Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Charles Darwin Knew: Science and Freedom
BreakPoint with Charles Colson | 1 Mar 04 | Charles Colson

Posted on 03/01/2004 1:02:07 PM PST by Mr. Silverback

Almost 150 years ago, Charles Darwin knew something that the scientific establishment seems to have forgotten -- something that is being endangered today in the state of Ohio.

In Ohio, high school science students are at risk of being told that they are not allowed to discuss questions and problems that scientists themselves openly debate. While most people understand that science is supposed to consider all of the evidence, these students, and their teachers, may be prevented from even looking at the evidence -- evidence already freely available in top science publications.

In late 2002, the Ohio Board of Education adopted science education standards that said students should know "how scientists investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." The standards did not say that schools should teach intelligent design. They mandate something much milder. According to the standards, students should know that "scientists may disagree about explanations . . . and interpretations of data" -- including the biological evidence used to support evolutionary theory. If that sounds like basic intellectual freedom, that's because it is.

The Ohio Department of Education has responded by implementing this policy through the development of an innovative curriculum that allows students to evaluate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution.

And that has the American scientific establishment up in arms. Some groups are pressuring the Ohio Board to reverse its decision. The president of the National Academy of Sciences has denounced the "Critical Analysis" lesson -- even though it does nothing more than report criticisms of evolutionary theory that are readily available in scientific literature.

Hard as it may be to believe, prominent scientists want to censor what high school students can read and discuss. It's a story that is upside-down, and it's outrageous. Organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and others that are supposed to advance science are doing their best to suppress scientific information and stop discussion.

Debates about whether natural selection can generate fundamentally new forms of life, or whether the fossil record supports Darwin's picture of the history of life, would be off-limits. It's a bizarre case of scientists against "critical analysis."

And the irony of all of this is that this was not Charles Darwin's approach. He stated his belief in the ORIGIN OF SPECIES: "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Darwin knew that objective science demands free and open inquiry, and while I disagree with Darwin on many things, on this he was absolutely right. And I say what's good enough for scientists themselves, as they debate how we got here, is good enough for high school students.

Contact us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) to learn more about this issue and about an intelligent design conference we're co-hosting this June.

The Ohio decision is the leading edge of a wedge breaking open the Darwinist stranglehold on science education in this country. The students in Ohio -- and every other state -- deserve intellectual freedom, and they deserve it now.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: charlescolson; crevolist; education; evolution; scienceeducation
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 961-974 next last
To: Junior
tion does not address the origin of life.

...for we KNOW that is impossible!

41 posted on 03/01/2004 2:09:38 PM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: roylene
I believe God has worked through the whole process.

...as do thousands of biologists who accept the fact of evolution. Your belief in God should in no way affect your acceptance of science, as science in no way states otherwise.
42 posted on 03/01/2004 2:09:38 PM PST by whattajoke
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Junior
evolution does not address the origin of life.

...for we KNOW that is impossible!

43 posted on 03/01/2004 2:09:56 PM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Elsie
for we KNOW that is impossible!

We do? We are here arn't we?

44 posted on 03/01/2004 2:11:34 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: Shryke
http://www.creationevidence.org/
45 posted on 03/01/2004 2:12:18 PM PST by PaxMacian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Silverback
It's an allusion to a thread on bullies in schools and the HHS statement that bullying can be as simple as teasing or gossiping.
46 posted on 03/01/2004 2:13:26 PM PST by Old Professer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Silverback
Darwin knew that objective science demands free and open inquiry, and while I disagree with Darwin on many things, on this he was absolutely right.

A classroom is not where we have free and open scientific enquiry. Students are not free to proclaim that 2+2=5. Mr. Colson should stick to preaching (or burgling).

47 posted on 03/01/2004 2:13:45 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThinkPlease
There is nothing currently scientific about intelligent design. That may change, but until then, ID has no place in a science classroom.

Would you have a problem with it being discussed in a philosophy class--if they still taught philosophy in high school?

48 posted on 03/01/2004 2:14:37 PM PST by TigerTale (From the streets of Tehran to the Gulf of Oman, let freedom ring.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Silverback
And that has the American scientific establishment up in arms. Some groups are pressuring the Ohio Board to reverse its decision. The president of the National Academy of Sciences has denounced the "Critical Analysis" lesson -- even though it does nothing more than report criticisms of evolutionary theory that are readily available in scientific literature.

What this means is that given the limited ability of public schools to teach anything, they won't learn any evolutionary biology. Although you could say that few get out of high school learning it now.

In physics they'll go back to learning the steady-state model of the universe and that the earth doesn't move, since cosmology is just a theory and there are disagreements among scientists. In mathematics they'll say calculus isn't real because no one can really do an infinite number of operations and there are disagreements among mathematicians (I heard a cheer somewhere for this).

Too bad these folks can't take the time and energy to get abortion reversed. Must be disagreements among abortionists.

