Let's Have No More Monkey Trials - To teach faith as science is to undermine both

Time Magazine ^ | Monday, Aug. 01, 2005 | CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

[wallcrawlr]

The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.

But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."

Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.

In this slippery slide from "reason" to science, Schönborn is a direct descendant of the early 17th century Dutch clergyman and astronomer David Fabricius, who could not accept Johannes Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits. Why? Because the circle is so pure and perfect that reason must reject anything less. "With your ellipse," Fabricius wrote Kepler, "you abolish the circularity and uniformity of the motions, which appears to me increasingly absurd the more profoundly I think about it." No matter that, using Tycho Brahe's most exhaustive astronomical observations in history, Kepler had empirically demonstrated that the planets orbit elliptically.

This conflict between faith and science had mercifully abated over the past four centuries as each grew to permit the other its own independent sphere. What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.

How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.

[chariotdriver]

The problem with evolution is not its application in the rarefied precincts of the experts, but the vulgar concept of evolution taught and advocated as a disproof of Christian faith. Except for such overreaching, evolution would not be an issue with the public or with Christians.

That says a good part of it for my take. You could even assert that is their intent is to most religious faiths. And they are dishonest when they claim otherwise.

I don't think I would be described as a Christian or churchgoing person.

But I can see that 'Science' and its theories fade into ephemeral wisps of ideas long before they get to any absolute truth.
Its an error to try to use Science as a denial of Divine Intelligence - Creator.
All Science can do is tell you things about a phenomena. But it can't tell you if those things, those properties, those laws, are the total set of things of that phenomena. And it certainly can't tell you in truth what the thing is, and where it comes from. Even everyday things we use electricity, light, and so on, etc.
An electron has elements of a particle and a wave, why?

Also it seems some of these people hang onto their science beliefs (even when new science comes out contradicts the old) with a zealotry approaching what they would term religious. Their 'Scientific things' approach the unknown too.

I do not think a lot of them see that aspect of their position, (unless their just here to yank some chains ;-))
They worship an Egyptian RA by any other name?

[Dimensio]

Atheist 'Jews' turn EVIL every bit as much as atheist 'Catholics' do, or atheist 'Protestants' do.

Yes, because all atheists are alike...

[chariotdriver]

You might convince some that your a rats ass droppings. I don't think you'll be able to force that on too many, 'sniff' analog.. you stink

[Al Simmons]

"When Jews become materialists and atheists, they still remain Jews and tend to remain within the embrace of Judaism's mostly wise and humane culture."

Oh, does this explain why a staggering majority of secular American Jews vote Democratic? Is that too a part of the 'wise and humane culture'?

You sound like a liberal apologist/fantasist. Time to surf on over to DU perhaps?

Or maybe you care to try to explain WTF you meant by the above statement.

See, its details like this which help conservatives to immediately identify wolves in sheep's clothing so to speak.

I doubt that Orthodox or Chasidim would see ABORTION as part of that 'wise and humane culture', would they?

You know, REAL JEWS who actually BELIEVE in God? The ones who are the 'flip side' of the Evangelical coin politically? Which is why Evangelicals are the best friends of Israel.

OK, I'll say what is obvious to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear:

Atheist 'Catholics' (see Kennedy) are not real Catholics;

Atheist 'Protestants' (see C of E for example) are not real Protestants; and

Atheist 'Jews' (see Chuckie Schumer, Boxer, etc.) are not real Jews.

You shall know them by their fruits. If your fruit is picked from the tree planted by satan, then you are not a part of any 'wise and humane' culture.

That is just liberalspeak for trying to obfuscate and calling evil good and good evil.

So, based on that single sentence, I have deduced without ANY doubt that you are a left-wing liberal.

But then, I am trained in logical and analytical thinking - subject's that most liberals would be hard-pressed to identify, much less to pass.

[Al Simmons]

One last thing:

RE: 'wise and humane'

In the way you stated it, I presume you really meant to say 'wise and humanistic'? Polar opposites.

'Wise and Godly', now THAT fits.

[The Red Zone]

that is so in the sense that "the fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'"

[Ichneumon]

Well, I guess if volume proved anything, this copious dump of yours would be quite decisive.

...and I guess that if sneers about size, which sidestepped any sort of discussion of the actual contents of a post, refuted anything, then your whine would be quite the rebuttal.

Come back if you ever decide to discuss the substance of my posts, instead of pretending that they're somehow less convincing if they have too *much* substance.

[bethelgrad]

Are you really interested in engaging in meaningful dialogue or just insulting me?

[Ichneumon]

Well, I have broken the pattern. Just read it.

Finally... Why didn't you bother to read it before you made your previous dismissive comments about it?

As for the "It takes more faith to believe in evolution than creationism"?

This is a common mantra from creationists, but only because they don't understand the first thing about science in general, or evolutionary biology in particular. It doesn't take any "faith" at all to realize that evolution has taken place and is occurring. It just takes evidence, knowledge, and understanding of the relevant processes.

How about I take a few phrases out:

How about you *don't* follow the usual creationist lame sophistry of yanking disconnected phrases out of context and parsing them as if microscopic *textual* examination of a description could somehow shed more light than the actual *evidence* underlying the findings?

Oops, too late:

"...every once in a while..."

Yes, it does indeed happen that, as I said in the original sentence in full, "However, every once in a while a virus's invasion plans don't function exactly as they should, and the virus's DNA (or portions of it) gets embedded into the cell's DNA in a 'broken' manner." There is a vast amount of evidence supporting this description of the errors which sometime occur during retrovirus transcription. Do you actually dispute this, or are you just trying to be a jerk over the fact that I was writing an overview of the process, and didn't want to bog it down by specifying actual transcriptional error rates, citations to the many studies which have measured these rates, and so on? Or are you really going to try to claim that retroviral transcription is a process which occurs with perfect fidelity and that it never, ever goes awry?

In short, just what in the hell is your actual point in waving around a phrase yanked entirely out of any recognizable context, as if you had some sort valid criticism, when it appears you're really just nitpicking over trivialities as an excuse not to have to deal with the actual substance? If that's your game, you might as well have stuck to your original tactic of making snotty comments about HTML, because that's just as foolish a way of avoiding the real evidence.

"...By chance this sometimes happens to..."

Yes, so? By chance it sometimes does happen to -- as established by quite a few studies, not to mention plain common sense. The original sentence you're trying to be tunnel-visioned about is, "By chance this sometimes happens to a special cell in the body, a gametocyte cell that's one of the ones responsible for making sperm in males and egg cells in females." Do you really *dispute* that? Is it somehow your contention that testicles and ovaries are somehow *immune* to viral infection?

"...And once in a blue moon such a sperm or egg is lucky..."

Again, do you have *any* actual point? If so, what in the hell is it? Or do you just enjoy cutting-and-pasting a few phrases out of any context whatsoever, then sitting back pretending that you've accomplished something? Do you want to discuss the topic, or do you want to play some word games as an excuse to convince yourself that you've somehow "refuted" anything by highlighting words with a crayon?

Here's your cut-and-paste in its original context: "And once in a blue moon such a sperm or egg is lucky enough to be one of the few which participate in fertilization and are used to produce a child -- who will now inherit copies of the "fossilized" viral DNA in every cell of his/her body, since all are copied from the DNA of the original modified sperm/egg." Your waving around the words I used to point out that not every sperm or egg ends up producing a child doesn't change the fact -- repeat, the *fact* -- that it *does* still happen. Or are you really going to try to argue the opposite: that no sperm or egg ever ends up as a child? If so, where *do* children come from, Einstein? Sheesh. Please think before posting.

"... by luck of the draw ..." "... It all depends on a roll of the genetic dice..."

Yup. It does indeed. Do you have a problem with the dynamics of gene recombination? Because if so, there's a guy named Mendel you should go take it up with, not to mention several million other biologists in the subsequent 150 years, who have verified Mendel's laws of inheritance to the point where only an idiot would try to dispute them. Are you an idiot?

Here's my original comment in full: "Through a process called neutral genetic drift, given enough time (it happens faster in smaller populations than large) the 'fossil' viral DNA will either be flushed out of the population eventually, *or* by luck of the draw end up in every member of the population X generations down the road. It all depends on a roll of the genetic dice." If you want to try to dispute this well-established statistical property of Mendelian inheritance, go right ahead, but you'll only be making a fool of yourself. Here, knock yourself out -- dazzle us all by showing us what's wrong with these analyses.

Enough said.

ROFL!!! You haven't said *ANYTHING*. You just cut-and-pasted a few of *my* words, then sat back and declared victory. And then people wonder why we don't take creationists seriously any longer...

Takes a tremendous leap of faith to imagine that such a process ever happens.

