Darwin smacked in new U.S. poll (69% of Americans Want alternate theories allowed in class)

WorldnetDaily.Com ^ | 03/07/2006

[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."

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I read the most amazing statistics this morning...

Since the universe began, 10 to the power of 18 seconds have elapsed.

The diversity of information in the Library of Congress is on the order of 10 raised to the power of 40.

Hemoglobin is diverse to the 10 raised to the power of 650 -- meaning that the units comprising hemoglobin could in theory be rearranged in that many different combinations.

And finally, the potential diversity of the DNA in the simple T4 bacteriophage is 10 raised to the power of 78,000!

Only one of those combinations would actually be hemoglobin or a T4 bacteriophage, respectively.

[js1138]

More charming than the frothing at the mouth exhibited by some.

[Elsie]

 

 

Evolution isn't predictive.....

560 posted on 03/08/2006 1:41:48 PM CST by Thatcherite

Wait a dang minute here!!!!

Which way do you want it ??????

 

It isn't just any old similarity, but a highly "specified" pattern of similarity that matches the predictions of common descent and pre-existing beliefs about the chain of descent.

551 posted on 03/08/2006 1:32:11 PM CST by Thatcherite

[Elsie]

By specializing to exclusivity on a particular food source (bamboo) which has subsequently become constricted in it's range.

Is this like that cactus in the desert that is the ONLY food for a certain bird (or insect; I don't remember the details) and that creature is the ONLY pollinater of it?

[Right Wing Professor]

Only one of those combinations would actually be hemoglobin or a T4 bacteriophage, respectively.

Nonsense. You yourself have had two different hemoglobins in your blood in a single lifetime.

[js1138]

I know almost nothing about math, but I am not only amazed; I am skeptical. I think your numbers are BS.

Starting with the assumption that the information content of the Library of Congress is greater than the number of seconds since the creation of the universe, and going downhill from there.

[narby]

Bravo #537. Very well said.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Since the universe began, 10 to the power of 18 seconds have elapsed.

Well, that can't be right - that's waaaayyyy more than 10,000 years.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Age of the universe in seconds = 4.4x10¹⁷, give or take a few here or there. What's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

[darbymcgill]

So you're claiming that we should tell students all the possible evidence there might be against evolution, but we haven't checked yet?

No...

Can you tell me difference between these two statements, if made by scientists...

[circa 1990] there is no scientific evidence that points to the existence of the Wollemi pine...

[circa 2006] there is no scientific evidence that points to the intelligent design of life.

[Right Wing Professor]

Age of the universe in seconds = 4.4x1017, give or take a few here or there. What's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

439,272,609,293,765,199 seconds from the time I typed this period -> .

Yes, I've decided to found a new religion. Here endeth the first lesson.

[Right Wing Professor]

Age of the universe in seconds = 4.4x1017, give or take a few here or there. What's a few orders of magnitude between friends?

439,272,609,293,765,199 seconds from the time I typed this period -> .

Yes, I've decided to found a new religion. Here endeth the first lesson.

[microgood]

These nested similarities have nothing to do with function, so similar design is not a credible explanation.

Why not?

[Right Wing Professor]

And the second (repetition always helps).

[Senator Bedfellow]

Wait, I lost count! Is there no hope for me?

[narby]

We would expect chimps to have similar genomes to humans whether we have a common ancestor or not.

Why? If the majority of the genome is junk, then it could be completely different junk and not effect the result at all. The genes could be distributed completely different on a dramatically different number of chromosomes, yet still code the same proteins.

[Right Wing Professor]

Is there no hope for me?

Once you've served your 9,284,397 years in purgatory, you will have paid your dues.

Of course, I can offer you an indulgence, 50% off this week only.

[Thatcherite]

I predicted that you'd respond that. "Evolution isn't predictive" in no way contradicts the fact that predictions can be made using the theory of evolution. Only a moron would think that it did, so I'll assume that you were joking.

[Elsie]

Yes, but since we have a large volume of data, we can quantify the error.

 

HOW TO PROVE IT

proof by accumulated evidence:

Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample.

proof by example:

The author gives only the case n = 2 and suggests that it contains most of the ideas of the general proof.

proof by intimidation:

"Trivial."

proof by vigorous handwaving:

Works well in a classroom or seminar setting.

proof by cumbersome notation:

Best done with access to at least four alphabets and special symbols.

proof by exhaustion:

An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof is useful.

proof by omission:

"The reader may easily supply the details"

"The other 253 cases are analogous"

"..."

proof by obfuscation:

A long plotless sequence of true and/or meaningless syntactically related statements.

proof by wishful citation:

The author cites the negation, converse, or generalization of a theorem from the literature to support his claims.

proof by funding:

How could three different government agencies be wrong?

proof by eminent authority:

"I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete."

proof by personal communication:

"Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete [Karp, personal communication]."

proof by reduction to the wrong problem:

"To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem."

proof by reference to inaccessible literature:

The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883.

proof by importance:

A large body of useful consequences all follow from the proposition in question.

proof by cosmology:

The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God.

proof by mutual reference:

In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in reference A.

proof by metaproof:

A method is given to construct the desired proof. The correctness of the method is proved by any of these techniques.

proof by picture:

A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well with proof by omission.

proof by vehement assertion:

It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the audience.

proof by ghost reference:

Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in the reference given.

proof by forward reference:

Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first.

proof by semantic shift:

Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed for the statement of the result.

proof by appeal to intuition:

Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here.

[Thatcherite]

600