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Teaching Alternative To Evolution Backed
Washinton Post ^ | Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | Michael A. Fletcher

Posted on 05/30/2002 7:40:53 AM PDT by Gladwin

Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:34 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Two House Republicans are citing landmark education reform legislation in pressing for the adoption of a school science curriculum in their home state of Ohio that includes the teaching of an alternative to evolution.

In what both sides of the debate say is the first attempt of its kind, Reps. John A. Boehner and Steve Chabot have urged the Ohio Board of Education to consider the language in a conference report that accompanied the major education law enacted earlier this year.....


(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crevolist; evolution; intelligentdesign; msbogusvirus
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To: JediGirl
To the widely accepted theory of evolution. The origin of all life? As in a beginning point? Abiogenesis-related? I think that eventually will be discovered. I subscribe to no particular theory there because I have yet to read enough on the various theories surrounding abiogenesis. For now, I will accept that eventually there will be a naturalistic explanation, just as there is to other processes in this world.

I admire your faith.

Shalom.

101 posted on 05/30/2002 11:35:04 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: Cicero
Partial, intra-species evolution, yes, of course. Finches growing longer beaks, dogs specializing, horses getting larger, sure.

Take your ingredients, bake for very long periods of time, throw in a bit of isolation and natural disaster, dash with changing climate and viola you've got new species popping up all over the place.

Evolution and ID are not mutually exclusive. The way I see it evolution attempts to explain differentiation in existing species, while ID attempts to explain origin of life. ID theorists don't seem to be saying that the intelligence behind creation is still creating new forms (which is obviously taking place) and evolution theory does not apply to anything other than species differentiation (which by definition would require a species to start from).

EBUCK

102 posted on 05/30/2002 11:35:14 AM PDT by EBUCK
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To: ArGee
Interesting read on how Pasteur proved that there can be no life formed without life present, but I hardly see how it supports your claim of the struggle over the viability of a god-conscious scientific method.

It was previously thought that things could supernaturally form from matter. For example, if you put cheese and rags in a box, baby mice would spontaneously form from the rags in the box. Obviously, people built tighter airtight iron boxes, and found that mice only came from mice.

However, this did not prove conclusively that life did not spontaneously, supernaturally form. Pasteur proved that was the case in his experiment.

So, this is an example of how a supernatural explanation for an observed phenomenon could be proved invalid. Over the course of the 19th century, it became more and more obvious that any explanation that included supernatural causes were not science.

Some questions answered in the 19th century:

1) How old is the earth?
2) Where does life come from?
3) Why do people get sick?

These questions were starting to be answered by assuming that supernatural explanation were invalid. Assuming otherwise gets you these answers:

1) 6000 years old
2) God created life
3) Poor balance of humors

103 posted on 05/30/2002 11:35:45 AM PDT by Gladwin
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To: AndrewC
Darwinism is global gorebism...egotism of the bottom-last demension---HELL!

Esoteric lucidity was hyper militant evolution foaming at the mouth soul rabies...these are just the puppies!

104 posted on 05/30/2002 11:37:08 AM PDT by f.Christian
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To: Psalm 73
Do you support yourself (you know, a house, bills, job, taxes)? Have you raised children? How many years have you been volunteering in jails and homeless shelters? How many years' experience do you have in the work force? Should I stop now, or are you incapable of being embarassed?

What does that have to do with the quality of her arguments? We aren't talking about homeless shelters here; we are having a unfriendly discussion about evolution.

105 posted on 05/30/2002 11:39:21 AM PDT by Gladwin
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To: r9etb
I don't see that Genesis takes any stand on whether evolution was the actual mechanism of creation. It doesn't really address mechanisms at all -- the point of Genesis is to emphasize that God is the Creator.

Genesis clearly describes the world coming into being pretty much as-is. It does not discount evolution as adding to the diversity of life, but it tells a story of G-d intentionally creating man as different from the rest of creation, intentionally creating the rest, and giving it to man to manage. In addition, later in the Bible, we are taught that there was no death in the world until Adam's fall.

You may or may not believe that. All I was trying to do was explain why some Christians become so defensive at the idea that evolution might be true. They don't believe it would make G-d out to be impotent, just a liar.

For myself, I gave up picking and choosing what parts of the Bible to believe a long time ago. The literary genre is clear from the writing style, and I take it as it is given to me. I recognize that science and the Bible don't always agree. When that happens, I chalk it up to either my misunderstanding of the scientific data, my misunderstanding of what the Bible says, or both, and wait until I know more.

