The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

The New York Slimes ^ | 23 January 2005 | EDITORIAL

[rdb3]

January 23, 2005

EDITORIAL

The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

ritics of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution become more wily with each passing year. Creationists who believe that God made the world and everything in it pretty much as described in the Bible were frustrated when their efforts to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools or inject the teaching of creationism were judged unconstitutional by the courts. But over the past decade or more a new generation of critics has emerged with a softer, more roundabout approach that they hope can pass constitutional muster.

One line of attack - on display in Cobb County, Ga., in recent weeks - is to discredit evolution as little more than a theory that is open to question. Another strategy - now playing out in Dover, Pa. - is to make students aware of an alternative theory called "intelligent design," which infers the existence of an intelligent agent without any specific reference to God. These new approaches may seem harmless to a casual observer, but they still constitute an improper effort by religious advocates to impose their own slant on the teaching of evolution.•

The Cobb County fight centers on a sticker that the board inserted into a new biology textbook to placate opponents of evolution. The school board, to its credit, was trying to strengthen the teaching of evolution after years in which it banned study of human origins in the elementary and middle schools and sidelined the topic as an elective in high school, in apparent violation of state curriculum standards. When the new course of study raised hackles among parents and citizens (more than 2,300 signed a petition), the board sought to quiet the controversy by placing a three-sentence sticker in the textbooks:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. 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."

Although the board clearly thought this was a reasonable compromise, and many readers might think it unexceptional, it is actually an insidious effort to undermine the science curriculum. The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography. Evolution is so awful that the reader must be warned that it is discussed inside the textbook. The second sentence makes it sound as though evolution is little more than a hunch, the popular understanding of the word "theory," whereas theories in science are carefully constructed frameworks for understanding a vast array of facts. The National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have" and says it is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus.

The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically. Indeed, the interpretations taught in history, economics, sociology, political science, literature and other fields of study are far less grounded in fact and professional consensus than is evolutionary biology.

A more honest sticker would describe evolution as the dominant theory in the field and an extremely fruitful scientific tool. The sad fact is, the school board, in its zeal to be accommodating, swallowed the language of the anti-evolution crowd. Although the sticker makes no mention of religion and the school board as a whole was not trying to advance religion, a federal judge in Georgia ruled that the sticker amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion because it was rooted in long-running religious challenges to evolution. In particular, the sticker's assertion that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" adopted the latest tactical language used by anti-evolutionists to dilute Darwinism, thereby putting the school board on the side of religious critics of evolution. That court decision is being appealed. Supporters of sound science education can only hope that the courts, and school districts, find a way to repel this latest assault on the most well-grounded theory in modern biology.•

In the Pennsylvania case, the school board went further and became the first in the nation to require, albeit somewhat circuitously, that attention be paid in school to "intelligent design." This is the notion that some things in nature, such as the workings of the cell and intricate organs like the eye, are so complex that they could not have developed gradually through the force of Darwinian natural selection acting on genetic variations. Instead, it is argued, they must have been designed by some sort of higher intelligence. Leading expositors of intelligent design accept that the theory of evolution can explain what they consider small changes in a species over time, but they infer a designer's hand at work in what they consider big evolutionary jumps.

The Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania became the first in the country to place intelligent design before its students, albeit mostly one step removed from the classroom. Last week school administrators read a brief statement to ninth-grade biology classes (the teachers refused to do it) asserting that evolution was a theory, not a fact, that it had gaps for which there was no evidence, that intelligent design was a differing explanation of the origin of life, and that a book on intelligent design was available for interested students, who were, of course, encouraged to keep an open mind. That policy, which is being challenged in the courts, suffers from some of the same defects found in the Georgia sticker. It denigrates evolution as a theory, not a fact, and adds weight to that message by having administrators deliver it aloud. •

Districts around the country are pondering whether to inject intelligent design into science classes, and the constitutional problems are underscored by practical issues. There is little enough time to discuss mainstream evolution in most schools; the Dover students get two 90-minute classes devoted to the subject. Before installing intelligent design in the already jam-packed science curriculum, school boards and citizens need to be aware that it is not a recognized field of science. There is no body of research to support its claims nor even a real plan to conduct such research. In 2002, more than a decade after the movement began, a pioneer of intelligent design lamented that the movement had many sympathizers but few research workers, no biology texts and no sustained curriculum to offer educators. Another leading expositor told a Christian magazine last year that the field had no theory of biological design to guide research, just "a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions." If evolution is derided as "only a theory," intelligent design needs to be recognized as "not even a theory" or "not yet a theory." It should not be taught or even described as a scientific alternative to one of the crowning theories of modern science.

