Posted on 07/05/2003 4:12:52 PM PDT by chance33_98
'Monkey trial' continues in Roseville
ROSEVILLE (AP) - Nearly a century has passed since the famous Scopes "monkey trial," but Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is still being tested - most recently before the Roseville Joint High School District.
At issue was how high school students should be taught evolution and if competing ideas about man's place in nature should also be included in a science textbook. But after a lengthy debate from dozens of residents and parents, board trustees approved a new science book that presented only Darwin's side of the story. School officials said there is no book on the mainstream market that presents what some call the "intelligent design" theory of evolution - a belief that life did not evolve randomly but instead progressed according to a plan or design. Officials said the book selected is readable and provides material that students will be tested on by the state.
Darwin believed that human beings could and should transcend natural selection as they were the only species capable of reason and creating abstract concepts. Anyway Darwin is maligned for evolution and this is a convenient excuse for many.
You guys are so afraid of ID that you are willing to throw science out the window. You are just admitting that science has no regards for the truth. Now that may be the evolutionist view of science, however, that is not what science is about. It is about discovering the truth about life, the Universe and whatever else it can. That you have so little disregard for the truth and for science shows quite well that you care more about your ideology than anything else.
Never, you must honor your Creator instead of lying about His works. Science has never had a problem with God. Some of the greatest scientists have been devout Christians and they saw no problem between their scientific work and their religion. Reason is that science is the discovery of the rules and laws that govern the Universe not about cataloguing stupid fossils, an endeavor which has not benefitted mankind in any way except to help spread an ideology which resulted in the death of over 100 million people in the 20th century.
That's a great one! And very true too. Seems the evolutionists only know rhetoric and 'placemarkering' but do not have the vaguest idea about anything else.
Since you are such a big fan of that evo blog heaven perhaps you can give me the answers to some questions which I have been wondering about evolution:
There is tons of Evidence Disproving Evolution , as well as many Amazing Creatures which in no way could have evolved as evolution claims. Evolution cannot be either science or fact if it cannot scientifically (not rhetorically) refute contrary evidence.
To claim that evolution is science, evolutionists first have to answer several questions:
1. what exactly is THE theory of evolution - without a theory it could not have been scientifically verified.
2. how can evolution give proof of descent from hundreds of millions of years back when it cannot even give proof of descent with the same kind of evidence (fossils) in the present time.
3. what is the evidence of transformations of species and whether it is valid?
4. by what methods does evolution occur?
5. how does it scientifically answer the questions posed by opponents (other than calling them nincompoops)?
6. how can evolution be science when it denies causation, and natural laws - the basis of all scientific advances?
7. how can evolution be science when its propositions are constantly refuted by science?
8. how can evolution be science when its criteria for 'proof' is imagination, not observation?
9. how can evolution be science when it cannot point to any benefits to humanity being derived from applying it?
None of the above is true. The Universe, by the admission of almost all scientists was indeed intelligently designed, the only thing that the atheists have to counter it is Hawking's ridiculous and desperate multiverse theory. Life is acknowledged to have been intelligently designed also, the atheists cannot even propose an alternative that agrees with known scientific facts. The bacterial flagellum is also certainly intelligently designed and scientific proof has been given for it which has withstood every attempt to refute it.
Well, the sole argument of you and the evolutionists seems to be a semantic one, not a factual one. Truth of the matter is that not a single species has ever been observed to transform into another, not a single mutation has ever been seen to create a new faculty and not a single gene has ever been observed to have duplicated. So you folks have no evidence at all, just rhetoric and that is why all you talk is semantics, not facts. Heck, evolution is not even a theory, no one will say what the theory of evolution is, including the premier site of evolutionist disinformation - TalkOrigins.
There is no single theory, as many different people have their own views on it. There is debate over some specifics of evolution, and sometimes the general theory is changed when scientists come to consensus.
2. how can evolution give proof of descent from hundreds of millions of years back when it cannot even give proof of descent with the same kind of evidence (fossils) in the present time.
