Posted on 03/14/2006 10:49:13 AM PST by LouAvul
Intelligent design theory is creating quite a stir.
Most recently Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher said he supported school boards teaching Intelligent Design. In December, a Pennsylvania judge ruled against a Dover Township school board decision to include the theory in text books, costing the taxpayers about a million dollars in legal fees. Movements to begin teaching the intelligent design theory have popped up in dozens of states forcing local legislators and courts to address the issue.
The concept is simple: Were humans created by some sort of intelligent designer, possibly a deity, or by did we evolve scientifically based on Charles Darwin’s theories of natural selection?
However, as parents, school boards and taxpayers debate the larger issue, students locally have shared some interesting views.
Clarksville High School junior Kyle Banks is a member of Morton Memorial United Methodist Church and said he believes God created the world and its inhabitants, but has adapted to the idea of keeping his church beliefs separate from his schoolwork.
“I don’t necessarily agree with (evolution), but I don’t mind it, as long as they teach it as a theory,” Banks said.
Indiana’s educational standards concerning evolution were developed five years ago by a 60-person committee made up of teachers, scientists, administrators and parents.
In the ninth grade, students are taught how living things function in their environment through laboratory and field work, according to information from the Indiana Department of Education. The goal is to help students recognize that living organisms are made of cell or cell products that consist of the same parts as other matter, involve the same kinds of transformations of energy and move using the same kinds of basic forces.
“It’s based on getting a logical idea and testing the hypothesis,” said David Winship Taylor, head of biology at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, who has expertise in the area of evolutionary botany. “We know we have genetic variations and changes in genetic variation — and we have time.”
Students interviewed for this story came from extreme religious to agnostic backgrounds and each one said they looked at learning evolution as just another one of their academic requirements. With the exception of Banks, all were open to the idea of adding intelligent design to classroom discussion.
“If we have a problem with evolution, we could go into the hallway or office,” said Quincy Jones, a New Albany High School senior.
During his ninth grade study of evolution, Jones couldn’t remember one student leaving the classroom for personal reasons related to the topic.
“It wasn’t forced upon us, we just went over theory,” added NAHS sophomore Stephanie Medley.
A local youth minister supports the idea of teaching the competing theories.
“I think the students would benefit from hearing both sides of the story,” said Chris Tanner, a youth minister at Georgetown Christian Church. “You can teach it without saying it’s a God to who you’re held accountable. You could just say ‘a creator.’”
Matt Holloway, a Clarksville High School junior and also a member of Morton Memorial, has come up with his own hybrid belief that blended the ideas of evolution and religion.
“I probably have a different belief than most people,” Holloway said. “I view it as evolution and creation can co-exist.
“I believe in God and that he created all humans and if he wanted to create humans that could evolve, he could do that.”
Clarksville High School Science Teacher Sherri Abromavage said sensitivity is still a factor when discussing evolution.
“We’re just seeing how science explains some of the questions we have,” Abromavage said.
To date, she said she has never had a student not complete the evolution portion on her biology class because they were uncomfortable with the theory.
“Once they realize they’re not expected to give up their personal beliefs, they’re fine,” Abromavage said.
However, there are a few schools within Clark and Floyd counties where God and science are on the same syllabus.
“We teach the principles behind evolution and we include the means of origins, the origin of that idea and why scientists believe that,” said Tim Ferree, assistant principal and former science teacher at Christian Academy in New Albany. “We teach is the biblical record of origins.”
It makes for more well-rounded students to present them with all the information, Ferree said.
“Both ideas of how we got here are accepted by many different people and an educated person has to know all the ideas,” Ferree said. “There’s going to be some overlap in some areas and you have to open your eyes to that. “We shouldn’t be afraid to take a look at different types of origins.”
However, as far as teaching creationism in public schools, the U.S. Supreme Court has made its position quite clear.
“Evolution is a scientific fact and the problem one has when one teaches something besides evolution is you’re going to be teaching opinion, and usually a religious opinion, and that raises first amendment concerns,” said Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.
In Kentucky, the word “evolution” was recently deleted from guidelines of what Kentucky public school students should know and be tested on when officials from the state education department substituted the phrase ”change over time” for evolution.
Deputy Commissioner Gene Wilhoit said he and other Kentucky state department officials saw no need to keep the word evolution in the guidelines for high school and middle school students.
“The word is a lightning rod that creates a diversion from what we’re teaching, and we did not want to advocate a particular doctrine or a specific view,” Wilhoit said.
It seems this kind of creative editing is spreading throughout the country.
In August, the Kansas Board of Education also garnered attention when it adopted new testing standards that play down the scientific importance of evolution.
Kentucky biology teacher Ken Rosenbaum said these types of decisions will discourage schools from covering the topic.
“A lot of teachers are upset about this,” said Rosenbaum, who is also director of the Kentucky Science Teachers Association. “They know it was done for political reasons. It’s either a scientific theory or it’s not. Why don’t we just stop calling the sunrise the sunrise?”
But if natural selection or mutation can't produce a change within the species - and they can't - there can be no evolution.
"You're absolutely right. I've wasted considerable time on this thread trying to get a straight answer from these people.
They repeatedly throw in minor adaptations as their conclusive proof that man descended from apes.
Their intellectual dishonesty is disgusting.
Now I know why I never respond to these threads."
I know what you mean. A couple of people are so intellectually dishonest that I don't even waste my time reading their posts.
"But if natural selection or mutation can't produce a change within the species - and they can't - there can be no evolution."
Since they can, evolution is safe.
