Posted on 03/01/2004 1:02:07 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Almost 150 years ago, Charles Darwin knew something that the scientific establishment seems to have forgotten -- something that is being endangered today in the state of Ohio.
In Ohio, high school science students are at risk of being told that they are not allowed to discuss questions and problems that scientists themselves openly debate. While most people understand that science is supposed to consider all of the evidence, these students, and their teachers, may be prevented from even looking at the evidence -- evidence already freely available in top science publications.
In late 2002, the Ohio Board of Education adopted science education standards that said students should know "how scientists investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." The standards did not say that schools should teach intelligent design. They mandate something much milder. According to the standards, students should know that "scientists may disagree about explanations . . . and interpretations of data" -- including the biological evidence used to support evolutionary theory. If that sounds like basic intellectual freedom, that's because it is.
The Ohio Department of Education has responded by implementing this policy through the development of an innovative curriculum that allows students to evaluate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution.
And that has the American scientific establishment up in arms. Some groups are pressuring the Ohio Board to reverse its decision. The president of the National Academy of Sciences has denounced the "Critical Analysis" lesson -- even though it does nothing more than report criticisms of evolutionary theory that are readily available in scientific literature.
Hard as it may be to believe, prominent scientists want to censor what high school students can read and discuss. It's a story that is upside-down, and it's outrageous. Organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and others that are supposed to advance science are doing their best to suppress scientific information and stop discussion.
Debates about whether natural selection can generate fundamentally new forms of life, or whether the fossil record supports Darwin's picture of the history of life, would be off-limits. It's a bizarre case of scientists against "critical analysis."
And the irony of all of this is that this was not Charles Darwin's approach. He stated his belief in the ORIGIN OF SPECIES: "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Darwin knew that objective science demands free and open inquiry, and while I disagree with Darwin on many things, on this he was absolutely right. And I say what's good enough for scientists themselves, as they debate how we got here, is good enough for high school students.
Contact us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) to learn more about this issue and about an intelligent design conference we're co-hosting this June.
The Ohio decision is the leading edge of a wedge breaking open the Darwinist stranglehold on science education in this country. The students in Ohio -- and every other state -- deserve intellectual freedom, and they deserve it now.
Ichneumon: True mark of a troll: "I must be brilliant/right/superior if I can behave obnoxiously enough to p*** people off this much." Most people outgrow that view in early childhood.
You can defend name-calling and personal attacks all you want but I don't think it strengthens your position in this debate.
Mark of someone not holding up their side of the debate: name-calling (troll is a very popular example)
Really. Please explain why you think they are not examples of irreducible complexity. Like you said - be sure to show your work.
Note: You'd be wise not to rely on previous creationist sources for information on the bombadier beetle, they're flat wrong on several issues
Please explain how they are wrong. Like you said - be sure to show your work.
LVD:I assume you [balrog666] are going to pretend they don't exist.
Ichneumon: I see that you often make incorrect assumptions.
Speaking of incorrect assumptions, that comment was not addressed to you. (you too are not very good at this game)
What the heck to you think he means by turmoil? All this says is the debate has not lead to doubt - you claim the debate does not even take place.
The debate is HOW evolution occured. There is NO debate over the general validity of theory itself.
Scientists Find Positive Proof of Evolution
Read it and weep! (with laughter)
And I suggest that everyone become familiar with:
Evolutionary Logic
Why does this issue even exist on a Republican website? Do 81% of Republicans agree that scientific controversy should be taught?
Seriously, if disagreeing with some of the mechanisms of neo-darwinism makes someone a creationist than in all fairness – agreeing with all the mechanisms of neo-darwinism makes you an animal liberal – if anyone wants to play the label game.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Sorry to hear that. Hope you're feeling better. I suggest better pain killers. ;)
If you ever find any "well-founded dispute" on this topic, please let us know.
Until then, ID proponents are simply trying to convince impressionable students that there is more "well-founded dispute" on this topic than there really is, in order to keep them "open-minded" enough to fall for the nonsense science that creationists would like them to believe.
It's true that there's a lot of "dispute" on this topic, but the "well-founded" arguments are almost entirely on one side of the issue -- the one that's already being taught in school.
