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.
"And that was my query: does the YEC school have a formal geological timeline?"
Let's scratch the word "timeline", as dealing with a single, year-long event it is probably more apt to say "stage".
Not all YECs agree on the how the layering corresponds to which flood stage. The end of the flood is probably the most disagreed upon, as some use the K/T boundary, while others think that it was later in the Cenozoic strata. However, I'm not familiar with any YEC who disagrees with the notion that the Pre-cambrian/Cambrian boundary marks the beginning of the flood, though they might disagree with secular geologists as to where that should be set (creationists would be looking for a global discontinuity while evolutionists would be looking for multicellular life and perhaps dating mechanisms -- usually they agree but I'm sure there are a few areas where it doesn't).
A good overview of a YEC geology framework is here:
http://www.biblicalgeology.net/
The first thing, though, is that while YECs and secular geology agree to the existance of the paleozoic, mesozoic, and cenozoic, because of their very different views of things the assignments may be different. With the subdivisions of those, however, I _think_ the general YEC position is that the subdivisions are more local, and therefore defining a worldwide correspondence of such layers simply is not a worthwhile proposition.
As for the date of the flood, many YECs use Ussher's chronology. Others have disagreements with Ussher's chronology. However, Ussher's chronology basically coincides with both the Mayan date for the flood as well as the pre-Christian European date of creation. Creationists typically favor written history over other types of dating mechanisms. I explain that here:
http://crevobits.blogspot.com/2006/02/history-creation-observables-and.html
Anyway, I haven't had time to research chronology, so I'm taking a wild stab from memory, but I think the typical date for the flood was 2,000 to 3,000 BC. The waters which were warmed by the flood activity caused increase precipitation, which caused the ice age. Shortly after the ice age is when the story of Abraham begins.
A good introductory textbook on Creationary geology is Walker's Grand Canyon, Monument to Catastrophe:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932766331/
A good introduction to YEC biology is Understanding the Pattern of Life:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805427147/
Finally, you might be interested in my blog:
http://baraminology.blogspot.com/
If you don't know much about creationism, you might go back to the beginning of the archives and read from there.
So two whole eras, the Paleozoic and Mesozoic together, are the biblical flood. A period of about half a billion years as people both sane and familiar with the evidence reason it compresses to about one year by most YEC accounts.
An interesting theory, that one, with clear predictions. Most or all of that slice of the geologic column should be a single layer sorted by "Stokes's Law." IOW, the last thing you would expect to see would be lots of fine and quite distinct layers. There should be no appearance and extinction horizons within the deposits of a single flood, so no new species should appear or old ones go extinct at any specific horizons in that interval, especially since there shouldn't be specific horizons in a Stokes's Law sort. There should be no deposits of terrestrial lavas when all the world is underwater.
I could go on, but enough is enough. Your theory doesn't predict the world we have. Not a bit. It's ludicrously wrong. It's what the honest creationist geologists realized in the late 1700s at the end of the time when one could be such a thing. They really tried to interpret the geologic column as modern YECs suggest. The last of that breed, one Adam Sedgwick, threw in the towel in 1831.
OK, I've rechecked JohnnyB's original post, and I think I get the point, but I am happy to be corrected if I am misunderstanding; let me replay how I read it:
Theoretically, I could travel with both a YEC geologist and a 'standard' geologist to certain sites around the globe and ask each for an explanation of the terrain. At some sites, each would identify a geological formation which marked, say, the end of the Cambrian Period, with the geologist telling me that event was some 500 million years ago, and the YEC'er telling me the event was some circa 5,000 years ago. Each could also point to other geologic features which indicate the K/T boundary, which the geologist would tell me was 65 million years ago, and the YEC'er would tell me was one year later than the end of the Cambrian period (the flood having lasted 12 months, commencing with the end of the Cambrian Period and finishing at the K/T boundary.)
Now, the geologist points out intermediate features between these two endpoints, with the following approximate timeline: following the Cambrian period, we have the Ordovician (500-435 million years ago), then the Silurian (435-410 mya), the Devonian (410 to 355 mya), the Mississipian (325-355 mya), the Pennsylvanian (295-325 mya), the Triassic (250-203 mya), the Jurassic (203-135 mya), and the Cretaceous (135-65 mya).
