Posted on 04/29/2003 10:43:39 AM PDT by Remedy
Texas Tech University biology professor Michael Dini recently came under fire for refusing to write letters of recommendation for students unable to "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the following question: "How do you think the human species originated?"
For asking this question, Professor Dini was accused of engaging in overt religious discrimination. As a result, a legal complaint was filed against Dini by the Liberty Legal Institute. Supporters of the complaint feared that consequences of the widespread adoption of Dini’s requirement would include a virtual ban of Christians from the practice of medicine and other related fields.
In an effort to defend his criteria for recommendation, Dini claimed that medicine was first rooted in the practice of magic. Dini said that religion then became the basis of medicine until it was replaced by science. After positing biology as the science most important to the study of medicine, he also posited evolution as the "central, unifying principle of biology" which includes both micro- and macro-evolution, which applies to all species.
In addition to claiming that someone who rejects the most important theory in biology cannot properly practice medicine, Dini suggested that physicians who ignore or neglect Darwinism are prone to making bad clinical decisions. He cautioned that a physician who ignores data concerning the scientific origins of the species cannot expect to remain a physician for long. He then rhetorically asked the following question: "If modern medicine is based on the method of science, then how can someone who denies the theory of evolution -- the very pinnacle of modern biological science -- ask to be recommended into a scientific profession by a professional scientist?"
In an apparent preemptive strike against those who would expose the weaknesses of macro-evolution, Dini claimed that "one can validly refer to the ‘fact’ of human evolution, even if all of the details are not yet known." Finally, he cautioned that a good scientist "would never throw out data that do not conform to their expectations or beliefs."
The legal aspect of this controversy ended this week with Dini finally deciding to change his recommendation requirements. But that does not mean it is time for Christians to declare victory and move on. In fact, Christians should be demanding that Dini’s question be asked more often in the court of public opinion. If it is, the scientific community will eventually be indicted for its persistent failure to address this very question in scientific terms.
Christians reading this article are already familiar with the creation stories found in the initial chapters of Genesis and the Gospel of John. But the story proffered by evolutionists to explain the origin of the species receives too little attention and scrutiny. In his two most recent books on evolution, Phillip Johnson gives an account of evolutionists’ story of the origin of the human species which is similar to the one below:In the beginning there was the unholy trinity of the particles, the unthinking and unfeeling laws of physics, and chance. Together they accidentally made the amino acids which later began to live and to breathe. Then the living, breathing entities began to imagine. And they imagined God. But then they discovered science and then science produced Darwin. Later Darwin discovered evolution and the scientists discarded God.
Darwinists, who proclaim themselves to be scientists, are certainly entitled to hold this view of the origin of the species. But that doesn’t mean that their view is, therefore, scientific. They must be held to scientific standards requiring proof as long as they insist on asking students to recite these verses as a rite of passage into their "scientific" discipline.
It, therefore, follows that the appropriate way to handle professors like Michael Dini is not to sue them but, instead, to demand that they provide specific proof of their assertion that the origin of all species can be traced to primordial soup. In other words, we should pose Dr. Dini’s question to all evolutionists. And we should do so in an open public forum whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Recently, I asked Dr. Dini for that proof. He didn’t respond.
Dini’s silence as well as the silence of other evolutionists speaks volumes about the current status of the discipline of biology. It is worth asking ourselves whether the study of biology has been hampered by the widespread and uncritical acceptance of Darwinian principles. To some observers, its study has largely become a hollow exercise whereby atheists teach other atheists to blindly follow Darwin without asking any difficult questions.
At least that seems to be the way things have evolved.
And why not? Time is meaningless when one talks about God. It is only us humans with such short lifetimes that consider time to have such importance.
If one believes that God gives each of us an individual soul there is no question that he can and likely did create different creatures when and as he pleased. Your theory only works if one absolutely denies God from being a part of the discussion.
... and one cannot do that because science has shown quite clearly that life could not have arisen from non-life without an intelligent designer.
There are countless examples of 'gradualism' in living things TODAY so that there are similarities which an evolutionist can call evolution is not to be wondered. Men can be found in all shapes, sizes and colors - TODAY. So can dogs and other species. Yet they are all the same species as science tells us. You cannot tell from most fossils whether it is an infant or an adult, a male or a female and many other things. You cannot even tell if they are different species and the dating is dubious at best. So fossil 'gradualism' proves nothing.
However, there is strong proof against evolutionary gradualism. Two such are the Cambrian explosion and the arising of mammals. Perhaps the two most important events after the creation of life. In the Cambrian explosion, within less than 10 million years all the major phyla (the highest classfication of animal species after kingdom) arose without any gradualism and any possible precursors. The arising of mammals is completely absent from the fossil record. Here we have the greatest change in life form after the Cambrian and we cannot show how it happened from the fossils. Since this was such a great change and evolution supposedly occurs gradually, then it should have the most evidence of all. Instead, all the evolutionists are able to show is a very small skull whose top part has been pasted together from 100 million years before the next earliest fossils - when numerous species of mammals already were to be found.
Nonsense. Scientists could care less about evolution (unless there is a grant involved). The major figures of evolution have not been scientists (and that includes Darwin). Dawkins is no scientist, he is just a popularizer of the atheist philosophy as was Gould. Neither of them ever did any scientific work in biology or any other legitimate scientific field (they were paleontologists and that is science fiction, not science).
