Free Republic Poll on Evolution

Free Republic ^ | 22 September 2006 | Vanity

[PatrickHenry]

Free Republic is currently running a poll on this subject:

Do you think creationism or intelligent design should be taught in science classes in secondary public schools as a competing scientific theory to evolution?

You can find the poll at the bottom of your "self search" page, also titled "My Comments," where you go to look for posts you've received.

I don't know what effect -- if any -- the poll will have on the future of this website's science threads. But it's certainly worth while to know the general attitude of the people who frequent this website.

Science isn't a democracy, and the value of scientific theories isn't something that's voted upon. The outcome of this poll won't have any scientific importance. But the poll is important because this is a political website. How we decide to educate our children is a very important issue. It's also important whether the political parties decide to take a position on this. (I don't think they should, but it may be happening anyway.)

If you have an opinion on this subject, go ahead and vote.

[Virginia-American]

Before you mock God regarding ascorbic acid, you better know ALL of its usage conditions in the human body (hint: including the brain).
I won't wait for an answer. I doubt you'd look it up. You are too busy mocking your Creator.

That's certainly a clear and logical explanation of why inserting the same single base pair into our genome, or a chimp's or a baboon's would let us or them make ascorbic acid. Wonder if anyone told Linus Pauling. (who showed large doses aren't poisonous)

[loboinok]

spunket,

It seems that the "activist judges" of the late 20th century and since, have succeeded in convincing conservatives that there really is a "separation of church and state". Revisionism has been largely successful.

You have a conviction concerning the 2nd and rightfully so, but activist judges don't have to worry about the 2nd if they continue in their success in subverting the 1st. They have succeeded in convincing most that the 1st means exactly the opposite of our Founder's intent.

Below are some quotes of our Founders, does it sound to you as though they believed that religion should be separate from our government and institutions?

Read a good article on "Separation of Church and State"

______________________

Fisher Ames

Framer of the First Amendment

Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.

(Source: Fisher Ames, An Oration on the Sublime Virtues of General George Washington (Boston: Young & Minns, 1800), p. 23.)
_______________________

James McHenry

Signer of the Constitution

[P]ublic utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.

(Source: Bernard C. Steiner, One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Maryland Bible Society, 1921), p. 14.)
_______________________

Jedediah Morse

Patriot and "Father of American Geography"

To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.

(Source: Jedidiah Morse, A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1799), p. 9.)
________________________

Benjamin Rush

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

(Source: Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), p. 8.)

We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.

(Source: Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), pp. 93-94.)

By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects. . . . It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published. . . . All systems of religion, morals, and government not founded upon it [the Bible] must perish, and how consoling the thought, it will not only survive the wreck of these systems but the world itself. "The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." [Matthew 1:18]

(Source: Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 936, to John Adams, January 23, 1807.)
__________________________

Daniel Webster

Early American Jurist and Senator
[I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity.

(Source: Daniel Webster, The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1903), Vol. XIII, p. 492. From "The Dignity and Importance of History," February 23, 1852.)
___________________________

James Wilson

Signer of the Constitution

Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The divine law, as discovered by reason and the moral sense, forms an essential part of both.

(Source: James Wilson, The Works of the Honourable James Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, p. 106.)

[Carry_Okie]

Evolution is one of the best supported theories we have.

Compared to Newton's laws? Compared to our understanding of ionic and covalent bonding? Not in my book.

Should we downgrade it from theory to hypothesis because a very narrow group of religious fundamentalists demand it?

No, because it can't explain historic phenomenae as a closed system. When the evos start desperately reaching for comets and meteorites as a source of material, the theory has failed that test. When it can't explain 2.7 billion years of virtually no change followed by the precambiran explosion without major hand-waving, IMO it doesn't deserve status as a theory.

Note that I am not arguing against natural selection, which is observable. I have seen no satisfactory (to me) proof of such a sudden and spontaneous progression from the simple to the complex with virtually no change in complexity or the fundamental nature of animal systems thereafter.

[CarryaBigStick]

I've always felt there was room for both, that science and religion will someday meet on common ground, and reconciled with it personally long ago.

Extremism on both sides of this argument is counter-productive.

I'll pass on this one.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Well you see, evolution is not a belief, it is an understanding of the evidence, and the scientific method.

You do not understand either of those things.

You have chosen your faith above logic and undertanding.

You ignore evidence, because of your faith, or lack thereof.

Because only the weak of religious faith, would attack scientific evidence to the contrary.

[SoldierDad]

If you had taken the time to read other posts I have made you'd see your assumptions about me were incorrect. However, you've chosen to judge me on only a small amount of evidence. Hmmm, seems like I've been arguing that all night.

[Liberal Classic]

Well, count your blessings. At least no one's called you a idolator or member of Al Qaeda.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

I have read all of your posts on this thread.

I am not impressed, to say the least.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Or a liberal, or a nazi, or atheist amoral cretin or some other such nonsense, but I am sure that someone will make up for their oversight.

[Liberal Classic]

Well, I am a liberal. So there.

[SoldierDad]

Well, thank God. Since I was never out to "impress" you, I'd say I haven't failed.

Since you seem to ignore those posts in which I comment on my acceptance that evolution is a legitimate area of inquiry, then I can only guess that you too are biased against anything which falls outside the narrow field.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

But you are a classic liberal, just as my classic muscle car.

Not many of you left, but worth your weight in gold.

[Liberal Classic]

Nah, I am a troll just waiting to be zotted. The mods are five years too slow. Every knows real Republicans don't believe in that evolution BS.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

LOL, whatever you say.

Tell your son that I thank him for his service, and I thank you for raising a son that has the wherewithal to serve his country.

You may be completely out there when it comes to the science of evolution, but as a father, I would say that you have made the grade, plus some.

[King Prout]

ALLRIGHTY THEN... the weekend is over.

The components of a machine can be all noted, along with their configuration. But to know all that provides no basis of explanation for the machine when it is actually working. And that, I imagine, is Bohr's point.

a neoPlatonist should not presume to speak for, say, machinists or mechanics. rest assured, those of us who know machines are quite able to derive the function of an assembled machine by examination of its components - provided they function on mechanical principles with which we have some familiarity. we do things like that all the time.

It seems to me that Bohr was stating that there was in his time no means of examining each atom of an organism simultaneously without killing the organism, stopping the process under observation, and thus rendering the attempted examination moot. He was correct: there was no means in his time to do the deed in a utile manner. Nor is there on eyet today. However, given the rather dramatic improvement in non-invasive scanning and monitoring technology in the last seventy years, I would not bet against the eventual development of just such a technique.

[taxesareforever]

Also, do you believe that it would be appropriate to teach a non-scientific "creation account" in a science classroom?

Would be a whole lot better than teaching the lie of evolution. I thought schools were for education and not indoctrination.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

Would be a whole lot better than teaching the lie of evolution. I thought schools were for education and not indoctrination.

Ya think?

I am sorry, but you people can't have it both ways.

Either you want your children taught facts and evidence, and the ability to think for themselves, or you don't.

Teaching them "science" that isn't science, is indoctrination, not education.

The teaching of evolution as the only scientific theory that explains the evidence, is the teaching of science.

To teach ID as some sort of scientific competition to evolution, is indoctrination, whether you care to admit it or not.

[Coyoteman]

Would be a whole lot better than teaching the lie of evolution. I thought schools were for education and not indoctrination.

Based on your past posts, you don't know the difference between education and indoctrination.

I, for one, would not post on these threads supporting slavery. If you want, I can provide the link where you did just that.

I have just as much trust in your views on evolution (i.e., none).

[taxesareforever]

In science, a theory is a major idea that is supported by numerous observations and/or experiments and that explains a broad range of phenomena. In everyday language, the word theory is used as a synonym for a hypothesis, a guess, a hope, a bias, or even a wild idea

I must say that evolution falls under everyday language.

[taxesareforever]

Wow, you have a memory like a steel trap. Last guy I knew who had one like that snapped.