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Why pass up an opportunity to cast the President in the role of village idiot? Anyone who disagrees with the author is sadly unable to comprehend his brilliance. No arrogance here.
I actually agree with the president here, although I know he didn't really mean what he says. Both evolution and ID SHOULD be properly taught. We should teach students that evolution is the accepted scientific theory explaining biodiversity, that there's a mountainous volume of evidence supporting this theory, and a small portion of this evidence should be presented. We should also teach students that some people, mostly religious people, and mostly Christians, believe that evolution is not capable of explaining biodiversity, that they believe that someone must have designed all the species,that they have absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever for this assertion, and that this assertion is completely unscientific. That would be teaching both sides properly, and I have no problem with this
Revelation 4:11
See my profile for info
Keep up the good work, crusader!!
Keller George, Wolf Clan Representative to the Nation's Men's Council, relates the following story his maternal great-grandmother told to him about the birth of the Evil Spirit and the Good Sprit.
Long, long ago, the earth was deep beneath the water. There was a great darkness because no sun or moon or stars shone. The only creatures living in this dark world were water animals such as the beaver, muskrat, duck and loon.
Far above the water-covered earth was the Land of the Happy Spirits, where the Great Spirit dwelled. In the center of this upper realm was a giant apple tree with roots that sank deep into the ground.
One day the Great Spirit pulled the tree up from its roots creating a pit in the ground. The Great Spirit called to his daughter, who lived in the Upper World. He commanded her to look into the pit. The woman did as she was told and peered through the hole. In the distance, she saw the Lower World covered by water and clouds.
The Great Spirit spoke to his daughter, telling her to go into the world of darkness. He then tenderly picked her up and dropped her into the hole. The woman, who would be called Sky Woman by those creatures watching her fall, began to slowly float downward.
As Sky Woman continued her descent, the water animals looked up. Far above them they saw a great light that was Sky Woman. The animals were initially afraid because of the light emanating from her. In their fear, they dove deep beneath the water.
The animals eventually conquered their fear and came back up to the surface. Now they were concerned about the woman, and what would happen to her when she reached the water.
The beaver told the others that they must find a dry place for her to rest upon. The beaver plunged deep beneath the water in search of earth. He was unsuccessful. After a time, his dead body surfaced to the top of the water.
The loon was the next creature to try to find some earth. He, too, was unsuccessful. Many others tried, but each animal failed. At last, the muskrat said he would try. When his dead body floated to the top, his little claws were clenched tight. The others opened his claws and found a little bit of earth.
The water animals summoned a great turtle and patted the earth upon its back. At once the turtle grew and grew, as did the amount of earth. This earth became North America, a great island.
During all this time, Sky Woman continued her gentle fall. The leader of the swans grew concerned as Sky Woman's approach grew imminent. He gathered a flock of swans that flew upward and allowed Sky Woman to rest upon their back. With great care, they placed her upon the newly formed earth.
Soon after her arrival, Sky Woman gave birth to twins. The first born became known as the Good Spirit. The other twin caused his mother so much pain that she died during his birth. He was to be known as the Evil Spirit.
The Good Spirit took his mother's head and hung it in the sky, and it became the sun. The Good Spirit also fashioned the stars and moon from his mother's body. He buried the remaining parts of Sky Woman under the earth. Thus, living things may always find nourishment from the soil for it springs from Mother Earth.
While the Good Spirit provided light, the Evil Spirit created the darkness. The Good Spirit created many things, but each time his brother would attempt to undo his good work.
The Good Spirit made the tall and beautiful trees, including the pines and hemlock. The Evil Spirit, to be contrary, stunted some trees or put gnarls and knots in their trunks. Other trees he covered in thorns or poisoned their fruit.
The Good Spirit made bear and deer. The Evil Spirit made poisonous animals such as lizards and serpents to destroy the animals created by his brother.
When the Good Spirit made springs and streams of pure crystal water, the Evil Spirit poisoned some and placed snakes in others. The Good Spirit made beautiful rivers. The Evil Spirit pushed rocks and dirt into the rivers creating swift and dangerous currents.
Everything the Good Spirit made his wicked brother attempted to destroy.
After the Good Spirit completed the earth, he created man out of red clay. Placing the man upon the earth, the Good Spirit instructed the man about how he should live. The Evil Spirit made a monkey from sea foam.
Upon completion of his work, the Good Spirit bestowed a protecting spirit upon all of his creations. This done, he called his brother and told him he must cease making trouble. The Evil Spirit emphatically refused. The Good Spirit became enraged at his brother's wickedness. He challenged his evil twin to combat. The winner would become the ruler of the world.
For their weapons they used the thorns of the giant apple tree. The battle raged for many days. The Good Spirit triumphed, overcoming his evil brother. The Good Spirit took his place as ruler of the earth and banished his brother to a dark cave under the ground. In this cave the Evil Spirit was to remain.
The Evil Spirit, however, has wicked servants who do his bidding and roam upon the earth. The wicked spirits are able to take any form and cause men to do evil things.
This is the reason that everyone has both a good heart and a bad heart. Regardless of how good a man is, he still possesses some evil. The reverse also is true. For however evil a man may be, he still has some good qualities. No man is perfect.
The Good Spirit continues to create and protect mankind. It is the Good Spirit who controls the spirits of good men upon their death. His wicked brother takes possession of the souls of those who are evil like himself. And so it remains.
Intelligent Design?
Speaking with reporters in Texas recently, he answered a question about the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution by saying it was something school districts should decide. However, he said he thought both should be taught in science classes "so people can understand what the debate is about." Bush's statement raised the ire of editorialists around the country. Wrote the Middleton, NY Times Herald-Record; "Debate? There is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution. It is an important scientifically verified concept of the way life has developed on our planet. Generations of scientists have added to the vast store of empirical knowledge of how we got where we are since Darwin first posited his theory." Can that be true? That there is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution? Then why is it in the news in the first place? According to the editorialist, "Intelligent design is really just creationism dressed up with a new name and a new approach to trying to get it taught in public schools. That approach, in essence, is to pretend that there is a serious scientific debate on the merits of evolution versus intelligent design." Let's revisit that last paragraph again. First, 'intelligent design' is not 'creationism'. 'Creationism' is the belief that the Sovereign God as He is identified in the Book of Genesis created the universe, the earth, man, trees, animals, water, light, air, and every thing else in creation that was created, and that He did it in six literal days, resting on the seventh. THAT is creationism. 'Intelligent Design' is the belief that the universe, in its complexity and attention to detail, could not have come about by a series of random coincidences and therefore, is the product of an unidentified Intelligence. The debate (yes, Middleton, there IS a debate) has grown more intense as science has begun to unlock the secrets of the genome and realized that genes are really micro supercomputers. 'Intelligent design' does not identify the Designer, ignores the Bible, imposes no moral or religious accountability, and allows for any and all religious worldviews. It is NOT creationism, or anything approaching creationism. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory for the Designer to be anyone from a Creator God to space aliens from the Planet Zenon. Writes our editorialist, "Many scientists believe that, while Darwin's theory of natural selection explains much about the development of life, it does not necessarily provide all the answers on the origin of life. Like nonscientists, they have their own theories, but these are philosophical or religious beliefs that differ from one another and, critically, from a scientific viewpoint, cannot be empirically proven." Sez you. Critically, from a scientific viewpoint, natural selection cannot be empirically proven. Indeed, for evolution to be correct, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the provable observation that all things eventually decay and break down with age, would have to be thrown out the window. Let's look at it this way. A living things live, die, decay and revert back to dust. This can be empirically proved -- there is no debate. The theory of evolution argues that, add a few million years, the process reverses itself. Since nothing can be empirically observed over a few million years, and since the passage of a few million years cannot be recreated in a laboratory, there is absolutely no empirical evidence for evolution. Both the evolutionist and the proponents of Intelligent Design are left with the same scientific conundrum. Evolution takes on faith that its theory is correct, based entirely on what we observe today and theorize backwards to its origin. Intelligent Design does exactly the same thing. The evolutionist theorizes that all that exists came into existence as the byproduct of random chance that cannot be examined, recreated or observed under laboratory conditions. Intelligent Design proponents look at the same evidences and say random chance cannot explain it. But, unlike evolution, Intelligent Design CAN be empirically proved. It CAN be recreated in a laboratory. It is not only possible, it is fact. Geneticists can manipulate genes to 'create' a different creature, in effect, 'designing' something altogether new. The same evolutionists who decry intelligent design also decry efforts to impose ethical standards on scientific breakthroughs on cloning. And if cloning isn't empirical evidence of intelligent design, then what would be? Sniffs the editorialist, "But the validity of evolution is regarded as a subject for scientific debate pretty much only by believers in creationism, which is to say, intelligent design. Science attempts to explain what can be observed, not the more elusive questions, such as why any of it matters. One belongs in school, the other at home or in places of worship." Liar, liar, pants on