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.
Atta boy, the standard cliche reply anyone who questions Darwin is a Religious Nut. Some of us just don't have the Faith to believe in Evolution. But we respect your Faith to believe w/o questioning.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
Every knee shall bow.
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And I hope you are ready to put stickers in physics books noting that Gravity is a theory and quite conreversial (and it is within science circles).
"Quite a few on this site, and other sites, say that believing in evolution will send one straight to hell."
I once had a friendly debate with a "fundamentalist" Christian who took the creation account in Genesis literally. However, he acknowledged that "it was not a salvation issue." Certainly, Jesus never made a big issue out of it.
What's the question?
Some of us fear the dumbing down of America by the Flat Earth Evolutionists who believe Bad Science. Where is the fossil evidence of the transitory animals?? Should be millions of them??
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
Oh, no... Please no... (picturing my math professors...)
False gods. Invented idols.
Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. (Isaiah 43:10 KJV)
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6 KJV)
Is that you, Baghdad Bob?
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"Quite a few on this site, and other sites, say that believing in evolution will send one straight to hell."
That may be wishful thinking but absolutely wrong. What sends one to hell is refusing the offer of salvation made possible because of Jesus' complete sacrifice for sin. Evolution has nothing to do with salvation.
Please elaborate.
Consider: a geneticist finds the same genetic markers in the genome of pigs and cows. Using the ToE, he postulates that they will also be found in the gonomes of giraffes, hippos, deer and whales, among others. Testing proves him right.
Why isn't the ID-ist forced to say "I dunno where else the genetic markers will be found, it's whereever the designer put them", ie forced to admit thet he has no theory to test?
Every knee shall bow.
"Some of us fear the dumbing down of America by the Flat Earth Evolutionists who believe Bad Science."
Evolution is the only scientific theory concerning the diversity of life.
"Where is the fossil evidence of the transitory animals??"
Every fossil every found was of a life that was transitory. That being said, there are many transitional fossil sequences.
Thanks for that post. The writer makes the same point (very nicely) that I have been saying - to question is not to dismiss. Any theory is only stronger if one doesn't avoid evidence that needs to be squared with what has been established. Evolution, like Global Warming, has been enamored with an untouchable status by invoking a political front that keeps scientists from doing what they should be doing - expanding knowledge through sound scientific research and let the chips fall where they may.
The Bible teaches immoral things, cruelty towards children is shown again and again. This undermines the ethical foundations of The Bible.
Exodus 20:5 "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."
Lev. 26:22 "I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children..."
Num 31:17 "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones."
Prov 20:30 "Blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clear the innermost parts." NIV version: Prov 20:30 "Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being."
Ezek 9:6 "Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children."
1 Sam. 15:3 "...slay both man and woman, infant and suckling."
Deut. 28:53 "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters."
Show me a clearly testable scientific hypothesis for Intelligent Design. Just one. Any one.
Show that is the hypothesis is testable by outlining the tests.
If you can do this, you will have my 100% support.
So was Ann wrong about the steps producing an eye or the complexity of a flegellum?? If either are not mutated completely they don't work. You would think a Conservative would not be afraid to question evolution??
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Shalom Israel
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