That said, in districts where evolution is a burning issue, there ought to be some place in school where the religious and cultural criticisms of evolution can be discussed, perhaps in a comparative religion class or a history or current events course. But school boards need to recognize that neither creationism nor intelligent design is an alternative to Darwinism as a scientific explanation of the evolution of life.

[AndrewC]

He did overstate it, but malaria provides more negative pressure on reaching breeding age than sickle cell.

I consider the general a friendly opponent. And as I said, I am from Missouri, show me. The 14 month period of advantage(although the way I read the graph it carries on into about 24 months) for the HbAS carrier is to be compared to the disadvantages of the trait carried to around 10 years or 120 months. That period is much longer before reproductive capability.

[general_re]

Mortality in sickle cell disease. Life expectancy and risk factors for early death.

[shubi]

Andrew, the graph indicates mortality rate. If they die at an increased percentage the alleles they carry die with them. Thus you have allele frequency change in the population.

In this case the Hybrids are preserved over the AA dominant type and the S allele increases. Whereas, in a non-malarial area, the A allele increases in frequency. In both cases evolution occurs and the populations in non-malarial areas diverge from the malarial areas.

[shubi]

"All that would do is confuse the student, because the word "theory" here is misused"

These "christians" do not have a problem with lying or deceiving. The ends justifies the means. Is that the 11th commandment?

[gobucks]

Your tag line says there is no knowledge that is not power.

My 9th grade science teacher posted this in my class many times. many years later, older, harassed looking, he confided in me that he was beginning to hate being a high school teacher. "The kids cuss at me now, and one even threatened to beat me up. The administration is no longer protecting us from undisciplined kids".

It was an eye opening conversation. Alacarte, I will offer that historically, certain religious institutions have been quite guilty of persecuting those who seek knowledge. But to elevate secularism only makes sense under one circumstance: overall, people are happier.

Aderol, Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Concerta, etc, etd,...
lots of brain drugs out there doing .... what? Making secular scientists who work at secular drug companies pretty wealthy. Maybe they are the ones who are happier. maybe they have also been incented to deny alternate pathways to happiness have been available for investigation for a long time.

Wisdom is real. Do you agree?

[js1138]

Results Among children and adults with sickle cell anemia (homozygous for sickle hemoglobin), the median age at death was 42 years for males and 48 years for females. Among those with sickle cell-hemoglobin C disease, the median age at death was 60 years for males and 68 years for females.

[AndrewC]

Which group do you suppose has historically had a higher mortality rate from 0-12 in malarial zones, carriers or non-carriers?

I don't know. Have those statistics been kept? Infant mortality in those areas are probably very high for all populations.(due to starvation, disease, etc.)

[AndrewC]

I would love to see you post something straightforward rather than snide.

You are very welcome.

[js1138]

#621 is along the lines I had in mind, but it came after my post.

[Reuben Hick]

And you're calling ME a hate monger??????

There are three things that are guaranteed to come from the Evolutionist/Materialist: Lies, Hypocrisy and Insults. That is their stock in trade

There are four things people try to point out about JudyWillow's beliefs in these discussions:

1. It's junk science.
1. It's junk religion.

It is junk science because it is based primarily on presumptions that can't be proved.   The materialists have faith that abiogenesis happened.  They have faith that radioisotope measurements are based on predictable decay over eons of time.  They have faith that order comes from chaos.  They have faith that material appeared ex nihilo.   These same scientists that swear that their ancestors are worms and apes are the same ones who are absolutely certain about global warming.   What is ironic is that these materialist scientists claim all kinds of global catastrophe over a 1 centigrade rise in temperature, while they will at the same time call you an idiot for mentioning a global catastrophe a little over four thousand years ago.

OTOH, The retort that you have a "junk religion" generally is cause for hitting the abuse button.  Their hate speech towards Christians is no different than racists calling blacks with offensive slang.  Expect it.  When called on point #2, you are dead on point.  They are Christophobes who are in mortal fear of those who don't subscribe to their death cult.

2. As junk science goes, it's dangerous junk science. Nazism and communism were based on it.
2. As junk religion goes, it's dangerous junk religion. Hatred of scientists, atheists, and gays, are based on it. Left unchecked it will ultimately destroy all the freedoms that America has stood for.

