Keep Darwin's 'lies' out of Polish schools: education official

"Actually evolution is both a fact and a theory. The fact part is that organisms and populations change from generation to generation."

The science of changing the frequency of preexisting information within a population of a specific kind of animal has been around for thousands of years also called selective breeding, whether or not natural selection was the breeder or not. Belief in abiogenesis and belief that random mutations (Natural selection does not produce anything new) can produce enough new beneficial information to produce life as we observe it in any amount of time is a belief in the extremely improbable.

"And as for the skull pictures (posted upthread). Can you tell me which of the skulls are apes and which are humans? And why?"

...no need to waste bandwidth and reiterate DannyTNs comments. I added a couple of comments here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1685390/posts?page=533#533

There's plenty of science that isn't anti-Christian.

What science do you believe is "anti-Christian"? Explain how your examples are actually "anti-Christian".

You don't have to rub childrens' faces in atheism.

How, exactly, do you believe that this is being done?

Whether the word is used in the vernacular or the technical sense, it is not the place of evolutionists to make positive statements in science class when their theory, like all theories, is subject to competing theories.

The problem is that there are none.

In regard to the first question: Chaos, i.e. the disintegration of particle matter into such a form as to make the universe unintelligible and science impossible.

Nice and vague, because you know it will not happen. Show me something real. All Flying Spaghetti Monsterism needs for falsification is for us to find out that there is no spaghetti sauce in the universe, so it passes the criteria too.

For a real example in the ToE, we just need to find fossils that are far out of place in the dating in order for the ToE to take a huge hit, possibly complete falsification. We find fossils all the time, all it takes is for one to be found out of place.

As an aside, if you are going to make falsification the ultimate test of whether a theory is scientific, then you will have to discard every axiom science works with

As usual, the basic problem with IDers is a lack of understanding of science. Every theory has falsification criteria, due to the accepted tentative nature of every theory.

In regard to the second question, intelligent design predicts that organized matter will be found, and will demonstrate cause and effect.

It's already been found. You need to predict that some specific thing will be found in the future. The ToE did, said certain intermediate fossils must exist. In fact, Darwin said his theory was in jeopardy if they weren't found. Guess what, they were.

and will demonstrate cause and effect.

What cause? What effect? You need to lay down concrete terms for scientists to quit laughing at you.

One need look no further than a single atom or molecule to have evidence from which to infer intelligent design.

I say the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it. I might take you seriously if you could tell me that in your heart you truly accept that it could be the Flying Spaghetti Monster that is responsible for the order of things.

You are not concerned about someone falsly claiming to be Jesus Christ?

No, Jesus said many false Christs will come, he's just one more.

Nice and vague, because you know it will not happen.

Actually, it is unjustified. Fester has repeatedly asserted that "the disintegration of particle matter into such a form as to make the universe unintelligible and science impossible" would falsify intelligent design, but he has steadfastly refused to explain why "Intelligent Design" predicts that such an event should never occur. If it cannot be explained why an event should never occur according to an explanation, then that event cannot be considered a falsification criteria, and claiming that it is a falsification criteria is fundamentaly dishonest.

And I don't take them out of context.

Of course you do. You proudly and obsessively collect lists of the times that people have said something uncomplimentary about you, then replay them many many times in many threads, including bringing it up in the current thread, as well as immortalizing them in your bizarrely self-obsessed homepage ("here's what people think of me, and the form letters I've received from famous people!"), presenting them *entirely* out of context by quoting just a few words of each example without any context whatsoever (nor a link back to the original) so that readers can have a chance to see whether the negative assessments of you were justified by your behavior which they were commenting upon.

You have in fact flatly refused to link your homepage quote snippet of me to the relevant context -- the original exchange from which you lifted my comment, when I insisted that you either link to that exchange if you wished to keep it on your homepage, or remove it from your childish list of grievances over the times that (gasp) someone online found reason to remark negatively about your behavior. You hold grudges over such "affronts" like some people display trophies.

You re-quoted this snippet from me yet again on this thread, as you have on other threads, despite your knowledge that I have told you the honorable thing for you to do would be to either link it back to the original exchange, or remove it.

Here is where I asked you the following:

And speaking of honorable things, on your Freeper homepage you provide an out-of-context quote from one of my posts -- why don't you go ahead and turn that quote into a link to the original post, so that readers can see for themselves why I was saying what I did about you in that quote snippet, and that I documented my reasons for saying it? Why not do that, rather than leaving them with the false impression that all I did was some kind of empty ad hominem? Gosh, you wouldn't be trying to mislead your readers, would you? That would be totally uncharacteristic behavior for an anti-evolutionist... Oh, wait, no it wouldn't.
Do the right thing for a change and alert your ping list to this post, and turn the quote in your Freeper homepage into a link to the post from which it comes.

