Free Republic Poll on Evolution

Free Republic ^ | 22 September 2006 | Vanity

[PatrickHenry]

Free Republic is currently running a poll on this subject:

Do you think creationism or intelligent design should be taught in science classes in secondary public schools as a competing scientific theory to evolution?

You can find the poll at the bottom of your "self search" page, also titled "My Comments," where you go to look for posts you've received.

I don't know what effect -- if any -- the poll will have on the future of this website's science threads. But it's certainly worth while to know the general attitude of the people who frequent this website.

Science isn't a democracy, and the value of scientific theories isn't something that's voted upon. The outcome of this poll won't have any scientific importance. But the poll is important because this is a political website. How we decide to educate our children is a very important issue. It's also important whether the political parties decide to take a position on this. (I don't think they should, but it may be happening anyway.)

If you have an opinion on this subject, go ahead and vote.

[Quix]

True, true.

You have my empathy and prayers for your situation, too.

Thanks.

[Virginia-American]

[I thought I'd already replied, but I don't see it now]

Dawkins is wrong on this point. Evolution has never been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

False. The theory is used to make predictions about what will be found in lab and field observations. So far, these predictions have been correct. A recent one was where to dig to find a fish-amphibian intermediate. Other things that were predicted using the ToE, and later found, include fossil monotremes in Antarctica, fossil ape-human intermediates in Africa, and the distribution of genetic markers amongst various species. The theory has passed thousands of tests involving many different animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms. This is confirmation to a very high order, and can be considered as "beyond a reasonable doubt"

If you have particular doubts about the ToE, please explain them and I will attempt to show that they're not reasonable.

Based on the fact that evolution has never been proven beyond a reasonable doubt this whole statement is "ignorant, stupid or insane" [you forgot wicked] and shows how biased he is on the issue.

I disagree. I'd say his statement is more of an observation about anti-evolution activists. We see ignorance here on the FR crevo threads all the time: for example, ask an anti-evo to state the ToE; the chances are he can't. We see over and over things like "there are no Precambrian fossils", "the ToE predicts a dog giving birth to a cat", and so on. this leads naturally into the stupid category, which you don't see here so much, although there is a tendency for andi-evolutoin activists to repeat things without acknowledging and replying to criticism. Insane? Well, the craziest FReeper anti-evos were banned (some were crazy or stupid enough to call Jim Robinson a liberal), but look at a banned FReeper's posts. (There are others!). And finally wicked: this applies mainly to the con artists at DI, AiG, DrDino, etc., who are making a fortune by ripping off Christians.

The other thing is, I have yet to encounter a sane, smart, honest, educated, anti-evo. See my tagline. The number of fallacies on the anti-evo side is staggering: strawman, false dichotomy, inapprpriate appeal to authority, and on and on. The dishonest practice of quote-mining should tell you that these people know they're wrong and have no evidence to support their claims.

All in all, I'd say that Dawkins' observations were stated with typical British understatement.

Something to think about is the data on Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes. This is a collection of facts from natural history that cannot easily be explained in an ID or creationist setting: EG, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, teeth that are never used, whale hindlimbs, chicken tooth genes, and many others. Interesting and entertaining.

[taxesareforever]

Is that all you can do is ask questions? You offer nothing of substance and just keep asking, "please provide", "where did you get your info", etc. When answers are provided all you do is discredit everything that is said using your faulty sources. You should start your own show. It could be called "154,000 questions that I don't give a hoot what the answers are".

[Coyoteman]

Is that all you can do is ask questions? You offer nothing of substance and just keep asking, "please provide", "where did you get your info", etc. When answers are provided all you do is discredit everything that is said using your faulty sources.

Perhaps the answers to his questions are illogical or unsubstantiated. Creationists tend to rely on creationist websites, which are not the best places to find scientific data and arguments. You tend to find apologetics and pretzel science.

Perhaps his "faulty sources" are legitimate, and your are faulty.

[Dimensio]

Perhaps the answers to his questions are illogical or unsubstantiated. Creationists tend to rely on creationist websites, which are not the best places to find scientific data and arguments. You tend to find apologetics and pretzel science.

Actually, nmh has not provided any references at all to support her claims. Taxesareforever's assertions are clearly unfounded and false in that respect.

[RunningWolf]

What's your opinion of this (while we're doing Rorschach tests)?

