Posted on 03/11/2003 3:01:59 PM PST by Remedy
A university professor said she was asked to resign for introducing elite students to flaws in Darwinian thought, and she now says academic freedom at her school is just a charade.
During a recent honors forum at Mississippi University for Women (MUW), Dr. Nancy Bryson gave a presentation titled "Critical Thinking on Evolution" -- which covered alternate views to evolution such as intelligent design. Bryson said that following the presentation, a senior professor of biology told her she was unqualified and not a professional biologist, and said her presentation was "religion masquerading as science."
The next day, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Vagn Hansen asked Bryson to resign from her position as head of the school's Division of Science and Mathematics.
"The academy is all about free thought and academic freedom. He hadn't even heard my talk," Bryson told American Family Radio News. "[W]ithout knowing anything about my talk, he makes that decision. I think it's just really an outrage."
Bryson believes she was punished for challenging evolutionary thought and said she hopes her dismissal will smooth the way for more campus debate on the theory of evolution. University counsel Perry Sansing said MUW will not comment on why Bryson was asked to resign because it is a personnel matter.
"The best reaction," Bryson says, "and the most encouraging reaction I have received has been from the students." She added that the students who have heard the talk, "They have been so enthusiastically supportive of me."
Bryson has contacted the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy and is considering taking legal action against the school.
YOU:Well, isn't this fiendish? I say "Yes," referring to the jumbled and squashed pile of bones that is Protoavis, and you pounce to throw out the entire body of science since 1859. Cute!
In truth I said or implied none of that. You seemed to sense it coming, though, no doubt because it is a fairly glaring problem for you.
I don't think you sensed this one coming: What is the objective uniform criteria for determining whether a fossil is conclusive evidence or not?
Answer: If it fits the biases of the evolutionary model, it is objective and conclusive. If not, it obviously cannot be conclusive.
Yes, it does look like this agrees with my prediction.
J Mol Evol 54:81-89 (2002)
DOI: 10.1007/s00239-001-0020-2
© 2002 by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
Ascidian and Amphioxus Adh Genes Correlate Functional and Molecular Features of the ADH Family Expansion During Vertebrate Evolution
Cristian Cañestro, Ricard Albalat, Lars Hjelmqvist, Laura Godoy, Hans Jörnvall, Roser Gonzàlez-Duarte
Subscribers may view full text in PDF | HTML-Frames (see notes on formats here.)
Abstract
The alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) family has evolved into at least eight ADH classes during vertebrate evolution. We have characterized three prevertebrate forms of the parent enzyme of this family, including one from an urochordate (Ciona intestinalis) and two from cephalochordates (Branchiostoma floridae and Branchiostoma lanceolatum). An evolutionary analysis of the family was performed gathering data from protein and gene structures, exon-intron distribution, and functional features through chordate lines. Our data strongly support that the ADH family expansion occurred 500 million years ago, after the cephalochordate/vertebrate split, probably in the gnathostome subphylum line of the vertebrates. Evolutionary rates differ between the ancestral, ADH3 (glutathione-dependent formaldehyde dehydrogenase), and the emerging forms, including the classical alcohol dehydrogenase, ADH1, which has an evolutionary rate 3.6-fold that of the ADH3 form. Phylogenetic analysis and chromosomal mapping of the vertebrate Adh gene cluster suggest that family expansion took place by tandem duplications, probably concurrent with the extensive isoform burst observed before the fish/tetrapode split, rather than through the large-scale genome duplications also postulated in early vertebrate evolution. The absence of multifunctionality in lower chordate ADHs and the structures compared argue in favor of the acquisition of new functions in vertebrate ADH classes. Finally, comparison between B. floridae and B. lanceolatum Adhs provides the first estimate for a cephalochordate speciation, 190 million years ago, probably concomitant with the beginning of the drifting of major land masses from the Pangea. Online publication: 12 December, 2001 Last change: 17 December, 2001
I used Blast to search out, using Ciona intestinalis, similar sequences. You can see from my listing that fish ADH3 is closer than the other 2 species used in your citation. Why is that, in light of your assertion?
What are the objective uniform criteria for spotting the activities of the International Evo Conspiracy to suppress the Evidence Against Evolution? Is Protoavis "good" evidence? Is the preponderance of opinion lying when they call Chatterjee's announcement a stretch too far?
Creationists tend to love Feduccia. Let's check in on a Protoavis article that quotes him.
