[Pennsylvania] Gov. Rendell backs evolution

" Many nearly complete skeletons. Many intermediate steps between apes and humans."

That seems to contradict what the web site you keep pointing me towards says.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

"This list includes fossils that are important for either their scientific or historic interest, or because they are often mentioned by creationists. One sometimes reads that all hominid fossils could fit in a coffin, or on a table, or a billiard table. That is a misleading image, as there are now thousands of hominid fossils. They are however mostly fragmentary, often consisting of single bones or isolated teeth. Complete skulls and skeletons are rare."

There is definitely a lot of interesting information for me to go through that you referenced. I started by browsing through the ape to human evolution links. Some very interesting articles. However, I noticed some things that concern me about them.

There is definitely healthy debate discussing the fossil fragments and what they mean. Different pieces appear to keep getting shuffled around in order along the evolutionary line as the healthy argument about what we can learn from those fossil fragments continues.

That leads me to another serious weakness of the evidence.

We know that mutation occurs, but we're trying to extrapolate from physical characteristics of a small sample of fossil fragments. They are take a chimp skeleton and a human skeleton and look at the similarities and the differences, and try and find fossil fragments that show charaistics of both and then place them in an evolutionary order.

There's also the issue that fossils of infants and very young primates often appear much more similar because some of the distinctive characteristics develop at the primate grows.

Our knowledge of mutation tells us that we should find fossils of humans with longer arms than normal, or a characteristic that appears to be more of what you'd expect to see in an ape. We would also expect to see some mutations in chimps that appear to be a bit more like what we would expect to see in a human.

That does not show evolution from one species to another. What we have are scientists who are trying to show an orderly progression of mutations from one species to another where you can see that mutations from one species to another were passes along to descendants as the one species became another species.

We don't have enough evidence to support that conclusion. We have some fragments of a skeleton that we consider to be outside the norm for the species, yet they don't really conform to what we know of another known species.

In some cases we've come to the conclusion that the bones belong to another species in the ape family. In some cases it's quite clear that we're making some pretty big guesses based on trying to reconstruct a piece of the skeleton in question from fragments.

The evidence is really horribly weak once you start considering other possible explanations rather than just trying to use the fossils as evidence of evolution. It's a problem of tunnel vision.

To be perfectly fair, if humans did evolve from apes in a single location as is now being proposed, it's not unlikely that we would not find more fossil evidence than what we have found.

The weakness of the evidence does not prove that human did not evolve from apes, it's just not compelling. The other leading theory that matches up with what we appear to know about us descending from a small number of humans in a single area is that we are the descendants of Noah.

While that particular theory, for lack of a better word, was recorded long before we had the DNA evidence existed that supports it, it's still not really that compelling of evidence to support that theory either.

Therefore we continue to try and learn more. The important thing is to only exclude possibilities based on the facts, but unfortunately our facts are pretty sparse because the evidence hasn't survived the ravages of time well.

Since I'm finding the evidence of humans evolving from apes to be not compelling, the logical step is to broaden the scope of the information I'm looking at to see if there is more compelling evidence of other species evolving into new species.

Fortunately you gave me some good links to get started on doing that.

"Sounds like something read off of a creationist website. Many nearly complete skeletons have been found of intermediary steps between humans and apes."

I hope this comment was just a joke. That's a really lame ad hominem attack on a bit of factual information.

I gave you plenty of specific details for you to be able to look up the example and verify it's accuracy.

I gave you an example of how false information had been taken for fact by the scientific community for a long period of time. Instead of accepting that people are fallible and that we're working with things we don't know a lot about, you try and make a lame attempt to discredit what happens to be a well documented fact.

"Some transitional forms This list is by no means exhaustive. Keep in mind that paleontology is only one of the lines of evidence for evolution."

I found the ones I looked at on ape to human transitional forms to be interesting, but less than compelling due to the reasons I listed above, but I really need to take a more in depth look at the evidence to form a more solid opinion.

"Nothing can disprove ID"

Yes and no. There are theories based on forms of intelligent design that have been disproven. The overall scope of ID is too broad for all of it to be disproven, however to be useful that scope needs to be narrowed.

I'm suggesting the the theory of evolution is the same way. Most specifically the part of the theory that insists that evolution is the result of random chance. That's something you really can't prove or disprove, but to prove the theory of evolution you need to prove it.

Even if you could prove that species evolved from other species, you would not have proved the theory of evolution, because the theory makes more claims than that, and despite the fervent debate from some creationists, the idea that man evolved from apes is hardly the theory of evolution's most contentious claim.

", that is the problem. That is why it is not science. There are no theories based on intelligent design. ID explains everything. ID could explain any environment one can imagine, that's the problem."

I think the difference you are seeing between ID and the theory of evolution in that regard is a matter of scope.

If I limit the theories we are talking about to the theory of evolution, and a theory that man evolved due to an intelligent design does it help?

