Posted on 11/12/2004 4:54:43 AM PST by fr11
ATLANTA - First, Georgia's education chief tried to take the word "evolution" out of the state's science curriculum. Now a suburban Atlanta county is in federal court over textbook stickers that call evolution "a theory, not a fact." Some here worry that Georgia is making itself look like a bunch of rubes or, worse, discrediting its own students.
"People want to project the image that Georgia is a modern state, that we're in the 21st century. Then something like this happens," said Emory University molecular biologist Carlos Moreno.
The federal lawsuit being heard this week in Atlanta concerns whether the constitutional separation of church and state was violated when suburban Cobb County school officials placed the disclaimer stickers in high school biology texts in 2002. The stickers say evolution should be "critically considered."
Some scientists say they are frustrated the issue is still around nearly 80 years since the Scopes Monkey Trial — the historic case heard in neighboring Tennessee over the teaching of evolution instead of the biblical story of creation.
"We're really busy. We have a lot to do. And here we are, having to go through this 19th century argument over and over again," said Sarah Pallas, who teaches biology and neuroscience at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Moreno and dozens of other science instructors, along with the county superintendent, argued that the stickers only make the state look backward. And high school teacher Wes McCoy worried the issue could tarnish his students.
"I didn't want college admission counselors thinking less of their science educations, thinking they hadn't been taught evolution or something," McCoy testified.
Moreno recalled how, after graduating from Georgia public schools, he headed north to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites), only to find that people were less than kind about his educational roots.
"They felt Southerners were not only less well educated, but less intelligent," Moreno said.
Doughnut shop worker Maria Jordan, 48, said her Atlanta customers were shaking their heads over the latest dispute. "Lord, don't we have more important things to worry about?" she asked. "It's just a flat-out embarrassment."
As for what they are saying elsewhere around the country, she said: "Whatever Georgia's getting up north, we're putting it on ourselves."
> What kinda molecular scientist believes in evolution.
Pretty much all of 'em.
> I imagine all of this will be settled when God appears and reveals how he created the universe anyway.
And boy won't people be surprised when that god is Zeus...
We cannot go back into time and see how the world was created. But scientific theories make predictions that can be verified. For example, the theory of evolution includes the observation that all life has descended from a common ancestor. This was clear to Charles Darwin and his contemporaries, who reached this conclusion by studying the anatomy of living things. Now if life really did descend from a common ancestor, when the technology to sequence genes became available, it would be expected that the genetic information would confirm the family trees inferred from older studies of anatomy. This is precisely what happened: species understood to be more closely related usually happen to have more similarities in their genes -- down to inconsequential "spelling errors" in the genes. This, therefore, is a prediction by the theory, which was then verified.
Personally, I have no problem believing in a God who created life using evolution: we have a world with life that is resilient and adaptable, which has sculpted itself into the myriad beautiful forms we see today.
> What will those nasty Christians come up with next?
Probably some other abuse of the word "theory."
Calculations of Bradley and Thaxton for random production of a single protein.
Walter L. Bradley and Charles B. Thaxton calculated the probability of a random formation of amino acids into a protein to be 4.9 x 10-191. They began with the assumption that the probability of starting with an L-amino acid was .5, and the probability of starting with an L-amino acid was .5, and the probability of two L-amino acids joining with a peptide bond was also .5. They assumed that the twenty necessary amino acids existed in equal concentration in the prebiotic soup so that the probability of the right amino acid in the required position was .05.
Bradley and Thaxton were also generous towards the proponents of random processes when they also assumed that all of the chemical reactions would be with amino acids, ignoring the high probability of reactions with non-amino acid chemicals. They calculated the probability of the necessary placement of one amino acid to be .5 x .5 x .05 or .125. This, of coarse, meant that the probability of assembling N such amino acids would be .0125 x .0125 for N terms. Assuming a protein with 100 amino acids (.0125 x .0125 for 100 terms ), the mathematically impossible probability would be 4.9 x 10-191.
Bradley and Thaxton noted their agreement with Hubert P. Yockey and concluded that even assuming that all the carbon on earth existed in the form of amino acids and reacted at the greatest possible rate of 1012/s for one billion years (when actually only 130 million years were available), the mathematically impossible probability for the formation of one functional protein would be 10-65.
Walter L. Bradley and Charles B. Thaxton, “Information and the Origin of Life” in The Creation Hypothesis, ed. J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, Il : InterVarsity Press, 1994), p. 190
Calculations of Harold Morowitz for single celled bacterium developing from accidental or chance processes.
