it amounts to teaching religion when teachers tell students it did happen. Perhaps they can present it such as "Some people believe in evolution because of (state evidence) others don't because of
(state lack of evidence.)

in chapter 6 of Origin of the Species Darwin states that the fossil Record is incomplete and missing many "intermediate" life forms. He believed that with time they would be found. To date, they haven't. Yet people continue to say evolution is case closed proven. Why are they censuring conflicting analysis?

Do I see a reenactment of the Scopes monkey trial occurring soon ?

The irony of Scopes is this: Evolution was forbidden to be taught in school, which was decried as a blow to freedom of thought and speech.

Today, Intelligent Design and skepticism about global warming are forbidden to be even discussed in school, in the media or anywhere... And is celebrated as freedom of thought and speech.

Am I the only one who raises an eyebrow at this?

And neither evolution nor global warming have any solid evidence for them. The Bible has more evidence of the factualness of its historical accounts than there is proof of macro-evolution and CO2-driven global warming, so why don't all evolution and climate scientists convert to Christianity?

hey dipshits, nearly every scientist you mentioned was excommunicated from the church. Some were executed by the church. Do you have any idea how long it took for the church to accept the findings of the scientists you've mentioned? Some, they still refuse to accept.

Christianity has ALWAYS been anti science, anti-rationality. That is PRECISELY what religious faith calls for.

so mandy, you prefer to believe that an invisible man who lives in the sky created everything in the entire universe as it exists now in 7 days? Ok....That's reasonable. I'd like to see YOUR proof that this is possible. What evidence do you have for this aside from someone telling you to believe it? Where is your documentation? Maybe I'll "look into" your wacky religion when you provide evidence for this. i mean, essentialy, you are the one who believes that life was suddenly created from "inanimate matter", not me.

I'll stick with the heaps and heaps of scientificlly verified evidence that supports evoltion, thanks.

Go back to your cave and pray to your imaginary friend...

burning:

"And neither evolution nor global warming have any solid evidence for them. The Bible has more evidence of the factualness of its historical accounts than there is proof of macro-evolution and CO2-driven global warming, so why don't all evolution and climate scientists convert to Christianity?"

This is simply an emabarassingly idiotic thing to say. No evidence supporting evolution? Evidence in the Bible? Please, i can't believe I'm reading such absurdity in this day and age. You really are living in a world about 300 years behind the rest of us.

"Ted, Why is it OK to throw out the scientific method in this one area of science? In order for something to be considered "proovrn" it has to meet certain criteria including being observed and experiments must be reproduced."

Many aspects of evolutionary theory have been tested and validated. Genes governing different attributes have been located and sometimes therapeutically treated, insects have changed color and shape in response to environmental changes within a few human generations, bacteria have become antibiotic resistant, fossils have been discovered in places scientists have looked for them. Just about two weeks or so ago a possible new missing link between ancient and modern crocodile-like animals was found, about where the fossil record said there'd be one.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080201-AP-brazil-croc.html

Compare that testing to the religious claims about the age of the earth, the non-existence of North America, and the sun going around the Earth, and you should see the difference between evolution and faith.

What you're asking is for the entire theory to be replicated detail for detail. That is just unreasonable and unnecessary. We don't have a spare planet resembling Earth billions of years ago to recreate experiments. That still leaves all the testable hypotheses that evolution has passed--i.e., all the ones that we're physically able to do. Obviously scientists will keep testing the theory, mostly to hone it. But it's passed too many tests already to be dismissed as a hunch.

Look at it this way: a guy shoots someone on camera, but then goes away and (let's say) incinerates the gun. No gun, no possibility of recreating the murder detail-by-detail. Does that mean we can't know if guy did it? And does that mean there was no murder?

Evolutionary theory continues to adapt to new discoveries and tests, as the scientific method demands. But the general outline of it is true.

"in chapter 6 of Origin of the Species Darwin states that the fossil Record is incomplete and missing many "intermediate" life forms. He believed that with time they would be found. To date, they haven't. Yet people continue to say evolution is case closed proven. Why are they censuring conflicting analysis?"

Many intermediate fossils have been found (the first birds, the ancestor of the crocodile, etc.). Again, you're making an unreasonable demand. There are literally millions of species in the world right now, and countless others went extinct a long time ago. Do you demand that a fossil from every single one of the intermediary species between the origins of life and the present day be discovered? I'm sorry, no one ever claimed that fossils of each species get preserved.

It doesn't do conservatives any good to tie in anti-scientific attitudes to their world view. It lets people like Anon say the things they say (although, of the scientists Kristy listed, I think only Copernicus got into serious trouble with the Church. Several of them were quite enthusiastic Christians.) No one is censoring, but schools are there to teach facts--which shouldn't include global warming at this point.

Anon(ted?),

your explanation of scientific methodology is far too advanced for this crowd. They won't bother reading it, and most of them are not capable of understanding it.

however, I will say that not only did copernicus get in big trouble with the church, so did Galileo. Kepler's mother was tried by the church as a witch, and Pascal had waivering religious views throughout his life. You also have to realize that in their time, these scientists HAD to kowtow to the church if they hoped to recieve funding, acceptance, and keep their lives. Too much to risk in going against the established church. I mean they were the ruling dictators of the time.

Some of these scientists raced to make their theories "fit" into the established relgious dogma of the time in order to assure their generally high standard of living.

and burning,

intelligent design should not be taught in school science class, because it is NOT scientific in any way.

If they want to teach it in Religion class, fine. But it should not be a part of any serious science curriculum.

In the community-based reality, the Earth has but one ideal, perfect temperature, which by strange coincidence happened to be the mean temperature during the youth of the baby-boom generation that now dominates the world's politics and media. Anyone who questions the dogma of global warming commits heresy against boomer narcissism.

Speaking as a Christian and as a holder of a B.S. in botany, I am trained in the scientific method and am of the opinion that both sides in the evolution vs creation argument are wrong. Evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive.
God created All That Exists. He created the universe and the Earth for us and gave us free will and intellect so that we can explore His creation.
He uses the natural processes He created to work His miracles in ways that we humans can comprehend. Empirical evidence shows that evolution is one of His natural processes. Where the evolution cult (and it has taken on the characteristics of a cult, just like global warming) gets it wrong is their claim that it's undirected; that it's the chance combination of particles. The intelligent design of the Creator is self evident in the structure of the universe from the unimaginably vast to the infinitesmally (sp?) small.

"your explanation of scientific methodology is far too advanced for this crowd. They won't bother reading it, and most of them are not capable of understanding it."

Hash's blowboy, get over yourself. You're not nearly as smart as you think. In fact, you've repeatedly demonstrated that you're quite shallow intellectually. Anonymous @ 1:12's explanation of scientific methodology isn't all that compelling.