How about if we look that the theory of evolution. One of it's key parts is that evolution is directed by random chance. Random chance just like intelligent design can be used to explain anything and everything. Narrowing it down to random chance within the scope of evolution does not make it any more provable or disprovable.

If you sever the random chance and natural selection parts of the Theory of Evolution, you're left with a theory that meets your definition of a scientific theory rather well. However, it's no longer The Theory of Evolution.

All the evidence you're brought to bear supports your premises as long as you only consider a subset of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

"Mutation is essential to evolution."

Agreed.

"If individuals with mutations that are favorable to their environment reproduce, that's evolution."

That's a reasonable definition for a form of evolution. However, unless those mutations were random and natural selection is encouraging the propagation of beneficial mutations, then you haven't met the criteria for Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

So how would you propose to show that the rest of the criteria were also met?

"Given the presence of such "mutations" in nature, you have a harder time explaining how evolution didn't occur over the 3.5 billion year history of life on earth."

Since it's one of the basic rules of logic that you cannot prove a negative I'll agree with you that you'd have a hard time explaining how evolution didn't occur.

However, you're assertion that evolution is the expected result of mutations that can be passed to successive generations is rather contradictory to the second law of thermodynamics which says systems will tend towards greater entropy unless acted upon by an outside force.

Darwin proposed that this outside force was natural selection. Since the system his theory deals with is the earth, and the energy from the sun provides a source of energy to explain how natural selection, which is obviously not 100% efficient could be the force preventing our system from devolving into entropy and instead causing life to evolve.

So what is this natural selection things that keeps our world from devolving into entropy?

"The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated."

- The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

So basically, everything is a matter of random chance.

The laws of physics that govern our universe? They came about by chance.

Our world is a spec in the universe where by chance life came into existence and by simple chance enough good mutations in life have occurred to cause us to progress to higher life forms faster than bad mutations, natural disasters, or even the possibility of a evolution of a predator that could unbalance a system.

Since there is no outside force guiding the universe, the universe itself must be a system that is tending to disorder, and our ecosystem is an aberration to the natural tendency to disorder and entropy.

It's an interesting theory. It's biggest flaw is that random chance doesn't create things, and the universe had to come from somewhere, and since systems as a whole go from a state of lower energy from a state of higher energy, we're talking about a creative force of unimaginable magnitude.

The laws of physics tell us that there must be an origin. There must be a state of higher order end higher energy and that had to come from somewhere.

Even if Darwin's theory of evolution is 100% accurate, it only explains things so far back in time, and then it's simply unable to explain how things started, and we're left with the same basic questions we started with. How did life come to exist? Where did the universe come from? How was it created. Why have the laws of physics spared our little chunk of paradise and allowed us to thrive in a universe slowly falling apart? Or is the universe slowly falling apart, or is there a force preventing it from doing so that we do not yet understand?

You can keep telling me that these questions are scientific, but science keeps leading us back to those same questions. So in the end, what good is your definition of science when the laws of physics keep telling us we need to look outside your definition of science for answers?

"Nope. Doesn't work. A global flood would have other physical consequences that aren't observed. That is why the hypothesis is falsified. Evidences for evolution are supported across many unrelated lines."

Well, there's physical evidence that sea levels have changed a lot more than you would think. I took a tour of Arcadia National Park with a geologist a few years back and he described the research he was doing there.

What he was doing was hiking around the mountains there and looking for boulder beaches. Waves on a beach can cause small boulders to rock back and fourth in the surf, and if the sea level is at a certain height for an extended period of time you can find what were once beaches by looking for boulders that were shaped by wave action.

I remember standing on Cadillac Mountain and looking out at the breathtaking view and hearing him say that at one time that mountain was an island, and that the mainland had been 100 miles away to the west. I asked him if the sea level could have been even higher at some point, and his answer was that he couldn't tell from his research, because if it had been higher he wouldn't have found a beach for a data point, because all the area he was doing his research in would have been underwater. He would just have evidence of intermediate points as the sea level went back down.

We have evidence that the sea level has been much higher in the past. Then you have to consider how literally to interpret the biblical story of Noah. But there's enough evidence to make it an interesting topic and hardly one that you can say has been falsified.

"Considering that the biological community is practically 100% in favor of the position that evolution took place,"

If you're saying that the biological community is almost 100% in favor of the position that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a fact then you are describing a community of Luddites. You're also contradicting the ample evidence of healthy debate that's out there.

No if you want to suggest that most biologists feel that is is likely that some form of evolution appears to have happened, that's a bit more rational of a statement.

"What crackpot did you learn about the descent of man from? We've known for a very long time that the earliest humans were around somewhere on the order of a few million years."

Yea, I totally screwed up that part of my post. I don't know where I pulled the hundreds of millions of years from. That was simply incorrect.

What I was taught in school was the older theory that we evolved 1 to 2 million years ago.

Due to advances in DNA research, it's now believed that we descended from a small group of humans, if not a single pair, 100,000 to 200,000 years ago and that that group of humans did not intermix with other species as we colonized the world.

I somehow combined the two and typed 100 to 200 million years. I need to get more sleep.

Here's a reference that won't likely scare you off because it says the evidence clarifies evolution.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/ingman.html

That's definitely a justifiable statement since while it contradicts the conclusions held to be true for a long time by many evolutionists who based their ideas on sketchy evidence from the fossil record, it still doesn't contradict the theory of evolution itself.

I apologize for misposting the times, this discussion definitely doesn need such mistakes complicating it even more.

"Just because you don't like what I've been saying doesn't make what I say logical fallacy."

No, violating the rules of logic is what make your arguments logical fallacies. Why don't you address the point where I pointed out the logical errors in your arguments instead of coming up with responses about how all the biologists believe what I do and how my ideas have been subjected to peer review which are absolutely useless arguments that demonstrate nothing.

"Maybe you should take a few basic courses in science and learn how the scientific method really works."

I guess I deserved that comment in reply to my own comment. However, try poking holes in my logic that I use to support my comments because you're current arguments simply don't prove anything and just lead us around in the circle of you pulling up a bunch of "evidence" that only supports a small portion of your argument but leaves the whole aspect of the theory of relativity being based on random chance untouched.

You're sticking with the portion of the theory with the most empirical evidence to support it and ignoring the rest of the theory.

"Evolution is both a theory and a fact."

Something cannot be both a theory and a fact. Facts are proven, theories are unproven. This may very well be the most unscientific statement you've made so far.

"Based on your criteria for what a fact is, we wouldn't be allowed to teach gravitational theory as a fact, either."

The problem with your argument is that I don't propose not teaching evolution or the theory of gravitation. You propose not teaching ID.

By the way, there are things that can be observed and measured that do not conform with the theory of gravitation, which is why it is a theory, so maybe you may want to use a different example.

" And ID is leading the charge. Peer review is an essential part of the refinement of scientific knowledge."

That's an amusing projection. People unwilling to consider other theories are leading the charge. They can be people who believe in ID or people who believe in the theory of evolution, or people who believe in something else.

Peer review is essential, so why are you excluding people who consider ID to be possible as peers? If you think that even theology doesn't face harsh peer review, you need to get out more.

" The more I read about the subject the more I realize how strong the evidence supporting evolution really is. ID isn't science at all, and is supported by no empirical evidence. Two sides of an argument don't always deserve equal consideration. Evolution vs. ID is an exemplary case of this."

You're kind of missing the point. ID and the theory of evolution aren't even mutually exclusive. Darwin himself reportedly believed in an intelligent creator that created the world and the natural laws governing it.

You're also concentrating on the portions of the theory of evolution that have empirical evidence that supports them and ignoring the parts that do not.

Darwin is a very impressive scientist. He did not predispose himself to a particular conclusion and based his theory on extensive studies. He still never proved his theory either. What I've read of his writings are impressive. He based his theory on the works of others as well as his own extensive studies. Despite the lack of knowledge about DNA and such things he was able to accurately predict many things from observations that were not explained in detail until long past his death.

I'm not trying to minimize and say it's meaningless. I'm pointing out it's weak points and that there were simply thing that even he knew he could not prove.

However, if you want to argue that people that believe in some form of intelligent design are not scientists, I guess you're excluding Darwin as well.

I also want to be clear that I'm not suggesting any truth to rumors that Darwin converted to Christianity or the he disavowed his theory of evolution later in his life. Those rumors do not appear to be based in fact.

To be perfectly fair, if humans did evolve from apes in a single location as is now being proposed, it's not unlikely that we would not find more fossil evidence than what we have found.

Agreed. Considering how scant a method of preservation that fossilization is, it's amazing we can find anything from it. Complete fossils are rare, but many examples of nearly complete hominid fossils do exist. Anyone familiar with analysis of forensic evidence knows, however, that you don't need a complete body to begin drawing conclusions. There is a common misconception that paleontology is the main line of inquiry from which the evidence of evolution is derived. If fossils were the only method through which evolution could be verified, I might be more inclined to agree the evidence is insufficient to draw evolution as the only conclusion. The fossil evidence is just an indicator - one that helps confirm hypotheses made along other lines of inquiry.

We know that mutation occurs, but we're trying to extrapolate from physical characteristics of a small sample of fossil fragments. They are take a chimp skeleton and a human skeleton and look at the similarities and the differences, and try and find fossil fragments that show charaistics of both and then place them in an evolutionary order.

Like I said, fossils aren't the only line of inquiry used to confirm evolution. Study of biogeography plays a big part. Genetic simliarities and the analysis of statistical mutation plays a role ( this FR post from a couple weeks ago has an excellent (short) article on this.) - this is an example of a direct test that can be applied to a particular evolutionary hypothesis. We know practically nothing of the evolution of vertebrate eyes from fossils (i.e. eyes don't preserve too well) - but by studying homologies of eyes and eyespots of chordates believed to be related, a general pattern of eye evolution has been established; analysis of specific proteins common to humans and lancelets has helped constructed models of how our pigment epithelium most likely evolved from a pigmentation region used to block light fromt the tubelike body of a more "primitive" chordate. (C. Zimmer's book on evolution has a lot on this - can't find an online link to this now, though; I have learned a bit about eye evolution here, though )

Therefore we continue to try and learn more.

