Young Earth Creationist Attack on the New Texas Earth and Space Science Course

Texas Citizens for Science ^ | January 15, 2009 | Steven Schafersman, Ph.D.

[Coyoteman]

The new Earth and Space Science (ESS) course standards (and all other science course standards) will be up for approval before the State Board of Education (SBOE) during January 21-23. Some SBOE members--the seven who are Young Earth Creationists (YECs)--will attempt to make changes to the ESS standards in ways that will damage the scientific integrity and accuracy of the course. In particular, these SBOE members will try to negatively modify or delete the standards that require students to understand the following topics that deal with scientific topics they consider controversial: age of the Earth and universe, radiometric dating, evolution of fossil life, and the origin of life by abiotic chemical processes. These topics are the ones that YECs consider to be controversial; indeed, they are obsessed with them to the exclusion of everything else.

Continues...

[Oztrich Boy]

Show us how science education has improved in the United States under the monopoly evolution has had in the public school system. That should be easy to do as creation was only relatively recently been completely kicked out.

If teaching creation is so deleterious to learning science, you should be able to point out the improvements in science education and our ranking in the world should be increasing.

"completely kicked out"? Not while teachers like John Freshwater and populist politicians keep squeezing it in.

America's ranking will increase relative to the rest of the world by eliminating "teaching creation" because the rest of the developed world is ahead as it already considers YE anti-Darwinism a peculiarly American aberration which has no place in their education systems.

Bryanism has not worked

[metmom]

One person is not going to make that kind of difference in the quality of science education nationwide or our ranking in the world.

[Oztrich Boy]

One person is not going to make that kind of difference in the quality of science education nationwide or our ranking in the world.

Well every little hinders. But, I said "teachers" plural. You have more than one who places missioning above teaching. I gave the most recent whose name I remembered merely as an expemli gratia.

[js1138]

Not sure what your point is? fibrinogen is missing in a certain species? Big deal?

No one in biology claims you can simply knock out a key gene in a modern organism without consequense. And no one claims that there are humans with working blood clotting systems that work without fibrinogen.

What evolution claims is that there can be simpler versions of systems that have function. Not necessarily even the same function. Just function.

In this case a simpler version has the same function. The system that Behe -- on his second go round -- said was irreducible, is in fact, reducible.

[js1138]

The 2nd law is strong enough that deterioration sets in even before the death of the individual in that process called aging.

That's not true of single celled organisms, nor is it true of the germ line of multi-celled organisms.

The egg cell that started your life is in effect, a single celled organism that has been continuously alive and reproducing as far back as life itself.

[tpanther]

I’ve got a better idea, why not just quit being a bore?

Other people have answered you!

[CottShop]

[[What evolution claims is that there can be simpler versions of systems that have function. Not necessarily even the same function. Just function.]]

So what you are admitting is that unique species can and do have simpler versions, but more complex species have irreducibly complex blood clotting cascades?

There was a test on mice that knocked out Fibrinogen and some other element, the mice did survive, however they were severely ill, and had no way of clotting, which meant any nick would have been fatal. When just one was knocked out, it was fatal, but when both were knocked out it wasn’t immediately fatal, and when a mouse missing one was mated with a mouse missing hte other, it did produce offspring which didn’t immediately die, but was susceptible to hemmoraging.

Bottom line- to prove that these IC elements aren’t necessary in in complex creatures, you have to show a link between complex creatures and simpler ones like hte jawless fish/lampreys, or whales and dolphins- and htese creatures are netirely different than land dwelling vertebrates- pointing to their unique clotting devices, and claiming our more complex clotting cascades, which involve over 30 different chemical reactions, and 12 very complicated and precise steps for clotting, isn’t a valid argument ot make for ‘the evolution of clotting complexity’ UNLESS you have evidence linking all creatures. Pointing to minor homological similarities has been shown to be an invalid comparison for many reasons, and mainly because similar mechanisms do totally different functions, and arise in totally unique and different manners and can’t be explained htrough common descent.

