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.
"He's dead, Jim."
It's the same thing, of course. The part you left out is where Patterson actually explains in detail what he's saying.
The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question.He's pointing out something frequently acknowledged. Non-DNA fossils won't let you do paternity testing. Even when it appears that Thing A is obviously an ancestor of Thing B, an even better contemporary candidate for ancestor of Thing B could turn up later, making Thing A basically a great uncle. That's too limited in scope for your purposes, so you simply picked up the bit of hyperbole that followed it.
It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test.Patterson's original protest would work as well for your latest bit of mining. Were he alive, he might say:
"I think thecontinuation ofmaterial preceding the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false..."
If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced. -Percy Bysshe Shelley
You keep saying that. Who is feeding you such nonsense?
I'll even give you the experimental setup to make this come to pass. For the first stage have a food source close to the surface of the water. Gradually, over many many fruit fly generation put the food source closer and closer to the water. Eventually the food source will be below the water and eventually at the bottom of the tank.
You can run thousands of similiar experiements in one room. Eventually through random chance/mutation/natural selection or whatever you would have to have some fruitflies that evolve into a creature that can swim to the bottom of a tank and get food.
Absurd? Doesn't evolution ask us to believe that something similiar has happened (albeit without any invervention) literally trillions of times to millions or billions of different species?
Why isn't the fossil record one continuous change, instead of entirely separate suddenly appearing 'kinds'?
Yes, I'm looking all over for one major evidence for one major claim: something from nothing...uphill! [ie; darwinism]
Explained nearly 150 years ago:
The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin: Chapter 9 - On the Imperfection of the Geological Record.
That's a non-sequitur. Putting pesticide resistance genes in corn also leads to healthy corn. While it's not automatic that adding a new gene would leave an organism healthy, there's no a priori reason simply adding a foreign gene will be lethal.
The major assumptions on your part are that manipulation would "stick out" (why?), and that they'd be obviously taken from "some other species." Neither of these is necessary.
Sure it is. Monkeys don't have fluorescent proteins of this sort. There is nothing even closely homologous in the various mammalian genomes. The mutation would 'stick out' because using a standard genetic search engine, like BLAST, we'd get hits from this gene to jellyfish genes, but none to humans or other monkeys. Believe me, that would stick out. I'd be thinking 'Nature paper' as soon as I saw the hits.
If you want to check this out, go to the National Library of Medicine site . Pick some human gene at random, and look to see what it's most closely related to. Lots of monkeys, lots of rats and mice, no jellyfish; at least, not in the first 50 hits or so.
BLAST and similar software is quite easy to use ( I taught a class of freshmen to do it this fall) and it's a great way to learn first hand the issues involved in comparing genes across species.
What people claim that? And of those who might make that claim, do they make the further claim that no other designs are possible than what they, themselves, would recognize?
I simply googled 'universal design principles' and got scads of hits. Do thee in like manner.
The crux of your argument seems to be this:
We certainly can do that -- but we cannot then simultaneously denounce as "idiotic" a purported design that far exceeds the capabilities of what humans can presently achieve.
This is a quasi-religious assertion that there are beings of superior intelligence to ourselves, whose purpose is ineffable to our limited intelligences. Sorry, no dice. Until you can show me some system that works, but whose principles are beyond the power of contemporary rational analysis, that's an unproven and decidedly mystical claim, no different than 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio' - which, you'll recall, was an argument for the reality of ghosts.
You are comparing apples to oranges here. History was witnessed by someone and the humanities are not science. But since you bring up the subject of observation, clearly history is actually observed by someone and then at that time a record is made. Macro-evolution on the other hand is not witnessed by anyone but people study something past tense and render an opinion as to what they see.
I am willing to believe that species can change to adapt but the fossil record can only be interpreted to mean one thing or another, and that opinion changes from time to time. And there is a huge difference between micro and macro evolution. once does not lead into the other (unless you assume).
Your inability to comprehend is indcative
Henry never said you did.
I've found a book review by his favorite source, William Provine. ... in his own words, from the linked site:
As for proof of your existence I would not be so obtuse as to deny it in any way, since it can fairly well be proven. The evidence is very good.
Tell me why it isn't.
And you might consider addressing some of the other examples of speciation too. I rather like the copper-tolerant Mimulus.
I hope that's not supposed to be some sort of rebuttal to my previous post to you. If it is, that's not so much weak as virtually a change of subject. What you asked for, I presented.
Darwin knew the answer to your question in 1859. It's about the geology. Not everything gets fossilized in the first place and sediments erode. Still, smooth transitional sequences are found, especially in cores from deep ocean sediments where in some cases there has been no erosion for millions of years.
My turn. If your story in fact is that gaps in the record are gaps in the history, why are the gaps in the record continuously filling in? Why are they being filled in ways which further outline a family tree of life? Creationism has been yammering about the gaps since Darwin's time. The gaps have shattered into gaplets since then, but the lawyerly gap game goes on for those who do not see.
SN1987a shows the universe is at a minimum older than 170,000 years. The CMB of course shows it is far older. :-)
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