Their opponents say, "No, we will pretend that the current state of science is completely different from what it is in reality."
There you go again. I'm still waiting to see some of that "reality" you think you have a handle on. Feel free to present some.
Gee, why don't we just hold civics classes pretending that there's no GOP, or history classes pretending that slavery's still in force?
Because those are false.
Why force the public schools to accept reality?
That's what they're doing now when they teach evolution. Why do you want to force them to make students doubt the result of 200 years of science?
What a travesty if students learn what's really going on! What a hero you are for preventing them from learning it!
Oh, puh-lease... No one's "preventing" students from learning anything. What we object to is political efforts to *force* all schools in Ohio to introduce material into science classes that science teachers object to and that scientists correctly say misrepresents the state of the field.
So tone down the martyrdom song a bit, please.
Wouldn't that leave tomato sauce on the pages?
Or maybe "you don't have enough brain cells" to realize that your tiny pictures made it very hard to read the titles and/or authors, and that you didn't provide that information in your text.
I think you owe him an apology.
BTW, it's interesting that you're enough of an authority on Behe's work to equate acknowledging it with teaching Creationism,
Where exactly do you believe he did this? I see nothing in his posts on this thread to support such an assumption.
When someone says, "Such and such is wrong because my Church says so" and scurries off to do research, that's dogmatic religiosity.
If you say so.
When someone says, "How dare you teach that in the schools, you Bible-thumpers" and scurries off to do research, that's...um...hmmm, looks like dogmatic religiosity!
And when did anyone "say" that here? Straw man much?
Unlike you and your cohorts, I feel no need to control access to information about this debate.
Then why are you supporting political attempts to do exactly that?
Stop projecting, please.
You first.
And I'm sure if the guy worked for Wheaton, Moody or Liberty, you wouldn't be saying "Well, he teaches at one of them Bible-thumper schools, so that's a crappy example," right?
More presumptions, eh?
In any case, extremism on *either* end of the political spectrum is hardly laudable.
And you are going to explain exactly WHY you personally think these examples are not irreducibly complex. You don't expect use to take your word on it.
The astute reader will note that LVD presented, in post #175, the following claim:
Actually there are compelling examples of irreducible complexityThis followed his prior claim that:
Evidence of design is just that – evidence of designNeither claim was supported by any sort of evidence, explanation, support, or anything of the kind. He just wanted us to "take his word for it". When pressed he simply linked two items he thought qualified as "irreducibly complex", again without any explanation.
Then suddenly, when someone retorts that those items aren't "IC", *NOW* suddenly LVD is all hot and heavy about "are going to explain exactly WHY you personally think these examples are not irreducibly complex", and "You don't expect use to take your word on it."
Well hell, LVD, if just saying so was good enough when you claimed that they *were* "IC", then why do you hold anyone else to a higher standard than you hold yourself?
In short, you've both failed to support the claim that *you* introduced to the discussion, *and* you've acted like a hypocrite. As you said in another post, "Guess you never studied logic."
I agree… Animal 'Rights' Zealot: Christianity Harmful; Infanticide OK
Do you have a problem with Peter Singer and why?
Behe's contribution to the scientific literature had nothing whatsoever to do with ID or testing the validity of evolution. The others are not professional scientists.
Therein lies your problem.
NOTE: in debate, the one that makes a claim is responsible for providing supporting evidence
...unless, of course, one is Last Visible Dog, making claims about alleged "Irredicible Complexity", and some alleged "evidence for design".
*Then*, of course, no supporting evidence is necessary, but anyone who disagrees with LVD's empty claims will be pestered for support for their disagreement. See post #175 and subsequent replies, especially the one where LVD complains that the disagreement with his unsupported claim "was made without one teeny tiny shard of supporting evidence."
Double standard, anyone?
I made no claims about IC other than compelling examples exist (and I provided the evidence). I have made no claims about "evidence for design" other that an analogy. What are you taking about?
LVD:I assume you are going to pretend they[examples of IC] don't exist.
Ichneumon: I see that you often make incorrect assumptions.
