Posted on 05/06/2005 10:47:50 PM PDT by Jeff Gordon
CHARLES DARWIN’S theory of evolution is facing a new challenge in America from Christians who argue that life shows an “intelligent design”.
The Kansas Board of Education has begun taking evidence from anti-evolution scientists in a bid to rewrite the state’s teaching standards to ensure that pupils learn alternatives to evolution that suggest a guiding hand in the origin of life.
Kansas is one of a growing number of states to consider authorising schools to teach religious alternatives to Darwin — but a four-day hearing of the Kansas board has outraged mainstream scientists, who are boycotting the meeting and holding protests outside.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science declined an invitation to testify, arguing that the hearings would confuse rather than educate the public.
“This is a showcase trial,” Jack Krebs, vice-president of Kansas Citizens for Science, said. “They have hijacked science and education.”
On the first day of testimony in Topeka, the audience heard lectures on “primordial soup”, fruit-fly mutations and whether human beings were related to worms as six anti-evolution scientists argued that the theory of evolution could not explain gaps in the fossil record, the complexity of DNA or the origin of life itself.
William Harris, a professor of medicine who specialises in omega-3 fatty acids and co-founded the Intelligent Design Network, said that Darwinism clashed with the biblical teaching that life was created by God. “Part of our overall goal is to remove the bias against religion that is currently in schools,” he said. “This is a scientific controversy that has powerful religious implications.”
Other witnesses included Jonathan Wells, an embryologist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, who described himself as “an old Berkeley antiwar radical”. “The way Darwinian evolution is usually presented is that the evidence is overwhelming, and there is no controversy about it,” he said. “That’s clearly not the case.”
Dr Wells, who holds PhDs in theology from Yale University and in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, confirmed under cross-examination that he was a member of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
Pro-Darwin scientists distributed an internet posting outside the hearing in which Dr Wells declares: “Father’s words, my studies and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”
The anti-evolution scientists faced sharp questioning from Pedro Irigonegaray, a lawyer defending Darwin at the hearings. He said that he fantasised that he was defending John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher who in 1925 was found guilty of illegally teaching evolution at what became known as the “Monkey Trial”.
“The delicious fantasy of being in a courtroom-like environment, with the overhead fan slowly twisting and being able to question witnesses about all of these issues, is very appealing,” he said.
The US Supreme Court outlawed the teaching of biblical beliefs, or “creationism”, in state schools in an Arkansas case in 1987, forcing Christians to embrace “intelligent design”.
All three members of the Kansas sub-committee support a change in the standards to tell students that evolution is only a theory, not a fact, and to include alternatives. The full Kansas school board, which is controlled by a 6-4 conservative majority, is expected to rewrite the standards in June, joining Ohio, which took a similar step three years ago. Legislators in Alabama and Georgia are also considering Bills to allow teachers to challenge Darwin in class.
A total non-sequitur. Have you got anything to actually support your version of things, or will you simply sit on the sidelines and snipe?
A non-sequitor, eh? Are you Stalin's right-hand man, or channeling him? Who exactly are you to be the only authority! Very Stalin-like of you though, lil' twiggie.
I will when you have something to offer but 3 year old snotnose crap.
I never said the 'theory of evolution' is a fact because that statement is meaningless.
Right, which is why disclaimers claiming that the TOE is not a fact are perfectly acceptable and scientifically accurate.
I said 'Evolution' is a fact.
'Evolution" with a capital E implies a, evolution small e implies change in allele frequency over time.
Then I asked you what the 'theory of evolution' was, because you seemed to have awfully strong opinions about something that, as it turns out, you can't even define properly.
LOL, don't let your hubris get in front of your snotnose.
"Intelligent Design" is observed on a daily basis and is as such a scientific "fact".
See how easy this is?
In fact, intelligent design changes allele frequencies on a daily basis. Does that fact make the ID theory a fact? No, of course not.
So if a school wanted to put a disclaimer in a science book stating that TOID is not a fact but a theory, no one should complain. Of course you don't except ID as a theory because like a lot of folks you live in denial. ID is getting ready to trump Darwin and you refuse to see it just like some folks refuse to see that mutations, selection and adaptation happens. Kind of funny actually.
Nope. The definition doesn't change.
Right, which is why disclaimers claiming that the TOE is not a fact are perfectly acceptable and scientifically accurate.
I never said I had a problem with the stickers (except for that they're imprecise, see a few posts back.)
Well then do so! Stalin and Lenin were Darwinistic. Maybe you can hire a thinker to help you out. After he writes it all down for you carefully -- he'll do the thinking, you don't have to work beyond your capabilities! -- you can then read it back. How wise you'll sound!
Second problem: Scientific method goes OBSERVATION to HYPOTHESIS. Intelligent design started with the HYPOTHESIS and picks OBSERVATIONS that support the HYPOTHESIS. Therefore, it is not science.
Nice dodge. At least I back up what I claim. You simply try to sidestep when confronted with evidence. I'm sure all the lurkers have figured out you modus operandi now. Way to cast your position in a good light.
Despite any official disavowal of Darwin's theories, Soviet science subsumed and utilized the ideas. And more importantly to the point I made -- Stalin and Lenin both operated out of a poltical philsophy that was Darwinian.
Marx said "Darwin's book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history." Lenin and Stalin applied the brutal principles of the despotic tyranny suggested by Marx in the Manifesto.
Here's a typical section from that Manifesto chock full of Darwinistic natural science allusions and terms:
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing [that is, competitive struggle] each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.Marx's theories are evolution, evolution, evolution. Classify a set of terms, that stage in time or development, and then fit a purported evolutionary dynamic between them. Without Darwin, no Marx.From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang[i.e. "evoloved"] the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.
Adam Smith's economics is NOT evolutionary, Marx's is ALL evolution.
Lenin and Stalin took Marx's economic and class struggles and refined them into real-politik following every example that the god-free "science" of Darwin and Huxleys could provide. Apt pupils!
So much for bioengineering.
What about bioengineering cannot be disproven? (It's a big, big field.)
Anything concrete, or are you just blowing smoke around?
Again, nice dodge. There isn't anything in your little excerpt that has anything to do with Darwin's theory of evolution. You appear to be all over the map on this one.
Boring, redundant thread.
Ah. How do I disprove intelligent design again? Because, you know, like I said, you can't, which means it's not a scientific pursuit.
I won't argue ID on scientific terms because it's not science. I've even asked you to define the theory of intelligent design. You haven't. I previously asked you to tell me how to disprove the theory of intelligent design. You didn't.
Intelligent design theory is not science.
Wow - did someone click on it and force you to read it? What a shame.
Whether you care to acknowledge it or not is of little concern in my day to day trudge through Universe Grapefruit.
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