Criticism Of Evolution Can't Be Silenced

Eagle Forum ^ | August 16, 2006 | Mrs. Schlafly

[jla]

Criticism Of Evolution Can't Be Silenced

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by Phyllis Schlafly, August 16, 2006

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The liberal press is gloating that the seesaw battle for control of the Kansas Board of Education just teetered back to pro-evolutionists for the second time in five years. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the movement to allow criticism of evolution are grossly exaggerated.

In its zeal to portray evolution critics in Kansas as dumb rural fundamentalists, a New York Times page-one story misquoted Dr. Steve Abrams (the school board president who had steered Kansas toward allowing criticism of evolution) on a basic principle of science. The newspaper had to correct its error.

The issue in the Kansas controversy was not intelligent design and certainly not creationism. The current Kansas standards state: "To promote good science, good pedagogy and a curriculum that is secular, neutral and non-ideological, school districts are urged to follow the advice provided by the House and Senate Conferees in enacting the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."

This "advice," which the Kansas standards quote, is: "The Conferees recognize that quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society."

The newly elected school board members immediately pledged to work swiftly to restore a science curriculum that does not subject evolution to criticism. They don't want students to learn "the full range of scientific views" or that there is a "controversy" about evolution.

Liberals see the political value to teaching evolution in school, as it makes teachers and children think they are no more special than animals. Childhood joy and ambition can turn into depression as children learn to reject that they were created in the image of God.

The press is claiming that the pro-evolution victory in Kansas (where, incidentally, voter turnout was only 18 percent) was the third strike for evolution critics. Last December a federal judge in Dover, Pennsylvania, prohibited the school from even mentioning Intelligent Design, and in February, the Ohio board of education nixed a plan to allow a modicum of critical analysis of evolution.

But one strikeout does not a ball game win. Gallup Polls have repeatedly shown that only about 10 percent of Americans believe the version of evolution commonly taught in public schools and, despite massive public school indoctrination in Darwinism, that number has not changed much in decades.

Intelligent judges are beginning to reject the intolerant demands of the evolutionists. In May, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned the decision by a Clinton-appointed trial judge to prohibit the Cobb County, Georgia, school board from placing this sticker on textbooks: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Fortunately, judges and politicians cannot control public debate about evolution. Ann Coulter's new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," has enjoyed weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

Despite bitter denunciations by the liberals, funny thing, there has been a thundering silence about the one-third of her book in which she deconstructs Darwinism. She calls it the cosmology of the Church of Liberalism.

Coulter's book charges that evolution is a cult religion, and described how its priests and practitioners regularly treat critics as religious heretics. The Darwinists' answer to every challenge is to accuse their opponents of, horrors, a fundamentalist belief in God.

Although the liberals spent a lot of money to defeat members of the Kansas school board members on August 1, they are finding it more and more difficult to prop up Darwinism by the censorship of criticism. The polite word for the failure of Darwinism to prove its case is gaps in the theory, but Ann Coulter's book shows that dishonesty and hypocrisy are more accurate descriptions.

Evolutionists are too emotionally committed to face up to the failure of evidence to support their faith, but they are smart enough to know that they lose whenever debate is allowed, which is why they refused the invitation to present their case at a public hearing in Kansas. But this is America, and 90 percent of the public will not remain silenced.

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Further Reading: Evolution

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[Sentis]

You are disrespectful and smug but I expect that nonsense from evangelicals who have blinded themselves to rational truth.

Let's turn your question around.

What is your faith in? Is it in the bible or in God? Are the two the same or is the bible a bunch of fanciful stories written by primitive people to explain the universe but failing miserably in doing that? Do I need to tell you what your supposed to have faith in? Shouldn't you know?

If you have faith I want you to say in this forum that you believe god made a pile of mud and breathed into it life. I want you to tell us you really believe Eve was made from a rib. I want you to tell us God made different languages because men built a building too high. I want you to admit there was a flood that totally covered the Earth. If you can't admit these things then you might want to look into some real science that explains the Earth and doesn't use obvious myth to explain the world.

