Posted on 12/21/2005 7:15:48 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
I think we should let the evolutionists have their way. They oppose any mention of creation in government schools, even rejecting the notion of Intelligent Design. They see the Scopes Trial of 1925 as the turning point for the upsurge in evolutionary legitimacy. While John Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution contrary to state law and had to pay a $100 fine, public opinion and educational monopoly turned toward evolution.1
One way to beat an opposing worldview is to force its proponents to live consistently with the position. Since Scopes was accused of teaching from the state-adopted textbook A Civic Biology Presented in Problems by George William Hunter, then let the evolutionists teach A Civic Biology today. If it was good for the evolutionists in 1925, then it should be good for them today. Forget the stickers describing evolution as a theory,2 make them teach the real thing.
Chapter 14 of Hunter’s book, adopted in 1914 by the state of Tennessee, includes standard material “on evolution, with protozoa, worms, insects, reptiles, birds and mammals. Man is grouped with the apelike mammals. Hunter writes that ‘there is an immense mental gap between monkey and man.’ He adds that monkeys ‘seem to have many of the mental attributes of man,’ and this ‘justifies his inclusion with man in a separate mental genus.’ Hunter states that ‘early man must have been little better than one of the lower animals.’ The chapter concludes with a claim of white supremacy.” This should go over big with the minority populations.
Hunter returns to the subject of eugenics in chapter 17. “If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved upon, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection.”
“In marriage, Hunter says, there are some things that ‘the individual as well as the race should demand.’ To have children with tuberculosis, syphilis, epilepsy or feeble-mindedness is ‘not only unfair but criminal.’” So why not let the Avian Flu run its course so we can purge the planet of the unfit? Why spend billions on vaccinations? We could get unemployment down to about one percent. With tens of million of useless eaters gone, global warming might be delayed, maybe even averted.
Hunter compares the Jukes and Kallikaks, pseudonyms for two families, one inheriting criminality (Jukes) and the other inheriting mental retardation (Kallikaks), “to show the need for eugenics.” Hunter’s A Civic Biology includes some rather impolitic suggestions:
The Jukes. —Studies have been made on a number of different families in this country, in which mental and moral defects were present in one or both of the original parents. The “Jukes” family is a notorious example. The first mother is known as “Margaret, the mother of criminals.” In seventy-five years the progeny of the original generation has cost the state of New York over a million and a quarter dollars, besides giving over to the care of prisons and asylums considerably over a hundred feeble-minded, alcoholic, immoral, or criminal persons. Another case recently studied is the “Kallikak” family. . . . This family has been traced back to the War of the Revolution, when a young soldier named Martin Kallikak seduced a feeble-minded girl. She had a feeble-minded son from whom there have been to the present time 480 descendants. Of these 33 were sexually immoral, 24 confirmed drunkards, 3 epileptics, and 143 feeble-minded. The man who started this terrible line of immorality and feeble-mindedness later married a normal Quaker girl. From this couple a line of 496 descendants have come, with no cases of feeble-mindedness. The evidence and the moral speak for themselves!Parasitism and its Cost to Society. —Hundreds of families such as those described above exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.
The Remedy. —If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with some success in this country.
Wow! I want to see the ACLU, the science departments at all the major universities, and public school officials who are working overtime to keep any mention of God out of schools to defend these evolutionary assumptions. Obviously, “the book would not be acceptable in any school system in the United States today, because of the things that it says about the poor, blacks, and people with disabilities.” But it should be acceptable. Any fight against evolution today is described as Scopes II. If the evolutionists believe that putting John Scopes on trial for teaching from Hunter's book was wrong-headed, then they must believe that Hunter’s book was the right text to teach biology. As far as I can find, no one defending Scopes objected to Hunter’s biology text.
“When people talk about the Scopes trial, their ideas are usually shaped by the distorted propaganda in the movie [Inherit the Wind], not by the actual trial. The real event concerned a book that asserted the supremacy of whites, encouraged contempt for the poor, and hinted at forced sterilization or even more violent acts.” Let’s make the evolutionists own up to their racist, elitist, and supremacist past.3 Looking back, one pro-evolution writer comments: “Here 1920’s science was right about the basics of evolution, but was wrong about social Darwinism and white genetic supremacy and was immoral to advocate eugenics.”4 Based on what? If there is no God, then what’s wrong with eugenics, even the most vile kind? Given atheist first principles that are used by today’s top defenders of evolution, how do we know that “social Darwinism” is wrong? How do we “know” anything is wrong? In fact, how do we “know” anything?
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1. http://www.cross-currents.com/wp-content/Intelligent_Design_Kansas.doc 2. Jon Gillooly, “Evolution fight heads back to court,” Marietta Daily Journal (December 14, 2005): http://www.mdjonline.com/268/10204126.txt
3. The material on George Hunter’s A Civic Biology is taken from “The Scopes Trial,” chapter 8 of John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe’s An Exploration of Eugenic: http://www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap08.html
4. http://volokh.com/posts/1099763167.shtml
Just because the author can find someone who misused or misrepresented or was wrong about evolution doesn't invalidate evolution.