You then refused, to which I responded:

But no, I’m sorry, I don’t see the need to source exactly why you said what you said.
I do.
Everyone in the creation ping list will be reading this thread and see that, while you are correct and I made an error, your attitude means you would bash me and my creationist compatriots if you had no reason other than that we disliked your brand of chewing gum.
Say what? Even leaving aside the ludicrousness and falseness of that outburst, what does that have to do with whether the honorable thing to do would be to link to the post of mine you quote out of context?
It’s also interesting to note that, you wish for me to show the context so people can see why your quote is justified. I honestly wouldn’t find any such quote justified (from creationist or evolutionist) regardless of the background.
Leave that decision up to the readers of your homepage. I am less interested in your opinion on that matter than theirs. And if you feel you are correct, you would have no reason not to link to the original post, since it would not change anyone's opinion of that out-of-context quote, right? So go for it.
I find it interesting that you are trying to justify the remark at all. This means you are adhering to a standard, a Universal Law as Lewis called it, that if that background hasn’t been in place, you would not have been justified to be trashing me like you did.
Look, the point is that negative comments about someone are unjustified if they're not true, justified if they are an accurate description. In short, the truth is a valid defense against accusations of slander. Your inclusion of just that one snippet gives the false impression that I was slandering you, when in fact I was summarizing an assessment I had spent a long post documenting.
Link it to the original post, or feel free to remove it from your "list o' invective". I would find either acceptable.
Also, judging from your Freeper homepage, you seem to have an unhealthy fascination with the number of people who have formed bad opinions of you strong enough to tell you about them. Most people are dismayed if large numbers of people arrive at bad conclusions about them. You seem oddly proud of it. Ponder the wisdom of the old saying: "If everything seems to be coming your way, perhaps you're in the wrong lane." Maybe you're doing something to justify the invective aimed in your direction.

You chose not to respond, you chose to continue to leave that out-of-context snippet up on your homepage, you chose not to provide the actual context (via a link to the post in which it was made), and you chose to continue to repost it to many threads as if you were bizarrely proud of how often people have found reason to mention how bad your behavior has been.

If you can't bring yourself to be honorable, at least seek help for your unhealthy obsession with the times that people have formed negative opinions of you, as well as for your rank hypocrisy: You express astonishment over the very notion that my remark that you were an "uninformed hack" on biology could ever be a justifiable assessment from any side of the debate, and somehow an affront to "Universal Law", and yet *you* feel free to make such remarks (made BEFORE any of the remarks of mine you've whined about) as:

"Your brash and infantile challenge(s)" (2/17/05)
"I've met your kind before, and frankly, they've been the most troll-ish people I've ever met." (02/17/2005)
"You sir (ma'am?) are entirely without respect for others and their opinions" (02/17/2005)
"You show your bias even as you type, to the ruin of your credibility as unprejudiced." (8/19/2005)
"It’s not like me to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent such as yourself" (8/19/2005)
"They look after their own, and ignore those who they disagree with, like good little closed-minded elitists." (8/19/2005)
"You are biased against them from the beginning, and pretending to be anything other is patently absurd." (8/20/2005)
"Begone, troll. Trouble not this forum again." (8/21/2005)

Well gosh, Dave, that sounds a lot more personal and insulting than just my saying that you're an uninformed hack on the subject of biology while I actually documented your incompetence on the subject. So if my comment was not even in concept something that could ever be justified, as you assert, how does one explain your own negative personal remarks? *cough*hypocrite*cough* And then you have the gall to play innocent by posting on this thread the amazingly transparently falsehood, "I get called stuff all the time. It happens. I don't return the favor." Wow!

Dave, you *know* I started out treating you nicely, because I have previously documented the first seven or eight exchanges you and I had from our earliest days at FR, and I documented how despite my attempts to have an adult conversation with you, you kept posting things which led me to the unfortunate conclusion that you were either uninterested in, or incapable of, having a civil conversation on the actual issues. I have seen nothing since then to change my opinion of you, except to further reinforce it.

And just for the record, let me point out that when I called you an uninformed hack, it was because you had cluelessly attempted to offer Dr. Feduccia as a counterpoint to RWP's very correct assertion, and you cluelessly gave quotes from him that didn't even support what you were trying to assert, even though in reality Feduccia is clearly on record stating the OPPOSITE of the opinion you FALSELY attributed to him. Game set and match. What was really freaking hilarious is that despite this already having been pointed out to you before, you failed to grasp the size of your screwup and you posted another post in which you cluelessly patted yourself on the back for having prevailed in that exchange (!).

