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.

[MineralMan]

"or maybe speculative geography // WHACK religions or political UFO science ===

arts // humanity // CRAFTS ... THEATRE === drama !
"

What are WHACK religions? That's a new term to me. Or perhaps you meant something else. It's so difficult to tell what you're trying to say. Have you considered writing in English in FR?

[Ichneumon]

[Creationists do not stop at "god did this".]

They know that. It's just easier for them to mock than to think.

Sorry, but he's right. Ultimately, creationists *do* stop at "goddidit". Press them long enough for an explanation of why things are as they are (e.g., why endogenous retroviruses in DNA appear in various species in exactly the way that an evolutionary "family tree" would predict if they evolved from a common ancestor), and they'll resort to, "because God made it that way". Then they sit there happy and smug, despite the fact that they haven't bothered to address *why* God would choose to "make" DNA as if evolution had occurred, when there'd be no good (or even bad) reason to do so from a design standpoint.

"Goddidit" *is* where they stop thinking.

[Ichneumon]

Only blind faith religions like evolutionism that are dressed up as "science."

You only reveal your ignorance with statements like this. Try to do better.

[f.Christian]

Evolution --- the occult --- mind control !

[Junior]

Placemarker.

[jennyp]

"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."

In related news, the coming war in Iraq is because of America's insatiable lust for oil. </s>

[ggekko]

"Intelligent design merely says, "god did this",...."

Teleology (the assumption of purposiveness) has been the most scientifically productive metaphsyical assumptions in the history of science. It is, in fact, the foundation of modern science. J. Robert Openheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, has said that "medieval Christian Scholastics laid the foundation for modern science through insistence upon the orderliness and improvability of Nature".

The assumption of purposiveness is a metaphysical assumption; it is still up to the experimental scientist to seek that empirical mechnisms that explain purposive behavior. The notion that there are externally verifiable scientific laws is derived from Christian ideas about God giving two revelations: the Book of God and the Book of Nature. The idea that externally veriable and unchanging scientific laws exist is a Christian idea developed by Christians. This idea does not exist in any other World Religion or culture.

The evolutionary assumption of complexity through random processes has led to dead ends in a number of scientific areas. "Junk DNA" was thought to be discarded and useless DNA information no longer needed by the evolutionary process. Evolutionary researchers gave up trying to explain the origin of these seemingly inactive DNA sequences. Recently researchers in the teleogical-ID camp have discovered that a number of the "junk DNA" sequences are not "junk" after all and perform important cell regulation and repair functions. This is a clear example of the teleogical-ID camp producing important new scientific knowledge while the evolutionary had created anti-knowledge using the same raw data.

Most scientific classes in high school when discussing biology convey the idea that all science started with Darwin. This notion is indefensible and ahistorical. Students in secondary school should be allowed to know the absolutely foundational role that teleologists played in the development of science.

There is a reason this is resisted so strongly by the old guard scientific esatblishment. When the case for evolution is presented evenhandedly it is astonishly weak and would be less likely to believed. Bureaucrats at NSF and other publicly funded scientific organizations know that if the public were to come to understand how a thinly disguised propaganda operation has been in place since the Scopes trail to prop up a highly speculative scientific theory that there would be a large backlash against these organizations and their public funding. That accounts for the hysterical "let's rally around the flag boys" tone of many of these pronouncements from NSF and other organizations.

If ID theory was as ridiculous as its oponents suggest they would have no fear about letting it be taught in schools. The miffed, Ex Cathedra tone coming from these groups makes it look like they protest too much.

[Junior]

Creationism, like snake handling, gives conservatives a bad name. No wonder the Left thinks we're a bunch of uneducated bohunks.

[MineralMan]

"Evolution --- the occult --- mind control !"


More word salad, f.Christian. You've named three things that have nothing whatever to do with each other. Evolution studies speciation. The occult deals with a host of supernatural events, like deities, etc. Mind control is not really possible, even for one's own mind in most cases.

Do try to help us understand what you're trying to say. Write complete sentences. Make reference to previous messages. Your word salad messages say nothing.

[Ichneumon]

Nobody but they can be scientific in their self-centered eyes.

Sure they can. But they have to actually *be* scientific. Unfortunately, all too many anti-evolutionists I've encountered through the decades fall woefully short, no matter how clever they *think* they're being.

Science has standards, and all too many anti-evolutionists think that just being snotty and quoting (or misquoting) something they heard a while back from some wild-eyed creationist source qualifies as being "scientific".

[f.Christian]

Liberal left lunatic (( flipped )) outer disconnected (( spin )) fringe --- evolution !

[Junior]

f.christian posts just to post. Most of his postings are copies of other's posts, stuff he's pulled off the web somewhere which has no relevance to the situation at hand, or disjointed ramblings. It's like he's compelled to post even when he has nothing to say.

[AmericaUnited]

Why should anyone study creationism or intelligent design ? It has no use.

Intelligent design merely says, "god did this", end of discussion. It is just not useful.

That's extemely funny!

I've always found it much more educational to study something that was "intelligently designed", rather than some random, accidental mistake mish-mash.

[MineralMan]

"f.christian posts just to post. Most of his postings are copies of other's posts, stuff he's pulled off the web somewhere which has no relevance to the situation at hand, or disjointed ramblings. It's like he's compelled to post even when he has nothing to say."

Actually, he probably has something he'd like to say. It's just that his messages appear to be meaningless. I keep hoping I can convince him to write a couple of normal sentences in English. Who knows? Maybe he'll manage it and we'll all learn something.

[AmericaUnited]

When the case for evolution is presented evenhandedly it is astonishly weak and would be less likely to believed. Bureaucrats at NSF and other publicly funded scientific organizations know that if the public were to come to understand how a thinly disguised propaganda operation has been in place since the Scopes trail to prop up a highly speculative scientific theory that there would be a large backlash against these organizations and their public funding. That accounts for the hysterical "let's rally around the flag boys" tone of many of these pronouncements from NSF and other organizations.

BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!

[MattAMiller]

Maybe you should consider changing your handle because you just said something untrue. Creationists do not stop at "god did this". It is simply our philosophical foundation and starting point, just like yours is apparently that there is nothing but sensory experienced nature, i.e., 'naturalism'.

It would be better to stop there than to start there. If you start there then you've already determined the conclusion you're going to arrive at.

[MineralMan]

"I've always found it much more educational to study something that was "intelligently designed", rather than some random, accidental mistake mish-mash.
"

Well, we _were_ just discussing f.Christian's messages, which seem to fill the description you posted. Thanks for joining in.

[Ichneumon]

Chapter 7 Thermodynamics of Living Systems, p113
Chapter 8 Thermodynamics and the Origin of life, p127
Chapter 9 Specifying How Work is to be Done, p144

Twaddle dressed up with lots of equations and big words to make it sound impressive. But it's all a fraud. Check out the end of chapter 8, for example:

This trivial yield emphasizes the futility of protein formation under equilibrium conditions.

Well sure, but a pre-biotic world would not be at "equilibrium conditions", so the whole chapter is irrelevant. Sure looks purty though, don't it?

[rwfromkansas]

I wasn't referring in anyway to what scientific field he was involved in, dipstick. I just asked if you considered Newton some old folgie or somebody actually valuable. No, he wasn't a biologist. Duh.