[Jeb] Bush: Science comes before intelligent design [Jeb gets the message]

Miami Herald ^ | 26 December 2005 | Daniel A. Ricker

[PatrickHenry]

Questioned about the national debate over ''intelligent design,'' [Florida] Gov. Jeb Bush last week said he's more interested in seeing some evolution of the science standards that Florida public school students must meet.

He wants those standards to become more rigorous -- and raising the standards should take priority over discussing whether intelligent design has a place in the public schools' curriculum, he said.

Nationally, the discussion over whether to teach intelligent design -- a concept that says life is too complex to have occurred without the involvement of a higher force -- in public school classes heated up after U.S. District Judge John E. Jones ruled that it smacked of creationism and was a violation of church and state separation. (President Bush appointed Jones to the federal bench in 2004.)

Jones, in his decision, wrote that the concept of intelligent design ''cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,'' according to a Knight Ridder News Service report published Wednesday in The Miami Herald. [PH here: For a more reliable source than the Herald, here's the judge's opinion (big pdf file).]

In Florida, education officials and science teachers will be reviewing the state's science curriculum in 2007 or 2008, after the governor has left office, and ''it is possible that people would make an effort to include [intelligent design] in the debate,'' Gov. Bush told The Watchdog Report on Wednesday. ''My personal belief is we ought to look at whether our standards are high first,'' he said.

SCIENCE FIRST

``The more important point is science itself and how important it is, and we right now have adequate standards that may need to be raised. But worse: Students are not given the course work necessary to do well with those standards.''

Bush, after meeting with Coral Gables Mayor Don Slesnick and city commissioners concerning the community's widespread power outages after hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, also noted that the federal ruling came in a case that involves Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District.

''It is one school district in Pennsylvania,'' he said.

POINT OF VIEW

The Watchdog Report asked a follow-up question: Does the governor believe in Darwin's theory of evolution?

Bush said: ``Yeah, but I don't think it should actually be part of the curriculum, to be honest with you. And people have different points of view and they can be discussed at school, but it does not need to be in the curriculum.''

---

"The Watchdog Report" mentioned in the article is Ricker's own newsletter. He's the author of the article. Apparently the interview with Jeb was deemed important enough that the Miami Herald agreed to run it.

[Dimensio]

My we are rude when one is questioned on their inability to give a well documented answer to questions put forth.

The only question that you asked was a loaded one with an assumed premise that none of us accept. Stop pretending that a lack of desire to answer loaded questions founded on faulty premises is some kind of dodge.

[Dog Gone]

I've tried to engage you in respectful questions since you first attacked me on this thread.

No more. You're a waste of time.

[Free Baptist]

The laboratory is as big as space, and the instruments are various types of telescopes. But your observations come with a preconceived bias against God and against Him having created things just as you see them. That causes you to believe that God could not have created the universe with apparent age. For example, your bias prevents you from believing that God could have created a star hundreds of thousands of light years from earth with the light already reaching earth at its creation. Your bias prevents you from believing that primates and humans have a better than 90% similar (DNA) genome by deliberate and specific creation of God, and yet they were created as separate and distinct creations.

[highball]

That causes you to believe that God could not have created the universe with apparent age.

I've seen this argument before from Young Earthers trying to defend their beliefs. I find it unconvincing in the extreme.

Only a particularly cruel God would give His children such amazing powers of observation and deduction, then deliberately plant falsehoods to fool them. That doesn't jive with any loving God that I've ever heard about.

[highball]

Evidence contrary to the ToE, my great grandad's dad was not a monkey.

Not your great grandad's dad. You have to go a lot farther back than that.

You may also prefer to believe that the Earth is the center of the Universe, but it doesn't make it so. Both of these beliefs are based on wishful thinking, and both of these beliefs ignore the evidence.

You are, of course, entitled to your emotional response. But you can't pretend that it's anything more than just that.

[b_sharp]

I hate to intrude, but your post to Quark2005 was full of insinuation of guilt, a type of 'guilt by association' and much debunked misinformation. If you have been posting here in the crevo threads for a year as you say, you must know where to find accurate information about not only what Darwin said but what current thought is on the ToE. To repeat material that has been shown false more times than most of us care to admit, presents you as either disingenuous or inexplicably ignorant.

