Posted on 05/06/2005 10:47:50 PM PDT by Jeff Gordon
CHARLES DARWIN’S theory of evolution is facing a new challenge in America from Christians who argue that life shows an “intelligent design”.
The Kansas Board of Education has begun taking evidence from anti-evolution scientists in a bid to rewrite the state’s teaching standards to ensure that pupils learn alternatives to evolution that suggest a guiding hand in the origin of life.
Kansas is one of a growing number of states to consider authorising schools to teach religious alternatives to Darwin — but a four-day hearing of the Kansas board has outraged mainstream scientists, who are boycotting the meeting and holding protests outside.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science declined an invitation to testify, arguing that the hearings would confuse rather than educate the public.
“This is a showcase trial,” Jack Krebs, vice-president of Kansas Citizens for Science, said. “They have hijacked science and education.”
On the first day of testimony in Topeka, the audience heard lectures on “primordial soup”, fruit-fly mutations and whether human beings were related to worms as six anti-evolution scientists argued that the theory of evolution could not explain gaps in the fossil record, the complexity of DNA or the origin of life itself.
William Harris, a professor of medicine who specialises in omega-3 fatty acids and co-founded the Intelligent Design Network, said that Darwinism clashed with the biblical teaching that life was created by God. “Part of our overall goal is to remove the bias against religion that is currently in schools,” he said. “This is a scientific controversy that has powerful religious implications.”
Other witnesses included Jonathan Wells, an embryologist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, who described himself as “an old Berkeley antiwar radical”. “The way Darwinian evolution is usually presented is that the evidence is overwhelming, and there is no controversy about it,” he said. “That’s clearly not the case.”
Dr Wells, who holds PhDs in theology from Yale University and in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, confirmed under cross-examination that he was a member of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
Pro-Darwin scientists distributed an internet posting outside the hearing in which Dr Wells declares: “Father’s words, my studies and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”
The anti-evolution scientists faced sharp questioning from Pedro Irigonegaray, a lawyer defending Darwin at the hearings. He said that he fantasised that he was defending John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher who in 1925 was found guilty of illegally teaching evolution at what became known as the “Monkey Trial”.
“The delicious fantasy of being in a courtroom-like environment, with the overhead fan slowly twisting and being able to question witnesses about all of these issues, is very appealing,” he said.
The US Supreme Court outlawed the teaching of biblical beliefs, or “creationism”, in state schools in an Arkansas case in 1987, forcing Christians to embrace “intelligent design”.
All three members of the Kansas sub-committee support a change in the standards to tell students that evolution is only a theory, not a fact, and to include alternatives. The full Kansas school board, which is controlled by a 6-4 conservative majority, is expected to rewrite the standards in June, joining Ohio, which took a similar step three years ago. Legislators in Alabama and Georgia are also considering Bills to allow teachers to challenge Darwin in class.
Thanks. And one to help you.
http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/archaeopteryx.shtml
Okay, I have a question already. The following -
A few years later, Dobzhansky defined a species as
"... that stage of evolutionary progress at which the once actually or potentially interbreeding array of forms becomes segregated into two or more separate arrays which are physiologically incapable of interbreeding." (Dobzhansky 1937)
What is an example of this? What was able to interbreed but at a point was no longer able to interbreed?
Thanks. I don't want to bother you with this but I'm really trying to understand. I'm sure you're busy today and I don't want to waste your time, but you help is appreciated.
What is the difference between a species and a sub-species?
From a biological standpoint, a species is the largest unit of potentially and actually interbreeding organisms (i.e. two different species never interbreed, if they did, they would be one species).
A subspecies is a group of organisms inside a species that interbreed and share some unique characteristics that differentiate them from the others in a species (i.e. benthic and limnetic stickelback fish).
So what are the salamandar ensatina? Aren't they still salamandars? And apparently interbreeding produces offspring with characteristics not beneficial so it isn't in their best interests to breed? If sub-species don't interbreed, isn't it usually because it would not benefit them?
Intelligent Design is a fact.
Intelligent Deisgn = purposeful structure and evolution of changes.
Fact = observed phenomenom.
Er - no. Intelligent design attempts to explain the observed purposeful structure. And how does it do that?
Nice try, though.
If they interbreed, they're the same species. Also note that we tend to define organisms that produce infertile offspring when mated as different species (such as horse and donkey producing the mule.)
And apparently interbreeding produces offspring with characteristics not beneficial so it isn't in their best interests to breed?
That's not necessarily true. Hybrid vigour can occur, but usually specialized forms are more favoured than intermediate forms.
If sub-species don't interbreed, isn't it usually because it would not benefit them?
No. Organisms don't make these kinds of choices. They mate, and some offspring will survive better than others. If two different specialized forms can be favoured over time (i.e. darwin's finches with beaks specialized for different feeding types), this can eventually lead to speciation.
I'll also clarify: Many organisms DO make 'informed' mating choices (such as mate strength, showyness like the peacock, etc) but those mate selection behaviors will not change in an individual in the light of new information (say a new predator), instead, since certain new traits will be favored over time, then mate selection behavior that seeks out these new traits will also be favored.
Er, yes, btw. And I shall not be nice to those who insist that is not the case. I shall be very rude and even brutal -- for if I am not, we all end up under a far more brutal and violent tyranny -- such as had in the Third Reich, in Stalin and Lenin's Darwinistic Soviet Union, in Mao's China.
Hey, if you want to talk philosophy, great, but do it in philosophy class, not science class.
Here in Atlanta (well right outside, in Newt's old district) a judge has just ruled that Cobb County cannot put a sticker on books saying that evolution is a theory - i don't get that. it is a theory. It is currently the best theory to explain observable facts but it is a theory. So is Einstein's theory of relativity.
Of course I also don't undertand those who cling to the idea that the earth is only 10,000 years old.
Yeah, I didn't really have a problem with the idea behind it other than the language is imprecise. Emphasizing that scientfic explanations is basically "the best we can come up with right now" is probably a really good thing to teach.
But, "Evolution" has been observed and is as such a scientific "fact". Saying, "Evolution is a theory" is just plain wrong. It may seem piddly, but if scientists didn't all speak the same language, nothing would ever get accomplished.
They should have said, "Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is just a theory" but it doesn't really have the same ring to it, heh.
And we should probably also say "theorem" instead of "fact"...
This reminds me of the global warming debate... the public spends its time arguing about global warming as a big political issue when it is in fact two separate questions: "is the earth warming" and "do humans have anything to do with that change?"
but you've got one side that says "polar ice is getting thinner so we have to stop burning fossil fuels" and another group who denies the evidence that the ice is thinning at all... when the truth may well be that the earth is in a warming cycle and there is nothing we can do about it.
What kind of distinction is that? Without a purpose YOU cannot distinguish a Mengele from a Salk. You must teach ethics and a moral philosophy or be counted as evil or fools. For that is is dynamics -- if you do not teach morality -- it only takes a few years to so degrade.
One can measure the accuracy of the point I made by the provoked nature of the response. Hit the target it did.
Stalin was into Lysenkoism. Buy a clue.
In a forest you find a twig some hiker dropped and then claim you you name all the trees by that twig, eh?
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