fire. Intelligent design is not based on religion. It is based on scientific observations based on empirical evidence, not religious texts. The theory proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause as opposed to an undirected process such as natural selection. Although controversial, design theory is supported by a growing number of scientists in scientific journals, conference proceedings, and books. While intelligent design may have religious implications (just like Darwin's theory), it does not start from religious premises. Its best-known exponent was English theologian William Paley, creator of the famous watchmaker analogy. If we find a pocket watch in a field, Paley wrote in 1802, we immediately infer that it was produced not by natural processes acting blindly but by a designing human intellect. Scientists use the term "black box" for a system whose inner workings are unknown. To Charles Darwin and his contemporaries, the living cell was a black box because its fundamental mechanisms were completely obscure. We now know that, far from being formed from a kind of simple, uniform protoplasm (as many nineteenth-century scientists believed), every living cell contains many ultra sophisticated molecular machines. Darwin himself set the standard when he acknowledged, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." The complexity of the human genome, by Darwin's own standards, totally collapses the possibility of random chance. There is a project called 'SETI' or, the 'Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence' that spends millions each year scanning the universe for radio signals that would suggest they were transmitted by some extra-terrestrial intelligence. Outer space is filled with random radio waves, all of which are random and without coherence. SETI is looking for coherent signals. Since there is nothing in the laws of physics that requires radio signals to take one form or another, a coherent series of signals would indicate intelligence. Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic trademark or 'signature'. That signature is found where a complexity is contingent and therefore not necessary. For example, a piece of wood is a piece of wood. That is all that is necessary for it to be a piece of wood. Add a metal bar and a few springs and our piece of wood becomes a mousetrap. Specific complexity designed to a purpose not necessary to existence of its component parts. Do you follow? Scientifically, something's complexity is related to how easy it is to repeat it by chance. Evolution ignores the evidence of intelligence in the design of the universe, because it imposes its theory after the fact. Consider a guy who shoots arrows into a wall at random, and then paints targets around them, painting the bullseye around each arrow. That is how random chance theory works. They start with the fact that there are men and there are monkeys. They seem to be related. From there, evolution paints bullseyes around random chance theory that seemingly explains the origins of both. To make it work, monkeys had to at one time evolved from fish. Somehow, all this evolution occurred without leaving a single example a transitional lifeform somewhere along the line between fish and monkeys. Now, consider a guy who takes existing targets and then, aiming carefully, shoots arrows into the bullseye. Each bullseye is hit by design. That is how Intelligent Design works. Since the signature of intelligence is scientifically observable in everything from our genetic code to the fact that apple trees grow apples and we just so happen to eat apples, the theory of Intelligent Design is empirically demonstrable, and therefore scientific. Personally, I am a strict Creationist, which, by definition, means I agree with the ID theory, to the limited degree I believe God designed the universe and that God is an intelligent Being. But Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism. It is not religious. It does not impose worship of any deity. It doesn't even impose a deity at all. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory, as I noted, for space aliens from the Planet Zenon. Evolution is a religion. It is the religion of secular humanism, which worships man as god. That secular humanism is a religion is a matter of settled law. In the case Torcaso v. Watkins, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.” Intelligent design is decried by the humanist as a religious belief rather than science, because it is a threat to his faith. It takes more faith to accept random theory as fact that it does to come to Jesus, (since humanism doesn't include a call from the Holy Spirit). For ID theory to be acceptable, the humanist must first abandon his faith in man as the supreme being, since, by definition, if the universe was designed by an intelligence, it is superior to man. And if there IS an Intelligent Designer, it at least opens the scientific possibility that there is Divine accountability. Nothing slams the door shut tighter on a secular humanist's mind than accountability to some Supreme Authority. Even a secular humanist knows in his heart, that if there is an accounting to be given for the deeds of this life, he will fall short of the mark, even if he doesn't know where that mark is. We are created that way. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? " (Jeremiah 17:9) Consciousness of sin is as built-in to our genetic makeup as the color of our eyes. Even the humanist will admit to having a conscience. What else is that but consciousness of sin? And if there is consciousness of sin, then sin must exist. And if sin exists, then accountability again comes into play. If man is accountable to a Higher Authority, then the basic tenet of the humanist faith is shattered. Suddenly, abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity and so forth must be viewed in a new light. ID theory is not religious, but its validity means the destruction of secular humanism. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 1:22-25) The propaganda campaign against ID Theory is already kicking into high gear, with the ACLU sharpening their pencils, and the secular media digging out experts to make the case the ID Theory is some Creationist conspiracy to impose religion over science. But the religion actually being imposed here is secular humanism, not Christianity. The rest is propaganda. Link