Of course. And "tunnel-vision", as you so say, is not good. I agree. For a well- established theory to be challenged, though, you better have good scientific ground to back your challenge, and you better thoroughly understand the theory you are challenging. (I mean "you" in the generic sense here, not you personally.)

The other leading theory that matches up with what we appear to know about us descending from a small number of humans in a single area is that we are the descendants of Noah.

Maybe we are descendents of Noah. I don't see how this would be in the conflict with the Theory of Evolution, though.

I hope this comment was just a joke. That's a really lame ad hominem attack on a bit of factual information.

More of a reaction out of frustration - apparently I took your remark out of context. (Your follow-up explains much better what you meant.) I've been quite used to hearing creationists use arguments of fragmentary fossils like Peking Man or Nebraska Man that, in reality, were never taken seriously by scientists because of known problems they showed. (Piltdown Man was a more serious case of deception, but not as overblown a one as many people would like to think - another poster made this point, I believe.)

I gave you an example of how false information had been taken for fact by the scientific community for a long period of time. Instead of accepting that people are fallible and that we're working with things we don't know a lot about, you try and make a lame attempt to discredit what happens to be a well documented fact.

Of course people are fallible. The fact that science constantly tries to improve its theories as more data rolls in is a testament to its strength. Hence the necessity of peer review - experts need to have their work scrutinized for factual and logical errors by other trained experts. Does this guarantee an accurate end result? No. But it definitely gives you your best shot at a viable end result. If a particular group is shielding their work from scrutiny by the mainstream scientific community, it's a pretty good sign that something is awry.

"Nothing can disprove ID"

Yes and no. There are theories based on forms of intelligent design that have been disproven. The overall scope of ID is too broad for all of it to be disproven, however to be useful that scope needs to be narrowed.

The big problem with ID at this point is that there is no way to empirically differentiate between a stage of evolution that required the intervention of a designer and one that occurred naturally but we just don't know how yet. This is more of a testament of the limits of science. Science can only test cause and effect - so far as we know there is no test that can discern between these possibililties. Do I think God was involved in our appearing here? Certainly. Would I dare call this a scientifically warranted opinion? No way.

Even if you could prove that species evolved from other species...

Speciation has been directly observed ; ring species (i.e. speciation in progress across a wide geographical range) is also observed. What hasn't been directly observed is the wider transition of one family to another or one order to another; but as I''m sure you know, no one would expect to see this occur in a historic time frame. What, however, would prevent this from happening, given enough time & enough extinctions to destroy the transitional links in the spectrum? Given the profound changes we do observe, and the malleability of the genome, macroevolution over a time frame of millions, billions of years is inevitable.

... you would not have proved the theory of evolution, because the theory makes more claims than that, and despite the fervent debate from some creationists, the idea that man evolved from apes is hardly the theory of evolution's most contentious claim.

Evolution says organisms change over time, that's all. I don't see what's contentious about this.

If I limit the theories we are talking about to the theory of evolution, and a theory that man evolved due to an intelligent design does it help?

Yes.

How about if we look that the theory of evolution. One of it's key parts is that evolution is directed by random chance. Random chance just like intelligent design can be used to explain anything and everything. Narrowing it down to random chance within the scope of evolution does not make it any more provable or disprovable.

The difference is that certain consequences of natural selection (which isn't really "random chance") are testable. Genetics & natural selection provides constraints which can be tested. Have they been tested fully for the case of every living organism on earth? Of course not. This will almost definitely never happen. What has been established is a pattern of natural selection. This is all science ever does - establish predictable patterns and constraints on how phenomena work. What constraints does ID supply that can be tested? I'm trying to have an open mind about this, but I don't see how the concept can be empirically tested at all.

However, you're assertion that evolution is the expected result of mutations that can be passed to successive generations is rather contradictory to the second law of thermodynamics which says systems will tend towards greater entropy unless acted upon by an outside force.

This is definitely a fallacy. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says the entropy, which is defined as a ratio of the change in heat over absolute temperature, always increases in time in a closed system; of energy (in the form of work or heat) is added or removed from the system, the minimal rate of entropy change can be calculated. That's all it says. You can't "hand-wave" thermodynamics in the manner you just did - for 2 reasons:

1) Thermodynamic disorder does not necessarily equate to our subjective, colloquial definition of disorder. Can you mathematically prove the entropy of 200 lbs of bacteria is greater than the entropy of a 200 lb person?

2) The Earth's biosphere is not (by any means) a closed system. Energy is added in the form of sunlight. Even if you could quantify the entropy of the biosphere, there is no reason its entropy couldn't decrease over time with the continual input of energy.

