Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
In a poll released last week, two-thirds of Americans said they wanted to see creationism taught to public-school science pupils alongside evolution. Thirty-seven percent said they wanted to see creationism taught instead of evolution.
So why shouldn't majority rule? That's democracy, right?
Wrong. Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts, an approach that must be preserved and fought for if American pupils are going to get the kind of education they need to complete in an increasingly global techno-economy.
Unfortunately, the debate over evolution and creationism is back, with a spiffy new look and a mass of plausible-sounding talking points, traveling under the seemingly secular name of "intelligent design."
This "theory" doesn't spend much time pondering which intelligence did the designing. Instead, it backwards-engineers its way into a complicated rationale, capitalizing on a few biological oddities to "prove" life could not have evolved by natural selection.
On the strength of this redesigned premise -- what Wired Magazine dubbed "creationism in a lab coat" -- school districts across the country are being bombarded by activists seeking to have their version given equal footing with established evolutionary theory in biology textbooks. School boards in Ohio, Georgia and most recently Dover, Pa., have all succumbed.
There's no problem with letting pupils know that debate exists over the origin of man, along with other animal and plant life. But peddling junk science in the name of "furthering the discussion" won't help their search for knowledge. Instead, pupils should be given a framework for understanding the gaps in evidence and credibility between the two camps.
A lot of the confusion springs from use of the word "theory" itself. Used in science, it signifies a maxim that is believed to be true, but has not been directly observed. Since evolution takes place over millions of years, it would be inaccurate to say that man has directly observed it -- but it is reasonable to say that evolution is thoroughly supported by a vast weight of scientific evidence and research.
That's not to say it's irrefutable. Some day, scientists may find enough evidence to mount a credible challenge to evolutionary theory -- in fact, some of Charles Darwin's original suppositions have been successfully challenged.
But that day has not come. As a theory, intelligent design is not ready to steal, or even share, the spotlight, and it's unfair to burden children with pseudoscience to further an agenda that is more political than academic.
In that case I agree.
What I'm claiming is that intuition, when it really is valuable and reproducible, is generally a distillation of a set of empirical rules-of-thumb that can be formulated rationally. So if we can really detect design by intuition, we should be able to describe a rational process for detecting it. Dembski and his acolytes have so far failed to do so. You probably make things, right? If so, haven't you ever achieved the same functionality with a different design? I know I have. Likewise, I have also used a similar design feature to perform very different tasks -- just as you probably have.
Sure. On the other hand, I generally evaluate the two designs, and either pick one, or if they both have merits, settle on a logical set of rules for when to use one rather than the other. Why would I choose one wing design for all birds - from hovering birds to soaring birds to birds that don't fly at all, and from big birds to tiny birds - and then another design for bats, from big fruit bats to tiny myotis bats, from bats that eat fruit all day to predatory bats, and even vampire bats that suck mammalian blood? Form should follow function.
Of course, you could argue he did all the birds on day 4 or whatever (too lazy to look it up), and by day 6 he had a better design, which he used for the bats. Except there are some things he did with the birds that look way better than what he did with the bats - hollow bones, the sternum, the feathers. So maybe he, contrary to the fave creation myth on FR, did the bats first. But then, why not incorporate that superb echolocation system he cooked up for the bats for the nightjars (birds that fly around at night eating insects).
Look closely at the 'design', and very little of it makes sense. It's much less plausible if you look at the living world in toto. You could, I suppose, invoke a brilliant but extremely forgetful, or quixotic, or maliciously playful designer, but when I propose that a class on ID should look at these aspects of the supposed design - Loki as designer, if you like - all of a sudden the proponents of the supposedly scientific nature of ID throw up their hands in horror and use words like blasphemy.
That is, BTW, the reason why I don't accept the separateness of ID and creationism. The former is a Trojan Horse for the latter. It is possible that a few people like the Trojan Horse for its own aesthetic qualities, and not because it's full of hostiles, but IMO they're unwitting souls being taken for a ride.
Actually my degree is in Forestry. I have had many biology classes. And I have done extensive research on the subject, outside of class.
Leading scientists on the subject of Darwinism suggest that evolution is "non-directed." We have learned from the Bible that God's actions always have diretion.
There are plenty more examples of this, but if evolution says nothing of "creation." Then why should creation not be taught in the schools?
Nobody is saying that creation shouldn't be taught in schools, just that it should be taught in religous education classes, not science classes.
Leading scientists may be a bit misleading on the subject. I don't believe the question of whether there is direction or purpose in evolution is a proper question for science. A hypothesis that there is (or isn't) direction in evolution is unfalsifiable. I think that this is just scientists giving their own opinions. Actually, directionlessness is no more an inherent part of evolution than is atheism. As far as teaching creationism in science, it still isn't science because it's unfalsifiable. I do not say that it shouldn't be taught in schools, just not as a part of a science class. (Perhaps some type of comparitive religion class would be an appropriate venue)
> So, you're telling me there has to be a whole bunch of mutations, all at once, to make a new species?