The way I see it, quibbling about evolution vs. ID vs. whatever else, is not much different from quibbling over the exact process of the Resurrection of Jesus. It may be an interesting topic, but ultimately it's completely beside the point.

Unless one or the other makes G-d out to be a liar.

But not everyone will agree that the "stretches of truth" in Genesis are outright lies (if they prove false). For example, does a parent lie to his child when he tells her about Santa Claus?

Shalom.

106 posted on 05/30/2002 11:39:44 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: r9etb
LOL! If there is a Designer, the explanation is "supernatural" only because "science's" definition of reality is wrong.

Little to LOL about - you are entitled to believe that science's definition of reality is wrong, as are fundamentalist Hindus, fundamentalist Muslims and everyone else who adheres to a different definition. Science's definition has to be used when doing science though, and most certainly when teaching science. You should certainly use your definition of reality when teaching your religion. Only when you try to mix the two, and especially when you try to change science's defintion to suit your religious beliefs is it that you are rightfully attacked.

Your statement, BTW, is an admission that science explicitly denies the possibility of a God active in history. Specifically, according to your statement "science" assumes it has full access to reality, and that God (if any) played/plays no role in natural processes -- which are, therefore, subject only to a certain constrained set of physical processes.

This is indeed the basis of scientific analysis, and nobody in his right mind should have a problem with it.

This is an ideological, not a scientific, position.

You can call the basis of scientific analysis what you like, you certainly won't change it.
107 posted on 05/30/2002 11:43:19 AM PDT by Economist_MA
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To: EBUCK
Take your ingredients, bake for very long periods of time, throw in a bit of isolation and natural disaster, dash with changing climate and viola you've got new species popping up all over the place.

OK, this is where I have trouble. Of course, nobody is going to post a biology textbook on FR, but if evolution is science, it needs to be less flip. There needs to be some demonstrable mechanism for these ingredients leading to the current variety of life we have on this planet.

Maybe you were being flip and don't know any more about the science than I do. But so far, even when reading the layman's books by Gould, Dawkins, etc, I don't find the specifics. No experiment where someone mutated a fruitfly and got something other than a fruitfly. Of course I could have missed it, but a flip paragraph like the above does not do the real requirements of evolution any service.

Shalom.

108 posted on 05/30/2002 11:43:43 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: Pete
"If you will allow me a grace period, I will be happy to post a summary of the information I have gathered. Unfortunately, I am currently at work and my notes are at home. Having said that, let me just say that a deliniation needs to be between macro and micro evolution (as you probably know). My comments were directed at the macro evolution side."

Thanks.

A recurring, annoying theme in these threads is that of anti-evolution posters claiming that no examples of evolution have ever been found; if an example is tendered, it's dismissed as being "micro" versus "macro" evolution without clearing defining either. It's as if the example itself is proof sufficient that it is micro-evolution.

So, what is macro-evolution? If it means an aarvark giving birth to an avocado, I'll readily agree that it's not likely. If it means two species, occupying the same range, potentially interbreedable but never doing so, there are numerous so-called "ring species" filling the bill. If it means a progeny being unable to breed with either of its parents, then there are numerous examples of that among plants in the wild.

Virtually all laboratory fruit flies have very similar chromosome structure and can interbreed, but among some strains the hybrids are weak and subsequent generations are infertile or even nonviable. Isn't this an indisputable mark of separate species, and if so, isn't it macro-evolution? For that matter isn't it classical, Darwinian evolution in which two species have emerged from one as the result of accumulated micro-evolutionary changes?

Re your question about the origin of life, I don't think there's enough accumulated evidence. Strange and unexpected things happen when you mix odd chemicals, add energy in various forms, and wait to see what happens.

109 posted on 05/30/2002 11:45:27 AM PDT by OBAFGKM
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To: Gladwin
It was previously thought that things could supernaturally form from matter. For example, if you put cheese and rags in a box, baby mice would spontaneously form from the rags in the box. Obviously, people built tighter airtight iron boxes, and found that mice only came from mice.

I never heard that Pasteur disproved supernatural. I only heard unknown. Science doesn't have any trouble with the unknown today. Why does it have to presume there are no unknowns to be science in your theory?

Shalom.

110 posted on 05/30/2002 11:45:29 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: Gladwin
"What does that have to do with the quality of her arguments?"

