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.

[anguish]

When do we get to something that can bee seen without a microscope?

There are plenty of those as well. It may be a little technical, but you can see some examples here.

If evolution is a scientific fact that precludes any type of intelligent design then it is past time for the high priests of that view to say it and let the chips fall where they may.

Evolution can never preclude intelligent design. In fact, intelligent design cannot be falsified by science as it's beyond its scope. That, in turn, also means that Intelligent Design (as it is presented now) isn't science. This is why scientist go wild when people try to inject it into science classes.

[jwalsh07]

The school board could put a sticker in the front of the book saying that gravity is a force that makes tulips trun into wlaruses and it would still be none of the fedgovs business.

The Constitution of the US grants absolutely zero power to the fedgov as regards public education. None, nada zilch.

The remedy for a school board that posted such a sticker is to recall them, vote them out or pack your bags and move to a place more to your scientific suiting.

[jwalsh07]

ID postulates irreducible complexity. You can falsify IC by construction or deconstruction. Falsify away.

[anguish]

no new modification came into play...it already existed

You're wrong here, and I could show it wrong with a highschool experiment. You isolate a bacteria, let it multiply, test for an antibiotic that will kill it, let it grow into a large colony, and then incrementally add the antibiotic to the colony. Unless you're really unlucky, you will soon have a colony resistant to the antibiotic.

As we started out with one bacteria, and the end result has accuired a new property, it's very much evolution.

[Texasforever]

Evolution can never preclude intelligent design. In fact, intelligent design cannot be falsified by science as it's beyond its scope. That, in turn, also means that Intelligent Design (as it is presented now) isn't science. This is why scientist go wild when people try to inject it into science classes.

Do you not see how those statements contradict each other? You say, on one hand that intelligent cannot preclude intelligent design and, on the other hand, since it can't it isn't "science" and should hold be withheld from any discussion. It seems to me that in the 3rd century the fact that the earth could not be shown to be round, your reasoning would have precluded any speculation that it may be true.

[narby]

I still have problems with the religious faith the scientific community holds for the subject of evolution.

If something is shown to be true by a preponderance of facts, then it is not "faith" to believe that it is indeed true.

Evolution has a massive accumulation of evidence to support it, and any one of several methods to falsify it have not been found.

This last point is especially interesting. Since the Discovery Institute has assets and people and has existed for 25 years or more, they have yet to be able to falsify Evolution. And the attacks on Evolution go back before the DI. If Evolution were false, then physical evidence should be able to be found that would falsify it. They have not found it.

With so many people, trying for so many years, and they have not yet found genuine evidence that will falsify it, that makes Evolution just about the most solid scientific THEORY we have.

Evolution is seen as only faith, in those religious faithful who see Evolution as a rival to their legitimacy. Ironicly, science does not see faith as being a rival to Evolution. There are many believers who accept Evolution, including the official doctrine of the Catholic church and several other large denominations.

Despite the persecution complex of some religious people, Evolution is not trying to attack religion. It is religious people who are attacking Evolution. Science is merely defending itself. My fear is that in this defense process, that the faith of some religious people may be harmed.

[anguish]

The Constitution of the US grants absolutely zero power to the fedgov as regards public education. None, nada zilch.

I'm not by any means an expert on the US constitution (as the Swede I am), but I know that the Court did rule, in part, on basis of the Lemon test (no matter its legitimacy). Interesting enough, the test itself was written by a conservative judge, said to be a "strict constructionist", in the Supreme Court.

[Texasforever]

Then why is the scientific community not willing to say case closed and assert it as undeniable fact?

[anguish]

ID postulates irreducible complexity. You can falsify IC by construction or deconstruction.

Irreducible complexity of what?

[Doctor Stochastic]

It seems to me that in the 3rd century the fact that the earth could not be shown to be round, ...

Aristotle had three proofs that the Earth was round and Erastothene sometime later actually measured the size; the Earth's shape was known before this even. Perhaps 600 years later, people had forgotten this. (Or maybe you left of the BC.)

[anguish]

should hold be withheld from any discussion

No, I'm in favor of it being discussed, but I don't think that a science class is the correct forum for a non-scienctific subject. Students would get pretty confused if their english teacher suddenly started teaching them maths, right?

[Texasforever]

I actually do believe that evolution is fact BUT I do have a problem with those that are not open to the possibility that it we do not yet know the catalyst that began the process.

[narby]

I think what anquish is saying is that life that evolves COULD have been designed to do so. From our vantage point today, it would be impossible to determine whether it was designed, or originated via abiogenesis.

God can do anything. Therefore, He could have designed living systems that Evolve. Yet finding life that Evolves, does not show that there is an Intellegent Designer.

You really can't quantify or measure anything that can be done by God. litterally any result can be explained by the magic words, "God did it".