Ichneumon(in the same message): Those are not examples of "irreducible complexity", as you claim they are.[Ichneumon claims IC does not exist, without presenting evidence as to why]
Today's Lesson: Irony.
One or two reviews and the book is "well refuted" -
Actually, those reviews do indeed refute Behe quite well. Your ridicule seems to be merely an attempt to distract attention from that fact.
you guys are a hoot!!!
The only one "hooting" here is you, and for no good reason. He made no such claim that the mere number of reviews he posted (two) was in any way the basis for the claim that Behe's work is well refuted. So I really must ask, are you just trolling here, or are you really this stupid?
And if you're really concerned about the number of reviewers who have pointed out the many obvious refutations against Behe's nonsense, I'd be happy to link several dozen of them for you. Shall I, or are you going to stop prancing around now?
Oh heck, why not:
And that's hardly all.
- The Elusive Scientific Basis of Intelligent Design Theory by George W Gilchrist, Reports of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Volume 17, number 3
- Nature - God in the details: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Jerry A. Coyne
- New Scientist: Planet Science - the god of the tiny gaps by Andrew Pomiankowski
- A Biochemist's Response to "The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by David Ussery - A key review that meets Behe head-on! (and filled with graphics and fascinating links)
- Rebuttal of Behe by Clare Stevens (biologist) - with good examples of evidence for biochemical evolution
- Boston Review: Darwin v. Intelligent Design (Again), H. Allen Orr (Dec 96) Excellent!
- The Sterility of Darwinism, Michael Behe (Feb 97 - this section)
- Dogmatic Materialism, Phillip E. Johnson
- The Limits of Darwinism, David Berlinski
- More Crank Science, Jerry A. Coyne
- A Delicate Balance, Russell F. Doolittle
- Miracles and Molecules, Douglas J. Futuyma
- Where's the Evidence?, Robert DiSilvestro
- Enough Speculation, Michael Ruse ( Also read Answering the creationists by Michael. Ruse - Includes a discussion of Behe )
- A Third Way, James A. Shapiro
- Darwin's Black Box: Irreducible Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility? - by Keith Robison of Harvard University. From talk.origins.
- A Classification of Possible Routes of Darwinian Evolution by Richard T. Thornhill and David W. Ussery, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 203:111-116, 2000. - "...This classification provides a conceptual framework within which to investigate the accessibility by Darwinian evolution of complex biological structures." (For the record, I don't agree with their conclusion that Orr's proposed route can not produce irreducible complexity - John C)
- Review of Darwin's Black Box by Kenneth R. Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University (as published in Creation / Evolution Volume 16: pp, 36-40 [1996])
- Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth R. Miller, 1999 - book contains arguments against Michael Behe and the ID movement. Professor Miller ’70 signs books gives lecture on evolution
- Review of: "Darwin's Black Box, The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Don Lindsay
- How Can Evolution Cause Irreducibly Complex Systems? by Don Lindsay
- Redundant Complexity: A Critical Analysis of Intelligent Design in Biochemistry by Niall Shanks and Karl H. Joplin. Published in PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, 66 (June 1999), pp. 268-298).
- paper: Robustness of a gene regulatory circuit by John W.Little, Donald P.Shepley, and David W.Wert - "Basic take-home message - individual components of a seemingly complex system can be broken and it still works, just not as elegantly or precisely as the intact setup."
- Missing Links and the Origin of Biochemical Complexity by Barry A. Palevitz, November 22, 1999
- The Case of the Tell-Tale Traces: A Mystery Solved; a Skyhook Grounded - Comments on Michael Behe by Daniel C. Dennett, March 19, 1997 (penultimate draft)
- Behe and the Blood Clotting Cascade by George Acton - [Talk.Origins] Post of the Month: February 1997
- A Critique of Michael Behe's book DARWIN'S BLACK BOX by Jon Woolf
- A Layman's Response by R. Eric Westfall
- Review of Michael Behe's, Darwin's Black Box by Peter Atkins, University of Oxford
- American Scientist - by Robert Dorit, Biology, Yale University
- Analysis of Darwin's Black Box and many other anti-evolution books. From the NCSE's "What's Wrong with These Books"
- Is the "Intelligent Designer" argument a Scientific One? by Lenny Flank
- The Wall Street Journal - "The dissent of man" by Paul R. Gross (co-author of Higher Superstition)
- "Downsizing Darwin" - an editorial by Paul R. Gross. Boston Globe (05/17/98)
- God's Little Machines by Alfred P. Steffens Jr.