Well I would say that it represents some mens fancy (not mine) that some amorphous life protocell (3.4 billion years ago) has developed hundreds of thousands self replicating biochemical processes and various molecular architecture = DNA RNA, and the various essential engines (mitochondria), has already determined that it needs to reproduce, knows what food is and how to seek and ingest food, and is going to develop all the various physical forms that will advance it as it descends, and somehow it will all lead to a point where a man puts an image like that on the WWW and some other men will have spent their life works asserting that is the reality.

Well not really.., all it is an Rorschach ink blot, but I think you get my analogy.

Hope you are not insulted by that analogy Coyoteman, for your work is valuable even if it does not lead where you might have thought.



CoyoteGuy! Chart a new course!

Wolf

[taxesareforever]

Perhaps the answers to his questions are illogical or unsubstantiated.

And perhaps they are logical and substantiated which puts the evos in a corner. You would like creos to argue utilizing evo websites. That's like asking Republicans to debate the war on terror using Democrat talking points. You can set the trap but you will not find many creos falling into it. We are kind of a smart bunch. You see, we are not puppets being manipulated by the evo so-called scientists. By the way, I see Di is responding to you in regards to my responses to him. Fear must be setting in.

[dread78645]

Banana science placemark

[RunningWolf]

You should start your own show. It could be called 154,000 questions that I don't give a hoot what the answers are

LMAO!!TOUCHE!

Hey that would be great fodder for many an evo parody

'Wolf

[Coyoteman]

You would like creos to argue utilizing evo websites.

If you define "evo websites" as mainstream science, yes. I would.

The creationist websites are not exactly paragons of mainstream science. They tend to lie, distort the facts, and omit huge amounts of data which don't agree with their preconceived notions.

And creationists want this stuff taught in science classes? What a joke!

I mean, just look at the scientific evidence for a global flood. There isn't any! But that doesn't stop the creationist websites. I have been studying them for some time, but I can't seem to understand what they are saying. Each is different, half of them contradict the other half, and none match mainstream science. What a joke!

If you don't believe me, let me know. I have some evidence from my own research that discredits the global flood in the western US. I would be happy to post it for you.

[taxesareforever]

I have some evidence from my own research that discredits the global flood in the western US.

And I have evidence that there was a global flood because the Bible told me so. What's your source? Human intellect?

[Coyoteman]

I have some evidence from my own research that discredits the global flood in the western US.

And I have evidence that there was a global flood because the Bible told me so. What's your source? Human intellect?

No, archaeology and closely related fields. Sedimentology, genetics, artifact seriation, linguistics, things like that.

[FreedomProtector]

I believe the primary focus of the question asked is directed at public schools, in particular, public high schools. Although it has been a while since I have been in high school (college, graduate school and several years of very interesting work have since past), I believe there is some knowledge that is gained via experience, and my personal experience in public high school biology class is relevant to the question at hand.

My high school biology instructor repeated her presupposition that "evolution is a fact" over and over and over again, sounding more like a broken record then a science teacher. The vast majority of classroom time was wasted studying antiquated, disproved 'evidences' for evolution. There was very little classroom time was spent on learning fundamental biological concepts: analyzing structure and function, cell division and mitosis, meiosis, biochemistry, genetics, etc. or performing laboratory experiments. It was self-evident that it was more important to the instructor that the students in my class believe in evolution then understand fundamental biology concepts. If I asked a typical student in my class after her lectures, “Did the Miller-Urey experiments demonstrate that life could come from non-life?” --the typical answer was an unscientific, “yes”. The law of abiogenesis was not important, life miraculously arising from non-life was. If I asked one of my peers in the class after her lectures: “If someone was to lift weights and increase their muscle mass, would genetic traits of bigger muscle would be passed on to their children?” --the typical answer was an unscientific, “yes”. The laws of genetics were not important, miraculously changing from one species to another was. The perspective my biology class was taught from hindered the understanding of fundamental biological laws of many of my peers. Teaching evolution ‘as fact’, as the ‘only view allowed’ did not enhance the educational process, it hindered it.

