Darwinists top the censorship food chain

The most censored speech in the United States today is not flag-burning, pornography or the press. The worst censors are those who prohibit classroom criticism of the theory of evolution.

A Chinese scholar observed, "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin."
Polls show that the vast majority of Americans reject the theory of evolution, as have great scientists such as William Thomas Kelvin and Louis Pasteur. But that does not stop an intolerant minority from trying to impose a belief in the ape-to-man theory on everyone else.

Local school boards have finally had enough of this tyranny. From Georgia to Pennsylvania to Ohio to Wisconsin to Kansas, school boards are finally moving toward allowing criticism of Darwin's theory.

The Darwinists have propped up their classroom dominance by the persistent use of frauds and flacks. The fraudulent pro-evolution embryo drawings of Ernst Haeckel littered schoolbooks for 100 years, and it took specific action by the Texas Board of Education to keep them out of current textbooks even after the New York Times exposed Haeckel's deception.

Many textbooks feature pictures of giraffes stretching their necks to feed high off of trees, but genetics and observed feeding habits disprove that as a basis for evolution of their long necks. Moreover, the striking beauty of the colored pattern on the giraffes illustrates that design, not merely usefulness, is what animates our world.

Continued censorship of criticism invites additional fraud, so evolution has suffered more embarrassments than any other scientific theory. The Piltdown man was a lie taught to schoolchildren for decades, even featured in the John Scopes Monkey Trial textbook, and only five years ago a dinosaur-bird fossil hoax was presented as true on the glossy pages of National Geographic.

If Darwinists want to teach that whales, which are mammals, evolved from black bears swimming with their mouths open, we should surely be entitled to criticize that. Yet school libraries have refused to accept books critical of evolution, even when written by college professors.

Responding to the majority of their constituents, Georgia's Cobb County recently authorized a textbook disclaimer saying "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

The American Civil Liberties Union claims this is unconstitutional and is seeking out supremacist judges to order classroom curricula to continue the censorship and forbid an open mind about evolution. If the theory of evolution were well supported, there would be no reason to oppose open debate about scientific claims.

In December 2004, a world-famous champion of atheism, Antony Flew, announced his conversion to acceptance of intelligent design underlying our world. The Dallas Morning News observed, "If the scientific data are compelling enough to cause an atheist academic of Flew's reputation to recant most of his life's work, why shouldn't Texas schoolchildren be taught the controversy?"

At 81, Flew can speak out because he is now free from the peer pressure that silences younger colleagues who fear loss of jobs, funding, or even dreams of winning a Nobel Prize. Evolution critics Fred Hoyle and Raymond Damadian were unjustly denied Nobel Prizes and their work was instead recognized by awards to less-deserving others.

Darwinists know they cannot persuade skeptical adults, so they try to capture impressionable schoolchildren. At our expense and against our wishes, children are taught that the world exists only for what is useful, not by design.

To typical schoolchildren full of wonder, we live in a world best described as a marvelous work of art. The snowflakes that grace us at Christmastime typify the artistic beauty that bestows joy on all ages but, like an acid, evolution corrodes this inborn appreciation of beauty and falsely trains children to view themselves as mere animals no more worthy than dogs or cats.

There is a strong correlation between belief in natural selection and liberal views on government control, pornography, prayer in schools, abortion, gun control, economic freedom, and even animal rights. For the most part, the schools in the blue states carried in the 2004 presidential election by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., are strongly pro-evolution, while the red states carried by President George W. Bush allow debate and dissent.

It should surprise no one that the United States, land of the free and home of the brave, has the lowest percentage of evolution believers in the world. The highest percentage lived in the former East Germany.

The U.S. Senate of former Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., quietly slipped a provision into the No Child Left Behind Act that requires, by the 2007-2008 school year, science testing by grade 5. That gives censors the authority to force 10-year-olds to believe and defend evolution.

It is long past time for parents to realize they have the right and duty to protect their children from the intolerant evolutionists. Hooray for courageous school boards that are finally rejecting censorship and allowing debate.

[Hint: "Proof" is a very difficult thing to provide.]

You make a claim and then qualify it with the equivalent of "the dog ate my homework."

And you're badgering me over the fact that I didn't save copies of the discussion because...? Oh, right, because you're an ass.

You can't have it both ways: You can't sing the praises of proof, evidence, and the scientific method while suggesting we believe you had an on-line debate with Philip Johnson but you forgot to save a copy and can't give us the link.