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Evolutionists in a Panic--What's Going on at The New Republic? Wednesday, August 17, 2005 Dr Albert Mohler
What's going on at The New Republic? The current issue of the magazine features two broadside attacks on the movement known as Intelligent Design [ID], and the magazine's online edition adds a third. The articles are filled with rhetoric, vitriol, and urgency. Clearly, panic is setting in in some quarters--and that panic is over evolution. In the August 22 edition of the magazine, literary editor Leon Wieseltier sets the stage by attacking Intelligent Design as "an expression of sentiment, not an exercise of reason." In the online edition, reporter Ross Douthat argues that Intelligent Design "will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions." Then, the magazine offers a massive article and book review by Jerry Coyne, a professor at the University of Chicago. All this seems a bit much if the magazine's editors really believe that Intelligent Design is about to run out of steam. Coyne writes the cover story for the magazine, placing Intelligent Design and other criticisms of evolution in what he sees as their places--far outside the mainstream of what he considers to be intelligent thought. A faculty member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Chicago, Coyne argues that Intelligent Design is simply the latest form of creationism, albeit a disguised form that constitutes a subtle political threat to the dominant scientific worldview. He argues that "Christian fundamentalist creationism has undergone its own evolution, taking on newer forms after absorbing repeated blows from the courts." As he sees it, Intelligent Design "is merely the latest incarnation of the biblical creationism espoused by William Jennings Bryan in Dayton." Lest anyone miss his point, Coyne then asserts: "Far from a respectable scientific alternative to evolution, it is a clever attempt to sneak religion, cloaked in the guise of science, into the public schools." Like many scientists fervently committed to evolutionary theory, Coyne demonstrates frustration and perplexity when confronted with the reality that so many millions of Americans reject the theory. By any measure, Coyne is a confident and assertive proponent of evolution, willing to argue that we should now know evolutionary theory to be true. "We have known for a long time that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old . . . and that species were not created suddenly or simultaneously (not only do most species go extinct, but various groups appear at different times in the fossil record) and we have ample evidence for species' changing over time, as well as for fossils that illustrate large morphological transformations." Efforts to legislate curbs on evolutionary teaching in the public schools are, in Coyne's view, evidence of a basic anti-intellectualism among the American people. Beyond this, he consistently asserts that opposition to evolution must be a disguised form of religious argument. Coyne's article provides an interesting perspective into the mind of those scientists and proponents of evolutionary theory who simply will not accept any acknowledgement that evolution remains a controversial issue among the American people. When schools in several states decided to paste warning stickers on biology textbooks, proponents of evolution immediately took to the courts. Just this year, a federal judge ordered stickers removed from biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia. The stickers had read: "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." One might think that evolutionists, if truly confident of their theory, would see these stickers as nothing like a threat to their dominance in the academy. Not so. As Coyne argues, "By singling out evolution as uniquely controversial among scientific theories, the stickers catered to religious biases and thus violated the First Amendment." Talk about a stretch of logic. Furthermore, Coyne's statement is a blithe effort to ignore the obvious--that evolution is "uniquely controversial among scientific theories," at least among the American people. In Coyne's rather conspiratorial version of the controversy's history, creationists simply came up with Intelligent Design after all else failed. "They are animated, after all, by faith," he explains. "And they are very resourceful." Coyne's potshots follow the usual pattern of scientific condescension. Intelligent Design is dismissed as "the latest pseudoscientific incarnation of religious creationism, cleverly crafted by a new group of enthusiasts to circumvent recent legal restrictions." Evolution, he argues, is both "a theory and a fact." He adds: "It makes as little sense to doubt the factuality of evolution as to doubt the factuality of gravity." Opponents of Intelligent Design who wish to come into the real world for a moment will recognize the limitations of such claims. After all, gravity, though unseen, fits naturally into the worldview of most conscious persons, who observe the operation of gravity on a daily basis and find the "theory" of gravity to be an intellectually satisfying way of explaining the world they observe. This is hardly the case with the theory of evolution. Coyne certainly has no lack of confidence in evolutionary theory. After describing the dominant neo-Darwinian account of