Posted on 01/20/2005 12:54:58 PM PST by Jay777
ANN ARBOR, MI — The small town of Dover, Pennsylvania today became the first school district in the nation to officially inform students of the theory of Intelligent Design, as an alternative to Darwin’s theory of Evolution. In what has been called a “measured step”, ninth grade biology students in the Dover Area School District were read a four-paragraph statement Tuesday morning explaining that Darwin’s theory is not a fact and continues to be tested. The statement continued, “Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view.” Since the late 1950s advances in biochemistry and microbiology, information that Darwin did not have in the 1850s, have revealed that the machine like complexity of living cells - the fundamental unit of life- possessing the ability to store, edit, and transmit and use information to regulate biological systems, suggests the theory of intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of life and living cells.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm representing the school district against an ACLU lawsuit, commented, “Biology students in this small town received perhaps the most balanced science education regarding Darwin’s theory of evolution than any other public school student in the nation. This is not a case of science versus religion, but science versus science, with credible scientists now determining that based upon scientific data, the theory of evolution cannot explain the complexity of living cells.”
“It is ironic that the ACLU after having worked so hard to prevent the suppression of Darwin’s theory in the Scopes trial, is now doing everything it can to suppress any effort to challenge it,” continued Thompson.
(Excerpt) Read more at thomasmore.org ...
I have some other questions too after you get to my previous reply to this post regarding the transition from one genus to another and the difficulties regarding changes in chromosome counts.
Truly, I am not upset that we have been unable to arrive at a broad consensus of "in nature, what is life?"
It is the smoke-bomb assertion of the fallacy of quantizing the continuum which has me in the mood to lob it right back at 'ya. If it is a fallacy, it applies everywhere.
And, btw, I disagree with your requirement to know origin or intent in order to define life v non-life/death. But that is a subject for the Plato thread.
The divergence of our understanding begins here. If I say that you are descended from your grandfather, it's true that there is an intermediate generation to be identified. I don't see how this requires "a quantization of the continuum to asset." We don't disagree that individuals are quantifiable. It's the chain of common descent that makes up the continuum. True, each generation is made up of individuals. That's not a contradiction, or an invocation of the fallacy.
It is different this time because IDers aren't advocating Creationism based on a literal interpretation of Genesis. The ID movement is based on the observation of nature alone.
The revolution began with Johnson's book, "Darwin on Trial." He understands intellectual revolutions, and he's outlined the process of overthrowing evolutionary orthodoxy in academia through "the Wedge." So far, everything seems to be going according to plan.
ID will be common knowledge in the next 20-30 years, and Darwinism will be passe.
So the theory of such a continuum is an interpretation of evidence which has been quantized by fossils along the geologic way. Which is why I said this:
It cuts both ways.
You're just being argumentative. If you had anything to say in support of evolutionism then you would have said so, rather than resort to calumnies.
As with many terms, different people intend different things in saying them. Big science has been a term used to describe the explosion of scientific papers and journals, allowing such things as evolutionism and environmental studies to hide amidst the clutter, to escape any thorough review and to otherwise disappear as cited literature that only provides the faulty basis for that which forms a sort of scientific 'precedent'.
Yeah that's not my big science. My big science is the big stuff that really expands our knowledge of the world, like gravity and electricity. I too think papers have gotten too long, pretty much across the board, but it's not the result of oversized sample sets. Probably more the results of undersized sample sets, people hiding their incredible lack of data behind far too many words.
Mathematics is. And science without math is not what we think of as science. Perhaps one could term philosophy and theology as science. I would. But it's not generally how people see it. A math is not unknown to the latter, in any case.
No the faith can't. Human language isn't up to the task.
Again, you keep denying the obvious in the four principal Creeds of The Church. You can succinctly state belief, and dogmatic belief at that.
in evolution they're fitting modelss to data and keep getting more data that show the base concept is correct
Then whatever terms you prefer. Tell me - what is the "base concept", your wording not mine, of evolution?
Math is about expresions, efficient when possible but math people understand that not everything can be expressed simply. They gun for as simply as they can, but some stuff is just not simple. Check out chaos theory, just looking at some of those equations will give you a migraine.
