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.
I was doing my algebra homework once, and I couldn't remember the equation that I needed. However, I was able to recognize that it was really just a somewhat complex conversion problem. So, I used the conversion "equations" from chemistry (grams-moles, etc), and solved the problem.
A couple of days later, he called for me after class. He was holding my homework in his hand, red-faced, shaking, trying to point at my homework while crumpling it at the same time, and said "DON'T YOU EVER DO A MATH PROBLEM LIKE THIS IN MY CLASS AGAIN!" I thought he was going to have a coronary. LOL.
Your right, keep your hocus pocus.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
Nope. I just pointed out how many there are.
Just go onto any of the religious threads in the religion forum...there you will find many major disagreements going on, about just what the Bible is saying...for some churches, there may be small differences between them and other churches, but there are also many major differences that are argued about and discussed every day here on FR, in the religious forums...and they can get every bit as nasty as any of the CREVO threads get...the religion moderator works overtime, I do believe, keeping the posters in check...the religion moderator even has special rules for the religious threads, rules which are even stricter than on the other threads...take a look at those threads, you might be surprised at what you find there...
That's nice. Now prove it.
Define "plenty." I think on another thread, we figured out the number of "scientists" who are CR/Iders is in the hundreds while the number of people who are scientists is in the millions. That makes the number of scientists who are "questioning TToE" effectively nil.
And the loudest "scientists" who are speaking up are NOT IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.
Now where is the transitory evidence between monkey and man.
Coyoteman has posted it to you.
Willful ignorance: The hallmark of a CR/Ider.
Not my department. I just provided a good link to world religions.
LOL! That is a great story! *sigh* College days -- the best days of our lives.
Quite a few large bio related companies use evolution theory and other derived theories to make new drugs and treatments.
"Every knee shall bow.
Or burn.
Not the words of a loving god, but of a tyrant."
Actually, the Gospel makes clear that "God is not willing that any should perish." I.e. He does not want to condemn anyone. The choice is up to us. Ideas have consequences, and what you believe about human nature is going to affect your life here and now, even if you chose to dismiss the possibility of eternal life. The Founding Fathers were overwhelmingly orthodox Christians. Western Christian culture gave rise to free societies, economic freedom, and science. So when you belittle Christianity, you are attacking the foundations of the society we all enjoy.
Which part?
Nice post. Clearly Evangelism is your strong suit. I would stay with it if I were you.
Lovely philosophy...nothing to do with science, but lovely philosophy...
There is no such thing as a "religion of Darwinism". The Theory of Evolution is one of the most (if not the most) well supported theories in science.
Talk about a Fundamentalist Cultist.
I don't recall ever using the words "Fundamentalist Cultist" to describe Christianity. Those are your words, not mine.
So where are all those transitory animals between Monkey and Man??
There aren't any. Monkeys and Man are both contemporary animals. We have a common ancestor, and there are substantial numbers of transitory animals to document this. There is also incontrovertible DNA evidence.
How did life begin w/o God??
Don't know. One theory is abiogenesis, but this theory has nothing to do with the TOE.
Do you have any answers or just insults?
I haven't been hurling insults, just observations. If you find rational observation insulting, that's your problem.
The uniqueness of the arm is philosophy???
Was working on getting a small business going and didn't have the time to post. Sometimes I have trouble with posting when I should be working but the business doesn't take as much of my time these days plus this is a slow period so I thought I would start posting.
Figuratively losing your eyes and saying "nya nya nya nya" isn't "hammering" anything.
But calling me a religious nut really makes your case. Heresy burn him!!
I hereby publicly demand you show exactly where I called you "a religious nut" or retract your statement.
What kind of Conservative swallows something like evolution whole??
One who has actually studied it.
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