Posted on 10/11/2005 7:27:16 AM PDT by Valin
In the most recent issue of the American Scientist, Pat Shipman issued a warning to his fellow Darwinists, informing them of the impending threat placed upon their theory by intelligent design (ID):
“These events prompted me to take ID seriously, and this movement scares me. Now I feel like a jogger in the park at night who realizes that she is far too isolated and that the shadows are far too deep…. I fear my days are numbered unless I act soon and effectively. If you are reading this, the chances are that you are in the same position.”
Shipman has officially sounded the alarm. This comes after twenty years of warnings from the ivory towers, issuing the message, “Protect Darwin, or else.”
In 1983, Dr. John Patterson, self-avowed atheist and evolutionist, was serving as one of the members of the Iowa State University committee on instruction in the sciences and humanities. He presented a proposal to the committee suggesting that any student who was enrolled in a science-related course, and who, at the conclusion of the course, continued to maintain a personal belief in creation, should receive a failing grade. Furthermore, Patterson said that if the university discovered that it inadvertently had conferred a degree upon a student who, upon having graduated, nevertheless believed in creation, the degree should be rescinded.
Twenty years later, Micah Spradling, a pre-med student at Texas Tech University, applied for entrance to Southwestern University’s medical school. In order to complete his application, he needed a letter of recommendation from a specific faculty member, Michael Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech. Dini required that in order to receive a letter of recommendation with his signature, a student was required to meet a three part criteria. The first two criteria were standard academic requirements. The third criteria, however, is one Spradling was not prepared to fulfill. Dini asked that Spradling “truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer” to the question: “How do you think the human species originated?” Spradling was denied a recommendation based entirely on the fact that he did not accepted Darwinism as a fact.
Just the next year, Nancy Bryson, a biology professor at Mississippi University for Women, was asked to give an extra-curricular presentation on a topic of her choosing. Bryson, who earned her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of South Carolina, held a talk entitled “Critical Thinking on Evolution.” The talk presented evidence—marshaled by scientists, philosophers of science, mathematicians, law professors, and geologists—of serious problems with Darwinian evolution. Immediately following the talk, a professor of biology stood in front of the group, reading a prepared statement attacking Bryson’s presentation. “This is just religion masquerading as science" he urged in his five minute soliloquy. After the diatribe, students warmly approached Bryson, thanking her for her talk, sharing their disgust with the attack pointed at her by the professor. The following morning, several professors from the Department of Sciences and Mathematics filed complaints to the Vice President of Academic Affairs regarding her presentation. The next day, the VPAA informed Bryson that in the next academic year, she would lose her position as the Division Head of her department. She was also told she was in grave danger of losing her tenure-track appointment.
This June, Bryan Leonard, who received his Master's Degree in microbiology, presented his doctoral dissertation to the committee responsible for granting his Ph.D. at Ohio State University. Leonard’s doctoral dissertation deals with the area of evolution education, specifically looking at how students react and shape their beliefs when presented with the scientific information both supporting and challenging macroevolution. In his dissertation, Leonard presents clear data that shows the majority of students are interested in learning both sides from a scientific perspective. Leonard's dissertation was suddenly postponed after three professors at OSU struck down his dissertation research because of his views on evolution, his use of human subjects for testing, and his public association of his beliefs with OSU. The three professors, in their letter to the committee, said, "We note a fundamental flaw: There are no valid scientific data challenging macroevolution. Mr. Leonard has been misinforming his students if he teaches them otherwise…” Of the 350 students polled by Leonard, 312 said that they would be more interested in learning the scientific information supporting and challenging macroevolution.
Earlier this month, President Timothy White of the University of Idaho issued a letter informing faculty that it was “inappropriate” for anyone to teach “views that differ from evolution” in any “life, earth, and physical science courses or curricula." The statement prohibits any views that differ from evolution, “no matter how scientific,” and no matter how related to the courses under study. White’s letter was released just as University of Idaho biologist and ID supporter, Scott Minnich, was set to testify about ID in a Pennsylvania lawsuit. Ironically, the university's own faculty handbook declares that "academic freedom is essential for the protection of the rights of faculty members in teaching and of students in learning" and that "teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects" so long as they don't introduce irrelevant material.
