Ayatollahs in the classroom [Evolution and Creationism]

Berkshire Eagle (Mass.) ^ | 22 January 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

A movement to drag the teaching of science in the United States back into the Dark Ages continues to gain momentum. So far, it's a handful of judges -- "activist judges" in the view of their critics -- who are preventing the spread of Saudi-style religious dogma into more and more of America's public-school classrooms.

The ruling this month in Georgia by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper ordering the Cobb County School Board to remove stickers it had inserted in biology textbooks questioning Darwin's theory of evolution is being appealed by the suburban Atlanta district. Similar legal battles pitting evolution against biblical creationism are erupting across the country. Judges are conscientiously observing the constitutionally required separation of church and state, and specifically a 1987 Supreme Court ruling forbidding the teaching of creationism, a religious belief, in public schools. But seekers of scientific truth have to be unnerved by a November 2004 CBS News poll in which nearly two-thirds of Americans favored teaching creationism, the notion that God created heaven and earth in six days, alongside evolution in schools.

If this style of "science" ever took hold in U.S. schools, it is safe to say that as a nation we could well be headed for Third World status, along with everything that dire label implies. Much of the Arab world is stuck in a miasma of imam-enforced repression and non-thought. Could it happen here? Our Constitution protects creativity and dissent, but no civilization has lasted forever, and our current national leaders seem happy with the present trends.

It is the creationists, of course, who forecast doom if U.S. schools follow a secularist path. Science, however, by its nature, relies on evidence, and all the fossil and other evidence points toward an evolved human species over millions of years on a planet tens of millions of years old [ooops!] in a universe over two billion years in existence [ooops again!].

Some creationists are promoting an idea they call "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwinism, eliminating the randomness and survival-of-the-fittest of Darwinian thought. But, again, no evidence exists to support any theory of evolution except Charles Darwin's. Science classes can only teach the scientific method or they become meaningless.

Many creationists say that teaching Darwin is tantamount to teaching atheism, but most science teachers, believers as well as non-believers, scoff at that. The Rev. Warren Eschbach, a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pa., believes that "science is figuring out what God has already done" and the book of Genesis was never "meant to be a science textbook for the 21st century." Rev. Eschbach is the father of Robert Eschbach, one of the science teachers in Dover, Pa., who refused to teach a school-board-mandated statement to biology students criticizing the theory of evolution and promoting intelligent design. Last week, the school district gathered students together and the statement was read to them by an assistant superintendent.

Similar pro-creationist initiatives are underway in Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. And a newly elected creationist majority on the state board of education in Kansas plans to rewrite the entire state's science curriculum this spring. This means the state's public-school science teachers will have to choose between being scientists or ayatollahs -- or perhaps abandoning their students and fleeing Kansas, like academic truth-seekers in China in the 1980s or Tehran today.

[bondserv]

I must have missed that post - do Creationists do anything else?

Which brings us to the reliability of the witness. Science has no witness or way of testing, and therefore cannot comment.

Leading, as always, to the central figure in mankinds existance; Jesus Christ.

[spunkets]

Your comment about solar system mechanics is similar to other creationist claims founded in fraudulent "scientific" schemes, such as claiming the speed of light varies over time. Sorry, I thought you were attempting to push one of those.

"Why have you not replied to my assertions and valid questions about not removing Buddhism, Roman and Greek mythology etc. and the Koran in public schools?"

The particular place in the school this is being injected is in the science classes, biology in this case.

MAtt 12:38-42
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.”

He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.

God Himself is telling you here, that there is nothing that will ever be found in science that shows He exists, or is responsponsible for any phenomena. Science is that honest endeavor that is a result of Gen3:19,
"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

All that will ever be seen in science is, that from the ground man arose and to it he shall return. The sign of the resurrection is the Holy Spirit, the Bread in the Lord's prayer. The Holy Spirit's concern is not with science, it's with Life, Love, Freedom, rights, and morals.

Grandfather, Buddism, the Koran, Greek, or any other mythologies also have no place in the science classroom.

[narby]

The math is valid for the probabilities involved in sequencing.

Sequence .... what?

That's the problem. No one knows the layout of the first molecule that was self reproducing to an extent that allowed Evolution.

Your math is therefore meaningless.

Oh, I forgot. You haven't a clue about how Evolution works, and refuse to be educated, so you wouldn't know that.