Question: Does God manhandle the earth around the sun, or did He design Gravity and let it do the rest? How would we be able to determine the difference? Be specific. Describe an experiment that will tell me the answer to that question.

[Texasforever]

No, I'm in favor of it being discussed, but I don't think that a science class is the correct forum for a non-scienctific subject

Ok, so if a school included a class in the philosophy of inteeligent design by a "creationist" in parallel with scientific evolution by a science instructor, you would have no problem with that?

[jwalsh07]

Lemon is dead, this particular liberal in a robe is simply unaware of it. And Burger was a social liberal.

But forget the court decision, cite me the section ganting the fedgov power over local school issues.

[unlearner]

"As for your original post, I think it did suggest that what you call moral decline was somehow related to the teaching of evolution."

Yes. And I still think it is related, just not in the way you first construed.

At the heart of the matter is the BIG QUESTION though:

How does someone KNOW something?

A "scientist" (which we shall not even begin to define or describe at this point) trusts his five senses.

Or is it six?

Or how much science does one actually experience firsthand with one's own senses? And how much is based on trusting reliable "sources"?

Last night I woke up at 2am and could not go back to sleep. For some reason I decided to reread most of Einstein's book on relativity (by that name).

It is very interesting not just because of his eloquence (though it is translated from German I think) and for his insight into the nature of the universe, but more significantly (to me at least) how we arrive at our deductions.

Einstein believed in evolution from what I have read. He also believed in God (though his theology was probably pantheistic).

I have never discussed this book with anyone before, but if you follow his logic you will soon find yourself persuaded that the way we tend to perceive the universe naturally is actually quite wrong when it comes to velocities near to the speed of light (as measured by an observer).

Anyway, I don't expect we will settle the evolution vs. creation issue any time soon to the satisfaction of most freepers, but I still think that this one point is critical to the whole discussion. How does a person KNOW anything?

I cannot buy into evolutionary theory as a means for either the origins of man or origins of species in general. I do think some of the observations about adaptation are critical to understanding biology and they have historical merit as well.

Evolutionary theory relies on a combination of many scientific specialties which are totally independent of one another. This fact alone mandates that most people must accept it blindly on faith alone simply because not everyone has the expertise in multiple disciplines to verify the conclusions that have been drawn. And I am saying that without regard to the validity of the theory.

By way of comparison, do you believe the doom and gloom prophets of global warming? If not, why? Maybe you even go along with this as "scientific", but you must certainly agree that some scientific claims exist where bias has played a role.

Are you sure that systematic and systemic bias does not exist among evolutionists? How can you be sure? Can you honestly say no scientist would have a reason for providing misleading or inaccurate data on this subject?

You could even blame it on the current political atmosphere. If a scientist discovered a piece of information that completely undermined evolutionary theory, do you think it might be possible it would be downplayed if for no other reason than it would provide ammunition for dissenters to the theory?

It is easier to me to accept certain scientific propositions more readily when I experience them personally and firsthand. For example, principles of electromagnetism have real-world consequences like the ability to turn on a light, listen to the radio, etc. So I have greater reason to presume that this theory is correct even if there may still remain special exceptions (the way Einstein's theories became a special exception to Newtonian theories).

Back on point - I do not have any firsthand, real world experience to confirm or deny evolutionary theory DIRECTLY. However, my experiences do validate the authenticity of the claims of the Bible. So I have a greater reason to believe in Creation than evolution (in regard to the origin of man).

Without regard to whether it is appropriate to teach science vs. philosophy vs. religion vs. history, etc. consider why you believe in evolution for the origin of man.

How do you believe someone can KNOW anything?

[narby]

Then why is the scientific community not willing to say case closed and assert it as undeniable fact?

They do. They say every day that "this evolved into that". They just don't put the word "fact" in there.

The fact of Evolution is explained by the "theory of Evolution". Neither Evolution, or the theory of gravity, or the theory of nuclear attraction will EVER "graduate" to "fact".

You are confusing the common meaning of the term with the scientific meaning.

Evolution is both a theory AND a fact.

[jwalsh07]

Irreducible complexity of what?

Flagellum.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

is not a religious dogma. It is science. Creationism is the dogmatic belief.

A rather dogmatic statement, I believe.

The paradox of the anti-IDers, is that they have to use ID tools to prove their point. Of course, by using such tools, they also invalidate their anti-ID premise, but what the heck...

[anguish]

I think what anquish is saying is that life that evolves COULD have been designed to do so.

Exactly. We simply can't know if God (presumably an intelligent designer) placed life on this earth and used evolution to form the magnificent multitude of life we see today, or if life came to be by abiogenesis. If God knows all, he could as well have snapped his fingers (really hard!) producing a "Big Bang" billions of years ago, starting a process he knew would result in mankind.

That said, such speculations are outside the scope of science. We may believe it was so and have faith in it, but it will never be science.