Presumably, the YEC'er sees these same intermediate features between the Cambrian Period and the K/T boundary, but fits them into a timeline, not of some 435 million years, but of 12 months.
So what--my original query--does this timeline look like? Did the Triassic Period only last for a couple of weeks in April one year, with the Jurassic lasting through May?
In other words, if YEC geologists claim the end of the Cambrian as the beginning of a year-long flood, and the K/T boundary as the end, how do they account for all the intervening geological events?
Oops--while I was writing my post, you were writing yours; I will read your links, thanks for providing them
Yes. Your question is basically mine in 282. If you get a good answer, I'll want to know how you did it.
I was writing my post 283 while JohnnyB was writing his 281; I haven't had a chance yet to read the links he has provided (I may be some time ....)
The YEC literature tends to be entertaining, but one thing you don't see is a willingness to anticipate and deal with the more obvious questions. Good luck finding your answers!
I hope a stranger (but fellow FReeper) is allowed to offer heartiest congratulations on your new baby!
Why on earth, though, are you taking time to answer my posts -- your wife and baby surely need you more than FR just now!
Best wishes and blessings to your new arrival!
Since I didn't mention causation, you've probably misread my response. I said that the class probably was not worth the expense.
If I run an advertisement and my sales drop, I will change the ad, since I know that effective ads DO exist. I can speculate that perhaps they might have dropped more had I not run the ad, but I should ditch it because I did not get the desired result.
Adherence to right sexual practice DROPPED TREMENDOUSLY after running the sex ed year long ad.
I should switch.
Since the George Washington comment was a reply to an assertion that compulsary education works, it should be seen as a statement that other things work, too.
Which they do, and very well.
Private, parochial, and home schooling appears to get better results than does public schooling.
Since there are alternatives that do as well, and since history shows alternatives that work as well, then FLEXIBILITY is only rational.
Can man design life? I am not talking about invitro fertilization. Is man capable of making a cat or a dog?
Can man make a star or a planet? Here is your argument if you believe in natural selection Force after many years makes a human evolve and that human can make technological marvels like a car. You have a force that has no intelligence yet somehow, someway, man comes from it. Einstein evolves from this force. It is all random chance if no one directing the process. Think of Thomas Edison who took 1001 attempts to get the light bulb right. So you have to believe if no one is directing the process then there is a trial and error process until success occurs. It is like an automotive plant putting together a total car without any humans directing the process. Your saying you have a product without a manufacturer. A non-intelligent cause makes an intelligent effect.
Look at the precision of the earth. We are not too close to the sun or to far from the sun. Ex. Mercury and Pluto
Neither do we have the poisonous gases of other planets. So we just got lucky.
" I hope a stranger (but fellow FReeper) is allowed to offer heartiest congratulations on your new baby!
Why on earth, though, are you taking time to answer my posts -- your wife and baby surely need you more than FR just now!"
Thanks! This is #3, so it's not quite the drain that #1 and #2 were. And, since I'm only doing half-days this week, I actually have more spare time than usual. Right now he's sleeping on my chest while I type. There's not much else to do!
biblicalgeology.net has a lot of pages, but the ones you would find of interest would probably be:
http://www.biblicalgeology.net/model/detail.html
http://www.biblicalgeology.net/model/class.html
There are three reasons I know of suggested for the fossil sorting, and probably some combination of each is the truth:
(1) Ecological zonation -- the fossil record is the record of the ecological zones that the flood destroyed as it washed across the earth, starting at the ocean bottom and moving up.
(2) Physical sorting -- there are actually two ideas here. The first is that it is based on the number of days that a drowned animal will float before it sinks down. The other is that the massive earthquakes during the flood caused liquefication of the sediments, which caused the dead animals to be sorted by their buyancy
(3) Differential escape -- more mobile animals would be able to escape the floodwaters faster.
As to a lot of the details, I don't follow geology as well as I follow biology, so I'm not familiar with all of the creationary thinking. I'm also not good with the general geological lingo.
