Criticism Of Evolution Can't Be Silenced

Eagle Forum ^ | August 16, 2006 | Mrs. Schlafly

[jla]

Criticism Of Evolution Can't Be Silenced

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by Phyllis Schlafly, August 16, 2006

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The liberal press is gloating that the seesaw battle for control of the Kansas Board of Education just teetered back to pro-evolutionists for the second time in five years. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the movement to allow criticism of evolution are grossly exaggerated.

In its zeal to portray evolution critics in Kansas as dumb rural fundamentalists, a New York Times page-one story misquoted Dr. Steve Abrams (the school board president who had steered Kansas toward allowing criticism of evolution) on a basic principle of science. The newspaper had to correct its error.

The issue in the Kansas controversy was not intelligent design and certainly not creationism. The current Kansas standards state: "To promote good science, good pedagogy and a curriculum that is secular, neutral and non-ideological, school districts are urged to follow the advice provided by the House and Senate Conferees in enacting the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."

This "advice," which the Kansas standards quote, is: "The Conferees recognize that quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society."

The newly elected school board members immediately pledged to work swiftly to restore a science curriculum that does not subject evolution to criticism. They don't want students to learn "the full range of scientific views" or that there is a "controversy" about evolution.

Liberals see the political value to teaching evolution in school, as it makes teachers and children think they are no more special than animals. Childhood joy and ambition can turn into depression as children learn to reject that they were created in the image of God.

The press is claiming that the pro-evolution victory in Kansas (where, incidentally, voter turnout was only 18 percent) was the third strike for evolution critics. Last December a federal judge in Dover, Pennsylvania, prohibited the school from even mentioning Intelligent Design, and in February, the Ohio board of education nixed a plan to allow a modicum of critical analysis of evolution.

But one strikeout does not a ball game win. Gallup Polls have repeatedly shown that only about 10 percent of Americans believe the version of evolution commonly taught in public schools and, despite massive public school indoctrination in Darwinism, that number has not changed much in decades.

Intelligent judges are beginning to reject the intolerant demands of the evolutionists. In May, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned the decision by a Clinton-appointed trial judge to prohibit the Cobb County, Georgia, school board from placing this sticker on textbooks: "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."

Fortunately, judges and politicians cannot control public debate about evolution. Ann Coulter's new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," has enjoyed weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

Despite bitter denunciations by the liberals, funny thing, there has been a thundering silence about the one-third of her book in which she deconstructs Darwinism. She calls it the cosmology of the Church of Liberalism.

Coulter's book charges that evolution is a cult religion, and described how its priests and practitioners regularly treat critics as religious heretics. The Darwinists' answer to every challenge is to accuse their opponents of, horrors, a fundamentalist belief in God.

Although the liberals spent a lot of money to defeat members of the Kansas school board members on August 1, they are finding it more and more difficult to prop up Darwinism by the censorship of criticism. The polite word for the failure of Darwinism to prove its case is gaps in the theory, but Ann Coulter's book shows that dishonesty and hypocrisy are more accurate descriptions.

Evolutionists are too emotionally committed to face up to the failure of evidence to support their faith, but they are smart enough to know that they lose whenever debate is allowed, which is why they refused the invitation to present their case at a public hearing in Kansas. But this is America, and 90 percent of the public will not remain silenced.

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Further Reading: Evolution

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Read this article online: http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2006/aug06/06-08-16.html

[RobRoy]

Possibility 4: making a quick remark and then moving on.

His post was not intended to be a "peer reviewed paper". It was a comment made at the water cooler.

Sheesh...

[RippyO]

Cute. Very cute.

[Oberon]

That's because there isn't a controversy about evolution within science.

And that's because the gatekeepers of the science establishment consider any close critique of Darwin to be prima facie unscientific.

Incredibly, Darwin is to the 21st century what Aristotle was to the 11th.

Let us review: Science relies on forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis through experiment, and evaluating the results of the experiment to determine whether they support the hypothesis. Science thrives on such things as sharing of data, reproducible results, and peer review.

The entire world would welcome a well-designed, controlled experiment that would either prove or disprove speciation through natural selection. Without that, however, all that Darwin and his disciples have provided us with is a hypothesis...and acceptance of it then becomes philosophy, not science.

Of course everyone is welcome to his or her philosophy, but let's call it what it is, all right?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The best deconstruction of evolution I ever saw (in laymans terms) was on Fredoneverything.net - until I read her book.

I enjoyed "Godless" but the chapters on evolution were the weakest parts of the book.

I agree with her premise that evolutionary biology, along with cosmology and geology, make up the left-wing creation myth. But everything she wrote could've been copied almost verbatim from the Creation Institute's website.

There were also several flat-out factual errors. Four examples; comets are not made up predominantly of organic molecules, the Judge in the Dover trial did not take it upon himself to decide if creationism was science, Dembski did not create a new scientific discipline or anythinig useful at all, and evolution can be easily disproved.

She just rehashed all the rhetorical arguments from the non-scientists who play to folks who like to think ignorance is proof of faith. Those arguments don't get the attention of Christians who work in the sciences because they won't address the facts.

