What are Darwinists so afraid of?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern

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.

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."

This is easy to understand. You will read one day led into the next day - evening, then morning - the first day and so on. You will read that there was man and animals together and Adam named them. You will read that he made the gold and onyx. You will read the heavens and earth were completed in all their vast array.

Genesis 1

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day

Genesis 2
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [a] from all his work.

3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Adam and Eve

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-

5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth [b] and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth [c] and there was no man to work the ground,

6 but streams [d] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-

7 the LORD God formed the man [e] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.

11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin [f] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. [g]

14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

"We are not talking gospel here, we're talking science. The vast majority of scientists who have a problem with evolution are, coincidentally, very religious."

So? The simple fact that they are very religious somehow makes them dumber than an agnostic, buddhist or Atheist Scientist?

It might let them override their scientific training with religious belief. That is not doing science. Science goes where it goes; religious belief knows all the answers a priori and distorts science to those ends. Just check out the creationist websites if you don't believe me. Creation "science" is not science.

"The vast majority of biological and other evolutionary scientists might argue amongst themselves over the fine points, but the battle over whether evolution is a proper scientific theory was settled well over a century ago."

If this were the case then what are you afraid of in having it openly discussed, both pro and con in a school?

That is not what is being proposed for high school science classes. It is a flat-out religious attack on evolutionary sciences, sponsored by religious belief. It is not a scientific dispute over, for example, the proper classification of Homo ergaster vs. Homo erectus ergaster. The fallout is that all science will be effected. That seems to be the intent.

"The problem I see is that some folks don't want the science; they prefer the gospel and have taken their fight to the science classes."

Ain't it great that we live in America where we can do this sort of thing.

I do not want to see a country where religious belief exercises an arbitrary veto power over scientific research. That won't do us any good at all.

I do archaeology for a living; if archaeologists can't find evidence for a global flood at ca. 2350 BC does that mean my profession is on its way out too?

You start this kind of stuff, where does it end?

Rather than use my words I will type exactly what Genesis says. I use the King James because I can find out what these English words used by the translators are in the Hebrew.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let *THEM* (them means more than one) have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

How many people are fisherman and cattleman at the same time? Or fish and have time to dominate fowl of the air, etc? Things that caught my attention about the different species dominion is given over.

27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He "THEM".

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and "REPLENISH" the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Now here is the "REPEAT" and is this is NOT repeated again. Note also that word "REPLENISH".

29 And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Notice there is not that 'tree of life' and tree of the knowledge of good and evil mentioned.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat;" and it was so.

31 And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was "VERY GOOD". And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them.

2. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made: and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.

3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.

NOTE

4 These are THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVENS AND OF THE EARTH when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

How can there be generations if we are still waiting for Adam to be formed? Peter tells us in IIPeter 3 the whole chapter is most telling but my purpose is pointing out that Peter tells us how long a day is.

verse 8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,

that one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Now how long does that make those days of creation????

Back to Genesis 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew:

for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,

and there was NOT a man to till the ground.

Now we have been told that man was created on the 6th day, then we have the 7th day sanctified for a rest and right there in black and white there was NOT a man to till the ground.

Talk about extrapolation to say this is describing the 6th day creation when they are told what and how to "SURVIVE". Further those of the 6th day creation were NOT placed in the Garden of Eden where we are also told of the tree of life, which represents Christ because it is through Christ wherein ever lasting life is promised, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now you asked about the 8th day where to find it. What comes after 7? If the time like Peter tells us is what he says then we have actually at minimum a couple of thousand years not just a 24 to 48 hour time frame.

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