[CottShop]

One of the criticisms against IC is that gene duplication ‘in hte past’ could have resulted in duplicate genes which could have ‘hung around’ without serving a purpose, while the original gene went on about it’s business, and in hte meantime, natural selection kept up it’s miraculous forward looking powers by creating other gene duplicaitons which also hung around until everythign from all these newly created genes without immediate function was aligned just right, and walla, a new function was evolved in a stepwise manner.

This hypothesis SEVERELY underestimates how complicated and detrimental such a process would be, especially when the duplicated genes are so similar to the original gene that they would interfere with the original fiunctions even htough they were ‘dormant’ so to speak. The process of htis type of evolution would need to somehow develop new structural changes to keep them from intereferrign with hte original gene’s primary functions, but there certainly is no evidence duplicated genes can or did develop structural changes. As well, if htese duplicated genes were just hanging around without function, what drove them to change structurally? Even if they somehow miraculously had ‘other functions’ (And remember, these ‘other functions’ would have messed up the whole works because they would have been additional functions not specific to the species, and the metainfo would not have had the correct info to deal with these new emerging functions in the first place, because htey would have been functions beyond the species specific parameters in order ot keep the newly created genes out of the way of the original genes who already had specific functions - ) they still would have had to aquire new structural changes, and somethign would have had to have been the driving force to move these duplicated genes to change structurally.

There woudl have had to have been a number of specializations not specific to that species created for no apparent reason, and htese woudl have had to all developed simultaniously in order for these newly created duplicates to have any value.

When you start introducing very similar genes into the works, you risk severe complications within the species because similar genes with different functions that are not specific to the species itnerferes with hte whole process that is already established. With a bunch of structurally similar, but different genes inpalce, without any functions, you run hte very high likelihood of structural collapse, as the system would ‘get confused’ tryign to determine which gene was the right one- Modern cancer treatment works very much like this inthat it acts like other compounds in the body, is very similar in structure, and confuses the system resulting in reactiosn that are foreign to the body. in this case however, the results can be ‘good’, but also wreak havoc on the whole system.

Claiming that genes can duplicate, and ‘create’ new functions in incremental steps, created a conglomeration of ‘parts’ that eventually result in a ‘workable model’ ignores the fact that when people do the same hting, they are using Intelligently PREDESIGNED parts with ‘species specific’ (Or ‘item specific’) purposes already intelligently established and functioning. (This is where we start getting into lateral gene transference- but here again, you HAVe to acknowledge that for somethign like this to happen, it would take a tremendous amount of foreknowledge and intelligent planning in order for the species receivign hte lateral gene transference not to suffer from mistakes- tjhis is somethign nature is simply incapable of doing)

The story about simpler genes evolving to greater and greater complexities is not very credible, and ignores the fact that htese jumps in complexity require tremendous changes that are never discussed when the proposal is put forth that because ‘simpler clotting exists in soem species, this means more complex clotting can’t be irreducibly complex, and simpyl gives the appaearance of comlexity’. So again, there is a myriad of problems that we are NOT told about when it comes to species somehow aquiring the functions of irreducible complexities from lower complexity systems in other species ‘in hte past’ at some point.

[js1138]

So what you are admitting is that unique species can and do have simpler versions, but more complex species have irreducibly complex blood clotting cascades?

If simpler versions work, the structure isn't irreducible. If you take the monitor from your computer, you can't use the computer. That does not mean that earlier versions of monitors with fewer features didn't work.

You take the keystone out of a Roman arch, it falls down. That does not mean the arch was poofed into place in one step.

[js1138]

This hypothesis SEVERELY underestimates how complicated and detrimental such a process would be, especially when the duplicated genes are so similar to the original gene that they would interfere with the original fiunctions even htough they were ‘dormant’ so to speak.

There are humans walking around with hundreds of copies of some genes, while other humans have only one or a few copies.