The difficulties in producing a protein from the mythical prebiotic soup are very large, but more difficult still is the probability of random processes producing the simplest living cell which represents an overwhelming in crease in complexity. Harold Morowitz calculated the probability of broken chemical bonds in a single celled bacterium reassembling under ideal chemical conditions. He assumed that only constructive chemical processes were acting ( under natural conditions 50 percent of chemical processes are destructive ) and that all of the amino acids were bioactive ( in the natural environment 75 percent of amino acids are not bioactive ). Morowitz computed the odds against the cell reassembling eot be one in 10100,000,000,000. He summarized his computation:
“…no amount of ordinary manipulation or arguing about the age of the universe or the size of the system can suffice to make it plausible that such a fluctuation would have occurred in an equilibrium system. It is always possible to argue that any unique event would have occurred. This is outside the range of probabilistic considerations, and really, outside of science. We may sum up stating that on energy considerations alone, the possibility of a living cell occurring in an equilibrium ensemble is vanishingly small. It is important to reiterate this point as a number of authors on the origin of life have missed the significance of vanishingly small probabilities. They have assumed that the final possibility will be reasonably large by virtue of the size and age of the system. The previous paragragh shows that is not so: calculate clause of the probability of spontaneous origin are so low that the final probabilities are still vanishingly small.”
-Harold J. Morowitz, Energy Flow in Biology (Woodbridge, Conn.: Ox Bow Press, 1979), p. 12.
Morowitz also calculated the increase in chemical bonding energy required in forming an E coli bacterium and the probability of such a bacterium forming spontaneously anywhere in the entire universe over a period of five billion years under equilibrium conditions. In computing the odds to be one in 1010(110), Morowitz wrote:
“What is very clear … is that if equilibrium processes alone were at work, the largest possible fluctuation in the history of the universe id likely to have been no larger than a small peptide. Again, we stress in a very firm quantitative way, the impossibility of life originating as a fluctuation in an equilibrium ensemble.”
-Morowitz, Energy Flow in Biology, p. 68.
Calculations of Bernd-Olaf Kuppers for the random generation of the sequence of a bacterium.
Proceeding from the realistic assumption that all sequence alternatives of a nucleic-acid molecule are physically equivalent, Bernd-Olaf Kuppers concluded that the unguided, random formation of a predefined sequence ( such as the specific sequence of the nucleotides in the DNA molecule ) is reciprocally proportional to the number of all possible combinations of possible sequences. Kuppers noted that Michael Polanyi correctly emphasized that if the reverse assumption were true and the sequence of a nucleic-acid acid molecule would not have the capability to store information necessary to replicate living matter.
In calculating the expectation probability for the nucleotide sequence of a bacterium, Kuppers demonstrated the reason mathematicians have severe problems in accepting the assumptions of random origins:
“The human genome consists of about 109 nucleotides, and the number of combinatorially possible sequences attains the unimaginable size of 41000 million = 10 600 million. Even in the simple case of a bacterium, the genome consists of some 4.106 nucleotides, and the number of combinatorially possible sequences is 4 4million = 10 2.4 million. The expectation probability for the nucleotide sequence of a bacterium is thus so slight that not even the entire space of the universe would be enough to make the random synthesis of a bacterial genome probable. For example, the entire mass of the universe, expressed as a multiple of the mass of the hydrogen atom, amounts to about 1080 units. Even if all the matter in space consisted of DNA molecules of the structural complexity of the bacterial genome, with random sequence, then the chances of finding among them a bacterial genome or something resembling one would still be completely negligible.”
Brand-Olaf Kuppers, Information and the Origin of Life ( Cambridge, Mass:: The MIT Press, 1990 ), pp 59-60.
Creation is a belief and it has nothing to do with science. Creation has no place in science and should be taught in religious courses.
Evolution is a scientific mechanism to explain a specific process. Evolution is not to be taught in a religious course but in a scientific setting.
Religious experts have no right to prescribe what should be put in or on a scientific text book just like Scientific experts have no right to prescribe what should be in a religious book such as the Bible (which I guess is actually a combination of 66 books, goespels and letters).
Mixing of religious beliefs with scientific mechanisms is improper and should never occur.
Hi Rube. You've just proved the articles point. Evolution has absolutely zero to do with "how the world was created".