You're making less and less sense here. First, when have I ever "sung the praises of proof" on these threads? Oh, right I haven't. On the contrary, several times in this thread I have pointed out that science is *NOT* about "proof".

So just what on Earth are you ranting about here? I have been entirely consistent on that point -- not that your addled brain would be able to notice, apparently.

Second, while I do "sing the praises of ... evidence and the scientific method" as methods of testing ideas about the world, I do so in the appropriate contexts and subjects. I do *not* act like a maniac and begin attacking people for not providing supporting evidence (or "proof") for every anecdote they choose to share concerning the things they have done or experienced. Unlike, say, yourself.

Third, I did not "suggest you believe me" without "proof" when I mentioned debating this topic with Johnson. I described what happened, but as always anyone is free to believe me or not depending upon their assessment of my past posts and my resulting reputation. If you want to get paranoidly uber-skeptical on such a minor thing, hey, go right ahead, it's no skin off my nose if someone wants to be a lunatic. Enjoy.

Finally, as should have been reasonably clear from my earlier posts on this thread, I didn't "forget to save a copy". It's just that during that period, I hadn't yet realized the value of saving my own posts for later reference, and wasn't saving *any* of them. The first post in my personal archives (which marks the date I first began saving them) is dated September 7, 1993.

It's an arrogant double standard

Only if you insist on missing the point entirely, as you seem very adept at doing.

-- not unlike the one that says creationists question evolution because they are ignorant

No, the point is that in general creationists question evolutionary biology *poorly* because they are by and large not as familiar with the topic as they like to think they are.

For some reason, people who would never dream of being able to comptently attack, say, quantum physics, seem to feel as if they know all they need to know about evolutionary biology, and feel qualified to tell biologists what they've been doing "wrong" for 140+ years... It's bizarre.

but evolutionist question creation because they are intelligent.

Evolutionists do not "question creation" as much as they question creationists about why the creationists are attempting to critique evolutionary biology without even a good basic knowledge of the field.

[Let me guess -- you were under the impression that there were "no transitional fossils" because you believed the lie in the creationist pamphlets, right?]

You're just playing dumb, right?

Have you stopped beating your wife?

Do we need to bring out the quotes of evolutionists denying that there are any transitional forms?

Oh, yes, *please* do, because I always enjoy pointing out how dishonest creationists are when they quote-mine and lie about what people were actually saying, and misunderstand what they've quoted, and so on.

Creationists fling around so many dishonest "quotes" that there are entire websites devoted to identifying and correcting their lies.

Besides, if there were actually a transitional form, that would be proof for evolution, wouldn't it?

No, it wouldn't, because ONCE AGAIN, science does not deal in "proof". Have you learned nothing? Go learn something about epistemology before you keep making a fool of yourself about "proof".

And if you had proof, it wouldn't be a theory any more, would it?

Yes it would. You're still unclear on the meaning of the word "theory", aren't you? A theory is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" [Barnhart 1948]. And it would remain so even if it could in some manner be "proven" 100% correct.

Evolutionists could get rid of the peppered moths from the texts then as well as Haekel's embryos, and a dumpster full of other bogus "evidence."

Lying again? There is nothing bogus about the peppered moths (no matter what Jonathan Wells says about it), and Haekel's embryos are only mentioned as a matter of historical interest, not used as supporting evidence for evolution. Care to try again, or are a couple of lies enough for tonight?

Will you *please* try to *learn* something about evolutionary biology, and science in general, before you attempt to critique it? (You *and* most of the other creationists...)

Yes, and naturalists have something much better: dirt did it or it did it itself. Much better. Much more logical.

Thank you -- I couldn't have asked for a better example of what I was talking about earlier: The way that creationists don't actually know the first thing about the scientific topics they attempt to critique, yet they somehow feel qualified to ridicule it anyway.

"Dirt did it"? Most SECOND GRADERS could describe scenarios of biological origins more cogently than that, son.

Let's compare your "baby babble"-level "understanding" of abiogenesis with the sort of thing scientists are actually looking into, shall we?