[CottShop]

[[There are humans walking around with hundreds of copies of some genes, while other humans have only one or a few copies.]]

Not with hte structural changes that would be needed to evolve soemthing like blood clotting supposedly involved

[js1138]

The story about simpler genes evolving to greater and greater complexities is not very credible, and ignores the fact that htese jumps in complexity require tremendous changes that are never discussed when the proposal is put forth that because ‘simpler clotting exists in soem species, this means more complex clotting can’t be irreducibly complex, and simpyl gives the appaearance of comlexity’. So again, there is a myriad of problems that we are NOT told about when it comes to species somehow aquiring the functions of irreducible complexities from lower complexity systems in other species ‘in hte past’ at some point.

Of course the changes are discussed. And if you read journals instead of creationist websites you would be familiar with the discussion. There are hundreds of published books on the evolution of blood clotting. a large stack, along with hundreds of journal articles were introduced as evidence at the Dover trial.

[CottShop]

[[If simpler versions work, the structure isn’t irreducible.]]

The pont is that the other systems aren’t ‘simpler versions’ They are entirely DIFFERENT unique systems- as mentioned in my previous posts, you can’t point to homological similarities and claim they are the ‘same but simpler’- this is a simplistic oversimplification that Macroevolutionists are famous for comitting

[[If you take the monitor from your computer, you can’t use the computer. That does not mean that earlier versions of monitors with fewer features didn’t work.]]

Ant it doesn’t mean the ‘simpler versions’ evovled via muitaitions either- Not a good analogy I’m afraid

[js1138]

Not with hte structural changes that would be needed to evolve soemthing like blood clotting supposedly involved

Sure there are.

[CottShop]

[[Of course the changes are discussed. And if you read journals instead of creationist websites you would be familiar with the discussion.]]

I don’t simply read creationist articles contrary to your claim- I read whatever material is available on subjects we discuss, and quite frankly, ALL I see from Evo-firnedly scientific journals and publications are oversimplification hypothesis’ that try to justify their beleif.

[[a large stack, along with hundreds of journal articles were introduced as evidence at the Dover trial.]]

Yes they were- and not a single one provided the evidence that the changes needed a lamprey clotting system, or simpler ones, could be accoutned for via natural process’- ALL they did was posit what they felt ‘might have happened’ without explaining HOW these changes could take place without damaging hte species-

You have your opinion on hte matter, and that’s fine- so do a lot of scientists- however, their opinion relies on scenarios that simply defy biology.

[js1138]

Yes they were- and not a single one provided the evidence that the changes needed a lamprey clotting system, or simpler ones, could be accoutned for via natural process’- ALL they did was posit what they felt ‘might have happened’ without explaining HOW these changes could take place without damaging hte species-

That's how forensic science works. It's how all forensics works, even in criminal trials.

I find it odd that conservatives find the methods of forensic science adequately trustworthy to convict and execute criminals, but doubt it when "the glove don't fit" their religious beliefs.

[CottShop]

JS- I don’t have the time to go through that site line by line to refute his simplistic oversimplifications of a process he calls ‘remarkably simple’ but hten goes on to explain incredible complexities which he juts glosses over as though they were insignificant when comparing land dwelling clotting systems to jawless fish clotting systems. I’ll take a few lines now, but really- the whole article is a slight-of-hand oversimplification of somethign that Miller himself doesn’t care to address as intellectually honestly as he knows he should.

[[This causes no problem for the organism - most pancreatic proteases are inactive until a small piece near their active sites can be cut away by another protease. However, when damage to a blood vessel allows plasma to seep into tissue, suddenly our previously inactive plasma serine protease is activated by tissue proteases,]]

Abnd htis ALL happens within the species specific parameters for which the species is predesigned to handle- what Miller leaves out is that the new duplicate genes he ASSUMES were created sometime in hte past, they had to have NON SPECIES SPECIFIC infromaiton and structures in order to ‘create’ a complex clotting system not specific to the species.

