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.
"Why should unscientific theories be taught in science class?"
Point to where I said any theory other than evolution should be taught in a science class.
The point I'm trying to make, and obviously am failing at, is that the evolution side of the debate, does not want it's theory questioned in any class. it wants it taught as fact, the only fact, the all encompassing fact regardless of any kind of evidence to the contrary.
i.e it won't allow for it to be questioned by the teacher/instructor.
What's wrong with this picture?
The only reason you want this "discussion" is because you want to substitue science with mysticism. I have no more need of proving evolution to you than I have of proving the value a human life to a Muslim or the value of walking to a snake.
For one that believes the Bible is not inerrant, you have a lot of questions.
Another assumption. I never said the Bible was not inerrant.
I guess this means you won't answer my question.
Merely shows you have NOT read God's Living Word nor believe in His Son, Jesus Christ.
I have read the Bible, and no, I don't believe that God sacrificed his son to purify us.
Therefore, you are incapable of having Truth of God's awesome Creation but merely a puppet of deaddarwin's beliefs.
I am no puppet and I know what truth I need to.
That is a trade, not science.
For one that believes the Bible is not inerrant, you have a lot of questions.
I got "errant" and "inerrant" mixed up.
IOW, I believe the Bible is flawed.
We did our best while waiting for you.
Poor Ignatz. He doesn't make it into the elite, because he just does engineering or applied science. A mere tradesman, like a plumber. /sarc
I wonder how many of the evo-obsessed who post here do original scientific research, rather than just teaching?
Many research scientists would drool at the chance to overthrow an established theory like evolution. That's a path to fame, glory, and maybe a Nobel Prize, and very exciting to boot. Physicists always seem to be trying to transcend existing theory.
Thomas Sowell she is not.
I learn concepts from Sowell's and Steyn's columns, but not from hers. I just learn good zingers from her.
Pilot -- you mean Pilate?
HAH! I KNOW God exists... and I accept the evidence for ToE.
Well, Bibliolatry is definitely a religion.
RFC, you will learn that being a CR/IDer means never having to back up your assertions.
There are also witnesses to alien abductions.
Not true.
Does this apply only to the founding of colleges, or to anything a church-goer might do?
Not exclusively.
You can add University of Southern California to the list.
No worries - I'll happily ignore you from now on. Have a nice weekend!
There are somewhat similar concepts in some other religions, but the statement that you should "love your neighbor as yourself" came from Jesus. Anyway, the charitable works of Christians and Christian churches dwarf those of other religions, let alone those of atheists.
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