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WishboneDawn

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Everything posted by WishboneDawn

  1. WishboneDawn
    Here's my reply from the other thread: I had a further thought. Sometimes people are either blessed with a trait like intelligence or think they are. They can be tempted to look for a reason why and it's pretty common for people to credit their virtues for why they're richer, smarter, healthier then others. Regardless of whether it's justified or not. I have a nice house because my husband and I are responsible. We have good kids because we're thoughtful parents. I'm healthy because I've got good genes. So on. And that's fine, if a little self-centered, as far as it goes but if a person isn't careful it can lead to trouble. A person can start assuming that someone else is living in a run down house because they're irresponsible (a judgement I've made despite the fact that living in a run down house for years was part of how we afforded the nice house!), their kid is throwing a fit in the store because their bad parents (though maybe it's autism) and another person unhealthy because they just come from bad stock. Then those assumptions start getting flipped into generalizations. Families in run down houses are irresponsible. So from I'm smart and it's because I'm healthy and fit to she's not that bright because she doesn't take care of herself and is overweight to she's obese and so must be less intelligent. It's a way of thinking that's self-centered but not self-critical in the least.
  2. WishboneDawn
    Justified? No. I'm sure someone who's intellectually lazy could pretend to justify that by resorting to stereotypes or someone who's intellectually dishonest could pretend to justify it by use of tortured reasoning but ultimately it's a sham and really doesn't deserve any deeper discussion. Besides let me resort to anecdotal evidence and say this...I'm 280 lbs and I'm the smartest person I know. :D
  3. WishboneDawn
    I may be misunderstanding your point so feel free to let me know but... There are different species within trees. A species is a subgroup within another group. A lion is a different species of cat from a tiger but they're both still cats. When we talk about different species arising from other species no scientist would suggest something like a hyena arising from lions. It's a lot more subtle and incremental then that. Even talk about speciation is tough because we can't draw exact lines and there's still discussion over how exactly to determine different species. Besides, it's not your book that counts in the case of the fir tree, it's the botanist's book. :tongue_smilie::D
  4. WishboneDawn
    I've found in discussing evolution that I've often had to counter bad information even from those on "my side". For instance, a lot of people arguing for evolution will say that the ToE is the truth. But science can't make truth claims. I tend to think the general understanding of science by people at large is harmed as much by the people who teach and argue for scientific ideas at times as those who would argue against. All well, that tends to be true of most things.
  5. WishboneDawn
    I think you should trust your instincts on this. I'm not sure how Christian I am at the moment and my daughter seems to be a little atheist in the making but if I was familiar with a local church, comfortable with their program and knew my daughter would have a good time I might send her. I'd have to be prepared to be enourmously embarrassed when the director called me to tell me she was rolling her eyes again or modifying her Bible crafts so they were Harry Potter themed though. :D
  6. WishboneDawn
    I think a lot of what you're talking about comes from our knowledge of anatomy. We have the bones of reptiles and mammals and birds today that we can study and make inferences about. A scientist can look at a bone and pelvis, note the similarity to a modern reptile and infer that they fit together in a certain way.how muscles connect to bone, how the shape of a skull can determine how an animal looks and reconstruct a best guess based on that. They also know With things like skin and hair, sometimes it's luck and they find fossilized imprints of hair or fur or feathers but usually it's more an educated guess they maek by again, comparing fossils to modern animals. There IS a lot of educated guessing that goes on in building an image of some of these animals but it's important to remember the educated part. They aren't shots in the dark or wishful thinking and the same knowledge they use to make those guesses are is the same as the person who's reconstructing the face of a murder victim from a skull or surgeons use when they rebuild the limbs of accident victims. It's also subject to errors. There are a few stories of ill-constructed fossil models! Generally though as knowledge grows, errors get recognized. Neaderthals? There's not a universally accepted theory about them yet. Some thing they are human ancestors, some think they evolved from an offshoot of an ancestor of modern humans and developed in parallel. National Geographic had an excellent article on them a couple of years back and I just listened to a neat radio series on them that I'll see if I can dig up for you.
  7. WishboneDawn
    It is just a metaphor. You can only take it so far. The implication being that fossils can be lined up just so to suit a theory? That's not what happens. Geology, the decay of elements, anatomy, etc. are all used to establish the context in which we have to consider those fossils. It's not evolution that determines what we know about the fossil record, it's those other sciences. Evolution merely offers an explanation for why that record exists. If the science around determining the fossil record was as shaky as some suggest then surely we should give up drilling for oil, nuclear power and surgery. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Because something is possible does not mean it has always been so or is how it always happens. Besides, do you mean how we produce artificial diamonds because I'm pretty certain Mother Nature doesn't have access to that technology. :) I think the philisophical or religious views should be discussed around evolution , it's just that sometimes those views are used to counter scientific arguments and that's about as helpful as using a hammer when a dishcloth is required. If you're going to counter a scientific argument then use scientific arguments. If I want to counter an argument about Plato's cave or John's metaphor of Jesus as the Light then I can't do anything but confuse and frustrate if I insist on talking about the scientific properties of light.
