Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Antievolutionists asked to review draft standards in Texas
The National Center for Science Education ^ | October 16, 2008

Posted on 10/17/2008 7:59:18 AM PDT by 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..

(Excerpt) Read more at ncseweb.org ...


TOPICS: Education; Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: creationism; evolution; id; scientism
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 361-380381-400401-420 ... 1,101-1,110 next last
To: LeGrande
Did you even notice that you contradicted yourself?

Then I am qualified to be President.

381 posted on 10/19/2008 10:41:12 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 365 | View Replies]

To: allmendream
Luckily the vast majority of Scientists who DO believe in God are not crippled with that short sighted theology.

What ARE they crippled with?

382 posted on 10/19/2008 10:42:07 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 367 | View Replies]

To: allmendream
Yes, and when they are trying to be “respectable” Creationists they admit that “micro” evolution is perfectly acceptable and the evidence for it iron clad, but somehow due to some unknown and unknowable mechanism “micro” over millions of years can never be “macro”.

It's all the 'isolating' and then 'mixing' of the environment that each critter has had to endure to get to where it is today that puzzles me.

Do we have any evidence of TWO micro's ever linking up?

383 posted on 10/19/2008 10:45:49 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 369 | View Replies]

To: Mojave
Irreproducible results can have many causes.

Did you ever find evidence that these were irreproducible? (Leaving aside the fact that the original experimenter already reproduced them.)

384 posted on 10/19/2008 10:46:31 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 371 | View Replies]

To: Mojave
Explain how his irreproducle results are falsifiable.

Scientific experiments are falsifiable.

How is ID falsifiable?

385 posted on 10/19/2008 10:46:53 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 378 | View Replies]

To: Mojave
Irreproducible results can have many causes.

Did you ever find evidence that these were irreproducible? (Leaving aside the fact that the original experimenter already reproduced them.)

386 posted on 10/19/2008 10:47:15 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 371 | View Replies]

To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
Did you ever find evidence that these were irreproducible?

The fact that they've never been successfuly reproduced.

Poor you.

387 posted on 10/19/2008 10:47:46 AM PDT by Mojave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 384 | View Replies]

To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
Leaving aside the fact that the original experimenter already reproduced them.

Cite your "fact."

388 posted on 10/19/2008 10:49:14 AM PDT by Mojave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 386 | View Replies]

To: Toddsterpatriot
Scientific experiments are falsifiable.

Was that one? If so, explain how.

389 posted on 10/19/2008 10:49:58 AM PDT by Mojave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 385 | View Replies]

To: Mojave
Was that one?

Not yet.

How is ID falsifiable?

390 posted on 10/19/2008 10:53:42 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Do you remember when blue was a feeling, gray was a word and one was a number...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 389 | View Replies]

To: All
I've been thinking about my earlier post, and I'd like to put it out there as a serious question for the IDers among us. We have an apparent instance of a bacteria developing an ability it didn't have before. And yet the only reaction has been to try and prove the claim false. Why are you so quick to reject it? If ID is really science, isn't this a great chance to see if we can find evidence of the Designer? The New Scientist article says,
Something, [Lenski] concluded, must have happened around generation 20,000 that laid the groundwork for Cit+ to later evolve. Lenski and his colleagues are now working to identify just what that earlier change was...
Why isn't the Discovery Institute all over this? I would think they, and our IDers here, would be pointing to that "something" as a place to look for the hand of the Designer. Why is citrate-eating e.coli less interesting than a flagellum?
391 posted on 10/19/2008 10:58:31 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 386 | View Replies]

To: Mojave
Did you ever find evidence that these were irreproducible?

The fact that they've never been successfuly reproduced.

Wow. You really don't know the difference between "not yet" and "never"?

Leaving aside the fact that the original experimenter already reproduced them.

Cite your "fact."

It'd save time if you read things when they were posted the first time. From that same New Scientist article,

...Lenski turned to his freezer, where he had saved samples of each population every 500 generations. These allowed him to replay history from any starting point he chose, by reviving the bacteria and letting evolution "replay" again....The replays showed that even when he looked at trillions of cells, only the original population re-evolved Cit+ – and only when he started the replay from generation 20,000 or greater.
In other words, he was able to take a population without that capability and watch them evolve it again. Experiment reproduced.
392 posted on 10/19/2008 11:04:40 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 388 | View Replies]

To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
Why isn't the Discovery Institute all over this? I would think they, and our IDers here, would be pointing to that "something" as a place to look for the hand of the Designer. Why is citrate-eating e.coli less interesting than a flagellum?

Mostly the Dishonesty Institute is staffed with lawyers and PR flacks who don't know the difference between E. coli and a flagellum.

You expect those jerks to study science? They are out to destroy it, not to study it or to advance it. Just look at their Wedge Strategy. Its full of little tidbits like:

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. ...

Governing Goals

* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Yeah, a lot of science there, for sure! What a joke!

The last time we had a "science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" it was called the Dark Ages.

393 posted on 10/19/2008 12:16:48 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 391 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; Soliton; Elsie
That's got nothing to do with the fact that faith is involved.

The definition of faith doesn't depend on the object of the faith. Faith is still faith regardless of who it's in.

Evos have faith in other scientists that they are indeed being objective and have integrity in the work they do and the interpretation of that work.

Trusting that the scientific method and peer review system, both man designed systems, are reliable means for gaining and processing information takes faith.

Trusting that those procedures lead to a correct understanding of the world around us takes faith.

The difference between faith in man and faith in God is that faith in God actually does something for you after you die.

394 posted on 10/19/2008 12:47:33 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 276 | View Replies]

To: Soliton; Elsie

Matthew and John lived with Jesus and under His teaching for 3 years.

Mark was very closely connected to the Apostles and early church fathers for decades.

Doctor Luke, in his own words, (Luke 1:1-4) 1Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

************************************************************
So in what way were the writers of the Gospels not experts on Jesus teaching and life? What criteria do you demand of them to become experts?

What does it take beyond basic literacy to faithfully record something that happened to someone?


395 posted on 10/19/2008 12:55:13 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 278 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; Mojave
Nit pick about definitions of species.

Nit pick? The definition of *species* is so elastic and applied to inconsistently as to be about useless.

396 posted on 10/19/2008 12:58:14 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 354 | View Replies]

To: Fichori

To make a mobile?


397 posted on 10/19/2008 12:58:49 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 357 | View Replies]

To: Elsie
LOL.

*crickets*

398 posted on 10/19/2008 1:00:46 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 382 | View Replies]

To: metmom
Evos have faith in other scientists that they are indeed being objective and have integrity in the work they do and the interpretation of that work.

Trusting that the scientific method and peer review system, both man designed systems, are reliable means for gaining and processing information takes faith.

If the scientists have such faith in each other's objectivity and integrity, why do they have to do peer review?

399 posted on 10/19/2008 1:01:08 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 394 | View Replies]

To: Toddsterpatriot; Mojave
Scientific experiments are falsifiable.

How is ID evolution falsifiable?

400 posted on 10/19/2008 1:01:57 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 385 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 361-380381-400401-420 ... 1,101-1,110 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson