Suit challenges textbook evolution disclaimers

CNN Law Center ^ | November 8, 2004 | Unattributed

[Still Thinking]

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A warning sticker in suburban Atlanta science textbooks that says evolution is "a theory, not a fact" was challenged in court Monday as an unlawful promotion of religion.

The disclaimer was adopted by Cobb County school officials in 2002 after hundreds of parents signed a petition criticizing the textbooks for treating evolution as fact without discussing alternate theories, including creationism.

[Junior]

Don't knock prayer beads; Catholics use rosaries all the time and the Catholic Church accepts the validity of evolution. The same folks who denounce evolution also denounce Catholicism (I see the same names on both crevo and Catholic-bashing threads).

[PatrickHenry]

Out until tomorrow.

[VadeRetro]

There's nothing to stop what you call differentiation. There's plenty of evidence.

The increase of information is no hurdle at all. Just for one thing, there's a lot of evidence for gene duplication events. That enlarges the genome and creates a spare copy of a gene to mutate into something else.

[VadeRetro]

Sorry. It's no use trying to embarrass these guys with the non-scientific origin of their "science," anyway.

[VadeRetro]

Out until tomorrow.

Can't I stay up if I promise to be good? Oh, you meant you.

[Dimensio]

So why not stickers on all science textbooks? After all, gravity is just a theory, not a fact. Same with electromagnetic theory and atomic theory.

Why is it that evolution is singled out and ridiculed for being "just a theory". You would think that the people pushing for these disclaimers don't actually understand the significance of a "theory" in the scope of science.

[Right Wing Professor]

Somewhere around here, I've got a physics text that assures me that it's impossible for anything to exceed the speed of light, and that electrons are absolutely the smallest particle in existance. At the time, that was the best theory, and assumed to be correct. But it wasn't.

Huh?

It is indeed impossible for any real opbject to exceed the speed of light, and electrons are (as far as we know) point particles. You don't get smaller than a point.

So these two theories are unrefuted, just like evolution.

[RightWingNilla]

Microevolution merely leads to differentiation. There is no proof that it actually results in an increase in information, as macroevolution would require.

"Macroevolution" is when microevolution has produced enough changes between two populations to the point they can no longer interbreed. Its as simple as that.

[Dimensio]

"Macroevolution" is when microevolution has produced enough changes between two populations to the point they can no longer interbreed.

Or, to put it another way, it's the point where microevolution has produced enough changes between two populations that creationists refuse to believe that they share common ancestry.

[grey_whiskers]

Your own post, emphasis mine: "Evolutionary theory explains the how. Another way of saying it: Evolution is a fact and a theory."

I hope you are aware that you appear to have come perilously close to committing a Kerry (flip-flop).

Full Disclosure: Yes, I know what you meant. But you still could have phrased it better.

[grey_whiskers]

It is indeed impossible for any real opbject to exceed the speed of light, and electrons are (as far as we know) point particles. You don't get smaller than a point.

Umm...remember the uncertainty principle?

Or wave-particle duality?

BTW, do neutrinos have mass or not?

[RightWingNilla]

Obviously, theories can never be proven beyond doubt. However, there are certain standards that can be used to confirm theories (experimentation and repeated observation, etc.) that are obviously impossible for evolution.

This isn't really true. When a gene is sequenced and compared with the DNA databases, this is basically performing an "experiment". From observations gathered from quite possibly millions of these experiments, there is practically indisputable evidence in favor of evolution.

The issue in biology now is not whether evolution occurred, but by what specific mechanism(s) and how quickly in particular instances etc..

[RightWingNilla]

two populations that creationists refuse to believe that they share common ancestry.

If we are lucky, we might catch speciation occuring among the creationists.

The IDers and the 6-day-literalists perhaps?

[RobRoy]

EVOLUTIONISTS SAY:


Dr. LeCont DeMoy:
"Birds have the unsatisfactory characteristics of absolute creation."

Sir Arthur Kieth:
"Evolution is unproved and is unprovable. We believe in it because
Creation is unthinkable."

Dr. D.M.S. Watson, Univ of London:
"Evolution is accepted by zoologists not because its been proved or
observed, but because Creation is incredible."

Charles Darwin:
"I can't explain why nature is not in disorder mixed and confused."

Dr. E.E. Hooten of Harvard:
"By hook or by crook invertebrates acquired backbones." (this is in a
science book).
He also said:
"We sin against genetic science when we depend on mutations to prove
evolution."

Dr. David Pilbeam Curator of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale
and Harvard anthropology professor:
"Many evolutionary statements have very little to do with the real data,
and a great deal to do with unstated assumptions."

Dr. Richard Leakey:
"If I were to draw a family tree for man it would be a question mark."

Dr. Colin Patterson of British Museum of Natural History:
"I know of no transitional fossils."
&
"Evolution is based on faith alone."

[Doctor Stochastic]

Teleomutes?

[RightWingNilla]

Where did you get that quote salad? Its got some new ones.

[Right Wing Professor]

Umm...remember the uncertainty principle?

Yup. You mistake a particle for its wavefunction.

BTW, do neutrinos have mass or not?

Last I heard, best evidence is they have a small mass.

[RobRoy]

http://members.aol.com/billyjack6/morgan/weird_science.txt

I was looking for a particular one with google and happened to hit on this one.

I get tired of the same old deep, deep arguments here when it is, inevitably arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It excites the usual suspects however. 8^>

Here are some more:

EVOLUTIONISTS BELIEVE:


"Everything in the universe (the sun, planets, animals, food, oxygen, gravity,
emotions, etc) is the result of RANDOM ACCIDENTS."

"They believe in a "god." Their god is Father Time. Give mud 500,000 years
and it will turn into people."

"They believe in fossils that don't exist."

"They think they are scientific, but their "science" is not produced by the
scientific method (it is not observable and has not been proven by
experimentation)."

"They believe life came from non-life. Despite much effort this hasn't ever
been done by science."

"They believe matter (any physical substance) came from nothing."

"FACT: Evolutionists have much, much more faith in their belief than
Christians have in theirs."

"When you pinpoint what Evolutionists really believe in it is obviously not
only less scientific than Creation, it is also LESS LOGICAL than Creation."

[grey_whiskers]

Umm...remember the uncertainty principle?

Yup. You mistake a particle for its wavefunction.

I was asking you rhetorical questions, not making an assertion.

You flamed me instead of answering...

Please go look up zero-point energy, or electron tunneling, or the photoelectric effect before flaming again. All of these phenomena involve real live particles, not wavefunctions.

Last I heard, best evidence is they have a small mass.

As far as the neutrino, if it has finite mass, it is a point particle too, like the electron? If so, then we have two point particles with different densities...curiouser and curiouser.

[Right Wing Professor]

You flamed me instead of answering...

I suspect you're so clueless you don't know what a flame is. I answered, in a perfectly matter of fact way, that a particle should not be confused with its wavefunction. If you like, you can make the extent of the electronic wavefunction in a spatial coordinate arbitrarily small by simply not specifying its momentum. That too many big words for you?

Please go look up zero-point energy, or electron tunneling, or the photoelectric effect before flaming again. All of these phenomena involve real live particles, not wavefunctions.

Where should I look up zero point energy? In the most recent paper I published about it?

As far as the neutrino, if it has finite mass, it is a point particle too, like the electron?If so, then we have two point particles with different densities...curiouser and curiouser.

Oh dear. What is the volume of a point particle? And what happens when you divide a finite quantity by that number?