[wyattearp]

Some people on this forum think that "liberal" means "doesn't attend my church". It gets annoying. They tend to throw insults around like chicken feed, which is also annoying. The moderator tolerates it from them to such an extent that it they are encouraged to do it even more, which is extremely annoying.

I've been here about 3 years. Anybody can check my posting history. The only people that would think me liberal don't understand the meaning of the word. They also don't understand that the word "conservative" does not mean "attends my church". It is annoying (they wont even read Bastiat because he's "french").

Sometimes, like now, it flat out pisses me off.

[muir_redwoods]

"Criticism Of Evolution Can't Be Silenced"

Just like the braying of any ass

[Sentis]

It's not just annoying its dangerous to the cause of us conservatives. The "Not my Church" crowd are the people that drive masses of moderates and independants to vote democrat. They are the group that in fact with it's outspoken criticism of anyone they don't agree with spiritually has allowed the Democrats to get so much power. The Democrats can rightfully point at the Republicans and say see those hateful people on the right and those they are pointing at are the "Not my Church" crowd.

[wyattearp]

I used to have to deal with them a lot, mostly at conventions, when I worked for the Republican Party. Meanest people that I've ever met.

[Virginia-American]

...I love it when Phyllis uses Ann Coulter's book to support her statements...

You and the liberals.

[MarDav]

Why do you continue to duck my question? Further, why do you resort to such heated rhetoric--what are you so angry about? My guess is that one has to do with the other. Perhaps you've become angry and agitated because you have no answer to the question I posed to you based on what you, yourself, acknowledged--that you believe in some god, but can't explain what leads you to that belief. What is your god like? What is He/She/It capable of? What does She/He/It do? What role, if any did It/He/She play in creating, say, the energy that brought about the Big Bang? The matter that impacted at the Big Bang? Initiating the processes you call evolution? Creating the first protein? Producing the system of information we call DNA? Your unwillingness to give answers about the god you believe in and, more importantly, what leads you to faith in this god shows you to be both disingenuous (when it comes to talking about the belief-systems of others) and arrogant (by spewing invectives at those trying to engage in conversation, instead of giving answers to simple questions.

Further, why do you believe in this god? What stirred your heart to faith in the first place? What is faith anyhow? Why do you (why does anyone) have it? Why do you have faith in a god? Again, why does anyone have such faith? Do you (do we) need there to be a god out there? Why?

As to my beliefs, I admit to placing my faith in the Bible and the God of the Bible--though I wouldn't exactly describe the creation He intitiated in exactly the same way as you, I believe in the Biblical account. Makes far too much sense to me to believe that, given all the order, all the precision, all the detail, all the vastness, all the delicacy of creation, that it is evident there is a mind at work, and not some vast series of events that, by all statistical accounts, are impossible.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I only mean that, if it had been genuine, it would have solved a lot of problems.

Actually, if Piltdown had somehow turned out to be real, it would have thrown the human evolutionary picture into chaos. It would have been even worse than it is currently. ;)

There's a lot of good links here

[Virginia-American]

Great scientists like Copernicus and Gregor Mendel would likely be amused by your notion that Church and Science must remain separate.

Is that the same Copernicus who refused to publish until he knew he was on his death bed? The one who had to say that his theory was just a calculational trick, not reality?

But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore. (German: "Vernunft ... ist die höchste Hur, die der Teufel hat.")

-- Martin Luther

"People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool [or 'man'] wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

- Martin Luther, Table Talk

"Those who assert that 'the earth moves and turns'...[are] motivated by 'a spirit of bitterness, contradiction, and faultfinding;' possessed by the devil, they aimed 'to pervert the order of nature.'"

- John Calvin

...That's why scientists who express doubt about Darwinian evolution are excoriated and their livelihoods threatened.