There are two ways to win in the marketplace of ideas: you can either make the best products—formulating robust arguments and communicating your ideas clearly—or sabotage your competitor’s—stopping their research and censuring their work.
Joe Manzari is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.
Twenty years later, Micah Spradling, a pre-med student at Texas Tech University, applied for entrance to Southwestern University’s medical school. In order to complete his application, he needed a letter of recommendation from a specific faculty member, Michael Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech. Dini required that in order to receive a letter of recommendation with his signature, a student was required to meet a three part criteria. The first two criteria were standard academic requirements. The third criteria, however, is one Spradling was not prepared to fulfill. Dini asked that Spradling “truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer” to the question: “How do you think the human species originated?” Spradling was denied a recommendation based entirely on the fact that he did not accepted Darwinism as a fact.
Ping for later reading - despite grammar and spelling errors
I agree with the evolutionists that ID is not science. However, I also believe that evolution is not science. Good science is testable. Macroevolution is not.
> In 1983, Dr. John Patterson, self-avowed atheist and evolutionist, was serving as one of the members of the Iowa State University committee on instruction in the sciences and humanities.
One of the best teachers I ever had. I had him for only one class, his last semester there before retiring; I forget exactly what the course was supposed to be (materials science, I think), but he turned it into "how not to be a dumbass engineer." One of his common teaching tactics was magic tricks, which he was quite good at. A good engineer would figure out how such a trick was done *without* resorting to the supernatural or magic powers or the like. Those who refused to believe that a trick was just a trick (there were a few)... did't fare so well. As it should be, for engineers.
Another big aspect of his course was "how to be an *ethical* engineer." Not just how to do the math, but when to stand your ground with honesty. A firm recognition of what the facts say, even when they say you're dead wrong. And ignore people's feelings (including yours, your boss', etc.) when it comes to facts, as engineers hold peoples lives in their hands. When you design based on feeling, you get the Titanic.
We need more teachers like him.
> Spradling was denied a recommendation based entirely on the fact that he did not accepted Darwinism as a fact.
A note: a teacher is within his rights to recommend, or not, whever he likes. Someone whom he feels has failed to learn the subject or the methodology... well, too bad.
These are terribly sad and unfair situations. These anecdotes are just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure, too.
There are at least two books for those interested in the radical notion that science should continually consider challenges to the status quo, rather than perpetuate a suffocating chorus of uniformity.
One is "Ideas in Conflict" by Theodore J. Gordon, 1966. In it, he recounts multiple case histories of visionaries whose ideas were correct, but were severely derided by their scientist buddies. One case history was about the guy who insisted that Venus was a planet, not a comet as dictated by the astronomers of the time. I think some of the right thinkers died before their ideas came to be known as scientific and then popular truths.
Another really excellent book on the changes in who controlled science over history is "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn. Make sure you get the 3rd edition (1996) because the older ones are extremely difficult to read. This is more of a scholarly style book than Gordon's.
The tyranny of statistics did not begin until 1820 in the Western world. Statistics, like polls, are used and abused by scientists to advance their agendas.
> One case history was about the guy who insisted that Venus was a planet, not a comet as dictated by the astronomers of the time.
Entirely backwards. Velikovsky [sic?] loudly proclaimed that Venus was a comet spat out (somehow) from Jupiter, that (somehow) wandered around the inner solar system and (somehow) caused much of the ruckus described in the Odl Testaments (stopping the sun ion the sky, partign the Red Sea, etc.) and then (somehow) settled into a perfectly sedate solar orbit.
Astronomers have known that Venus was a planet and not a comet for millenia.
You do raise a point with Velikovsky, though. Many people have produced "radical" views, like Galileo, Kepler, Darwin and Einstein, and been sometimes badly and wrongly mauled by their peers. But many *more* radical ideas, like Velikovsky, the Dean Drive, Larmarck, Marx, the IDers, etc. are just dead wrong. Just because you're novel doesn't mean you're right.
