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.
A little oversimplified, but close enough for this discussion.
This must extend into cosmology or there is a plan, purpose, and Target:
Does not follow. One can certainly postulate a purposeful "universe maker" of some sort who crafted our universe for some purpose of its own, but which did not give a damn one way or the other about the development of organic life on the third planet of some obscure solar system out in the boonies.
On the other hand, maybe it *does* extend to cosmology. But you can't just sit in your armchair and *logically* conclude either way.
“Whether there is a target or not, the nature and mechanism of interspecies evolution demands that a millenia of transitional forms be processed through in order to get from a one cell organism to the variety of creatures we have today.”
And how can one argue with the predictions of this beautiful theory?
Very well, thanks for asking. There are indeed thousands of transitional forms, at least between creatures which are hardbodied or hardboned enough to fossilize with some degree of success.
1. Had the rate of expansion of the big bang been different, [megasnip]
There are certainly some wild-assed guesses in that chain. Some are reasonable extrapolations, but others are just numbers out of a hat, since we don't know enough about universe formation yet to know if things *could* have ended up any other way. It makes for some fun philosophical contemplation, but I'm not sure if it's good for much else. And again, it ignores the "otherwise we wouldn't be asking about it" issue.
6. The chance formation of life from nonlife (abiogenesis) has been estimated at around 1 x 1040,000
Clearly, you've lost some typesetting notation there...
Thus, the probability of life forming anywhere in the cosmos is miniscule.
Manure. I've personally checked every single "estimate" of this sort I've managed to get my hands on, and they're all ridiculously simplistic. None of them even uses an arguably plausible mechanism for their probability calculation. Anyone who claims to have even a rough estimate of the actual likelihood of life first arising is a fool. The possible range given our current knowledge is anywhere from inifinitismal to near certainty. We just can't know yet.
FIG O: Origin of the Phyla: Darwinian predictions
You are, of course, invited to justify your claim that the chart accurately reflects the "Darwinian predictions" for the origin of phyla.
Damn, somewhere around the web I once found a really good rebuttal for this popular sequence of creationist "graphs", but I can't locate it at the moment. So I'll give a brief recap.
The biggest problem with these "conceptual" graphs (note that they aren't the product of any actual measurements or data...) is that they show a one-dimensional measure of "morphological distance". But the only meaningful measures of "morphological distance" are multi-dimensional, not flat. A tree branching off in all directions would appear "overlapped" on these sketches, giving extremely misleading mental ideas about true disparity.
But that aside, the actual fossil data *does* come much closer to fitting the "branching tree" sketch abovce than this dishonest one:
FIG Q: The origin of the phyla: the fossil evidence
That's just ridiculous. It shows *no* change in "morphological distance" between phyla from the Cambrian until now, which is just utterly ludicrious. The promulgators of that graph would have you believe that there's no more difference between the worm-like Cambrian chordate (it wasn't even yet a vertebrate) and the worm-like Cambrian arthropod, than there is between today's, say, giraffe and dragonfly. It's a great example of "how to lie with graphs".
In fact, the fossil record of phyla disparity much more resembles the top graph (that's the "Darwinian prediction", I remind you) than the lower graph. While it's true that representatives of today's major animal phyla had appeared by the time of the Cambrian, they were all very primitive and simplistic by today's standard, and showed more in common with each other than obvious differences (the differences only become "meaningful" when viewed through today's knowledge of the different directions that each early "body type" was going to branch -- at the time, a worm with a spinal cord versus a worm with a more diffuse nerve net would hardly rise to the level of different families, much less different phyla. The amount of morphological distance *was* far less in those days than it is today. The "tree of life" had only a few dozen branches, and they were "close" together in comparison to wide gulfs between groups of animals today.
The sudden appearance of between 50 and 100 disparate body plans with extremely low species diversity supports the conclusion that neither gradual Darwinian evolution nor lower taxon-level punctuations can account for the origin of the higher taxa and the major body plans.
Horse manure. The "disparate body plans" were hardly as "disparate" as their modern ancestors now are. At the time they barely showed what we would consider earth-shaking differences from each other. Yes, they had some significant differences, but hardly on the level of, say, a modern butterfly versus a crab, even though both are in the *same* phyla. The disparity of life in the Cambrian was far, far more limited than the later "spreading" of the "tree of life".