On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells William Martin and Michael J. Russell
Abstract: All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life’s most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl-methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre-biotic syntheses occurred at the inner surfaces of these metal-sulphide-walled compartments, which furthermore restrained reacted products from diffusion into the ocean, providing sufficient concentrations of reactants to forge the transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. The chemistry of what is known as the RNA-world could have taken place within these naturally forming, catalyticwalled compartments to give rise to replicating systems. Sufficient concentrations of precursors to support replication would have been synthesized in situ geochemically and biogeochemically, with FeS (and NiS) centres playing the central catalytic role. The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The attributes shared by all prokaryotes are viewed as inheritances from their confined universal ancestor. The attributes that distinguish eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet are uniform within the groups, are viewed as relics of their phase of differentiation after divergence from the non-free-living universal ancestor and before the origin of the free-living chemoautotrophic lifestyle. The attributes shared by eukaryotes with eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively, are viewed as inheritances via symbiosis. The attributes unique to eukaryotes are viewed as inventions specific to their lineage. The origin of the eukaryotic endomembrane system and nuclear membrane are suggested to be the fortuitous result of the expression of genes for eubacterial membrane lipid synthesis by an archaebacterial genetic apparatus in a compartment that was not fully prepared to accommodate such compounds, resulting in vesicles of eubacterial lipids that accumulated in the cytosol around their site of synthesis. Under these premises, the most ancient divide in the living world is that between eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet the steepest evolutionary grade is that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

And:

The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front M. J. RUSSELL & A. J. HALL: Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of Glasgow
Abstract: Here we argue that life emerged on Earth from a redox and pH front at c. 4.2 Ga. This front occurred where hot (c. 150)C), extremely reduced, alkaline, bisulphide-bearing, submarine seepage waters interfaced with the acid, warm (c. 90)C), iron-bearing Hadean ocean. The low pH of the ocean was imparted by the ten bars of CO2 considered to dominate the Hadean atmosphere/hydrosphere. Disequilibrium between the two solutions was maintained by the spontaneous precipitation of a colloidal FeS membrane. Iron monosulphide bubbles comprising this membrane were inflated by the hydrothermal solution upon sulphide mounds at the seepage sites. Our hypothesis is that the FeS membrane, laced with nickel, acted as a semipermeable catalytic boundary between the two fluids, encouraging synthesis of organic anions by hydrogenation and carboxylation of hydrothermal organic primers. The ocean provided carbonate, phosphate, iron, nickel and protons; the hydrothermal solution was the source of ammonia, acetate, HS", H2 and tungsten, as well as minor concentrations of organic sulphides and perhaps cyanide and acetaldehyde. The mean redox potential (ÄEh) across the membrane, with the energy to drive synthesis, would have approximated to 300 millivolts. The generation of organic anions would have led to an increase in osmotic pressure within the FeS bubbles. Thus osmotic pressure could take over from hydraulic pressure as the driving force for distension, budding and reproduction of the bubbles. Condensation of the organic molecules to polymers, particularly organic sulphides, was driven by pyrophosphate hydrolysis. Regeneration of pyrophosphate from the monophosphate in the membrane was facilitated by protons contributed from the Hadean ocean. This was the first use by a metabolizing system of protonmotive force (driven by natural ÄpH) which also would have amounted to c. 300 millivolts. Protonmotive force is the universal energy transduction mechanism of life. Taken together with the redox potential across the membrane, the total electrochemical and chemical energy available for protometabolism amounted to a continuous supply at more than half a volt. The role of the iron sulphide membrane in keeping the two solutions separated was appropriated by the newly synthesized organic sulphide polymers. This organic take-over of the membrane material led to the miniaturization of the metabolizing system. Information systems to govern replication could have developed penecontemporaneously in this same milieu. But iron, sulphur and phosphate, inorganic components of earliest life, continued to be involved in metabolism.

And:

The Path from the RNA World Anthony M. Poole, Daniel C. Jeffares, David Penny: Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Massey University
Abstract: We describe a sequential (step by step) Darwinian model for the evolution of life from the late stages of the RNA world through to the emergence of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The starting point is our model, derived from current RNA activity, of the RNA world just prior to the advent of genetically-encoded protein synthesis. By focusing on the function of the protoribosome we develop a plausible model for the evolution of a protein-synthesizing ribosome from a high-fidelity RNA polymerase that incorporated triplets of oligonucleotides. With the standard assumption that during the evolution of enzymatic activity, catalysis is transferred from RNA M RNP M protein, the first proteins in the ``breakthrough organism'' (the first to have encoded protein synthesis) would be nonspecific chaperone-like proteins rather than catalytic. Moreover, because some RNA molecules that pre-date protein synthesis under this model now occur as introns in some of the very earliest proteins, the model predicts these particular introns are older than the exons surrounding them, the ``introns-first'' theory. Many features of the model for the genome organization in the final RNA world ribo-organism are more prevalent in the eukaryotic genome and we suggest that the prokaryotic genome organization (a single, circular genome with one center of replication) was derived from a ``eukaryotic-like'' genome organization (a fragmented linear genome with multiple centers of replication). The steps from the proposed ribo-organism RNA genome M eukaryotic-like DNA genome M prokaryotic-like DNA genome are all relatively straightforward, whereas the transition prokaryotic-like genome M eukaryotic-like genome appears impossible under a Darwinian mechanism of evolution, given the assumption of the transition RNA M RNP M protein. A likely molecular mechanism, ``plasmid transfer,'' is available for the origin of prokaryotic-type genomes from an eukaryotic-like architecture. Under this model prokaryotes are considered specialized and derived with reduced dependence on ssRNA biochemistry. A functional explanation is that prokaryote ancestors underwent selection for thermophily (high temperature) and/or for rapid reproduction (r selection) at least once in their history.

"Dirt did it", you say? Go to school and come back when you can progress beyond baby-talk.

Since you brought up logic,

how did all the matter in the universe fit into something the size of an atom?

In the form of energy, not matter, and thus was not constrained by the Pauli exclusion principle. Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

How did the singularity explode without a cause?

It neither "exploded" per se nor did so "without a cause". Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

How did initial temperatures become infinitely high in a finite universe?

The temperatures were not "infinitely high". Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

How did infinite energy become available to propel particles faster than the speed of light?

The energy was not "infinite" and did not "propel particles faster than the speed of light". Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

How did dirt come to life?

"Dirt" didn't. Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

How did invertebrates all of a sudden (poof) grow a backbone yet leave no transitional forms?

You're obviously completely ignorant of the existence of *chordates*, which nicely bridge the (non)gap between classic (non-chordate) invertebrates and vertebrates. Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

Why is something that is supposedly happening every moment never observed?

Evolution is observed, actually. Please go learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

It seems that the naturalists have exempted themselves from logic.

It seems that you have exempted yourself from having to actually learn something about science before you foolishly attempt to ridicule it.

The best source for what Einstein really thought is collected in a book called "Albert Einstein - The Human Side", written by Helen Dukas, his lifelong secretary. A while after his death, she collected various letters from his personal files and had them published. Many of these were never made public.

Here is an interesting excerpt related to this thread:

"A child in the sixth grade in a Sunday School in New York City, with the encouragement of her teacher, wrote to Einstein in Priceton on 19 January 1936 asking him whether scientists pray, and if so, what do they pray for. Einstein replied as follows on 24, January 1936:

I have tried to respond to your question as simply as I could. Here is my answer.

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being.

However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research.

But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive."

I was talking about naturalism, the set of philosophical presuppositions upon which evolution stands. Although the latest way to duck the problem of abiogenesis is by claiming that evolution has "nothing to do with the origin of life," the question cannot be avoided.

I think that you're making a false connection by saying that Evolution must stand or fall on the merits of "naturalism". Evolution is a scientific theory, not a philosophy. It has a disproveable hypothesis, it changes as new information is collected, and it supports the collectable facts.

Many scientists (Darwin included) were and are devout believers in God, and many famously devout believers such as Cotton Mather were also strong believers in scientific inquiry. What suprises me (and continues to suprise me) about FR is a strong anti-science undercurrent that crops up from time to time. Faith and science are not mutually exclusive, and whatever you might believe about God and the nature of the universe isn't, or at least shouldn't be, threatened by the Biological sciences.

So there you have it: Natural or supernatural? "We (naturalists) don't know" is a non-answer and the supernatural wins since the burden of proof is on the new idea and naturalism is the new idea.

Really? Ideas have seniority? Do they have a union too? I suppose it could have happened while I was on the john because apparently Biology became a philosophy instead of a science somewhere along this thread.

I can't possibly answer your question, it isn't fair to begin with. You've connect one scientific theory's legitimacy to my being able to provide an impossible answer to a question relating to a wholely unrelated field. You've demand observable proof for my position while stating that yours requires none and whatever evidence I did provide would be moot because you'd just reject it as insufficent or another Piltdown Man.

So, break it down for me. What proof would you accept?

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