East Meets West – Podcast

Looking forward to your discussion on evolution. You should add to your discussion the concept of intelligent design, which some religious groups have embraced in order to avoid evolutionary biology being taught in their respective public schools.

A couple years back I read in a well-known outdoors magazine the increasing popularity of intelligent design river tours around the Grand Canyon and Colorado River. These tours were conducted by geologists who used the Grand Canyon/Colorador River backdrop to explain the biblical Great Flood & Noah's Ark, thus justyifying intelligent design as a real scientific theory.

I'm still on the fence with Stargate Universe but Robert Carlisle keeps drawing me back.

Good comment thread on approaches to theory and fact. Still enjoying your podcast!!!

I am fine with a greater degree of government-funded health care as long as it does not result in any higher net cost to my family. That is not an entirely selfish view, but based on the concept that ours is a fairly typical middle-class scenario. I am a "country" attorney, my wife is a teacher and we make a decent, but not dramatic, income. We are getting by with a comfortable living, but not enough extra to support health care for others. If folks in the middle like me end up having to fund this expense, I am opposed to it. It should have to come by reducing other government programs.

On the upcoming point of evolution, I would like to point out that opposition to evolution is getting a bit odd, and a bit polarized. Among the religious conservatives, there is a direct ratio between knowledge about evolution and acceptance of it. The more you know. Almost ALL Christian scientists accept evolution, and, according to a recent survey, 46% of even Evangelical theologians accept that God created through evolution.

Unfortunately, since the intelligensia among the evangelicals remain fairly quiet, the vocal anti-evolution groups dominate the conversation.

As a person of faith myself, I just want to make it clear that there are a LOT of Christians who accept evolution entirely. The former head of the Human Genome Project is a conservative Christian, for example.

As an evolutionary psychologist I have a vested interest in this. That said, in Canada, people that don't believe in evolution are thought of usually as just nuts. It is like not believing in gravity.

Evolution is actually a super simple theory, and it organizes all of the data in biology. Indeed, I am presenting a talk at an Ignite event here is Sault Ste. Marie where I will explain evolution in five minutes.

The big problem, for some, is the complete misunderstanding of the word 'theory'. It is not a hunch, it is a set of statements that explain a variety of occurrences.

There is so much evidence out there for evolution, and every time there has been a serious, non political, non religious argument with evolution it has managed to change somewhat, like any good theory, to deal with the criticism. That is what good theories do. Evolution now deals with genetics, the DNA molecule, altruism, kin selection.....

The Same View of Evolution that is held in Canada is held in Britain, at least in my experience. Those who refute evolution are few & far between, and are generally viewed as nuts (like not believing in gravity, or claiming the earths flat, sort of thing). That said, the Christian Right has nowhere near the political muscle in Britain that it wields in America. That is the paradox of the established church in Britain & The USA. In Britain where the church is "established" and is given state sponsorship, and even a law making role (the 12 key bishops of the church sit in the House of Lords, but rarely vote), the Church is surprisingly weak, with belief in the established church denoted by "default" rather than out of pious fervour. In contrast, despite the Constitutional separation of Church & State, the USA's Christian Right is comparitively more powerful, having succesfully managed to merge its political ambitions with that of the Republican party.

The "Theory"/"Fact" thing is also a good point. Duvergers Law is both a THEORY (Duvergers law- plurality/first-past-the-post systems will tend to clump political allegiances into two-big parties, normally of the left or the right, as more diversity would split the vote and hence benefit the other side, unlike proportionally allocated systems- which allow competition between elements of the left & right) and PROVED (e.g. The election of 1983 of Britain, in which, while the Falklands war did help Thachers Conservative Government, the almost equal split of the opposition vote between labour & the new SDP-Liberal Alliance- propelled the government into a landslide).

The complete dismissal of the argument for evolutionary theory being just that, a theory, is rather extremist in itself. Do a little research on the difference between scientific law and scientific theory - there is a clear difference.