A. Feduccia: "Calling this the original bird is irresponsible." (1)Maybe he's sold out?
There's a highly controversial fossil in the bird ancestry story. Protoavis is known from a handful of bony fragments collected from 200 million-year-old rocks in Texas. At this time the dinosaurs were just getting started and it's 50 million years before Archaeopteryx. Protoavis does have some bird-like features, but nothing that an early theropod dinosaur shouldn't have. Further, there seems to be a strong possibility that the fossils described as a single skeleton may actually belong to two or more individuals and possibly two or more species! The material is too fragmentary and ambiguous to work with so, until better material is found, most palaeontologists have set Protoavis aside.At best, for you, it's trending avian but only your creatinist pamphlets would call it a "modern bird." At best, for you, it's a far messier bone-pile than the typical fossil you jeer as another Piltdown fake or Nebraska Man misinterpretation.
But the Lord seems to need this one, so this one is good data that the evos are suppressing?
Except that one claim is very unlikely and the other is false.
I've been lucky enough to correspond with many great people on FR. Now, it appears, I'm corresponding with the guy who decides what the 'real world' is. I'm truly awed.
If you work in the so called scientific community, you sure must toe the party line on the theory of evolution. You would be treated with contempt, and be marginalized, if you had the courage to question that dogma.
Henry F Schaefer III is a great quantum chemist. This page includes a list of his awards and honors. All I can say if this is being treated with contempt, I wish they'd marginalize me the way they marginalize him.
As five minutes with google will show you, he's also a well-known and outspoken critic of evolution. (I think also he's way wrong, of course)
Of course, if you're a typical creationist, you will entirely ignore this easily verified fact and go on making the same erroneous claims.
Of course nothing is known to a 100% certain point. This hurts the evolutionists "proofs" not mine. -- skull stomper
Why is this statement so clearly true?
Creationism means never having to say you're sorry.
It has been asserted that Archaeopteryx shares 21 specialized characters with coelurosaurian dinosaurs. Research on various anatomical features of Archaeopteryx in the last ten years or so, however, has shown, in every case, that the characteristic in question is bird-like, not reptile-like. When the cranium of the London specimen was removed from the limestone and studied, it was shown to be bird-like, not reptile-like. Benton has stated that "details of the brain case and associated bones at the back of the skull seem to suggest that Archaeopteryx is not the ancestral bird, but an offshoot from the early avian stem."In this same paper, Benton states that the quadrate (the bone in the jaw that articulates with the squamosal of the skull) in Archaeopteryx was singleheaded as in reptiles. Using a newly devised technique, computed tomography, Haubitz, et al, established that the quadrate of the Eichstatt specimen of Archaepoteryx was double-headed and thus similar to the condition of modern birds, rather than single-headed, as stated by Benton.
L.D. Martin and co-workers have established that neither the teeth nor the ankle of Archaeopteryx could have been derived from theropod dinosaurs—the teeth being those typical of other (presumably later) toothed birds, and the ankle bones showing no homology with those of dinosaurs. John Ostrom, a strong advocate of a dinosaurian ancestry for birds, had claimed that the pubis of Archaeopteryx pointed downward—an intermediate position between that of coelurosaurian dinosaurs, which points forward, and that of birds, which points backward. A.D. Walker, in more recent studies, asserts that Ostrom's interpretation is wrong, and that the pubis of Archaeopteryx was oriented in a bird-like position. Further, Tarsitano and Hecht criticize various aspects of Ostrom's hypothesis of a dinosaurian origin of birds, arguing that Ostrom had misinterpreted the homologies of the limbs of Archaeopteryx and theropod dinosaurs.
A.D. Walker has presented an analysis of the ear region of Archaeopteryx that shows, contrary to previous studies, that this region is very similar to the otic region of modern birds. J.R. Hinchliffe, utilizing modern isotopic techniques on chick embryos, claims to have established that the "hand" of birds consists of digits II, III and IV, while the digits of the "hand" of theropod dinosaurs consist of digits I, II, and III.
So while we can debate about whether or not Archaeopteryx is a bird or a therapod for the next several years, the big question is where are all the other billions of other transitional birds? Did one generation of therapods just suddenly give birth to another generation of feathered therapods and then the next give birth to ones with a whole new set of avian features and after all those were in place they just started flying?
Vade Retro once provided this description the evolution of the bird. A small bi-ped trying to escape a predator by grabbing some air with it's forepaws to enhance its cornering. Thus discovering aerodynamics and the rest as you guys say is evolution. Well Vade is crying about how nobody wants to believe his fairy tale, but I'm sorry it's a little bit of stretch and not exactly scientific.
Regards,
Boiler Plate
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