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.
If talk.origins is so horrible, why does true.origins steal it's graphical content? Oh, that's right, creationist love doing that type of crap.
Interesting. You link doesn't include the critique or any evidence of the exchange between the two doctors (unlike TalkOrigins, which often posts entire email threads to document exchanges -- just ask ol' Ted Holden).
Thought you might be interested in this Thermo Debate.
I think you misunderstand evolution theory. It does not state that the number of species must increase with time. Evolution allows for species to go extinct. Therefore, the number of species can increase,decrease or remain steady with time. It simply depends on whether the rate of speciation or the rate of extinction is higher. Furthermore, there is nothing in evolution theory, per se, that even mentions phyla. It simply states that, over time, the relative frequency of alleles in a given gene pool will change.
Hmmm... Lemme guess, that correspondance is not listed on the TrueOrigin site.
Actually, I believe it is. See the link in my #316. Apparently the two had a nice debate and Max had some good things to say about Spetner (this I gathered from the Prof's T.O. link).
This is what you offer to excuse the absolute horror, the festival of righteous hoodwinking which is creationist "scholarship." That link is example after example after example after example of real twisting, of misrepresenting who authors are or were, of deliberately using old sources, of misrepresenting the preponderance of opinion with selective sourcing, etc. You cannot show any of this against T.O., although you have made the charge.
Creationism may fill the void in our understanding. Heck in may even be true. The point is, though, that it isn't, and never will be science. Scientists, by definition, look for naturalistic explanations for observations of the natural world. Any "theory" that refers to God or any other supernatural concept just does not fall within the scope of science.
Thanks, but no thanks. I have to grade thermo papers for a living; after reading the first wo posts I felt like I was on a busman's holiday.
If your waiting for proof of abiogenesis or ANY scientific theory...keep waiting. The theories you point out haven't been proven and never will be. For example, everyone for hundreds of years pointed to various observations that seemed to confirm Newton's theory of gravitation. However, certain observations existed (procession of the perhelion of the orbit of mercury, for example) that could not be explained by Newton's theory. Einstien proposed a new theory, General Relativity, which supplanted Newton's theory and proved that Newton's theory was not completely correct. The same could happen to current abiogenesis and evolution theories. That does not render them useless and unworthy of study. It just means we don't know the whole story yet. The origin of life is one field where science may never come to the correct answer. If the origin of life is NOT naturalistic (ie life was created by God or some other designer), science is incapable of coming to this conclusion. At this point, though, it seems to me as if this is still an open question.
It constantly amazes me that people of his stature -- or yours -- would take the time to deal with creationists. Students are one thing; hard-core professional charlatans are another. I guess it's necessary, however, to keep their junk out of the schools.
It also amazes me that some people go only to creationist websites for their "information." It's like scrounging around in dumpsters when there are thousands of restaurants around.
Actually, I believe it is. See the link in my #316. Apparently the two had a nice debate and Max had some good things to say about Spetner (this I gathered from the Prof's T.O. link).
Then I strongly suggest that you retract your false claim that Max "ignored" Spetner's challenge, and retract your false claim that this is somehow (although you don't explain how) an example of a falsehood on the talkorigins.org site.
Why not make it a century or an eon. If you make the interval sufficiently great you can make the task impossible. But considering the number of molecules at or near the earth's surface, I's say your time interval is off by a couple dozen orders of magnitude.
And given a typical home computer generating numbers between 1 and 10,000 and advancing on the number six, I estimate it would take under a minute to complete your task, if it is not hobbled.
But of course you don't need pricise mutations. All you need are mutations that don't preclude reproduction. Each of us has a number of such mutations.
Well, then I stand corrected. However, with your link you refuted your own claim that Dr. Max ignored Dr. Spetner and Spetner's criticism of his article on T.O.
LMAO! Sorry, but that's not "a good critic [sic]" of T.O. (The word you're looking for is "critique".) It's a very poor one, and in fact it is remarkably dishonest (not unusual for creationist attacks).
Here's what I posted a while back when another creationist made the mistake of offering Mr. Fernandez's screed in an attempt to attack talkorigins.org:
That advice applies to you, too, nasamn777.And here is a full article debunking TalkOrigins: Talk.Origins: Deception By Omission.
