Anti-Creationists Backed Into a Corner?

AgapePress ^ | February 24, 2003 | Jim Brown

[Remedy]

More than 200 evolutionists have issued a statement aimed at discrediting advocates of intelligent design and belittling school board resolutions that question the validity of Darwinism.

The National Center for Science Education has issued a statement that backs evolution instruction in public schools and pokes fun at those who favor teaching the controversy surrounding Darwinian evolution. According to the statement, "it is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible" for creation science to be introduced into public school science textbooks. [See Earlier Article]

Forrest Turpen, executive director of Christian Educators Association International, says it is obvious the evolution-only advocates feel their ideology and livelihood are being threatened.

"There is a tremendous grouping of individuals whose life and whose thought patterns are based on only an evolutionary point of view," Turpen says, "so to allow criticism of that would be to criticize who they are and what they're about. That's one of the issues."

Turpen says the evolution-only advocates also feel their base of financial rewards is being threatened.

"There's a financial issue here, too," he says. "When you have that kind of an establishment based on those kinds of thought patterns, to show that there may be some scientific evidence -- and there is -- that would refute that, undermines their ability to control the science education and the financial end of it."

Turpen says although evolutionists claim they support a diversity of viewpoints in the classroom, they are quick to stifle any criticism of Darwinism. In Ohio recently, the State Board of Education voted to allow criticism of Darwinism in its tenth-grade science classes.

[Boiler Plate]

How about allowing teachers to teach the "flat earth" theory? What about "Earth, Air, Fire, and Water" instead of the periodic table of the elements? You think those may raise a few protests also?

Why teach what we know to be untrue? As far as the elements go they are only more useful than earth, wind, fire and air, but, as we continue to discover, EWF&A and the periodic table are not the fundamental building blocks they were thought to be, when they, were discovered.

As you well know, what mankind considers to be the sum of all his knowledge today will beconsider trivial and quaint in the next millineum and even then what mankind knows will be a drop in the ocean of all the knowledge yet to be discovered.

Regards,
Boiler Plate

[gore3000]

Now would be a great time to present some examples.

Wrong. It is evolutionists, who claim their theory to be science that need to give proof that random processes do indeed create complex systems. Evolutionists have been claiming this happens for 150 years. Seems to me it is time for them to put up or shut up.

First, evolution does not "discard" DNA "information"

Yes, they did, and some still do even after it has been abundantly proven that it is what evolutionists have moronically called 'junk DNA' that really makes an organism run. Real scientists call it 'non-coding DNA' meaning it does not code for proteins. Evolutionists claim several times a week on these very threads that the DNA not in genes can be altered willy nilly and 'proves' evolution because it is there to show descent not any intrinsic purpose. It is the total disregard for purpose in the organism that has brought evolution down to nonsense. Philosophically it was a dead end. Scientifically it was a dead end. So as soon as science learned enough it showed that the evolutionist view that life is purposeless and just a random amalgam of atoms is total bunk.

[Boiler Plate]

What about gravitational theory? How should that be treated?

I would say it should be treated as really neat stuff. Let's see if we can build a flying machine or at least mattresses that don't give you a sore back. Science is great stuff and I owe my living to it. We should be teaching our kids all about it and spend more money researching it. Unfortunately there is very little pure science done as scientists have to constantly look for funding. In that way, they are no better off than politicians, as they have to please some patron that most likeky has an agenda. A friend of mine who is a patent lawyer is affiliated with an outfit that simple finds bright minds gives them a salary and a lab and never asks questions which is pretty novel these days. If you'd like I'll give you the name of the organization and you can check them out for yourself.

Regards,
Boiler Plate

[Condorman]

"Peer" has been restricted to those friendly to the evolutionist propaganda.

You can document this, of course. Produce a paper rejected by a peer-reviewed journal because it supported creationism.

[guitar Josh]

Coffee tables? That's quite a stretch. The rest is accurate with respect to many (though not all) of the various common descent theories. What's your point, or are you trying to refute the theory through ridiculing it because you don't actually have any credible arguments?

Coffee tables=trees.

I have credible arguments, but I just wanted to point out how stupid Darwinism is through ridicule.

[Doctor Stochastic]

It is an argument in semantics to be sure, but at the same time science cannot "prove" evolution anymore than it can "prove" any aspect of science.

So, why do Creationists only single out evolutionary theory to be disclaimed? Why not Newton's Theory of Gravitation? Why not Einstein's theory of Gravitaion? Why not Analytic Number Theory? Why not Brøsted's Theory of Acids? Why not Lewis's Theory of Acids? Why not Abelian Group Theory?

[Doctor Stochastic]

A better question would be: "Wow, a vertifiable loony called you an idiot. What kind of tree does that make you want to be?"

[Doctor Stochastic]

The big Cal Tech computation did need relativistic corrections when using a 4,000,000,000 year time span.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Which Theory of Creation would you present? The one about the Flute Playing Dragon or the one about Saturn hovering over the North Pole? How do you decide which Creationist Theory to use?

