I am not a religious person although I am spiritual. I have no problem with science and evolution makes sense to me. It is the attitude of some scientists that bothers me. The attitude of some religious people bothers me too. In both groups it is the ones that don't just think that they re right and that everyone else is wrong but but also feel the need to be vocal about their lack of respect for the view points of others.
Respecting someone's right to hold a view, and respecting the view itself are two different things. Views are worthy or unworthy of respect based on their merit, not just their existence.
You spoke of believing in things because of evidence. I have mounds of personal evidence that God exists. On the other hand I have to take other people's word for it that men walked on the moon. The two are not mutually exclusive. I am just pointing out that much of what we are told by science are things that the vast majority of us have to take on faith as we don't have the time or means to prove it ourselves. It isn't so different from people believing in various religious concepts. Just something to think about before you bash the other side. I don't even see where there has to be two sides. It isn't hard to embrace both.
The difference between the two types of evidence is falsifiability. You could, in theory, check if men walked on the moon. No one can can check your personal evidence for God's existence. (I discuss this in reply to Nate's post above.) It isn't hard to embrace both sides because humans can live with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
This is far from what I was originally saying that I didn't think it was such a stretch that their may be other manifestations of life out there besides the ones we are familiar with.
I agree that it's not a stretch. We can't possibly imagine all the forms life could take. That's not really why this discovery is noteworthy; it's because now we have proof of a new (or at least altered) form.
Just curious. How could I in theory go about checking whether men walked on the moon? How would I go about proving this to myself or to a skeptic in a manner that would actually verify it happened without relying on someone elses word? I am an agnostic in this. I have to admit that some of the evidence for it looks and sounds pretty dodgy. Fortunately my faith in science doesn't rely on that. If it ever came out it was staged I would just shrug my shoulders. It just isn't that big of a deal if someone did that 40 years ago. But it isn't something that I can duplicate or that anyone else has the spare cash to duplicate.
Some people are more sensitive to spiritual things than others. For them it is hard to imagine that other people may lack that extra sense that seems such a natural part of them. They don't understand how someone can not feel the things they do and attribute it to the other person not trying hard enough or blocking themselves from feeling it on purpose. If you were to tell them that their experiences were not duplicatible they might not believe that you had ever tried to actually duplicate the experience because when they experimented it worked for them. It takes awhile to figure out that we are not all made the same and to allow for that in our judgements of each other. Just because one person can do something and the other can't does not make them inferior or mean that they are lying or crazy or whatever.
And you are right. It is nice that they have proof now. A whole new world of possibilities has opened up to their view.
Tash
More Important Than Soccer: Completely new type of DNA discovered
- 02/12/2010 04:48:51 PM
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Wow. *NM*
- 02/12/2010 05:32:08 PM
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that is TOTALLY inappropriate
- 02/12/2010 04:58:47 PM
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Crazy awesome.
- 02/12/2010 05:07:49 PM
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So the movie Evolution was real!
- 02/12/2010 05:24:16 PM
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Wow. *NM*
- 02/12/2010 05:32:08 PM
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Dang. I thought it was naturally occurring. Missed the part where it was grown in a lab.
- 03/12/2010 02:16:16 AM
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I won't pretend I know enough about biology to understand the impact of this
- 02/12/2010 06:26:24 PM
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It's like finding a type of rock that eats laughter
- 02/12/2010 06:51:15 PM
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... without coming down and dealing with the nasty stomach cramps. 
- 02/12/2010 09:49:06 PM
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- 02/12/2010 09:49:06 PM
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I think I had an ex once that was made of arsenic. *NM*
- 02/12/2010 07:10:57 PM
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So, is it an alien?
- 02/12/2010 07:19:49 PM
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They haven't mentioned anything saying it's not from Earth, I think
- 02/12/2010 08:03:44 PM
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The bacteria in question is part of a known lineage
- 02/12/2010 08:07:34 PM
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see my note below
- 02/12/2010 08:13:35 PM
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Maybe
- 02/12/2010 08:23:16 PM
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So, apparently, this bacteria doesn't use arsneic for its DNA in its natural state?
- 02/12/2010 08:06:02 PM
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While awesome, it's a bit of a problem.
- 02/12/2010 09:04:22 PM
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True, but I'm not "looking for" anything in particular, so I just like it 
*NM*
- 02/12/2010 11:09:21 PM
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*NM*
- 02/12/2010 11:09:21 PM
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Less cool a revelation than I was hoping, but certainly not a complete disappointment. *NM*
- 02/12/2010 10:35:33 PM
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I don't understand why this is such a big deal. It always seemed common sense to me that there are
- 02/12/2010 10:40:22 PM
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I think it just makes them happy that they can widen the parameters for life-sustaining planets. *NM*
- 02/12/2010 11:00:31 PM
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yah. it's one thing to theorize, another thing to find something to hold true.
- 02/12/2010 11:10:23 PM
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It's much more than an educated guess.
- 02/12/2010 11:59:18 PM
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You can't "know" from this distance.
- 03/12/2010 03:13:05 AM
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Why not?
- 03/12/2010 04:42:15 AM
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obviously you have not learned to look at the back label on the car *NM*
- 04/12/2010 07:04:42 PM
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*NM*
- 04/12/2010 07:04:42 PM
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Yes, we can.
- 04/12/2010 06:04:48 PM
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The problem probably is with me.
- 04/12/2010 08:00:56 PM
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No, they aren't.
- 04/12/2010 10:01:25 PM
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Are you baiting me to bait you?
- 05/12/2010 06:41:49 AM
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I'm just carrying on a conversation.
- 05/12/2010 07:26:39 AM
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Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
- 05/12/2010 07:08:04 PM
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Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
- 05/12/2010 07:56:43 PM
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Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
- 06/12/2010 03:15:37 AM
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I made my students watch the NASA channel for over two hours today 
- 02/12/2010 11:11:40 PM
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- 02/12/2010 11:11:40 PM
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