Posted on 05/09/2005 8:22:16 AM PDT by anguish
This week sees the 80th anniversary of the trial of John Scopes, teacher, for breaking the newly-passed Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in the state of Tennessee. Conceived as a PR stunt to put the town of Dayton, TN on the map, it succeeded in making a laughingstock of the state, which found Scopes guilty in a trial that garnered enormous publicity. 80 years later, scientists have identified DNA as the medium in which heredity is passed on, constructed a map of the entire human genome and can routinely manipulate genetic information in the laboratory. Yet despite the advances we have made in the field, there remains a certain intransigence towards accepting as unquestioned scientific fact the theory of evolution as it pertains to the development of humankind. Although the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches defer to the scientific community on this, a highly vocal and well-funded group of fundamentalists in the United States are still bent on the suppression of evolution in schools.
Whereas the Scopes Trial of 1925 took place in a court room, this current fight takes place in front of the Kansas School Board, some of whom could not even be bothered to read through a draft of scientific standards. This board of educators, most of whom are confessed skeptics of evolution, have invited the researchers from the Intelligent Design research group Discovery Institute in Seattle to present the case that thousands of scientists worldwide have in effect been lying to themselves and the whole world by claiming that evolution — rather than God — is responsible for the vast array of biodiversity we find on the planet Earth. Scientists, led by the AAAS, have decided not to dignify these hearings by appearing before them. This event comes hot on the heels of previous efforts by the Kansas School Board to prevent the teaching of evolution, and moves by Cobb County in Georgia to label biology textbooks with a warning that evolution remains a theory. Oddly in that case they did not point out the same is true of gravity in physics books.
While the battle between fundamentalists and educators continues in the wilds of Kansas, the business of actually studying evolution marches on. A new report in Nature this week describes the rapid speciation of cichlid fish descended from the now-extinct Lake Makgadikgadi in Africa. Using mitochondrial DNA the researchers have shown a huge variety of fish species are descended from an original flock from the now defunct lake. Why have these cichlids undergone such diverse adaptations? The fish have a second set of jaws further back in their throats, that allow the main pair to develop and adapt to changing conditions, for example with big jaws from cracking snail shells, or long jaws for better predation. The female fish incubate their eggs in their mouths, and more "personal" breeding means sex selection is important, another factor in their rapid speciation.
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In directed panspermia, DNA still arises from inorganic molecules at some point on some planet. It just means aliens seeded Earth. The idea that DNA has always existed is cosmic ancestry, an idea rejected by about as many scientists who reject young-earth creationism. Crick did not believe in cosmic ancestry, IIRC.
What materials? Physicist does a much better job of explaining this, but energy (and matter) is a consequence of the expansion of the universe.
It's too bad this is worded this way. It makes scientists appear to be professional athiests. Rather than recognizing that science does not refute, or acknowledge, any diety.
Science is not a threat to Christianity, except in the minds of Christians.
Sorta' begs the underlying question of origin, doesn't it?
Evolution and the origin of life are two separate topics. Evolutionary theory is the same whether single-celled life has always existed, it was created by God, or was created by Bald Eagle.
Scientists do collect evidence and hypothesize about the origins of all life, but that's a totally different issue from whether different species on Earth have common ancestors.
Actually, it is. Although with the wailing and knashing of teeth over this issue it really hasn't been discussed in that manner very often. Although you've been around these threads long enough, I'll be you've seen this, but pretend you haven't.
It is clear by studying the evidence that evolution occurs. Therefore evolution is a "fact".
However, like gravity, evolution is a description of a phenomena, and therefore it is a "theory" as well.
Like the "theory of Gravity". Or the "theory of Music". Both of which exist, and are "facts". But are also "theories".
Many on the scientific end of this discussion go to lengths to point out how evolution is a "theory" and as such is actually at a higher level than "facts". But they often neglect to point out that evolution is fact as well.
Are you heading to the good old 2nd law of thermodynamics argument? Because while there is a second law for thermodynamic entropy, there is no second law for informational entropy. Informational entropy is just a statistical quantity with a defining equation similar to thermondynamic energy, but without the laws of thermodynamics around it. Simple pure mathematics.
The matter is discussed in the text: Denbigh and Denbigh [1985].
Charles Darwin wrote in his book The Origin of Species that one of the greatest objections to his theory were the gaps in the fossil record. Those gaps are still there. The fossil gaps between families and the higher classifications are both so large and so persistent that some evolutionists have even invented a theory to explain them away called punctuated equilibrium. The theory is that change in animals in the past was so quick that it left no record of its happening. This truly is the perfect theory; the proof of its happening is that there is no evidence of its ever having happened. The more that these evolutionists find no evidence of change ever having happened, the stronger their punctuated equilibrium theory gets, at least to them. There is a real Alice in Wonderland logic to it all.
"The evolution debate is null and void in my opinion if you don't consider the mud and minerals your primordial soup came from."
Again, the primordial soup (your term) came from the God of Abraham, Issac, David, et al.
Just like the natural process of evolution, which stems from laws of nature God put into place.
Evolution is a discription of a process.
It has little or nothing to do with Creation, other than being a glimpse at PART of the process.
That's a bit of conspiracy theory. But I'll admit that it could have that effect.
Creationism will split the educated and Catholic conservatives away from the rest. And it will hang a sign on the butt of those remaining conservatives saying "kick me". Which will be funny, because those that remain will have self-labeled themselves as uneducated buffoons.
Now that's a concept everyone can get behind.
I sometimes wonder if some of the more hate-filled creationists (who are certainly NOT following the Christian commandment to "speak the truth in love") are plants by the DU to make conservatives look stupid and hate-filled.
Keep 'em coming.
A welcome break.
Got some Asian or African ones?
How is debate on the unknown hate-filled?
Well, that is unless individual scientists sell out and climb into the pocket of politicians that hand out grant money.
There are all too many scientists who have done such. And that's what gives this anti-science agenda it's believability.
The environmentalists have corrupted a number of scientists, and they've shot themselves in the foot in the process. But big money in the creationist camp has done the same thing.
I see creationist organizations as the flip side of the environmental organizations. Both of them hold out their hand for donations from people who have an emotional investment with a particular world view. It's a very lucrative business.
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