Because bashing has no place in a discussion between adults, Mr Poopy-Face.
BTW - she made a personal attack on me, not on what I said, I say similar things to people who resort to juvenile name-calling.

111 posted on 05/30/2002 11:47:33 AM PDT by Psalm 73
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To: Economist_MA
The thing you fail to take into account is science's ability to deal with the unknown. It has no problem with that.

Suppose the Hubble telescope were able to actually see (I know it's impossible) the surface of a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri (probably isn't one, but I'm supposing). Suppse the Hubble found no evidence of any life on the planet except for the words "Kilroy was here" carefully laid out in a pattern of rocks.

Would science really be unable to admit the words in the rocks? Of course not. Science might take hundreds or thousands of years to explain why those words were found, but it would be able to say "we don't know" until the solution was found.

Science doesn't have to posit anything about G-d's existence at all to work. And if the ID discussion does prove true, it would be perfectly acceptable for science to say "something designed the universe, but we haven't discovered what it is yet."

Shalom.

112 posted on 05/30/2002 11:49:22 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: OBAFGKM
Re your question about the origin of life, I don't think there's enough accumulated evidence. Strange and unexpected things happen when you mix odd chemicals, add energy in various forms, and wait to see what happens.

What you say is true, but it isn't science, it's faith.

I admire your faith.

Shalom.

113 posted on 05/30/2002 11:50:53 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: RickyJ
Evolutionist can't defend their fairy tale so they make fun of the undisputed truth of God's word.

I do not that word means what you think it means.

EBUCK

114 posted on 05/30/2002 11:54:04 AM PDT by EBUCK
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To: OBAFGKM
Virtually all laboratory fruit flies have very similar chromosome structure and can interbreed, but among some strains the hybrids are weak and subsequent generations are infertile or even nonviable. Isn't this an indisputable mark of separate species, and if so, isn't it macro-evolution? For that matter isn't it classical, Darwinian evolution in which two species have emerged from one as the result of accumulated micro-evolutionary changes?

Excuse my ignorance. I'm asking you because I don't know. It is my experience that the phylogenetic tree exists only for the purposes of scientific study. There have been numerous shakeups to the phylogenetic tree since it was first suggested. I can remember articles 30 years ago about how DNA researchers and molecular biologists and physical biologists couldn't agree on it.

The phylogenetic tree is based on our classification system which was developed to make our study of living things easier.

Now, here's the question. Did we come up with that definition of species to help us build the phylogenetic tree and to enhance our study, or because it is actually a demarcation in the essential nature of the beings under discussion.

In other words, does the fact that two fruitflys can mate and produce an offspring (a fruitfly) that could not mate with its parents actually justify the idea that a frog can turn into a cow? (Forgive my ignorance. I don't know if frogs and cows are in the same evolutionary path. Focus on the point, not the detail, please).

Shalom.

115 posted on 05/30/2002 11:54:49 AM PDT by ArGee
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To: ArGee
I'm confused. You seem to be asserting that it's impossible to prove that no natural phenomenon could produce something that looks like a specific form of information. I'll buy that, but that wasn't what I was asking for -- I'm wondering what could be observed that would completely discount the possibility of an "intelligent" source. Some kind of "signal" that could not possibly have originated from an intelligence.

Nothing in science can be "proven", but there always must be a hypothetical means of falsifying a hypothesis.
116 posted on 05/30/2002 11:55:12 AM PDT by Dimensio
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To: ArGee
Huh?
117 posted on 05/30/2002 11:57:03 AM PDT by Gladwin
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To: ArGee
but it would be able to say "we don't know" until the solution was found.

Indeed it would, and in fact it should - forever.

The scientific definition of reality relies on natural causes, and so far has proven extremely useful and should therefore be defended against religious types who try to change it to fit their beliefs. The answer "because God wanted it" or "because God did it" has no place whatsoever in a science curriculum. And this is independent of whether the actual statement is true or false.
118 posted on 05/30/2002 11:58:01 AM PDT by Economist_MA
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To: f.Christian
Anyone else wonder if f.Christian is just a random nonsense generator bot?
119 posted on 05/30/2002 11:58:14 AM PDT by Dimensio
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To: EBUCK
I do not (think) that word means what you think it means.

Inconceivable!

120 posted on 05/30/2002 11:58:47 AM PDT by Gladwin
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