  8. WishboneDawn
    I think I might look into what the Catholic Eucharist means and have a talk with her about that so she understands that by accepting it in the Catholic church there are belief implications she may not want to engage in or that might make it disrespectful to the Catholic tradition if she did accept it. Just so that she understands it's not a means of exclusion but rather a rite that implies shared beliefs she may not hold. On a personal note I think it would be a really neat experience to get an inside view on a denomination you don't subscribe to and would be a great benefit to a child.
  9. WishboneDawn
    You won't see what you've described as proof for evolution because it's not evolution. :D Life starting from nothing is abiogenesis or origin of life and we really don't have a good theory for that yet. Evolution is only what happens after life is already here and we don't need to know the origin of life to know evolution. You don't need to know how to rock started rolling to see it and understand it's rolling down a hill. One cell never evolves into thousands of different species. One cell simply contributes to the creation of another cell and in that process some of the genetic information from one cell may get mutated on it's way to the other cell. That, in a badly described nutshell, is evolution and we do see that everyday. What we see on a bigger scale is the accumulation of those little mutations (with the added pressure of environmental forces that make up natural selection) that can lead to speciation. And we can also see that very clearly in the fossil record and in the study of genetics. We don't often see new species pop up true but time is needed. We don't see mountains grow but we understand the processes by which they do and don't doubt that they do because we don't see it happen. I think the key thing to understand is that fundamentally, evolution is one pebble bumping into another. One generation changing slightly from the last. Big deal some say and acknowledge that that's just micro-evolution. Fine but step back and observe what happens with the pebbles. The first bumps a second and the second bumps a third and those both hit a stone and the stone rolls and hits another...Soon you have an avalanche. There's marco-evolution (BTW - I hate the micro/marco distinction. :D). Now watch the rock slide and notice how the path of some of the avalanche shifts as it encounters trees, cliffs, water, steeper or more gradual slopes. There are environmental force (natural selection) working to shape the evolution of the avalanche. No one needs to accept evolution but a good understanding is helpful. My personal secret is that although I don't accept creationism my view of it opened up a lot and my appreciation of it grew when I started to try and understand the roots of it in religion and theology. There are implications there that I don't think many people who aren't creationists have an inkling of or appreciation for but I had to put aside my own arguments against it and accept it as a possibility to see them. I sort of think the same might be true for many creationists in regards to evolution. I'd also love to have a discussion on creationism or ID one of these days devoid of science because I think that would be a fantasticly fun discussion.
  10. WishboneDawn
    This happened in Australia and here on Canada too and the "residential" schools were often places where kids were abused as well. It was mostly the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches that ran the schools here in Canada. I think it's just not that remarkable that many native people have problems with addictions or violence today. Governments spent decades practically engineering their communities and families to fail and, with modern reserves, still do. Spend a bit of time studying the ins and outs of what it means to live on a reserve or the hoops a person has to jump through to be recognized as native in the first place and you'll see that how our governments treat native peoples hasn't really changed, just become more subtle. It's ridiculously frustrating when you start to really look into the matter.
  11. WishboneDawn
    Honestly, it sounds like you really like this school and it would be a good fit with your daughter's wishes. Nevermind the amazing tuition! Homeschooling is a wonderfulg thing but in the end it's just a means to an education or lifestyle and if you can find another option that meets your goals and appeals to you don't let the fact that it's not homeschooling get in the way. Don't make homeschooling into an idol that you'll sacrifice to.
  12. WishboneDawn
    Is public school completely out of the question for a couple of years until your debt is paid down and you can homeschool?
  13. WishboneDawn
    I'd assume no ill intent, just that she's one of those people who's out to lunch when it comes to body language. Maybe move so you can get back into the "circle".
  14. WishboneDawn
    I'd call my local shelter and wildlife authorities. Chances are there's someone around who specializes in caring for and releasing baby raccoons. But making it into a pet should not even be an option and your kids should understand that. I might let my kids help rehab a baby raccoon but under no circumstances would we make a pet of it.
