Posted on 08/19/2010 1:19:28 PM PDT by TheConservativeCitizen
Documentary educational television would have us believe that the single greatest scientific achievement of the past millennium was Darwin’s theory of evolution. Many religious fundamentalists have serious issues with this assertion. Many legitimate scientists with both secular and religious perspectives do as well. Darwin himself recognized serious shortcomings with evolution. A new sort of “scientist,” the evolutionary biologist, has come on the scene. These folks are specifically dedicated to supporting and proving a theory. Previously science did not work that way. Scientists used to look for evidence of disproof, only accepting theories that prove unassailable.
On the other side we have unscientific religious fundamentalists. These folks are willing to describe their search for proof of their scriptures as basic science. They study scripture and seek evidence to support what it says.
Both sides’ methods are troublingly reminiscent of case law: by carefully selecting your precedents or evidence one can prove anything. Mathematicians and philosophers long ago concluded that “proving” a general hypotheses about the real world is a logical impossibility. That is, no one can find every possible exception to any assertion about the real world.
(Excerpt) Read more at constitutionclub.org ...
The Founders hated public schools so much that Jefferson suggested the first public school system, free from religious bias. Of course I don't think he anticipated federal dominance over education.
Using the government to indoctrinate goes both ways.
Once we have the decision to teach a science class, we teach the current state of science. Science, not religion passed off as science. I don't mind Creation being taught in public schools since it is a valid area of academic study. But it needs to be taught in the proper context as a religious belief, not as science.
Public scrutiny, ROI, has absolutely nothing to do with scientific validity.
Also I feel that the public schools would mis-represent and grossly distort creation science anyway. I see it all the time on these threads w/ folks who lack any real theological reasoning.
I see a problem there. You call it "science" yet acknowledge the need for theological reasoning to understand creation science. No theological reasoning should be necessary to understand the natural sciences. That's why they call it science, not theology.
Try explaining how Psalm 22 written approx 1000 years before Jesus Christ was foretold by mere men.
That's easy. At the heart of the concept is the desire of the believer for it to be true. With that desire, anything can be shaped to appear to be what he wants it to be with very little effort. Psalm 22 is a simple plea as you see throughout the Psalms. You just see the plea as describing Jesus because you want to. The believer will ignore that they are about David, with much poetic license, and not even meant to be prophetic. Ignore that they are in the writings part of the Tanakh, not the prophesies. Because a few things match up, some only because of bad translations (like piercing of hands and feet), it is taken as a prophesy because you WANT to believe the prophesies come true. See also, confirmation bias.
Nostradamus did it too, his prophesies being heralded as true for years, when they were bunk. I remember in the 80s when crazy Khadaffi was the big bad guy who was going to kill us all. Suddenly one of Nostradamus' predictions just had to be about Khadaffi. They absolutely couldn't be about anything else, they were perfectly clear, Khadaffi was going to attack New York!!! What a prophet! Then Khadaffi slides from the national headlines and we come to the first Gulf War. Suddenly that prophesy just HAD to be about Saddam Hussein, it couldn't be anybody else! See, it fits him perfectly!
This is why con men so-called psychics have such an easy time. People who want to believe something are very easy targets. John Edward isn't communicating with the dead, he's using cold and hot reading to convince people who want to believe that he's communicating with the dead. Anybody who stands back and looks at it objectively, without the desire to believe, can tell what he's doing because he can get 20 statements wrong and a few safe statements (that are obvious or can be made to seem right) correct, yet people will latch on to what he appeared to get right and think he's for real. They'll be in tears thanking him for deceiving them.
I know what I read. The flies in the individual lines reproduced quite merrily when bred to members of their own line (otherwise the lines would have died out). It was only in the case of attempted crosses between the two lines that the flies were incapable of reproducing. BOTH lines had multiple mutations. That is the point, and it proves "macro" evolution by lab experiment.
Big government has no business forcing the teaching of their views and deciding which views will be officially approved and which will not. The market place of ideas should sort it all out without government forcing their officially approved views onto a captive audience of other people's children.