[[That plasma protease gene is now subject to the same witches’ brew of copying errors, rearrangements, and genetic reshuffling that affect the genes for every other cellular protein. Over time, bits and pieces of other genes are accidentally spliced into the plasma protease sequence.]]

Does miller ever give you proof that htis happened? Or that it could even be possible? No- He simply asserts that it ‘could have happened’- again, oversimplifying hte whole process and making it seem as though htere are no obstrucitons, when hte reality is that DESPITE the fact that species systems can have gene duplicatiosn that were innactive and CAN be demonstrated, are al lspecies specific, and fall within the species specific parameters, and hterefore are not cast off- however, this process he is asserting could have happened invovled process’ that were foriegn to the species, and involve a process of ‘accidental splicings’ that would alter the duplications even further, making htem even more complicated and detrimental to the system while they are innactive.

[[But one day, through a well-understood process called “exon shuffling,” a DNA sequence known as an “EGF domain” is spliced into one end of the protease gene.]]

Gee- what a swell fairy tale- then the princess kissed the frog, and wallah- he became a prince. Any evidence for this? Any evidence that it wouldn’t infact harm instead of being ‘benificial’ as Miller asserts? Nope- not a shred- just wild assumptions.

[[Once we have a situation in which every hemorrage activates a protease bound to tissue receptors, a gene duplicate of one of the major plasma proteins would then be under strong selective pressure to increase its ability to interact with the bound protease.]]

After weaving his incredible fairytale, he then asserts that ‘once everythign is’ miraculously ‘inplace, why then the creature woudl be under great pressure to improve upon this innadequate system. Really? And it would know how to ready itself for new specific mutaitons how? Foresight? Foreknowledge? Hindsight? Miller makes it sound as though nature has soem kind of intelligence, and can foresee that the new clotting system is not up to hte job, and ‘needs improvements’

Cripes- Talk abotu a nonsense faith based scenario!

As I said- the whoel article is full of this nonsense that IGNORES the complexities involved i nthe whole supposed process of evolution of hte clotting system- Miller deceives the reader into thinking it’s a ‘remarkably simple prcoess’ when hte REALITY is that it is no such hting- it invovles processes and reactiosn that can NOT be screwed with without SERIOUS reprocussions to the species- Miller HIDES these FACTS from the reader-

Again- you’re welcoem to your beleif- but let’s not pretend Miller explains how clotting arose, and let’s not pretend that ‘simpler versions’ are the SAME versions as land dwelers- because htey are not- they are compeltely different, and it woudl have taken complete restructuring, and megaevolutionary leaps that nature has NO explaination for how htey could come about. I’m working for a bit, then I’ll be taking a look at an article a member has asked me to look at- so I’m not goign to spend all day on Miller’s nonsense- I just picked a couple random paragraphs, and they are nothign but problem excusing hypothesis’ that are NOT based in reality

[js1138]

I might point out that forensics doesn’t rely on just one line of evidence. You have been defending Behe, but if you read his books and articles you would know that he accepts evolution, common descent and an ancient earth. For all the same reasons that convince mainstream biologists.

His theoretical objection does not deal with speciation, which seldom involves new complex structures. His work is concerned with a few instances of evolution. The flagellum is the primary one.

Behe doesn’t concern himself with complex structures like the bones of the inner ear, because the fossil evidence for gradual evolution is detailed and overwhelming.

Instead, he chooses a mechanism too small to have left a fossil record. But even there his objections are failing.

[js1138]

JS- I don’t have the time to go through that site line by line

Get back to me when you have time for something better than name calling.

[ReignOfError]

WHY should they lose?

Because ID is not science, and Creationism doesn't even vaguely try to be.

Can you show us what’s not scientific in this observation?

It's a statement of opinion without any empirical evidence backing it up, but it seems fairly sound as far as it goes. It also does not undermine the theory of evolution. We know little about the origins of life, and evolutionary theory does not depend on any particular hypothesis on the subject.