Creationionists are the albatross around the neck of conservatives like Gay Marriage people are for the liberals.
Calculations of Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe for random generation of a simple enzyme and calculations for a single celled bacterium.
Although he is an evolutionist, and an atheist, Hoyle sees the mathematical statistical difficulty in producing a single bacterium like E. coli. In his calculations of the probability of life emerging from chance interactions with chemicals, Hoyle assumed that the first living cell was much simpler than today’s bacteria. However, his calculation for the likelihood of even one very simple enzyme arising at the right time in the right place was only chance in 1020. Because there are thousands of different enzymes with different functions, to produce the simplest living cell, Hoyle calculated that about 2,000 enzymes were needed with each one performing a specific task to form a single bacterium lie E coli.
No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have a random beginning….there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (1020)2000 = 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court….the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems….cannot in out view be generated by what are often called “natural” processes, …For life to have originated on the Earth it would be necessary that quite explicit instruction should have been provided for its assembly…There is no way in which we can expect to avoid the need for information, no way in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year or two ago.
-Hoyle & Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1981).
I won't waste my time and try to educate you here. Go read up a bit on the subject and get back with us.
Science requires observation and verification.
No one has ever observed evolution, or verified evolution in the laboratory.
No one can go back in time and observe and verify how the world came into existence.
Therefore, since science requires observation and verification and no one can or has ever observed or verified evolution, evolution is not scientific.
Evolutionist and senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, Dr. Colin Patterson:
“We must first ask whether the theory of evolution by natural selection is scientific or pseudoscientific (metaphysical) … Taking the first part of the theory, that evolution has occurred, it says that the history of life is a single process of species-splitting and progression. This process must be unique and unrepeatable, like the history of England. This part of the theory is therefore a historical theory, about unique events, and unique events are, by definition, not part of science, for they are unrepeatable and so not subject to test.”
[Colin Patterson, Evolution (London: British Museum of Natural History, 1978), pp. 145-146 (emphasis added).]
Evolution is a Faith
Evolutionist Harrison Matthews:
“The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory – is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation – both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof.”
[L. Harrison Matthews in the Introduction to Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1971), p. X-XI (emphasis added). As cited in Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988), pp. 30-31.]
“The root of the problem is that “science” has two distinct definitions in our culture. On the one hand, science refers to a method of investigation involving things like careful measurements, repeatable experiments, and especially a skeptical, open-minded attitude that insists that all claims be carefully tested. Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for god. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith.”
[Phillip E. Johnson, “The Church of Darwin,” The Wall Street Journal (August 16, 1999).]
From a popular college and high school biology textbook:
“A process known as the scientific method outlines a series for steps for answering questions, but few scientists adhere rigidly to this prescription. Science is less structured than most people realize. Like other intellectual activities, the best science is a product of minds that are creative, intuitive, and imaginative. Perhaps science is distinguished by its conviction that natural phenomena, including the processes of life, have natural causes…”
[Campbell, Neil A. Biology, 3rd ed. (Redwood City, California: Benjamin/Cummings, 1993), p. 15.]
Leading evolutionists themselves state that evolution is a religion.
As far as the twentieth century is concerned, the leading evolutionist is generally considered to be Sir Julian Huxley, primary architect of modern neo-Darwinism. Huxley called evolution a "Religion Without Revelation" and wrote a book with that title (2nd edition, 1957). In a later book, he said:
“Evolution . . . is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on earth.” [Huxley, Julian, Essays of a Humanist (New York: Harper and `Row, 1964) pp. 125, 222.]
Later in the book he argued passionately that we must change "our pattern of religious thought from a God-centered to an evolution-centered pattern.” [Ibid., p 222.] Then he went on to say that: "the God hypothesis . . . is becoming an intellectual and moral burden on our thought." Therefore, he concluded that "we must construct something to take its place."
Naturalism/Secular Humanism is the now the main religion of the Western World, and evolution is its principle dogma.
“Thanks to the theory of evolution, naturalism is now the dominant religion of modern society… Although most of Darwin’s theories about the mechanisms of evolution were discarded long ago, the doctrine of evolution itself has managed to achieve the status of a fundamental article of faith in the popular modern mind. Naturalism has now replaced Christianity as the main religion of the Western World, and evolution has become naturalism’s principal dogma.
