Posted on 07/27/2006 3:00:03 PM PDT by BrandtMichaels
What are Darwinists so afraid of?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jonathan Witt © 2006
As a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the '90s, I found that my professors came in all stripes, and that lazy ideas didn't get off easy. If some professor wanted to preach the virtues of communism after it had failed miserably in the Soviet Union, he was free to do so, but students were also free to hear from other professors who critically analyzed that position.
Conversely, students who believed capitalism and democracy were the great engines of human progress had to grapple with the best arguments against that view, meaning that in the end, they were better able to defend their beliefs.
Such a free marketplace of ideas is crucial to a solid education, and it's what the current Kansas science standards promote. These standards, like those adopted in other states and supported by a three-to-one margin among U.S. voters, don't call for teaching intelligent design. They call for schools to equip students to critically analyze modern evolutionary theory by teaching the evidence both for and against it.
The standards are good for students and good for science.
Some want to protect Darwinism from the competitive marketplace by overturning the critical-analysis standards. My hope is that these efforts will merely lead students to ask, What's the evidence they don't want us to see?
Under the new standards, they'll get an answer. For starters, many high-school biology textbooks have presented Haeckel's 19th century embryo drawings, the four-winged fruit fly, peppered moths hidden on tree trunks and the evolving beak of the Galapagos finch as knockdown evidence for Darwinian evolution. What they don't tell students is that these icons of evolution have been discredited, not by Christian fundamentalists but by mainstream evolutionists.
We now know that 1) Haeckel faked his embryo drawings; 2) Anatomically mutant fruit flies are always dysfunctional; 3) Peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks (the photographs were staged); and 4) the finch beaks returned to normal after the rains returned – no net evolution occurred. Like many species, the average size fluctuates within a given range.
This is microevolution, the age-old observation of change within species. Macroevolution refers to the evolution of fundamentally new body plans and anatomical parts. Biology textbooks use instances of microevolution such as the Galapagos finches to paper over the fact that biologists have never observed, or even described in theoretical terms, a detailed, continually functional pathway to fundamentally new forms like mammals, wings and bats. This is significant because modern Darwinism claims that all life evolved from a common ancestor by a series of tiny, useful genetic mutations.
Textbooks also trumpet a few "missing links" discovered between groups. What they don't mention is that Darwin's theory requires untold millions of missing links, evolving one tiny step at a time. Yes, the fossil record is incomplete, but even mainstream evolutionists have asked, why is it selectively incomplete in just those places where the need for evidence is most crucial?
Opponents of the new science standards don't want Kansas high-school students grappling with that question. They argue that such problems aren't worth bothering with because Darwinism is supported by "overwhelming evidence." But if the evidence is overwhelming, why shield the theory from informed critical analysis? Why the campaign to mischaracterize the current standards and replace them with a plan to spoon-feed students Darwinian pabulum strained of uncooperative evidence?
The truly confident Darwinist should be eager to tell students, "Hey, notice these crucial unsolved problems in modern evolutionary theory. Maybe one day you'll be one of the scientists who discovers a solution."
Confidence is as confidence does.
Even so, there is nothing Christian about the buckle, and it bears the swastika, which is a pagan symbol.
And there's nothing Christian about "Gott mit uns"? A reference to Odin, perhaps?
Seventy two mothers-in-law.
As long as the building blocks were similar it would do no such thing. IOW if "nature" is able to produce what science is able to investigate apart from intelligence or design, there is nothing to prevent nature from producing a dandelion with legs. Ever heard of a walking stick?
I don't know -- lets ask him. Last time I looked a network engineer doesn't need an engineering degree. I should know -- I have been Operations Director for a very large mainframe shop, which included Systems, LAN, Telecommunications, Applications and Machine Ops.
ps: It is rude to speak of someone, even if defending them, without pinging them.
A walking stick is an insect, not a plant/animal hybrid.
Yes, I know of the hundreds of hospitals and schools founded here by Buddhists. I know that Buddhist charities gave millions to help the victims of Katrina. /sarc
I do know that Christian charities mobilized millions in aid to the tsunami victims in Indonesia, most of whom are not Christians.
So my question stands: Does this apply only to the founding of colleges, or to anything a church-goer might do?