You don't have to go back 50 years to have people misuse or misrepresent Christianity but that doesn't in any way invalidate Christianity.
This article tries to make evolution look bad. In reality, quotes like the above make the ID people look bad.
Let's not. The arguments stand on the facts as we know them today, not some stupid ad hominem attacks on people not alive to defend themselves.
You're right - this kind of nonsense is childish whining.
Maybe you're speaking with the passion of the moment, Tailgunner Joe. I hope so, because this petulance doesn't reflect well on conservatives.
I beg to differ. I think the left and the atheists need a good dose of their own medicine. ;-)
Christianity was used for centuries to justify slavery. Both the Old and New Testaments give a pass. The New Testament even instructs slaves to obey unjust masters.
Because ID is NOT A SCIENTIFIC THEORY!
Can't wait for all the homeschoolers to apply for a degree in any of the sciences in college. Good luck!
Here we go with another stupid thread where the ID crowd goes on and on ad nauseum about how " Well, ID isn't creationism!" For crying out loud... at least be honest about it. ID=Creationism. Yes, that puts us right back to 1925....meanwhile, international scientists soar ahead while we stumble around in the bog of La La Land.
The homeschoolers may be black-balled by the biology departments, and shunned by those who fear them in other behavioral and animal sciences.
But meanwhile they'll be top of the incoming class, pushing out all those poor public school students who got the best education 50 years of liberal thought can provide.
I was a firm creationist in high school and college, and had no problems whatsoever getting straight A's in my high school and college science classes. I can memorize anything, and back then they just made you prove you had learned the material, they didn't require a blood oath to the god of evolution like so many programs do today.
Every science student should be able to correctly describe evolution. NO science student should be asked to pledge that they believe it.
And I can guarantee you that my children will have a more open mind, and a more skeptical outlook and thirst for scientific inquiry, than most children raised to simply accept whatever their current high school text book might teach.
Because who knows in 75 years how much of what is in those textbooks will be laughed about and dismissed in the way the current evolutionists are the "state-of-the-art" evolutionary textbooks of 1925.
And no, I don't homeschool my children, although I do teach them stuff about real science.
If God had nothing to do with creation then we are to conclude that God evolved from nothing as well or that God does not exist.
Atheism and State is religion too. Atheism is an absolute belief there is no god. Agnostics don't know (and often don't care much one way or the other).
Uh, yes you did say " let them study both THEORIES" .How is that for reading comprehension?
And now, science is not vital to functioning? What do you think computer SCIENCE is? Guess we are back in 1925...there are a million ideas out there and parents can teach their children what they want.Just don't call "any" idea "science". And yes, this is upsetting when we are trying to compete globally and have to import scientists.
Can"t even begin to reply to this ridiculous reply.
You got through bio 101 cause you memorized stuff? Whooppee. You sure didn't make it into a graduate or post graduate program where the scientists are.
A creationist? How do you explain dinosaur bones?
what has a belief in God to do with evolution?
NOTHING!
And while you are at it...why not just be a Christian Scientists and not have blood transfusions? Cause that is "science" and we certainly can't have science and believe in God.
ID has both scientific and philosophical components - as does the reigning Darwinist orthodoxy. ID seeks to address the unprovable baseline assumption in the current orthodoxy: "only random mechanistic explanations will be accepted because that is all that exists " - a methodological naturalism that has unfortunately been elevated to a worldview. Prominent Darwinists routinely make pronouncements about the world that are far more metaphysical and theological than scientific, so let's be fair about things. ID proposes a framework for testability when encountering complexity that exceeds all probable mechanistic explanations. Stay tuned.
Re: applying for a science degree in college
I remember being handed my graded final in Ecology at my Ivy League school (A on exam, A in course) and then seeing the look of incredulity on my prof's face as I related that, while I found Darwinism interesting (and was conversant in it), I couldn't accept solely random mechanistic processes as the final solution to life. Three Ivy League science/engineering degrees later, I'm still at the same point.
Ain't buying your story. You are not in biology. You are an engineer, if your story is at all true.
Can't wait for all the homeschoolers to apply for a degree in any of the sciences in college. Good luck!
I replied that, back when I went to college, you didn't have to BELIEVE evolution to pass high school and college science classes.
Your position has now "evolved" to something about a post-graduate degree in biology.
Apparently ignoring my statement that I agreed that biology programs wouldn't likely accept anybody who believed in creation anymore.
So, I would have to agree with your conclusion about your own reply:
Can"t even begin to reply to this ridiculous reply
Maybe you could have tried to clarify why you think that "homeschoolers" would have trouble getting into a college science program? That was a rather broad statement which seems to have no basis in reality. It presupposes that all homeschoolers are creationists, it suggests that they are all incapable of doing what it takes to learn and test on science materials, it treats all science as if it is centered on evolutionary biology when in fact most branches of science could really care less, AND it assumes that colleges are actually applying an evolutionary litmus test for their undergraduate programs.
But I presume you can't actually back up your claim, which is why you said you couldn't reply. Calling my reply "rediculous" I guess was simply an emotional, unscientific outburst rooted in your frustration of not being able to defend your statement about homeschoolers, or about someone suggesting that you could get through college without believing everything you were taught.
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