Posted on 05/25/2006 2:59:09 PM PDT by dukeman
ADF filed friend-of-the-court brief in defense of textbook stickers which accurately stated that evolution is a theory
ATLANTA — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today vacated a lower court decision that declared Cobb County science textbook stickers which stated “evolution is a theory, not a fact” unconstitutional. The court was critical of the district court for issuing its ruling against the stickers despite holes in the evidentiary record in the case and remanded the case back to the district court for new proceedings.
“No school should be in trouble for simply stating the facts. That’s what schools are supposed to do. Though we wish the appeals court would have ruled on the constitutional merits of the case without sending it back to the district court, we are pleased that the district court’s ruling against the school district has been vacated,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster.
In its ruling today, the 11th Circuit wrote, “The problems presented by a record containing significant evidentiary gaps are compounded because at least some key findings of the district court are not supported by the evidence that is contained in the record.” The full text of the court’s ruling in the case Selman v. Cobb County School District can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/CobbCountyDecision.pdf.
The lower court judge agreed that the stickers were not applied to the textbooks for a religious purpose and were devoid of religious content. Nonetheless, he deemed the stickers a violation of the so-called “separation of church and state” for the sole reason that many people were aware that Christians supported the stickers.
According to the friend-of-the-court brief ADF attorneys filed in the case, “The District Court’s analysis will lead to absurd results…. The Establishment Clause was never meant to prohibit the passage of a secular law, for a secular purpose, simply because Christians actively lobbied for the law” (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=3404).
The sticker which had been applied to each textbook read, “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
The porblme with celmak is he's askign questions he doesn't understand, and in fact he understands so little he doesn't realize his questions have been answered. As both Senator Bedfellow and I have posted, UV light is attenuated by water, so if life arose at a depth of 100 m, UV would be absent. Oxygen is produced by photosynthesis, and so could not have preceded life. And hydrolysis of biomolecules is largely entropy driven and is often very slow. Life manages very nicely in an entirely aqueous environment.
"We don't prove theories (and hypotheses) true. We just use the observations to convince ourselves (and others) that we have a good idea. Scientists have a lot of confidence in scientific theories, because they know there is a lot of evidence to back them up."
I thought we used observations to try to disprove the theory. Something about testing the null hypothesis??... It seems to me that you can never prove a theory, but simply fail to disprove it.
<< I thought we used observations to try to disprove the theory. >>
That is correct. I am sure the other poster knows this, too -- and was just not spelling it out that way. When we fail to disprove something, our confidence in the idea grows.
When a theory gets to the point where a huge mass of experiments and observations, from a variety of sources, support it, it becomes extremely difficult to see how it COULD be overturned. But in science -- anything's possible.
Thanks to all for your contributions on this little side-trip. It has helped me a lot.
Now I would appreciate it if Celmak could explain to us how this affects the theory of evolution.
And please be specific.
<< The life you write about has already "evolved" the protection, it cannot begin without the protection. >>
Why not? It began with SOME characteristics. Why not these?
<< The life you write about has already "evolved" the protection, it cannot begin without the protection. >>
Why couldn't it have started WITH the protection to begin with?
Ignore 506 -- I wrote it wrong and hit "send" to quickly.
"Probably" is the key. Science is keen enough to make a physics formula out of what you are saying the amino acids. The problem is that there are over 2,000 types of amino acids, but only 20 are used in life. Further more, the atoms which make up each amino acid are assembled in 2 basic shapes, known as left-handed and right-handed. They basically mirror each other. Without getting into great detail, simply put, amino acids that make up proteins in living things are 100% left-handed. Right handed amino acids are never found in proteins. In other words ordinary undirected chemistry, as in the hypothetical primordial soup (this is what this has to do with Evolution, Almagest. Forgive the shouting) would produce equal mixtures of left-handed molicules and right-handed molecules, called race-mates (J. Sarfati, Ph.D. Chemistry).
