Judge Says University Can Deny Course Credit to Christian Graduates Taught With Creationism Texts

Fox News ^ | August 13, 2008

[Sopater]

A federal judge has ruled the University of California can deny course credit to Christian high school graduates who have been taught with textbooks that reject evolution and declare the Bible infallible, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles ruled Friday that the school's review committees did not discriminate against Christians because of religious viewpoints when it denied credit to those taught with certain religious textbooks, but instead made a legitimate claim that the texts failed to teach critical thinking and omitted important science and history topics.

Charles Robinson, the university's vice president for legal affairs, told the Chronicle that the ruling "confirms that UC may apply the same admissions standards to all students and to all high schools without regard to their religious affiliations."

[MrB]

Hardware and Software analogy,

or perhaps operating system and application analogy.

So, even if DNA “mutates” (software/application changes),

the operating system and hardware still need to function,

and the whole system obviously isn’t the product of mutation and selection over billions of years.

[GourmetDan]

"How do you suppose I believe that mutations occur only when an opportunity for survival presents itself? They usually only PERSIST within a population (and perhaps rise to 100% presence in the population) when it confers some survival advantage."

The only way your argument that nylon-digesting bacteria are not DEVOLVING is if the bacteria created new information in response to a new environment.

If the bacteria is generating this information within the constraints of it's genome when it is stressed and did so in the past, then the evidence is merely adaptation, devolution is still valid and there is no support for evolution.

I don't think you think through the basics of your positions before you post them. You end up on both sides all the time.

"I believe in both abiotic processes AND God. What is to prevent God from using abiotic processes when HE commanded the Oceans to bring forth life?"

This is simply the fallacy of equivocation. You claim to believe in a god of creation, yet your god cannot communicate how he did things. He needs man to do that and man's interpretation does not need god. That is no god at all.

[GourmetDan]

"Hardware and Software analogy, or perhaps operating system and application analogy. So, even if DNA “mutates” (software/application changes), the operating system and hardware still need to function, and the whole system obviously isn’t the product of mutation and selection over billions of years."

It's amazing how often the 'intelligent design' analogy comes up wrt biology.

Yet naturalists deny to their last breath that life is intelligently-designed.

[GodGunsGuts]

aka, the ghost in the machine.

[allmendream]

Hmmm. Cant seem to find it. But the experiment was much like this one. You will notice that it was three amino acid substitutions brought about by changing the DNA through mutation that led to the higher thermal stability of the xylanase protein (not epigentic DNA methylation). The experiment I am attempting to find did directed evolution for heat tolerance on a bacteria population derived from a single bacteria and sequenced the DNA of a particular protein from these cultures as they evolved and found that every possible single base change was attempted by the population.

Here is the study whereby mutations which changed three amino acids led to a heat stable xylanase protein....

Thermal stabilization of Bacillus subtilis family-11 xylanase by directed evolution.Miyazaki K, Takenouchi M, Kondo H, Noro N, Suzuki M, Tsuda S.
Institute for Biological Resources and Functions, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Central 6, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8566, Japan. miyazaki-kentaro@aist.go.jp

We used directed evolution to enhance the thermostability of glycosyl hydrolase family-11 xylanase from Bacillus subtilis. By combining random point mutagenesis, saturation mutagenesis, and DNA shuffling, a thermostable variant, Xyl(st), was identified which contained three amino acid substitutions: Q7H, N8F, and S179C. The half-inactivation temperature (the midpoint of the melting curves) for the Xyl(st) variant compared with the wild-type enzyme after incubation for 10 min was elevated from 58 to 68 degrees C. At 60 degrees C the wild-type enzyme was inactivated within 5 min, but Xyl(st) retained full activity for at least 2 h. The stabilization was accompanied by evidence of thermophilicity; that is, an increase in the optimal reaction temperature from 55 to 65 degrees C and lower activity at low temperatures and higher activity at higher temperatures relative to wild type. To elucidate the mechanism of thermal stabilization, three-dimensional structures were determined for the wild-type and Xyl(st) enzymes. A cavity was identified around Gln-7/Asn-8 in wild type that was filled with bulky, hydrophobic residues in Xyl(st). This site was not identified by previous approaches, but directed evolution identified the region as a weak point. Formation of an intermolecular disulfide bridge via Cys-179 was observed between monomers in Xyl(st). However, the stability was essentially the same in the presence and absence of a reducing agent, indicating that the increased hydrophobicity around the Cys-179 accounted for the stability.

