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.
Well of course it is unenlightened. I do not require a magical step in my reasoning process by which truth is revealed. The term "enlightened" is often used in the same fashion that "emergent" is: it is a short way of saying "I am glossing over the reasoning here because I cannot figure out how to do it or make it fit my hypothesis".
Even in my own technical work, if I am reviewing someone's theoretical work those are almost always code words for "I don't have a clue". And unless they can define those kinds of terms strictly with a quickness, I dismiss the theory out of hand. Any fool can come up with a theory where they don't have to explain how it is supposed to work.
An expected consequence of dynamics in a discrete system. Why would you expect there to not be regularities? Such an assertion would make no sense.
That's certainly true, Dave! What I don't understand is why this issue has to be an "either/or" proposition, in the sense that you can only have one, but not both. Certainly we need to be clear about what epistemological/methodological framework we're operating in; i.e., science or philosophy/theology. But I can't help but look at the matter this way: God gave us two revelations, the Holy Scriptures and the "Book of Creation." They are not only NOT in conflict (as Alamo-Girl often points out), but I imagine that they explicate each other. Not that the Bible is a science textbook; but for instance, when I read Genesis 1 and 2, I gain insight into the time problem -- for these two chapters apparently do not operate within the same time construct: It seems to me Genesis 1 unfolds in eternity; Genesis 2 suggests the commencement of time as we humans experience it. Now it has been argued (e.g., by Israeli physicist Avshalom Elitzur et al.) that what physics needs right now is a better understanding of "the time problem." I imagine he's read Genesis -- maybe it would be helpful to reflect on what Genesis 1 and 2 suggest about the "two times."
Anyhoot, both of God's revelations are Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (so to speak). We are invited to consider both -- and when we do, I think we find that the Book of the Word and the Book of Creation (or Nature, if one prefers) cannot be in conflict, or contradict each other in any way.
If, however, we think we do see a conflict nonetheless, perhaps that's because we have not yet penetrated deeply enough into the core of God's Word. There is only one infallible "expert" on the Word of God: And that is God Himself.
If that makes any sense at all! Thank you so much for writing, Dave!
As is eminently proper for you to do for the type of problem you're analyzing. All I'm saying is that not all problems are analyzable in such terms, or according to such procedures. That is the main point I'm trying to get across here. But you've got a really tuff hide, tortoise, like a rhinocerous! :^)
Still you're a lovely correspondent when you want to be -- when you decide to come out of your shell.... :^)
You really put your finger on it here, cornelis. Beautifully said. Thank you so much for the ping!
Convergence such as popular opinion and consent has immense social power. However, many wrong opinions shouldn't be an excuse to ignore the question altogether, especially for those who are able to see that what happens at the far end of the bell curve is just as real as what occurs in the middle.
It's not people and opinions I am referring to. It's convergence of theories and facts. In science, additional facts and observations strengthen and refine theories.
In religion, additional facts, like the revelations of Jesus, Mohammed and John Smith create factions and cults. they do not converge on a common understanding of God.
I think this is an important issue. OWK was always happy to stump anyone by pointing out the numerous gods there are in the world, as if that was enough to discredit monotheism.
With regard to science, I'd say my view of scientific thinking or the prevalence of other and disparate views on a scientific problem should not be any cause to dismiss the problem.
I'm not sure what your view of science, but I'm sure working scientists aren't losing sleep over it.
Science is shaped by what works, not by what is axiomaticlly correct.
There are crimes with planted evidence, crimes with little or no evidence, and almost perfect crimes with manufactured(circumstantial) evidence used to convict the wrong perp.. and other options too..
DNA(Rna/variations), evolution and the big bang.. seem to be unsolvable crimes.. If we only had a Columbo... We don't.. Could be all this evidence is meant to send mankind on a maze.. A maze of discovery.. Hopefully to cause eventually "the rat" to cry out to the maker of the maze.. "ALL RIGHT WHATS IS GOING ON HERE?...
Sure worked with me.. Thats why I know some of the answers to some of these questions.. "I'm a rat in a maze".. with hopes of becoming something better.. To date thats the answer to the deepest question I know.. and I'm grateful.. for that knowledge.. If you don't know you're a rat in a maze you're still a rodent.. (metaphorically)..
I'm glad you made that statement. It pinpoints the deficiency of positivism in science, as if science is enough without philosophy, ethics, or religion. The pretense that such philosophy is irrelevant--and I'm not saying you are one of these debunkers--is pernicious. The argument from manifest success is a deceit if it compels action while it ignores implications. Those who have read Plato's Phaedo will remember the difference between can and should. When they asked Socrates if suicide is permitted, he replied, in effect, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
In short, a science "shaped by what works" suggests a touch more or less than science.
Science doesn't compel action. It just acquires information about how things work. We already know how to kill, maim and torture, and we have known for millennia how to do this for ideological reasons, so science doesn't add much to the arsenal of wickedness.
Arsenal of wickedness placemarker.
Insofar as scientific thinking is shaped by what works, then it certainly compels action.
Give me an example of an action compelled by the discovery of ERVs.
I'll refer you to my previous statement. Thanks for the play by play though. ;-D
I think my previous statement suffices; nothing you've said has provided any convincing evidence to the contrary.
I don't know. Probably for the same reason that secularists of many other stripes do - because they desperately want it to be so. Judgement Day is simply too terrifying to contemplate.
I am sure you have read examples of the statistical improbability of even one amino acid being able to spontaneously form itself. Bad science and tortured logic do not trump common sense.
God (the author of science) does not contradict Himself, either in His written Word the Bible, or by the Living Word (Jesus) or by the geological record, the laws of physics, the biological record, and so forth. Religious charlatans and false teachers/prophets naturally contradict The Truth.
But we are not talking about god. We are talking about the findings of science, which do, in fact contradict to most common literal interpretations of Genesis.
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