Posted on 03/07/2006 2:34:37 PM PST by SirLinksalot
Darwin smacked in new U.S. poll
Whopping 69 percent of Americans want alternate theories in classroom
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Posted: March 7, 2006 5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A new poll shows 69 percent of Americans believe public school teachers should present both the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution.
The Zogby International survey indicated only 21 percent think biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.
A majority of Americans from every sub-group were at least twice as likely to prefer this approach to science education, the Zogby study showed.
About 88 percent of Americans 18-29 years old were in support, along with 73 percent of Republicans and 74 percent of independent voters.
Others who strongly support teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory include African-Americans (69 percent), 35-54 year-olds (70 percent) and Democrats (60 percent).
Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture said while his group does not favor mandating the teaching of intelligent design, "we do think it is constitutional for teachers to discuss it precisely because the theory is based upon scientific evidence not religious premises."
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute is the leading promoter of the theory of Intelligent Design, which has been at the center of challenges in federal court over the teaching of evolution in public school classes. Advocates say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
"The public strongly agrees that students should be permitted to learn about such evidence," Luskin said.
The Discovery Institute noted Americans also support students learning about evidence for intelligent design alongside evolution in biology class 77 percent.
Just over half 51 percent agree strongly with that. Only 19 percent disagree.
As WorldNetDaily reported, more than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution.
The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.
The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."
Do you have any proof of the statements above? They look like opinions to me.
Can you think of an experiment that would prove or disprove the existence of this "Intelligent Force", or does its existence need to be taken on faith?
Evolutionist theory rests entirely upon a presupposition that life is an Immaculate Conception.
Think about that one for a minute...
The "origin of species" is rooted in the idea of a singularity: the mechanics of the DNA molecule. All species of Terran life has it. Like the singularity of the "Big Bang" theory, the two are categorically inseparable as immaculate conceptions. It only takes a mere application of logic.
The perplexing question of human origin from a common ancestor to apes is even more problematic. According to evolutionary theory, humans (Homo sapiens) did not descend from apes, but from some "missing link."
Although Dr. Louis Leaky spent decades searching and found Zinjanthropus and Homo habilis, Olduvai Gorge gave no answers. Logic also suggests in order to "descend," there has to be something you descend "from" and something you ascend "to."
Evolutionary theory rooted in the universal human dissatisfaction for mortality is a vain search for human origin(s), an attempt to rationalize a yearning for connection to something eternal.
Now, since nobody knows the answers, it is only scientific method to consider all points of view on the issue in education. To do otherwise would be like students dancing around totems, with professors as witch doctors proclaiming intellectual taboos and making sacrifices.
This is far worse than what the ersatz secularists accuse the creationists of doing!
Boy, someone could get rich if he wrote that stuff into a book and sold it - oh, wait...he did!
LOL
Evolutionist theory rests entirely upon a presupposition that life is an Immaculate Conception.
No it doesn't. The TOE does not address the origin of life. And I'm sure you've had that pointed out to you before.
But don't let that stop you from rambling on as if it did.
Subject: Re: Evidence for Evolution Date: 12 April 2005 Message-ID: ORQ6e.1284$t85.315@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com
Verily wrote:
> "OldMan" wrote in message news:1113277657.164115.220500@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
>>I am relatively new to the debate between Darwinian evolution and
>>intelligent design. I have read through a lot of posts on this forum
>>that argue one way or another, either for or against evolution. The
>>one thing I have yet to find is any evidence presented to support
>>macro-evolution. Evolution within a species seems to be pretty
>>obvious. I am more interested in any empirical evidence that supports
>>evolution from one species to another.
Ah, so it's evidence you want. Perhaps you would like to look at this:
Evidence for human relationships to the other apes.
Here is a set of DNA sequences. They come from two mitochondrial genes, ND4 and ND5. If you put them together, they total 694 nucleotides. But most of those nucleotides either are identical among all the species here, or they differ in only one species. Those are uninformative about relationships, so I have removed them, leaving 76 nucleotides that make some claim. I'll let you look at them for a while.
[ 10 20 30 40 50] [ . . . . .] + 1 2++ 3 11 +4 3 ++ 52+1 2615+4 14+ 3 3+6+ gibbon ACCGCCCCCA TCCCCTCCCT CAAGTCCTAT CCAATCTACT GTACTTTGCC orangutan ACCACTCCCA CCCTTCCTCC TAAGACTCAC ACAACTCGCC ACACCTCGTC human GTCATCATCC TTCTTTTTTT AGGAATTTCC TCTCTCCGTC ACGCTCTACT chimpanzee ATTACCATTC CTTTTTTCCC CGGATTCTCC CTTCTTCATT ATGTCTCATT gorilla GTTGTTATTA CCTCCCTTTC AAGAACCCCT TTCACCTATC GCGTCCCACT [ 60 70 ] [ . . ] +++ +++1 + +? 2 + +++ gibbon CCTACAGCCC AGCCAAACGA CACTAA orangutan CCTACCGCCT AGCCATTTCA CACTAA human CCCCTTATTT TCTTGTCCGG TGACCG chimpanzee TTCCTCATTT TCTTACTCAG TGACCG gorilla TTCCTTATTC TTTCGCCTAG TGATTA
I've marked with a plus sign all those sites at which gibbon and orangutan match each other, and the three African apes (including humans) have a different base but match each other. These sites all support a relationship among the African apes, exclusive of gibbon and orangutan. You will note there are quite a lot of them, 24 to be exact. The sites I have marked with numbers from 1-6 contradict this relationship. (Sites without numbers don't have anything to say about this particular question.) We expect a certain amount of this because sometimes the same mutation will happen twice in different lineages; we call that homoplasy. However you will note that there are fewer of these sites, only 22 of them, and more importantly they contradict each other. Each number stands for a different hypothesis of relationships; for example, number one is for sites that support a relationship betwen gibbons and gorillas, and number two is for sites that support a relationship between orangutans and gorillas (all exclusive of the rest). One and two can't be true at the same time. So we have to consider each competing hypothesis separately. If you do that it comes out this way:
hypothesis sites supporting African apes (+) 24 gibbon+gorilla (1) 6 orangutan+gorilla (2) 4 gibbon+human (3) 4 gibbon+chimp (4) 3 orangutan+human (5) 2 orangutan+chimp (6) 2
I think we can see that the African ape hypothesis is way out front, and the others can be attributed to random homoplasy. This result would be very difficult to explain by chance.
Let's try a statistical test just to be sure. Let's suppose, as our null hypothesis, that the sequences are randomized with respect to phylogeny (perhaps because there is no phylogeny) and that apparent support for African apes is merely a chance fluctuation. And let's try a chi-square test. Here it is:
These are all the possible hypotheses of relationship, and the observed number of sites supporting them. Expected values would be equal, or the sum/7. There are 6 degrees of freedom, and the sum of squares is 57.8. P, or the probability of this amount of asymmetry in the distribution arising by chance, is very low. When I tried it in Excel, I got P=1.25*10^-10, or 0.000000000125. Might as well call that zero, I think.
hypothesis obs. exp. African apes (+) 24 6.43 gibbon+gorilla (1) 6 6.43 orangutan+gorilla (2) 4 6.43 gibbon+human (3) 4 6.43 gibbon+chimp (4) 3 6.43 orangutan+human (5) 2 6.43 orangutan+chimp (6) 2 6.43 sum 45 45
The difference is significant. Now the question is how you account for it. I account for it by supposing that the null hypothesis is just plain wrong, and that there is a phylogeny, and that the phylogeny involves the African apes, including Homo, being related by a common ancestor more recent than their common ancestor with orangutans or gibbons. How about you?
By itself, this is pretty good evidence for the African ape connection. But if I did this little exercise with any other gene I would get the same result too. (If you don't believe me I would be glad to do that.) Why? I say it's because all the genes evolved on the same tree, the true tree of evolutionary relationships. That's the multiple nested hierarchy for you.
So what's your alternative explanation for all this? You say...what? It's because of a necessary similarity between similar organisms? But out of these 76 sites with informative differences, only 18 involve differences that change the amino acid composition of the protein; the rest can have no effect on phenotype. Further, many of those amino acid changes are to similar amino acids that have no real effect on protein function. In fact, ND4 and ND5 do exactly the same thing in all organisms. These nested similarities have nothing to do with function, so similar design is not a credible explanation.
God did it that way because he felt like it? Fine, but this explains any possible result. It's not science. We have to ask why god just happened to feel like doing it in a way that matches the unique expectations of common descent.
This sounds reasonable.
Yet none of the ID advocates have uncovered anything remotely close to "scientific evidence against it".
("why are there still monkeys?!?" not withstanding)
"nothing in science is ever "proven beyond all doubt"."
true, but some things are more certain than others, for example, the process of how the digestive system works, which is pretty much known as fact and not a theory.
This is a ridiculous statement. A lot of points of view have been discarded from science long ago--they simply did not meet the standards. When you go to a hotel and get your key, do you check each and every door, or do you let past experience and logic guide you to the proper one?
(And nowadays dancing around totems is usually restricted to Friday nights. Not like the good old days! Why, I could tell you tales of grad school... )
Ah God, not *this* again.
Talking to creationists is like a never ending conversation with Leonard Shelby from Memento.
Well at least you don't have to read Jabba the Hutts long list-o=links.
And yet in post #50 you wrote:
well what else would an athiest believe? That we simply materialized, or were put here by aliens?
So you would be the only atheist in existence that had reason to be skeptical? On the contrary, I believe you were completely accurate in your first statement.
And along those lines I contend that the vast majority of anti-evolutionists are desperately looking for reasons to doubt the ToE simply because they feel their beliefs are threatened. So much so that they will latch onto pretty much any rationalization that comes along, whether or not they understand the concepts behind it, fully agree with the motivations behind it, or how much money those promoting their particular flavor of anti-darwinism are making off the flocks of people who are begging to believe them.
In the end, they use Darwinian logic to fit the pieces together, but it grieviously injures the assertion that ERV's are the end-all to assigning absolute relationships.
Well, I guess that's your interpretation. I agree with the authors that in fact what it did was confirm the utility of ERVs in exploring evolutionary divergences.
"God" is an obvious choice for designer (of the universe) but a god is not necessary to conclude that there is some design in the mechanism of life.
(Of course, they might both be simple accidents based on not simple coincidences, which we are busily speculating over)
In my opinion (not a theory by your definition) there is a mechanism at work.
I would have to stretch well into the realm of faith to accept the random arrival of better, or more successful, or more reasonable looking distinct creatures, all based on a hopeful guess that (again) random chemicals, lying about in luckily well stirred pools of other chemicals, at the right temperature, on a wednesday, were struck by a random lightening bolt and decided to start swimming and breeding...based on Darwin or on anything presented so far to substantiate that claim.
I'm sure I will be shown to be painfully ignorant of current ideology, but I don't think Darwin presumed that his observations were any more reflective of the meaning of life than did monty Python when they offered up their version.
o the extent of the debate I've seen so far, 'evolution' is being used either as a cover story for secular survival or as a knee jerk defense against the questioning of your beliefs.
(I prefer to believe the latter)
Two opposing view points, each with strong support and deep roots, should be allowed to face one another - not be dictated by courts or by a stone wall.
"Recycling the same old stuff I see."
that was an extremely dumb statement,ml1954. I guess you don't believe in saving any essays, files, reports, writings, or anything else you've ever written to reference in the future.
On a previous evolution thread, I compiled a few challenges to evolution. What's wrong with using them again, especially when my post was directed not to you, busybody, but to another poster whom I had never shared those points with before.
I don't have the time to go rephrasing my previous posts or looking for more information when I have already compiled it. And why should I, if I have already compiled the information I want?
Now do you understand?
Maybe you think my tagline and other quotes from historical figures are "recycled old stuff" too.
What BS.
What do you expect? its WND.
One step above NewsMax, which is one step above Debka.
Hi zeeba neighba, LOL I love that comic, my favorite one is when the alligator gets fired from the fast food place for threatening to eat the zebra :-)
No. I'd answer encyclopedia. Each of the word is related to 'encyclopedia' by a one letter change.
Otherwise you are assuming what you are trying to prove.
If I list those five versions of 'encyclopedia', and say they look like they're all copies of a single word with a small number of errors, what am I assuming?
I see similarity and see similarity.
You see similarity and choose to look no further. Fine. But don't say we have no evidence, because similarity is evidence. It's one thing to decide not to look at it. That's a choice. It's another to claim there is none. That's a falsehood.
Nor do I see how this gets you to a creature which you have no genetic information for?
But I gave you the eyecolor - which is genetic information - for a creature - your grandfather -for which you had no genetic information. All I had to do was look what was common to his descendants. Is it really for hard for you to see that if we have gigabytes of genetic information - not just one characteristic- for hundreds of different descendants, we can piece together what the genome of the ancestor looked like, even though we don't have any direct information about it?
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