Not at all, son. It takes familiarity with the *vast* amount of research which has shown that it *does* happen, *how* it happens, how *often* it happens, the specific properties of the *processes* by which it happens, databases of the results of the thousands of cases in which it *has* happened, direct observations of each of the steps by which it happens, cross-species studies confirming the thousands of observations consistent with the precise predictions about what we would find in genomes if it *had* happened, and on and on and on.

It doesn't take *faith* at all, it takes mountains of evidence, which provide overlapping confirmations in multiply independent ways. Which we have.

The only person acting on "faith" in this discussion is you -- your blind (and incorrect) faith that I have no grounds for what I write, that I'm somehow just making it up, just posting what I "imagine". What *GALL*. Frankly, you owe me a huge apology, you little snot.

The astute reader will note that Asphalt never once stopped to consider that my post might have been the result of carefully gathered knowledge acquired by decades of research through the efforts of thousands of biologists. He never once thought it worthwhile to ask, "how do you know that claim XXX is valid", or "how was this determined"? No, he just arrogantly cut-and-pasted a few trivially tiny sequences of words out of my long post, and then breezily blew it all off with an obnoxiously condescending slap about how it must just be "faith" that causes me to "imagine" such a thing.

Behold the belligerent ignorance of the creationists: They don't know the first thing about biology, and don't have a clue about any of the research, but by gosh, they don't *have* to, because they presume that no one else really does either. It's all just made up, don'tcha know...

[Due to the hurdles, "fossil" retroviral DNA strings (known by the technical name of "endogenous retroviruses") don't end up ubiquitous in a species very often]

The understatment of the century.

Oh really? Then why are there over TWENTY THOUSAND of them in your own DNA? Try reading my words IN CONTEXT, kid -- any particular retroviral infection has a pretty small chance of ending up a permanent feature in a species' DNA, just as I correctly said above, but given how many BILLIONS of your cells get infected each time you get sick, and how many MILLIONS to BILLIONS of individuals there are in a population, and how many MILLIONS of generations pass during geologically "short" periods of time, it *still* ends up occurring often enough in absolute numbers to cause your DNA to have literally thousands of such "fossil viruses" stuck in it, passed down to you from your long-dead ancestors. They're neatly cataloged and databased as a result of the Human Genome Project. They're real -- no matter how much you might want to cling to your false belief that they're just something we "imagine" based on nothing but "faith". Deal with it.

And after all that he says it "probably happens"

See above, and lay off the inappropriate sarcasm -- you're just making a fool of yourself.

Not quite the rock-solid evidence it is portrayed to be

Go look it up, instead of reveling in your total ignorance, *and* being an insufferably smug jerk about your lack of education.

Characterization of the low-copy HERV-Fc family: evidence for recent integrations in primates of elements with coding envelope genes

Human-specific integrations of the HERV-K endogenous retrovirus family

Endogenous retroviruses in the human genome sequence

Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences

Comprehensive Analysis of Human Endogenous Retrovirus Transcriptional Activity in Human Tissues with a Retrovirus-Specific Microarray

The viruses in all of us: Characteristics and biological significance of human endogenous retrovirus sequences

The human genome contains many types of chimeric retrogenes generated through in vivo RNA recombination

Human L1 Retrotransposition: cis Preference versus trans Complementation

Identification, Phylogeny, and Evolution of Retroviral Elements Based on Their Envelope Genes

Identification and Characterization of Novel Human Endogenous Retrovirus Families by Phylogenetic Screening of the Human Genome Mapping Project Database

HERVd: database of human endogenous retroviruses

Long-term reinfection of the human genome by endogenous retroviruses

Physiological Knockout of the Envelope Gene of the Single-Copy ERV-3 Human Endogenous Retrovirus in a Fraction of the Caucasian Population

Insertional polymorphisms of full-length endogenous retroviruses in humans

Many human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) proviruses are unique to humans

Some morphological, growth, and genomic properties of human cells chronically infected with porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV)

The distribution of the endogenous retroviruses HERV-K113 and HERV-K115 in health and disease

Full-sized HERV-K (HML-2) human endogenous retroviral LTR sequences on human chromosome 21: map locations and evolutionary history

A rare event of insertion polymorphism of a HERV-K LTR in the human genome

Demystified . . . Human endogenous retroviruses

Retroviral Diversity and Distribution in Vertebrates

Drosophila germline invasion by the endogenous retrovirus gypsy: involvement of the viral env gene

Genomic Organization of the Human Endogenous Retrovirus HERV-K(HML-2.HOM) (ERVK6) on Chromosome 7

Human endogenous retrovirus HERV-K14 families: status, variants, evolution, and mobilization of other cellular sequences

Sequence variability, gene structure, and expression of full-length human endogenous retrovirus H

And, as usual, that's just the tiniest *tip* of the iceberg. My PubMed searches on endogenous retroviruses turned up over a *thousand* papers. These are just some of the more useful ones.

