Posted on 08/16/2004 9:40:47 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Samuel Chen was a high school sophomore who believed in freedom of speech and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge. He thought his public high school did, too, but when it came to the subject of evolution -- well, now he's not so sure.
In October 2002, Chen began working to get Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University, to give a lecture at Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.
Chen, who was co-chair of a student group that tries to stress the importance of objectivity on controversial issues, knew that Behe would be perfect, since the group was examining evolution as a topic. The author of Darwin's Black Box, a critique of the foundational underpinnings of evolution, Behe had presented his work and debated the subject in universities in the U.S. and England.
Behe agreed to come in February 2004 and give an after-school lecture entitled, "Evolution: Truth or Myth?" As the school year drew to a close in 2003, Chen had all the preliminaries nailed down: he had secured Behe's commitment, received approval from school officials, and reserved the school auditorium.
Then he found out just how entrenched Darwinist orthodoxy was in the science department at Emmaus. By the following August, Chen had entered into a six-month battle to preserve the Behe lecture.
As the struggle unfolded, it became obvious that those who opposed Behe coming to Emmaus didn't seem to care about his credentials. In addition to publishing over 35 articles in refereed biochemical journals, Darwin's Black Box was internationally reviewed in over 100 publications and named by National Review and World magazine as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
Instead, it was Behe's rejection of Darwinism -- in favor of what is called "intelligent design" -- that drove opposition. According to the Discovery Institute, of which Behe is a fellow, this theory holds "that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
The head of the science department, John Hnatow, sent a statement to every faculty member in the school stressing that Emmaus held to the official policy of the National Science Teachers Association. That policy states: "There is no longer a debate among scientists about whether evolution has taken place."
It appeared there would be no debate at Emmaus, either. Some of the science teachers would not even allow Chen to address their classes and explain to students what Behe's lecture would be about.
Chen said various tactics were apparently used to undercut the event, including an attempt to cancel the lecture and fold the student organization without the knowledge of Chen and other members; requiring that the necessary funds for the lecture be raised much faster than for other student events; and moving the lecture from the auditorium to the school cafeteria.
One science teacher in particular, Carl Smartschan, seemed particularly riled about the upcoming lecture. Smartschan took it upon himself to talk to every teacher in the science department, insisting that intelligent design was "unscientific" and "scary stuff." He asked the principal to cancel the lecture, and then, when the principal refused, asked the faculty advisor for the student group to halt the lecture. Smartschan even approached Chen and demanded that the student organization pay to have an evolutionist come to lecture later in the year.
Smartschan's campaign to get the Behe lecture canceled was surprising to Chen because the event was scheduled after school, and not during class time, and was sponsored by a student group, not the school itself. Nevertheless, Chen persevered. The lecture was a success, attracting more than 500 people.
In the process, however, Chen's struggle took its toll. His health deteriorated over the course of the controversy, to the point where he collapsed three times in one month, including once at school. "My health has been totally junked," he told AFA Journal.
Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney and senior policy advisor for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, is advising Chen on his options for the coming year. Fahling said, "Schools are not allowed to interfere with viewpoints with which they disagree, and schools cannot disrupt the right of the students to participate in the academic and intellectual life."
Despite the hardship, Chen said he would do it all over again because the issue is so important. "I feel that there's a dictatorship on academic freedom in our public schools now," he said, adding, "I refer to evolution education as a tyranny .... You can't challenge it in our schools. Kids have been thrown out of class for challenging it."
That tyranny can be intimidating to students. "Some of the students who support me are afraid to speak out, especially because they saw how the science department reacted," Chen said. "They have a fear of speaking out against it in their classes."
On the other hand, he added that some students "are now questioning evolution, some for the first time."
That may be the first step in the overthrow of Darwin's dictatorship.
Geeze, they look like cinnamon buns. To each his own... I enjoy smaller aureoles.
I've given mine that horrid Tori Spelling-esque implant concavity.
Let me attempt to summarize what I've learned from discussions with the anti-evolutionists. First of all, it's not about religion but about the science. That's important.
Now to the details. They have the theory that whatever did happen, it wasn't evolution. In fact, whatever DID happen, if it doesn't look like the Book of Genesis, it DIDN'T happen. Not that it's about religion.
Of interest to Barney Frank ...
Yes, they cite quite a number of science journal articles and books. It should be easy to substantiate a claim that they twist these sources away from the original authors' intended sense. If they did, they would be doing "creation science" against creation science and the situation would have that parallelism so often claimed by creationists when denounced for their tacts. ("And EVOLUTIONISTS never do this. Oh, yeah!")
The problem thus far is that the claim of symmetry has been like Clinton calling Republicans "the free lunch crowd" when liberalism is the pandering-est political movement going. The real evidence is all evolution. The dirty scholarship is all creation science/ID.
Anyway, I'm sure you'd like to put some flesh on this claim by showing the discrepancies between the T.O. citations and the original works.
Or even their tactics.
OK, now your just getting gross
Name one falsehood on TalkOrigins.
If the school didn't want Behe there, they shouldn't have approved him in the first place. That's a dirty trick to cancel after giving approval.
Although I wonder if this article has it's facts straight.
If you refuse to seek to know Earth's TIMECUBE 2 sex poles of creation, simultaneous 4 corners of races with each race divided by 4 generations, then you are indicted evil by your own volition act.
It sure SOUNDS like the same guy, but IS IT the same TimeCube guy, or a cheap imitation?
Shot? I heard he was blown away!
;-)
It's not so much what is discrepant (although if I have some time I'll look into this as well); it's what contributors like Theobold chose *not* to include that tell the story (like omitting the problems with molecular phylogenies). Here's a good discussion at ARN that you might find interesting:
The last post by MG sums it up nicely. Also, this site: http://www.trueorigins.org/ is full of articles exposing talkorigins' bias, inconsistencies, and errors.
Oy gevalt ;^)
I think it's the same guy. If you click on the graphic at the start of the new site, you're taken to the original site. It's thrilling that our guy is expanding his message. Try it again: If you refuse to seek to know Earth's TIMECUBE 2 sex poles of creation, simultaneous 4 corners of races with each race divided by 4 generations, then you are indicted evil by your own volition act..
Here is a link that presents a good critic of T.O.
Talk.Origins:
Deception by Omission
Jorge A. Fernandez
http://www.trueorigin.org/to_deception.asp
Dr. Spetner tried to convince Dr. Max of some errors in his paper The Evolution of Improved Fitness by Random Mutation Plus Selection and was ignored. http://www.trueorigins.org/spetner1.asp
Nope. Just one example: quoting their argument about the second law of thermodynamics.
In other words, there must be a highly sophisticated and fully functional energy management system—a system that enables input, conversion, storage and output—if a tree is to grow or an embryo is to develop. This is the crux of the creationist argument involving the second law of thermodynamics and not some easily discarded strawman.
The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases in a spontaneous process. It says nothing about 'energy management systems', simple or complex (other than that they will always result in an increase in entropy). The author is simply writing nonsense.
And herein your analogy fails. There are literally thousands, if not millions, of mutations per generation.
That's a falsehood. In fact, Max not only did not ignore him, he conducted a long correspondence with him.
And it's here
Unfortunately, your link was very vague about TalkOrigins malfeasance. Give me a particular instance where TalkOrigins lied.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.