He presented a proposal to the committee suggesting that any student who was enrolled in a science-related course, and who, at the conclusion of the course, continued to maintain a personal belief in creation, should receive a failing grade. Furthermore, Patterson said that if the university discovered that it inadvertently had conferred a degree upon a student who, upon having graduated, nevertheless believed in creation, the degree should be rescinded.
Proof you can be a good teacher and still be an idiot.
Having read the article, I must disagree with Joe Manzari's assessment that the "Ivory Towers" are trying to "protect Darwin, or else." In fact, by my reading professor Shipman's point of view is that the situation is much the reverse. It is science which is under assault.
From Shipman's article:
The main premise of ID is that the living organisms on Earth are so complex and so intricately constructed that they cannot plausibly have arisen through the unguided action of natural selection, so there must be an "intelligent designer." (This entity is usually identified as God, but in a deposition taken January 3, 2005, Dover Superintendent Nilsen suggested that the "master intellect" described in an ID textbook might also be an alien.)
In rhetoric, the line of reasoning used by ID advocates is known as an argument by incredulity. Because what is entirely plausible to one person is ludicrously unlikely to another, arguments by incredulity are inherently weak. ID is not a scientific theory amenable to testing, but an opinion, a philosophical preference, a belief. That fact made it easy for me to dismiss the ID movement as scientifically unimportant.
I might have settled back into complacency had I not learned that students in the public high school in my town—a town dominated by a major university—can "opt out" of learning about evolution if their parents send a letter to the school. Allowing students to "opt out" of learning the basic facts and theories of biology is about as wise as allowing them to "opt out" of algebra or English: It constitutes malfeasance.
Do not mistake my objection. If my neighbors and their children wish to believe in Intelligent Design as a matter of faith that is fine with me. What I object to most strenuously is the presentation of a religious belief as a scientific theory in a science class.
I feel the same way about Macro Evolution. Test it for me, and prove to me it works. If you can't test it (you can't) then it isn't science.
Tell me: if you enrolled in a Catholic seminary (or, to avoid needless sectarianism, just assume the religious trainign academy of your choice) and at the conclusion of your training professed a belief that Ba'al was your lord and master, and that the universe was sneezed out the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure... what kind of priest would you be?
If you trained to be an engineer, and at the conclusion of your studies you maintained that F=M+A and that the ultimate structual material would be an alloy of butter, paint and wishing real hard, what kind of engineer would you be?
If you trained to be a doctor and at the end professed that the germ theory of disease was bunk and that one must treat the "humours," what kind of doctor would you be?
In all these cases, assume that you passed all your courses with flying colors. Yay! But you're still an idiot. And the school in question would know that its reputation and even accreditation would be put at risk, not to mention the lives (or souls, as you wish) of an unsuspecting public if they unleashed you upon them with a diploma.
I have to agree with the professor on this one. The student was specifically asked for the scientific answer. Even if he believed in creationism or ID, the student should be fully cognizant that those concepts, at a college level, are not science. Based on that alone, I would asses that this science student does not have a sufficient grasp of science to warrant a bachelor's degree in any science, let alone a letter of recommendation.
Please do not discredit yourself by attempting to compare that which can be demonstrably and objectively proven with macroevolution, which cannot.
"Cannot?"
Wow.
Well, there goes forensic science! Better throw open the prisons.
Sure, I wouldn't want to force the teaching of evolution in Sunday School.
Oh wait, that's not what you meant.
If you can't test it (you can't) then it isn't science.
You've made an absolute statement that there is no evidence for evolution. This is incorrect. The theory is tested every time a fossil is dug out of the ground. As of yet, no fossils have disproved the theory.
A scientific theory can never be proven. A theory is an explanation for observed facts. If you believ that a theory must be proven to be science, then either you do not believe in any science or you do not understand the definition of a sceintific theory. There are millions of pages of research published in the scientific literature of tests and predictions of evolution. THey are freely available in the libraries of any major university. Or, you can download them from the publishers for $10-20 per article.
ping
Thanks for the ping!
FYI ping
Junior, for your catalog.
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