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."
If all the trash talk was deleted, JR could sell a couple of servers.
I put the cut and paste parts in quotes, in case you didnt notice.
but yes, you're right, I should have provided a link, sorry.
As long as the extraterrestrials seeded the earth with some organism subject to replication errors and selection, it doesn't matter to the study of biological evolution, which is what Darwin formalized, or the truth value of common descent. If they supposedly stuck around and 'tweaked' species every once in a while they would have left traces which, if they exists, has not been found yet. We do however have a pile of evidence for DNA sequences suffering errors, random additions, and viral insertions in such a pattern as to strongly support common descent.
"The evolutionists have no more proof human life evolved from other Terran life than those who would say humans were marooned and/or engineered here by extraterrestrials...
Actually we have much evidence that common descent is true. We have no evidence that the Earth was ever visited by aliens nor do we have evidence that they marooned humans here. In fact we have no evidence that aliens even exist.
"Evolutionists make the fallacious assumption the Earth is the staring point for all life and is the encapsulated center of the universe unaffected by anything (or anyone) beyond it - - which may be even occurring unobserved in our midst!
You certainly can make much of little. Evolutionists, to use your word, make the assumption that Earth is the start of life on Earth because, so far, we have no evidence otherwise.
There has been in recent times some speculation that Earth was seeded by Mars. If this is true it will not affect the study of common descent one iota. If it turns out that the Earth was seeded by aliens from some other systems, or by passing through clouds of complex chemicals in space, as long as those aliens did not 'tweak' the DNA throughout the 3.5 bys that life has existed on Earth it will make no difference to the contributory studies of the ToE or common descent. We have no evidence of the tweaking, either in the genome or in the form of normal 'artificial' remnants of civilization.
If these aliens are tweaking DNA as we speak they are obviously a lot more powerful than we are, and damn good at hiding. "Not at all scientific of them... a faith based theory no different in logical fallacy than creationism in the ‘appeal to false authority.’
You can ape the words but can you back them up with evidence?
"[Life as we know it, of which all has DNA; exists only because H2O is a polar molecule.]
Your point being? You seem to be making an attempt to validate ID by going the alien route. If we completely remove the suggestion of a God creating man on Earth but postulate that aliens produced the variety of organisms here in an attempt to disprove evolution, then we have a bit of a problem. Simply put the aliens need to have their own beginnings. Either they were created by God, 'evolved', are the product of some other natural non-evolutionary process or were seeded by yet another alien organism. Eventually we have to reach a point where God, evolution or some other natural process created the 'first ones'. Since you are trying to remove God from the process, as evidenced by your talk of aliens, we are left with natural means only.
If some natural process created aliens, then this same process could produce all of Earthly life without any external influence. If not, then something on Earth must pose some barrier to a natural process creating variation. What is this barrier? Is there something in the physical composition of our atmosphere, our water, radiation, whatever that actually prevents a natural process from producing variation?
The only possibly habitable bodies by what or whom? You have been watching too much Star Trek and assume any extraterrestrial life elsewhere could resemble that of the earth in any fashion, or that the conditions of the cosmos are in any way relative to that in our proximity or in our dimension.
We have just barely explored a few small acres on our own moon, still haven't mastered our own ocean depths... You want to define what life is, how big or how small it is, and where it can survive for the entire breadth of universe?
Pretentious and illogical... a witch doctor proclaiming taboos...
I am tired of the evolutionists playing God with education.
Actually the only people I know who speculate groundlessly on life with entirely different chemical properties than ours are teenage boys who like to watch lots of "science" fiction.
If you can propose a functional system that doesn't require carbon and liquid water there are a lot of people that would be quite interested.
Indeed! ;^)
I don't think man is evolving into a new species and I don't think he evolved from one. I believe man was created and not evolved. Evoultion is its own belief system and it required faith in that system to believe it. I don't believe in evolution.
You assertions have no application to the questions that I asked. I know lots of people believe what you believe. I asked what evidence outside the bible supports those beliefs.
