Posted on 03/05/2006 10:14:04 AM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Evolution bill stirs debate on origin of life, religion
TIM TALLEY
Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY - While other states are backing away from teaching alternatives to evolution, the Oklahoma House passed a bill Thursday encouraging schools to expose students to alternative views about the origin of life.
The measure, passed on a 77-10 vote, gives teachers the right to teach "the full range of scientific views on the biological or chemical origins of life." The measure stops short of requiring the teaching of "intelligent design" alongside the theory of evolution in science classes.
Its author, Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said evolution is taught in some classrooms as if it were scientific fact although the theory, developed in the 19th century by Charles Darwin, is neither observable, repeatable or testable and is not solid science.
"They are getting a one-sided view of evolution," said Kern, a former teacher. "Let's teach good, honest science."
Critics said the lessons would be more appropriate in religion or philosophy classes than in science class. They said the measure would take control from local school boards on developing lesson plans and violates the constitutional prohibition on government endorsement of specific religious views.
"I think we're about to open a slippery slope here," said Rep. Danny Morgan, D-Prague. In December, a federal judge blocked attempts to teach intelligent design in high school biology classes in Dover, Pa.
"We're going to be right back in the courthouse," Morgan said.
Kern said her bill does not promote a particular religious point of view but promotes critical thinking by students by exposing them to all sides of a scientific debate.
"This bill is not about a belief in God. It is not about religion. It is about science," Kern said. "I'm not asking for Sunday school to be in a science class."
Evolution teaches that all organisms are connected by genealogy and have changed through time through several processes, including natural selection.
Intelligent design teaches that life is so well-ordered that it must have been created by a higher power. Critics argue that the theory is merely repackaged creationism, which teaches that the Earth and all life were created by God.
Supporters said exposing students to different viewpoints will create lively classroom debate.
"Do you think you come from a monkeyman?" said Rep. Tad Jones, R-Claremore. "Did we come from slimy algae 4.5 billion years ago or are we a unique creation of God? I think it's going to be exciting for students to discuss these issues."
Opponents said alternative theories on the origin of life are a matter of faith, not science. "God truly is the creator of heaven and Earth, but I can't prove that," said Rep. Al Lindley, D-Oklahoma City.
The bill now goes to the state Senate, where similar legislation has been defeated in the past.
On Tuesday, lawmakers in Utah defeated a bill requiring public school students be told that evolution is not empirically proven. In Ohio, school curriculum is undergoing change following the Pennsylvania ruling that intelligent design should not be taught alongside evolution in public schools.
Kansas has adopted language to encourage students to explore arguments against evolution, but the standards have not been tied to any lesson plans or statewide testing.
I don't see the problem that this person is having. He is criticizing YEC'ers for being too scientific -- presenting the results of research? Because they are only reporting the results of their data? Isn't that supposed to be what science does, especially good science?
That might be troublesome, except for the complete lack of alternative hypotheses, plus a supporting infrastructure from other sciences.
As long as ID advocates behave like Scientologists and refuse to reveal the secret identity and methods of the Designer, evolution is the only game in town.
Th problem is that ID assumes that lack of explanation is support for ID. Tell me when in the history of science the current lack of a complete naturalistic explanation has been positive evidence for supernatural intervention.
What does this mean? The virus is gone but the surrounding DNA is OK? So?
Yep.
I have not been a part of this thread lately, but if I may.
Johnny, you mention the canopy theory and falsification.
From my reading of the creationist websites, the ideas such as "canopy" are not true theories, but simply "what-ifs." They appear to be generated by (some) creationists as scientists examine previous ideas and explain how unlikely they are. When one idea is cast into doubt, another pops up.
Rather than theories, with all of the research and verification that theories require, its more like, "Yeah, that may be so, but what if..."
From that point on, some folks cling to each idea in spite of any evidence to the contrary, as we see periodically on these threads. Other folks come up with a new explanation for the phenomenon and go with that until serious objections are raised.
Again, I hope I am not intruding or misreading the post. And I have not yet reached the end of the thread (too much real world intruding on FR time lately).
I pointed out no such thing.
There are scads of endogenous retroviruses. It would beggar belief that one had not been deleted somewhere in the human ancestral line.
You seem to think I'm a devoté of naive falsificationism. I'm not. A well-established theory like evolution could be falsified, but it would to take more than one apparently anomalous result. Haldane's bunny in the Cambrian (which, of course, was just a quip on his part, anyway) would be a serious issue, but it would likely give rise to a lot of speculation that it wasn't a bunny, or it wasn't in the Cambrian. What would kill evolution is if bunnies, and dogs, and chimps turned up in all sorts of palaeozoic strata. They haven't.
This seems to be the modus operandi for YEC contributors at GSA and AGU meetings. Steve Austin and Kurt Wise regularly give talks and posters at GSA but they are strictly "scientific" in nature. When Austin describes a sedimentary bed covered by ammonite fossils, he makes no mention of the "Flood" as the presumed cause of the "mass kill". Nevertheless, YEC's can then say that they are publishing with respected organizations.
