Posted on 10/07/2005 4:59:16 AM PDT by shuckmaster
How should evolution be taught in schools? This being America, judges will decide
HALF of all Americans either don't know or don't believe that living creatures evolved. And now a Pennsylvania school board is trying to keep its pupils ignorant. It is the kind of story about America that makes secular Europeans chortle smugly before turning to the horoscope page. Yet it is more complex than it appears.
In Harrisburg a trial began last week that many are comparing to the Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925, when a Tennessee teacher was prosecuted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Now the gag is on the other mouth. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public-school science classes was an unconstitutional blurring of church and state. But those who think Darwinism unGodly have fought back.
Last year, the school board in Dover, a small rural school district near Harrisburg, mandated a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution. They are to be told that “The theory [of evolution] is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.” And that if they wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent design”, they should consult a book called “Of Pandas and People” in the school library.
Eleven parents, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, two lobby groups, are suing to have the disclaimer dropped. Intelligent design, they say, is merely a clever repackaging of creationism, and as such belongs in a sermon, not a science class.
The school board's defence is that intelligent design is science, not religion. It is a new theory, which holds that present-day organisms are too complex to have evolved by the accumulation of random mutations, and must have been shaped by some intelligent entity. Unlike old-style creationism, it does not explicitly mention God. It also accepts that the earth is billions of years old and uses more sophisticated arguments to poke holes in Darwinism.
Almost all biologists, however, think it is bunk. Kenneth Miller, the author of a popular biology textbook and the plaintiffs' first witness, said that, to his knowledge, every major American scientific organisation with a view on the subject supported the theory of evolution and dismissed the notion of intelligent design. As for “Of Pandas and People”, he pronounced that the book was “inaccurate and downright false in every section”.
The plaintiffs have carefully called expert witnesses who believe not only in the separation of church and state but also in God. Mr Miller is a practising Roman Catholic. So is John Haught, a theology professor who testified on September 30th that life is like a cup of tea.
To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding”, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one's spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.” None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.
It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea” explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theory—which he called “appalling theology”—in science classes.
Darwinism has enemies mostly because it is not compatible with a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Intelligent designers deny that this is why they attack it, but this week the court was told by one critic that the authors of “Of Pandas and People” had culled explicitly creationist language from early drafts after the Supreme Court barred creationism from science classes.
In the Dover case, intelligent design appears to have found unusually clueless champions. If the plaintiffs' testimony is accurate, members of the school board made no effort until recently to hide their religious agenda. For years, they expressed pious horror at the idea of apes evolving into men and tried to make science teachers teach old-fashioned creationism. (The board members in question deny, or claim not to remember, having made remarks along these lines at public meetings.)
Intelligent design's more sophisticated proponents, such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, are too polite to say they hate to see their ideas championed by such clods. They should not be surprised, however. America's schools are far more democratic than those in most other countries. School districts are tiny—there are 501 in Pennsylvania alone—and school boards are directly elected. In a country where 65% of people think that creationism and evolution should be taught side by side, some boards inevitably agree, and seize upon intelligent design as the closest approximation they think they can get away with. But they may not be able to get away with it for long. If the case is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, intelligent design could be labelled religious and barred from biology classes nationwide.
" If you think that the Bible outlaws slavery, I would like to know where it says so."
Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not steal."
First, they are not millions of years old.
Wow, how lame -- you completely dodged the part where I specifically asked you to answer the above question in a way that doesn't fly in the face of the known evidence. I'm afraid that snipping that part out and then just stamping your feet and declaring "they aren't that old" doesn't cut it.
Second, a worldwide flood could and would leave millions and millions of dead things laying around in hundreds of feet of mud worldwide.
...in many characteristic ways, which unfortunately for your thesis is NOT how "dead things" are actually configured in the Earth. Geology 1, newsgatherer's fantasies 0. For example:
Problems with a Global FloodReview of John Woodmorappe's "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study"
The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood
Is the Devonian Chattanooga Shale Really a Volcanic Ash-Fall Deposit?
Geology in Error?: The Lewis Thrust
Thrust Faults and the Lewis Overthrust
What Would We Expect to Find if the World had Flooded?
Problems with Walter Brown's Hydroplate Theory
Burrows in the Orkney Islands contradict the Global Flood
The Fish is Served With a Delicate Creamy Mercury Sauce
The Letter The Creation Research Society Quarterly Didn't Want You to See
Microfossil Stratigraphy Presents Problems for the Flood
Why Would the Flood Sort Animals by Cell Type?
Isotopic Sorting and the Noah's Flood Model
Evidence from the Orkney Islands Against a Global Flood
While the Flood Rages, Termites Dig, Dinosaurs Dance and Cicadas Sing
More Nonsense on "TRUE.ORIGINS": Jonathan Sarfati's Support Of Flood Geology
Why Geology Shows Sedimentation to Be too Slow for a Global Flood
Which, I might add is exactly what we have, millions and millions of dead things trapped in hundreds of feet of mud worldwide.
I see... So it is actually your contention that fossils are found in "hundreds of feet of mud"?
Fascinating. So what about those that are found in *thousands* of feet of *rock*? Or do those actually not exist either?
(Folks, this is your brain on too many creationist pamphlets and not enough science books...)
You want examples of bad design? In man alone we have a spine that is not dapted for either going about on all fours, nor fully upright stance. This is one reason for the ease with which we suffer back injuries. Ditto for our knees and ankles. Humans are also the only animals that suffer constipation -- because of the near-vertical layout of our digestive tract.