Shall we save some time here and stipulate that you want to claim all good resulting from any Christian association whatever and disavow all ill effects?
But somehow, the logic doesn't seem to work the other way. Whose post 737 to this thread contained this quote? "The association between evolution and totalitarian socialism can't be denied, and you make no attempt to deny it."
The association between christianity and Jim Jones can't be denied.
The association between christianity and the Salem witch trials can't be denied.
Et cetera.
There is a certain charm to the Dark Ages. Mystery, superstition and all that. And who cannot commend the scientifically brilliant idea that, because certain things look alike, they must be related? To have a billion year fairly tale to create and recreate as many times as one wishes, be honored as "scientists," and enjoy exclusive government support by law: who wouldn't want that?
Its not particularly germaine to the discussion at hand. I agree with you and there are those who are looking for The Unified Theory Of Everything.
Trying to find scientific alternatives to current theories helps keep dogma minimized (a fate predicted by Asimov). ID is not one of those pursuits.
Despite the insult to all walking sticks who go by that name and are generally honored as such by the common man (you know, the hybrid name) I don't suppose design has anything to do with it. Is there something about the walking stick that says to you it cannot be a product of intelligent design? If so, what is it? If not, then why is it inherently unscientific to suggest it might be?
The latter. The experiment was based on a closed system, with water evaporating into a reducing atmosphere, being esposed to electrical discharges, and then condensing, and then going through the cycle again. This produced a variety of organic compounds, including amino acids.
It is possible that such an atmosphere was not present on Earth, which would invalidate one of the premises of the hypothesis. That organic compounds were created at all is astounding, but if the earth did not have a reducing atmosphere it wouldn't translate into a means of creating life on earth abiotically. AFAIK, the composition of the atmosphere back then hasn't been conclusively quantified, btw.
So how does intelligent design work? It begins with thoughts.
Got any evidence of that? Any way of gathering evidence of that? ie: thought + supreme being = intelligent design.
What kind of evidence do I have to provide in order to assure the scientific world that thoughts are integral to intelligent design?
Any evidence that can be verified, and a method of gathering such evidence that can be replicated.
It often, yet not always, ends with a combination of matter that performs specific functions.
Any evidence of that would also be required.
Is it somehow mysterious, superstitious, or unscientific to suggest the building blocks of the particle world - consistently cause and effect related as they are - might entail a designer?
Without any evidence whatsoever, superstition and mythology is all ID has. And, yes, that is unscientific.
What kind of evidence are you demanding here?
It's your theory. What evidence do you have? None. That's the problem. What mechanisms are there to gather any evidence? None. That's another problem. Is there any way to falsify the "theory"? Nope.
LOL Appearance as they say can be deceiving... Here I keep getting told that evolution is a theory NOT a fact.
Well excuse me. How ignorant of me.
How is it "rude" to defend the poor guy, when he's been demeaned as a mere "tradesman" while he's away can't defend himself?
Did you tell the person who used that canard he was "rude?" That was just another of the torrent of supericilious, arrogant abuse the evoid crowd heaps on anyone who challenges them. You don't really give a bleep about Ignatz' feelings vs. my alleged "rudeness." You just want to score points.
And of course, evoids are hardly the ones to give lectures on "rudeness."
Please provide your working definition of what the word Theory means to you.
"Gott Mit Uns" is not a statement on cold weather apparel. It means "God Is With Us"
How does gravity work?
I knew it. You were working toward a trap, making a setup. Sorry to frustrate you. You can't dispute that Christians established hundreds of hospitals and schools, so you go back centuries and dredge up irrelevancies.
Jim Jones was not any kind of orthodox Christian. He was a typical cult leader, with a cult of personality centered around himself (not God or Jesus), enslavement of believers, etc.
"Shall we save some time here and stipulate that you want to claim all good resulting from any Christian association whatever and disavow all ill effects?"
I'm going to save my time and not fall into your trap. Sorry to disappoint you.
You anti-religious zealots always want to put your words into the mouths of others. Nice try.
From an NSF abstract:
As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.
Modified from RadioAstronomers's post #27 on another thread.
Best reason I ever heard to want to be a Navajo.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.