Even those who are retired, emeritus, or independently wealthy? BTW what happened to Dembski, Behe, Hoyle, et al? Were any of them forced into early retirement, impoverished, or fired?

Behe testified in Dover that the definition of science would have to be weakened so much to include ID that it would have to include astrology as well. Why shouldn't such a person be ridiculed?

[Virginia-American]

..See, here's the missing link in a living species..

ring species

Wiki article

[MHGinTN]

I hope you do not take offense, I would like to address a few things in your post to Sentis.

You offered, "... given all the order, all the precision, all the detail, all the vastness, all the delicacy of creation, that it is evident there is a mind at work, and not some vast series of events that, by all statistical accounts, are impossible." First, the advent of life from the pre-life conditions is supportable in Genesis, thus not 'statistically impossible'. Second, there is an astonishing delicacy in the record of life on this marvelous orb. The Genesis account implies that life was the proper order of things as started with the first 'bara', and even states that the earth brought forth life. Science is gradually figuring out the particulars of how the Earth brought forth life.

Before addressing the biblical connections, allow me to offer that, as a big fan of minds which find patterns and seek to define the patterns, I see what Charles Darwin did as one of the finest examples of a mind discerning a pattern and then giving a pretty darn good accounting of that pattern given the current science of his day; Darwin's revelation of the pattern was downright inspiration! Subsequent developments in genetics and the discoveries regarding DNA complexity in gene expression have actually reinforced the better portions of Darwin's amazing pattern discovery. Now to the biblical connections.

The Hebrew word 'bara' (there should be a little 'tent' mark over each "a") conveys creation, as in something brand new brought into existence not shaded from something already existing. The word is used three times in Genesis: the creation of spacetime and light, the creation of land species taken broadly to mean multicellular animals, the creation of Adam as a living soul.

The second instance regarding multicellular animals may well be evidenced with the Cambrian explosion and the scarcity of such complex creatures gradually showing up in fossil records leading to the Cambrian explosion.

Reading Genesis with a seeking mind allows one to see that Adam (adamah is the Hebrew word for dust or slime of earth) was already an alive being but became a living soul with the breath of God into his nostrils. If one takes a long view in Genesis, God actually did form Adam from the dust of the ground, except it took billions of years to reach the Adam into whom God breathed His Spirit such that Adam's soul of life became spiritually endowed.

As to Eve and the rib ... red bone makes an excellent source for the stem cells one might use to alter existing genetic status in order to allow Adam to have a mate after being remade so special that he was unique on the Earth in his day. That wouldn't necessarily mean he could not mate with existing hominid females, but he was given a special mate perhaps having non-degraded mitochondria (for example). Scripture says plainly that Cain went into the land of Nod and took himself a wife. He wasn't mating with his sister there. And it is also likely from the biblical account that Adam fathered sons and daughters with females other than Eve. we are given the names of only three children resulting from the mating of Adam and Eve: Cain, Abel, and Seth.

[MHGinTN]

ping

[Vanders9]

If this school board is merely asking for a more critical assessment of this issue, that's surely a good thing.
If Sarah Brady is merely asking for a more efficient procedure to prevent criminals and the insane from obtaining guns, that's surely a good thing.

If Kim Jong-Il is merely asking for a more effective defense of his nation, that's surely a good thing.


The problem is that all three of the above motives are equally implausible.


I'm afraid you are probably right.

[MarDav]

My note to Sentis about the statistical impossibility related to the theory of evolution en toto, particularly the development of the the creation of proteins and DNA.

I am no scientist. I am not one who gets overly caught up in these evolution/creation debates, as I haven't the time to "study to show myself approved" in this area. I certainly must acknowledge those whose exploration of the sciences have gained for them the valuable information they use to respond to question about this topic. Where I take issue is when folks walk around with that information, non-definitive though it may be, and beat you over the head with it wondering why you, simple-minded you, are stuck somewhere in the...what was it? 6th century? That is arrogance, condescension, call it what you will. Evolutionists' time-frame for all this supposed evolving has changed as discoveries are made. Sometimes new discoveries have negated old findings, theories disproven and, rather than acknowledge that what is not known is sufficient to cause people to speculate, wonder, doubt, disbelieve, they revile you for not trusting, not believing them, after all they have all this knowledge already.