I would have signed on as her science advisor for free so I don't know why she didn't contact me. ;)

[deputac]

It is interesting that Ms. Coulter points out in her book the problem with the "Cambrian explosion" where we have all this fossilized evidence of these complex organisms, but nothing pre-dating this period showing the change happening to get there.

Of course, this may be a loss in the fossil record and there is something that we have not found yet. But, was this not Darwin's main problem when he constructed his theory? And did he not believe that his theory would be vindicated when we had time to find these fossils, these missing links per se? If we have not, then haven't we just been looking at a version of evolution that is not what Darwin originally wrote about?

Not taking sides in the issue, just adding to the debate.

[deputac]

I agree, the chapters on evolution in "Godless" dragged on forever. But, up to that point, is was pretty good.

Nice for her to write about the Scopes trial being an ACLU set-up. Amazing that all these "ground-breaking" trials I learned about in high school and law school were nothing but shows to get a topic or view point pushed through the courts.

[RobRoy]

You gave some direct criticisms. Thank you. I have to do some reading/research now. :)

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The world will never be the same now that we have the internet.

Wonder how long we'll be able to keep it.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

You're welcome.

Unfortunately, biology has become a humongous body of information. I'm already getting two publications that try to keep track of the health care industry's attempts to tame the sheer volume of data generated just in the last few years.

Good luck with your studies!

[Sentis]

Ann at worst is an ignorant fool and at best she is a bright intelligent women that knows how to play on the ignorance of evangelical rubes.

[Sentis]

BTW no offense meant to the rubes on this board.

[Dante Alighieri]

How so? Evolutionary theory is constantly changing and constantly being critiqued by scientists. While they don't dispute the general concept of evolution, it is the details where the controversies lie. An entire theory that has managed to explain thousands of facts for over a hundred years and grounded in solid evidence is not rejected easily.

The mere problem is - there is no other available, scientific theory at the moment except evolution on this matter.

What are you talking about? There have been numerous experiments in speciation. Are you being selectively blind?

[Senator Bedfellow]

...and Mrs. Schlafly never claimed to be an expert in evolutionary biology.

In other words, she has no idea if the "criticisms" of the theory are entirely valid, complete BS, or somewhere in between. So we should listen to her opinion on whether the critiques are good science or not, or whether they belong in science class or not, because....?

[RunningWolf]

I used to have a similar approach to evolution, but in time I came to reject it after a hard look at all its evidence and the methods to support that. Sometimes the two are very close together in a circular fashion.

W.

[RobRoy]

>>The mere problem is - there is no other available, scientific theory at the moment except evolution on this matter<<

Boy, you nailed it there. The problem is that this is a binary problem. There are two categories into which all theories fall:

1. A species, as it currently exists got there by accident.
2. A species, as it currently exitst, got there by being designed that way by "someone".

Everything falls into one of the two beliefs. The name for all beliefs that fall in to number one is "evolution". To many, studying number one is considered science and studying number two is anything but. I disagree with that position.

To put it bluntly, number one, as discussed by some proponents, is not always science and number two, as discussed by some proponents, is not always religion.

And believing something was designed does not slow down research. In fact, if a thing WAS designed, research based on that belief would be the most fruitful.

Here's proof: http://aeroweb.lucia.it/rap/RAFAQ/Tu-4.html

[Oberon]

What are you talking about? There have been numerous experiments in speciation. Are you being selectively blind?

More ignorant than blind, I think. I was under the impression that, had anyone successfully demonstrated macroevolution in the laboratory, surely the proof would have been trotted out for everyone to see. Then again, I confess that I don't subscribe to a single peer-review journal, so I suppose I can't blame anyone for that but myself.

So if I may ask, what experiments have been done, and what were the results? Could you point me to some resources?

[Dante Alighieri]

If you mean to suggest that evolution is random, as I understand your post, you should know that it isn't. While it may include random factors such as mutations, it is not random in other respects, such as natural selection.

Also, I disagree. I don't think the options are necessarily limited to two. There may be other theories out there - it's not exactly a good thing to derive dichotomies in science.

I don't understand how evolution is not always science. It is a scientific theory so I don't understand that. I agree that design is not always religion but the ID movement definitely is. By refusing to specify the designer such that the designer may be subject to falsification tests, it is impossible to falsify ID and thus, it is not science.

I don't know if it would slow down research or not. All I know is that ID proponents have remained, scientifically, static for the last couple of decades. If ID proponents can introduce a falsifiable hypothesis, then I and probably other scientists, would welcome it to scientific scrutiny.

[Dante Alighieri]

Start here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Observed_speciation

This isn't exactly something new.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

What are you talking about? There have been numerous experiments in speciation. Are you being selectively blind?

There are current observations of speciation. Evolution is not really a laboratory science.

[Oberon]

An entire theory that has managed to explain thousands of facts for over a hundred years and grounded in solid evidence is not rejected easily.

Well, that's certainly true. It's also true of Aristotle's spontaneous generation...eels growing from horsehairs and so forth. After all, the eels had to come from somewhere, didn't they?

A good model is good, it's true, but it's only a model. It still remains to be proven or disproven.