If you mean what evidence that man was created instead of evolving from another speices outside of the Bible, I would just have to ask you to look into the closest mirror.
Was your greatest grandfather an ape? Mine wasn't.
Looking in a mirror and coming to an emotional conclusion isn't evidence. Have you got any non-biblical evidence that creation was separate "kinds"? What is a "kind" anyway? What hypothetical observation would falsify the notion that creation was of separate "kinds"? If you believe that Genesis is literal truth how many "kinds" do you think were on the ark? (Bear in mind when considering the answer to that one that upwards of 20 million species currently inhabit the earth)
Was your greatest grandfather an ape? Mine wasn't.
Wow! You are most unusual Freeper then. Either an alien or a member of a hitherto unidentified intelligent species. Tell me,
Do you get it yet? Not only was your grandfather an ape, but you are an ape. Learn what the terms mean before disputing them.
Patrick Henry's homepage has twice vanished in its entirety recently, it is unclear whether it was (a) hacking (b) site software error or (c) something incurred the displeasure of a mod, so some of us thought it a good idea to duplicate the wonderful information therein.
duplicate should of course have been "replicate".
"You are an ape. Your tail is merely a stub of bones that don't even protrude outside the skin. Your dentition includes not only vestigial canines, but incisors, cuspids, bicuspids, and distinctive molars that come to five points interrupted by a "Y" shaped crevasse. This in addition to all of your other traits, like the dramatically increased range of motion in your shoulder, as well as a profound increase in cranial capacity and disposition toward a bipedal gait, indicates that you are not merely a vertebrate cranial chordate and a tetrapoidal placental mammalian primate, but you are more specifically an ape, and so was your mother before you."
That is comical to me, are you trying to get me to laugh?
A "kind" is a species. Yes, there are many variations of dogs, horses, zebras, mammals, etc., but I still don't believe I am an ape or that an ape can give birth to a human being.
Has that ever been tried? Has a female homo sapien ever been impregnated with ape semen and produced the missling link?
I have no faith in science when it comes to evolution and even the creator of that theory on his death bed took a moment of his last breaths to make sure the world knew that.
I know it.
I don't think those are mistakes or accidents, do you?
Faith and science are butting heads. Truthfully we'll never know......we just move the mark.
Speciation is observed. Do you think that there were 40 million animals on the ark? Or have you grown up enough to realise that particular story is nonsense anyway?
Yes, there are many variations of dogs, horses, zebras, mammals, etc., but I still don't believe I am an ape or that an ape can give birth to a human being.
Your lack of belief does not affect the definition of the word "ape". Do you believe that you are a mammal? Do you believe that you are a vertebrate? Ape is simply a higher level of taxonomic classification.
That is comical to me, are you trying to get me to laugh?
I am glad that taxonomy amuses you.
Has that ever been tried? Has a female homo sapien ever been impregnated with ape semen...
Yes, my wife has successfully produced offspring twice, using the ape semen that I produce
..and produced the missling link?
Your comic book notions of biology would be touching if they didn't represent wilful ignorance. Why would you expect to get a "missing link" from the union of two modern species. Ligers and Tigons don't resemble ancestors of tigers or lions. Mules don't resemble ancestors of horses.
I have no faith in science when it comes to evolution
No faith is required. Merely an examination of the evidence. Why do you have no faith in evolution specifically? What is it about the evidence for evolution that you don't find compelling? Be specific.
and even the creator of that theory on his death bed took a moment of his last breaths to make sure the world knew that.
Unfortunately for you, the Lady Hope story is a creationist fabrication.
What do you think God created the other 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 suns (most with attendant solar systems) for?
I am not a Scientoligist, but I do believe in The Creator God.
There is just to much evidence that man was created in the likeness of God. Look at man's reasoning, intellect, conscience, will, and how he reacts to his environment.
Over all the other creatures in the world, none posess the powers that man inherently does.
That is not accident. God is the Greatest Scientist, IMHO.
I must assume that you are either an agnostic or an atheist by reading your reasoning.
From your perspective thought, do you believe that there is intelligent life on other planets?
(I believe it.)
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