This agrees with my own observations. While Baumgardner subscribes on YEC sites to all sorts of wild theories of a young earth, he has co-authored at least one paper in Science charting the evolution of plate tectonics over a >100 million year time scale. I don't know how he sleeps at night. Maybe we could add The Conscience of a Creationist to the list of the world's shortest books?
It is not worth trying to change your mind. I know what I believe.
God created this universe.
God rules this universe and controls the events of history.
Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of all mankind.
He rose again the third day.
Someday Jesus Christ is coming back as King to rule this world in perfect righteousness and there isn't anything that man can do to stop Him.
Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
"As long as ID advocates behave like Scientologists and refuse to reveal the secret identity and methods of the Designer, evolution is the only game in town."
We don't know the identity of the people who built Stonehenge, nor their methods. Likewise, while we know (in general) the identities of those who built the pyramids, we don't know their methods. Yet in both these cases we can make design inferences.
"Tell me when in the history of science the current lack of a complete naturalistic explanation has been positive evidence for supernatural intervention."
There is nothing in ID about supernatural intervention. It is about intelligent causation, which we experience everyday. The computer program I wrote last week was the product of intelligent causes -- material causes alone have insufficient causitive power to create the complex specified information present in that computer program -- it required an intelligent designer. Likewise, it is perfectly rational for someone, seeing computer code, to make a design inference.
ALL known symbolic codal systems have intelligent origin. Why would we assume that the one in our bodies is different?
The reason why it appears to you that ID is just a negative argument, is because it is in fact the other way around. Even Dawkins has pointed that life appears designed. The basic evidence is _for_ design. It is the burden of the Darwinists to show, either mathematically or experimentally, why what is conceptually obvious to everyone alive is false. Relativity is contrary to what is conceptually obvious, but it is proven over and over again by experimental calculation. Even the skeptics can perform the calculations, and see if it is correct. The origin of life and most of what is considered evolution has no such abilities. It is just a collection of secular mythology packaged up as science, pretending to refute what is obvious to everyone else on the planet. The reason that the lack of explanation is support for ID is that ID is the obvious inference from the data based on empirical experience. With a lack of explanation of why we should believe the contrary, I say we should go with what we experience to be the source of such systems -- intelligent design.
"From my reading of the creationist websites, the ideas such as "canopy" are not true theories, but simply "what-ifs." "
Please tell me how that is different from any model of macro-evolution.
"You seem to think I'm a devoté of naive falsificationism."
I'm not either. But the person who started this thread was. I was pointing out why that is a bad idea, and, under such a view, their theories have already been falsified.
Often times in crevo debates there is a lot of posturing on the evolution side about falisification, but in reality the demarcation arguments have completely failed. You can agree or disagree with creationism, but to use a demarcation argument to say that one is under the realm of science while the other is not is counter to the current understanding of the philosophy of science.
I do not understand how your response relates to your apparent lack of understanding of evolution in suggesting that it should occur amongst non-reproducing mechanical constructs.
I genuinely appreciate your open-minded approach to scientific and educational controversy.
Provided that one accepts the current regime of Tax-supported Publik Skooling, all that Intelligent Design proponents ask is a "place at the table". To employ an analogy I have used before -- if an Archaeologist found what appeared to be a wood-and-stone Construction Hammer encased in a chunk of sedimentary rock, it would be reasonable to consider whether or not the Hammer was formed by "Intelligent Design" as opposed to "random uniformitarian processes of chaotic amalgamation".
If this is true of our hypothetical preserved Hammer, then -- how much the more could it (possibly) be true of Living Cells, which contain vastly more Specified Informational Complexity than a simple Hammer, and of which (in keeping with the Predictions of Pasteur's Law of Biogenesis) NO Abiogenetic Origin by means of "random uniformitarian processes of chaotic amalgamation" has ever been Observed, Tested, Reproduced, or even Evidenced in any Laboratory Experimental setting in History, whatsoever?
If you're willing to permit the presentation of the "Intelligent Design" hypothesis, and allow the presentation of scientific evidences which present difficulties for the Evolutionary scenario -- then I, in turn, am perfectly happy to accept the presentation of scientific evidences which allegedly provide support for the Evolutionary scenario, and acknowledge that "Evolution is accepted by 99% of the scientific community" (although, in fairness, this Statistic should be progressively-adjusted downward as hundreds upon hundreds of Doctoral-degreed scientists worldwide continue to sign on to the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" petition).
Realistically, however, this is a make-shift solution. A genuinely Free-Market and Free-Speech equilibrium cannot be reached until Publik Skooling is abolished entirely -- and the $7,000-per-year, per-child that Big Gubmint currently spends on Universal Education is returned wholesale to the Parents (by means of Vouchers, Tax Credits, Tax Cuts, or what have you) for the purpose of sending their Children to the school of their Choice -- whether home, tutorial, private, military, or parochial; whether Evolutionist or Creationist. Ultimately, this is the only Truly-Moral solution.
