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.
If the notion that phenomena such as light may be emergent qualities of phase states of the universe (and that is radical to modern Physics) is not a big idea, then I am at a loss to see what big ideas would impress your science twinge. Along the same vein of light being an emergent quality of the universe, we could also conjecture that the advent of life is an emergent quality of the Creation, and that the advent of spirit mixed into the universe is an emergent quality ... emergent doesn't mean it isn't something The Creator is doing as a creative act in the nature of the universe He has created in such a finely tuned state.
The journal that published his 1905 papers, Annalen der Physik, was the leading physics journal of the day. Among the editors who reviewed his submissions were Nobel laureate Wilhelm Roentgen, who discovered X-rays, and Max Planck, another Nobel winner, who came as close to matching Einstein in sheer brain power as anyone else ever did. If such esteemed editors found merit in the theories of the government clerk then, Schulmann said, it is likely that they would do so today.
But even Schulmann said it would be an iffy proposition. Much of Einstein’s work was multidisciplinary and abstract, while physics today is focused and empirical.
Exactly! Thank you so much for your post!
I do have one remark for your sidebar with tortoise:
To the contrary, all observers "in" space/time do suffer, in some degree, an "observer problem" - and thus objectivity can only be related to a finite, defined "system."
Objective truth concerning "all that there is" cannot be obtained from within space/time.
all I was pointing out is that many of the well known scientists of the past and many today are and were creationists. That's not a canard nor is it dishonest. It's just a simple truth. And if the TOE were present in Newton's day I have no doubt he would have seen the falicy of it very clearly.
you don't know the actual numbers of creation scientists who see the falicy of toe so your numbers don't mean much. And yes, those many bright scientists have much more than qualms...they are actively exposing the holes in toe. The way you write about other scientists who are not going along with toe shows a kind of predjudice you have that's weird. I hope you will be a bit more fair minded and not so haughty.
Hrmm... What we have here, is a failure to communicate. I said the opposite. The observer has a completely subjective view (I never assume otherwise), which is why the potential for gross manipulation exists in the first place. He can be made to observe whatever a sufficiently higher being wishes him to.
Just so you all know where I stand, I *am* an either/or kinda gal, and though when I was first saved I did not see a problem with evolution having a place post-Creation, I now know without qualm or doubt or equivocation that Creation was a one-time event and that there is no "evolution" as defined by "Science"/scientists. I know a lot of things now that I didn't know then!
One's understanding, concepts, ideas, dreams, hopes, cares, plans "evolve" over time, but not the created beings who have them, unless one considers the aging process or weight gain/loss, etc. to be forms of "evolution." Similarly, cross-breeding (organic or imposed) produces a sort of "evolution" but this is not the same sort of evolution which is generally discussed on these threads.
Hope that sets me apart and sets my position straight with you all whom I so admire and love! (:
when one cannot spell fallacy, it seems doubtful one can recognize one.
and, yes: it IS dishonest to lump people on one or another side of a modern argument who were dead long prior to the development of the terms of the modern argument.
as to Newton, specifically: if I recall correctly, he spent much of the latter half of his life in a vain attempt to codify metaphysics, alchemy, and magic. so, yeah: had he the option, he *might* have been silly enough to buy into creationism.
"creation scientists" do not use a scientific method and do not conduct scientific research when acting as "creation scientists"
"creation science" has as its principal axiom the inerrancy of Scripture in its literal text. A corollary of this is the requirement to fit all observations of reality into that axiomatic viewpoint.
This is called "starting from a conclusion"
This is theology, or philosophy (at best). It is not science. Indeed, it is anti-science.
Such rubbish leads to the production of static and erroneous Bestiaries, rather than accurate observations of nature.
and, AGAIN, I note that you have not yet attempted to address the three specific question I posed to you several days ago, despite numerous reminders.
refusal to address pointed questions relating to your axiomatic assertions does not augur well for your claims of good faith and honesty, fabian.
If you don't believe in computers, that's fine with me.
Physical cosmologies are not "big thoughts" in my book simply because they adhere to methodological naturalism, i.e. the "system" under investigation is a reduced view of "all that there is".
"Big thinking" in my book requires laying aside such presuppositions.
Thus, to me, the term "gross manipulation" is a mischaracterization - it suggests the Creator is devious in making creatures lower than Himself.
Rather I find it particularly revealing that He begat His Son first and then everything that was made was made through the Son, Jesus Christ, Logos, the living Word of God - through Him and for Him. Thus there is no firm boundary line between the Father and the Son, the Son is the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of His person and upholds all things by the Word of His power. When we know the Son, we know the Father - and the Son is revealed to us through the indwelling Spirit - thus there is nothing devious going on here, two witnesses to the other on every facet of the Trinity.
Of course it doesn't help those who are not listening to, or cannot hear, the Witnesses.
And thank you and tortoise for the humorous sidebar exchange following. LOL!
How conveniently did the turtle remove itself from the observer dichotomy... Evidentially there are mini views of observer status and maxi views.. Whether mini or maxi the observer remains the observer and not the source..
It takes, I think, humility to see you're merely an observer.. observing things most of which you will never understand.. because you're observing with flawed or sub standard equipment.. which is the point.. What you are observeing mostly (or want to observe) is hidden from you..
Dark energy/matter as an example.. Awareness what is that?.. Rocks don't have awareness.. Dead bodies(dna) don't have awareness.. Even living bodies have degrees of awareness.. I calls it spirit.. My experience to date is awareness is the degree of gratitude you have.. More awareness more gratitude, less awareness less gratitude.. And somehow gratitude has joy as a secondary reaction..
What you observe effects you're gratitude and joy in some way.. and thats intelligent.. The lack of gratitude and joy is a lack of intelligence.. being a witness of gratitude and joy in others makes one think.. but its not intelligence.. If what you're observeing does not bring gratitude and joy, therefore awareness, what you're observeing is stupid.. Sad to say many are stuck on stupid.. Could be the very test humans are put on this earth to accomplish.. and will too..
Why?... Dunno.. maybe some future event requiring much gratitude and joy.. i.e. awareness/intelligence.. If so what a plan.. A plan to separate the aware from the unaware.. Now thats evolution.. Survival of the most aware..
<tortoise sings>
Love is in the air
Everywhere I look around
Love is in the air
Every sight and every sound
...
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