If you want any of us to reply to you without insults, then do not insult our intelligence by repeating duplicities or impugn our honesty by falsely associating the belief in science with the evils of others.

[PatrickHenry]

I've seen this argument before from Young Earthers trying to defend their beliefs.

The omphalos hypothesis

The omphalos hypothesis was named after the title of an 1857 book, Omphalos by Philip Henry Gosse, in which Gosse argued that in order for the world to be "functional", God must have created the Earth with mountains, canyons, trees with growth rings, Adam and Eve with hair, fingernails, and navels (omphalos is Greek for "navel"), and that therefore no evidence we can see of the presumed age of the earth and universe can be taken as reliable.

[Free Baptist]

We are not fooled. God created an adult male and female who never exited the womb of a human mother. God didn't fool us by not creating a womb, and then giving us the first man through it as an infant. You are unconvinced. It is not my argument. Adam had apparent age. He was created an adult. He tended a garden that had trees. Those trees may have included every age from a sprout, through a sapling, to an adult tree that, if cross-sectioned may have had 3,000 rings. And the "adult" trees and other foliage produced the first seed for the next generation of the species. God didn't fool us. He told us to believe His word and to trust Him.

Just for you scientists, He had life on the earth (Genesis 1:12) before the sun ever shown its first ray on it (Genesis 1:14). He did that special, just thinking of y'all. And He went on through His word to tell you that His ways are past finding out. Jesus Christ, Who was in the bosom of the Father from eternity (John ch.1) upheld the life in the dark by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3), and waited a day to hang the sun. Just for y'all.

You know, He would help your research, and show you more than you could ever imagine (in fact it would probably spook you), if you would just take His Word on it.

[highball]

"Take His word on it"?

In other words, pretend that the Bible is a biology textbook. Ignore all the evidence where it contradicts dogma.

No, thanks. Appreciate it, though.

[Oztrich Boy]

"Darwin admitted in the end he was wrong."

The story that Darwin recanted is a myth

You can't expect Crationists and Rebranded Creationists to reach a conclusion from examining the evidene. They can only ape what they heard

[PatrickHenry]

The story that Darwin recanted is a myth

The Lady Hope Story: A Widespread Falsehood.

Hot tip: Edison recanted the electric light on his deathbed.

[b_sharp]

"They can only ape what they heard"

Oohh! The shot heard 'round the world.

[b_sharp]

Good concert, Edison unplugged.

[highball]

It's not a "myth," it's a lie.

It's a lie started thirty years after Darwin's death by a creationist looking to advance a political agenda. It continues to be spread by creationists, partly through ignorance.

It has no basis at all, and has been rejected by Darwin's children, historians and even by creationist groups.

Let's be honest. It's an outright lie, and anyone who spreads it has either been hoodwinked by liars or is a liar himself. I'm presuming that he is the former, but now he knows better.

[grey_whiskers]

The resurrection is the very linchpin of all Christianity! And yet the stories in each of the Gospels for this single most pivotal event in the entire Bible are a far cry from each other. If these verses have this kind of disparity, how is it possible to argue the fine nuances of the others?

Yup, but have you ever noticed that they all AGREE on the resurrection itself?

Which is, as you point out, the linchpin itself.

Cheers!

[Oztrich Boy]

It's not a "myth," it's a lie.

The Widow Denny "testified inconsistantly"

[Baraonda]

"Y I wonder how you got such a scholar on evolution all of a sudden."

I'm studying evolution through the links you provided. LOL!

[Baraonda]

"Darwin admitted in the end he was wrong.

Yes, he did admit it in his deathbed while surrounded by his family and his closest evolutionist friends. Many of his followers later admitted that Darwin and themselves were wrong about evolution.

[Baraonda]

Sorry!

Meant only the top line (the quote) to be in bold and larger font.

[Baraonda]

"It's a lie started thirty years after Darwin's death by a creationist looking to advance a political agenda."

From what I've read he (Darwin) recanted it just before he died.