Posted on 08/28/2002 9:36:04 AM PDT by gdani
Making Monkeys Out of Evolutionists
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
It's back-to-school time. That means school supplies, clothes, packing lunches and the annual battle over what can be taught.
The Cobb County, Ga., School Board voted unanimously Aug. 22 to consider a pluralistic approach to the origin of the human race, rather than the mandated theory of evolution. The board will review a proposal which says the district "believes that discussion of disputed views of academic subjects is a necessary element of providing a balanced education, including the study of the origin of the species."
Immediately, pro-evolution forces jumped from their trees and started behaving as if someone had stolen their bananas. Apparently, academic freedom is for other subjects. Godzilla forbid! (This is the closest one may get to mentioning "God" in such a discussion, lest the ACLU intervene, which it has threatened to do in Cobb County, should the school board commit academic freedom. God may be mentioned if His Name modifies "damn." The First Amendment's free speech clause protects such an utterance, we are told by the ACLU. The same First Amendment, according to their twisted logic, allegedly prohibits speaking well of God.)
What do evolutionists fear? If scientific evidence for creation is academically unsound and outrageously untrue, why not present the evidence and allow students to decide which view makes more sense? At the very least, presenting both sides would allow them to better understand the two views. Pro-evolution forces say (and they are saying it again in Cobb County) that no "reputable scientist" believes in the creation model. That is demonstrably untrue. No less a pro-evolution source than Science Digest noted in 1979 that, "scientists who utterly reject Evolution may be one of our fastest-growing controversial minorities . . . Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science." (Larry Hatfield, "Educators Against Darwin.")
In the last 30 years, there's been a wave of books by scientists who do not hold to a Christian-apologetic view on the origins of humanity but who have examined the underpinnings of evolutionary theory and found them to be increasingly suspect. Those who claim no "reputable scientist" holds to a creation model of the universe must want to strip credentials from such giants as Johann Kepler (1571-1630), the founder of physical astronomy. Kepler wrote, "Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
Werner Von Braun (1912-1977), the father of space science, wrote: " . . . the vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science."
Who would argue that these and many other scientists were ignorant about science because they believed in God? Contemporary evolutionists who do so are practicing intellectual slander. Anything involving God, or His works, they believe, is to be censored because humankind must only study ideas it comes up with apart from any other influence. Such thinking led to the Holocaust, communism and a host of other evils conjured up by the deceitful and wicked mind of uncontrolled Man.
There are only two models for the origin of humans: evolution and creation. If creation occurred, it did so just once and there will be no "second acts." If evolution occurs, it does so too slowly to be observed. Both theories are accepted on faith by those who believe in them. Neither theory can be tested scientifically because neither model can be observed or repeated.
Why are believers in one model -- evolution -- seeking to impose their faith on those who hold that there is scientific evidence which supports the other model? It's because they fear they will lose their influence and academic power base after a free and open debate. They are like political dictators who oppose democracy, fearing it will rob them of power.
The parallel views should be taught in Cobb County, Ga., and everywhere else, and let the most persuasive evidence win.
Before you dismiss and revisit your objections to the two stories, please read Genesis Contradictions? I am afraid your professors at Oklahoma Baptist University did you no favors by teaching you that very antiquated concept, long since refuted by competent scholars. Again, please read the linked article - it isn't very long.
Since when can people have a clear understanding of what God is saying to them?
If your contention is true, why did God bother to give us the Scriptures in the first place? No, we cannot understand God completely, but we can understand those things that He has revealed to us.
If that were so, then why aren't all Christians in the same denomination? Are we saved by grace, or is it works?
Accounting for denominations is not that hard to understand. There is no one church organization laid out in Scripture, for instance. There is a considerable gap culturally and historically from the Early Church. And, there is a wide range in tastes in the people of God. Isn't interesting that God is blessing all kinds of churches (which hold to the Word, and the diety of Christ.) Conservative scholars are in agreement that salvation is by grace...only the more liberal churches hold to a works oriented salvation...if they hold to any salvation at all.
Granted there are imperfect interpretations by humans, but God knew that would be the case, as well. And yet somehow, His kingdom has been advancing for 2000 years - even though that advancement has been through the efforts of imperfect humans.
grace and peace
But at that point, it loses all explanatory power, because in that case the "design hypothesis" would be true whether life actually evolved or not. The question of the origin or species would still remain.
You've pointed out a fundamental problem with "intelligent design theory", by the way.
They all relate in some way to the informal usage.
Numerous specific and rigorous objections to Dembski have been posted over and over and over and over on this forum. After all this time, I'm not going to post them YET AGAIN only to have them forgotten the next time the same Dembski references pop up again. Dembski has no credibility and it really chaps my hide to see him polluting a field of mathematics I work in with his utter nonsense, garbage that never fails to get repeated all over the place by people who don't know better.
How can that be a problem? That's like saying the problem with the evolution theory is that everything that 'is' evolved. There are only two logical theories: evolution and creation. One requires everything to have evolved the other requires that everything is created.I don't see that as a problem at all. Or maybe, that is the problem with both, and the difficulty in proving either of them.
What are the requirements for 'knowing better?' Seriously. I'd like to read the book, but if it requires an extensive knowledge of mathematics to understand, I'm out.
Because the public is largely ignorant about science and how it works. We can argue all day the semantics of the words "law" and "theory", but moneyrunner is trying to tell us about how science itself works, and he's wrong.
Most laymen refer to particle accelerators as "atom smashers". If they don't, in fact, smash atoms, it isn't because the scientists who use them are out of step with the public.
And you won't until you do an autopsy on that man. (grin)
Where do these life forms come from?
Why do (or did) people like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, et al, spend a great amount of time discussing that very issue?
Why does every Discovery Channel show talking about evolution begin with the Big Bang and the Origin of life?
There is only one other alternative - Special Creation by a Divine Creator.
Laws and theories are still two different critters in the scientific usage and there is no hierarchy which says that the one should become the other. So it's still true that [l]aws are generalizations, principles or patterns in nature and theories are the explanations of those generalizations (Rhodes & Schaible, 1989; Homer & Rubba, 1979; Campbell, 1953).
Therefore people who claim that XYZ is just a theory commit the fallacy of equivocation because a theory doesn't change into anything else but remains a theory no matter how much evidence there is to back it up.
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