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 owe you an apology for my unwarranted and unjust rudeness to you earlier today. Clearly, you deserve better from me.
I could give excuses for my bad behavior, but won’t. If the behavior is objectively bad – and it was – then excuses don’t count anyway. In the end, the abuser is personally responsible for the abuse, and the abuse ultimately redounds to the account of the abuser.
As I said, you are entitled to better treatment from me. Please forgive me, Ichneumon.
Yours truly,
betty boop
So who stole your book? You want me to repeat myself - and repeat myself - and repeat myself - speaking of lives lived - of Saints - who lived lives - as you force me to repeat myself - to repeat what I posted before - and before that - and before that.
You want the last word?
Take a few sentences. But state it, for goodness sake. You talk about - the theory of evolution. Can't you even say what it is? specifically, succinctly, as if you knew what you were talking about?
And the alternative is what? Good grades for effort? Self-esteem based education? Should we teach them that the flat earth theory is equally valid? Which of the following subjects do you have trouble with?
What do you think should be taught and why?
I'm not that hard-nosed about terminology, but your words imply that matter behaves differently when it is part of a living thing.
This is simply untrue. Many instances of speciation have been posted on this board. The author is either ignorant or lying. This has nothing to do with thermodynamics.
The Theory of Evolution is a champion of science on the cheap because it can be moulded to fit the evidence. Anyone can explain the universe apart from the intervention of an intelligence higher than that of man. Big deal!
"Natural Selection" is a reasonable explanation for the types and varieties of species available for observation in the present day. But it is only one of many possibilities and by no means the only contender as far as reason is concerned.
"Common Descent" is a reasonable assumption that, since the same building blocks are found in the bioshpere, they are all derived from a common, simpler life source. Talk about a leap of faith! Of course they are derived from a common source: God. The Creator of all things seen and unseen. The history of how and when the variety of life forms came about is a matter of FAITH for everyone living today. It is not available for "scientific" testing.
The "age of the earth"? What would satisfy your musings? Do you want an answer give-or-take-a-few-billion-years or down-to-the-nanosecond? Let me know when you figure out what "time" is.
And the Lamarkian idea that acquired charasticts could be passed on to offspring. The Soviets really like this version and were hostile to Darwin's ideas, at least until Stalin underwent natural selection.
How is the DNA evidence for common descent different from DNA evidence used to establish paternity in courtrooms?
As for time, do you want to get deconstructionist on me? I can accept the possibility that God might have a different perspective on time, but I'm asking from our perspective.
Give me an alternative for natural selection -- one that has been observed and which is an ongoing process.
The ghost of Lamark is present in the possibility that bacteria can alter their genetic code in adverse conditions. I don't know what the status of this is, but it doesn't seem impossible. My guess is it's being studied by mainstream biology rather than creation science.
This doesn't help you for those questionable entities. There is no sharp dividing line. Information theory can be very useful for detemining molecular (particularly DNA) meaning within specific contexts, but for a definition of life, it becomes inclusive of things like prions or even artificial life systems.
I have no idea what that post even means. You're the one that keeps asking the same questions over and over, you're the one that wants people to repeat themselves. Oh and YOU'RE the one that wound up agreeing with me about the Creeds, you said they were the whole thing I said they were the overview then finally you said they were the table of contents which is another phrase for... OVERVIEW.
The simplest difference is this: The former attempts to stretch beyond observable history. The latter, by and large, remains within bounds of the same.
As for time, do you want to get deconstructionist on me?
No. I want to know how much accuracy is satisfactory to your "scientific" sense. Can you answer?
Give me an alternative for natural selection . . .
Like a typical Democrat, Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee. I have been told not to cast pearls before swine, but I'll indulge anyway. Just bear in mind my only debt to you is love, and I cannot pay that debt.
One alternative is planned selection. One can just as easily attribute the facts of history to God's eternal plan as one can attribute them to an unpredictable force. Yes, unpredictable. Natural selection is a fabrication of ex post facto occurrences. In those cases where varieties are seen within species it is no less reasonable to assume God planned it thus (as life carries out its course under the laws of nature).
But I freely take it for granted that, due to its complexity, order, and magnitude the earth and its creatures were created, and are sustained, by God. Just like I take for granted that, when I wake up tomorrow morning, God's law of gravity will still be at work in my town.