So yeah, "uninformed hack" seems pretty justifiable after all. And let's not forget that this comment wasn't made in a vacuum. It was in response to a post in which another uneducated anti-evolutionist had made the mistake of being impressed by your fumbling word salad because it was full of links and stuff, and had declared you an "informed creationist". After demonstrating to him that you were anything but, using your own screwups as documentation, I finished by writing:

DaveLoneRanger is not an "informed creationist", he's the usual sort of uninformed hack, posting his false misconceptions as if they were fact, then getting hammered by reality.

I stand entirely by that assessment -- and as you know, this is hardly the only time I caught you being utterly clueless and overestimating your own competence on this subject.

Again, if you wish to continue to bray about how I've been so gosh-darned mean to you by accurately describing your (lack of) competence on this topic, you may do so as long as you link back to the original exchange where it was made, so that readers will be able to decide for themselves whether I had made a solid case for that assessment or not. This applies to your homepage copy of it as well. Or you can just stop quoting me entirely out of context.

Any other response will give every appearance of dishonestly attempting to slur me by presenting my words out of context, while being a coward who is trying to hide his own behavior which led to such an assessment, and a crybaby who can't get over his grudge that someone was so brutish as to call him (horrors!) "uninformed"....

I know you don't want to give that kind of impression, Dave, so I know you'll do the right thing and begin to link to the original post whenever you feel the need to quote me again. And if you want links to the multiple other posts where I documented that you were telling gross falsehoods and so on, too, I'll be glad to provide them, just ask -- feel free to quote any and all the times I've documented your lack of competence and lack of respect for the truth, just as long as you link to my full posts. I appreciate you helping to give them wider exposure.

LOL, well you see NMH, I don't confuse religion with science, or science with religion.

I also know that science is not a threat to my religious beliefs, I also know what a theory is, whereas it is obvious that you do not.

You are threatened by science, because your faith is weak.

I always find it amusing when a creationist starts flipping out about evolution, evolution is scientific, and has nothing to do with your religious beliefs.

WHen creationists begin their screeds with there is no evidence for evolution, it makes me laugh, when they start calling people that understand evolution, athiest, or godless, etc, I have to laugh.

It tells me that that person or persons, are ignorant of science, and very weak in faith.

Thanks for proving my hypothesis correct.

BTW, Objective science does indeed endorse evolution, the evidence, Objectively, is overwhelming.

Then again, you don't want understand the evidence, because it threatens your weak faith.

Egad, Ichy, you want him to crawl under the bed and whimper?

Poor weetle Cweationist. He'll flip you the bird and pretend he didn't get your message and if he did it doesn't mean anything.

I don't know, is there no guilt in Gilead?

There's plenty of science that isn't anti-Christian.

I don't know any science that IS anti-Christian.

You don't have to rub childrens' faces in atheism.

No one should be doing that in science class. Then again, I doubt that anyone IS doing that. I won't claim to know the actions of every teacher in every schoolroom, but I doubt any course curricula or textbooks are preaching atheism.

no guilt in Gilead?

DR. PEPPER ---> KEYBOARD (darn you)

Disgusting stuff, Dr. Pepper.

Now you're outside of science, and into philosophy and religion.

No less than evolution in the wide sense. And no, intelligent design cannot be relegated to a religious concept by waving ones hands or merely asserting otherwise.

Poor weetle Cweationist. He'll flip you the bird and pretend he didn't get your message and if he did it doesn't mean anything.

He's good for that one, alright! I recently posted this to him in objection to his snide comments on an interesting recent science article. (He posts such on FR specifically to expose them to the ridicule of the Luddite Legions on his ping list.) My post contains support for its assertions, matters which are regularly documented to no end of detail on crevo threads.

This is what I got back.

Thank you for another meaningless ipso facto sermon on why you believe in evolution.

A real stand-up guy, if you like Burlesque.

No less than evolution in the wide sense.

You are projecting.

And no, intelligent design cannot be relegated to a religious concept by waving ones hands or merely asserting otherwise.

Those who began the ID movement asserted it long before I did.

Disgusting stuff, Dr. Pepper.

An ambrosial elixir, especially when mixed with Fruit Punch Gatorade.

Darwinism is anti-scientific. It's a theory for heaven's sake. It should be taught that way.