OK, tortoise, since you seem up to what I'm talking about, tell me:
1) What happens with a proteins? functions when race-mates are present?
2) How did your "sulfur and methane chemistries" make the jump to having only left-handed acids?
Please cite scources, as I have.
Why not? It began with SOME characteristics. Why not these?
Do you believe in a Creator?
OOPS, sorry. ;)
Here's a link to an answer to the ozone/UV objection:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB030_1.html
It contains some references for further investigation.
<< Without getting into great detail, simply put, amino acids that make up proteins in living things are 100% left-handed. Right handed amino acids are never found in proteins. In other words ordinary undirected chemistry, as in the hypothetical primordial soup...would produce equal mixtures of left-handed molicules and right-handed molecules, called race-mates (J. Sarfati, Ph.D. Chemistry). >>
Not to ridicule, Celmak, but you continue to make that same error in spelling. Perhaps it is just a typo; I have that problem with the word "religion"; I keep leaving out the second "i." Anyway -- just in case: it's "molecules."
Here is an answer from Talk Origins to that objection, with some references for further study:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB040.html
L. Pauling, General Chemistry, 3rd edition, p774.
Darn, forgot the capital "I" ;)
Well, these critters (or their descendents at least) are still around and their genomes are extremely old, per standard genome dating methods. It is a pretty solid guess, but hey, I wasn't there.
With respect to protein chirality and racemization, you seem to have an extremely selective education on the topic of organic chemistry and related areas. Given this observation, I am not sure that any answer I would provide would be all that helpful. You keep posing questions as though they are mysterious, when any decent survey of the field would have provided the answers. I think you would find undergraduate organic chemistry courses very enlightening. You would probably enjoy it.
With all due respect, it sounds like you have not actually studied the subjects at hand but have been fed specious arguments never intended to withstand serious scrutiny by people who actually work in the field. I have not worked in the field in ages and consider the remnants of my chemistry skills quite poor, but even I am wondering what kind of study of the field would lead a person to ask the questions you are asking. There are plenty of mysteries left in biosciences, but you should be looking somewhere other than the basic chemistry.
Belief in God is pretty unrelated to the argument, since we are discussing relatively elementary chemistry. Some topics, such as chirality bias, are modestly more advanced but even those are not inaccessible with a decent chemistry background. Chemistry has no religious overtones for me.
I worked with a Hindu chemist for a while, but as far as I could tell that fact never changed the chemistry. I am not seeing the relevance of religion to this discussion. (Though as a student, I certainly could have used some divine intervention in the chemistry lab on occasion...)
The problem with this is that there are so many "ifs" (likely, very likely, can instead of will,may, etc.). The probability is way beyond its chance of it to occur. Sure, you "may" be able to do it in a lab, but it takes a "Creator" to do it. Give me something that is less than 1-(10-50power) and I'll consider it.
<< The problem with this is that there are so many "ifs" (likely, very likely, can instead of will,may, etc.). >>
You said "cannot." That source in opposition said "can." What is erroneous about the scientific reasoning behind "can" -- and how can you be so sure of "cannot"? It sounds like your "cannot" is religiously based argument, not science.
I see you have chosen to use Dr. Sarfati as your authority in this area. I have read a little Sarfati. He's a very smart man. Other very smart men have refuted his arguments. I have read some of his other arguments -- and I do understand their refutation.
I believe that Sarfati's young-earth-creationism fatally biases his scientific reasoning. I do not really trust Sarfati as a reliable source of information in this area -- but if I wanted advice on chess, I would certainly love to have him on my side.
Life IS here. Life DID arise. Whatever the conditions were -- life arose in those conditions. I don't have a problem with a Creator -- and I don't have a problem without one. If you need the idea of a Creator, that doesn't bother me a bit. But life is here, so it started somehow -- no matter how low the probability was -- with or without that creator.
The probability of an event that HAS HAPPENED is 100% after it has happened.
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