ROFL -- that hoary whine again? Ferndandez has just as poor reading comprehension when it comes to the TalkOrigins.Org website as you do. Many of his complaints are straw men, attacking his own misunderstanding of what was said instead of what TalkOrigins.Org *actually* said. For example:
Few would argue with the notion that ‘things change.’ But to take the step from ‘things change’ to ‘and therefore, that’s how it all got here’ is a leap of blind, irrational faith that would send even the most fanatical snake worshipper reeling.Um, okay, but since that's not what the TalkOrigins.Org site actually says, Fernandez is tilting at windmills.Furthermore, although the title and theme of Fernandez's screed is, "Talk.Origins: Deception by Omission", the irony is that most of the things that Fernandez claims TalkOrigins.Org "omitted" are actually there on the site, and Fernandez himself dishonestly OMITTED references to them. For example:
2nd LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS—THE REAL ISSUEEmphasis in original.[snip] Let’s take a blow torch to a tree or an embryo, thereby supplying it with plenty of energy, and then let’s stand back and watch them grow. Of course, what’ll happen is they will be incinerated! Energy is not the key; energy reception, utilization and storage is the key. 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. Why doesn’t TO present the real issue and respond to it? Deception by omission.
Actually, TalkOrigins.Org quite specifically *does* address that exact argument, and responds to it. So when Ferdandez falsely accuses them of "deception" for alleged "omission" of that issue, when they most certainly did not, is Fernandez lying, or just stupid? Neither option inspires confidence.
Even worse, the part of TalkOrigins.Org that Fernandez *does* quote (and then bitches at for allegedly "omitting" the thing he says ought to be addressed) SPECIFICALLY INCLUDES A LINK TO TO MORE INFORMATION ON THE TOPIC, INCLUDING THE ABOVE PAGE, and yet Fernandez CHOSE TO SNIP THAT OUT TO DISHONESTLY GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT NO FURTHER INFORMATION WAS PROVIDED.
TalkOrigins.Org has prepared their own response to Fernandez, and it ain't pretty. Excerpt:
By omitting without acknowledgement the sentence with the links to the in-depth responses, Fernandez makes it appear that he is addressing the entire Talk.Origins response to each question. In fact, his entire claim that the Archive responses dishonestly omit material rests on the assumption that he is addressing the entire Archive response. Mr. Fernandez's behavior, not that of the Archive, demonstrates deception by omission in its purest form.But hey, maybe buried deep in Fernandez's dishonest presentation and ludicrous misunderstandings there really *is* some kernel of accuracy which actually, in your words, "debunks" TalkOrigins.Org or (for a change) finally supports your accusation that they are "liars" and "dishonest". So if there's anything of value somewhere in Ferndandez's flawed rant, I hereby invite you to find the single *best* example in there, and present it to us.For Mr. Fernandez to engage in such conduct, and then claim that the Talk.Origins Archive is an "affront to the ideal of intellectual integrity, scholarly pursuit and moral responsibility" takes hypocrisy to a new level. It takes a great deal of chutzpah, and a complete lack of integrity, to use deliberate omissions of context as a basis for accusing someone else of deception by omission.
Scattershot attacks (i.e. making dozens of attempted attacks in the hopes that maybe one will stick) are oh so Creationist... If you've got an actual *good* piece of support for your claim that TalkOrigins.Org is somehow "dishonest", you'd be advised to actually show it for a change.
And a question for you: If *I* can see the shoddiness of Fernandez's screed by simply comparing what he *claims* the talkorigins.org site says, versus what it *actually* says... then why were you unable to do so?
Certainly, one can examine thermodynamics in the limited context that you describe, but it also has application related to the issue of the mechanism and the related processes. One common use of the Second Law is to determine the direction of processes. The various statements of the Second Law all have an implicit understanding of the mechanism. The mechanism can be viewed as the boundary conditions and constraints imposed on a system.
The whole thermodynamic argument is a good example how many have distorted a field based on their bias for naturalism and the evolutionary paradigm. Thermodynamics does pose problems for evolution, though evolutionary advocates fight it tooth and nail.
Agreed - I will retract that statement. However, what I was trying to point out was the fact that he asked Spetner to critique his paper (which Spetner did) and said he would post that critique on T.O. (he posted a few excerpts) and never did.
People who can cite nothing but creationist sources and clearly know absolutely nothing nada zip zero of what the ToE really says will stun you by saying, "You know, I used to be just what you are until I actually looked into the evidence and became a creationist."
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