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ACLU Files Suit in Pa. Over Evolution
FOX News ^

Posted on 12/14/2004 7:14:55 AM PST by wkdaysoff

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The state American Civil Liberties Union (search) plans to file a federal lawsuit Tuesday against a Pennsylvania school district that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution (search).

The ACLU said its lawsuit will be the first to challenge whether public schools should teach "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power....

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: aclu; crevolist; lawsuit; scienceeducation
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To: js1138

See post 376. This is my theory behind the argument.


401 posted on 12/14/2004 3:20:08 PM PST by crail (Better lives have been lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in the halls of palaces.)
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To: Dimensio
Anyone in here ever hear of Murry Eden and the 66 Wistar Seminars?

He did a very reasonable thing. He took the theory of genetic mutation, applied a statistic to a codon (set of 3 alleles) being made nonfuntional and then made functional again (the definition of a genetic mutation) as about one in 10 to the minus twenty sixth (memory is faulty here), crunched out the numbers necessary to go from "microbe to man" and tried to find out the requisite age of the universe.... i.e, how long would the evolutionary process take? He was a prof at M I T, so he had what were the hottest puters of the day (not very). The answer? Statistically impossible, at ANY age.

Genetics, computing power and our understanding of both have taken quantum leaps, and has not erased the problems raised by Eden, but rather brought them into sharper focus.

Fredrick Hoyle, the brit mathematician and physicist (who, incidentally, coined the phrase "big bang") came to the conclusion that life as we know it is mathematically impossible without some cosmic "cheating," possibly from "panspermia" or "seeding" cosmic dust with a genetic "head start."

Francis Crick winner of the Nobel Prize for "discovering" (aka ripping off the work of brilliant x ray crystallographer he smeared) the structure of DNA, stated that life must have come from "alien life forms" as Darwinism was "unsupported by any reasonable models we have now" and the other alternative, special creation, was "clearly fantastic." --I am quoting most of this on Crick from memory of a Sunday edition of PUNCH a brit sunday mag of some years ago.

Finally, the most celebrated atheist of our day, Anthony Flew, has recently become a theist...., and it ain't because he heard someone singing amazing grace and fell to his knees in sobbing repentance. Rather, he has abandoned his theism for a kind of deism simply because monistic Darwinism is UNTENABLE scientifically.

All the REAL scientists who are still exclusive naturalists will admit that their efforts to cobble some coherent theory of Darwinism together are facing REAL problems trying to account for the "punctuated equilibra" demonstrated by the fossil record and reconcile that with the statistical improbabilities inherent in genetic theory.

Of course that doesnt stop the halfwit who has gone through organic chemistry at Northwest Appalachicola Community College from braying that "DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS SCIENCE AND CREATION IS RELIGION" (remember to sneer when you say "religion," sonny). But then again, the orthodox faithful have never really needed facts to back up their belief, have they?

At least, not the stupid ones.
402 posted on 12/14/2004 3:25:18 PM PST by chronic_loser (Yeah? so what do I know?)
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To: crail

From a physiologist's view, entropy is the end of the line...life is disorder, entropy is stability and death.


403 posted on 12/14/2004 3:25:46 PM PST by Rudder
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To: chronic_loser

whoops, reverse codons and alleles in above, typo


404 posted on 12/14/2004 3:26:23 PM PST by chronic_loser (Yeah? so what do I know?)
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To: Amish with an attitude
You must be speaking of all of the tons of transitional forms in the fossil record that are nowhere to be found.

What is missing and why is none of these it?

405 posted on 12/14/2004 3:27:04 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: Modernman
Feel free to connect the dots.

Connecting dots is not a very creationist thing to do. That's how Satan ensares people into thinking there's evidence for evolution!

406 posted on 12/14/2004 3:29:16 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: Amish with an attitude
Surely there are fossil specimens for examination that show intermediate nare placements leading to the present day locations.

You got it. Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Rhodocetus, Dorudon, Basilosaurus, modern blowhole, etc.

407 posted on 12/14/2004 3:31:22 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: Rudder

It also has tons of counter-evidence, which every seems ready to ignore at a moment's notice.


408 posted on 12/14/2004 3:31:47 PM PST by johnnyb_61820
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To: crail

I can recall stuff being forced into school curricula by politicians fourty years ago. Students knew it was crap and just laughed.

In principal I think all kids should be taught that science is a way of investigating things, and that the facts of science are presented as facts because they have survived hundreds of years of investigation -- not because they are the ultimate truth.

There are, of course, plenty of unsettled issues in science -- global warming, for example -- where warning labels would be useful.


409 posted on 12/14/2004 3:32:33 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: Right in Wisconsin
So everything you know about evolution you learned from cartoonist Jack Chick. Gives your posts that extra ring of authority.
410 posted on 12/14/2004 3:35:16 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: chronic_loser
See this kind of reasoning implies there is a conspiracy. Creationists are gathering evidence and so are evolutionists. Currently evolution has more evidence. Tommorrow, who know. But science has changed before. If the evidence is there it will shift, as it has in the past. Plate tectonics. No one belived it, then came the evidence, it became overwhelming and science moved. Quantum, it was weird, Einstein didn't like a lot about it, then came the evidence, and science left Einstein behind. Josephson junctions. An unknown student went up against a luminary of the old guard who said he was wrong. He was right, he had evidence. He won a Nobel prize.