Statists have an agenda and enjoy big government force employed when the outcome agrees with what they desire. This is why all big government statists love the public schools to be centralized. They do not want true freedom of choice, they desire to indoctrinate because they are afraid of true freedom of choice.
This is the very nature of government schools.
If your views are acceptable they will be desired and your school will flourish, if not the market will close your doors. That is freedom, the other is not freedom.
It appears to me the difference between you and the liberals is what you want to indoctrinate about. You seem angry your indoctrination is no longer performed.
The market place of ideas should sort it all out
Hey, if you don't think we should teach our kids science, feel free to put that idea out there.
“In the scientific world, we do not distinguish between “macro” and “micro” evolution. The process of evolution is the process of accumulation of random mutations over time. Some mutations are not survivable, so do not persist, but other mutations remain and are passed down to the offspring.”
However, any scientist true to his data will assert that there is a big difference between micro and macro.
Furthermore, the vast majority of mutations are not beneficial, can accumulate and will eventually lead to the extinction of a species. Far more species are extinct than those that remain pointing to devolution.
Of course, there is a big difference between "macro" and "micro." But when talking about evolutionary theory, the words "macro" and "micro" were introduced by creationists, not scientists, in an effort to explain away the scientific data while still rejecting evolution. "Macro" evolution, as I understand the creationists' use of the term, is a claim that, for example, fish could lay eggs out of which lizards would hatch, and the "proof" demanded of evolution would be to show that such events not only occur but are commonplace. Of course, no scientist ever claimed anything of the kind. Evolution IS micro evolution; what distinguishes one species from another is the accumulation of changes that occur over time. You can start with identical populations on two different islands, but after even a few generations, they will no longer be identical. Speciation is said to occur when the two populations can no longer interbreed.
Even if most mutations are not beneficial, it is irrelevant to the discussion. I could get into a really long and technical discussion about beneficial, neutral, deleterious, and conditional mutations, but I'll spare everyone for now and just repeat what one of my biology teachers said: If you are breeding cats to jump long distances, and you are testing them by having them leap across a five yard chasm, the ten thousand cats that didn't make it across don't matter. The one that survived is the only one you're concerned about; it's the only one that's going to have kittens and perpetuate the species. In other words, you don't see the harmful mutations, you only see the beneficial ones.
To quote you: But the mere fact that you make that argument shows your prejudices, because science makes no distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution. That meme was sheer invention by the literal creationists.
And "Evolution is how the world works. God set it up that way. The only people that have significant problems with that are the "biblical literalists" of Christianity."
Now I ask, who is being prejudiced here. First, you make a wild claim that God exists, and that he set up evolution, and then claim that that anyone who has a problem with it is a literal biblical creationists (combining your terms). However, most evolutionist are anti-God, most notably Eugenie Scott, Richard Dawkins, and the late Stephen Jay Gould. All of them would find your description of evolution (dare I say it?) heresy.
The you say science does not distinguish between micro and macro, as if it was a living thing. No, man chooses to or not to distinguish between micro and macro. No avenue of science is ever completely settled, as we do not know everything. To insinuate that after only 150 years, we can consider the science "settled" is a arrogant as insisting the the sun revolves around the Earth because it had been "settled science" for thousands of years.
You make the dangerous presupposition that those who do not think the way you do are somehow less intelligent, honest, thoughtful, and do not seek after the truth. Attempting to marginalize those who disagree with you makes it easy to dismiss them. The problem is that it is not so. There are many well-educated, intelligent, honest truth-seekers out there who disagree. I appreciate your answer, but the attack of my character what not called for.
Most outspoken atheists are anti-God. Most people who accept the scientific theory of evolution are not atheists. Most scientists in America are people of faith in God.
Who is being prejudiced here? With that statement, you.
I wasn't attacking your "character" (assuming you have any). I'm attacking your phony belief system. "Intelligent design" is and always has been a stalking horse of biblical literalists trying to give their position the odor "rational thought", and slip it into the educational system as "just another scientific position"......it isn't. People like you marginalize yourselves with phony arguments.
Sorry, I was being a little loose with my definitions. The point I was trying to make is that GR was a big theoretical jump in first principles, but it had direct specific and testable predictions that were shown to be accurate. Of course, GR breaks down in the realm of the very small, leading to QM.