A good summary of creationary ideas from a creation geologist is here:
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=research&action=index&page=researchp_jb_debatehighlights
The geology arguments are about halfway down.
A comparison of the biblical geology model with the standard geology model for a specific area is here:
http://www.biblicalgeology.net/field_guides/brisbane-geological-history.html
Looking at this, it seems like Tas Walker favors a late Cenozoic flood/post-flood boundary, with the K/T boundary being the transition between filling and draining the earth.
Here is an article that may be of interest: The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation" by Clifford A. Cuffey.
The beginning of the multi-part article is here.
There are three reasons I know of suggested for the fossil sorting, and probably some combination of each is the truth:Actually, trying to combine these incompatible answers is ridiculous and offers no hope of matching the explanatory power of conventional geology plus evolution.(1) Ecological zonation -- the fossil record is the record of the ecological zones that the flood destroyed as it washed across the earth, starting at the ocean bottom and moving up.
(2) Physical sorting -- there are actually two ideas here. The first is that it is based on the number of days that a drowned animal will float before it sinks down. The other is that the massive earthquakes during the flood caused liquefication of the sediments, which caused the dead animals to be sorted by their buyancy
(3) Differential escape -- more mobile animals would be able to escape the floodwaters faster.
Just for example, I mentioned back in 282 that we should have no dry-land volcanic lava forms for the period alleged to Noah's Flood. But many of those wonderful Cretaceous Chinese feathered dinosaurs are buried in Pompeii-style dry-land ashfalls, not undersea pillow lava. What's worse for a single-flood scenario, these ashfall layers are interspersed with more mundane sedimentary rocks in such a way as to suggest multiple eruptions over long periods of geologic time interspersed long periods of tranquility.
I'll let the American Museum of Natural History press release for one of the finds describe the setting more fully.
Consisting of layers of volcanic and sedimentary rock, the Yixian Formation in China's Liaoning Province has yielded an enormous variety of fossil fish, birds, insects, reptiles, shrimp, flowers, mammals, and dinosaurs dating back to late Jurassic and early Cretaceous times-between 145 and 120 million years ago. At that time, the region was dotted with freshwater lakes and volcanoes. Volcanic explosions rained fine ash into the lakes, and animals that died or fell into the water were quickly buried in the fine-grained sediment at the bottom. Because they were buried so quickly, with so little oxygen available to promote decay, the fossil animals found in the Yixian Formation have delicate features almost impossibly preserved from feathers and fish scales to patterns on insect wings.Note that this is about 15 million years of the early Cretaceous in which it is very hard to see at least that part of the world underwater or operating in a very speeded-up fashion. (More on that important fossil find here.)"These fossils have dramatically changed the way we understand what life was like during late Jurassic and early Cretaceous times," said Ji Qiang.
Then there's the lack of explanation in any or all combined of your pseudoanswers for why the fossil record seems to record phylogenetic trees. I'll let Keith B. Miller explain this one better.
Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record.
The running theme of that article is that, as you go back in time, initially "unrelated" lineages become more and more related to each other until you pass a "merge" point and there's only one lineage. There are many, many, examples given at several levels in the taxonomic hierarchy. It's a tree structure, the phylogenetic tree of life. The more dots we have to connect, the more they relentlessly draw a tree structure. We observe a very similar thing--very similar indeed--when we analyze extant life forms by their proteins and/or DNA.
Darwin predicted an increasingly connected-up tree of life on the basis of incredibly sparse data in 1859. Very little of the fossil record we can cite now was known then. Nevertheless, his theory demanded that a tree of true common descent must have existed. He predicted it, noting that very little of the world had been geologically/paleontologically explored in his day. You wouldn't know it from reading YEC literature, but that's a stunning prediction abundantly fulfilled. Shame the guy gets no credit. He was either a seer or the luckiest charlatan with a bad theory in history, but just how he could have done that is unaddressed by people who don't like him.
By comparison, in explanatory power, nothing in "ecological zonation and/or physical sorting and/or differential escape" is in the ballpark on "Why does it always make a tree?". Nothing wanders into the same county as the ballpark.
If I recall correctly, I was taught that the various major fields of science traced their roots to philosophy.
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