Yes, my point exactly.
there is not a dimes worth of difference in the ideologies if Christians are told to believe that there were only two fully grown adults created in the beginning, even given what DNA tests prove.
I can't figure out what you're trying to say here, could you rephrase please?
Yeah...
Evidently, the God of the Bible is not above making mistakes (c.f., the whole Noah thingy).
"there is not a dimes worth of difference in the ideologies if Christians are told to believe that there were only two fully grown adults created in the beginning, even given what DNA tests prove.
I can't figure out what you're trying to say here, could you rephrase please?"
Seems as though evolution is the only method possible to have all peoples to have come from just two fully grown adult human beings. Of course Genesis describes two different days of creation, which only makes common sense considering what DNA test results show about the differences in the peoples of this earth.
My favorite example: Wisdom teeth. They made good sense back when we had a longer ape-like jaw, but since hominids evolved larger craniums and smaller jaws, we've got too damned many teeth for the available space. And no, they're not there as "spares", they most often end up impacted even when other molars have been lost. They cause a wide range of serious health problems, and provide next to no benefit.
Or maybe God put them there to make oral surgeons rich...
Nah, laughter makes me relax...
Actually, under the evolutionary scenario, there were never "just two fully grown adult human beings", nor does any DNA analysis indicate that there ever has been. And you're misinterpreting those DNA results. See for example, What, if anything, is a Mitochondrial Eve?.
Not all of the scientific community agree with anything. That is why we go with the consensus of scientists, which is the view of the vast majority. It is the best option.
The scientific community is what the people in power say it is.
The scientific community is composed of all the active scientists around the world.
Real science does not inhibit open exploration and re-evalution of the evidence. Real science goes where the evidence takes it.
And that is what biologists do.
Disallowing evidence (and there is plenty) that places doubt on evolutionary theory is not only unscientific but smacks of dogma.
Most of the cited evidence placing evolutionary theory in doubt is BS (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html). Which brings me to my next point - The people in the best position to evaluate what data supports evolution, and what data puts doubt on it are the experts in the field, not laymen that populate school boards and politics. Laymen will often tend to think they've found serious holes in evolution when in fact more knowledge of the subject would show such flaws are nothing of the sort. The old "if evolution is true then why are there still monkeys?" is a classic example. And "evolution is flawed because all major animal types appeared in the cambrian" another. Doubts based on ignorace are abundant. That is why the views of those who are least ignorant are so important.
You're a better man than I. (Gender assumed)
Wow, I didn't know that Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and most bookstore chains (all of which carry Darwin's books) are "Creationist sites"...
Oh yeah? Where's his multi-volume set of books on barnacles, eh smart guy?
The real problem seems to be interproximal wear, or the lack of it in a modern diet. Chewing on tough items causes very slight up and down movement of individual teeth causing wear between adjacent teeth. The teeth drift slightly toward the midline (mesial drift I think its called). This wear and mesial drift creates just enough space to allow the third molars to erupt correctly.
In some populations that eat acorns ground in stone bowls as a staple food, by the time the third molar erupts the first molar is about 1/3 worn away, but this is a pretty extreme degree of wear.
That's a poor excuse for indoctrinating kids into philosophical naturalism.
See above. Showing them "all the evidence" would take most of a lifetime. That's how much evidence has been accumulated supporting evolution. Deal with it.
Puh-lease. They are not presented with all of the evidence for evolution now, so this is a poor argument.
There is no such censorship. Nor is there any such evidence, unless you can come up with something better than the last several hundred clueless anti-evolutionists I've talked to. Feel free to show us what you've got, though. But don't waste our time with this manure, we've seen it a thousand times before. Try something new and original.
Yes, I know you guys are good at phoney denials. The fact remains that the dogmatic high evo priests won't even allow a simple disclaimer on a textbook cover even though the school board in Atlanta wanted it! That is the epitomy of CENSORSHIP. The disclaimer read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." Egad man! What a horrible religious statement that is - asking students to think critically! Then, the evo's atheistic anti-American extortionist buds from the ACLU filed suit claiming this was promoting religion. HAHAHA!
I read a good quote today that sums it up: "When people accept the theory of evolution as an article of faith and teach it as a matter of fact and permit no dissent whatsoever from their doctrine, they are the ones wo are promoting religious dogma to all students." Great quote from Whisteblower magazine.
Besides, presenting scientific evidence of intelligent design is hardly akin to promoting a state religion. Read the first amendment -- only Congress can establish a national religion.
As early as the first century, some Hebrew scholars had worked out the age of the universe to be about 15.3 billion years. While I might not agree with their methodology, it's pretty obvious at this point of the game that your knowledge of science is only marginally worse than your knowledge of religion.
None of this happened. Therefore your contention flies in the face of reality.
"Actually, under the evolutionary scenario, there were never "just two fully grown adult human beings", nor does any DNA analysis indicate that there ever has been. And you're misinterpreting those DNA results. See for example, What, if anything, is a Mitochondrial Eve?."
Genesis describes two different days of creation of fully grown adult human beings (more than two). Most creationists claim there is only one day of creation where only two fully grown adult human beings created.
I am not suggesting that DNA shows anything other than there had to be more than two fully grown adults created to explain the different peoples evidenced upon this earth this day.
DNA evidence does NOT dispute what the Book of Genesis says happened, rather it gives proof to there being two different days of creation and more than two fully grown adult human beings being created and the Heavenly Father said it was GOOD.
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