Granted, I've had a bit of professional physics training, so I can forgive you this one, but believe me, you won't get very far with this argument. (PatrickHenry has a good link on this you might want to check out.)

You're kind of missing the point. ID and the theory of evolution aren't even mutually exclusive. Darwin himself reportedly believed in an intelligent creator that created the world and the natural laws governing it.

I agree completely. I disagree that they are both scientific views. I believe in an intelligent Creator. I just can't prove He exists empirically. Certain things lie beyond the purvey of science. You might claim that science is biased towars "naturalism", and yes, I'll concede that - but I also argue that natural events are the only kind that science has the ability to investigate, because they are the only kind that can be tested.

You comment that we are entering some kind of Dark Age; nothing could be further from the truth. We are living in an era of scientific advancement unequalled at any point in human history. Should Darwinian evolution be challenged? Certainly - and it has. The theory has come a very long way since Darwin's time (some examples of challenges to Darwin's theory that have been taken seriously by the biology community; some have succeeded, some haven't. (I think the work of Lynn Margulis on lateral gene transfer is particularly interesting, myself.)

I guess you could say my specific objections to the ID movement is that, so far, it has clearly been driven by sectarian, not scientific, motives, and the science supporting it has been mostly shoddy applications of misapplied probability theory. Come up with some better science, and the scientific community may listen - but so far, I have yet to see ID advocates present any clear hypothesis for testing at all.

In any case, you do seem to be interested in learning more, I think that is commendable; I only hope I can continue to do the same in the future. Your doubt also seems to be rooted in honest skepticism, not in any agenda to promote a dogmatic viewpoint. Evolution is a very difficult subject to fully understand; I don't pretend to be an expert in it, I probably never will be. Good luck reading more about it (disclaimer: I probably won't have time to write any lengthy results any more - I'll read anything you post to me, though.)

I guess you could say my specific objections to the ID movement is that, so far, it has clearly been driven by sectarian, not scientific, motives, and the science supporting it has been mostly shoddy applications of misapplied probability theory. Come up with some better science, and the scientific community may listen - but so far, I have yet to see ID advocates present any clear hypothesis for testing at all.

Howdy there Quark2005;

There is on going research with NDE (Near Death Experiences) that proves life goes on after these weak bodies of ours die.

Millions and millions of folks have had a NDE!

Pam was dead...dead...dead, but has a wonderful testimony to what was happeing to her...as her "dead body" laid on the operating table.

People Have NDEs While Brain Dead

Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist whose latest book, Light and Death, includes a detailed medical and scientific analysis of an amazing near-death experience of a woman named Pam Reynolds.

She underwent a rare operation to remove a giant basilar artery aneurysm in her brain that threatened her life. The size and location of the aneurysm, however, precluded its safe removal using the standard neuro-surgical techniques.

She was referred to a doctor who had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest. It allowed Pam's aneurysm to be excised with a reasonable chance of success.

This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death. After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life.

During the time that Pam was in standstill, she experienced a NDE. Her remarkably detailed veridical out-of-body observations during her surgery were later verified to be very accurate. This case is considered to be one of the strongest cases of veridical evidence in NDE research because of her ability to describe the unique surgical instruments and procedures used and her ability to describe in detail these events while she was clinically and brain dead.

When all of Pam's vital signs were stopped, the doctor turned on a surgical saw and began to cut through Pam's skull. While this was going on, Pam reported that she felt herself "pop" outside her body and hover above the operating table.

Then she watched the doctors working on her lifeless body for awhile. From her out-of-body position, she observed the doctor sawing into her skull with what looked to her like an electric toothbrush. Pam heard and reported later what the nurses in the operating room had said and exactly what was happening during the operation.

At this time, every monitor attached to Pam's body registered "no life" whatsoever. At some point, Pam's consciousness floated out of the operating room and traveled down a tunnel which had a light at the end of it where her deceased relatives and friends were waiting including her long-dead grandmother.

Pam's NDE ended when her deceased uncle led her back to her body for her to reentered it. Pam compared the feeling of reentering her dead body to "plunging into a pool of ice." The following is Pam Reynolds' account of her NDE in her own words.

Pam Reynolds' NDE

The next thing I recall was the sound: It was a Natural "D." As I listened to the sound, I felt it was pulling me out of the top of my head.

The further out of my body I got, the more clear the tone became. I had the impression it was like a road, a frequency that you go on ... I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down. It was the most aware that I think that I have ever been in my entire life ...I was metaphorically sitting on [the doctor's] shoulder. It was not like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision ... There was so much in the operating room that I didn't recognize, and so many people.

I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not ...

The saw-thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't ... And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case ... I heard the saw crank up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch and then all of a sudden it went Brrrrrrrrr! like that.

Someone said something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray, but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that ... I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn't like the respirator ... I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not readily recognize.

There was a sensation like being pulled, but not against your will. I was going on my own accord because I wanted to go. I have different metaphors to try to explain this. It was like the Wizard of Oz - being taken up in a tornado vortex, only you're not spinning around like you've got vertigo. You're very focused and you have a place to go. The feeling was like going up in an elevator real fast. And there was a sensation, but it wasn't a bodily, physical sensation. It was like a tunnel but it wasn't a tunnel.