All hope was not lost. Heros are born in unlikely times. While most of class was sadly merely regurgitating the antiquated, disproved 'evidences’ for evolution on tests, FreedomProtector learned how to think independently and to prove the regurgitated antiquated ‘evidences’ are invalid, have that proof stand up to the very hostile, well-educated peer-review test, and write both on tests in the time most of the class was just regurgitating. Batman was born when the Joker killed his parents. FreedomProtector was born in this biology class when the instructor tried to kill freedom of intellectual inquiry. The very hostile, well-educated peer-review carried over to FreedomProtector’s high school physics class where the Physics instructor had a Master’s degree in evolutionary biology, but in his words “could only get a job teaching physics”.

Although one class is a very small sample, I believe from what I have heard and read elsewhere that it is reasonable to believe that this sample is sadly descriptive of other high school biology classes.

"Should a view be taught/should a view be allowed to be taught?" is not the right question. Maybe this is a valid question for a classroom in the former Soviet Union, but not for America. There should be freedom of intellectual inquiry. The right questions which should be asked by anyone whether they are in a classroom regulated by an all-knowing state or not are: Which view is probable? Which view is most likely true?

[aNYCguy]

This is great stuff. Once a kook is identified, it's consistently entertaining to find out what other hot-button kook issues they may be hiding and get them started. And they nearly always do; people holding fringe ideas in one area of scientific inquiry tend to be fundamentally anti-rational and therefore receptive to all sorts of stuff.

[Jeff Gordon]

So important that the decision should immediately be removed from the purview of government.

It is funny how the government/no government choice changes with the subject.Laissez-faire today, hypocrite tomorrow.

[grey_whiskers]

Perhaps the answers to his questions are illogical or unsubstantiated. Creationists tend to rely on creationist websites, which are not the best places to find scientific data and arguments. You tend to find apologetics and pretzel science.

If done correctly, teaching ID within science classes would be quite instructive.

IF the examples were carefully chosen, one could use specific features of "intelligent design" as case studies in order to compare and contrast the following:

1) the thought processes and methodology used to come up with different explanations
2) comparing either the predictive value OR the "what questions does this lead TO" value of the different approaches
3) compare and contrast the rules of evidence vs. argument from authority, etc.

If done poorly in one direction, a bunch of students quoting Ann Coulter might get the under-educated science teacher (for the moment) backed into a corner, and defeat the purpose of explaining / demonstrating / allowing "hands on practice" of the power and elegance of empiricism.

If done poorly in the other direction the agnostic / atheist / skeptic trolls would take over, and imbue the impressionable students with a lot of hooey.

As I have stated on other threads, just because something is "unscientific" does not PROVE it false. Empirical practices are great at sifting through things so that you have a high bar to pass before accepting them, and incorporating them into a consistent framework. It therefore reduces "false positives" and has a great error-correcting mechanism--against false positives.

The way in which its error correction is NOT so fantastic, is the mistaken belief that if something is not yet scientifically proven, it "must" be untrue, rather than unverified by a certain methodology. So the risk is there of ignoring something true. The scientists who think about it accept this as part of an acceptable trade-off for minimizing errors. (And they get away with it because the material world DOES operate--at the macroscopic level--according to fixed laws, and is not personal or sentinent. The supernatural, according to many accounts, has claimed all along to be a differnt kind of beast, even before the "god of the gaps" mindset kicked in.)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

It is funny how the government/no government choice changes with the subject.Laissez-faire today, hypocrite tomorrow.

Sorry, I haven't followed this part of the thread. Is part of the "appearance of hypocrisy" due to the forgotten implicit condition that public schools *are* government schools...?

Insert your own "separation of Church and State" or "Free Exercise" quotes here...

Cheers!

[taxesareforever]

No, archaeology and closely related fields

When creos use these you evos say "no fair, no fair, that's from a creationist site or a creationist scientist's view". Admit it, you are selective.

[Jaguarbhzrd]

When creos use these you evos say "no fair, no fair, that's from a creationist site or a creationist scientist's view". Admit it, you are selective.

Yes, it helps if you actually use science to disprove science.

Therefore, yes, being selective is an excellent way to skip the rubbish and get right down to the real nitty gritty, which is this, science must be used to disprove science, and so far I have yet to see any from the creationist side.

I see a lot of, because I believe, or there is a creationist that says this, or there is an Id'r that says that. It doesn't work.

If you have actual scientific evidence to disprove evolution, trot it on out there, you might win the nobel prize.

[Virginia-American]

...The vast majority of classroom time was wasted studying antiquated, disproved 'evidences' for evolution...

Could you be a bit more specific please?