Posted on 03/01/2004 1:02:07 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Almost 150 years ago, Charles Darwin knew something that the scientific establishment seems to have forgotten -- something that is being endangered today in the state of Ohio.
In Ohio, high school science students are at risk of being told that they are not allowed to discuss questions and problems that scientists themselves openly debate. While most people understand that science is supposed to consider all of the evidence, these students, and their teachers, may be prevented from even looking at the evidence -- evidence already freely available in top science publications.
In late 2002, the Ohio Board of Education adopted science education standards that said students should know "how scientists investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." The standards did not say that schools should teach intelligent design. They mandate something much milder. According to the standards, students should know that "scientists may disagree about explanations . . . and interpretations of data" -- including the biological evidence used to support evolutionary theory. If that sounds like basic intellectual freedom, that's because it is.
The Ohio Department of Education has responded by implementing this policy through the development of an innovative curriculum that allows students to evaluate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution.
And that has the American scientific establishment up in arms. Some groups are pressuring the Ohio Board to reverse its decision. The president of the National Academy of Sciences has denounced the "Critical Analysis" lesson -- even though it does nothing more than report criticisms of evolutionary theory that are readily available in scientific literature.
Hard as it may be to believe, prominent scientists want to censor what high school students can read and discuss. It's a story that is upside-down, and it's outrageous. Organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and others that are supposed to advance science are doing their best to suppress scientific information and stop discussion.
Debates about whether natural selection can generate fundamentally new forms of life, or whether the fossil record supports Darwin's picture of the history of life, would be off-limits. It's a bizarre case of scientists against "critical analysis."
And the irony of all of this is that this was not Charles Darwin's approach. He stated his belief in the ORIGIN OF SPECIES: "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Darwin knew that objective science demands free and open inquiry, and while I disagree with Darwin on many things, on this he was absolutely right. And I say what's good enough for scientists themselves, as they debate how we got here, is good enough for high school students.
Contact us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) to learn more about this issue and about an intelligent design conference we're co-hosting this June.
The Ohio decision is the leading edge of a wedge breaking open the Darwinist stranglehold on science education in this country. The students in Ohio -- and every other state -- deserve intellectual freedom, and they deserve it now.
I don't think I did, but feel free to point out where you believe I did, and where my analysis is faulty:
Or are you one of those who insist that a room full of monkeys with keyboards can write the complete works of Shakespeare?
In theory? Yes they can, if you're willing to wait long enough (where "enough" is an amount of time that boggles the imagination). In practice (by simple random output)? No they can't.
But they can do it pretty quickly and easily if a replication and selection process is involved.
You wanted to see a calculation, so let's do one.
Consider the Shakespeare phrase, "If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me." That's 109 characters (including spaces and punctuation). Upper and lower case letters, plus digits and puntuaction, make up a pool of about 70 different characters. This means that the odds of producing the Shakespeare phrase in one random trial is 1 out of 70109, or 1 in 1,305,227,939,201,292,014,528,313,176,276,968,928,001, 249,110,077,400,839,115,038,451,821,150,802,274,449,576, 205,527,736,070,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Needless to say, that's a big number. It's so huge that if every atom in the universe (about 1080 of them) were a computer capable of making a billion (1,000,000,000) random trials per second, the expected time required to produce the above line from Shakespeare would be 2,585,011,097,170,911,314,802,759,827,024,569,612,393, 783,728,161,759,843,736,212,615,624,189,581,658,716,078, 309,043,891,309 times the expected lifespan of the universe. That's close enough to "never" in my book.
But that's for *purely* random production process. How much do you think an evolutionary process could cut down that figure? Knock a few zeros off the end, maybe?
Well let's try it. Using an evolutionary process, which couples random variation with replication and selection and *nothing* else, the above Shakespeare phrase can be produced on a *single* computer (mine), using a breeding population of 1024 character strings in a whopping... 15 seconds (using this applet):
Generation: 0Hmm, 15 seconds is a hell of a lot faster than zillions of times the lifespan of the universe, isn't it? Evolution sped things up (compared to a purely random process) by a factor of more than 1045 (that's a "1" followed by forty-five zeros).
Tries <= 1024
Best Critter: "xSeOSEpc3Lm6rnRWnpFYL?QEDY7a67XlfRoJ0e8Len'X'1u'BhdrNqSNaXr7kVjondNozkf2CH9d96SaI?'f43M.CUGJ5XHbqfeR.UJP'tgNP"
Score (0 is best) 101Generation: 100
Tries <= 26624
Best Critter: "vf,ioV c3RKlooioifBFQXh, PeHTskof!oJ0e,Lrn'X'1u BhkchESNaXr kVjo dNozpanSI div1Qwi8h taQ,jswMkk,us1S'ugYtmm7."
Score (0 is best) 72[...]
Generation: 1115
Tries <= 286464
Best Critter: "If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me."
Score (0 is best) 0Checked 286464 critters in 15 seconds == 19097 tries/sec.
Lesson: Evolutionary processes are *incredibly* more efficient and effective than simple randomness alone.
Hmmm... just WHO decides the 'selection critria'? The Man behind the Curtain??
No. For biological evolution, survival itself provides the selection criteria. That's why living things have become so specialized at surviving.
Yes, you have been proven wrong - the article clearly states they will not be teaching ID. Just to help you out I will provide that quote from the article:
"The standards did not say that schools should teach intelligent design"
I think you'll appreciate this:
I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."
"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."
She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.
She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing.
-- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in "Cat's Cradle".
So the article is lying. No public school will be allowed to teach Genesis, and ID is the closest thing to science that creationists have been able to come up with. So if the article isn't lying, perhaps you will enlighten us as to what will be taught. I absolutely guarantee you that when the covers are off, it will be ID.
That is silly. Do you really consider that critical analysis of evolution?
So in your model we are all forced to learn some professors spin.
In my personal experience, that's the way it works now, but at least in science there's a broad consensus about most things that has developed over centuries.
It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory...
Ah yes, the blood oath. First ban all opposing data, burn all books containing opposing data, and then require all to swear an oath to the theory.
No that's free thinking....
Funny, how no two people can agree on just what that might be.
Ah yes - who I am going to believe - js1138's opinion or my lying eyes.
Do you have evidence the article is lying or are we just to take your word on it?
If you want to find out what Mr. Behe's peers think of his work, take a look at:
Design on the defensive.
Reviewed by Kenneth R. Miller.
As you can see. The first work listed by this poster is well refuted. I was about to research the second work when I saw the author was a "Lawyer at UC Berkeley." What a wonderful reference to use on a conservative web site. I expected to see the next reference was to a book by "Jason Blair" formerly of the NY Times. I did not get that far.
I realized that Mr. Silverback was joking. He forgot to put the </sarcasm tag onto his post.
Good one, Mr. Silverback. You had me going there for a minute.
Contact us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) to learn more about this issue and about an intelligent design conference we're co-hosting this June. So what do you think they are promoting?
Actually there are compelling examples of irreducible complexity - the last time one was presented you pretended like it didn't exist. I am certain IN YOUR MIND no two people can agree on just what that might be.
One or two reviews and the book is "well refuted" - you guys are a hoot!!! If I find two negatives reviews of evolution can I also claim evolution is "well refuted"?
Silliness abounds!
And that proves...what? The schools are going to teach ID? Give me a break.
I think you are implying that it is OK to teach religion in public school classrooms.
If this is the case, you surely would not object to Richard Ramirez (aka Night Stalker) doing a guest lecture series in Satanism in our public schools. Nor would you object to Osama teaching Wahhabism in after school program in our public schools.
But don't let ignorance stop you...
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