Posted on 02/11/2009 12:15:32 PM PST by neverdem
The 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday on February 12 serves as a reminder that in his name scientific McCarthyism is alive and well in America's system of education. The same mentality that kept Galileo under house arrest for the last years of his life is today punishing science teachers who dare to raise scientific questions about Darwinian orthodoxy.
Secular fundamentalists have so little confidence that the theory of evolution can stand up to rigorous scrutiny that they are gagging voices of dissent. For instance, one of the world's leading proponents of intelligent design is Dr. Scott Minnich, a biologist at the University of Idaho. Even though Dr. Minnich's advocacy of ID theory was done on his own time, the-then U of I president, Tim White, issued a campus-wide edict prohibiting the teaching of anything but evolutionary doctrine in all science classes. So much for the university as a marketplace of ideas. The Spanish Inquisition couldn't have done it any better.
I was invited last year to present the arguments for intelligent design to an advanced public school science class. When some Tyrants of Tolerance heard that — gasp! — some science students might actually hear both sides of this controversy, I immediately began receiving emails from them, threatening me with career-ending lawsuits and demanding that I out this teacher so they could see to it that he never taught in this town again. Torquemada lives and breathes.
This raises the question: What are they afraid of?
There are many scientific reasons to question the theory of evolution. One law of science is that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Thus science admits that nature can offer no explanation for the origin of either.
Evolutionary theory is contravened by the pre-Cambrian explosion, in which untold numbers of complex life forms appear suddenly and fully formed in the fossil record, with nary a trace of intermediate, transitional forms.
Further, evolution must depend upon genetic mutations as its primary mechanism. But every geneticist will tell you that the vast majority of randomly occurring mutations are harmful if not fatal to the organism. If genes are one day manipulated in the laboratory to produce more complex life forms, that will simply prove our point — it takes both intelligence and design.
And life itself, it turns out, is a huge problem for Darwinian dogma. As Michael Behé pointed out Darwin's Black Box, life is "irreducibly complex" — in other words, a very sophisticated arrangement of complicated chemical machinery must be in place all at once in proper working order for life even to occur. It's simply impossible to get there by the incremental steps required by evolutionary theory.
Significantly, not even Darwin believed his theory could explain the origin of life. That's why his seminal work is called Origin of Species rather than Origin of Life. The only question, Darwin said, was whether life had "been breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one."
Contemporary evolutionists look silly trying to keep a Creator out of the picture. At the end of the documentary "Expelled," noted Darwinian Richard Dawkins admits that life on earth is too complex for evolution to explain. His theory? It was brought here by aliens.
What's at stake here? Literally everything, since the Founders predicated our entire system of government on the truth that there is a Creator who is the source of our fundamental civil rights. Idaho's students deserve the right to know if their view of government makes scientific sense. Let's make February 12 "Academic Freedom Day" in America, and let the discussion begin.
The attitude of the young is quite encouraging. "0% agreed among those in the 18-24 year-old age bracket"!
Executive Summary: WAAAA WAAAA I’M A VICTIM WAAAA WAAAA UNFAIR WAAAA WAAAA
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There appears to be some evolutionary structure, particularly in genes, that withstands scientific scrutiny.
However, it appears also that alot of it doesn’t fit anything at all.
Thus to struggle on with God....
Are medical schools being McCarthyist by not wanting to consider supernatural alternates to disease, such as demonic possession (which lots of people believe)? No - they rightfully stick to germ theory, which is valid, testable, and has held up to over a century of challenge. If a frustrated witch doctor wanted demonic possession to be on the medical school curricula, he’d accuse the “establishment” of being McCarthyist towards him too.
Science being destroyed by religious fervor.
Thus science admits that nature can offer no explanation for the origin of either.
And that is outside of evolution, a completely different question being studied by astrophysicists.
the vast majority of randomly occurring mutations are harmful
Vast majority. Give me hundreds of billions of mutations and there is much room for non-harmful mutations.
As Michael Behé pointed out Darwin's Black Box
And as has been pointed out, Behe is wrong. Let it go, the horse died a long time ago.
Significantly, not even Darwin believed his theory could explain the origin of life. That's why his seminal work is called Origin of Species rather than Origin of Life.
The brings up this true statement, yet brought up the "origin of the universe" question above against evolution. It seems he is using the standard strawman tactic, hoping readers have a VERY short memory.
The operating assumption of all Creation Science writers is that their target audience is at least as, if not more, ignorant of science than the writer is.
Much to their relief they are almost always correct in this assumption.
Any connection?
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Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it!
www.AnySoldier.com
CORAM, MT. SINAI, PORT JEFFERSON STATION (CMP) FOLLOW-UP INVESTIGATION pdf format
The importance of reproductive factors in affecting breast cancer risk has been known for a long time. Women who have never given birth (or had a full-term pregnancy) are at a higher risk for breast cancer compared to women who have carried a pregnancy to term.(Page 26)
Never had a full term pregnancy also includes abortion. Where are those clowns that say there's no relation between breast cancer and abortion? It has a very good, politically incorrect section, "BREAST CANCER RISK FACTORS," with references that starts on page 25.
How about they have to continue with embryonic stem cell research when they they discovered cellular reprogramming of somatic cells without viral assistance?
Do We Still Need Embryonic Stem Cells?
Promotion of Reprogramming to Ground State Pluripotency by Signal Inhibition
I don't have a problem with evolution, but I thought we still have a First Amendment for those who don't agree with evolution.
The so-called “debate” is simply heckling from the peanut gallery. It is equivalent to hiring witch doctors with beads and rattles as advisors to the National Institutes of Health or publishing Truther conspiracy theories as an addendum to the official report on the 9/11 attacks.
It’s either God or magic. Take your pick.
I took up the slack. See comment# 11.
Which religion? See comment# 11, please.
btt
Misrepresentation of the Cambrian explosion is a cornerstone of the worst of some ID proponents. Fish appeared in the late Cambrian - well after the initial 'explosion'. Entire cladistical families - amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds - did not appear until after the Cambrian. Land was not inhabited at the end of the Cambrian. It's like implying there wasn't a house next door yesterday and a complete house is there today - when all that is present is the foundation and some framing.
Any religion.
That post takes the issue beyond evolution to prove a point about evolution, which it doesn’t.
We do have politicially-influenced science these days, and Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change is a prime example. But it is unrelated to evolution. GWCCC is a very recent idea and has been politically pushed by various people with vested interests (economic, political, ideological) since the beginning. Evolution grew from being the underdog and only attained its current status on the top of the scientific food chain after over a century of scientific work on it despite attacks from all sides.
Yes, most scientists laugh at flat-earthers. The bar to a challenge being taken seriously is quite high with such a long-established science.
As for the 1st Amendment, go for it. Nobody is stopping you. But the 1st Amendment does not require that others take you seriously.
There's plenty of things that we don't know with absolute certainty. The NIH has spent significantly on alternaive medicine. We don't understand the placebo effect. If it helps their faith, good for them. They'll probably live longer. I keep coming across studies like this one.
Religious participation and mortality risk among the oldest old in China.
Nope, and it is not limited to Evolution. Try Global Warming. Gay marriage, and a host of other ideas.
Amazingly these Scientist are all about inquiry and truth, unless it does not agree with their conclusions, and those conclusions are often determined buy grants.
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