Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
In a poll released last week, two-thirds of Americans said they wanted to see creationism taught to public-school science pupils alongside evolution. Thirty-seven percent said they wanted to see creationism taught instead of evolution.
So why shouldn't majority rule? That's democracy, right?
Wrong. Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts, an approach that must be preserved and fought for if American pupils are going to get the kind of education they need to complete in an increasingly global techno-economy.
Unfortunately, the debate over evolution and creationism is back, with a spiffy new look and a mass of plausible-sounding talking points, traveling under the seemingly secular name of "intelligent design."
This "theory" doesn't spend much time pondering which intelligence did the designing. Instead, it backwards-engineers its way into a complicated rationale, capitalizing on a few biological oddities to "prove" life could not have evolved by natural selection.
On the strength of this redesigned premise -- what Wired Magazine dubbed "creationism in a lab coat" -- school districts across the country are being bombarded by activists seeking to have their version given equal footing with established evolutionary theory in biology textbooks. School boards in Ohio, Georgia and most recently Dover, Pa., have all succumbed.
There's no problem with letting pupils know that debate exists over the origin of man, along with other animal and plant life. But peddling junk science in the name of "furthering the discussion" won't help their search for knowledge. Instead, pupils should be given a framework for understanding the gaps in evidence and credibility between the two camps.
A lot of the confusion springs from use of the word "theory" itself. Used in science, it signifies a maxim that is believed to be true, but has not been directly observed. Since evolution takes place over millions of years, it would be inaccurate to say that man has directly observed it -- but it is reasonable to say that evolution is thoroughly supported by a vast weight of scientific evidence and research.
That's not to say it's irrefutable. Some day, scientists may find enough evidence to mount a credible challenge to evolutionary theory -- in fact, some of Charles Darwin's original suppositions have been successfully challenged.
But that day has not come. As a theory, intelligent design is not ready to steal, or even share, the spotlight, and it's unfair to burden children with pseudoscience to further an agenda that is more political than academic.
"And angels personally assemble each snowflake, I'm sure."
I thought it was Jack Frost. I have been deceived.
snowflake-like placemarker
This I believe.
(I don't know if the Italian- French chains still exist, but there are chains in Africa and among the Eskimo)
How is that sequence determined?
These, like ring species, are synchronic examples of the phenomenon. Latin to French (or Spanish or Italian) is a diachronic example of the same process; Old English to Modern likewise. In some cases there are written records but in others, forensic analysis gives the best guess.
It's similar for species formation. One can infer ancestors based on DNA, bone structure, etc. (Or synchronically one has goldfish vs carp, if one takes 1000 years as a short time biologically.)
There are a few examples of instant speciation, usually by polyploidy; the offspring can interbreed but cannot back breed to the ancestral species. This is often seen in plants but rarely in animals (maybe some frogs) because the polypoloid cells get too big.
Certainly it means that the "species" is different from its ancestors. That's all that is necessary for evolutionary theory. Of course, if the Creationists were to define "species" so as to include non-interbreeding entities, they could claim that evolution did not obtain. That's why Creationists seem careful never to define "kind" or "species" or anything else for that matter.
Actually, being a scientific theory, Darwin's theory never said anything one way or another about God. God is outside the realm of science. It is fundamentalist religious people and atheists who interpret evolution as being inconsistent with God. Atheists already do not believe in God, so evolution really hasn't done anything but confirm that belief. I fail to see why fundamentalists are so threatened by a theory which makes no mention of God. If you built a robot which was designed to build a machine that produced an inovative new product, did you not invent something? Who deserves the patent? The robot? The machine? I don't think you could argue anything other than that you invented the new product. Similarly, if God created the universe using the big bang as a tool and then allowed it to proceed according to the laws of nature He established, then who created the universe? The big bang? No, God did. Similarly, if the universe proceeded in such a way as to make inevitable the development of life and then life evolved according to the theory of evolution, who created humans? Evolution? No, again God is the creator. It is even possible to reconcile the six day timeline in Genesis with the big bang theory and evolution given a proper understanding of the nature of time. Time is a relative quantity. The duration measured by an observer depends on the reference frame of that observer. It is entirely possible that a duration of six 24-hour days measured from the reference frame of the universe immediately after the big bang is equivalent to a duration of tens of billions of years as measured from our current reference frame. So which is the correct time? Both! That's what relatvity tells us. The first thing God created in the Genesis account is light. The only thing present in the milliseconds after the big bang was light. There are other parallels, but I am not enough of an expert on the science or the Scripture to fully deal with them. The point is that there is no threat to a belief in God coming from science.
The "organized tends toward disorganization" seems to
suggest the myriad possible changes of natural selection.
Also, species boundaries are changed through evolution.
Reproduction outside of a species doesn't occur because
the species is redefined by the successful changes it
adapts and absorbs.
Oh, like "harmful", "beneficial", "improve", "adaptation", etc.,etc.,?
And one or two may radiate your colon, for that matter. Those of us great unwashed who fall to the depths of wasted human potential (scooping fries) may be perfectly happy doing so. But then so will the other 80% of burger flippers who drive an oxidized civic hatchback with 20 rock'n'roll bumper stickers and a four-legged-fish on the back window.
The poor will always be among us. It never ceases to amaze me how important posturing is to the materialist.
Then, of course, thousands of convicted murderers in this country should go free. After all, no one saw them do it, but there was evidence (derived by science) that placed them at the scene of the crime. Hell, the distance scale of the universe, the great lynchpin of determining distance is based not upon physics, but simple geometry. It is geometry alone that makes it readily apparent that the universe is old. The next step in the distance scale is just a simple relation between the period and luminosity of certain variable stars. It too doesn't require physics, but a careful examination of the behavior of several different types of stars to determine distance. Just a simple relation is enough to begin to drive the stake in the heart of a young universe. It is the application of simple physical laws (already well determined here on Earth) that puts the nail in the coffin of a young universe (through redshift, and other well-studied astronomical relations).