evolution, he then offers several paragraphs of "proof" for the theory. "And so evolution has graduated from theory to fact," he asserts. "We know the species on Earth today descended from earlier, different species, and that every pair of species had a common ancestor that existed in the past. Most evolutionary change in the features of organisms, moreover, is almost certainly the result of natural selection. But we must also remember that, like all scientific truths, the truth of evolution is provisional: it could conceivably be overturned by future investigations. It is possible (but unlikely!) that we could find human fossils co-existing with dinosaurs, or fossils of birds living alongside those of the earliest invertebrates 600 million years ago. Either observation would sink neo-Darwinism for good." Coyne sees the theory as safe, secure, and satisfying. So why are so many persons drawn to the theory of Intelligent Design? More broadly, why do so many persons reject the theory of evolution? Coyne doesn't even see the universe as offering an appearance of design. Instead, he sees only evidence of what would be an incompetent designer. "Organisms simply do not look as if they have been intelligently designed," he asserts. "Would an intelligent designer create millions of species and then make them go extinct, only to replace them with other species, repeating this process over and over again?" If so, the intelligent designer must be "a cosmic prankster." But if Coyne misses the attraction of Intelligent Design--and fails to understand why so many Americans have such an aversion to evolutionary theory--Ross Douthat thinks that he gets it. "The appeal of 'Intelligent Design' to the American right is obvious. For religious conservatives, the theory promises to uncover God's fingerprints on the building blocks of life. For conservative intellectuals in general, it offers hope that Darwinism will yet join Marxism and Freudianism in the dustbin of pseudoscience." Nevertheless, Douthat sees Intelligent Design as a potential "political boom for liberals, and a poisoned chalice for conservatives." Extending the debate over evolution to the nation's Culture War, Douthat argues that the evolution wars allow liberals "the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, 'therapeutic' cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism." The embrace of Intelligent Design on the part of many conservatives "reshapes the ideological battlefield," Douthat argues, helping "liberals cast the debate as an argument about science, rather than morality, and paint their enemies as a collection of book-burning, Galileo-silencing fanatics." We have been warned. But it is Leon Wieseltier who takes the argument to the next level. Of the three articles, Wieseltier's is the most acerbic, dismissive, and revealing. After all, Wieseltier argues that intelligent persons must not only reject Intelligent Design, but what he describes as any "literal" belief in the Bible. As Wieseltier styles the issue, Intelligent Design "is a psalm, not a proof." Here's how he sets the issue: "The problem is that the cosmology in Genesis does not resemble what we know about the origins of the world. Which is to say, Intelligent Design was prompted by the consequences of literalism in the interpretation of Scripture. Now, there is no more primitive form of monotheistic religion than this. If you believe that the world was created by God in six days because the Bible says so, then you must also believe that the Israelites saw God's hand, because the Bible says so, and that Moses spoke to God face to face, because the Bible says so, and that God's feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, because the Bible says so, and so on. The intellectual integrity of monotheism depends upon the repudiation of such readings. Sanctity is not an excuse for stupidity." Now, he certainly put those who believe the Bible to be true in our place, didn't he? Wieseltier's tactic is to style any understanding that the Bible conveys actual truth claims as "literalism," which must be dismissed by all right-thinking people. Wieseltier's article is helpful because it underlines the anti-supernaturalistic bias that stands behind the intellectual condescensions of the intellectual elite. "I do not mean to gloat," Wieseltier insists. "If you were raised on Scripture as a child, if the Bible was your first enchantment, then it is not an easy matter to pull slightly away, to confer upon your improvising intellect so much power over its significations." He continues: "There really is something childish about the notion that everything is exactly as the Bible says it is: this is the spell of fairytales." Wieseltier has been liberated from such "fairytales" and now encourages all thick-headed literalists to follow his example. Note carefully that Wieseltier's rejection of biblical "literalism" goes far beyond a denial of six day creationism. Indeed, he rejects a literal understanding of all Scripture. It's just poetry, after all. Perhaps the most important lesson offered by this hyperbolic issue of The New Republic is the fact that the intellectual elite is directly threatened by the persistence of those who reject evolution. These three articles may represent intellectual condescension at its worst, but they also demonstrate intellectual anxiety. Someone has hit the panic button.
Bump for later reading. It sure seems like there is a scientific controversy raging, if the back & forth on these abiogenesis threads is any indication.
Old fashioned placemarker
Good post. The flap comes because 1) reporters hate Crawford(abd Bush) and 2) reporters don't know any more about science than the average bear. Remember when ABC had to pull in Jules Bergman(sp) from the boondocks because none of the star network guys knew didldy about rocket science.
YEC INTREP - a PhD mind is such a terrible thing to waste