Naturalism is the view that every law and every force operating in the universe is natural rather than moral, spiritual or supernatural. Naturalism is inherently antitheistic, rejecting the very concept of a personal God…it is a common misconception that that naturalism embodies the very essence of scientific objectivity. Naturalists themselves like to portray their system as a philosophy that stands in opposition to all faith-based world-views, pretending that it is scientifically and intellectually superior precisely because of its supposed non-religious character.
Not so. Religion is exactly the right word to describe naturalism. The entire philosophy is built on a faith-based premise. Its basic presupposition—a rejection of anything supernatural—requires a giant leap of faith. And nearly all of its supporting theories must be taken as well.”
[MacArthur, John. The Battle for the Beginning. (W Publishing Group, 2001) p. 11]
All people have a religious worldview.
All people have presuppositions about ultimate reality. No one is neutral.
“Two loves have created these two cities, namely self-love to the extent of despising God, the earthly;
love of God to the extent of despising one’s self, the heavenly city. The former glories in itself, the latter in God. For the former seeks the glory of men while to the latter God as a testimony of the conscience is the greatest glory. The former lifts its head in self-glory, the latter says to its God: ‘Thou art my glory and the lifter of my head’….”
-Augustine, An Augustine Synthesis (arranged, Erich Przywara), “The City of God,” (Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith), p265.
“…because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even capable of doing so.”
Romans 8:7
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”
Proverbs 23:7
Teaching of evolution propagates anti-biblical religions.
Evolution is one of the central doctrines and provides the foundational basis for Secular Humanism.
The Humanist Manifesto I states, “Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.”
This belief is echoed in the Humanist Manifesto II, which claims that “science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces.”
Biologist Julian Huxley devoted most of his life to integrating evolution and the Humanist worldview. He states,
“I use the word ‘Humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or a plant, that his body, his mind, and his soul were not supernaturally created but are all products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural Being or beings, but has to rely on himself and his own powers.”
[Noebel, David A. Understanding the Times: The Story of the Biblical, Christian, Marxist/Leninist, and Secular Humanist Worldviews. (Manitou Springs, CO: Summit Press, 1991), p. 267.]
Humanist Manifesto I:
We therefore affirm the following:
First: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
Second: Humanism believes that man is part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of continuous process.
Humanist Manifesto II:
As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity……humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves…..human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces….
Secular Humanism is a religion.
“Secular Humanism is even more openly religious than Marxism. The first Humanist Manifesto described the agenda of ‘religious’ Humanists. The 1980 preface to the Humanist Manifestoes I & II, written by Paul Kurtz, says, ‘Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.’ John Dewey, a signatory of the 1933 Manifesto, wrote A Common Faith, in which he said, ‘Here are all the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class or race. . . . It remains to make it explicit and militant.’
While the Humanist Manifesto II (written primarily by Paul Kurtz and published in 1973) drops the expression ‘religious humanism,’ it nevertheless contains religious implications and even religious terminology, including the statement that ‘no deity will save us; we must save ourselves.’
Further, in its decision in Torcaso v. Watkins (June 19, 1961), the U.S. Supreme Court stated, ‘Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.’ A few years later (1965) the Supreme Court allowed Daniel Seeger conscientious objector status because of his religious beliefs. He claimed to be a Secular Humanist.
In a guest editorial for the Journal of Church and State entitled ‘Issues That Divide: The Triumph of Secular Humanism,’ Leo Pfeffer insists that Secular Humanism will triumph over its religious competitors—Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism. Says Pfeffer, ‘In the college arena’, it is not Protestantism, Catholicism, or Judaism which will emerge the victor, but secular humanism, a cultural force which in many respects is stronger in the United States than any of the major religious groups or any alliance among them.’
In The Humanist for January/February 1983, John J. Dunphy admitted that Secular Humanism’s opposition is Christianity, not a particular political party. Says Dunphy,
These [Humanist] teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an area of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ will finally be achieved.
What Dunphy doesn’t understand is that the so-called ‘new faith of Humanism’ is older than Christianity by about four hundred to six hundred years. He is correct, however, in noting that Christianity and Humanism are religious antagonists.
Auburn University’s Student, Faculty and staff Directory contains a section entitled ‘Auburn Pastors and Campus Ministers.’ Included in the listing is a Humanist Counselor, Delos McKown, who also happens to be head of Auburn’s philosophy department. This is not an isolated example—the University of Arizona also lists Humanism under religious ministries.