In short, while there were a relatively limited number of species at the time of the Cambrian, it's because life was still branching out, the "many phyla" point is just a *modern* view of those humble beginnings, and how almost each Cambrian species was to eventually father its own major trunk of the ever-branching tree of life.
There's nothing there that's at all inconsistent with what we already know about evolutionary speciation.
Dear God, you're medved! Welcome back, Ted!
And your gay what? Dog? Goldfish? Next-door neighbor?
Ah, you probably meant "and you're gay." Unfortunately, you came off looking not only childish but also semi-literate.
"You don't have to call me darlin', darlin'. You never even call me by my name..."
Well, I don't know what myelin sheaths are supposed to have to do with "replication" either. As the name suggests they "sheath" the cell. They aren't even inside the cell where replication, protein systhesis, and the like occurs.
...and from the preceeding message:
It was one thing in a string of items detailing the jump from amino acids to replication.
Again, I don't get your point. Even if you do have some point here, it wouldn't (appear to) apply to all potential origin of life theories. Scenarios that begin with the synthesis of proteins (composed of amino acids) characterize only one class of origin of life theories, and not (it's my impression) the most popular ones in recent years. Another whole class of theories suggest that nucleic acids (DNA, or more commonly RNA) appeared first. One might further classify theories into those that suggest the proteins and nucleic acids appeared together in some synergistic fashion, and finally those that would propose a "lost template" (that replication was initially based on some chemical structure other than nucleic acids).
Why are you stuck on the myelin sheath?
Well, I just didn't understand what you were getting at, and wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.
Cosmology - The science of the world or universe; or a treatise relating to the structure and parts of the system of creation, the elements of bodies, the modifications of material things, the laws of motion, and the order and course of nature. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary)
Now unless you can prove biological evolution has nothing to do with "the order and course of nature" (which is absurd) - biological evolution does have something to do with cosmology.
You're right - that was amusing. Proving a know-it-all is wrong is fun.
You are not too quick on the uptake. I was sick of Aric2000 sniping from the sidelines and disrupting debates so I decided to give him a dose of his own medicine.
That is the nature of sideline sniping – jumping in with unrelated and often incorrect statements that force the person that is actually debating to address the sniping thus turning the debate into a meaningless food fight.
Uh huh... In order to properly characterize his posts properly, it would help if you *understood* them first
Sorry to embarrass you, but you are the one that did not understand.
BTW: your “biological evolution has no connection to cosmology” is a snipe. It is a factually incorrect statement meant to disrupt the debate.
That is a good one! Nearly all of Aric2000's messages are laced with insults and name-calling and now he wants to whine about other people doing it. Amazing.
I and others were discussing BIOLOGICAL evolution, these 2 disruptor/Trolls came in discussing COSMOLOGICAL evolution, 2 different things.
Remember, Aric2000 is intellectually dishonest. The reality of the situation is Aric2000 was sniping from the sidelines - a thread developed related to what should be taught in school - somebody stated no cosmological theories can be proven so it would be a good idea to present both religion-based cosmological theories and evolution-based cosmological theories and let the students decide (in the context of cosmology and not biology)– Aric2000 started sniping from the sidelines that cosmology has nothing to do with evolution and the food fight started – after decimating that debate Aric2000 turned to insults than the disrupts patted each other on the back – when Aric2000’s snipes were proven to be factually “inconsistent” he started whining that the debate was about biological evolution and the other person was “wrong” for even bringing up cosmology (as if Aric2000 is King of FreeRepublic and he controls the topics of all debates)
The Darwinist disrupters arrogantly think they know-it-all. Thinking the “science” side of the debate has all the answers they arrogantly disrupt all debates related evolution by sniping from the sidelines – the reality is science currently does not have all the answers and their arrogance drives them to make factually incorrect and often absurd statements (like biological evolution has nothing to do with cosmology). These disrupters are not interested in exchanging ideals and challenging their beliefs – they assume they are correct and they snipe at anybody that does not agree with their intellectually rigid and narrow-minded approach to the subject.
That is rigid thinking Orthodox Darwinist Dogma 101 – divert the attention of the opposition by mischaracterizing their statements and beliefs so when they are forced to defend themselves the Darwinist can claim victory. It is a variation of the question “when did you stop beating your wife”
They said I was a Creationist and Fundamentalist Christian (I am neither)
That's the problem! They don't have the answers. That's why there are so many scientists who think evilution is bunk.
FRegards, MM
Hahaha! That was a great idea!
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