I still don't think you realize how based in local demonstratable physics much of astrophysics is based upon. There is no ad-hoc assumption of millions of billions of years in astrophysics, a lot of what we say can only be explained by an old universe. I was talking to a colleague about clusters of galaxies a couple of days ago, and he's been working on research that is finding clusters of galaxies that haven't dynamically relaxed yet at redshifts of 1.4-1.6, which will be a completely new finding as almost every cluster we've seen is in some sort of orbital equilibrium. Even more exciting is that he thinks he's finally seeing giant elliptical galaxies, the large central cores of galaxy clusters still undergoing star formation and mergers at that redshift. It's a huge discovery, and it's one of the final holes in the expanding universe paradigm that needed to be filled.
Now you may be saying "whoopy-doo", but that data would make no sense in any other model. We see developing galaxies of redshifts of 2 and 3 (and 4 and 6), and by the time we look at redshifts of 1.5, we see clusters of galaxies just finishing their development, and at redshifts of 1.0, we see the finished product that we see all the way into the nearby universe. It's all pretty straightforward when you look at it with an open mind.
There is no astronomical evidence (through spectral data) to determine that "laws of nature" were drastically different at any point after at redshift of say 8 or so, which represents an age of the universe of a few million years in the standard model.
You mean like these quotes.
As on the theory of natural selection an interminable number of intermediate forms must have existed, linking together all the species in each group by gradations as fine as our present varieties, it may be asked, Why do we not see these linking forms all around us? Why are not all organic beings blended together in an inextricable chaos? With respect to existing forms, we should remember that we have no right to expect (excepting in rare cases) to discover directly connecting links between them, but only between each and some extinct and supplanted form. Even on a wide area, which has during a long period remained continuous, and of which the climate and other conditions of life change insensibly in going from a district occupied by one species into another district occupied by a closely allied species, we have no just right to expect often to find intermediate varieties in the intermediate zone. For we have reason to believe that only a few species are undergoing change at any one period; and all changes are slowly effected. I have also shown that the intermediate varieties which will at first probably exist in the intermediate zones, will be liable to be supplanted by the allied forms on either hand; and the latter, from existing in greater numbers, will generally be modified and improved at a quicker rate than the intermediate varieties, which exist in lesser numbers; so that the intermediate varieties will, in the long run, be supplanted and exterminated.
No country can be named in which all the native inhabitants are now so perfectly adapted to each other and to the physical conditions under which they live, that none of them could anyhow be improved;
Although natural selection can act only through and for the good of each being, yet characters and structures, which we are apt to consider as of very trifling importance, may thus be acted on.
It is, however, far more necessary to bear in mind that there are many unknown laws of correlation of growth, which, when one part of the organisation is modified through variation, and the modifications are accumulated by natural selection for the good of the being, will cause other modifications, often of the most unexpected nature.
So, conversely, modifications in the adult will probably often affect the structure of the larva; but in all cases natural selection will ensure that modifications consequent on other modifications at a different period of life, shall not be in the least degree injurious: for if they became so, they would cause the extinction of the species.
Natural selection can act only by the preservation and accumulation of infinitesimally small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection, if it be a true principle, banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure.
Baldur's Gate I & II were great! Planescape Torment was better! Nothing beats the table top game, though.
This may be a fair point to ponder. A threat from science, no. From people, yes. I have always been more concerned about those who have made "science" their God than science or the scientific process (thanks PH).
It seems many of them are determined to prostheletize(sp?) "science" and force our future fry-scoopers to question their parents' intelligence, or integrity.
Therein lies the rub. If it's only science, then testing or challenging it should not be a problem.
Science is not a problem. People are.
No one denies that Damadian conducted pioneering work in the field of MRI. He was the first, in 1977, to use the technology to visualize the organs of a live human subject—after practicing on rat livers and a kosher turkey. (The human volunteer was Damadian’s colleague, Larry Minkoff; Damadian himself had a bit more body fat than little Indomitable could penetrate.) Furthermore, Damadian’s central patent on the technology, awarded in 1974, was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1997. In that dispute, Damadian and the company he founded, Melville, New York-based FONAR Corporation, won more than $128 million in patent infringement penalties from MRI goliath General Electric.
...
But it is difficult not to at least consider another explanation: that scientists on the assembly or in other positions of influence could not abide Damadian’s staunch support for "creationist science." Damadian is a firm believer in a literal translation of the Bible: he has no doubt that the earth was created by God during a six-day stretch about 6,000 years ago. Damadian has also served as a technical adviser to the Institute for Creation Research, which rejects the standard model of evolution."The non-biblical account would have us believe that all life originated from a single common ancestor—a slime mold—and give or take a billion years, we’re expected to believe that the descendants of this slime mold climbed out of the ocean and stood up and started giving lectures," Damadian says. "Do the math on that. The sheer statistics of that violate any sense of reality."
I understand. To be honest it read as if wealth was at least part of the point. But my reply applies regardless.
I work every day with a man who does 8 hours of less-than-challenging customer service/data entry work for not very much money. An observer of this mindset would judge him as using little gray matter, and miss the truth.
He's a PhD, author of several books (one or two on this subject) and now a novel, a poet, and recently turned down an offer from Harvard because his mother is terminally ill... and he wants to be with his parents in their twilight years.
Whether measuring wallets or not, one should be careful not to judge a book by it's cover.
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