[ggekko]

There is a book I would commend to your attention, it is "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. This book describes the process by which dominant scientific paradigms are enshrined and then overthrown as new information is found that does not fit in with the existing paradigm. Your evident fanaticism in defending the theory of Evolution leads me to believe you have not read it. At one time (17th century) advocates of the Phlogiston theory of combusiton were as passionate about this theory as advocates of Evolutionary theory are today.

Kuhn describes the concepts of scientific community, normal science and research programs to describe to the historic sociology of science. A scientific community is defined by Kuhn as a group of people who share a set of "recieved beliefs"; these shared beliefs are conveyed by means of formal training. In general, it is important that the scientific community adhere to a disciplined set of recieved beliefs in order function coherently. Research programs describe that activities of scientists in normal science. Experiments are conducted under the paradigm of normal science that seek to use its conceptual machinery to describe new clases of phenomena under its umbrella.

A shift away from a dominant scientific paradigm begins when an expierimental anomaly is noted that cannot be explained under the existing paradigm. In some cases these anomalies are only apparent anomalies and the paradigm can be adjusted to explain the anomaly satisfactorily. In cases where the anamoly cannot be explained a challenge to the dominant paradigm develops.

From a historic perspective, regardless how convincing the new evidence is that challenges the dominant paradigm is it is inevitably met with hostility and derision from practioners of normal science. This has proven to be true whether we examine the rise and fall of phlogiston theory, ptolemaic astronomy or classical physics; the pattern has been the same. Careers and reputations are on the line; the upsetting of a dominant paradigm is a traumatic event for the practioners of normal science.

The work of Karl Popper is also appropriate to mention here. Popper's definition science has become widely accepted. Popper defines a true science as having the following charcateristics:

a)The theory is formulated in such a
way that it can be proven to be false;
it is falsifiable,

b)The theory describes results that are
reproducible (a theory shouldn;t predict
one result on Wednesday and another on
Thursday all other factors being equal),

c)The theory should produce testable
hypotheses.

Falsifiable, reporducible, testable. Let us run some famous theories through this gauntlet and see how they fare. Freudian psychology: not falsifiable, not repoducible, does not generate testable hypotheses; Freudian psychology is something but it is not a science. Astrology: fails to satisfy a), b), and c); not a science. You get the idea.

If you have endured to this point in my post I will now get to my point. The questions we should pose about whether to teach ID or Evolution or both in schools should be based on the definition of true science. The questions the need to be addressed are as follows:

*Does ID present a coherent and
scientifically valid paradigm shift to
Evolutionary theory?

*Is Evolutionary theory, based on Popper's
criteria, even a valid scientific theory?

My answer to the questions posed above are: "yes", "no".


ID's paradigm challenge to Evolution

---

Dr. Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Block" box will eventually be seen as the single conceptual challenge that produced an experimental anomaly that will topple neo-Darwinism. In this book Behe develops the concept of "irreducible complexity" that inhere to any number bio-chemical systems. Dr. Behe's concept makes a mockery of existing neo-Darwinian theory. Dr. Behe demontrates the essential explanational sterility of neo-Darwinism in accounting for complex bio-chemical structures. Dr. Behe relentlessly exposes the "magical" thinking behind the thinly disguised vitalism of Richard Dawkins (elan vital, anyone?). Neo-Darwinism is a vast speculative edifice resting on a mechanism that has never proven to experimentally produce complexity in biological systems.

The responses to Dr. Behe's revolutionary work from the practioners of "normal" Evolutionary science have been pathetic. Dr. Behe's character and credentials have been impugned but noone in the Evolutionary camp has produced a testable mechanism that would explain irreducible complexity.

True to history, advocates of Evolution have reacted like all practitioners of normal science have reacted when an authentic anomaly is elicited to challenge the dominant paradigm. They throw a fit.


Is Evolutionary theory a Science

---

As ID theory begins to shift the dominant Evolutionary paradigm the question arises as to what extent Evolution adheres to the criteria of an authentic science.

During the course of its dominance Evolutionary theory has adhered to one of the criterion of a true science. Aspects of Evolutionary theory have generated testable hypotheses (Miller-Urey experiment, fruit fly mutations, population genetics). Evolutionary theory has not satisfied the need for reproducible results. As you may recall the "cold fusion breakthrough" was later adjudged to be fraud after other scientists were unable to reproduce the results claimed by Pons and Fleischer and rightly so. This same level of rigor is never applied to Evolutionary assertions. Critics of Evolution are told that it either happens to slowly to observe (neo-Darwinism) or too quickly (Saltationism) to observe. Quite a trick.

It is on the issue of falsifiability that Evolution fails most glaringly as a scientific theory. Evolutionary theorists posit any scientific result as "proof" of evolution and attempt to adjust their theory. The number of ad hoc accretions to neo-Darwinism make it begin to resemble Ptolemaic astronomy with its "epicycles". Any theory that is always true "by definition" is not a scientifc theory; it is an a priori dogma.