At some point very early in the tunnel vortex I became aware of my grandmother calling me. But I didn't hear her call me with my ears ... It was a clearer hearing than with my ears. I trust that sense more than I trust my own ears.

The feeling was that she wanted me to come to her, so I continued with no fear down the shaft. It's a dark shaft that I went through, and at the very end there was this very little tiny pinpoint of light that kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a light bulb. It was so bright that I put my hands in front of my face fully expecting to see them and I could not. But I knew they were there. Not from a sense of touch. Again, it's terribly hard to explain, but I knew they were there ...

I noticed that as I began to discern different figures in the light - and they were all covered with light, they were light, and had light permeating all around them - they began to form shapes I could recognize and understand. I could see that one of them was my grandmother. I don't know if it was reality or a projection, but I would know my grandmother, the sound of her, anytime, anywhere.

Everyone I saw, looking back on it, fit perfectly into my understanding of what that person looked like at their best during their lives.

I recognized a lot of people. My uncle Gene was there. So was my great-great-Aunt Maggie, who was really a cousin. On Papa's side of the family, my grandfather was there ... They were specifically taking care of me, looking after me.

They would not permit me to go further ... It was communicated to me - that's the best way I know how to say it, because they didn't speak like I'm speaking - that if I went all the way into the light something would happen to me physically. They would be unable to put this me back into the body me, like I had gone too far and they couldn't reconnect. So they wouldn't let me go anywhere or do anything.

I wanted to go into the light, but I also wanted to come back. I had children to be reared. It was like watching a movie on fast-forward on your VCR: You get the general idea, but the individual freeze-frames are not slow enough to get detail.

Then they [deceased relatives] were feeding me. They were not doing this through my mouth, like with food, but they were nourishing me with something. The only way I know how to put it is something sparkly. Sparkles is the image that I get. I definitely recall the sensation of being nurtured and being fed and being made strong. I know it sounds funny, because obviously it wasn't a physical thing, but inside the experience I felt physically strong, ready for whatever.

My grandmother didn't take me back through the tunnel, or even send me back or ask me to go. She just looked up at me. I expected to go with her, but it was communicated to me that she just didn't think she would do that. My uncle said he would do it. He's the one who took me back through the end of the tunnel. Everything was fine. I did want to go.

But then I got to the end of it and saw the thing, my body. I didn't want to get into it ... It looked terrible, like a train wreck. It looked like what it was: dead. I believe it was covered. It scared me and I didn't want to look at it.

It was communicated to me that it was like jumping into a swimming pool. No problem, just jump right into the swimming pool. I didn't want to, but I guess I was late or something because he [the uncle] pushed me. I felt a definite repelling and at the same time a pulling from the body. The body was pulling and the tunnel was pushing ... It was like diving into a pool of ice water ... It hurt!

When I came back, they were playing Hotel California and the line was "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." I mentioned [later] to Dr. Brown that that was incredibly insensitive and he told me that I needed to sleep more. [laughter] When I regained consciousness, I was still on the respirator.

For practical purposes outside the world of academic debate, three clinical tests commonly determine brain death. First, a standard electroencephalogram, or EEG, measures brain-wave activity. A "flat" EEG denotes non-function of the cerebral cortex - the outer shell of the cerebrum. Second, auditory evoked potentials, similar to those [clicks] elicited by the ear speakers in Pam's surgery, measure brain-stem viability. Absence of these potentials indicates non-function of the brain stem. And third, documentation of no blood flow to the brain is a marker for a generalized absence of brain function.

But during "standstill", Pam's brain was found "dead" by all three clinical tests - her electroencephalogram was silent, her brain-stem response was absent, and no blood flowed through her brain. Interestingly, while in this state, she encountered the "deepest" NDE of all Atlanta Study participants.

Some scientists theorize that NDEs are produced by brain chemistry. But, Dr. Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist and the leading authority in Britain concerning NDEs, believes that these theories fall far short of the facts. In the documentary, "Into the Unknown: Strange But True," Dr. Fenwick describes the state of the brain during a NDE:

"The brain isn’t functioning. It’s not there. It’s destroyed. It’s abnormal. But, yet, it can produce these very clear experiences ... an unconscious state is when the brain ceases to function. For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don’t know what’s happening and the brain isn’t working. The memory systems are particularly sensitive to unconsciousness. So, you won’t remember anything. But, yet, after one of these experiences [a NDE], you come out with clear, lucid memories ... This is a real puzzle for science. I have not yet seen any good scientific explanation which can explain that fact."

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

Knowing where we're going is much more exciting then worrying about what we "might have" evolved from.

I believe that many of the hard core Evol's that are trying to keep any mention of God out of schools are doing so out of the fear that there may be a God that they'll have to answer to when they meet Him face to face.

