Hey! Where'd you get all those copies of me?
Full Disclosure: Meow.
Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.
In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.
The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.
For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."
University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."
This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.
The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.
The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."
Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.
One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."
And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.
How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.
Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.
Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.
Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.
Hey! Where'd you get all those copies of me?
Full Disclosure: Meow.
I believe in God like Einstein believed in God. Neither of us is a Creationist in any meaningful sense. Our God IS the laws of nature.
At best you have pointed out an inconsistency in my position (it's not, because you assumed too much about my beliefs). That is not hypocrisy. Get a dictionary.
Hypocrisy IS when you condemn people for allegedly ignoring websites that may be biased against their position, when you say you do the same thing.
Now you can stop pinging me. :)
That would be one way to do it, wouldn't it? :-)
May unanswered questions about human evolution...you are right. But the latest genetic info appears to separate Neandertal from Homo sapiens, ie., no interbreeding. It seems that our ancestors wiped them out but didn't "date" them.
Lauralee, you are entitled to any opinion you feel comfortable with. The proponents of ID are not trying to silence you or censure you for "wrong thinking" as darwinists do to those that disagree with them. If you choose to reject the Genesis account of creation...some would say call God a lyer(sp?)...if you are more comfortable believing you have evolved from a fish or chimp...in spite of the fact that the bible states you were created in the image of God...I'm OK with that...most IDer's are OK with that.
However, I think you're a fair minded person. Doesn't it bother you a little the way your fellow darwinists without hesitation "shoot from the hip" at any suspected "wrong thinker"? It's virtually a demonic reaction like islam. The muslims worship a pedophile/predator prophet mohammod. The darwinists worship monkeys. Otherwise there is little differance in demeaner, behavior or social grace. Just let a prof or teacher express an idea that is out of sync with darwinist dogma and he is immediately set upon by this demon element from all directions. Compare this with the response received by someone in a muslim country expressing a belief that contradicts the prophet mohammod. Basically the same response you read on this thread from the "monkey boys", except under islam it's legal to kill the wrong thinker. Lauralee, do you really feel comfortable with the monkey boys?
""If you choose to reject the Genesis account of creation...some would say call God a lyer(sp?)""
Ummmm, God did not write the bible. And In taking the bible literally YOU have lost the deeper philosophical meaning to it.
Are you aware of the beliefs of the most influential proponents of ID?
Your post would suggest not. For example Michael Behe (the leading scientific proponent of ID) accepts that evolution is true, and that humans are descended from apes, and that the Designer (whoever He may be) doesn't appear to have intervened for hundreds of millions of years, that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old, there was no global flood around 4500 years ago, and it would be a good idea to teach high-schoolers that the Designer may be dead. (declarations made under oath in the Dover trial).
Is that really your position too? Or is the label ID just a flag of convenience for you that you think sounds more scientific than just declaring you are a creationist who rejects the bulk of established science in numerous fields, not just biology?
That's disturbing, since medical practice is based upon the assumption that there is a proper order that diseased bodies should be restored to.
Fortunately, doctors probably don't think very much about the medical implications of evolutionary theory.
Michael Denton, author of "Evolution, a Theory in Crisis, has written a new book, "Nature's Destiny," on intelligent Design. In it he says this:
"it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes.This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law.
Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies."
Behe, the chief defence witness at Dover, has this to say about evolution:
I didn't intend to "dismiss" the fossil record--how could I "dismiss" it? In fact I mention it mostly to say that it can't tell us whether or not biochemical systems evolved by a Darwinian mechanism. My book concentrates entirely on Darwin's mechanism, and simply takes for granted common descent.
It would be nice to substantiate these claims.
I present the designer may be "dead" twisting.
Q. A hundred years? A. All of the structures that I wrote about in Darwin's Black Box and have considered are much older than that. Q. So scientifically, we can't even make -- we can't even state right now that an intelligent designer still exists, correct? A. That's correct, yes. Q. Is that what you want taught to high school students? A. What are you referring to by that? Q. That scientific -- after teaching them about intelligent design, sign -- and telling them that, that is a scientific proposition, that right now, scientifically, we can't even tell you that an intelligent designer exists? Is that what you want taught to high school students? A. Well, let's make a couple distinctions. First of all, when I say, when you use the word taught, again, a lot of people have in mind instructing students that this is correct. Q. That's not what I mean, Professor Behe. A. Well, I'm sorry. I was unable to figure out exactly what you meant. If you're asking -- Q. Tell them about it, Professor Behe. Make them aware. Give them information. A. Make them aware that some people say that, from the purposeful arrangement of parts, we can conclude that something was designed, but many other questions we can't determine, including whether there were multiple designers, whether the designer is natural or not, whether the designer still exist? Yes, I think that would be a terrific thing to point out to students. It shows the limitations of theories. It shows that some evidence bears on one topic, but does not bear on others. I think that would be terrific pedagogy.
The doctor who did the Baby Faye heart transplant certainly didn't.
I guess doctors who install pig valves in human hearts also don't.
Plus, you seem to imply xenotransplants are fruitless, and only done by people who don't take evolution into account.
New Parts for Old: Perils and Pitfalls of Tissue Engineering and Xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation intrigued the public in 1984 when a baboon heart was transplanted into a 15 month-old baby with a defective heart. Baby Faye survived for 20 days. In 1992, when a 35-year-old father of 2 children received a baboon liver, PETA protesters poured into the streets. Three years later, an AIDS victim Jeff Getty received a marrow transplant from a baboon (3). In early transplantation, primates were selected as donors because of their close relationship to humans. Although chimpanzees share 98% of the genes with man, the differences are enough to require greater immunosuppression than allografts to prevent rejection. Of the 31 xenotransplants performed in the U.S. and South Africa between 1963-1993, few survived beyond 3 months (4, Fig. 2).
...
Although xenotransplantation and tissue engineering are likely to revolutionize organ transplantation in the new millennium, allotransplantation is the gold standard today. Every effort should be made to improve the impact of allotransplantation by increasing the harvesting of cadaver donors from its present low level of 20%. Education, broadening the donor criteria, development of new immunosuppressives like Tacrolimus, and promotion of tolerance should be pursued relentlessly (36). The "opt-out" donor system in some European countries assumes that everyone is a donor unless he opts out. This would not gain favor with the Americans. The magic of genetic engineering with the knowledge gained from ES, cloning, and artificial chromosomes will be able to customize grafts for individuals and remove the element of chance prevailing with cadaver donors (37-40). Xenotransplantation and tissue engineering are cutting edge technologies that will blossom in the new millennium but have significant applications even today.
Baby Faye's doctor ignored the medical advice of the time and did an experiment on a human being that ignored all prevailing experimental protocols.
That may be true, but was not what I was answering.
You still don't understand the point of my original post. There are many who do understand and that is what I was aiming for.
You did follow the Private FReepMail instructions that you received regarding my post...quite well, I'll give you credit for that.
Bye!
No thanks! :-) I just pop in every once in a while when the hypocrisy alert level reaches code red...
Some sheep will always stay lost. There are many lurkers to reach, though, and we all must do our part, even part-time!
BTTT
Does NewLand have friends at hte Washington Post who are able to read our Freepmails?
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