[WildTurkey]

the sequencing of genetic DNA programming instructions into viable life forms,

I must have missed that. Can you enlighten me?

[Southack]

"That's the problem. No one knows the layout of the first molecule that was self reproducing to an extent that allowed Evolution. Your math is therefore meaningless."

No, the math is meaningful, not meaningless. Nor does it matter about the precise molecule that did whatever nonsense you uttered above.

What matters are the probabilities for unaided processes correctly sequencing programming instructions into a viable genetic set. Not *one* viable genetic set, but *any* viable genetic set.

...And for calculating such probabilities, math is the first as well as final authority.

So if you disagree with said math, which your protestations so far would imply, then you must either show your own correct math that legitimately contradicts the probabilities that I gave you, or else to be honest, you must concede that the math is both valid and accurate.

[WildTurkey]

Yawn. Perhaps *some* day, a more intelligent debater will at least play a decent devil's advocate (oh my, this *must* be some sort of secret religious pun!) will come along and actually post mathematical equations and counter-examples, but until then, I suppose I must live with what very little intellectual stimulation posters such as yourself provide (i.e. not much).

Uh, you have posted NO mathematical equations or examples to be refuted. Impossible to refute that which is not presented.

[Southack]

"I must have missed that. Can you enlighten me?"

Sure. I'll walk you through it. First, what are the shortest (in numbers of base-pair instructions) known viable DNA sequences?

Pick *any* living organism(s).

[Southack]

"Uh, you have posted NO mathematical equations or examples to be refuted. Impossible to refute that which is not presented."

That's incorrect. My very first post to this thread linked to the relevant math.

[WildTurkey]

disproves the original math that I linked to for this thread,

Here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/

[js1138]

That the design doesn't start out perfect is irrelevant.

You have misunderstood my intent. Perfection is irrelevant to the process.

The reason new things are not perfect is not because the designer is unintelligent or sloppy. It is because it is impossible to predict the properties of anything that is truely new. You can rearrange things with well known properties, but when anything really novel comes along, you cannot predict how it will behave or whether it will be useful.

[narby]

No, the math is meaningful, not meaningless.

Math is meangless, if you have no idea what you're trying to calculate. Neither you, nor anyone else knows what the first self reproducing molecule looked like, or even it's generic complexity.

Your math is meaningless.

And again, even if it were correct, Evolution still occured after the first life appeared, whether God zapped it into existence, or the Raeliens dropped if off by UPS.

But you have no clue about Evolution, so nevermind.

[WildTurkey]

Please lay it out. I have no time for your nonsense.

[narby]

My very first post to this thread linked to the relevant math.

No one knows the "relevant math", much less you.

[Southack]

The link that you gave listed the "reasons" quoted below why all creationist probability calculations are in error.

Sadly for your argument, the math that I gave you made none of those errors.

"Problems with the creationists' "it's so improbable" calculations

1) They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.

2) They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.

3) They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.

4) They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.

5) They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences."

[spunkets]

" ID WILL stir up direct attacks on the apparent conflicts in the Bible."

That's right. It's another falsehood perpetrated to promote the goals of some men, not God's. It will cause some to stumble.

[WildTurkey]

That's incorrect. My very first post to this thread linked to the relevant math.

Your link goes to this. Nothing about what we are discussing.

The Mathematics of Monkeys and Shakespeare

[Southack]

"Math is meangless, if you have no idea what you're trying to calculate. Neither you, nor anyone else knows what the first self reproducing molecule looked like, or even it's generic complexity."

No, we know *precisely* what needs to be calculated: probabilities (of genetic sequences).

...And math is hardly "meaningless" for such calculations.

Try again (but do try to not keep repeating such sillyness).

[WildTurkey]

Sadly for your argument, the math that I gave you made none of those errors.

Since you linked a discussion of monkeys and Hamlet, I guess not.

[WildTurkey]

Please reference your math that you keep talking about but never referencing.

[Southack]

"Your link goes to this. Nothing about what we are discussing."

No, that math is *precisely* what we are discussing (but you'd actually have to read the thread that I gave you to begin with).

The mathematical probabilities for unaided processes sequencing instruction sets (e.g. DNA) are absolutely valid for a discussion of abiogenesis, Intelligent Design, and Evolutionary Theory.