Best, OP
As a fellow YEC, I suppose that it's entirely possible that it's a media mis-quote.
However, this is Oklahoma. We're kinda down-home good-ole-boy here.
I should tell you, I am not exclusively a supporter of "Home-Schooling uber alles".
Don't get me wrong; I think that Home-Schooling makes great sense for those Children whose Mothers (and secondarily, Fathers; but I'm assuming a patriarchal-breadwinner model in which the Father is generally earning Income outside the Home) are both willing and able to take on a "daytime job" as Educators in addition to their 24-7 calling as Home-Makers. Obviously, I can't argue with the scholastic acheivements of Home-Schoolers; when a minor subset of the Population consistently wins all the National Academic awards in every category, every years -- despite a crippling Tax disadvantage -- they must be doing something right.
I guess that what I am saying is that NOT ALL Christian Mothers have the natural ability or wherewithal to be great Home-Schoolers; and that doesn't make them bad Wives or bad Mothers or incompetent Home-Makers, they just may not be the best Educators.
IMHO, I think that the best Biblical example (or rather, slightly extra-Biblical, but founded upon Mosaic principles) is that of the Synagogue, in which at least Ten Families got together around a mutually-recognized "Elder"; given that the State currently spends around $7,000 per-child, per-year on the Publik Skools, if these monies were returned to the Parents, then Ten Families could afford to hire a mutually-agreed Christian Tutor for something like a $70,000 annual salary to teach their children (assuming only one child per family).
Or maybe a little less, say $40,000 per ten students, and we could all save a lot of money.
YES, we have to break the Publik Skooling Monopoly in order to make such a thing work -- but as an "Ideal", I think it's a good thing to aim for. After all, IT'S NOT THEIR MONEY, they only steal it from us. While I respect the Home-Schoolers for their willingness to "go it alone" against the Tax-Funded Publik Skool system, I am unwilling to "give up" and let the Government continue to take Our Money for Their Purposes. IT'S OUR MONEY, AND WE WANT IT RETURNED TO US. As a matter of Principle, that should be our Political argument.
Incidentally, when you say that "We're probably not going to see the end of public schools in our lifetime" -- I think that you may be underestimating George W. Bush's ability to bankrupt the Republic.
United States Federal Government Debt ALONE (not including the somewhat-less-worrisome figures of US State Government Debt, but also not including the rapidly-climbing figures of US Personal Debt) is now approaching 70% of total Gross Domestic Product and is SKYROCKETING under Bush.
While I think that Bush's Supreme Court choices (notwithstanding the befuddling Harriet Miers idiocy) have been pretty good, and he's been pretty good on Tax Cuts, his Spending has been absolutely outrageous, and the Debt figures show it. (This is not even to consider the many tens of trillions of Dollars worth of Future Liabilities which Bush has created through his Education and Medicaid insanities).
There will come a point when the Government is no longer able to afford spending far more than it takes in -- and combined with the demographic Baby-Boomer Retirement Bulge, there will be a Financial Reckoning Day.
And then (of whatever is left), everything's up for grabs.
If you say that this will not happen "in our lifetime", I respectfully beg to differ: I'm only 31. I can't imagine that it won't happen in my lifetime.
Best, OP
Alright, kemosabe...
See, "Once Upon A Time", there were these Ten Families living in a Village, okay?
And these Ten Families agreed together that they would all use the same standards of weights and measures in contracts and so forth, and that if the Village were ever attacked then every Family would send out a man with a rifle to defend the Village, and that the Ten Families would meet together in a Village Council, from time to time, in order to adjudicate disputes.... you following me so far?
But, see, there came a time, in the course of a Village Council, when Seven of the Families made up their minds to Impose a Ruling that all of the Ten Families should be required to provide a tithe of their income, every year, in order to hire a certain Mr. Karl Marx who would teach the children of the Village about Evolution, and Homosexuality, and Abortion, and all sorts of fine stuff; and if the Three Non-Consenting Families didn't like that, well, then, the Seven Families would require them to pay the tithes to Mr. Marx anyway, whether they liked it or not (on threat of imprisonment and taking their children away)!
The Moral of the Parable is this (in question form) -- You are a fundamental believer in the morality of Totalitarian Theft and Kidnapping, as a proper system of governance. YES, or NO?
Before I debate you, I just want to be clear on this.
Best, OP
This is called assuming the conclusion. The only coding system under discussion is in living cells, and this system resembles nothing produced by humans, except in the limited cases where we have tried to imitate it.
The really interesting thing about the code analogy is that there are whole classes of useful problems in the real world that are best solved by genetic programming -- methods that imitate natural selection. The real time management of the power grid is an example.
There is nothing unintelligent about natural selection. It is, in fact, the way brains work.
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