Prior to your statement is this...
and the worde was God
Seems fairly plain to me, unless you propose to add one to the Trinity.
                     |
Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.
Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.
"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.
Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.
The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.
"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.
Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.
"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."
The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.
It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.
The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."
The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."
The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.
The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.
Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.
The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.
"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.
The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."
The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.
Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.
Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.
Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.
New books will be distributed next summer.
State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.
"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"
State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.
"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.
State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.
"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."
You got it. Evolutionary theory predicts that the same mutation is found in related species. The LGGLO pseudogene fits this prediction precisely.
From our point of view, Barnard's star is moving at a rate of about 10.3 arc seconds per year, so in 6 years it moves an arc minute, and thus in about 360 years, it will have moved about ONE DEGREE relative to the very distant background stars, as seen from our solar system.
To put that in perspective (no pun intended) one degree is about the apparent diameter of the sun, or the moon, as seen from Earth.
In a sense, Barnard's Star is the drag racer of our neighborhood of the Milky Way.
Genesis as myth=Jesus had NO reason to be here and therefore what he did was in vain.
For them yes...I guess that is a valid conclusion. A selective fundamentalist is what I call them. Jesus spoke in parables and the Bible is filled with metaphor to explain a message to even the simplest of folks. For Christians Christ is the antithesis of Adam (who brought sin and death to mankind). God gave us laws, but he also gave us free-will. He wanted us to love him freely...not have a bunch of Angels(designed to love him). BUT...man could not be saved by the law, so he sent his son and he cleansed our sins and saved us from death.
Prior to your statement is this...
and the worde was God
Seems fairly plain to me, unless you propose to add one to the Trinity.
|
Further, the garbage spouted from it about development of species following the evolutionary tree is absolutely false and no decent scientist would make such a claim any more. It is a lie, it was never science and evolutionists are still 100 years after the fraud was shown to be a fraud lying about it.
I tell ya G3k, I couldn't have refuted any of your own statements better than you did with this one:
me:Did you read the article
You: No, I read the drivel posted here, it was one insult after another which had nothing to do with the truth of the points made in the Wells article.
Well, kiddo, my posts to you had no insults, and if you can't answer my points without resorting to insults, perhaps you'd best stop responding at all, eh? After all, if you had read the link I gave to you above, you would have read this:
The charge that Ernst Haeckel intentionally "faked" his drawings is irrelevant. Regardless of his intent, the drawings that Haeckel made are incorrect, especially in what he labeled as the "first stage." But it really does not matter what Haeckel thought or whether his drawings are accurate: modern comparative embryology does not stand or fall on the accuracy of Haeckel any more than modern physics stands or falls on the accuracy of Kepler or Newton. Historically, Wells actively ignores the accurate work of many of Haeckel's predecessors and contemporaries (such as William and Jeffrey Parker, Hans Gadow, Hans Selenka, Heinrich Rathke, Virgil Leighton, Hugo Schauinsland, Alfred Voeltzkow, to name a few). Haeckel and von Baer were not the only embryologists in nineteenth-century science, but you wouldn't know that from reading Wells. Worse, Wells speciously extends his critique of Haeckel to the present day. Wells implies that textbooks misrepresent the study of developmental programs as evidence for evolution by accusing them of using Haeckel's inaccurate drawings, in effect accusing textbooks that show any embryos of "mindlessly repeating" Haeckel. The important question is whether textbooks, and more importantly developmental biologists, still rely on Haeckel's work. The answer is no, but that doesn't stop Wells from acting as if they do. or:
Wells uses phylogenetic trees to attack the very core of evolution -- common descent. Wells claims that textbooks mislead students about common descent in three ways. First, Wells claims that textbooks do not cover the "Cambrian Explosion" and fail to point out how this "top-down" evolution poses a serious challenge to common descent and evolution. Second, he asserts that the occasional disparity between morphological and molecular phylogenies disproves common descent. Finally, he demands that textbooks treat universal common ancestry as unproven and refrain from illustrating that "theory" with misleading phylogenies. Therefore, according to Wells, textbooks should state that there is no evidence for common descent and that the most recent research refutes the concept entirely. Wells is completely wrong on all counts, and his argument is entirely based on misdirection and confusion. He mixes up these various topics in order to confuse the reader into thinking that when combined, they show an endemic failure of evolutionary theory. In effect, Wells plays the equivalent of an intellectual shell game, putting so many topics into play that the "ball" of evolution gets lost.
But don't take my word for it. Read the whole article here:
You'd be surprised, you might learn something.
lest the "bad journalism patrol" ticket me of felonious poor writing.
I'd be shocked.
"..... one degree is about roughly TWICE the apparent diameter of the sun, or the moon, as seen from Earth."
lest RadioAstronomer slap me silly with a copy of Norton's Star Atlas.
It is no distortion. It is a direct reading of even your source, supported by the received text in Greek, Namely
Unless you propose to increase the Trinity by one, Jesus is the Creator of everything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