Junk science is the precursor to Nazism and Marxism.  Nazism borrowed heavily from the Evolutionist's Dream of eugenics.  The US was experimenting in neutering of "genetically inferior" stock of people, and Hitler's boy picked up quick on that trend and declared by fiat all Jews as being members of an inferior genetic stock.   Marxism requires evolution because, as the US founding fathers observed, Man has inalienable Rights which come from his Creator.   Eliminate the Creator, and now the State is the sole repository of privileges.  Materialists want God gone so that they can pursue the immoral lifestyle.  Remove God, then remove any responsibility to Him.  The State fills the vacuum.

"Hatred of scientists" is the typical crap that Materialists pull.   It is in their best interests to create this highly insulting and bigoted image that only knuckle dragger luddites would believe in a Creator.   If materialists acknowledged the great number of "scientists" who are Creationists, or at least consider Evolution vain speculation, then they would lose their most useful tool - pandering, insults and demands to "shut up because we know better than you.".   Evolutionists can't debate without resorting to fallacies, lies and fraud, so they try to convince everyone that their opponents aren't worth believing - borrowing another fallacy, the False Dilemma

3. It's totally incompatible with Christianity or any other believable religion.
3. It is totally incompatible with reason.

Once again, they must make it personal.  The Christophobes want you to believe that Occam's Razor is unreasonable.  It is much better to believe in Big Bang, not because of any evidence, but because if fits their philosophy.  You must believe in the Oort cloud.  Not because there is any evidence of it, not that it can be sighted or measured, but because their absolute faith in Billions Of Years is incompatible with the existence of short term comets.   Materialists call it "reasonable" to make up all kinds of wild ideas, and call this speculation "fact" or at least "theory".  Evolutionists also call it "reasonable" to base their evidence on outright fraud.  Ernst Haeckel and his "gill slits" human embryos?  Or the fraud of Archaeopteryx - sure, there's scientific evidence for you - just brush on some cement and press a feather in it and declare it a "transitional fossil".  The sychophants of Evolution will latch on to that and won't let go even decades after the fraud is made well known.  According to them, believing a proven lie is "reasonable".

4. It's part and parcel of certain kinds of agendas, which have nothing to do with conservatism. Granted not all gay people are agenda freaks, but the ones who are love evolutionism.
4. It's part and parcel of certain kinds of hatefulness, which have nothing to do with conservatism. Granted not all who share JudyWillow's beliefs are hate freaks, but the ones who are hate almost everyone who doesn't share their bigotted worldview.

You can't be an evolutionist until you engage in insults, lies and most important of all - hypocrisy.   Evolutionists hate Christians, that is why they drag Christians to court.  That is why they demonstrate their hate by those insulting legs added to the Christian ixthus.   They do it because they are the bigots, the haters, and the oppressors.   All Christians want is for their children not to be propagandized by atheistic evolution.   So I fully expect them to project their own sociopathic failings on Christians.   Why not?  It works wonderfully for the Left.   They are using tried and true Hard Left tactics to attack their philosophical foes.

[AndrewC]

Sickle Cell Trait

The relative risk of ERD explained by preexisting disease (largely silent heart disease) was 2.3 for Hb AS , but this was not statistically significant. The relative risk of ERD unexplained by preexisting disease was 28 for Hb AS. This was highly significant with p less than one per thousand. The relative risk ratio has since been corrected to 30 (3). If one eliminates restrictions by race and cause of ERD, the risk of exercise-related death for sickle cell trait was 28-fold. The excess ERDs with sickle cell trait seemed to result from the immediate stress of exercise. About 50% of cases resulted from exertional heat illness and the remaining cases were idiopathic sudden deaths (ISD). Clinical features and distribution of cases between EHI and ISD did not differ by the presence or absence of hemoglobin S, except that rhabdomyolysis was the predominant form of EHI among cases with sickle cell trait (3).

We examined the effect of age on risk of ERD unexplained by preexisting disease. There was an eight-fold increase in mortality going from age 17-18 to age 28-29 among recruits with Hb AS but no such trend for recruits without sickle cell trait (3, 9). This difference in effect of age suggests that there may be a difference in pathogenesis of death depending on the presence or absence of hemoglobin S. This effect might be due to renal papillary necrosis from Hb AS, a lesion increasing linearly in severity with age and present in at least 80% of recruits (figure 1 in 3, 6). The resulting deficit in renal concentrating ability might predispose that person toward more severe EHI since obligatory loss of free water might increase the hyperosmolar state important in the pathogenesis of EHI.

We were surprised by the high excess mortality associated with sickle cell trait. It is often said that the absolute risk of mortality with sickle cell trait we reported was low (12, 13). This excess mortality was one per three thousand recruits with sickle cell trait or one death per 60 to 90,000 person-hours of exercise equivalent to middle distance running. This mortality rate for 18 year old recruits is about 4 to 7 times higher than the mortality observed from artherosclerosis among middle aged runners: one death per 400,000 hours of running (14). Other population surveys of sickle cell trait have shown only mild effects of trait on hospitalization rates and none on mortality rates (3). Whereas our survey observed 5,000 person-years of exposure (38,600 people with Hb AS for a median of 8 weeks exposure) (9), other surveys of young adults with sickle cell trait examined exposures two to four logs smaller.

[Fester Chugabrew]

To most people the first meaning for "theory" has a ring of uncertainty about it. Not everyone is aware that scientists use the word to denote a construct based upon reasonable observations. Where the Theory of Evolution is concerned it does not rest on facts but on reasonable constructs of history based upon a-priori assumptions, thus it is a theory sorely lacking in facts. It does not deserve the attribution of "Theory," but "Philosophy," the Philosophy of Evolution is not germane to basic science.

[Right Wing Professor]

He did not say anything favorable about JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF in the post you chose.

My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter... How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross.

If you don't think that's favorable, you're delusional.

[Alacarte]

But to elevate secularism only makes sense under one circumstance: overall, people are happier.

Not sure I agree, I think the pursuit of knowledge trumps all. I would never intentionally deprecate knowledge for happiness. I'd rather accepts the truth no matter how cold and impersonal it may be.

lots of brain drugs out there doing .... what? Making secular scientists who work at secular drug companies pretty wealthy.

This is greed, not secularism. Greed is not exclusive to secularists, especially given that reds are capitalists and blues are more socialist (assuming you accept that dems are more secularist than gop's).

maybe they have also been incented to deny alternate pathways to happiness have been available for investigation for a long time.

What do you mean by this?

Wisdom is real. Do you agree?

How do you define wisdom? I like this distinction: "Intelligence tells you it's raining, wisdom tells you to seek shelter."

[general_re]

There was an eight-fold increase in mortality going from age 17-18 to age 28-29...

Too old. Excessive mortality at 28 gives you 16 good breeding years to begin with, and considering that life expectancy in stone age societies is/was around 30-35, you're not even losing that much in the end anyway. By contrast, the majority of malaria deaths (70-80%) occur in children under 5, accounting for as much as 30% of childhood mortality before age 5 in endemic malarial zones.

It's all about getting you to breeding age - anything after that is purely a bonus as far as natural selection is concerned.

[gobucks]

How do you define wisdom?

1. It is really valuable. 2. Most 'worldly' folks consider it utter foolishness 3. It is supernaturally gifted to one who seeks it in a repentant manner.

[gobucks]

If you don't think that's favorable, you're delusional.

The stuff he said would only be 'favorable' if he were pointing out what Christ actually said and did. Christ did not die 'fighting' to destroy the 'jews'. It's simply not true.

What I was after from you was ANY quote from Hitler where he reflected on what any of the 4 gospels actually have within them, and report favorably about Jesus. To say Hitler was a Christian implies he was advocating what Christ said. That is not true.

[balrog666]

What is your problem, man? LOL

He just can't seem to give up his life as a performing clown:

Ringling Bros Certifiedâ

[AndrewC]

In this case the Hybrids are preserved over the AA dominant type and the S allele increases

Then why is the Hybrid frequency only 15-25% in a malarial area?

THE GEOGRAPHY OF SICKLE CELL DISEASE:

West Africa

The sickle trait frequency varies from 15% to 25% and the HbC trait frequency from 3% to 4% in Nigeria to 15% to 20% in parts of Ghana and Burkina Faso, so the predominant genotypes of sickle cell disease are SS and SC disease, the latter being proportionately more frequent in Ghana. Data on Sb+ thalassemia and Sbo thalassemia are insufficient to predict their relative prevalences. Alpha+ thalassemia is common. Malaria is common and general public health measures poor outside major cities. High socioeconomic status improves survival,55 ensuring easier access to medical care, better public health measures, better immunization and nutrition, and better malarial prophylaxis. Few figures are available but mortality is high and survival to adult life uncommon. Most mortality is attributable to malaria or other infections. Leg ulceration and other end organ damage such as renal failure are uncommon, presumably because patients do not survive long enough to develop these complications. Pregnancy is also infrequent and pregnancy related pathology consequently rare in SS disease although more common in SC disease.

[shubi]

Evolution is a fact and the Theory of Evolution explains that fact.

Philosophy does not trump mountains of scientific evidence supporting the fact of evolution.