Nor would it matter. One can get any amount of diversity even in cases where no single event speciation takes place. One can get from New York to Chicago without taking more than a single step at a time; saltations unnecessary.
Congratulations. You've just rejected micro-evolution. That puts you out on a limb even amongst the most strident evo-rejectors.
Define species.
Assuming you don't want the meaning from the dictionary, as I'm sure you have a dictionary, species is different from breed. There are many breeds of cats, for instance, but they are the same species.
So do you agree or disagree with some of your fellow creationists who recognize chimpanzees and human beings as being the same species?
"So do you agree or disagree with some of your fellow creationists who recognize chimpanzees and human beings as being the same species?"
I disagree.
It looks like this very famous Christian agrees with me:
“Further, he (the Pope) seems to be cautioning those who have been claiming Church endorsement of the full-bodied, design-defeating version of Darwin's theory of evolution, which, after all, is often little more than philosophical materialism applied to science,” added Chapman.
Chapman noted that in his very first homily as Pope, Benedict XVI had rebuked the idea that human beings are mere products of evolution, and that, like his predecessor, John Paul II, the new Pope has a long record of opposition to scientific materialism.
excerpt from: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=3015&program=News&callingPage=discoMainPage
What is the difference between species and subspecies?
Let me speak first to the position of the last Pope, Pope John Paul II.
In 1996, Pope John Paul II published a "message" where he wrote,
"In his Encyclical Humani generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points (cf. AAS 42 [1950], pp. 575-576).
Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical, fresh knowledge has led to the recognition that evolution is more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory."
It's clear that Pope John Paul II does not reject evolutionary biology.
It's good that we are in agreement that human beings and chimps are not the same species, since they're not. Since chimps have an extra pair of chromosomes, it's extremely unlikely that we could reproduce.
I'm not sure if you looked at my links from the earlier post. I know creationists don't like to talk about plants (I don't why), but there were examples in there of plant mutations that made it impossible for these plant groups to reproduce with the precursor line, but still remain viable among themselves. This is usually how new species begin to form.
You had asked about subspecies. The term is usually used for describing a geographic segment of a species as a way to talk about their characteristics specific to their environment or behavior. However, they are still viable within their species. A non-politically correct usage in humans would be to describe races of men as subspecies, but that's rarely ever done because of historical situations related to black slavery.
There are biologists who don't like the concept of subspecies and they continue to argue against it's use.
I have the highest respect for those who believe in both evo and God, even though I disagree with evo.
Thanks for the link about John Paul II. I'll check it out more thoroughly after this post.
However, it seems that Pope Benedict XVI has a different position, perhaps because there is new evidence.
For instance, I was listening to the radio last night and according to the commentator, in Darwin's day, they thought that we only had one cell, and based on this theory, convinced other scientists of evo.
But now, with technological advances, biologists have discovered that we have trillions of cells.
Next point, it seems to me that a plant is so different from a human or animal, that it can't be compared. To my mind, it's apples and oranges.
Last but not least, are you "agnostic" about evolution, or have you pretty much made up your mind (unless new evidence is discovered).
It is a pleasure "talking" with you, as you are honest and very pleasant.
You will probably find this thread interesting, with both sides of evo, giving their interpretation of our new Pope's statement:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/1407576/posts?page=1
Thank you. You are honest and pleasant as well and I enjoyed our discussion.
I'm sometimes bent out of shape by these discussions because I'm a Christian who works in biotechnology, although my degree is in physics. I'm routinely accused of atheism or some other such thing because I can see that evolutionary biology has an enormous weight of evidence behind it that creationists and ID'ers aren't aware of, or discount out of hand.
If a scientific theory is going to replace evolution, it's got a lot of work to do and I don't see anyone doing it. My personal point of view is that God created the universe and all of us in it. And He created the processes that we learn as we fulfill the destiny he has planned for us. Evolution is just one of them.
I'm not completely up on the history of cell biology but modern theories of cells date to around Darwin's time or just before. He would've had the latest information that large organisms were made up of billions to trillions of cells. I think the Popes tend to rely on their scientific advisors to understand these issues, although I know they'll request audiences with outside scientists periodically to get the latest word on developments.
The reason that plants are good subjects for study is that they reproduce rapidly, are easy to care for in human habitats and they're large enough to easily manipulate. It makes it easier to look at a lot of generations in a short period of time. Also plants are a lot weirder than terrestrial animals so there's more to see. Now if we could get some of the samller sea critters to breed in labs we could work with some weird animals.
And thanks for the link.
I agree with the Pope that evolution is not casual or meaningless. (Only the atheists think that.)
But that doesn't mean we can't examine and understand the process.
Hey Franky, do you still believe there is no explanation for the dipole moment of water?
I love talking with sincere people, whether they agree with me or not. I like to know how people arrive at their conclusions.
What got me to first delve into the fact that there has been no proof that one species can become an entirely different species is when I read it in a book by Judge Bork (the judge who was borked :) ).
Judge Bork is not someone who is devoting his life to the ID theory, but wrote a book(s) on a number of things covering culture, the Constitution, etc. He only devoted one or two pages to his antievo view out of his entire book, hardly a person who is devoting his life to ID, so probably at one time quite open-minded about the evo theory.
As I said in previous post while listening on the radio: "according to the commentator, in Darwin's day, they thought that we only had one cell, and based on this theory, convinced other scientists of evo.
But now, with technological advances, biologists have discovered that we have trillions of cells."
So I was trying to search for a link where some biologists say that we have trillions of cells and could not find it. By any chance, can you suggest a website that I could search for this information? I know some will say it's true, and some will say it's bogus, I just want to see what these biologists have to say about it.
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