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Christian medical students want anti-evolution lectures
Aftenposten (Norway News) ^ | 19 Nov 2003 | Jonathan Tisdall

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: christianstudents; creationism; crevolist; evolution; evolutionisatheory; medicalschool; norway; scienceeducation
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To: RonaldSmythe
I don't want a believer in mythology to operate on me! It's time to ignore old creation myths.

Unless you can prove Biblical creation is a myth, your statement is also mythology.

461 posted on 11/21/2003 4:16:02 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: VadeRetro
I'll make it harder to mischaracterize. The following critter is just some kind of funny dinosaur and in no way a transitional, right? After all, nothing is a transitional.

What exactly is your point?

462 posted on 11/21/2003 4:20:04 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Last Visible Dog
What exactly is your point?

If you're lost, my work is done for a while. Dinner time.

463 posted on 11/21/2003 4:23:34 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro

Who drew this picture? Somebody looking at a pile of bones and guessing the creature had feathers? Or was it Fred Flintstone. VadeRetro, you are correct - it is a funny world.

464 posted on 11/21/2003 4:24:00 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: VadeRetro
If you're lost, my work is done for a while. Dinner time.

I am not lost - I have no idea what you are trying to say and it has nothing to do with anything I have said.

465 posted on 11/21/2003 4:24:56 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Last Visible Dog
Who drew the one I posted right above it? How dumb do you want to play this?

Now I mean it, I'm outta here.
466 posted on 11/21/2003 4:25:30 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Who drew the one I posted right above it? How dumb do you want to play this? Now I mean it, I'm outta here.

How dumb do you want to play - the one above it does not seem to be a drawing. It is a picture of fossils and not somebody's dream of what a dinosaur might look like.

467 posted on 11/21/2003 4:28:29 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: VadeRetro
(For some reason, debating secular evolution skeptics is absolutely positively indistinguishable in every way from debating creationists.)

Everything looks like a colon when one's head is up one's...

When one is closed minded or prejudice, everything usually looks just the way they want it to.

(I am guessing you want to play the slogan game now)

468 posted on 11/21/2003 4:36:39 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: VadeRetro
Who drew this P L A C E M A R K E R
469 posted on 11/21/2003 4:42:51 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Hic amor, haec patria est.)
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To: Last Visible Dog
How dumb do you want to play - the one above it does not seem to be a drawing.

Indeed it does not. My point. It is not a drawing. But let's go back to your response to 460:

Who drew this picture? Somebody looking at a pile of bones and guessing the creature had feathers?

Guessing? Nine minutes after I post, you're inviting people to believe that any feathers in the artist's rendition are a guess.

Now, in the post to which you make your incredibly reasoned and thought-out response, there is a link to the source. Anyone who clicked on that might well have found himself looking at the following pictures among others.

Who drew those? I mean, you could have taken a tiny smidgeon of care to find out if there was a good basis for saying "feathers" if you had the wit and the integrity to want to know. It was clearly more important to get a naysaying response out there fast. "Another funny drawing from the VAST EVOLUTIONIST CONSPIRACY."

Also, in your nine minutes of careful thought and composition it might have occurred to you to realize that the presence or absence of the feathers on the universally agreed taxonomic dromaeosaur don't matter that much, at least not to my point. It's still a dinosaur with practically the same skeleton as something the creationists secular evolution skeptics dismiss as "A bird! Just a bird!"

The first failure reveals a militantly willful level of ignorance. The second, a similar sort of stupidity.

I try to imagine what a truly secular skeptic of evolution would be like in debate. It seems extremely unlikely that such would be an ICR/AiG/(Your favorite YECcie org here) seminar graduate in every way except for not acknowledging his material.

470 posted on 11/21/2003 5:35:25 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: Last Visible Dog
Unless you can prove Biblical creation is a myth...

C'mon! Where's that old secular skepticism?

471 posted on 11/21/2003 5:37:13 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: Last Visible Dog
I am not lost - I have no idea what you are trying to say and it has nothing to do with anything I have said.

I was under the impression you don't accept common descent, as it violates separate, special creation is only a theory or something. Anyway, that is what I was discussing with Abe when you jumped in to complain that all I had posted was insults and rhetoric. (Another ridiculous claim.)

472 posted on 11/21/2003 5:43:16 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Shouldn't any two dinosaurs at all be more related to each other than any two birds? Apparently not.

He shoots! He misses!

"Shouldn't any two dinosaurs at all be more related to each other than any dinosaur and any bird?"

473 posted on 11/21/2003 7:09:19 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Hey. He's in there swinging. That counts for something.
474 posted on 11/21/2003 7:35:00 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Hic amor, haec patria est.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Points for being a swinger? Now they tell me!
475 posted on 11/21/2003 7:39:26 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Try explaining that to Mrs. Retro. dive_lover (Mrs. Junior) wouldn't buy it for a second.
476 posted on 11/21/2003 8:25:31 PM PST by Junior ("Your superior intellects are no match for our puny weapons!")
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Comment #477 Removed by Moderator

Comment #478 Removed by Moderator

To: observer5; Gunslingr3
OBSERVER5 WROTE: ""Evolution" as taught in most schools today is a religion."

---------------------------------

It's called the religion of ATHEISM. If it is okay to teach the THEORY of evolution-atheism, it should also be okay to teach the FACTS of creationism.

BTW, until a little over a year ago (when I saw a lecture by Ken Ham) (http://www.answersingenesis.org), I did not believe in a "6 day" creation. However, after having seen Ken Ham's "6 day" argument twice, and after having watched several of the DVDs from an AIG conference (available online I think), I am now 100% CONVINCED about the "6 day" creation. Ken Ham's "6 day" arguments are VERY convincing!

479 posted on 11/22/2003 12:45:51 AM PST by Concerned
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To: Abe Froman; Axolotl; Gunslingr3; stuartcr; stanz
ABE FROMAN WROTE: "Believing evolution is incontrovertible fact requires just as much faith as the creationist."

---------------------------------

I AM RESPONDING:
Actually, it requires MORE faith! Check out http://www.answersingenesis.org .

480 posted on 11/22/2003 12:50:49 AM PST by Concerned
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