In fact, the American Humanist Association ‘certifies humanist counselors who enjoy the legal status of ordained priests, pastors, and rabbis.’ In its preamble, the Association states that one of its functions is to extend its principles and operate educationally. Toward this end it publishes books, magazines, and pamphlets; engages lecturers; selects trains, and ‘accredits humanistic counselors as its ordained ministry of the movement.’
Kurtz—who has written a book that denies that Humanism is a religion throughout its first half and, in the last half, encourages the establishment of humanist churches, calling them Eupraxophy Centers—admits that the organized Humanist movement in America is put in a quandary over whether Humanism is a religion. Why? Simply because ‘the Fellowship of Religious Humanists (300 members), the American Ethical Union (3,000 members), and the Society for Humanistic Judaism (4,000 members) consider themselves to be religious. Even the American Humanist Association,’ says Kurtz, ‘has a [501(c)3] religious tax exemption.’ Isaac Asimov, a confirmed atheist, is President of the AHA.
[Noebel, David A. Understanding the Times: The Story of the Biblical, Christian, Marxist/Leninist, and Secular Humanist Worldviews. (Manitou Springs, CO: Summit Press, 1991), pp. 32-34.]
Yes it is embarrassing, but if we keep the faith, er..not faith..but you know...the belief..er..uh..the science..yeh, that's better, then we will one day find that somewhere, somehow, life did begin by chemicals and chance and then kept getting more and more complex to the pinnacle of complexity.
Just because we know spontaneous generation is proven to be a falsehood here, our faith...er belief...darn it...our science shows us that it musta happened somewhere out there...it had to because there can't be a god or nuthin.
In the mean time, we will just pretend that we really aren't making that 'spontaneous generation' claim when we swear evolution (particles to people by time and chance) is the explanation for life.
The scientific method. Essential definitions of "theory" "hypothesis" etc.
The scientific method. Another site. Exhaustive discussion.
Is Evolution Science? It is. Here's why.
How Could An Eye Evolve? A frquently raised issue.
Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution. On point and well-written.
The Evidence for Human Evolution. For the "You have no evidence" crowd.
Creation "Science" Debunked. Why creationism is NOT science.
The Probability of Abiogenesis. Not really evolution, but a good discussion of life's origins.
Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept? Answer: no. Huge site.
The SKEPTIC annotated bibliography. Great pseudo-science meta- site!
An Index to Creationist Claims. From Talk.Origins. Exhaustive list.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics, so beloved (and so poorly understood) by creationists.
Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective. A Bible-believing Christian's viewpoint
Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions. A creationist nightmare!
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Loads of info on science education.
Understanding Evolution, an evolution website for teachers.
DARWIN, Full Text of his Writings. The original ee-voe-lou-shunist.
Frequently Encountered Criticisms in Evolution vs. Creationism.
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. From Scientific American
Arguments we think creationists should NOT use From Answers in Genesis.
Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution. Excellent statement.
The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity," by Kenneth R. Miller. Solid critique of Behe's work.
The Pope's 1996 statement on evolution. Physical evolution is not in conflict with Christianity.
Project Steve From National Center for Science Education, shows the overwhelming number of genuine scientists who support evolution.
The foregoing is just a tiny sample. So that everyone will have access to the accumulated Creationism vs. Evolution threads which have previously appeared on FreeRepublic, plus links to hundreds of sites with a vast amount of information on this topic, here's Junior's massive work, available for all to review:
The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [ver 21].
Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with how the world was created.
Sort of hard to have a debate when one side of it doesn't even have the foggiest idea of what is being debated.
Spontaneous generation of life has nothing to do with evolution. Sigh.
The reason why creationists almost universally try to convert evolution debates to abiogenesis debates is so they can avoid the overwhelming evidence of the evolution of species, which I notice is almost never discussed anymore. Hence the fabrication of "intelligent design" which accepts the evolution of species, but in an unprovable manner seeks to claim the evolution was directed.
Would you apply mining techniques to growing crops? I don't think so. Instead you would apply proper farming practices.
The same holds true for religious beliefs and scientific mechanisms. They are completely different anaimals and as such should be taught separately in a different classroom environment.
It is as simple as that.
ROFL. What infantile tripe.
We've never observed the magnetic field of earth "flip". So is studying magnetic field flips on earth millions of years ago "not science?"
There's more evidence for evolution than there is for magnetic field flips (and there's overwhelming evidence for magnetic field flips on earth thousands of times in the history of the planet.)
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.