I believe that many of the hard core Evol's that are trying to keep any mention of God out of schools are doing so out of the fear that there may be a God that they'll have to answer to when they meet Him face to face.

Not really fair to equate evolution w/ atheism - I hope that's not what you're trying to do here. Many of us who do not want God mentioned in science do so because we can't see the empirical value of doing so, not because we don't think He exists.

NDE's are strange indeed. Given that you can't really do objective experiments in this sort of thing (nor should we try to), I'm not quite sure what to think about them. As far as today's science goes, death really is the "great unknown"; we all have our particular faiths, but I think for now we have to accept that science has no concrete answer to this question.

Lots of good information and well reasoned responses. You pointed out a lot of things where my understanding of the issues is weak and as in all things I have alot to learn.

"Maybe we are descendants of Noah. I don't see how this would be in the conflict with the Theory of Evolution, though."

It wouldn't. My point has kind of been that you won't find anything the conflicts with the Theory of Evolution. You may find evidence that conflicts with theories that are based on Darwin's theory, or find that people came to the wrong conclusions about specifics, but Darwin's Theory itself is pretty much impossible to disprove.

On the Law of Entropy issue. Yes the earth is not a closed system, we get energy from the sun and we radiate energy back outside our environment. This does make applying the law of entropy problematic at best.

It cannot be used to show that there is some unexplained outside force, because we cannot accurately measure the forces we can explain.

The universe itself should on the other hand act like a closes system, though once again our ability to measure the energies involved is extremely limited.

However, it is quite possible that while the universe is changing to a greater state of entropy overall, the earth could be decreasing in entropy as part of that overall system. However, that takes us back to having a lot of faith in random chance. Or possibly a lack of faith in anything else which leave random chance as what is left.

If we look at it scientifically, we simply don't know and don't have evidence that significantly points in one direction over another.

"The big problem with ID at this point is that there is no way to empirically differentiate between a stage of evolution that required the intervention of a designer and one that occurred naturally but we just don't know how yet."

Our study of DNA has a good chance of shedding some light on some of these issues. If science disproves some beliefs held by religious people it would be far from the first time. Science also has a habit of disproving scientific theories as well.

There are a lot of people out there that attack these issues as a matter of faith, and are unwilling to question what they believe. Even if the facts disprove what they believe to be true, they don't threaten the basis of their faith, merely their interpretation of it. It's more of defending their understanding of the universe than defending their faith.

This is true of those who put their faith in God or of people who put their faith in something else.

"This is more of a testament of the limits of science. Science can only test cause and effect - so far as we know there is no test that can discern between these possibilities."

Agreed. I just don't believe that science stops at the point where we can test. After all, how do you look for new ways to test something if you don't examine the things we can't currently test?

"Do I think God was involved in our appearing here? Certainly."

Me too, and I understand that my comment is an expression of faith in something that I cannot prove. I also believe that there is nothing about the Theory of Evolution that conflicts with that belief.

"Would I dare call this a scientifically warranted opinion? No way."

Scientifically warranted? That would be too strong.

I would say that there are some questions which lead you toward an outside force creating the universe.

Our laws of nature could be a coincidence that somehow support life on our world, but how did the universe come to exist? Where did the matter that the universe is made up of come from? Where did the energy that powers our universe come from?

Can we answer that with science? Should we turn to philosophy and religion for ideas for us to address scientifically?

Then we're back to the starting question.

How much of this should we teach in school? Should we avoid certain topics because they aren't scientifically provable. Should we teach students the truth that we all have a lot to learn, and that the biggest purpose of school is to give students the tools they need to learn things for themselves?

You pointed out a lot of things where my understanding of the issues is weak and as in all things I have alot to learn.

Hey, I'm no evolutionary biologist (my training is in physics). I just happen to find the subject fascinating & I read as much as I can about it. I often get handed a healthy dose of humility when it comes my knowledge of the subject. However, the more I learn, the more I am constantly surprised by how much is really known about it.

I think one of the points I've tried to make, though, is that it's really difficult to argue any technical point from a layperson's understanding of it. Someone truly well-versed in evolutionary biology would probably shake their head at half of what either of us have said on the subject. Does this mean we should blindly accept what evolutionary biologists tell us? Of course not. I do, however, think it means their consensus should be taken seriously, and that people in general should try to make a deep effort to understand the subject before attempting to argue with it; too often I see people trying to argue with an established professional consensus when they themselves don't even have their basic facts straight.

You may find evidence that conflicts with theories that are based on Darwin's theory, or find that people came to the wrong conclusions about specifics, but Darwin's Theory itself is pretty much impossible to disprove.

Keep in mind that Darwin's basic theory, at least what he wrote in the 19th century, has been deemed "inadequate" - though this does not mean it is completely incorrect. By "inadequate", I mean he had no concept of genetics, his understanding of the role of statistical drift was limited and he didn't consider concepts like lateral gene transfer. Darwin's Theory is pretty much impossible to disprove, but I would argue that this is a testament to its ability to empirically describe the world we live in, not to its non-falsifiability. Consider this - could you even potentially imagine a fictional world that ID couldn't describe? It's easy to imagine a fictional world that evolution can't describe.

