Antievolutionists asked to review draft standards in Texas

The National Center for Science Education ^ | October 16, 2008

[Soliton]

Three antievolutionists have been appointed to a six-member committee to review the draft set of Texas state science standards, and defenders of the integrity of science education in the Lone Star state are livid. "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members," as the Dallas Morning News (October 16, 2008) explains. Six members of the board "aligned with social conservative groups" chose Stephen C. Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, Ralph Seelke, a biology professor at the University of Wiconsin, Superior, and Charles Garner, a chemistry professor at Baylor University.

Meyer, Seelke, and Garner are all signatories of the Discovery Institute-sponsored "Dissent from Darwinism" statement. Meyer and Seelke are also coauthors of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House, 2008), which, like Of Pandas and People, is a supplementary textbook that is intended to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution. A recent review by biologist John Timmer summarized, "But the book doesn't only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book." Garner reportedly told the Houston Press (December 14, 2000) that he "criticizes evolutionary theory in class."

Meyer and Seelke also testified in the 2005 "kangaroo court" hearings held by three antievolutionist members of the Kansas state board of education, in which a parade of antievolutionist witnesses expressed their support for the so-called minority report version of the state science standards (written with the aid of a local "intelligent design" organization), complained of repression by a dogmatic evolutionary establishment, and claimed to have detected atheism lurking "between the lines" of the standards..

[Toddsterpatriot]

Experiments that are non-reproducible

I'll ask you again, since you missed it the first time, you claimed they were non-reproducible. You have any proof of that?

[Coyoteman]

Stop posting scientific evidence, you’ll upset the Creationists. LOL!

Tough. Evidence happens.

---

Fossil: Sts 5

Site: Sterkfontein Cave, South Africa (1)

Discovered By: R. Broom & J. Robinson 1947 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 2.5 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, floral & faunal data (1, 4)

Species Name: Australopithecus africanus (1, 2)

Gender: Male (based on CAT scan of wisdom teeth roots) (1, 30) Female (original interpretation) (4)

Cranial Capacity: 485 cc (2, 4)

Information: No tools found in same layer (4)

Interpretation: Erect posture (based on forward facing foramen magnum) (8)

Nickname: Mrs. Ples (1)

See original source for notes:
http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=24

[allmendream]

Are you holding out hope that Dr. Lenski is engaged in fraud?

I guess it is the only way you can avoid dealing with his data.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I didn't see Australopithecus africanus in the Bible. It must not exist.

[Mojave]

Are you holding out hope that Dr. Lenski is engaged in fraud?

How do you get that? Alexis Carrel wasn't engaged in fraud.

[Mojave]

I'll ask you again, since you missed it the first time, you claimed they were non-reproducible.

No one has been able to reproduce them. Like the Carrel experiment.

[Toddsterpatriot]

No one has been able to reproduce them.

Source?

[Coyoteman]

But wait!

There's more:

(Click the photo.)

[Mojave]

And don't forget Piltdown Man.

[Mojave]

Source?

You don't have one. The experiment has never been independently reproduced. Has it?

[Toddsterpatriot]

You don't have one.

You're making the claim, you don't have a source? LOL!

[Mojave]

You're making the claim

All you have to do is show one example.

[crickets]

[Coyoteman]

Still more:

(Stromatolites. Click the photo.)

[Toddsterpatriot]

All you have to do is show one example.

All you have to do is show it's non-reproducible.

[crickets]

[Coyoteman]

And don't forget Piltdown Man.

Piltdown was a hoax. The hoax was discovered and discarded by science decades ago. Only creationists keep referring to it nowadays.

Or are you using one example of a hoax to imply that all of paleontology is a hoax or a fraud? (That would be exceptionally dishonest even for a creationist.)

[Mojave]

All you have to do is show it's non-reproducible.

Easy. You're insisting I prove a negative. You have no examples of it ever being reproduced. You can't find any.

Maybe you're afraid to try.

[Mojave]

Piltdown was a hoax.

You don't say?

[Fichori]

Unless you can extract DNA from that fossil, all it tells you is that it died.

Nothing more.

[Toddsterpatriot]

You're insisting I prove a negative.

I'd be satisfied with the list of all the times it was tried and failed. You must have plenty of examples.

[Mojave]

They can prove that the CO2 it released during decomposition caused Global Warming® I’ll betcha.