[bethelgrad]

"How do you integrate the "Render unto Caesar..." part?"


It's called paying taxes when they are due. But what does that have to do with this debate? You might as well have quoted "Jesus wept!" A bit of advice, read scripture in it's appropriate context before citing it as a prooftext for your positions.

[Junior]

More like "Night of the Living Dead." A lot of these guys have posting styles reminiscent of certain banned Designed Universe Trolls. I wouldn't be surprised if ALS and g3k weren't among them.

[aposiopetic]

Do you know how disturbingly postmodernist this sounds?

Nor do I care. My duties in life do not begin with any need to please your ear with my rhetoric.

[PatrickHenry]

Is it my imagination, or is it "Internet Night" at the Outpatient Clinic on the thread tonite?

It may be the effect of that creationist ping list someone's been trying to put together. Perhaps they've figured out how to add names faster than they get banned, so it's finally kicking in.

[PatrickHenry]

Frankly, you owe me a huge apology, you little snot.

But that would violate the First Law of Creationism:

Creationism means never having to say you're sorry

[Junior]

The sun is not the "center of the universe".

Of course not. I am.

[Junior]

I noticed some replies that appear to suggest that theory equals fact.

Then you haven't been reading too closely. The evidence (observations, experimental results, whatnot) are the facts. For instance, there is a fact of evolution -- that organisms change over generations. Theories explain the facts. There is a Theory of Evolution which explains why organisms change over generations.

It's really not all that hard to grasp.

[Junior]

B)There is always an adequate number of participants because nobody -- and I mean nobody -- ever seems to change sides on the issue.

Ah the perfect opportunity. Stop y'all's groaning! Now, where's my guitar>

It's More for the Lurkers

(with apologies to Boston)

I woke up this morning and the PC's on
Logged onto FR to start my day
I got wrapped up in a crevo thread
A paradigm shifts and it slips my way.

It's more for the Lurkers (more for the Lurkers)
Hear the old canards the creos say (more for the Lurkers)
I begin posting (more for the Lurkers)
Till I feel a paradigm shift my way
I feel a paradigm shifting my way.

So many threads have come and gone
So many more await their turn;
Yet I recall as I battle on,
We do it so the lurker's learn.

Chorus

[Guitar Solo]

When the creo's canards are getting old
I grab some links and post away,
And think of a lurker reading this.
A paradigm shifts and it slips my way.

It slips my way.

Chorus

[trebb]

No. Just that the total matter+energy=0.

Any other implications in there? How does that suffice as an answer to a question about where the original matter for the Universe came from? I understand what you are saying, but I don't get the connection.

[Junior]

Only a theory!

Gosh, the requests keep pouring in.

It's Just a Theory

[to the tune of Don't Fear the Reaper]

(with apologies to Blue Oyster Cult)

Darwin's time has come
Evolution now is gone
Creos don't like the theory
We're certain it's just plain wrong.
They can be like we are

Come on creos ... It's just a theory
No need to listen ... It's just a theory
Darwin's on the outs ... It's just a theory
All his links are missin'...

S. J. Gould is done
P.E. now is gone
Behe, Miller, Hovind
Will now tell us how it's done
Behe, Miller, Hovind...

Americans believe the creos ... Behe, Miller, Hovind
Americans believe the creos ... Tell us how it's done
And more are joining us everyday ... You can be like we are

Come on creos ... It's just a theory
No need to listen ... It's just a theory
Darwin's on the outs ... It's just a theory
All his links are missin'...

Evolutionary biology
Was here but now it's gone
We'll replace it with ID
Regardless if it's really wrong
We regard it as a kind of tool
It's just a wedge to get God in school
To see how many we can fool
Saying, "join the creos..."

Come on creos ... And then they came
Flocked in droves ... We ain't no slime
Turned the clock backward in time
You'll become like we are
No need for research
You'll become like we are

Come on creos ... It's just a theory

We're playing every Saturday night at the main hall at Darwin Central. Tell a friend and come and enjoy the show.

[trebb]

If God is 'forever' then why did he wait 'forever' before creating man?

If you fill a hole with dirt, does the hole still exist?

Is there a real point to that, or was it just an exercise in witty interjections? I apologize for sounding flippant, but the question makes no sense without further expounding on your train of thought.