Christian medical students want anti-evolution lectures

Aftenposten (Norway News) ^ | 19 Nov 2003 | Jonathan Tisdall

[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.

[Abe Froman]

They were not violated. That is only your claim, not the claim of the biologist.

Biology has not explained the method by which the required phenomena of "spontaneous generation" occurred. In fact (have you ever taken a course in biology?) biology even declared as law that life cannot be generated from non-life (the "law of biogenesis".) In as much, the study of biology has determined that "spontaneous generation" is impossible as far as can be known.

Same thing. It's your claim, because you don't know the subject, let alone understand it.

I'm not the one making blind assertions. Before making accusations of ignorance one might show some knowledge one's self. I am arguing a point that may be tested and either affirmed or refuted. You are doing neither (probably because you have no refutation for my assertion that life does not come from non-life. If you do, please come out with it.)

[job]

I love to go to church.

[stuartcr]

If it were a liberal arts school, I would agree, but I believe we're talking about a medical school, which, it seems, should have a more disciplined curriculum.

[job]

Endemic to Africa? Wow, that should relieve all those people in central and south america. . .

[spunkets]

"You're using a genetic mutation that has negative consequences as an example to bolster an argument of evolution? Evolution by natural selection requires BENEFICIAL mutations.

SSA's predominance is due to it's beneficial effect. In regions where amlaria is pandemic, those with SSA survive. Folks with normal hemoglobin do not. They die.

You missed that in my first post. That means you're selectively ignoring the significance of variability between the genetic code of parents and progeny. The preponderance of a particular code for a species means that code is either essentially neutral, or beneficial. That means that fact it has a code at all, means it's a beneficial collection.

"If you can create life from non-living matter"

All life is composed of the arrangement of nonliving particles assembled in a particular way. Reverse engineering of life involves knowing and understanding the particulars of that assy. Actually creating life with a blueprint in hand proves nothing more than the bluprint is correct. Docs use the prints for parts and mechanisms on a regular basis to effect cures and fixes. It is science.

[Dimensio]

Course their is no magic in belieiving that we all arrived by evolution, yet no one knows what it is that we evolved from. Life form zero.

Well, the process that brought about the first life forms wasn't evolution, thus it's not relevant when discussing evolution. The only reason to bring it up is as a matter of distraction.

[spunkets]

" biology even declared as law that life cannot be generated from non-life (the "law of biogenesis""

That refers only to progeny from parents, or self in the case of asexual organisms. The law is conditional. In order for it to apply the conditions have to be met.

[Dimensio]

There is no universally accepted theory for abiogenesis. So far, abiogenesis cannot even be accepted as a proven theory.

"Proven theory" is an oxymoron.

If abiogenesis cannot occur, isn't that somewhat significant to the theory of evolution

No.

or are you more comfortable compartmentalizing these ideas so that you can still cling to evolution?

The process of evolution can only occur when life exists. When life does not exist, there's no evolution. As such, evolution cannot address any process that brings life where life did not exist before. This isn't an issue of compartmentalizing it for comfort, it's a matter of understanding the scope and the limits of the theory. It's only brought up by creationists as a point of distraction; unable to argue against evolution for what it is, they argue against what they say evolution should be.

[Dimensio]

What in Creationism suggests that using mammals for drug testing is better than using orchids?

Well, there was the guy who, a few weeks ago on another crevo discussion, insisted that humans aren't animals (and by extension, not mammals).

[js1138]

orchid placemarker.

[job]

Well, take it easy their Francis...

First, I have not said to what I have subscribed, creationism or evolution. Second, I have not argued the merits of evolution b/c they fail or don't exist, I just haven't. Third, it is you have tried to distract the attention from the point I was making: You have a theory, evolution, whose existence depends on the existence of another theory, abiogenesis. Now, so-called micro-evolution appears in the rock record, and workers have made extrapolations and speculations on a macro scale. Nothing wrong with that, unless as an evolutionist, you ardently refuse to acknowledge the gaping holes in the macro-theory scale. Who knows that God didn't create the world through some form of evolutionary process?

There are really a lot of athiests on these threads who masquerade as "pure scientists." They want no mention of God in the sciences, b/c he cannot be proved in the lab. Truth of the matter for them, they don't want God mentioned in any other part of their life either. And to some extent, the evolution aspect of life is somewhat of a parlor game compared to the much more looming question related to abiogenesis: where did we come from, how did life start, where did matter come from, how did the Earth develop as perfectly as it did?

Evolutionists, especially amateur evolutions, steer clear of these issues. Funny how larger minds, like Albert, who had such a grasp on the cosmos, became convinced that God existed and was the force behind creation around us.

