Posted on 07/27/2006 3:00:03 PM PDT by BrandtMichaels
What are Darwinists so afraid of?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jonathan Witt © 2006
As a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the '90s, I found that my professors came in all stripes, and that lazy ideas didn't get off easy. If some professor wanted to preach the virtues of communism after it had failed miserably in the Soviet Union, he was free to do so, but students were also free to hear from other professors who critically analyzed that position.
Conversely, students who believed capitalism and democracy were the great engines of human progress had to grapple with the best arguments against that view, meaning that in the end, they were better able to defend their beliefs.
Such a free marketplace of ideas is crucial to a solid education, and it's what the current Kansas science standards promote. These standards, like those adopted in other states and supported by a three-to-one margin among U.S. voters, don't call for teaching intelligent design. They call for schools to equip students to critically analyze modern evolutionary theory by teaching the evidence both for and against it.
The standards are good for students and good for science.
Some want to protect Darwinism from the competitive marketplace by overturning the critical-analysis standards. My hope is that these efforts will merely lead students to ask, What's the evidence they don't want us to see?
Under the new standards, they'll get an answer. For starters, many high-school biology textbooks have presented Haeckel's 19th century embryo drawings, the four-winged fruit fly, peppered moths hidden on tree trunks and the evolving beak of the Galapagos finch as knockdown evidence for Darwinian evolution. What they don't tell students is that these icons of evolution have been discredited, not by Christian fundamentalists but by mainstream evolutionists.
We now know that 1) Haeckel faked his embryo drawings; 2) Anatomically mutant fruit flies are always dysfunctional; 3) Peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks (the photographs were staged); and 4) the finch beaks returned to normal after the rains returned – no net evolution occurred. Like many species, the average size fluctuates within a given range.
This is microevolution, the age-old observation of change within species. Macroevolution refers to the evolution of fundamentally new body plans and anatomical parts. Biology textbooks use instances of microevolution such as the Galapagos finches to paper over the fact that biologists have never observed, or even described in theoretical terms, a detailed, continually functional pathway to fundamentally new forms like mammals, wings and bats. This is significant because modern Darwinism claims that all life evolved from a common ancestor by a series of tiny, useful genetic mutations.
Textbooks also trumpet a few "missing links" discovered between groups. What they don't mention is that Darwin's theory requires untold millions of missing links, evolving one tiny step at a time. Yes, the fossil record is incomplete, but even mainstream evolutionists have asked, why is it selectively incomplete in just those places where the need for evidence is most crucial?
Opponents of the new science standards don't want Kansas high-school students grappling with that question. They argue that such problems aren't worth bothering with because Darwinism is supported by "overwhelming evidence." But if the evidence is overwhelming, why shield the theory from informed critical analysis? Why the campaign to mischaracterize the current standards and replace them with a plan to spoon-feed students Darwinian pabulum strained of uncooperative evidence?
The truly confident Darwinist should be eager to tell students, "Hey, notice these crucial unsolved problems in modern evolutionary theory. Maybe one day you'll be one of the scientists who discovers a solution."
Confidence is as confidence does.
Trivial? You think the creation of the universe and the creation of life is trivial? Let's see you do it.
God stated flatly that he is a jealous God and that you are to have no other gods beside him. You trivilize his creation as if it is something that could occur in the absence of any creator. You have made "mother nature" your God. You have made chance your God. You have made everything other than God your god. IOW you have placed the creation above the creator. You think He's ok with that?
Evolutionists and global warming advocates fear competition of ideas which is why they bristle at anyone challenging their ideas and demand that only their viewpoints be taught to children.
The Big Bang !
A day, without a yesterday !
It isn't just a matter of trivializing. It is the equivalent of shamelessly spitting in the face of someone who not only gave you life in the first place, but also saved your life.
As do Christians.
Christian and rational are not, IMO, mutually exclusive attributes. IMO, the leadership of most Christian religions have taken a rational position on the religion/science relationship.
No other gods before Him. Apparently He didn't mind sharing, He just didn't like being upstaged.
This of course brings up the fact that the Bible specifically states that there are other Gods...
Bad link.
demiurges...
Corrected downthread. And again here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
There is a complete lack of critical thinking in most people.
Evolutionists and global warming advocates fear competition of ideas which is why they bristle at anyone challenging their ideas and demand that only their viewpoints be taught to children.
We are talking about evolution here. And I'll repeat....there is not a competition of ideas regarding evolution... And what rational people fear from fanatical Creationists who try to force their ideas into high school science classes and into the law of the land is....
..ignorance and irrationality. Rational people fear the influence, advance, triumph, and tyranny of ignorance, for very good reasons. This is based on the history of human behavior under the influence of ignorance, superstition, irrational fear, and religious fanaticism.
What's a "Darwinist?" Outside of the Creationist/ID community it is not used.
But Gods nonetheless...
Yes and of course God guided the content of the Bible from the thousand and thousands of manuscripts of the time?
"and what IF....the origin of life IS a designer which is untestable by human science?
What if?"
Then said designer is outside the realm of science and should not be taught in a science classroom, any more than the claim that invisible unicorns hold up the clouds.
"Has science no interest in this possibility?"
Scientists are not interested (rightly so, too) in untestable claims. Anybody can make an untestable claim.
"To deny it as a possibility ... is quite limiting. Don't you think?"
It's not denied as a possibility. It's denied as being testable and having any value in the pursuit of knowledge.
"This is my definition of open mindedness."
Good for you.
"This is where scientists who are willing to be open to all possibilities (ID) seem to be taking the lead, especially via discoveries in cosmology."
ID, being an untestable claim, is not leading to any new knowledge.
I was fooled by your use of only Creationist language in your posts.
"Trivial? You think the creation of the universe and the creation of life is trivial? Let's see you do it."
What should be trivial for such a powerful being is whether we fully understand that creation. To be so offended that he sentences us to eternal torment because we get it wrong is not the sign of a wise, understanding God but of a whiny adolescent.
"God stated flatly that he is a jealous God and that you are to have no other gods beside him."
See above about whiny adolescents...
um... hate to say this, but that is by far their prevailing belief...
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