Posted on 04/16/2009 8:59:36 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Anti-creationists: do they fear an overthrow of Darwin in the U.S.?
by Russ Humphreys
Published: 16 April 2009
This year, as has been happening every year for several decades, various U.S. states are introducing legislation encouraging public-school students to examine scientific evidence against Darwinism. And again, anti-creationist lobby groups, such as the National Center for Science Education,[1] are pushing the panic button, claiming that such efforts aim to introduce Christianity into government-run schools.
This year, however, the anti-creationists seem to be pushing the button harder, saying that such bills “are multiplying out of control”.[2] Perhaps that is because more states now seem to be involved. Bills are pending or currently passed in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, while more are sprouting in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Michigan, Missouri, and South Carolina. As usual, one tactic the anti-creationists are using is to label such efforts as “creationist” and therefore “religion”, even though the bills only propose teaching more science evidence...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
==To admit there are weaknesses, flaws, or inconsistencies in the theory of evolution does not make you a creationist. It just makes you an honest person.
That is billboard material right there!
Fools.
I know! Someone needs to tell the anti-creationists that they have nothing to fear except exposing our public school students to the weaknesses of evolution! Wait a minute...maybe they do have something to fear after all!!! LOL
Whew, what a relief! It’s good to know that Maxwell’s equations can be taught and used without fear of committing religious error or polluting the minds of young people.
Would it be too much to hope that they'd be a little more up front about it?
Or, perhaps Charlie Barnet's "The Wrong Idea."
What other sciences do you want to overthow?
Why target just the ToE? Why not target all scientific theories?
But he did Science. He let the data lead him - he didn’t rule things out on the basis of the Bible.
That is what separates him from groups like ICR and AIG.
Exactly. Ironically, it seems that FReepers know more than the PhD "scientists" tend to in this regard.
I'll take a dose of common sense and Christian education over secular expertise and evolutionary nonsense any day of the week. (Thankfully, the Lord thought the same during the week he spent creating the universe.)
ICR and AIG do far superior work than the junk they publish in garbage evo journals like New "Scientist" and Nature. (In the latter, the bias toward methodological naturalism is evident in the title.)
Textbook writers should be looking toward ICR and AIG as references, instead of evolutionist nothingness-turned-to-stardust-turned-to-pond scum-turned-to-salamanders-turned-to-monkeys-turned-to-man nonsense that has been rebuked a million times over.
Can you lay out a scientific methodolgy based on supernaturalism?
I hear lots of complaints about how the scientific method is flawed because of it's reliance on methodological naturalism, but nobody who complains about seems to be able to say exactly what it should be changed to or replaced with. They just complain about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/about/faith
That isn’t science - plus their refusal to allow Catholics to join them is very distasteful. See Section 2:1 at the above link.
Catholic heresy is covered in week 2 of the Creation Science Curriculum, which is devoted to the “Strengths and Weaknesses of Your Neighbor’s Religion.”
Thanks for the ping!
“Strengths and Weaknesses of Your Neighbor’s Religion.”
LOL
“Why not target all scientific theories?”
It seems to me that other scientific theories ARE allowed to be questioned. I learned for example that our knowledge of aerodynamics can’t explain the flight of the bumblebee. I learned that we don’t understand how fireflies glow. I learned that there are different ideas about the expanding or contracting universe.
However, evolution is a sacred cow. To discuss its weaknesses is generally verboten. I think that is wrong.
I'll take a stab at that. I can think of a few reasons:
- If you put the unanswered questions on one side of the scale and the answered ones on the other, the latter would vastly outweigh the former. But the people who ask to teach the former try to do it in such a way as to make them appear fairly equal. Are you willing to have the problems and unanswered questions take up class time in proportion to how big a challenge they really represent to the theory?
- There are problems, contradictions, and unanswered questions with a lot of scientific theories. But no one--yet--is trying to teach the issues with the theories of star formation or disease transmission. And as we've seen here, there are people who have problems with the theories of plate tectonics, geological formations, and other mainstream scientific thought. The anti-evolutionists are either trying to single out evolution for special criticism, or use it as a foot in the door to dismantle other scientific paradigms--either way, it's a distortion of the place the theory really holds.
- The only real reason anyone has to challenge evolution this way is rooted in religious belief. It's pretty disingenous for Humphreys to write, "one tactic the anti-creationists are using is to label such efforts as 'creationist' and therefore 'religion', even though the bills only propose teaching more science evidence," when he's writing on a site called "Creation Ministries!" "See? We're not using the term 'creationist' any more--don't look behind the curtain."
- There's really no other scientific theory to teach. The alternatives pretty much boil down to either "God did it" or "somebody did something sometime, but we have no idea who or what or when." I personally wouldn't mind if a teacher said basically that when teaching evolution--"Some people object to this theory because they believe it threatens their belief in God, and others object because they don't think it explains everything, but they don't really have another explanation to offer"--but I don't think that's what creationists will settle for.
Aerodynamics can explain the flight of the bumblebee.
We also know what causes a firefly to glow.
And what scientific theory should be used to question evolution?
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