Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
In a poll released last week, two-thirds of Americans said they wanted to see creationism taught to public-school science pupils alongside evolution. Thirty-seven percent said they wanted to see creationism taught instead of evolution.
So why shouldn't majority rule? That's democracy, right?
Wrong. Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts, an approach that must be preserved and fought for if American pupils are going to get the kind of education they need to complete in an increasingly global techno-economy.
Unfortunately, the debate over evolution and creationism is back, with a spiffy new look and a mass of plausible-sounding talking points, traveling under the seemingly secular name of "intelligent design."
This "theory" doesn't spend much time pondering which intelligence did the designing. Instead, it backwards-engineers its way into a complicated rationale, capitalizing on a few biological oddities to "prove" life could not have evolved by natural selection.
On the strength of this redesigned premise -- what Wired Magazine dubbed "creationism in a lab coat" -- school districts across the country are being bombarded by activists seeking to have their version given equal footing with established evolutionary theory in biology textbooks. School boards in Ohio, Georgia and most recently Dover, Pa., have all succumbed.
There's no problem with letting pupils know that debate exists over the origin of man, along with other animal and plant life. But peddling junk science in the name of "furthering the discussion" won't help their search for knowledge. Instead, pupils should be given a framework for understanding the gaps in evidence and credibility between the two camps.
A lot of the confusion springs from use of the word "theory" itself. Used in science, it signifies a maxim that is believed to be true, but has not been directly observed. Since evolution takes place over millions of years, it would be inaccurate to say that man has directly observed it -- but it is reasonable to say that evolution is thoroughly supported by a vast weight of scientific evidence and research.
That's not to say it's irrefutable. Some day, scientists may find enough evidence to mount a credible challenge to evolutionary theory -- in fact, some of Charles Darwin's original suppositions have been successfully challenged.
But that day has not come. As a theory, intelligent design is not ready to steal, or even share, the spotlight, and it's unfair to burden children with pseudoscience to further an agenda that is more political than academic.
Hell, we have floods today all over the world. Extrapolating a world-wide flood from this fact is as untenable as extrapolating a world-wide flood from mythic legends.
I figure the geolgical column is the geology of the crust (all the way down to the mantle). If you have another definition, please provide it.
Because a universal flood is, as they say, universal. Or are you now agreeing with me that many small ice age floods are the cause of flood mythology? If it was deep enough to cover the mountains and only lasted 40 days, than it was deep enough, and turbulant enough, to distribute dead critters homogenously, not in lumps that associate with specific rock types. For one parameter of an equation to show stochastic distribution with local central tendencies is one thing. For another to match it, tells you there is correlation.
Translation from donh-ese:
No, the breeding of fruit flies has never produced anything other than fruit flies.
Than keep your denegrating, dismissive opinions of scientists and their life's work to yourself.
All arbitrary human distinctions are actually tangible laws of nature that must be obeyed.
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Answer the questions put to you, as if you were actually honestly engaged in discussion: rather than a cheap shot artist on the make. Are all apes of the same species? They're all apes, aren't they? There isn't any other test we generally require mammals of the same species to pass, is there?
With these kinds of numbers, how justified are we in assuming a geologic "column" even exists, that is to say, a record that shows continuity from top to bottom throughout?
Not certain what the argument is here, but, mine is that there were far more substantial and numerous floods in 10,200BC than is the case now by a very long shot. The Alberta flood alone must have seemed like a world-wide catastrophe to many Northwest Indians. And that's just one ice dam event out of what must have been thousands.
Actually the record says precipitation burst forth for 40 days and covered the mountains for a much longer period of time.
How many supernovas have been spectrally analyzed out of the total? How many stars placed on the Hartzsprung-Russel diagram of the the total number of stars? How many orbits have been observed, calculated and prdicted to verify the law of gravity out however many orbits there are?
It is neither denigrating nor dismissive to point out that science has never demonstrated the process of evolution.
So...in other words, the stirring and redistribution lasted longer? Did you get even a hint about how much water we are talking about here from your chat with Junior? Where do you think the natural laws you are so fond of peacefully moved that water to?
It would appear that we can't prove the geologic column exists. We haven't been through enough of it yet.
Not arguing. Just pointing out that all those flood legends most probably deal with local disasters along the lines of what we see today.
In a pig's eye.
Different diciplines, different planets. Ya think? As if, having not explored a tiny percent of our own planet, we know all about the others.
You're saying they've demonstrated the process of evolution "in a pig's eye?" I hadn't heard that report. Please expound.
Have you read those flood legends to see how they compare with reports of floods today?
I've read a few. The Greek version doesn't come close to the Bible, what with the happy couple escaping to high ground and repopulating the world by throwing rocks over their shoulders.
Shubi, I think where those who have faith in evolution and those who don't part ways is in the area of limits. Evolutionists see no limits while its critics do. Evoutionists assume that the wide variation we see within kind means there exists an unlimited capacity for variation. Perhaps there is, but there's no evidence for such a claim.
What is the age of the oldest person who ever lived in modern recordable history? I'm too lazy to look it up, but let's say it's 121 years, 5 months, sixteen days. Okay, there appears to be approximately a 120 year upper limit on a human life. Does that mean no one ever crosses it? No, they might cross it a little. And someday the record might be broken. But does it follow from that that we can expect people to one day live to be 13,672 years old? Perhaps we might freeze them and that can be obtained. I don't know. But does anything in the realm of nature lead us to believe such ages could be obtained, or could have ever occurred by natural processes?
An evolutionist looks at a Great Dane and says, "Wow! If breeding can lead to a dog that large, who's to say millions of years of random accumlated mutations couldn't make it 20 times as large?" They assume that because there's variation within kind, there's no limit to variation, even without man's help.
I think that's a rather wishful assumption. Yes, speciation occurs. The genetic capacity for limited variation that exists in each species allows for wide divergence due to either deliberate breeding or random isolation of some species members from others. On the extreme edges of this variation, it may be possible that mating no longer can occur with certain other species members either because of the obvious physical impossibility (Great Danes & Chihuahuas for example) or because of loss of the genetic capacity.
But there is nothing to lead anyone to believe that this is anything other than an outer limit being reached. To simply assume that from the extremes within each species, there will then occur random mutations which can carry the creature in question not only beyond the observable limit but into radically different genetic territory is just wishful thinking. Unless that happens, there can be no evolution, and since we can't tolarate that possibility, we must assume that over time those micro-organisms that somehow managed to appear all those eons ago "evolved" into all the millions of life forms we see today.
Can it be proven that that didn't happen? Nope. Can it be proven that it did? Nope.
So there we are. Choose your faith.
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