PMID: 16467302 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[allmendream]

The bacteria created a new protein out of an old gene and now could digest nylon; thus new information was created. The information necessary to digest nylon was created. This was not Devolution, it was evolution, and a gain of information, the exact thing that the poster said was impossible.

[GourmetDan]

"Correction: A Scientist doesn’t have that option. No Scientist can still be a Scientist and say “this physical phenomenon is best explained by supernatural agency”."

That's exactly correct and is exactly why a philosophical commitment to naturalism will ultimately produce 'an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated'.

Certain other posters say it better. "Science isn't interested in truth", they correctly say. Science is only interested in the philosophy of naturalism.

Now, if naturalism is not true but is purely philosophical; then those 'material explanations' are counter-intuitive because they are wrong.

Science, however, can *never* admit that and should never be proposed as the basis for understanding truth but recognized as a philosophical POV.

[GourmetDan]

"aka, the ghost in the machine."

The existence of the mind is proof of a supernatural reality.

Were 'mind' purely a material artifact, then it would obey physical laws and would necessarily reach the same conclusion given the same set of facts. Since it does not, it is not material but supernatural.

[metmom]

No Scientist can still be a Scientist and say “this physical phenomenon is best explained by supernatural agency”.

Ahhh, thought control at it's finest.

[GourmetDan]

"Ahhh, thought control at it's finest."

It's more like the preacher who teaches what he does not really believe because he 'signed the paper' to get his credentials from this denomination or that.

[GodGunsGuts]

==I was just looking for it....

Did you find anything yet? Unless we are talking about two different subjects, your contention that epigenetics has nothing to do with heat stress proteins is clearly in error. Here’s another paper on the crucial role epigenetics plays with respect to heat stress proteins:

Evidence for an epigenetic mechanism by which Hsp90 acts as a capacitor for morphological evolution

Morphological alterations have been shown to occur in Drosophila melanogaster when function of Hsp90 (heat shock 90-kDa protein 1, encoded by Hsp83) is compromised during development1. Genetic selection maintains the altered phenotypes in subsequent generations1. Recent experiments have shown, however, that phenotypic variation still occurs in nearly isogenic recombinant inbred strains of Arabidopsis thaliana 2. Using a sensitized isogenic D. melanogaster strain, iso-Kr If-1, we confirm this finding and present evidence supporting an epigenetic mechanism for Hsp90’s capacitor function, whereby reduced activity of Hsp90 induces a heritably altered chromatin state. The altered chromatin state is evidenced by ectopic expression of the morphogen wingless in eye imaginal discs and a corresponding abnormal eye phenotype, both of which are epigenetically heritable in subsequent generations, even when function of Hsp90 is restored. Mutations in nine different genes of the trithorax group that encode chromatin-remodeling proteins also induce the abnormal phenotype. These findings suggest that Hsp90 acts as a capacitor for morphological evolution through epigenetic and genetic mechanisms.

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v33/n1/abs/ng1067.html

[allmendream]

How successful has attributing physical phenomena to supernatural agency been when compared to attributing physical phenomena to predictable and natural means? It seems the entirety of the technological world we live in was derived from the latter not the former.

So no Scientist (thus all Scientists are “evolutionists” according to your definition) can explain a phenomenon by saying “Goddidit” and still be a Scientist, he has just become a theologian.

[GourmetDan]

"The bacteria created a new protein out of an old gene and now could digest nylon; thus new information was created. The information necessary to digest nylon was created. This was not Devolution, it was evolution, and a gain of information, the exact thing that the poster said was impossible."

You have a very narrow definition of 'new' since you admit that it exists in non-nylon environments but dies out.

[allmendream]

I didn't say epigenetics had nothing to do with HEAT SHOCK PROTEINS (transcription factors that respond to heat stress). Get a clue.

I said epigenetics had nothing to do with the mutation and natural selection of a protein for heat tolerance such as the xylenase example I provided.

How would epigenetics (which turns on and off genes by DNA methylation) account for a DIFFERENT protein being produced? Can you answer that?

How could methylation of DNA lead to a three amino acid substitution in a xylenase enzyme that makes it function at higher temperatures?

[GodGunsGuts]

Excellent point. I have had that idea in my head since childhood. I'm pretty sure CS Lewis was the Christian who first planted it there. And while I have never heard anybody put it more poetically than Lewis, you definitely get the prize for putting it most succinctly. Thanks for the reply!

All the best—GGG

[allmendream]

It was new when they made it. It needn't be novel to be new. The mutations for producing an enzyme capable of digesting nylon might well have existed thousands or hundreds of thousands of times in the past for brief moments; but there was no survival advantage to having it and so it was lost through natural selection.

How is new information on how to digest nylon, an adaptation that led to an entire new way of life for these bacteria, considered devolution and not evolution? By what criteria?

[metmom]

How successful has attributing physical phenomena to supernatural agency been when compared to attributing physical phenomena to predictable and natural means?

What practical difference could it make in the application of of knowledge to technology whether the cause of a physical phenomena were natural or supernatural? Whatever the cause, the physical laws of the universe are still the same and systems obey them the same way.

It seems the entirety of the technological world we live in was derived from the latter not the former.

How so? It's only comparatively recently that the adherence to the naturalistic philosophy has been demanded of scientists. Lots of technology, not to mention scientific discoveries, were accomplished by men who totally believed that the cause of natural phenomena was God.

Just how does one's opinion of the cause hinder their application of knowledge in the form of technology?

[GourmetDan]

"How successful has attributing physical phenomena to supernatural agency been when compared to attributing physical phenomena to predictable and natural means? It seems the entirety of the technological world we live in was derived from the latter not the former."

Now you are making the error of the 'fallacy of equivocation'.

Technology does not equate to naturalism, nor does it logically follow that naturalism is true because natural physical laws exist. To claim that technology supports naturalism is rather foolish.

"So no Scientist (thus all Scientists are “evolutionists” according to your definition) can explain a phenomenon by saying “Goddidit” and still be a Scientist, he has just become a theologian."

Exactly the point. Scientists are, by definition, philosophical naturalists. They are constrained by their belief to material answers, no matter how outrageous, no matter how close to magic they are. Thus, their statements should not be relied on as support for evolution. It is a consequence of their belief-system. Science does not have truth. It is philosophical naturalism.

[GourmetDan]

"It was new when they made it. It needn't be novel to be new."

The point is that you already admitted that wasn't true. That same protein undoubtedly exists in countless nylon-free environments around the world today. It is neither new nor novel.

"The mutations for producing an enzyme capable of digesting nylon might well have existed thousands or hundreds of thousands of times in the past for brief moments; but there was no survival advantage to having it and so it was lost through natural selection."

Not only in the past, but in the present in nylon-free environments. This means that it is neither new nor novel and your claim is destroyed.

[Elsie]

The first sexually reproducing organisms were hermaphroditic, so the penis and vagina obviously evolved in parallel.

Sure they did!

This is SO easy to SAY; isn't it.

Since evolution is constanting changing all living creatures; I guess that explains what all these non-functioning parts are that are scattered throughout critters.