I'm not denying anything. The Creeds are very nice, they're a handy notecard version of The Church, but they don't even come close to expressing the whole. Human languages just can't express things that complex quickly. There's a reason you're expected to read the Bible and not just your 3x5 card with the Creeds, because the Creeds are just a start, the tip of the Faith iceburg.
I already told you what the base concept is: a species in whole or in part turning into 1 or more other species. The process by which we have fossil records of species no living person will ever see roaming the earth, and only very recent fossil records of the species we do see roaming the earth. Evolution is how the world of species changed from the place we see recorded in the fossil record to the one we inhabbit now. How A turned to B. We know there was A and we know there is B and we know something happened in between, the investigation of that something is the science of evolutionary theory.
Welcome to academia.
Spoken confidently every decade for the last 145 years.
I'm curious, since there are so many points of view represented on these threads, which of the following elements of "Darwinism" YOU believe will be disproven.
Does sound difficult to arrange.
The Creeds are very nice, they're a handy notecard
You're still not getting this. The four principal Creeds of The Church are dogmatic statements of the Faith, itself. Much more has been written, and lived, based on that confession of Faith.
you're expected to read the Bible
And proudly and ignorantly interpret it wrongly, such that you might even believe the Creeds to be in error? You need a reliable translation, based on the original uncorrupted documents, fairly and faithfully translated at that. The Rheims, a primary source for your KJV, is the perfect example.
How A turned to B
Whatever you mean by that, you yourself claim to confess evolution. There is at least a theory, because you guys always talk about - the theory of evolution, not "a" theory, by the way (the theory). How's it stated? State it for me.
That's how science goes, as we dig deeper and deeper into the underpinnings of the universe and trying to figure out how it works we get more and more complex stuff that can never be not complex.
I'm getting it fine. I just don't mistake the picture for the actual dish. There's a lot of stuff under the Creeds that should be learned to understand and apply the Creeds.
I never said the Creeds were in error. I said they weren't the whole picture, and they're not, and until we have a revolution in the way humans communicate with each other they can't be. For what they are, with the limitations put on them by our clumsy methods, the Creeds are excellent. They do a very good job of attempting to accomplish the impossible and those that formulated them should be proud of their work; but the task put forward was impossible and remains unacheived and unacheivable for the forseeable future, and that's something that shouldn't be forgotten.
You've already had it stated to you multiple times. Why do you just keep asking the same question over and over? Just read the damn answers that have been provided and stop insisting those aren't answers. You have been answered, if you disagree with the answer then present your disagreement and allow the conversation to move on, the circular discussion does nothing but make it monotonous.
But they are - that's why they were composed under God, The Holy Spirit. You have to deny the latter to deny the importance of the former. The four principal Creeds of The Church ARE the dogmatic statement of the Faith. Period! Volumes have been written about the lives that have been lived based on that confession. But they did not deny what you've denied, here.
proud of their work; but the task put forward was impossible
So you do deny God, The Holy Spirit. You say He bit off more than he could chew? You say He foolishly attempted the impossible. You know I don't share your pessimism, nor your blasphemy.
Why do you just keep asking the same question over and over?
Concerning evolution, you mean? To answer, Why? and why not take vague, incomplete and inconsistent sentiment as a scientific? Science.
Well obviously it isn't a LOGICAL fallacy. It's a fallacy in the sense that you cannot categorize things as living or dead if you do not have agreement on a definition.
It is rather easy to predict that a large animal flattened by a steamroller will not spring back up like a LooneyToon. It is somewhat less certain that a tree is dead when cut down.
But I don't believe the discussion was about legal, clinical death. It was about defining that particular set of criteria that distinguishes life from non-life, in the abstract.
The very fact that we argue about viruses, prions, computer viruses and such indicates there is no clear set of commonly agreed upon criteria. The problem could get much more complex if someone discovers a bootstrap sequence for synthesizing DNA, RNA or proteins.
Is this the position of a rational, sane person, or the blind-faith" of a religious zealot?:
"In spite of the fact that most mutations are harmful and 2/3 of all mutations are recessive, we evolved because natural selection chose helpful mutations by eliminating those which are harmful. We believe that natural selection can eliminate recessive mutations, and we know that the proof for our belief is out there, we just haven't found it yet."
The boldface quote is the opinion of someone who is factually incorrect.
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