Posted on 01/22/2005 7:38:12 AM PST by 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.
Apparently, at least one of you didn't know that bacterial conjugation was even possible (hence, his ignorant post).
It does you no good to refrain from correcting him, either. You know that he's wrong, and I know that he's wrong.
Set him straight. He's gone astray on two very visible points already.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. The number of mutations a bacterial genome can have is infinite. That's that's far closer than your model to what we see in bacteria.
Dance on, Larry!
There are just conspiracies everywhere, aren't there?
Is that tinfoil hat on a wee bit tight?
No, your source is OK. What I am saying is that you are too ignorant to realize you have been hoist on your own petard. You cited an article that has the exact phrase you were searching for, but the science in the article utterly destroys ID. Good job.
Apparently, you did not read or understand that bacterial conjugation is not eukaryotic meiosis. Even if it were, you still would be infinitely short of hiding enough alleles to account for what we see.
Do you claim that bacteria can not and do not exchange genetic information sexually?!
Be specific. Lets nail down this point as strongly as we nailed down bacteria having recessive genetic traits.
So what do you claim?
In a monoclonal colony, every member (unless mutations are happening) has the genome of the founder. There are no new alleles unless there is mutation. They can conugate 'till hell freezes over and never create the diversity you need because all you allow is for them to pass the founder's genes around.
And, BTW, conjugation isn't sex the way the er, dominant useage of dominant/recessive understands it.
You have no place in a bacterial genome to hide enough alleles for bacteria to have more than the tiniest flexibility in chemical sensitivity or diet options. You cannot account for what we see. The bacteria indeed refute you.
Are you following any of this? Is anybody home in your head?
Actually, you appear to be in a debate that is beyond your intellectual reach.
You refuse (or fail) to show your own reputable scientific source that backs your precise (and disproven) claim that bacteria have no recessive genetic traits, for instance.
You engage in character attacks, instead. No source backing on the one hand, character attacks on the other.
Even your peers seem ashamed to publicly correct your errors (presuming that they know enough to be able to do so in the first place).
List your concise, precise, scientific source if you want to continue to warrant my attention (or wind up looking like WildTurkey with his off the wall rants).
The burden is upon you, and using my source or claiming that my source says something different won't help your case.
You need your own original source (perhaps too high of a bar for your educational level, I realize, but that's what you need if you want to be taken seriously).
Ah I see that evol amnesia has struck again...
Hee hee. That train left the station s few of your posts back.
When you confessed that you had no idea of who Alfred Kinsey and Margaret Meade are/were you gave yourself away as either a high school kid or a windy pseudo intellectual.
"In a monoclonal colony, every member (unless mutations are happening) has the genome of the founder. There are no new alleles unless there is mutation." - VadeRetro
That's not the question.
Do you specifically claim that bacteria can not and do not exchange any genetic information sexually?
Darwin Central rarely issues a fatwah, but under the circumstances, the matter shall be taken up and considered at the highest levels. (After the regularly-scheduled orgy, of course.)
It's probably me, of course. I can never remember on any thread how I got destroyed last time when I tried to insist that transitional forms do in fact exist or that creationist quote salads are utterly worthless and corrupt. Even now, I still don't remember.
Go ahead! Be merciless!
Still, I can't believe any evo is as back-again-dumb-as-a-stumpish as some of you guys.
Excuse me, Larry. Yes it is. Go back and read with comprehension. Take your time.
The nicest thing anyone can think at this point is that you're too dumb to understand the problems with what you're saying. That's the nicest thing.
The question which you are dancing around is:
Do you specifically claim that bacteria can not and do not exchange any genetic information sexually?
Dear child, I taught *you* that bacteria have recessive genetic traits.
Now I'm going to teach you that bacteria exchange genetic information sexually.
Your teacher isn't dumb, little one. Quite the contrary (as you'll learn to your own detriment).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.