Evolution doesn't "prove" anything. It's just the best way to explain the past. Even if there is a God and He created everything, He would still have created this world in such a way that it makes the most sense to approach the past from an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary theory is the best (most useful) way of understanding the past.
3. what is the evidence of transformations of species and whether it is valid?
You mean the transformation from one species to another? I really am not familiar with that specific stuff (I'm not a scientist, I just play one on FR)
4. by what methods does evolution occur?
By changes to the genetic code (mistakes during replication, UV radiation, damage/contamination from virus attacks, and for bacteria, trading genetic information through conjugation. That's how the genetic information changes. Then, through survival of the fittest/sexual reproduction, beneficial changes are passed on.
5. how does it scientifically answer the questions posed by opponents (other than calling them nincompoops)?
A lot of the flame wars around this topic orginate with the bad faith some creationists deal in (they're not interested in debating real science, they just throw out the same objections every time, or they make wildly ridiculous and unscientific claims). I try to be more civil.
6. how can evolution be science when it denies causation, and natural laws - the basis of all scientific advances?
?
Evolution does not deny causation. It cannot say how the ball started rolling (that is another argument entirely). How did the first little bacteria get onto the Earth and start multiplying? We really don't know where it comes from. Maybe it was set down by God. That doesn't really matter--what matters is that from that point on, to us now, it looks like evolution was taking place.
7. how can evolution be science when its propositions are constantly refuted by science?
This just isn't right. Evolution has not been scientifically "refuted." It is under constant scrutiny, but that is not the same thing as it having been proved wrong in major ways.
8. how can evolution be science when its criteria for 'proof' is imagination, not observation?
This isn't right either. Most of the imagination stuff comes out when creationists say "that isn't possible!" and an evolutionist says "well, what if..." in an attempt to prove it's possible.
The real science behind evolution comes from studying things like the DNA of creatures to see how they fit into the big "tree of life," and how they've accumulated small differences as they move up the tree (for example, there are usually small differences in proteins between a lower-order organism and the one right above it).
9. how can evolution be science when it cannot point to any benefits to humanity being derived from applying it?
There are "benefits to humanity" of understanding the theory of evolution. For one thing, in computer science, some people have designed computer programs to mimic some of the ways nature solves problems. And that is just evolutionary theory in the abstract.
Understanding what happened in the past is useful for us today. A better example is that evolutionary theory helps us to understand infectious diseases better (and therefore, to better treat them).
You are not the Wizard of Oz and saying it, does not make it so. Just repeating the mantra does not make evolution science. That evolution has no theory but instead is a mishmash of contradictory pronouncements, by itself makes it not science.
God told me.
The observation of a species transforming itself into another would falsify ID theory.
There is no single theory, as many different people have their own views on it. There is debate over some specifics of evolution, and sometimes the general theory is changed when scientists come to consensus.
Well, your statement above shows very well why evolution cannot be science. For a theory to be scientifically proven, it must first be a theory, not just 'any old theory'. This is the evolutionist snow job propounded at TalkOrigins in What is Evolution? a pick and choose theory. Well that is not how science works. First of all one needs a theory to be verified, without a theory, a definite theory, evolution cannot be true. Further, many of these theories (such as Neo_Darwinism and Punk_Eek) cannot both be true because they contradict each other. So which one is the theory of evolution? Which one is the one that is science?<
The second sentence above shows even more clearly why evolution is not science. If there is debate about what the theory is, then that is an admission that it is not a theory - which is what I have been saying. It therefore cannot be a scientific theory because it is not even a theory. However, the part that shows what nonsense evolution is is "sometimes the general theory is changed when scientists come to consensus". You are not only showing that there is no theory, but that evolution is not a theory but a talking away of scientific facts. It follows scientific discoveries and then tries to fit them into the theory. The purpose (and verification) of a scientific theory is to make scientific predictions and to build upon them. If the theory waits in what it says to see what science finds, it is utterly useless and not science at all. It is just an ideology trying to use science for its own purpose.
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