No. It seems you are woefully ignorant.
> There are no truly intelligent Christians.
If you say so. I've known many who devoutly believed in God and held that Jesus died for their sins and that finding and accepting Jesus was the only way to gain salvation... and who didn't hold with the ignorant nonsense that is Creationism. Creationists make real Christians look bad, and work against not only Conservative politics, but also against the growth of the Christian faith.
>>Most everybody looks atthe world and see something quite different than what you claim to see.
> Yes, that's the sad truth. I fail to see your point, though.
Color me stunned. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen" And yet... the Christian God's qualities are manifestly NOT "clearly seen." Most people look at the world and don't come away Christian. Most scientists, however, look at the world and come away evolutionists... while most also retain the religious faith of their upbringing.
It's really quite simple. God cannot lie.
I understood your point, but we both also understand that the "who designed the designer" questions are supposed to build up a logical chain to the "inevitable" conclusion that "there is no God."
However, the question is actually irrelevant to the question of life on Earth -- which is the only evidence we have of life in the universe, however it came to be. The unspoken assumption seems to be that there is no other possible type of life: which seems a rather presumptuous claim.
Looking at life on Earth, the bottom line is this: there's no reason for us to rule out the possibility that intelligent designers played at least some role (not necessarily an exclusive, or even a predominant role) on the way life has turned out here. The best reason for not tossing out that possibility is that we humans have been doing intelligent design for millenia.
The real issue here is not science per se, but rather the problem of underlying assumptions. The whole Evolution/Creation/ID debate hinges on certain assumptions about The Way Things Are, and at that level the discussion is almost never "scientific."
I'm getting tired of the foolishness on these Creationism threads and getting a bit sarcastic. The belief that God could not have created Evolution is about as dumb as the old arguments about how many angles could fit on the head of a pin.
If we must have "Intelligent Design" taught in Government schools, then obviously space aliens must be one of the possible designers. The fact that such discussions with young people in government schools are something that Creationists want to happen are by far the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
Every generation thinks that they are the smartest. This generation of Christians believes itself to be smarter than Christians of 75 years ago, that fought against science and Evolution, and lost badly. That fight cost Christianity credibility in the 50's, and 60's as students studied the "monkey trial" and we are reaping the fruits of that failure today. Yet Christians are gleefully re-starting this fight, recently in Kansas, and refuse to comprehend how it will damage them in the years ahead.
A co-worker of mine, a Phd in mathematics, hates George Bush with a passion. The focus of his hatred is that George Bush is a Christian that he thinks will try to make his children pray in school and learn Creationism.
This is how Christians are damaging themselves (driving people away from God because of silly scientific arguments). And damaging their own interests (such as fighting abortion) by forcing the teaching of Creationism, which isn't even central to following God's will in any religious denomination I know of.
"Religion" won this last election, because it was about general decency, where pretty much everyone can agree on. But when Hillary Clinton makes the election on fighting Creationism, she will win. Because like Gay Marriage for the Democrats, Creationism is a looser issue for Republicans.
It might play in one corner of Kansas (like Gary Marriage in NYC), but that's as far as it will get.
I know you darwinites operate on faith, but try to be logical
I continue to look forward to your response.
You mean, recorded history?
You're neglecting a great deal of anthropogenic bias here. First of all, we're spending much more time looking for extinction rather than looking for speciation; and we're hyping the former. And second, we really are changing the world rapidly, and therefore may well be killing species off faster than we're causing new species to evolve. The question needs to be answered over the long term.
If I wanted to argue dishonestly here, I'd claim that, for example, there are more species of wild birds in the continental US now than there were in 1904. In that time we've lost three undisputed species - the passenger pigeon, ivory-billed woodpecker, and Bachman's warbler - but we've gained at least 8 new species of crossbill. Now, it is likely all that happened with the crossbills is that we noticed that superficially similar crossbills are actually divided into 9 different groups that don't interbreed, but the fact is that much speciation is a gradual process, and it's arbitrary where we draw the line. So were there 9 species of common crossbill in 1900? I don't know, and no-one else does either.
I am pointing out that your quoted PhD, who has no training in biology, is not only opining on the validity of evolution via quoting others (like Behe and his "groundbreaking" book), but producing anti-evolution films as well.
It vaguely reminds me of Michael Moore's "documentaries".
Who exactly is saying that God lied? There are many interpretations of the Scriptures that are held by many people. Are you saying that yours in the only one that could possibly be correct? Is it impossible that you have misunderstood something in the Bible? There are interpretations of the Scriptures that are perfectly compatible with evolution, so if you believe that evolution implies that God lied, you must believe that your interpretation is the only one that could possibly be valid. I have even shown how, with the proper understanding of the nature of time as explained by the general theory of relativity, a literal interpretation of the creation story in Genesis is compatible with modern science.
I see you did not read what I actually typed.
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