Yup, and all you can do to prove them wrong is insult them by calling them names and play rhetorical games. Let's see the evidence for evolution. You call it science, there must be scientific evidence for it. Let's see it. Let's also see the exact theory of evolution on which all these 'scientists' are working to prove. After all, to prove a theory you must first have a theory do you not? Let's see the theory and the proof for that theory. It must be awful strong for you to be able to call everyone who disagrees an idiot, must it not? Or are your strong words just a bluff to hide the total emptiness of your theory?
That is all that evolutionists can do - play word games. They will say when evidence is given against the theory of evolution that they cannot refute that that is not what the theory says. However, one can go on endlessly through these evolution threads and not see a single evolutionist say 'this is the theory of evolution and here is the proof that all species descended from in accordance to the theory'. Look back since the beginning of FR and such a post will never be found.
How true. It is hard to tell whether evolutionists use this method because they are too lazy to read the articles or because they know that the articles do not prove their point but hope to bluff opponents and lurkers into believing that they have the proof to back up their claims. For example a quick Google search can provide many links such as the following saying that Evolution is Bunk . Is that proof that evolution is bunk? Hey I have a citation!
Unless someone can back up one's statements with facts and a coherent argument all the links in the world are meaningless. In fact, if someone cannot make a cogent argument for one's side in spite of numerous links suppossedly supporting their position one must either conclude that the poster is either too lazy to read up on the facts or totally incapable of understanding the matter being discussed.
Ah, now their lies are "subtle"... In other words, there's no clear specific falsehood that Phaedrus can point to, just "very subtle" things that Phaedrus apparently takes issue with...
Somehow I doubt the examples of t.o. "dishonesty" that Phaedrus will surely post Any Day Now will be quite as stark and shocking as Phaedrus earlier implied.
I do want to make one comment now, though. Mutation is common; hence antibiotic-resistant bacteria; hence pesticide-resistant insects; hence a new strain of cancer-resistant mouse.
Mutation is indeed common but it is uniformly destructive of genetic information. Useful new information, which I assume you would agree is absolutely necessary, is not created. Reference Not By Chance by Lee Spetner
He shows that bacterial resistance occurs as a result of the destruction of genetic information that reduces the overall hardiness of the bacteria.
I don't have his book in front of me, but from reading a lengthy exchange of emails between Spetner and Edward E. Max, I remain extremely unimpressed with Spetner's thesis. I've got a graduate degree in computer science and information theory, and he really stretches things beyond tenability in too many places. Perhaps the shortest demonstration of the speculative nature of his work is where he writes:
To estimate the information in an enzyme I shall assume that the information content of the enzyme itself is at least the maximum information gained in transforming the substrate distribution into the product distribution. (I think this assumption is reasonable, but to be rigorous it should really be proved.)Even *Spetner* admits that his ideas only rise to the level of what he considers "reasonable", and are not "rigorous" nor "proven".
Furthermore, it's troubling that Spetner publishes his ideas *only* in a mass-market book, and *not* in the peer-reviewed journals where scientific ideas are subjected to heavy examination and testing. (Side note: This is extremely common for creationists.) In fact, the only appearance of Spetner's ideas in peer-reviewed journals (Schneider Nucl Ac Res 28:2794, 2000) is an article that examines Spetner's position in order to *dispute* the validity of his analysis.
The point is that the variation could have been resident in the mouse's genetic code all along.
Once again, I must direct you to The Journal of Molecular Evolution, where there are *frequent* papers on *direct* observations of mutations "adding information" (sloppy phrase, that) in order to bring about positive evolutionary change and added complexity, along with studies tracing the exact base-pair mutations which brought about changes in one evolutionary lineage versus another.
And lo and behold, the mutations are hardly "uniformly destructive", as you assert.
Seems to me that since evolution has been deeply encrusted in the schools for generations already that it is evolution that must answer for this deficiency. Indeed, not a single major biological achievement can be ascribed to following the theory of evolution. However there have been numerous achievements that have been of great benefit to mankind that disprove evolution.
1. vaccination - showed that species have within themselves the ability to adapt without mutation to fight disease.
2. Pasteur's disproof of spontaneous generation which forced Huxley to write off abiogenesis from the theory of evolution.
3. the proof that the shape of the skull has nothing to do wtih intelligence (the brachocephallic index proposed by the racist Darwin as proof that some humans were 'lower species'). 4. the strong proof against the ridiculous statements of evo paleontologists that size of skull = intelligence.
5. the discover of genetics showing how ridiculous and unscientific Darwin's 'melding' of features of the parents was.
6. DNA - showing that a single mutation can not transform a species into a totally new one.
7. the discovery of gene refulation showing that organisms are tightly knit and controlled wholes - just as the opponents of evolution had been claiming for 150 years.
Yup, the proof is in the Library of Congress - go look for it, you will not. Let's see the proof instead of sending people on wild goose chases.
Same way humans do. It is a well known fact in medicine that continued use of a drug for a long time will lead to loss of its effectiveness in the individual. That is why people with long lived problems have to change their medications frequently and cannot stay on just one for their lifetimes even though they may at first be effective.
One takes what one observes.
Okay then millions of times a day we see species reproducing themselves with like individuals. How many times a day do we see a species transform itself into another species??????????????????
If evolution - the transformation of one species into a more complex one had ever been observed then this discussion would have been over a long time ago. It is only because evolutionists cannot give proof for their theory and keep making promises which have not been kept for 150 years that this discussion is still going on.
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