Posted on 03/07/2006 2:34:37 PM PST by SirLinksalot
Darwin smacked in new U.S. poll
Whopping 69 percent of Americans want alternate theories in classroom
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Posted: March 7, 2006 5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A new poll shows 69 percent of Americans believe public school teachers should present both the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution.
The Zogby International survey indicated only 21 percent think biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.
A majority of Americans from every sub-group were at least twice as likely to prefer this approach to science education, the Zogby study showed.
About 88 percent of Americans 18-29 years old were in support, along with 73 percent of Republicans and 74 percent of independent voters.
Others who strongly support teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory include African-Americans (69 percent), 35-54 year-olds (70 percent) and Democrats (60 percent).
Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture said while his group does not favor mandating the teaching of intelligent design, "we do think it is constitutional for teachers to discuss it precisely because the theory is based upon scientific evidence not religious premises."
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute is the leading promoter of the theory of Intelligent Design, which has been at the center of challenges in federal court over the teaching of evolution in public school classes. Advocates say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
"The public strongly agrees that students should be permitted to learn about such evidence," Luskin said.
The Discovery Institute noted Americans also support students learning about evidence for intelligent design alongside evolution in biology class – 77 percent.
Just over half – 51 percent – agree strongly with that. Only 19 percent disagree.
As WorldNetDaily reported, more than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution.
The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.
The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."
I have gone through 50 AutoCAD operators. Maybe 4 of them were worth their salt.
Being an atheist is a suckers bet.
I can arrange the peanuts in a bowl in an order. The trick is to arrange them in the approved professional peanut arrangement theory of the moment.
Yes, we see that every day in the behavior of self-proclaimed Christian FReepers.
That's believable. Cad is a hard concept for many to grasp. The idea that you are creating a full scale virtual copy, which can be plotted out at reduced scale is not ever grasped by some, particularly those who learned to draw on a board first.
Bible Codes Placemarker!
Many species have large ranges, and if the northern range was cut off by weather, than the southern ranges would survive to carry on the genome.
there would be no incentive to head in that direction *looking* for warmer climates.
Critters often travel great distances, even within a season, and certianly in a lifetime, but they tend to stay in a particular climate area. You don't see penguins in Panama.
If the climate area shifts over time, the range of the critters would as well. This is not an obstacle to evolution. Actually, the fact that critters do wander over wide areas would be a positive selection for their survival. You can note that Pandas, who have very small home ranges (google it) are dying. Their very lack of travel, (and lack of diversity of food) is killing them.
Please explain. Remember, there have been 10,000+ mutually contradictory creation myths and deities in the recorded history of man. An atheist only disbelieves one more of them than you do. Is disbelieving all the others also a sucker's bet on your part?
That depends entirely on what you mean by stopping. If you mean stopping the planets in a way that has no physical consequences, then you have a variant of Last Thursdayism. God can doe anything without leaving a trace.
If you mean stopping the planets in a way consistent with physical laws, without causing noticeable trouble for the inhabitants of earth, you are saying something entirely different.
If you play by the rules of evidence, then certain major miracles have not left any evidence. This does not mean they didn't happen. It just means they didn't leave evidence.
If you want your faith based entirely on evidence then you have a problem.
One thing I learned, which I already knew anyway, is that AutoCAD does not make the draftsman. A draftsman can adjust to the machine and be up to speed and then some in a few months, but a computer operator cannot become a draftsman unless he has an undiscovered drafting talent to begin with.
Every organism has a built up cache of mutations, most of which do nothing, but a significant number do nothing given the current environment. Many other mechanisms exist than just strict natural selection, which is normally viewed as an adaptation to the climate, availability and type of food, and the presence of external competing species. Strict natural selection ignores those selection forces within the population such as sexual selection that is independent of the 'ecology' where the species is found.
The interaction between existing features/functions in an organism, new mutations, selection and the environment is a complex system making it very difficult to predict or postdict changes.
Yes, we see that every day in the behavior of self-proclaimed Christian FReepers.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!
That right and it also true that anything that science can't explain is not science and anything that science can't explain should not be in a science class.
Whether science or not people do observe stars, sun, rocks, trees, gravity, day night, seasons, comets, etc. and wonder how they came to exist. When people think about origins they do believe it is more likely that they were 'created' rather than 'evolved'. Occam's Razor if you will.
I particularly like the ongoing discussions of how to better love one's enemies. It's good to see consistency in thoughts and behavior.
It's pretty clear that most people have a hollywood sense of what a mutation is. Giant ants, Green skin, etc.
The genetic code is rigged so that many point mutations are synonyms.
Not to mention (as you already have) that any point mutation is most likely to occur in a non-coding region.
Consistency is your friend...
"apparently there is no evidence..." or
"no evidence has yet been found to support...." or
"We scientists are not aware of any evidence to support..." or
the standard "Darwinism doesn't address the initial design of life yada .. yada.. yada"
All the draftsmen I know, and I know quite a few in the local market, have taught themselves CAD and very early when peecees were new and AutoCAD was version 9 or something. Many bought their own computers and software even though it was significantly expensive, since the companies did not see the benefits right away. The product of the AutoCAD classes generally does not find employment drafting for some reason, but born draftsmen always show up with CAD skills now. Engineers just starting out may do drafting for a while, and they are usually fairly adept, even though they will move on fairly soon.
Yes. There really can't be one. It also would be evolution. Science can't address supernatural things.
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