---Every time the earth rotates on its axis the Theory of Evolution is put to the test. The Theory of Evolution doesn't explain much. It's just a lazy, handy construct that does not go beyond history. Other discplines of science that ignore the Theory of Evolution are bound to be more beneficial where true learning and progress are concerned.---
The details of how God does all this . . . that is what science is all about. I truly enjoy hearing of the mathemathecal and physical explanations which, in the end point right back to God.
But what a burden to bear for those who attribute the variety of species and their ongoing process to nothing more than a concoction of unforeseen, unguided processes. Their Theory of Evolution is worthy of the highest ridicule, and their persons are worthy of the deepest pity. It doesn't add up at all. It's more fantistic than the wildest hocus pocus. Talk about POOFism! Talk about God of the Gaps! Evolution needs some kind of god to bridge its gaps.
body of the "Archaeoraptor" fossil actually came from Microraptor zhaoianus - another feathered dinosaur!
But how do we know that the Microraptor zhaoianus is not just another hoax that the evolution believing scientists are using to try and save face?
You hope that's fake too. And that all the other feathered dinos are fake too. Keep hope alive!
OK, I'll assume you're truly interested in the truth. They know the body came from a microraptor fossil because the other half (and more) of the impression (the mirror image impression of the dead dino sandwich, basically) had already been found and was being examined by another scientist.
But hey. Maybe the diabolical scientist created both mirror image fossil slabs, then flew to China and planted the slabs out in the country and waited for the Chinese farmers to find them & sell them.
<judy tenuta voice> It could happen!</judy tenuta voice>
Recently at my home town university biology dept a professor was fired for fraudulent research. The students revealed that many times the refrigeration went out and ruined their experiments. So they just made up research with the professor's approval. They got caught, but I believe this goes on a lot more than people think.
Why did they "get caught"? You mean there were consequences? How could there be consequences when everybody knows science is like pro wrestling anyway?
However, when we are speaking of Shannon applied to molecular biology we are not speaking of Shannon applied to artificial life. There is no reason to confuse the two applications - or either of them with other applications of Shannon, such as telecommunications and computer technology.
Also, I strongly disagree with the statement that the Shannon model does not provide a sharp dividing line. The theory is not at all concerned about the value or meaning of the message or whether the communication is taking place on a computer or in a molecular machine.
IOW, applied to the definition of life v. non-life/death – the Shannon model gives a bright line of distinction between life and non-life/death. Where successful communications occur in nature, there is life. When there is no successful communications in nature there is death or non-life.
The theory is elegant, ideologically neutral and requires no subjective biochemical delineations as other definitions require. Because it is math and does not address the value or meaning of the message at all, Shannon-Weaver is not concerned whether prions are only proteins, whether mycoplasmas have no cell walls, whether viroids are RNA without a protein coat. They all fit within the communication model. The model addresses source, message, encoder, channel, decoder, receiver and noise. Noise can result in a miscommunication of an intended message and therefore, a malfunction (or perhaps improvement) in the molecular machine.
For Lurkers (taken mostly from the Schneider website):
A molecular machine is a single macromolecule or macromolecular complex which performs a specific function for a living system, is usually primed by an energy source, dissipates energy as it does something specific (pays the thermodynamic “tab”), `gains' information by selecting between two or more after states. Molecular machines are isothermal engines.
For more information on the subject:
Adami: Information Theory in Molecular Biology
Two points, quickly: 1) Information theory is used in molecular biology to discern meaning between molecules and their environment. Shannon did not concern himself with this, but this is one of the applications of his theory and useful in drug design, sequence comparisons, etc.
2) The simplistic "Where successful communications occur in nature, there is life." is not helpful at all for the fringes where the difficulty arises. By this definition, prions are alive (they are pieces of protein) and self-organizing automata are alive.
Now you're delusional. I knew it might be a problem to compare these with a TOC, even though this is the presentation in various ways from Aquinas to well-beloved catechisms. The four principal Creeds of The Church are, in fact, a dogmatic, definitive, complete statement of the Faith. It was rather you who wound up blaspheming against God, The Holy Spirit, in order to insist that the Creeds were essentially worthless and the product of a doomed effort to succinctly state the principal tenets of the Faith. If God had only been as smart as you, in other words. I was I who repeatedly, over and over again, stated that volumes had been written, lives lived over the centuries, based on a confession of that Faith. And there was and is even more to it all than all of that. And yet none of these would have denied the importance of the Creeds, as you have done.
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