Posted on 02/28/2006 4:05:45 AM PST by PatrickHenry
House lawmakers scuttled a bill that would have required public school students to be told that evolution is not empirically proven - the latest setback for critics of evolution.
The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars, had said it was time to rein in teachers who were teaching that man descended from apes and rattling the faith of students. The Senate earlier passed the measure 16-12.
But the bill failed in the House on a 28-46 vote Monday. The bill would have required teachers to tell students that evolution is not a fact and the state doesn't endorse the theory.
Rep. Scott Wyatt, a Republican, said he feared passing the bill would force the state to then address hundreds of other scientific theories - "from Quantum physics to Freud" - in the same manner.
"I would leave you with two questions," Wyatt said. "If we decide to weigh in on this part, are we going to begin weighing in on all the others and are we the correct body to do that?"
Buttars said he didn't believe the defeat means that most House members think Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.
"I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape," Buttars said.
The vote represents the latest loss for critics of evolution. In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes.
Also last year, a federal judge ordered the school system in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County to remove from biology textbooks stickers that called evolution a theory, not a fact.
Earlier this year, a rural California school district canceled an elective philosophy course on intelligent design and agreed never to promote the topic in class again.
But critics of evolution got a boost in Kansas in November when the state Board of Education adopted new science teaching standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory, defying the view of science groups.
The biblical text indicates that the "fountains of the deep burst forth," so it would not be unreasonable to infer the activity of molten rock flowing from beneath the earth's surface as having a large part in the flood. The resulting volcanic ash, if on a large enough scale, would also be sufficient to generate more precipitation than the earth's surface had previously experienced. Volcanic activity obviously happens to this day, and when it does, fossils result as they have, for example, at Mt. Saint Helens.
The bottom line is the the geologic record could easily be understood in terms of a global deluge. No need to invent pink unicorns or spaghetti monsters.
Included in "both may be wrong"
A may be wrong: God favors B
B may be wrong: God favors A
A and B may be wrong: God favors neither.
Is that so hard?
Unless you are a geologist, and actually take a look at the record directly, rather than theorising about it from a PC terminal, never having stood at an exposure with a hammer in your hand in your life.
No way does the geological record make any sense whatsoever in terms of a global deluge, and this had been realised by before Darwin's voyage. If there was a global deluge in the last 5000 years (or even the last 50,000,000 years) the perpetrator of the watery genocide went to a great deal of trouble to hide all the evidence of it. (as well as fabricating a great deal of contradictory evidence, such as far more fossils in the geological column than can possibly have been alive at the time of the flood, unless the world was 100ft deep in writhing flesh and plantlife, multiple cross-cutting angular unconformities and intrusions, etc, etc, etc)
I don't see this as an issue of logic so much as possibly forced etymology. The word "satyr" appears to have mythological implications in most cases. A good study of the Hebrew word might yield something with a more firm basis in reality, though there are certain Hebrew words that have never been adequately translated into English and remain somewhat mysterious, the word "leviathan" being a case in point.
Be that as it may, the general composition of the geologic record easily allows for a global deluge in a past age.
I don't like you saying that on that post number.
European Kangaroos
Give it up. You are a DrDino staffer, or maybe even the good "Doctor" Hovind himself/yourself. Smoked you out at last.
The worldwide presence of fossils, including some at the poles, is generally good evidence for a global flood. Former living creatures encased in sedimentary and volcanic deposits on a global scale. In fact, the evidence is stark. It only remains foggy, or contradictory, to those who are inclined for personal reasons to reject the biblical texts. The only thing one can do is scoff in disbelief. The physical evidence remains fairly clear. Furthermore the account of the flood is by no means fantastic from either a literary or historic standpoint.
The antarctic continent wasn't always at the pole; it has drifted there over geological time. That drift is ongoing and measurable. The fossils on that continent are consistent with its theorised past position. Indeed it was a prediction of the theory of evolution that the antarctic continent would harbour marsupial fossils, and that prediction came true. I won't hold my breath waiting for any surprising prediction made by YEC to come true (hint:YEC is marked by an utter failure to predict anything that wasn't already known, ever).
The evidence is indeed stark. It falsifies biblical literalism at every turn. If the bible didn't exist there would not be a single shred of evidence that would lead anyone to conclude that the world is 6000 years old and endured a global deluge 4000 years ago. Geologists went looking for that evidence 200 years ago and concluded that it wasn't there. Nothing found since has changed that conclusion; on the contrary data from almost every field in science confirms the mainstream scientific position. I note you failed to address either of the specific points that I made (amongst many that I could have cited) that utterly refute any possibility of the geological record being explained by a global deluge.
"The evidence is clear" is his mantra, however it is marked by an utter failure to say how the evidence actually backs up a global deluge, and by corollary how different things would look if his hypothetical global deluge hadn't occurred.
Welcome to the wild, wacky world of creationism.
I like your tagline. That's a good word:
\Con*sil"i*ence\, n. [con- + salire to leap.] Act of concurring; coincidence; concurrence.
The consilience of inductions takes place when one class of facts coincides with an induction obtained from another different class. --Whewell.
LOL!
Is that a contra positive syllogism?
Sure they did. They went looking for evidence to support their assumptions and found it. "Predicting" a find of marsupial life at the poles could be just as valid with a gloabal deulge in mind as a billion-year history that was unobserved and unrecorded. I am given to believe the polar regions are a result of the global flood and were not present as such prior to the flood. That is to say the overall climate on this planet was more mild, and consequently allowed for longer life spans. You are given to believe yourself and those who are likeminded to yourself. That's okay. I won't press the legislature to keep your belief out of school.
A bit.
Danke schoen!
Maybe that is because you failed to make specific points. You made sweeping assertions, such as that the earth had to be swarming with life 100 feet deep in order to accomodate the immensity of the fossil record, or that the "perpetrator" of this flood attempted to hide the evidence. Do you really expect such assertions to be taken seriously? The fact stands that the fossil record represents sudden death on a global scale, and this simple observation is in accord with global processes of aquatic and volcanic deposition.
Yet everyone here is obsessed with the single issue of Darwin vs. creationism.
A stupid public is the greatest threat to America.
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