A theory is defined as an accepted body of principles to explain a natural phenomena, a hypothesis, something that has not yet been given sufficient evidence to confirm as true. A theory is supported by observations of accepted empirical data. That data can be proven to be incorrect and invalid through more research.

Evolution is not a law, it is not a fact, and it should not be taught as so. Should it be taught as one possible theory? Absolutely. However if you are going to do that, other theories must also be taught and given the same attention. Creationism, for one example, is a theory as well, to dismiss that and claim that only evolution is true is extremism of the same kind.

Take a look back through history, specifically the history of science and scientific research/discovery. What do you see? Nearly all accepted scientific principles, theories, even laws, are overturned, found untrue, by later research. I'm fairly certain that the scientific community would agree on that one as well because the last I checked air travel is possible, the world isn't flat, the atom isn't the smallest conceivable object on the planet, and a quantum leap (as defined by Albert Einstein and friends) is not just a TV show.

Go back in time and ask the entire scientific community of the 19th century if such as thing as a black hole could exist.

Science is nearly all theoretical, because with time, assumptions and accepted "truth" is very often found to be anything but.

Evolution is a theory, it should be taught as a theory, as should other theories.

A one time leader of the Alliance party (which merged with the Progressive Conservatives to form the present Conservative party here) said during the 2000 election campaign that he believed dinosaurs co existed with humans. He was roundly laughed at.

Oh, the "it's just a theory" bit is the most idiotic of the opposition statements. First, theories, as you point out, are not just a step on the ladder up from guess to hypothesis to theory to fact, it is an entirely different animal. It is an explanation for known facts. I always point out that evolution is both a FACT and a THEORY. There is the FACT of evolutionary development (we have more than enough evidence to consider it an historical and ongoing fact) and a THEORY of how that development occurred.

I don't get the resistance of anyone with regard to government funded universal health care. The amount of people who die in the states because they don't have sufficient health care is scary, from what we hear reported anyway.

I love that we have Medicare here in Australia, means when we get sick we don't have to worry too much if we have the money to go to the doctor and EVERY Australian citizen receives cover from birth regardless of income.

There is always room from socialism in society.

Roger mentioned our mix of public and private health insurance here in Australia, it is still a mostly public system. We are forced to have at least basic private cover if we earn over a certain amount else we get slugged with additional tax at tax time. That basic private cover isn't worth much in the real world and was our previous government's way of giving money for nothing to the insurance companies.

True, for most "elective" surgery, private cover will get you in faster and will let you choose your doctor while public (medicare) patients have to take what they can get when they can get it.

I once went into hospital as a public patient for a hernia operation (at 18) and an older man in the bed opposite said I was wise for doing so. He was in there for the same operation and was telling me how he was charged for everything from meals to bedsocks and not all of that cost was covered by his insurance company so he would be out of pocket, while I was a public patient didn't have to pay for anything at all.

Ultimately we do have the option here to use our private cover (if we have it) or not, but you don't get "better" cover as a private patient, I've done both and the service is the same.

With regard to SG:U, I really dislike the 'ancient comm device' since the point of the show seems to be to get away from previous SG formulas. As such, I found the inclusion of that device a bit jarring. They are certainly not using it wisely. All they need to do is send Dr McKay over to the ship to translate the 'ancient' ancient language and get things moving. Simply ignoring established ideas (i.e. what other characters have done via SG1 and SG:A, while using tech established in those shows seems problematic over the long term...but perhaps I just miss SG:A too much. ;-)

PS. love the episode(s) and the general coverage of 'stuff'. Be interested to hear some talk on Fringe (S2) directions if you guys get around to it.

I agree with foxlore about the device, as soon as I saw it I was thinking why weren't they getting McKay, Jackson or Carter in to help with their problems?

I still reckon the gate room set is cargo bay 2 from Star Trek Voyager.

But all in I love the show, perhaps it is my need for anything Sci-Fi cause it seems a little lacking of late.