  15. WishboneDawn
    Those who I've run into tend to cite Timothy 1:4, "nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than righteous edification which is in faith," as an injunction against myth, fantasy, fable or what have you. I don't find it a very satisfactory interpretation though. It seems more likely that Paul is addressing a situation where a congregation has gotten bogged down in legalisms and argument over the Hebrew scriptures or OT. Early Christians were dealing with lots of diversity remember, from Jewish Christians to Gentile converts and there was a lot of tension there.
  16. WishboneDawn
    It at once infantilizes men and gives a husband power over a wife because then his fidelity is her responsibility and if he cheats it's fundamentally her fault. That's a dangerous road and in some cultures leads to burqas and curfews for women.
  17. WishboneDawn
    We're using it along with LOF. Hopefully that will remedy any problems with unsatisfactory explanations. As for grading, I think I'd use the worksheets and record those grades.
  18. WishboneDawn
    Oops. Will do. :blush:
  19. WishboneDawn
    And you know, I was thinking about your post after and it occured to me that there was probably more truth then I acknowledged. When I was a church going Christian there probably were concerns not entirely rational that went into my thinking about evolution (even having no trouble with accepting it)...And I still don't think that's a bad thing but I DO think I didn't give your statement the thought it deserved.
  20. WishboneDawn
    I find most people have a hard times looking at most things rationally. We're simply not a species wired to neatly excise all the irrational bits when we have to examine issues or events. I tend to think that's not a bad thing. Regardless, I think your statement is as useful as most overarching generalizations are. Not very. It plays to the myth that Christians are a homogeneous group which, from some of the True Christian debates that go on here, is pretty obviously not the case. :)
  21. WishboneDawn
    I'm not Christian (I think :)) but I can see some might have a problem. I can see a couple of ways of tackling it. Really research it. Bakugan is a Japanese animated show and if you watch a lot of those you'll notice a lot of similarities. Demons play a big roles in many and "familiars" like pokemon, digimon and bakugan are in almost every show. Instead of accepting those in a Christian context why not look into Japanese mythology and see if those are cultural themes? Put the stuff in it's proper place instead of interpretting it through Western eyes. That might free you and your kids from saddling it with meanings it may not have. Alternately, turn the TV show of but get the toys and let your kids make of them what they may. Calandalsmom is right. They are the coolest toys that really inspire a lot of exploration and imaginative play. They do come with cards that have some information on them but you could strip the paper off and just use the metal plate inside to activate the magnets in the toys. Without all the accompanying mythology they're simply action figures.
  22. WishboneDawn
    IF you ever read a creation science book or article that asserts the, "It's just a theory," idea then you can immediately put the book down and dismiss it. It shows a very basic misunderstanding of scientific terms and if a text can't even use basic terms correctly then it's not science. The scientific equivelent of what you've described is an hypothesis. That's an idea that you set out to test to see if the evidence supports it. A theory is formed to explain the evidence that already exists. In the case of evolution that's the fossil record, scientific laws, the diversity and patterns of life. Some people think theories are like baby laws or that laws are theories that have been proven. That's wrong. Laws are basically observations. They tell you the what but not the how. Theories are the how. Gravity is a good example that shows the contrast between laws and theories. We have a Law of Gravity. We can drop an object and observe that law. But we have no good Theory of Gravity. We have no universally accepted idea of how gravity works. In that respect a Theory of Gravity is on much shakier ground then the Theory of Natural Selection ever was. Calling a scientific theory just a theory is a dangerous practice. We split atoms and pipe electricity into our homes and combat infections on the basis of scientific theories and it's irresponsible to debase the meanings of scientific terms in support of sophistry. By undermining scientific terms we undermine science and much of the good we derive from it. It also excuses creation scientists from coming up with an alternate scientific theory that would explain the mountain of evidence we have in terms of the fossil record, genetics, etc. But then I sometimes wonder if that's the point. I've had some fantastic debates with creationists and at times they've been eye-opening and insightful. Usually the best have been ones centered on mutual understanding and the more spiritual aspects of a creationist viewpoint. I've gained a lot of respect for some creationists. But arguments that misrepresent basic science are not helpful.
  23. WishboneDawn
    Singapore has my heart, Key to has saved me many times and Aleks is the one my daughter adores.
  24. WishboneDawn
    The school dance I remember from my elementary years was a pretty innocent affair. No dates and mostly just friends dancing together and parents sharing gossip by the drink table. There was no sense that it was preparation for teen dances or such. My daughter went to one when she was 9 with her then 8 year old cousin and I gather it was much the same. A mix of ages and a pretty casual affair. Both examples though were open to kids of different ages (say about 7-12) so maybe that accounts for the atmosphere. Perhaps school grade dances are something different?
  25. WishboneDawn
    Done.
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