[VadeRetro]

Here's a sample of what's out there. I understand, having often witnessed the performance, that there are loads of people who will dismiss any pile of paleontological evidence--piece by piece if necessary--while continuing to chant that there is no evidence. Nevertheless, "I can pretend to dismiss all the evidence" does not equate to "There is no fossil evidence to indicate transitional forms between, for example, fish and land animals or apes and humans." The second statement, a quote from the main article, is flat-out false. Absurdly, ridiculously, delusionally so.

[Tac12]

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.-NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are
stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law Monday
redefining pi, a mathematical constant used widely in the aerospace industry. The bill to
change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare by Leonard Lee
Lawson (R, Crossville), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by
members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Fob James says he
will sign it into law on Wednesday.

The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they
had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Dr. Marshall Bergman, a manager at
the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi is a Greek letter used
to signify the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by
engineers to calculate missile trajectories.

Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal
constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an
irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal
point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisely defined by
mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate."

"I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to
admit it," said Lawson. "The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font in
Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round
in compass." Lawson also called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be
calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing the exact answer could harm students'
self-esteem. "We need to return to some absolutes in our society," he said. "The Bible does
not say that the font was thirty-something cubits. Plain reading says thirty cubits. Period."

Science actually supports Lawson, explained Russell Humbleys, a propulsion technician at
the Marshall Spaceflight Center who testified in support of the bill before the legislature in
Montgomery last week. "Pi is merely an artifact of Euclidean geometry." Humbleys is
working on a theory which he says will prove that pi is determined by the geometry of
three-dimensional space, which is assumed by physicists to be "isotropic," or the same in all
directions.

"There are other geometries, and pi is different in every one of them," said Humbleys.
"Scientists have arbitrarily assumed that space is Euclidean. A circle drawn on a spherical
surface has a different value for the ratio of circumference to diameter. Anyone with a
compass, flexible ruler, and globe can see this for themselves. It's not exactly rocket science."


Roger Learned, a Solomon Society member who was in Montgomery to support the bill,
agrees. He said that pi is nothing more than an assumption by the mathematicians and
engineers who were there to argue against the bill. "Those nabobs waltzed into the capital
with an arrogance that was breathtaking," Learned said. "Their predatorial deficit resulted in
a polemical stance at absolute contraposition to the legislature's puissance."

Some education experts believe that the legislation will affect the way math is taught to
Alabama's children. One member of the state school board, Lily Ponja, is anxious to get the
new value of pi into the state's math textbooks, but thinks that the old value should be
retained as an alternative. "As far as I am concerned, the value of pi is only a theory, and we
should be open to all interpretations." She looks forward to the day when students will have
the freedom to decide for themselves what value pi should have.

Dr. Robert S. Dietz, a professor at Arizona State University who has followed the
controversy, wrote that this is not the first time a state legislature has attempted to redefine
the value of pi. A legislator in the state of Indiana unsuccessfully attempted to have that state
set the value of pi to three. According to Dietz, the lawmaker was exasperated by the
calculations of a mathematician who carried pi to four hundred decimal places and still could
not achieve a rational number.

Many experts are warning that this is just the beginning of a national battle over pi between
traditional values supporters and the technical elite. Solomon Society member Lawson
agrees. "We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the
Bible, is three."

[atlaw]

"You have a theory, evolution, whose existence depends on the existence of another theory, abiogenesis."

This is simply wrong. But you already know that, don't you?

[Gunslingr3]

That you would accuse evolutionary skeptics of mythology

Let's call it mysticism. The ancient religions are considered mythology, even though they were as devoutly observed as today's religions.

while similarly asserting vague cosmic references that admittedly "remain to be seen" is the most breathtaking piece of doublespeak I have ever heard.

Perhaps I was unclear. I assert that the unknown remains to be discovered, while the mystics assert the unknown is the work of god.

[Ichneumon]

"Evolution" as taught in most schools today is a religion.

...only if one redefines "religion" so broadly that it becomes synonymous with "anything anyone believes".

By the standard meaning of the word, however, your statement is incorrect.

[job]

no, it is correct. On a macro scale, it absolutley is dependant on abiogenesis.

[RightWingNilla]

Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago,

ROFL! I was trying to figure out where Ive heard that name before!

Now run along or Ill have to get snooty!

[RightWingNilla]

Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago,

ROFL! I was trying to figure out where Ive heard that name before!

Now run along or Ill have to get snooty!

[RightWingNilla]

On a macro scale, it absolutley is dependant on abiogenesis.

What if God put a bacterial culture on earth a few billion years ago?