I would just say what I say to all creationists. Do the science, publish in small journals. Convince other scientists, then publish in larger journals, get more evidence, convince more scientists. Then, only then, go to the school board. But you probably won't have to at this point, some scientists will have done it for you already. You can't skip the work, you can't skip the science and go straight to the public school curriculum. Do the science. Prove us wrong!
411 posted on 12/14/2004 3:35:17 PM PST by crail (Better lives have been lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in the halls of palaces.)
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To: Right in Wisconsin
But, I'm a young earth Creationist and believe the world is 6000 years old and created by God in six 24 hour periods.

I have to give you credit. You have to be mighty strong to ignore that much science!

412 posted on 12/14/2004 3:35:45 PM PST by WildTurkey
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To: Right Wing Professor
I am beyond help, yall secular humanists with your subjective morality have won. There is no God, ergo no objective morality, anything goes. No more right, no more wrong. If it feels good do it. Nice world you are creating. I am sure your children will thank you for freeing them from the concept of right and wrong, it opens the door for lot's more fun things to do.

We can return to the days human sacrifice, why not? There is no reason to believe human life is sacred without God. No reason to believe that I should not rape, without God, no reason to believe that killing is evil without God. This kind of stuff happened all the time before we in western society embraced the Christan God and His commandments. But yall are entirely to smart to allow God or even the possibility of God into our schools. God must be driven from public life even thou our Declaration of Independence clearly states our founders believe in a Creator. But yall are way smarter then the Founders, and yall have those nice people at the ACLU to make sure God will not be living here anymore.

I understand Christan are once again being jailed by the state in Europe, I expect any day now that the ACLU will be pushing for similar actions here. After all how can the state tolerate an objective view of morality, when the state is defining it own subjective view of morality? The two have been and will continue to clash, something has got to give and it will not be the state. Nope, in the not to distance future you and people like you will have brougth forth the super state. A secular humanist state that will not tolerate belief in any God more powerful than government.

413 posted on 12/14/2004 3:38:22 PM PST by jpsb
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To: js1138; crail

I knew I'd forgotten something. I got waylaid with our Canadianism.

You agreed that there was an "evolution industry" like there's a "global warming" industry, about 3 thousand posts ago.

Do you believe that some scientists force fit their hypotheses into a predetermined conclusion, the better to continue the grant pipeline (at least until they retire with their pensions)?


414 posted on 12/14/2004 3:39:17 PM PST by ColoCdn (Neco eos omnes, Deus suos agnoset)
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To: Right in Wisconsin
I believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old and that's not enough time for macro evolution.

God put all those dinosaur bones on the earth just to fool all the dumb scientists, right?

415 posted on 12/14/2004 3:39:18 PM PST by WildTurkey
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To: js1138
This is actually my pet "I-wish-I-could-force-it-on-the-public-school-board" class. Critcal thinking, debate, and the scientific method. Too many people lack critical thinking skills, they get pulled in by spoon benders and fortune tellers. If students had that class, I would love to see them debating the creation vs. evolution shtick in it, with real critical thinking, evidence gathering, stretch it out over a week or two so they can think about it good.

where warning labels would be useful.
We don't need no warning labels. Kids aren't stupid. If they are curious, they'll look it up, and read up on the debate. If they are not curious, why are we spending so much time trying to convince them about things they don't really care about beyond pass/fail.
416 posted on 12/14/2004 3:39:56 PM PST by crail (Better lives have been lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in the halls of palaces.)
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To: Rudder

"I don't know of any data that "disproves" evolutionary theory"

Cambrian explosion -- evolutionists want us to view the tree of life as a cone that is expanding outward from few basic forms into many diverse forms. The opposite is true. The cambrian explosion has about 100 phylums, all of which appeared fully formed. This has been reduced, not grown, to about 50 today.

Molecular biology -- this has shown that there is more DNA evidence that _disproves_ evolution than _proves_ evolution. The 1990s were spent trying to be able to classify species according to DNA structures consistent with the theory of evolution. What they found was that there was no real correlation with the supposed phylogenies of species and DNA evidence, except in a few minor cases (note, however, that those few cases, not the exceptions, are the ones evolutionists repeat over and over).

If I have time, I'll post more later.


417 posted on 12/14/2004 3:41:18 PM PST by johnnyb_61820
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To: jpsb
I am sure your children will thank you for freeing them from the concept of right and wrong
I don't need creationism to make me want to be a nice guy. I was born this way! :) And if my kids don't learn about right from wrong, I have a foot in the a** that'll teach them.

There is no reason to believe human life is sacred without God.
Isn't that a little off the deep end?
418 posted on 12/14/2004 3:42:42 PM PST by crail (Better lives have been lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in the halls of palaces.)
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To: VadeRetro

You have a decidely edgy and nasty tone. Is that intentional, or necessary?


419 posted on 12/14/2004 3:42:51 PM PST by ColoCdn (Neco eos omnes, Deus suos agnoset)
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To: mdhunter

"So, they're setting up an impossible situation and then faulting the evolution side for failing to meet it. "

Given the nature of the evolutionist's claim, I'm not sure that this is invalid.


420 posted on 12/14/2004 3:44:26 PM PST by johnnyb_61820
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