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.
Right out of "Kung Fu."
Such a witty comeback, well halfway! The Sanhedrin of Evolution says Stone the Heretic!!
Oh yeah, where are those transitional animals? Where is the Horse/Cow or the Frog/Dog?? Hint: There aren't any!
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
O, I forgot about them....
>> Right out of "Kung Fu."<<
Heh, heh. Great minds think alike, and all that... ;)
I have to assume you are drinking heavily. If you can't answer me, then don't bother. When you embarrass yourself this way, you also embarrass your fellow Creationists. You low-level insults aren't really cutting it.
Oh yeah, where are those transitional animals? Where is the Horse/Cow or the Frog/Dog?? Hint: There aren't any!
TToE posits no such forms. If you don't know the material you aren't qualified to comment on it. Reading Genesis doesn't tell you anything about TToE (or Astronomy or Physics).
Not on a darwin thread, they hate her.
bray is drunk.
Exactly. The first time I entered one I thought I had wandered into the abandoned DU room of FR.
When you said, "Which statement am I to believe?" I replied, Believe my statments, not your false conclusions. I mean exactly what I say, not what I "seem to confirm".
Then you said, "It's never a straight response with you, is it? You can't even answer my question."
I did answer your question, but apparently not directly. Let me do that now: Believe all my statements.
Problem is, like with so many Darwiniacs, you don't believe what you see and must fall back on what it "seems to confirm", when it only does from your agenda driven perspective.
I mean what I say, and say what I mean. There is very little, if anything, between the lines - usually.
We are dissapointed that she would post such nonsense without checking her facts. She gives ammo to the Left that she didn't need to offer.
In areas she is qualified to speak on, we all love Ann.
>> Not on a darwin thread, they hate her.<<
So do the abortionists. ;)
What your "real life" is in your personal faith is your business. There are so many beliefs. Magnetic bracelets cure gout. Bible prophecy ensures eternal life.
Real life, IMHO means what we live and experience now, with its ups and downs, but has nothing to do with an imagined life after death.
The evidence is all around me. I do not need a god or faith to make it real.
So to be clear, I do not post in jest, but I do enjoy the humor in contradictions and hypocrisy.
Disappointed hardly describes some of the caustic remarks directed at her on Darwin threads and seemingly no where else, except the obvious leftist hate blogs.
Your beliefs are contradictory and thus unreasonable.
You're drunk, or otherwise impaired. Get back to me when you are coherent.
Good point and something I used to think about. It shouldn't be about 'religion' - every one seems to put their own spin on it. It's all about Jesus and how He came to die for ALL our sins. We are all sinners and need a Savior.
A Bible Believing Church (non-sect) teachings are solely based on God's Word and not about 'religion'.
I agree.
Links? Should be pretty easy. Remember, they have to say they HATE Ann.
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