Science Education in a Democracy

---

A quick perusal of science textbooks from the 1950s and 1960s should disabuse anyone of the notion that the imprmatur of the National Science Foundation guarantees the knowledge that science students absorb at given point in time will remain relevant. Greater empahsis should be given for students absorbing the critical thinking processes of true science and not a mere mass of changeable theories. Learning the process of the scientific method is more important then learning a particular theory.

Given the current controversy in the field of Biology School disricts should be allowed to teach ID and Evolution as competing and potentially falsifiable theories. To teach Evolution as a "fact" is to distort the nature scientific theories and harm the students ability to form critical thinking skills in science.

[Doctor Stochastic]

You do share the same genetic code as coffee tables, bananas, and lice. How do you feel about that?

[Buckeye Bomber]

Why is it always Darwinism? It's like calling democrats "demonrats" or some stupidity like that. Automatic discrediting is completely absurd. Are we a bunch of children? It's properly known as descent with modification.

"I have credible arguments, but I just wanted to point out how stupid Darwinism is through ridicule."

...is the equivalent of...

"I have in my right hand, a list of 257 known communists in the United States State Department. Not only that, they are stupidheads. Nyah nyah nyah nyah."

Alternative names for creationist/intelligent design theory:
Mosesism
Ancient-Desert-Nomadism
Bibleism
Godism
Humans-Pretending-They're-Writing-God's-Dictationism
Absurdism
I-Disagree-With-Fundamental-Tenets-Of-Science-And-I-Voteism

How do you like them apples? Does anyone want to have a discussion now? Not like it matters. We'll be shouting each other down in a short while anyway.

[general_re]

I believe its curriculum would be the same as it is today, except it would not discount the creation theory, but would be inclusive.

What exactly is "creation theory"?

The creation theory, thank you very much. There's apparently only one....

[F16Fighter]

"That is certainly a close-minded remark which demonstrates an absence of knowledge of the sciences being discussed, and which subsequently makes it impossible to have a rational debate on this subject any further."

One need not necessarily hold a doctorate in molecular biology to discern "theories" dependent on mathematically impossible odds can never be proven.

Would it have made you feel any better if I had cited a half-dozen scientists who have refuted the remotest possibility of any of your "theoretical models"?

[RadioAstronomer]

As you well know, what mankind considers to be the sum of all his knowledge today will beconsider trivial and quaint in the next millineum and even then what mankind knows will be a drop in the ocean of all the knowledge yet to be discovered.

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."--Sir Isaac Newton

Agreed, there is so much still to learn. :-) The day I die, one of my bigger regrets is what will be discovered the following day that I will no longer be able to rejoice in.

[fabian]

You are underestimating the intelligence of students. The many holes in evolution theory should never be hidden from them. That is what's being done and it is called brainwashing.

[jennyp]

*Does ID present a coherent and scientifically valid paradigm shift to Evolutionary theory?

*Is Evolutionary theory, based on Popper's criteria, even a valid scientific theory?

My answer to the questions posed above are: "yes", "no".

"No" and "yes".

Why does Dembski, et. al. refuse to discuss the nature of the Intelligent Designers? Why do they declare that question, a.k.a. "designer-centric ID theories" off limits, and limit the discussion to "design-centric ID theories"?

Is there one Designer or multiple Designers? Shouldn't we be able to tell? For instance, so many organisms seem to have evolved complex traits because of arms races between competing interests. If they didn't evolve, but were instead designed that way, does that really make sense if there was only one Designer? What was He thinking when He designed the wasp to lay its eggs inside a paralyzed caterpillar (an irreducibly complex system if ever I saw one)? And why do all the designs that show up in Australia look so, amateurish & just plain weird, compared to the designs evident on all the other continents? Was Australia the training ground for some supernatural Design school grad students?

You think ID is a real science? Even William Dembski admits it's not ready for prime time yet! Look at what he says in his "Becoming a Disciplined Science" speech under "Building a Design Curriculum":

A problem we now face with intelligent design is that even if the educational mainstream opened its arms to us (don't hold your breath), we have no sustained course of study to give them. A curriculum provides that, and much more. ... Are we at this time in the position to build a design curriculum? Certainly intelligent design as a scientific program needs to develop and mature. Nevertheless, I believe we are in a position to start building such a curriculum. At the very top of the list we need a introductory basal biology textbook ... Actually, we'll need two basal biology texts, one geared toward college students and then a simplified version geared toward high school students. [emphasis mine]

[jennyp]

Oops, as for the second question, "Is Evolutionary theory, based on Popper's criteria, even a valid scientific theory": Yes. A good overview of falsifiable claims of evolution is here.

[AndrewC]

A good overview of falsifiable claims of evolution is here.

What amazing depth of logic and reasoning.

Based solely on the theory of common descent and the genetics of known organisms, we strongly predict that we will never find any modern species from known phyla on this Earth with a foreign, non-nucleic acid genetic material. We also make the strong prediction that all newly discovered species that belong to the known phyla will use the "standard genetic code" or a close derivative thereof.

Quite a risky prediction wouldn't you say?

[Jael]

Dr. Hovind has a great creation curriculum.