Posted on 08/18/2008 9:35:10 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
With five seats on the State Board of Education up for grabs this year, education advocates say how children learn about evolution hangs in the balance -- and who voters choose could affect Kansas' national reputation.
A frequent flip-flop between moderate and conservative majorities on the 10-member board has resulted in the state changing its science standards four times in the past eight years.
Conservatives have pushed for standards casting doubt on evolution, and moderates have said intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom.
In 2007, a new 6-4 moderate majority removed standards that called evolution into question.
This year, none of the three moderates whose seats are up for election are running again. Only one of the two conservative incumbents is running for re-election...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansas.com ...
You figure you can turn that into a quagmire?
==That is not a Scientific theory, it isn’t even a Scientific hypothesis or conjecture.
Not according to Dawkins. Dawkins says the God Hypothesis is a valid hypothesis, that natural selection explains all apparent design in nature, and thus falsifies the God Hypothesis. He thus concludes that God is a delusion.
Of course, all Christians know that Dawkins is the one who is deluded, for the Bible tells us God created the universe and every original life-form, including man.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; and God directly says he will NOT show himself but that people must have faith.
Heb11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
==Darwin was just a man, but he was observed to be correct about selective pressure acting upon genetic variation.
Yes, I think your faith in Darwin is so strong that it prevents you from embracing God’s straightforward account of Creation. Tell me, how will your reading of Genesis change when Darwin is finally rejected and overturned? Will you embrace the next theory on evolution the antitheists put forward, or will you finally side with a straightforward reading of the Genesis account? In other words, is your faith in Darwinian evolution, or is it in evolution as a general principle (regardless of whose name is in front of it)?
==And you use Dawkins as your benchmark as to what is Scientific or not?
You said that no scientific theory is either pro or anti-God. I am merely pointing out that Dawkins disagrees with you. He says the God Hypothesis is valid and that Natural Selection falsifies it. He therefore concludes that God is a delusion. As such, he has launched a campaign to convert the world to atheism, the only world view he considers consonant with natural selection.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think of Dawkin’s campaign? What do you think of the man himself?
My confidence in the physical reality of reproducible Science means it would take far more than just an overturning of Evolution through natural selection of genetic variation to make me confident that a literal interpretation of Genesis is the correct one; it would also take an explanation for the age and size of the universe, how we can see objects one hundred million light years away, plate tectonics, the fossil record, evidence of a global flood, the evidence of common descent, etc, etc, etc.
The Discovery Institute is correct about only one thing. It would take a complete overturning of Science to satisfy them. A literal interpretation of Genesis would demand nothing less.
Show us the verse.
Heb11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Jesus went out of His way to give people evidence that He was who He said He was. God coming to earth in the flesh is showing Himself. Do the people who believed because they saw Him and the miracles He performed not have real faith?
Luke 24:36-43 While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be to you."
But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing (AI)a spirit.
And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.
While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them.
John 20: 25-29 So the other disciples were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you."
Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing."
Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."
The gospels are full of incidents where Jesus demonstrated who He was. There's no where where He chides people for believing because they see, but for not believing in spite of seeing.
I don't see any creationists who don't acknowledge variation within species. AiG has a different explanation of how that works than is acceptable for evos, but even THEY don't deny it.
It's the extrapolating that to include enough variation to occur that allows for one species to vary enough to eventually evolve into another that creationists don't accept.
No, answers to these would not change your mind, because those answers are out there. In every instance of what you've posted as objections to "literal Genesis", Creation Scientists have provided evidence and counter-examples & theories against an old creation.
These are available, readily available, and the only way you could be unaware of the evidence is a refusal to look.
Now THAT'S "intellectual integrity".
And yet we are told these people never get a change to present their ideas.
==I have full confidence in the reality of the Sciences of Astronomy, Geology, Physics and Biology.
You mean you have full confidence in the Darwinist interpretation of the same.
==it would take far more than just an overturning of Evolution through natural selection of genetic variation to make me confident that a literal interpretation of Genesis
This statement speaks volumes.
==to make me confident that a literal interpretation of Genesis is the correct one; it would also take an explanation for the age and size of the universe, how we can see objects one hundred million light years away, plate tectonics, the fossil record, evidence of a global flood, the evidence of common descent, etc, etc, etc.
Creation Scientists are coming up with solid evidence that supports YEC in every single area you just mentioned. And to my mind, and the minds of millions upon millions of others, the evidence for YEC is far more convincing than the evidence Darwinists have been able to muster in support of Darwin’s ToE.
==The Discovery Institute is correct about only one thing. It would take a complete overturning of Science to satisfy them. A literal interpretation of Genesis would demand nothing less.
Don’t confuse IDers with Creation Scientists. They are not one and the same, as any IDer or Creation Scientist will tell you. Indeed, UncommonDescent just banned Jothathan Sarfati (a prominant YEC scientist) from their message boards for his YEC views.
Those explanations are only currently the best science (and man) has to offer. It doesn't mean they're right.
You're putting a level of confidence in the speculations and interpretations of mans ideas that they don't warrant, and expressing a level of skepticism of God's Word that's alarming.
I'm sorry, are we moving too fast for you? You were asked, way back in #137, "can you cite a high school textbook that treats string theory...as anything more than conjecture?" The request was repeated in #176. Days later you come back with a pointer to a high-level university theoretical physics department that describe it as a "candidate" for a theory. And now you're getting snotty when it's pointed out that that's hardly an answer to the original request?
==I don’t see any creationists who don’t acknowledge variation within species
They even acknowledge variation beyond species to include higher taxonomic groups such as families, which they roughly equate with the Biblical “kinds.”
==It’s the extrapolating that to include enough variation to occur that allows for one species to vary enough to eventually evolve into another that creationists don’t accept.
I would use Biblical kinds, which roughly correlate to families, but your main point is absolutely correct. But our disagreements don’t stop there. They run the gamut, from how the universe came to be, the age of the universe, the age of the earth, how life was created, the age of life on earth, the origin of entropy (sin!), and the list goes on and on. Of course, I know you know all this, but I just felt like saying it anyway :o)
Can you show me where there’s a third idea competing with these two? I think that might be interesting actually.
And science is going to take care of the bizarre BETTER if a better objectivity is in place anyway. But otherwise, why not? What does science gain by banning new ideas?
Additionally, your “peer review” argument begs the question of objectivity, which tends to throw the demand for “evidence” off track too.
Anyone who thinks the Scientific “evidence” supports a young earth is sorely deluding themselves and engaged fully in apologetics, not Science.
There is no “Darwinist” interpretation of Geology, there is the Geologist interpretation of Geology. There is no “Darwinist” interpretation of Astronomy, there is the Astronomer interpretation of Astronomy. There is not a “Darwinist” interpretation of Physics, there is the Physicist interpretation of Physics.
Why do all these Scientists (many of them of Christian faith like myself) all agree?
You suppose it is a conspiracy to deny God and I laugh at how stupid one would be to have to believe that.
Absolutely. The difference being I don’t feel the need to hijack the courts to ensure everyone who disagrees with me fall in line!
And the hits just keep on coming. You should do standup. You're hilarious.
The demand for evidence is what is supposed to insure objectivity. Do you have a better way?
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