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.
So does the assertion that it took millions of years for the Earth to take it's current form hold up in the arena of "provability?" How so?
History over longer than about 100 year periods has not been observed and verified scientificly either. Anything longer takes trusting evidence not directly observed by any single person. Yet I have no problem believing that human history is in fact longer than 100 years.
Even still, some true believers think the Kerry campaign will be resurrected in Ohio. ;o)
Keep running with that torch, Professor. :)
You honestly believe that evolution predicts that fruit flies could turn into something like a whale in a laboratory?
Fine. Use that skill and review what I requested (more than once): I want your one best quote, from all those you relentlessly spammed into the thread, the one you believe to be the most devastating, so I can examine it in context and frame a response. I'm prepared to deal with your very best argument. I'm not the one who's running away.
If you can't select one, I'll conclude that you don't know what they're talking about. It was really all a sea of meaningless spam, wasn't it?
Read the article in question. It would appear from the discussion that such changes are not so obvious as you claim, given that the process leads, in mice at least, to live births of healthy offspring. The major assumptions on your part are that manipulation would "stick out" (why?), and that they'd be obviously taken from "some other species." Neither of these is necessary.
This simply repeats the previous assertion. You haven't given me any reason why you claim my failure to recognize design is based on ignorance - other than, I suppose, that I fail to recognize evidence of design in nature, which argument is circular.
Your argument has been that there's no design because you wouldn't do it that way; or that what you see doesn't make sense as design. Nothing more or less. While it's probably not to your liking, it's not "circular" to point out the shortcomings of your arguments.
People do claim there are universal design principles.
What people claim that? And of those who might make that claim, do they make the further claim that no other designs are possible than what they, themselves, would recognize?
If you're claiming we can recognize design in nature because it's similar to human design,
Not my claim. I'm claiming, rather, that we have an innate tendancy to accept the possibility of design, because we are designers ourselves. A "natural adaptation" makes sense to us, because we recognize how it satisfies some "design requirement." If you've ever done software, you'll have seen how different programmers will accomplish even the simplest tasks in a variety of very different ways.
you can't reasonably then assert that we can't evaluate design in nature by the same principles we use to evaluate human design.
We certainly can do that -- but we cannot then simultaneously denounce as "idiotic" a purported design that far exceeds the capabilities of what humans can presently achieve. It presupposes knowledge you do not have.
I am trying to refute the entire argument by reduction to absurdity, by pointing out the contradiction between the intelligent designer and manifest inadequacies of the design. They claim life is much too complex and subtle to have arisen by chance; and that since we certainly can't yet make even a bacterium, the designer must be more powerful and smarter than we are, at least. As far as I know, no IDer is claiming the designer could be inept or bumbling.
Then neither you, nor your strawman IDer, is being honest. You, because you're ignoring the factual presence of human intelligent designers; and the strawman IDer, because he does not recognize that the results of human ID are not perfect.
Me, I say nature is profoundly chaotic, and I see that as a reflection of the huge influence randomness had on the origin of species. No contradiction.
Perhaps -- but it's also not science.
Hiking the Grand Canyon is proof enough for any sentient being that the Earth is millions of years old.
I'm not talking about the carving of the canyon itself, which did take at least as long as the time for the local uplift to occur. Because if it had happened in a single mythical "flood", the river would have taken a completly different course along lower terrain.
But I mean the forming of the layers of rock itself. Walking all day in order to get to the bottom, passing layer upon layer of rock of several different types is obvious proof of a considerable length of time.
And then we get into drill cores going down miles.......
Please do not add words that I did not say. One might infer from a continuation of such practices that you are not engaged in an honest discussion.
The theory of evolution explicitly claims that whales evolved from Very Small Non-Mammalian Organisms. (Yes, I realize there's a lot of steps between there and here.) As such, and in the same way, the theory of evolution cannot preclude the possibility that some race of fruit flies may at some point evolve into something whale-like. A smart boy like you could probably even spell out the necessary mutations to make such a thing come to pass.
Not without making assumptions about unobserved, and unobservable phenomena. You may see it as it is, but you cannot see beyond your own experience, let alone millions of years ago. Any sentient being can be a storyteller.
So much of creation science is about not seeing what is there.
You quoted this.
"It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."Patterson said this about that:Personal letter (written 10 April 1979) from Dr Collin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, to Luther D. Sunderland; as quoted in Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, USA, 1984, p. 89.
The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues "... a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."Further explained here. And you see nothing. That "you can't make me see" science is really something.I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false.
He continues to persuade and strengthen the hearts and minds of a large segment of your society. Look around at the evidence of His death and resurrection.
Peruse this site to understand the influence He has had on America.
Primary Source Documents Pertaining to Early American History
It continues with the 2004 election.
I'm no bible expert, but this should be easy to settle. Let's find the garden of eden and ask the angel with the sword of fire if it is all true. Shouldn't he still be guarding it?
They can only operate within the realm of observed history, including perhaps that which has been written by other human observers before our day. Beyond that they are little more than wishful thinkers, and brilliant ones at that. They certainly do not operate under the rules of science in the strict sense of the word when they posit ages beyond obervation and testability. Extrapolations of history based on current experience do not amount to objective fact, let alone science.
You seem to be quite familiar with children's books. In your cut-and-paste definition, you seem to have left out a few choice definitons:
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION 3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art (music theory) 6 a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE
Hey Retro,
Posting material like that might make me wonder whose side you're really on.
Your perception of scientific fact seems to be, "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist". That worked really well a thousand years ago. Using isotopic dating of the sedimentary record remains the most reliable means we have to determine the ages of things far older than human history. Carbon dating remains a reasonably accurate method for dating more recent things. By your definitions, history does not exist. My question to you is, from your perspective, do I exist? :-)
Why the favoritism? Why only a "large segment"? Why not all of us?
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