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.
It's pretty comprehensive, well worth reading.
Thanks, I have reviewed your talkorigins website previously. I have yet to see scientific conclusions truly supporting macro-evolution without a whole lot of assumptions and conjecture.
Most of the pro-evolution books and websites I read jump to conclusions like most of the posts by the pro-evolution group here at FR. "Believe it because we say so"
What about the holes in the fossil record or how about the starts/stops of the fossil record too? The more I read the more I see evidence that evolutionists are willing to fake their evidence - moreso than with any other scientific theory. They also willfully ignore a lot that they simply can't explain reasonably.
One website used as a reference - while that is a true statement it doesn't tell the whole truth.
See, you left off that I had offered to provide other links in support at least twice in the thread you are referring to.
I take it that, since you have to attack me personally, that you have nothing to refute the sourced information I provided?
It is my understanding that the mods take offense to posting long lists of nothing but URL's. If I am mistaken I am sure someone will correct me.
Most of the pro-evolution books and websites I read jump to conclusions like most of the posts by the pro-evolution group here at FR. "Believe it because we say so"
What about the holes in the fossil record or how about the starts/stops of the fossil record too? The more I read the more I see evidence that evolutionists are willing to fake their evidence - moreso than with any other scientific theory. They also willfully ignore a lot that they simply can't explain reasonably.
I think you will find that the methods used are compatible with other sciences of this type, and the level of "fakery" is far less than you might believe.
For example, can you name five fakes? (Hint: creationist websites will lie to you on this subject.)
I'm not proposing teaching anything Biblical in public education (i.e. oil and water). The better question is:
Why can't the evolutionist see/admit the problems in Darwin and evolutionary theory enough to actually debate them - instead of this whack-a-mole diatribe we see so often at FR?
There's quite a long record of creationist fakes...
Not to mention repeated untruths "(e.g. the "Darwin recanted evolution on his deathbed" myth, which even most prominent creationists have rejected, which you still see every few crevo threads on FR.)
1) All creationist arguments are pretty old and have been repeatedly and obviously refuted....the posted talk.origins link covers most of them.
2) Most creationists have such a rudimentary understanding of science it's actually impossible to have an actual scientific debate with them - evolution and biology are complicated and advanced subjects and it would be hard to debate someone who doesn't understand what an isotope is, the basics of anatomy. etc.
There are no other current theories other than evolution. ID claims it's a theory, but it doesn't eve rise to the level of a testable hypothesis and has no observations or other data to back it up that cannot be more simply explained by evolution. Basically, ID is an argument from astonishment ("I can't figure out how that evolved, so it must've been created") coupled with trying to prove a negative ("Evolution couldn't have happened").
Wouldn't the better arguement be to provide evidence supporting your theory? This is not a binary solution. Trying to prove evolution wrong will not automatically make your ID/Creationist theory correct. Only evidence supporting your viewpoint will do that. Questioning, incorrectly, four of the thousands of points that support evolution does nothing to show that ID/Creationism has any scientific foundation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673360/posts
People can judge for themselves.
Twisting words and inserting new subjects. I have said nothing about creation on this thread - have I?
Evolution arguments and tactics way too often mirror those of the leftist democratic presuasion.
guess who had the knowledge and preserved it in the dark ages. the same people who started universities.
Any problems with the theory of evolution (and there are not as many as you think) are not an automatic plus for creationism or ID. No theory "wins by default." Until some ID researcher actually produces some POSITIVE evidence for his position then creationists do not have a dog in this hunt.
So why not allow all of them to be touched on in the Public Schools?
Like I said, I wouldn't have a problem at all if it were taught as a theory, along with other theories. That's how I plan to teach it.
But as long as the PS teach only Darwinism, young minds see it as fact. I did for a long time.
Funny, I haven't seen any supporter of evolution on FreeRepublic try to intimidate others into being quite simply because they don't agree with what they say.
However I have seen at least on ID/Creationist supporter try to get me to be quite by implying that I was a troll/disruptor.
I have also seen numerous ID supports 'quote mine' and refuse to acknowledge evidence when it is put in front of them.
Sure, just not in science class. Science classes should teach science, and ID and creationism are not science by any stretch of the imagination.
As has been pointed out, until ID and creationism has some POSITIVE evidence it only so much vaporware.
I'm not trying to do anything on this thread to debate nor defend the ID/Creation beliefs.
I think you'll find many things inexplicable to your only 'science' viewpoint on my profile links. If you truly want to debate those items then please start another thread.
I have my doubts that few of the pro-evolutionists have spent much (if any) time reviewing these links. Too often they see one thing that does not conform to their views and erroneously conclude that they have debunked the entire website.
Like these posts?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673360/posts?page=95#95
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673360/posts?page=110#110
"100% positive proof doesn't exist in science, and a great many people, most more well spoken then I, have shown where she is incorrect.
If you would like the links please send me an private message."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673360/posts?page=81#81
"I like science, as one can see from my nic.
It isn't bashing to point out that Ann Colter got most everything in those three chapters incorrect. If I was bashing her I would be bashing her on other topics, but I am not. I disagree with her on those issues and I tend to let people know when I disagree - it's just the way I am.
I am sure Ann Colter is a nice person, but she appears to not know very much about science.
Been reading freerepublic for years - just didn't have the time to make an account till now. It takes time and effort to start a small business and having a FR posting account would have taken up too much of my time as it can be rather addicting."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673360/posts?page=95#95
No - I signed up for a posting account to correct some misconceptions regarding IPv6 the next generation of the IP protocol suite. Verify this by going to the last page of my posting history - the vast majority of my posts are on science and technical related topics.
Please show where I based Ann Colter - I haven't. I said some one her ideas in regards to science are incorrect and wrong but I have said nothing negative about her other ideas, most of which I agree with.
What offends me about the peppered moths (as well as several other evolutionary icons) is their complete and total failure to show any evidence for macro-evolution yet when read by a layman that is exactly what is intended.
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