49 posted on 03/01/2004 2:14:53 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Modernman
Explain to me why you think the TOE in any way deals with how life began.

I have seen evolutionists running away from the primordial soup theory which they taught me as part of evolution when I went to school in the 70s (any rational person would as it is preposterous on its face). So I guess there is no science out there that in any way refutes or disproves the notion that we were created by someone or something.

Since evolution cannot explain how we got here, only why some of us our born without wisdom teeth, what do we have to fill this void with in education? I am sure enquiring young minds want to know.
50 posted on 03/01/2004 2:16:06 PM PST by microgood
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Elsie
evolution does not address the origin of life.

Neither does astronomy, agriculture, botany, cladistics, chemistry, engineering, calculus, geometry, forestry, gerontology, genetics, icthyology, ornithology, herpetology, zoology, geology, paleotology, archeology, etc, etc, etc.

Got a problem with them too?
51 posted on 03/01/2004 2:20:46 PM PST by whattajoke
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: PaxMacian
From your link:

Evolutionary theory doesn't deal with coal formation.  It deals with changes in allele frequency within a population over time.  If the rest of the claims on this site are as poorly presented as this, I'd be more than a little embarrassed to use it as a reference.

52 posted on 03/01/2004 2:21:03 PM PST by Junior (No animals were harmed in the making of this post)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Silverback
Of the authors; Behe hasn't published in the biochemical literature (as far as I can tell) since 1997; Johnson is a lawyer, and his opinion of evolution is probably as valuable as my opinion of tort law; I can't find a single paper in the scientific (as opposed to mathematical) literature by Dembski; and who's the fourth guy?
53 posted on 03/01/2004 2:22:52 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Silverback
As long as free and open debate threatens the presuppositions of certain scientists, risking their worldview and the politics it influences, there is no possible way that debate will be allowed in schools. Liberty apparently doesn't include the liberty to freely discuss ideas in government schools -- unless those ideas serve the left.
54 posted on 03/01/2004 2:23:24 PM PST by King Black Robe (With freedom of religion and speech now abridged, it is time to go after the press.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PaxMacian
I perused your site. The 10 quick explinations for scientific evidence of Creation are.....well, let's put it this way. The so-called debunking of carbon-dating, geology, fossil-records, magnetic fields, etc. are NOT EVIDENCE FOR CREATION, even if they were true (which I won't bother debating). Can you cite some testable evidence?
55 posted on 03/01/2004 2:25:10 PM PST by Shryke
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: PaxMacian
When the ratio of uranium decay to its decay product (lead) is analyzed, the conclusion is drawn that all the logs within the various geologic formations were buried at the same time.

This is awful, just awful. Carbon-14 dating of organic remains (if young enough) will tell you when the organism last lived. Uranium-lead dating cannot be used that way and is not used that way.

56 posted on 03/01/2004 2:25:17 PM PST by VadeRetro
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor
A classroom is not where we have free and open scientific enquiry. Students are not free to proclaim that 2+2=5.

So when I was a student in the 70s and I was taught the primordial soup theory as an explanation of how we got here, that discussion had no business in a science class and I was being taught religion instead?
57 posted on 03/01/2004 2:26:05 PM PST by microgood
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor
A classroom is not where we have free and open scientific enquiry. Students are not free to proclaim that 2+2=5.

Hey, daddy-o, don't be so square. This is the post-modern, beat classroom, where anything goes, man, anything goes - and in the beat classroom, 2+2 is whatever you feel like, pops. Just don't harsh someone else's buzz about it, man, and it's all cool...


58 posted on 03/01/2004 2:28:25 PM PST by general_re (Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. - Tacitus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: whattajoke
...as do thousands of biologists who accept the fact theory of evolution. Your belief in God should in no way affect your acceptance of science, as science in no way states otherwise.
 
 
Belief in the CHRISTIAN God requires one to 'believe' the words attributed to Jesus, and writers of the New Testement.
 
Sin is claimed to have entered the world thru ONE man, known as ADAM.

Luke 3:38
  the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
 
Romans 5:12-21
 12.  Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death (spiritual) came to all men, because all sinned--
 13.  for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
 14.  Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
 15.  But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
 16.  Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
 17.  For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
 18.  Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
 19.  For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
 20.  The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
 21.  so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 

 1 Corinthians 15:45-47
 45.  So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being" ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
 46.  The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
 47.  The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.
 
1 Timothy 2:13
  For Adam was formed first, then Eve. (not evolved)
 
Jude 1:13-15
 14.  Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones
 15.  to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
 
 
"Evolution" CANNOT say where the one man actually started, as it assumes a continium of slight changes from proto-man to Man. 
 
Can you NOW see how a 'believer' might have trouble 'accepting the word of science', with it's history of constantly changing it's mind, to the Word of God, which is said to be unchanging?


59 posted on 03/01/2004 2:28:48 PM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: RadioAstronomer
You are ASSUMING that life came from non-life then?
60 posted on 03/01/2004 2:29:52 PM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 961-974 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson