February 2, 1809. Both Lincoln and Darwin were born. Who was the greater emancipator?

if you want to go that route, we should also put gregor mendel in the running alongside darwin. not that they were born on the same date as you mention, but modern biology also relies heavily on the work done by mendel. darwin's work wouldn't have gone nearly as far without him.

i'd vote for lincoln, based on that.

 

And if you're going that route, there are a huge number of very distinguished individuals throughout history that have advanced science in their research area by a large amount. Einstein, Galileo, Newton - why not have bills for all of these individuals?

One simple answer is American currency is based on American history. Darwin, for all the good he did, was English. Our currency has always been (and probably will always be) based on American leaders (with the exception of the quarter...) - thus generally the presidents.

 

If evolution is so easy to understand, why is it so hotly debated by creationists?

I don't really want to get into a religious debate, so instead i'll just acknowledge that one exists on this topic. However, when it comes to things like the laws of physics there really isn't a debate out there about it.

No clue... probably the same percentage that know the presidents on any other denomination of currency. I don't even know for sure, although i would guess it's FDR - just sticks in my mind for some reason.

 

If you put Darwin and/or Mendel on currency based on the emancipation of their work....you're going to have to put Jesus on a bill too. You know you will.

I think using only presidents and historical American leaders is an excellent criteria that should not be modified.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Jun 28 2007, 11:41 AM) [snapback]469469[/snapback]</div>

Doesn't the quarter have Washington on it anymore? Oh, that's right. They're all states now. (Personally the new nickel always looks like counterfeit to me. Or from some other country.)

It's Ben Franklin on the...fifty? Or is it twenty? One of the non-presidents honored to be on currency.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 28 2007, 02:21 PM) [snapback]469590[/snapback]</div>

Ben used to be on the fifty cent piece (I think) and Kennedy used to be on the dollar coin. Personally, I think they made a huge mistake resizing the dollar coin. Even gold colored doesn't help. I think they should bring back the bigger dollar going and do away with paper dollars altogether. Maybe if they put Lincoln on either a fifty cent piece or on the dollar coin they could find a way to get rid of the penny.

 

Yeah, it figures that you guys would point out all of the non presidents on our currency I was just talking generalities, though, when i said presidents

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 28 2007, 02:07 PM) [snapback]469577[/snapback]</div>

Or like they say, "You can call me Aaron Burr by the way I'm droppin' Hamiltons"

 

February 2, 1809. Both Lincoln and Darwin were born. Who was the greater emancipator?
A poll question, but no poll? :huh: Afraid it won't come out your way?

 

I vote for Darwin. Biological complexity was the last nook where God could hide. Newton's calculus and other achievements are important but still allowed for a creator to begin or continue to organize the universe. Darwin (and Wallace) taught us that no designer or organizer was necessary, even for biological complexity.

I admire Lincoln but political achievements tend to be the result of historical contingency as much as the political figures behind it.

But what can I say, as a biologist I am terribly biased.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 28 2007, 12:31 PM) [snapback]469598[/snapback]</div>

Kennedy was on the 50 cent coin. Might still be? I haven't seen one in a long time.

Lincoln was not the "great" emancipator he's made out to be. He was dead set against allowing slavery into the western territories, but he was just as dead set against opposing slavery in the then-existing southern states. His big issue was union. He opposed the South, not because of slavery, but because the south tried to break up the Union.

During the Civil War, the Union armies were authorized to confiscate any property which was or might be useful to the Confederacy's war-fighting efforts. Slaves learned of this, and wherever the Union armies went in the south, slaves flocked to them, so that they could be "confiscated" as a strategic resource of the south. This led, eventually, to Lincoln's freeing the slaves in the states which were in rebellion; not because he was opposed to slavery in itself, but because it gave legal standing to the Union armies to deprive the south of an important labor force. This is why the slaves were not freed in the border states which were slave-holding but had remained in the Union.

Lincoln has been made into a hero, but the reality is far from the myth we are taught in school. He was deeply racist, he believed Blacks were inferior, and did not believe Blacks and Whites could ever live together. If we are talking Great People, Lincoln does not even belong in the consideration. America has produced many great people: artists, scientists, social reformers, writers, inventors, etc. But none of them has been president.

 

"Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." - Isaac Newton

Science doesn't explain away God, it simply attempts to explain the workings of his creation.

I like Godiva's idea. Put Jesus on the $250 bill.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 28 2007, 07:37 PM) [snapback]469749[/snapback]</div>

You're right. Kennedy was on the half dollar. He replaced Franklin.

Who was on the big dollar? Eisenhower?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 28 2007, 08:44 PM) [snapback]469776[/snapback]</div>

I like that, since God is as real as a $250 bill.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 28 2007, 09:37 PM) [snapback]469822[/snapback]</div>

You'll get no disagreement from me here! God isn't the answer for lack of a better one. I stand by my statement that science is a struggle to understand the universe God created, however.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jun 28 2007, 10:10 PM) [snapback]469834[/snapback]</div>

Hey, objectively, it's hard to claim Jesus didn't exist. The question is if he was just a man, or something more.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 29 2007, 02:27 AM) [snapback]469893[/snapback]</div>

He was a guy with a fan club that got carried away. He also said a lot of good things that the world would be better off if people listened to what he said; ironically, especially his fan club.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ Jun 28 2007, 06:44 PM) [snapback]469776[/snapback]</div>

Science does not try to "explain away god." Science does, however, provide us with the understanding of how the physical processes of the world work. It was ignorance of these processes that led people to invent god as an explanation. Now that we understand the natural processes, we understand why our ancestors were mistaken when they invented god as an explanation.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 28 2007, 08:41 PM) [snapback]469826[/snapback]</div>

The old silver dollar did not have a figure of a historical person on it. There were different designs. I believe they all had an eagle on one side. The other side I think mostly had a figure of "Lady Liberty," sometimes standing "Standing Liberty Dollar," sometimes seated "Seated Liberty Dollar," sometimes just a head in profile "Morgan Dollar." I have no idea who posed for the figures, or if they were drawn from imagination. Eisenhower was on the dollar for a while, but of course that was much later. This "silver dollar" had no eagle on it, and it also had no silver in it. It was made of cheap metals, as intrinsically worthless as a paper dollar. There may have been other designs before the more recent small dollar coins. I presume they were reduced in size because even with cheap metals, the large size cost more to produce.

I collected coins as a child, but my memory is very spotty. I still have a $5 gold coin and a few worthless but interesting odds and ends from that collection.