The creation account in Genesis talks about the pre-life conditions this way, "In the beginning, God..." The order of creation, then, certainly follows a distinct progression/order. There is nothing in the account, though, that suggests the pre-life conditions (God) had need for any 10's of billions of years happenstancical (new word, enjoy) series of events. It seems to me that would bring into question the pre-life condition we mentioned--God. If God is God, can He create? If God is God, can He form Adam from the dust? It's funny, but when you die that is exactly what your decaying mass becomes, why couldn't it start that way? Oh yeah, I forgot, because it's scientifically impossible. What that argument does is to take God and reduce Him to some fellow scientist, wearing a white lab coat standing in some cosmic laboratory carefully monitoring experiments. That's not the record of the God of the Bible. God, who created the laws of physics is greater than the laws of physics. He doesn't rely on them for his existence, neither is He limited by them in His actions. This understanding about God is flawed, erroneous, untrue. Speculations about, say, Cain's wife, are good for discussion, but do nothing in the way of advancing either biblical or scientific understanding. They only serve to frame arguments whereby we try to bring God into our line of thinking. This is not a good practice.

The God of the Bible looks for faith ("for without faith it is impossible to please Him,")--not blind faith, not simple-minded faith, but seeing faith. The scientific community and all their discoveries in the vastness of space, as well as in the complexity of the smallest observable microscopic organism can observe amazing wonders. What they are seeing is evidence of the God of the Bible and His creative mind. They are observing wonders, incredible things that speak of design, purpose, a mind at work. Creation proves God and His existence ("...that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse."--Rom. 1:19-20) Those verses are God's way of testifying to Himself, in part, about the role of creation--it is a testimony of His existence. It is God saying, "See and believe." Sometimes believing is seeing.

[Oberon]

Do you mean like ligers or mules?

Actually no, that's not what I mean. I don't know about ligers or tigons, but mules (and hinnies or jennies) are infertile. While donkeys and horses can interbreed, their offspring are not fertile...they're a generational dead-end.

With enough technology you can cross anything.

I'm certain that I disagree with that...but honestly, it requires no great technology to produce a mule. One simply gets a horse and an ass together, and they take care of business in the traditional way.

[Oberon]

OB, I see pictures of different-looking salamanders, but that doesn't make them different species. They may not interbreed, but that doesn't make them different species either.

I look very different from (say for example) the daughter of a Masai herdsman, and I will almost certainly never breed with one...but I assure you, she and I are the same species.

What we're seeing here is lots of conjecture on what might be a macroevolutionary process. I'll grant you that. However, until one of these salamanders is born with some fundamental genetic change, say, a different number of chromosomes from the previous generation, we're still at the micro-evolution level...changes within species.

Anyone with any sense will freely admit to adaptation within species. It's plain to see.

[capitalist229]

Why is it politically incorrect in this country to hold religion to the same rational standard as all other subject matter ?

BUMP

[Dante Alighieri]

You realize that the strictest definition of a species is the inability to breed with predecessors, right? Even by the strictest definition, they have speciated.

On MarDav's point - That's easy. Neither evolution nor abiogenesis is pure accident.

[MarDav]

"On MarDav's point - That's easy. Neither evolution nor abiogenesis is pure accident.

Please explain what you mean by the expression pure accident.

[Dante Alighieri]

I derived that from this passage in his post: "There is nothing in the account, though, that suggests the pre-life conditions (God) had need for any 10's of billions of years happenstancical (new word, enjoy) series of events."

Both evolution and abiogenesis are incremental step-wise processes that are not the result of a series of coincidences.