- A Reducibly Complex Mousetrap by John H. McDonald - FUN! mousetraps in several stages of reduced complexity. (NOTE: even if a moustrap were "irreducibly complex", the analogy implies nothing about biological evolution- John C)
- Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam (text not online) by Neil W Blackstone. The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 72, Number 4, December 1997 .
- Think Tank: Richard Dawkins on Evolution and Religion - an interview by Ben Wattenberg. They discuss Michael Behe. Note: They misspelled "Behe" as "Beahy"!
- Oxford University Professor Preaches Darwinian Evolution to Skeptics - about Richard Dawkins, with comments on Michael Behe
- Economic irreducible complexity - by Glenn Morton
- Skeptic Magazine - from the real Skeptics
- Michael Behe shows why Phillip Johnson is wrong in claiming that Darwin created a nonfalsifiable theory! by Gert Korthof -a review from his website Was Darwin right?: Personal Book Reviews Creationism - Evolution
- The Knee Bone Connected to the Thigh Bone by Nancy Pearcy
- Scientific American - brief note (scroll down)
- How Science Responds When Creationists Criticize Evolution by Boyce Rensberger, a science writer for The Washington Post and author of an excellent book called LIFE ITSELF: Exploring the Realm of the Living Cell
- Many short reviews from users of the Amazon.com online bookstore.
- A Creationist Criticism of Irreducible Complexity - a creationist comes forward to meet Behe's challenge.
- Contrasting Views on Behe from Braxton M. Alfred and Alice Fulton. [From Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (The journal of the American Scientific Affiliation), 49:119-122 (1997)]
- Origin of the Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin? By Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine.
- "The following are excerpts from my letter to a friend who requested that I read Behe. The friend is a Catholic, I am an atheist; we were in a monastery together for some time." --Anselm Atkins
- The Real Scoop on Michael Behe...and why creationism is still a bad idea. from Barry A. Palevitz
- Thinking Critically By Francis Assaf - University of Georgia
- The Sunday Times: Reverend Michael Roberts defends Darwin
If I find two negatives reviews of evolution can I also claim evolution is "well refuted"?
Only if the reviews do a good substantive refutation, as has been done with Behe's works countless times.
Silliness abounds!
Mostly in your own posts.
Again I ask -- are you trolling, or are you under the impression that you're somehow being clever?
Unless, of course, one can proclaim human consciousness from stupid mechanisms void of any intelligence or purpose…
We are either the appearance of design by stupidity or the result of intelligent design.
That's it. Say you are the same as provable science.
It is. If you disagree, feel free to provide your evidence.
If you do not believe me you do not understand - you are an idiot.
If the shoe fits.
You guys are just like the global warming cloud.
Ooookay...
Maybe it is science by consensus. Once 51% of the scientists agree, it becomes fact.
If only 51% of scientists accepted evolution, you might have a point. But since 95+% of them do, and 99+% of biologists do, you don't have a point.
All I know for sure that the guy who was smarter than all living scientists combined (Albert Einstein)
ROFL! Look, Einstein was brilliant, but hardly more so "than all living scientists combined". Stephen Hawking *alone* most likely equals Einstein. Please get a grip.
was a fervent believer in God. Guess I am going to go with the smart guy.
Be my guest. When did I ever suggest that anyone needed to not believe in God, or that it was somehow stupid to do so?
But since you brought him up, would you like to hear some things that Einstein was wrong about?
This is getting very silly.
I said there is compelling evidence of IC and provided links. Ichneumon, you are a liar - I provided evidence in the form of links. As for the statement about design - you are deliberately being dishonest - my comment was in the context of evidence for one thing is only evidence for that one thing and not disproving evidence for an opposing theory. I never claimed there was evidence of design I just pointed out evidence of design would mean nothing more than evidence of design. So now you are going to try twisting, distorting, and lying. Sorry, didn't work,
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