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.
Shirley you're not serious.
That they were, to be sure! (Kind of a prerequisite.) BUT, you miss the point. They were Jewish. You know, real honest-to-goodness Jews by definition, by race, etc.
Were they all Jewish? The Gentiles (Greek) contributed many members to the early Church.
Why not serious? The people Coulter relied on actually accept evolution as a fact. They may believe the game was set up with loaded dice, but they accept the age and history of the earth as described by mainstream biologists.
Dembski's webmaster is my source for this. Other well known evolution critics who accept the fact of evolution include Behe and Michael Denton. Nearly every credentialed biologist in the ID movement accepts evolution as a fact.
If they want to believe god rigged the game, that's OK with me. It makes no difference to the way things work.
The references to the Lord may generally be accepted as Jesus Christ - at least for those who accept Him as Lord.
Also Hebrew names (i.e. Adam = man) have special meanings - if you translate each patriarch named from Adam to Noah you get an interesting 3 sentence sequence describing mankind's need for a Lord and Savior.
Per Genesis 5 genealogy (Thanks to Koinonia House Online)
Adam ~ Man, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,
Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah ~ Rest or Comfort
Man
appointed
mortal
sorrow
The Blessed God
shall come down
teaching
His death shall bring
the despairing
rest, or comfort
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..."
Right, many Gentiles were saved as well. All of the gospels were written either by an apostle (Jewish) or an understudy (Jewish); Paul wrote about a dozen of the books, and he takes great pains to describe his Jewish background; John the Jewish, Beloved disciple (apostle) of course wrote the 3 John Letters and Revelation. The author of Hebrews is not known with certainty, but the title of that book alone argues strongly for a Jewish author - it could have been Paul or maybe Apollos.
How easily you dismiss eternity! The question of whether God exists, and more to the point, if He does whether one has accepted the salvation He offers through His Son Jesus Christ, makes a huge difference in the way things work, not only in eternity, but in this present temporal world as well.
What's a Darwinist?
Well I've seen very many anti-evolutionary arguments based upon Math, Physics, Probability & Statistics, the Laws of Thermodynamics, the Fossil record, etc.
Maybe just start listing the assumptions that must be accpeted in order for evolution to be true? 'Strain at a nat but swallow a camel...'
Basically you need to step out of your purely 'scientific' stance and read some Holy Scripture and related prophecies. Did you know there are many scientific minds that have come to their peace with the Bible and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Saviour simply by trying to dis-prove the Bible?
Psalm 22 is a good place to start. It is believed to have been written by King David (and regardless of which of the several authors attributed to Psalms - all preceded Jesus Christ by centuries) in reference Jesus Christ dying on the cross.
Accepting that King David wrote Psalm 22 than it was prophesied roughly 1000 years before Jesus Christ!
Last - most biblical prophecies are not completely clear to mankind until after the event has come to pass (i.e. the rebirth of Israel as a country in 1948 and Jerusalem as it's capital in 1967 - this type of event is unheard of in the history of other ancient cultures/countries).
*** Pimento placemarker ***
Whatever is meant by Jesus not making a 'big issue' out of taking the Bible literally is actually a very big and foundational issue. Can a house continue to stand against life's storms if the foundation is removed or weakened?
Jesus affirmed much of the Bible through both his words and actions. Plus don't forget that 'everything contained therein is given by God and recorded by man with the intervention of God's Holy Spirit - Sola Scriptura!!!
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. - Robert Heinlein
The true church (also referred to Biblically as saints) is composed of any/all true believers in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. 2 other things: I have met many from various and sundry christian persuasions who I believe are true christian saints but only God knows the true heart and beliefs of those who profess and claim belief in Christ. Paraphrased: Many will come knocking at the door saying Lord Lord and claiming great wonders and miracles in His name and Jesus will say depart because I knew you not.
I tend to agree with your comments here. Also another definition of religion is those beliefs that are manmade (including evolution) while the Bible says that faith is a gift from God. Furthermore, the Bible only talks about religion in the negative except one passage that reads 'true religion is one that cares for the widows and orphans'...
Excellent post RFC_Gal! I couldn't agree more.
Bravo!
Neither is ID or God for that matter.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.