I deny them my essence, Mandrake ...
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.
What is it that is supposed to have an essence? Essence of what?
Pardon me for intruding, but in this very fundamental matter he may be wrong. The genetic code seems to be a result of a specific direct chemical interaction between amino acids and their codons.
Have no idea what the Pope believes, not my business. I know what I believe and I have a hard time believing in something they can't explain how it started, developed or ended. The Pope does speak a dead language and Darwinism is a dying science?
Despite the holes the size of Nebraska you cling to this raft like a drowning man.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Shalom Israel
I understand he was an agnostic and/or Deist.
The phrase "just before his death." tells us that Fabian was referring to the Lady Hope deathbed conversion yarn.
My humor is funny when I'm not algoring your sacred cows. I have never had so many mails from people encouraging me to stand against the evo-mafia. Apparently people fear the thug tactics on these threads? Well try taking my stand in a college and that's where you will find thugish tactics.
I'm guessing your not a Christian, however you are the authority on how Christian's should live their lives. Turn the other cheek and so forth?
Hey, if you can't stand the heat little lady; stay in the kitchen.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Shalom Israel
AMEN!
There are many obvious reasons, detailed thousands of times in thousands of science textbooks. They are why I reject interpreting Genesis literally. I do not reject God; I embrace Him because His embrace of me is everything. He endowed me and my fellow humans with the ability to reason, study the world around us, increase knowledge, draw conclusions, pursue truth. Anyone who must engage in denial and deception to justify what they define as "true" faith in God, is a dupe of a well-disguised devil.
Essence of Quince.
Oddly enough, the symbol of the Knights of the Teutonic Order who invaded Christianized Lithuania and Poland.
An act of Christian mercy repeated over 500 years later by a Christian Germany.
Evolution does not disprove God. It -- as does geological science -- disproves a literal interpretation of Genesis. In my opinion, pride and vanity are what prevent people like you from acknowledging the difference and making false declarations such as the one you made above.
So I take it you are an atheist then?
Theories don't require "belief". You either accept or do not accept the evidence presented by the theory. Belief has nothing to do with it.
BTW, there is more evidence that supports ToE than there is for gravitational theory.
Your ignorance of ToE is abysmal IMHO.
Why does this not surprise me?
I know what I believe and I have a hard time believing in something they can't explain how it started, developed or ended.
So you have a hard time "believing in" The Theory of Gravity, Germ Theory, that sort of thing?
The Pope does speak a dead language and Darwinism is a dying science?
What this has to do with anything is utterly mysterious. The current one is fluent in German and Italian; JPII spoke several languages. "Darwinism," is anything but "a dying science."
Despite the holes the size of Nebraska you cling to this raft like a drowning man.
Wait! Let me guess! The second law of thermodynamics (No one can explain how thermodynamics started, developed or ended). Entropy! (Ditto). The numbers don't add up! All of the above? Some? What! I must know!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Shalom Israel
Agreed.
I know this is a bit of a spelling flame but bloody hell, how many times are you going to misspell "you're" as "your"? People will judge you based on your command of the language.
I deny them my essence, Mandrake ...
Just pining for the fjords.
And over the last several months, I have received lots and lots of Freepmail from lurkers, who support evolution, and fear coming on these threads and fear the thug tactics of many of those who will call them atheists for no reason other than their support of evolution...so what does this prove?...nothing, its just a counter-argument to your assertion that you are receiving many mails from people encouraging you to stand against what you call the evo-mafia...
Which Freepmails trump which Freepmails?...neither one comes out ahead...for every Freepmail you might get encouraging you on, an Evo will receive one encouraging him on...so they just naturally cancel each other out, and the point is moot, it doesnt matter one bit how many Freepmails you might receive, it does not matter one bit how many Freepmails I receive...none of these Freepmails mean a thing, other than there are many posters and lurkers on both side of this issue, and for whatever reason, they fear coming onto the thread...
What they pay attention to are the discussions, and arguments and behavior of the various posters on the thread...and then they will make up their minds...
But be assured, your receiving supportive Freepmails do nothing to advance the discussion, all they do is show that there are many on both sides of the issue...
Your mistake is in thinking they are mutually exclusive.
Agree completely! As good place as any to repost this:
On a message board such as this, your only medium of exchange is the written word. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we don’t have any other method of conveying information to each other. Body language, gestures, verbal communications, facial expressions, et al., cannot be conveyed.
Thusly, your grammatical sentence structures, spelling, and the content of your posts are all anyone has to make an assessment of you. If your posts consistently contain basic writing and spelling errors, other board members are going to make judgments on such.
So indeed you grammar, spelling, content, succinctness, etc. are very important if you want to present yourself as an articulate well educated person.
In other words, in an environment such as this, you are what you write.
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