Posted on 10/22/2005 2:53:50 PM PDT by RobRoy
Fred Plans To Devolve
Bacteria More Respectable
October 16, 2005
I read with what would be despair if I cared enough that the courts, this time in Pennsylvania, are again getting their knickers in a knot over Evolution. Oh help. There must be another planet somewhere upon which to hide. Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, singing commercials, delayed flights, and Evolution. Anyway:
Why, oh why, are the curricula of the schools the business of the courts? If Pennsylvania wants to mention Creationism, or to require three years of French for graduation, it seems mightily to me that these things are the business of parents in Pennslyvania. Yes, I know: In practice, both freedom of expression and local government are regarded as ideals greatly to be avoided. The desire to centralize government, impose doctrine, and punish doubt is never far below the surface, anywhere. Thus our highly controlled media, our “hate-speech” laws, our political correctness and, now, Evolutionary Prohibition. The Catholic Church once burned heretics. The Church of Evolution savages them in obscure journals and denies them tenure and publication. As a heretic I believe that I would prefer the latter, but the intolerance is the same.
I note that Compulsory Evolutionists are fellow travelers of the regnant cultural Marxism, though I don’t think that they are aware of it. They display the same hermetic materialism, the same desire to suppress dissent by the application of centralized governmental power, the same weird hostility to religion. They do not say, “I think Christianity is nonsense and will therefore ignore it,” but rather “These ideas shall not be permitted.” The justification often is pseudo-constitutional: “the separation of church and state.” Neither the phrase nor the idea is found in the Constitution. If, for example, it is unconstitutional to have a nativity scene on a town square, why did no one notice this, certainly to include the Founding Fathers, until at least 1950? One might point out, fruitlessly, that Creationism, communism, Christianity, and capitalism are all major intellectual currents and therefore ought to be explained to the young. Not likely. The free market of ideas applies only to one’s own ideas.
Now, what grave consequences are thought to await if children hear briefly in school an argument that they have heard a dozen times in the course of ordinary life? Will the foundations of civilization crack? The birds of the air plunge, appalled, to earth? The planets shudder in their orbits and fall inward in dismay? Surely everyone short of the anencephalic knows of Creationism.
Or is it thought that kids attracted to the sciences will abruptly change their course through life and enter the clergy? That applications to graduate school in biochemistry will cease? Children learn (or did) of the Greek gods and goddesses, and that ancient people believed that the earth rode on the back of a giant turtle. I have not heard that they now sacrifice oxen to Athena.
One plausible explanation for this rigid evolutionary monotheism, though I think an incorrect one, is a fear that the children might come to believe in Creationism. Unlikely, but again, so what? A belief in Creationism does not prevent one from working in the sciences. A goodly number of scientists, to include biochemists, are in fact Christian and, some of them, Creationists. Others presumably are Buddhists or Hindus. The only thing for which acceptance of Creationism renders one unsuitable is…Evolutionism.
A more likely explanation is a fear that children might realize that a great deal of Evolution, not having been established, must be accepted on faith, and that a fair amount of it doesn’t make a lot of sense. While Creationism is unlikely to convert children into snake-handlers, it does suggest that orthodox Evolution can be examined critically. Bad juju, that.
Now (and I hope this doesn’t bore those who have read me before on the matter), an entertaining way to study the politics is to ask the Evolutionists questions that a scientist would answer (since scientists are not ashamed not to know things), but that an ideologue can’t afford to. They are simple. (1) Has the chance occurrence of life been demonstrated in the laboratory? Yes or no. (2) Do we really know, as distinct from guess, hope, or imagine, of what the primeval seas consisted? Yes or no. (3) Do we know, as distinct from guess, pray, wave our arms, and hold our breath and turn blue, what seas would be needed for the chance formation of life? Yes or no. (4) Can we show mathematically, without crafted and unsupportable assumptions, that the formation of life would be probable in any soup whatever? Yes or no.
I once posed these questions in a column on Fredoneverything.net and, in another place, to a group of committed evangelicals of Evolution. A tremendous influx of email resulted. Much of it was predictable. Many Christians congratulated me on having disproved Evolution, which I had not done. The intelligent and independent-minded wrote thoughtfully. Of the Knights Templar of Evolution, none—not one—answered the foregoing yes-or-no questions. They ducked. They dodged. They waxed wroth. They called names.
This is the behavior not of scientists but of true believers. I have spent countless hours as a reporter talking to scientists, as distinct from zealots with a scientific background. Without exception that I can remember, they were rational, honest, and forthcoming. Yes, they were often trying to establish a pet theory. But they said, “I think this is so, and here’s the evidence, and I think it’s pretty solid, but I still need to show this or that, and no, we haven’t, but I hope we will.” If I expressed doubts, they either showed my clearly and civilly why I was wrong, or said, “Good point. Here’s what we think.” Parenthetically, my impression, based on a small sample, is that the more incensed of the Evolutionists tend to be either of the hard Right or the hard Left: those who need to believe one thing categorically seem to need to believe other things categorically. Which means that if they are wrong, they are unlikely to notice it.
And this is what disturbs me about them. I do not object to the content of Evolutionism. Some, all, or part of it may be correct. I would like to know. A more fascinating question does not readily come to mind. But dispassionate discussion with them is not possible, anymore than it is with Gloria Steinem or Herbert Marcuse or Cornell West, and for exactly the same reasons. They are the same people. How sad.
I broke that addiction a few years ago. I haven't been the same since.
Excellent points!
But is math constant over time? Sure, pointy headed Darwin/Satanists might say math is unchanging, but couldn't God in his wisdom change math from the time you posted the first time to the time you posted the second time?
