Posted on 11/19/2003 10:15:28 AM PST by yonif
Medical student John David Johannessen and the leader of the Christian Medical Students Circle have petitioned the medical faculty at the University of Oslo for lectures "that not only argue the cause for evolution, but also the evidence against", student newspaper Universitas reports.
"The theory of evolution doesn't stand up and does not present enough convincing facts. It is one theory among many, but in education it is discussed as if it is accepted by everyone," Johannessen said.
Johannessen is a believer in creationism, based on the biblical account.
"Of course one has to know the theory of evolution, it is after all part of the curriculum. But certain lecturers demand that one believe it as well. Then it becomes a question of faith and not subject," Johannessen said.
Johannessen told the newspaper that he and his fellows are often compared to American extremists. Besides not being taken seriously or being able to debate the topic relevantly, Johannessen said that 'evolutionists' practically harass those who do not agree with them.
Dean Per Brodal said it was regrettable if any university staff were disparaging to creationists, but that there was no reason to complain about a lack of relevant evidence. Brodal also felt that evolution had a rather minor spot in medical education.
Biology professor Nils Christian Stenseth argued that instead of indulging an 'off-topic' debate the medical faculty should offer a course in fundamental evolutionary biology, saying that nothing in biology could be understood out of an evolutionary context.
The Christian Medical Students Circle want three basic points to be included in the curriculum:
1 According to the theory of evolution a mutation must be immediately beneficial to survive through selection. But many phenomena explained by evolution (for example the eye) involve so many, small immediately detrimental mutations that only give a long-term beneficial effect.
2 There is no fossil evidence to indicate transitional forms between, for example, fish and land animals or apes and humans.
3 Evolution assumes too many extremely improbably events occurring over too short a span of time.
Are horses, donkeys, and zebras different species?
How about great Danes and chihuahuas?
See post 187
Furthermore, "The whale embryo starts off with its nostrils in the usual place for mammals, at the tip of the snout. But during development, the nostrils migrate to their final place at the top of the head to form the blowhole (or blowholes * )."There's an awful lot of that sort of thing in embryology.
Is there anyway to debate this topic without it turning into a game of pedant gotcha? This is not a scientific peer review - this is a debate forum full of laymen. Give the condescending crap a rest.
Like I said - you are wrong - I never asked for examples. I was trying to debate a concept - clearly you are playing a game of gotcha. Give it a rest - you are adding nothing to this debate.
Junior - get a clue. I am not a creationist and all I was doing was trying to debate a topic and maybe learn more about the subject. Clearly you are here to play pedant gotcha. Your characterizations border on bigotry and your condescending tone may stroke your ego but it adds nothing to the debate.
You categorized everybody as “Creationists” if they question evolution – that is extremely intellectually lazy.
RightWingNilla, thank you very much for responding in a reasonable, non-condescending tone! I am not claiming to be an evolution expert – far form it! I am just asking questions and trying to get some people to explain their positions is terms other than “I’m right and everybody else is wrong”.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Stop it! Whew!
Most of these things seem unscientific to outsiders because they get their information from the popular press rather than from people who work in science. Science remains severely limited IMO, because we really know so little about the universe around us.
If you want to look at a discipline that's in a crisis, look at cosmology. Improvements in technology have blown this field wide open with completely unexpected results. There's the "Mysterious Attraction Towards the Sun" determined through observations of the movements of the Voyager, Pioneer and Cassini spacecraft that violates Newton's r-squared law, there's the accelerating expansion of distant galaxies, and the discovery of 2 foreign galactic cores inside the Milky Way.
Biologists are in much better shape than this, and they're at the beginning of decades or centuries of advancements with the new tools they have.
Frequently it's necessary to make an informed guess when the data runs out, then having to test the (guess) against new data, when it's obtained. This is about the only time where scientists have to be unscientific to make progress.
On the flip side, look at all the problems in the "science book" of Genesis. The races of man are not addressed, the American continent apparently doesn't exist, we should all be inbred like crazy since we've been mating with our brothers and sisters for 6000 years, plus how many kids would each family need to have to go from 2 to 6,000,000,000 in only 6000 years (calculators please).
If you don't like evolutionary biology, all you have to do is provide a 3 billion year old human fossil. Case closed.
Most of these things seem unscientific to outsiders because they get their information from the popular press rather than from people who work in science. Science remains severely limited IMO, because we really know so little about the universe around us.
If you want to look at a discipline that's in a crisis, look at cosmology. Improvements in technology have blown this field wide open with completely unexpected results. There's the "Mysterious Attraction Towards the Sun" determined through observations of the movements of the Voyager, Pioneer and Cassini spacecraft that violates Newton's r-squared law, there's the accelerating expansion of distant galaxies, and the discovery of 2 foreign galactic cores inside the Milky Way.
Biologists are in much better shape than this, and they're at the beginning of decades or centuries of advancements with the new tools they have.
Frequently it's necessary to make an informed guess when the data runs out, then having to test the (guess) against new data, when it's obtained. This is about the only time where scientists have to be unscientific to make progress.
On the flip side, look at all the problems in the "science book" of Genesis. The races of man are not addressed, the American continent apparently doesn't exist, we should all be inbred like crazy since we've been mating with our brothers and sisters for 6000 years, plus how many kids would each family need to have to go from 2 to 6,000,000,000 in only 6000 years (calculators please).
If you don't like evolutionary biology, all you have to do is provide a 3 billion year old human fossil. Case closed.
To quote Bugs Bunny "What a Ma-roon"
Let me guess VadeRetro, for your next trick you will do the evolutionist victory dance:
Where did you get the idea Genesis is a "science book"?
Where did you get the idea the bible is required to supply accurate geography lessons?
Where did you get the idea the Bible is required to explain the races?
The Bible is book full of allegory. It teaches a religious philosophy - it is not a geography book. The Bible is not a science book - it does not claim to be a science book and anybody that claims it is a science book is misguided (in my opinion).
Unless you are going to claim that you are the ultimate authority on determining what is and what is not allegory in the Bible, your arguments directed at the Bible are pretty much meaningless. Now if your point is: people that use the Bible as a science book are misguided – I am on your side.
This is creationist dogma. The origin of Creationist science comes from the belief that science somehow contradicts the Bible.
Sounds like someone missed church.
Actually I believe a creationist is one that believes life/the universe was created rather than always existed or evolved into existence - this group does contain Biblical literalists but clearly there are more non-Christian creationists than Christian creationists because there are more people of faith that are not Christian than are Christian. Sounds like you have taken the beliefs of one group of creationists and forced it on all people that believe in a creation. BTW: I will have to throw you a bone on this one – the dictionary defines Creationist as someone that follows the Bible but clearly there are big problems with this definition since most if not all people of faith believe life and the universe was created and most of them are not Christians.
I don’t know what church you go to – I have never been to a church that teaches “science somehow contradicts the Bible” - what church have you been in that teaches this?
BTW: where is the “creationist dogma” written? Or is it just made up as evolutionists go along.
The Bible is not a science book and it does not claim to be a science book – it is a book of religious philosophy therefore your claim that the Bible is faulty because it does not contain accurate geography lessons or genetics lessons or tips on how to repair a 1965 Ford Mustang is rather unfounded.
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