Show me where ANY scientific paper says that the mechanism of evolution is directed by God, and I will withdraw my statement that most evolutionist are anti-God. Until then, I stand by my comment. It is not prejudiced, it is based on my judgment of what I have seen and experienced.
-K51
As Ronald Reagan said, "There you go again". You insult me with a backhanded statement. And again, you make specious character attacks without substantiating any of your points.
I'm attacking your phony belief system. No, sir, you have assumed my belief system, and have attacked it.
People like you.... Sorry, I am a unique individual; there is no one else like me.
If you want to have a discussion, fine. If you want to present facts with out belittling me, fine. But if you want to continue the ad hominem attacks, our discussion is over.
Government education does only **one** thing really well! It makes citizens furious with each other as they fight for control, funding, and ( ultimately) preservation in the culture of their anointed worldviews.
Of course if government had NO role whatsoever in education and in science funding all the controversy over evolution would evaporate as quickly a dew on a hot summer day.
There are several reasons why evolution causes such contention in our society:
1) it is impossible to have a religiously neutral education. ALL education is filtered through either a godless or God-centered worldview. Neither worldveiw, godless or God-centered, is religiously neutral in content or consequences.
2)The origins of the universe and man's appearance in it is taught to children and young adults has **enormous** religious consequences for the child and for all of society. Citizens rightfully resent having government establishing one religious worldview over another. It is a freedom of conscience issue.
3)) Government schools are funded through compulsory taxes, and for all those who can not access private of homeschooling attendance is **COMPULSORY**! Citizens and parents are justified in having their children indoctrinated in a worldview that is abhorrent to them.
Solution: Complete separation of school and state. Our K-12 schools and state colleges and universities should be privatized. And.. The government should stay completely out of science funding, except for the clear purpose of military defense.
Evolutionists are the biggest bullies when it comes to shoving godless, socialist-funded, **compulsory** government run and owned schooling down the taxpayers’s throat.
The creationists are far more tolerant and far more likely to support separation of school and state,( as well as complete separation of science and state) and willing to let evolutionist believe what they want.
Wonder Warthog and kosciusko51
Please read posts #74 and #75.
Oh wow! I am a terrible proof reader. The following should say:
2)How the origins of the universe and man’s appearance in it is taught to children and young adults has **enormous** religious consequences for the child and for all of society. Citizens rightfully resent having government establishing one religious worldview over another. It is a freedom of conscience issue.
3)) Government schools are funded through compulsory taxes, and for all those who can not access private of homeschooling attendance is **COMPULSORY**! Citizens and parents are justified in being angry in having their children indoctrinated in a worldview that is abhorrent to them.
Actually evolutionists can distinguish the two. Evolution below the species level is micro-evolution. Evolution above the species level is macro-evolution.
Much as they posture, the truth is that it's creationists who must refuse to make the distinction, at least in any remotely clear, distinct or specific fashion.
The problem is that no modern creationist believes in fixed species. Since the emergence of a new species is "macro" evolution by definition, and since even strict creationists believe that many, if not most, species originated by evolution "within originally created kinds" (e.g. all equids, including multiple species each of horses, zebras, asses, etc) they cannot allow themselves a definition (beyond the arm waving or goal post shoving type) of what "macro" evolution actually is. They would have to admit that they themselves accept at least some instances of "macro" evolution. (For instance ALL those species of horses each have different chromosome numbers. And the necessary chromosomal mutations involved are of a type widely believed to be behind the erection of species barriers, and therefore particularly macro evolutionary in nature.)
There is no scientific way to show if God is or is not “directing” evolution. If you have faith, then all things are directed by God, and the outcome of every dice roll is directed by God. If you do not have faith, then a dice roll is just a dice roll. Science and its findings is universally accepted around the world because it does NOT include personal theology, but limits itself to what can be shown, not what should be accepted through faith.
Your stance shows just how abjectly ignorant you are of science, the scientific method, and what is and what is not the purview of science.
Most scientists in America are, like myself, men of faith.
Prov 16:33 The dice are cast into the lap, but every result is from the Lord.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seeks him.
Great post. Will bookmark this one.
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