Posted on 12/01/2007 12:39:07 PM PST by Alter Kaker
AUSTIN, Tex., Nov. 29 (AP) — The state’s director of science curriculum said she resigned this month under pressure from officials who said she had given the appearance of criticizing the teaching of intelligent design.
The Texas Education Agency put the director, Chris Comer, on 30 days’ paid administrative leave in late October, resulting in what Ms. Comer called a forced resignation.
The move came shortly after she forwarded an e-mail message announcing a presentation by Barbara Forrest, an author of “Creationism’s Trojan Horse.” The book argues that creationist politics are behind the movement to get intelligent design theory taught in public schools. Ms. Comer sent the message to several people and a few online communities.
Ms. Comer, who held her position for nine years, said she believed evolution politics were behind her ousting. “None of the other reasons they gave are, in and of themselves, firing offenses,” she said.
Education agency officials declined to comment Wednesday on the matter. But they explained their recommendation to fire Ms. Comer in documents obtained by The Austin American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act.
“Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that T.E.A. endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral,” the officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
...hardly a smooth transition process.
Oh, Wow! That's your smoking gun against evolution???? That evolution has not been a smooth transition process?
This magnificent conclusion is the end result of dozens of posts on this thread about gene skipping or whatever it is you came up with?
(Sorry, late word just in from the Nobel Prize Committee -- don't count on an early-morning phone call next Fall.)
Not a good idea.
It's just one of many flaws with Evolutionary Theory. In this case, endotoxin recognition and signaling is handled differently in Coral (an ancient species) and humans (a more modern species) than in Fish (which Evolutionary Theory labels as an intermediary species).
That's not "Evolution," however. That's code skipping.
But that's not the end of woes for Evolutionary Theory, as said theory (e.g. with information from nothing) conflicts with Information Theory.
Evolutionary Theory also has a problem explaining genetic data sequencing (e.g. unguided, unbiased) mathematically.
Furthermore, Evolutionary Theory fails to explain how the first life form evolved from inanimate matter (i.e. abiogenesis).
And Evolutionary Theory faces non-trivial hurdles of explaining why DNA has a data-processing engine, data-storage, and a Base-4 code-set.
Evolutionary Theory also fails to explain irreducible complexity (e.g. you can't have a heart without also having veins...and the plumbing/routing of veins is completely different for 3 ventricle hearts from 4 chambered ones).
Which is to say, Evolutionary Theory was a good theory for the pre-Information Age, but it hasn't stood up to time...and as we learn specific op-codes of codons we'll begin to see larger and larger Information Theory holes in Evolutionary Theory that will eventually render Evolutionary Theory as an international joke.
And what do you propose to replace evolutionary theory with? Your particular, narrow, religious belief?
If you think the theory of evolution has such a tough scientific boundary to cross, what will happen when your religions beliefs are subjected to the same tests?
(And, no. You can't claim religious discrimination when you purport your religious beliefs to be science and those ideas are subsequently put to the same tests to which all scientific ideas are put. You can't have it both ways.)
The next theory after Evolutionary Theory will be Intelligent Design, not religion. Should Intelligent Design turn out to have mathematical and/or evidential flaws, then it will be replaced by yet a newer theory, and so goes forward progress.
Intelligent Design is religion is disguise. The Wedge Strategy makes that very clear. And if that is not enough, the Dyscovery Institute's website (if you follow it back using the Wayback Machine) shows an increased attempt to hide the Intelligent Design = religion connection!
The whole sordid story is here: The Evolution of the Discovery Institute's Website Rhetoric.
You want more? Read Dembski's Mere Creationism. The whole scheme is exposed there, and none of those authors will ever be able to testify in a court of law, under oath, that intelligent design is science rather than religion.
The cat is out of the sack, and can't be stuffed back in. And you're left holding the empty sack.
Nope. That's a false premise.
Oh sure, there are always going to be groups who latch on to a theory that supports their ideology, but just because a certain group, desirable or not, latches on to a theory is not reason to believe the theory false.
Such a theory must stand or fall on its scientific merits, not on what group is backing it.
If the evidence shows that Intelligent Design best explains all transgenic animals, then that's the theory that should be used to explain them...whether that theory is preached from pulpits or not.
If the evidence shows that Intelligent Design best explains all transgenic animals, then that's the theory that should be used to explain them...whether that theory is preached from pulpits or not.
If I understand your posts upthread, then because modern scientists use intelligence and modern science to alter genes, that proves that some unknown and unnamed deity at some unknown and unnamed point in time for some unknown and unnamed reason and using an unknown and unnamed method designed all life.
Is that about it?
No. We can’t currently say that ID explains life before Man. However, we can say that ID conclusively explains all modern transgenic animals.
That’s a start.
And *if* ID stays on target in explaining DNA, then as we sequence more species and understand more genes (and eventually all Base-4 pairing op-codes at the programming level) then ID stands to remain above all other current theories for explaining such origins for the forseeable future.
That’s a start.
So my post above stands unrefuted:
If I understand your posts upthread, then because modern scientists use intelligence and modern science to alter genes, that proves that some unknown and unnamed deity at some unknown and unnamed point in time for some unknown and unnamed reason and using an unknown and unnamed method designed all life.Is that about it?
No. ID explains modern transgenic animals and doesn’t suffer from Evolutionary Theory’s failings of math in genetic data sequencing, in biology with irreducible complexity, in computer science with Information Theory, etc.
That merely makes ID the best current theory for extrapolating back to older species than transgenic lab animals.
It has nothing to do with a diety per se. There could be one, or many, or none. ID could be explained by Satan-worshipping alien computers or time-traveling, dimension-jumping humanoids for all anyone knows.
Which is to say, the evidence currently in hand doesn’t give much clue as to the nature of the intelligence in the design regarding ID, just that some form of bias is evident in what we’ve seen so far.
Now, that being said, if we one day start finding REM comments in our DNA, that could change considerably what we think about the nature of the intelligence involved.
Good night.
In computer programming, a coder will often insert comments into her code so that she remembers what it was that she was doing with the program at that point in time.
In some computer programming languages, those comments are known as “REM” statements.
“REM” being short for personal “REMarks.”
Makes sense now.
Farrakan jokes aren’t going to advance science.
To each their own.
One would think that evolution critics who are also leaders in information theory, such as Hubert Yockey, would have noticed this trend instead of declaring that information theory had proved common descent beyond doubt.
Perhaps Yockey and the folks a Discovery Institute and the folks at Answers in Genesis and the folks at the Institute for Creation Research are not stupid enough to think modern fish are ancestors to humans, or stupid enough to thing mainstream biology claims this.
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