First, evolution/"Darwinism" IS taught as a scientific theory. Indeed it is (often far and away) among the LEAST dogmatically presented scientific theories in typical textbooks and curricula. In fact such textbooks typically discuss dozens or hundreds of scientific theories as if "matters of fact," never even identifying them as "theories". Evolution is consistently among the few, and sometimes the ONLY, "theory" that is actually identified and treated as such.

Second, you contradict yourself. If "Darwinism" (conventional evolutionary theory) really were "anti-scientific," then it should NOT be taught in science classes as a scientific theory (or a scientific anything else). Why would you advocate teaching "anti-science" (even as a "theory") in a science class?

IOW, why do you anti-evolutionists lack any apparent strength of conviction in this matter? You come here and call evolution (or "Darwinism") a "myth" or a "lie" or "junk science," or whatever, but then say, "Oh, No. We don't want to ban it. We just want it taught this way or that way."

Well, why the heck not ban it if it's "anti-science"? Why the wishy-washy relativism? Doesn't intellectual integrity and adherence to solid academic standards (of the type required to combat the accumulation of liberal pablum in curricula) require that ideas be included and excluded purely on the basis of merit, not because we (or some "identity group") "dislike" them, or because the might effect our "self-esteem"?

If you think evolution lacks scientific merit, why not have the integrity and the intellectual clarity to follow through on the clear implications of that evaluation? Why the schizophrenia? Instead you antievolutionists give the impression (ACCURATELY I suspect, with due consideration of the psychological complexity involved) that you don't really believe what you claim to believe.

Heck, we evolutionists have no problem in saying that junk science and lies should be excised from science curricula. And if some new theory should come along that genuinely (not as a pretense or imposture) surpasses and supplants evolution in explaining biological diversity, we "evolutionists" would have no problem with saying the evolution should then be excluded in favor of the new theory.

The problem is that there are none.

On the contrary, intelligent design is more comprehensive and more explanatory than any theory omitting it. Intelligent design theory even governs the change (within limits) we observe in evolution. You are woefully incorrect in stating that intelligent design is not a theory that deserves a hearing in scientific circles. The fact is, it is gaining a hearing except from those who are opposed to it on philosophical, rather than scientific, grounds.

Nice and vague, because you know it will not happen.

How would I know that? How would you? You asked what would falsify intelligent design and I told you. The fact that organized matter performing specific functions can be found on a nearly ubiquitous scale only makes the theory of intelligent design that much stronger. Your example from FSM is inadequate since the FSM was created by imagination, while intelligent design and its results exist in the objective world.

As for your trust in the fossil record, please be advised that many proponents of evolution (in the wide sense) acknowledge a lack of certitude. The record may speak just as clearly of intelligent design, with the fossil record coming into being under established principles. There is no fossil that cannot be made to tell a story. Anomalies persist in the objective world, yet are often being waved away by those who, like yourself, hold preconceived notions about what ought and ought not be.

As usual, the basic problem with IDers is a lack of understanding of science.

No. They would like to see an equal application of the standards evolutionists enjoy for themselves. If you want to allow interpretations of circumstantial evidence to be accepted and proposed with the certitude accorded science in the strict sense, then you should also allow the same from those who espouse intelligent design. If you want to call all examples of intelligent design "religious," then you should be able to do so on the basis of science and not your feelings about the matter. As it stands, it is you who have difficulty in defining science, not me. I've heard the definition many times and it by no means omits intelligent design from scientific purview.

I say the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it. I might take you seriously . . .

Well, I don't take you seriously, nor anyone else who believes the FSM is a viable argument here. But I do take seriously our obligation as citizens to uphold what is written in our Constitution. If you really believe your philosophy of history deserves an exclusive hearing in public schools by law and under the guise of "science" then maybe its time you pack your verbal bags and head over to some forum where people agree with you. You know: Those people who think our Constitution is a "living, breathing document" that can mean anything the current milieu wants it to mean. HINT: This is not the forum.

especially when mixed with Fruit Punch Gatorade

What? 23 flavors aren't enough? Some people are never satisfied.

. . . he has steadfastly refused to explain why "Intelligent Design" predicts that such an event should never occur.

On the contrary, I have asserted in the past that it is the essential nature of intelligent design to organize matter in such a way that it performs specific functions, much as you make use of intelligent design to respond to my posts. It is not to difficult to predict that where there is intelligent design, organization of matter would take place. There is nothing religious or inherently unscientific about it. OTOH, it would not be happening if intelligent design had the evidence to falsify it, namely all particle matter disintegrating into chaos.

On the contrary, I have asserted in the past that it is the essential nature of intelligent design to organize matter in such a way that it performs specific functions,

This does not explain why particle matter should never disintegrate into chaos if your unique version of "intelligent design" is true.