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.
There was a blank space between the lines. What did you read into it?
What response ?
stuff it ?
That's way too clever.
It's not my "personal beliefs" that Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Science are not Christian. It's inherent in their own self-proclaimed scriptures, and their statements about the nature of Christ, which differ (esp. in the case of JWs) from Jesus' own statements, which are the basis for my beliefs, not my personal tastes.
Christian Science appears to be dying out. Mormonism is growing rapidly. However, these 3 sects are still small compared to orthodox Christianity.
The idea that anyone can cook up his own "personal belief system" is known as cultural relativism, and is more commonly associated with the Left than with conservatism.
Some Christian groups do have problems with the TOE, some don't. I think all of them would have problems with a view of human nature based on nothing but the TOE and other scientific concepts. I also think the history of the 20th century, with scores of millions killed by atheistic totalitarian systems heavily influenced by Darwinian thinking, shows why. Again, ideas and worldviews have consequences. I think you can find numerous mocking, sarcastic jibes at organized Christianity in this thread and in many other crevo threads.
I called your 'mocking Christianity' and now you are raising me with 'millions killed by atheistic totalitarian systems heavily influenced by Darwinian thinking'.
Okay, I'll call that. You are not mocking Evolution. You are blaming it for all the evil of the 20th century. And your assertion is laughable. No thinking rational person would believe this, any more than any thinking rational person would believe that the Holocaust didn't happen. At least now you know where you fit in, if you really believe the nonsense you posted.
That is not an insult -- it is a critique of God.
You may not like it but it is not an insult in any way, shape or form.
Is this not an insult or do you need more examples?
"And if you either don't do it His way, or refuse to believe that it even is His way He throws you into a lake of fire for all of eternity. He is only loving when worshipped.
Petulant."
As for the rest those are my observations of Darwiniacs. Now where did they hide all those millions of transitional species??
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
Yes indeed. The one between your brain and your keyboard.
Heres one:"And if you either don't do it His way, or refuse to believe that it even is His way He throws you into a lake of fire for all of eternity. He is only loving when worshipped. Petulant".
That is not an insult. It is an observation that I obtained from reading the Bible, probably more times than you have.
And calling people a liar on these forums will most certainly get you banned or suspended. It happens all the time.
And these are just critiques of your god, science. Your faith is far greater than mine. Why do you not even question Darwinism when it has so many holes??
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
When I mentioned I had studied evolution, fossil man (and human osteology) I meant at the graduate school level. I studied these fields there for six years, and they was half of the subjects on my exams.
I prefer to believe God's word. The foundation of the Judeo/Christian religion is the Ten Commandments. Moses went up on the mountain and God wrote the Ten Commandments with his own hand. Included in what was written are these words:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:11 KJV)
That doesn't leave a lot of room for evolutionary theory. We can twist the words to mean practically nothing, but twisting the ten commandments is a good way to twist yourself into a bad position. God says he did it in six days. Everything. And in Genesis chapter one the Bible states that God created everything after its own kind. He didn't let everything evolve from one kind to another. You really have to twist the meanings of the words to get that from Genesis.
It may seem impossible that God created the heavens and the earth and all that in them is in 6 days. But he said he did. So we can believe God or we can choose to not believe. But he wrote it with his own hand. That is something we really need to ponder before we go off and claim that he didn't do it.
Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. Ask yourself, do you believe God?
It was their one-and-only contribution to civilization.
Don't forget Ibn Khaldun.
So your a High Priest of the Cult of Evolution. No wonder you can't afford to question it. Fact is it cannot be proved after 200 years of twisting evidence.
Now you going to bring up all the scientists believe it so it must be true? Kinda like saying all the Stone-age press believes Bush lost the election so it must be true.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Shalom Israel
It is a cult because it is nothing more than a myth that most of science and liberalism believes in. It has no more basis than God and actually less. Until it is proven it is nothing more than a religion. Since it is a godless religion it is a cult.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Shalom Israel
Again, why do you consider supporters of the theory of evolution constitute a cult?" should be "Again, why do you consider supporters of the theory of evolution to constitute a cult?"
Exactly.
That is the critical question. Will we go along with God when He comes during our life to open our eyes or will we resist Him?
That's the critical question of life.
Resist or accept.
Those who believe the Son shall see life; those who do not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on them.
I've never thought that Coulter was that good of a commentator-analyst. She's good at polemics and verbal bomb-lobbing but in fifty years, I doubt anyone will remember much of anything she's written.
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