However, that takes us back to having a lot of faith in random chance.

Random chance, not really; evolution does operate within a specific system of constraints. If you mean a lot of faith in naturalistic consequence, yes, I would agree. But I also would argue that natural phenomena are the only kind that science can ever hope to describe. (They do call biology, physics, etc. the natural sciences for a reason.)

Our study of DNA has a good chance of shedding some light on some of these issues. If science disproves some beliefs held by religious people it would be far from the first time. Science also has a habit of disproving scientific theories as well.

Agreed, more research is needed. As far as your last sentence goes, I would say, sort of; science seems to have more of a habit of constraining and modifying existing theories, though, at least during this century.

How much of this should we teach in school? Should we avoid certain topics because they aren't scientifically provable. Should we teach students the truth that we all have a lot to learn, and that the biggest purpose of school is to give students the tools they need to learn things for themselves?

That's the real question. We can only teach what we know. We do know that the empirical pattern of evolution has been well-established; well enough that it can be assumed to be true for the purposes of constructing other "models". A (perhaps farfetched) comparison I would make is that we have measured Newton's Law of Gravitation very well in a good number of ways; well enough to know that it works. When we discover a new star system, we don't try to prove that Newton's Law works all over again - in fact we assume the law holds as a tool of inquiry to discover more about the star system. Evolution is applied in the same way; so far it has done a good job at painting a consistent picture of what we observe.

What do we teach in school? I say, simply the truth: here's the theory, here's the evidence that supports it, here's what it can tell us, and here's what we don't know yet - the same as should be done with all theories. To say that there is a scientific revolution occurring that points to intelligent design as an empirical conclusion, however, is simply not true - it just isn't happening. Should students be free to draw that conclusion on their own, though? Of course they should. What you can't do, though, is ask biology teachers to talk about deep spiritual and philosophical concepts in class - they simply aren't qualified on that front; all they can describe is the biology.

"Consider this - could you even potentially imagine a fictional world that ID couldn't describe? It's easy to imagine a fictional world that evolution can't describe."

You can describe an infinite number of diverse fictional worlds that could all comply with evolution.

It is possible to describe a world in which creatures clearly did not evolve if you were to know enough about that world. You can never know enough to be sure that a fictional world was not designed.

Actually it's pretty much impossible to immagine a world that was not created, because the world had to start somewhere. All our natural laws tell us you don't get something from nothing.

What's your scientific theory on the origin of the universe?

What would you suggest we teach in schools about the origin of the universe.

Let me just say that the big bang theory doesn't really seem to cover the origin of the universe, merely what happened after it's existence began.

"What you can't do, though, is ask biology teachers to talk about deep spiritual and philosophical concepts in class - they simply aren't qualified on that front; all they can describe is the biology."

I agree and disagree. :)

It's actually pretty hard to teach history without talking about deep spiritual and philosophical concepts, becuase such beliefs have shaped history.

We should not indoctrinate students in history classes or in science classes. I think that ID should be mentioned as a theory that is believed by some, but cannot be proven or disproven. The theory of evolution should also be taught and a reasonable sampling of the evidence that supports it should be presented.

Most important we should teach students how to study the evidence and see where it leads them, rather than trying to prove theories.

Theories are good at showing us where to look for evidence, but the evidence itself is what we learn from, not the theories. Theories are discardable as things we learn change the way we look at the world.

Let me just say that the big bang theory doesn't really seem to cover the origin of the universe, merely what happened after it's existence began.

I agree 100%. Where did the matter/energy in the universe originally come from? No one has a good scientific answer to it. I have no idea what happened before the Big Bang - I only have some awareness of what its observable effects are. This is about all we can really say.

You can describe an infinite number of diverse fictional worlds that could all comply with evolution.

Yes, but that infinite number is still a subset of all fictional worlds imaginable. A silly example - I could imagine a universe, identical to ours, but in which Precambrian strata was littered with the fossilized bones of dogs and cats. Progressive evolution obviously doesn't work as a model in that hypothetical universe. Intelligent design could still work to describe that universe, though, or any imaginable universe.

We should not indoctrinate students in history classes or in science classes. I think that ID should be mentioned as a theory that is believed by some, but cannot be proven or disproven. The theory of evolution should also be taught and a reasonable sampling of the evidence that supports it should be presented.

Sounds reasonable - though it should be explained why ID doesn't meet the criteria of a scientific theory. I don't mean this in a way that diminishes the significance of a Creator, but only that it states that it is outside science.

Most important we should teach students how to study the evidence and see where it leads them, rather than trying to prove theories.

Of course - but it also has to be understood why scientists acknowledge certain theories over others - you can't expect every student to reinvent every known theory from scratch just given raw evidence. (It's taken humanity millenia to do that!) Like I said though, everyone always should be free to draw their own conclusions in the end.

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