That must be it. Yes, that's it exactly. In looking back #8 is now correct and the correction is incorrect. I'm glad you came up with the explanation.
(I was headed for the coffee pot. My caffeine level must be in the red zone!)
From evoluton to 'heretics' to the Catholic Church, all in one big, foul smelling breath.
It's not as if Christians don't already know that 'evolution' has but one real agenda, to undermine Scripture and Christianity, but thanks for the reminder anyway.... some people probably needed it.
Funny how the Constitution doesn't say one word about "separation of church and state." Nor did the Bill of Rights originally apply to state governments (let alone local school boards, which didn't exist, anyway).
That's why the First Amendment, often misunderstood to mandate "separation of church and state," starts with the words, "Congress shall make no law ..."
Wow. Talk about strawman. If you can't argue against evolution bring abiogenesis into the picture and claim it as a main part of evolution. You know there are many good sources for information on evolution that are not creationist propaganda sites.
I believe the Holy Office is still in existence.
This is the result of a quick search. Corrections welcome.
The situation under discussion has nothing to do with Congress's making laws. It has to do with local elected officials exercising their authority (in this case, to determine school curriculum content) in a way that dissatisfies some residents.
Someone is always unhappy with the performance of their elected officials - my County Commissioners, for instance, who brought us the idiotic traffic circle up the road - but the American way to deal with this is through elections, not lawsuits.
Now that's a funny joke! I guess that's why call it fun-damentalism.
"Sigh...No he's not. If I decide to pull my child from a science class because they start teaching religion, does my child get a pass? "
No, the real problem is that the public school system was created at a time when there was an overwhelming consensus in this country as to what the truth was-- about God and the bible, about the history of our country, about morality, about what constituted literature, about the virtues of representative democracy and capitalism, about the existence and knowability of absolute truth, about almost everything. That consensus has collapsed completely, in every arena I just named, and the collapse has turned the educational curriculum into a political football. The result is what you see-- and it's ugly.
There is one, and only one viable answer: privatize it, vouchers for everyone. Universal education is indeed an important goal for any civilized society, but unless and until we can once again agree even on the basics of what should be taught, parents should be free to choose education for their children that reflects their own beliefs and values. The current system forces conscientious parents to pay twice to educate their children, and that is wrong.
People have the right to raise their own children as they see fit, but they do not have the right to dictate the raising of other people's children, which is what you get with state-determined education. The public school system, in this intellectual climate, is coercive-- it is taxation without representation, and dicated belief systems. It is flat wrong, and getting more evil every day.
Darwinism: There is no God
Creation Science: There is a God
ID: God is dead
See. They are different
Except this ...'theory'... fails to offer any positive evidence, or any credible mechanism for this ...design...
Was it aliens from Epsilon Eridani 5 who introduced DNA on Earth? Was it giant robots carrying out some evil trans-stellar experiment?
Or was it one of the many preferred dieties, using their preferred magic wand, scepter or mystical hand gesture?
And you want to be in my science class.....
I disagree. I still can't get over the Wedge strategy which was developed after the Supreme Court ousted creation science. It seems like it is being followed to the letter.
I have provided a link below, and included one telling passage from the document (underlining added):
The rest of your post, concerning "Darwinism" contains numerous errors, but I will let some one else have the pleasure. I'm going to go read a book for a while.FIVE YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip ]ohnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
The Wedge Strategy, Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture
"Wow. Talk about strawman. If you can't argue against evolution bring abiogenesis into the picture and claim it as a main part of evolution. You know there are many good sources for information on evolution that are not creationist propaganda sites"
I am not arguing against evolution. We know from observation that variations in species occur based on stresses in the environment. We have not yet observed one species to change into another.
But, as Philip Johnson states, if this was all the argument there would be no controversy and we would not even have this thread over which to argue.
From Johnson's website:
That insight is the starting point for my inquiry into Darwinian evolution and its relationship to creation, because Darwinism is the answer to two very different kinds of questions. First, Darwinian theory tells us how a certain amount of diversity in life forms can develop once we have various types of complex living organisms already in existence. If a small population of birds happens to migrate to an isolated island, for example, a combination of inbreeding, mutation, and natural selection may cause this isolated population to develop different characteristics from those possessed by the ancestral population on the mainland. When the theory is understood in this limited sense, Darwinian evolution is uncontroversial, and has no important philosophical or theological implications.
Evolutionary biologists are not content merely to explain how variation occurs within limits, however. They aspire to answer a much broader question-which is how complex organisms like birds, and flowers, and human beings came into existence in the first place. The Darwinian answer to this second question is that the creative force that produced complex plants and animals from single-celled predecessors over long stretches of geological time is essentially the same as the mechanism that produces variations in flowers, insects, and domestic animals before our very eyes. In the words of Ernst Mayr, the dean of living Darwinists, "transspecific evolution [i.e., macroevolution] is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species." Neo-Darwinian evolution in this broad sense is a philosophical doctrine so lacking in empirical support that Mayr's successor at Harvard, Stephen Jay Gould, once pronounced it in a reckless moment to be "effectively dead." Yet neo-Darwinism is far from dead; on the contrary, it is continually proclaimed in the textbooks and the media as unchallengeable fact. How does it happen that so many scientists and intellectuals, who pride themselves on their empiricism and open-mindedness, continue to accept an unempirical theory as scientific fact?
Regarding visiting creationist propaganda sites, I have never read one. I have, on the other hand, been to several ID sites such as Johnson's. As I stated before, they are two wholly different ideas and the straw man is built by combining the two. You are claiming that I build a straw man when I combine abiongenis and evolution. If it is true that these are not taught in conjunction with each other (they were when I was in school) then where is the controversey with the ID folks?
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