Teaching Alternative To Evolution Backed

Washinton Post ^ | Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | Michael A. Fletcher

[Gladwin]

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.....

[JediGirl]

The name for this is psychosis!

If----THIS!!!![!!!!] is psychosis/.\/.\/.\/.\/.\

then--psychosis is CORRECT

take your

meds!

they will-->take you out of this stupor! this

drug-induced stupidity vomited out onto these threads!

PIZZA AND COLA!

Books, martyrs, SUPERMAN, effervescent? flood, archaic!

OH MY!----

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"the correct way to address it, if one chose to, would be to state that there's no positive evidence of a designer." Something more can be said. The evidence shows that if there is a designer, she's a very imperfect designer -- giving the same spinal column to bipeds and quadripeds, for example. A truly intelligent designer would have taken the difference in function into account and designed different structures for each.

[AndrewC]

http://hometown.aol.com/darwinpage/darwin.htm

Did you notice this from a link on that page?

Pre-biotic Earth

Many scientists believed that the atmosphere consisted of CH₄, NH₃, and H₂. This is the mixture of gases Miller and Urey used in 1953 to mimic the conditions of the early earth. Their experiment showed that abiotic molecules could be used to create important biotic compounds thought to be necessary for the origin of life.

However, most of the scientific community now believes that the early Earth's atmosphere was not reducing. Instead, scientists beleive the atmosphere was full of oxidants, such as CO₂ and N₂. An oxidizing atmosphere is essentially neutral, and does not permit organic chemistry to occur.

[AndrewC]

A truly intelligent designer would have taken the difference in function into account and designed different structures for each.

As opposed to these truly intelligent designers.

A perfect designer takes everything into consideration, even things truly intelligent designers don't.

[Gladwin]

Thanks.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"Johnson demolished here. Oh, wait! You have to settle for a sad little paraphrase of some of it, here." Interesting. There's nothing in the paraphrase that gives one a clue why the orginal post was removed.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

So on your view, we know that neither the collapsed bridge nor life on earth were the creations of a perfect being. Interesting.

[f.Christian]

Words--reality--definitions...

esotericlucidity(evolution)...kiddee science/playschool?

Halloween?

[Pete]

Many scientists believed that the atmosphere consisted of CH4, NH3, and H2. This is the mixture of gases Miller and Urey used in 1953 to mimic the conditions of the early earth. Their experiment showed that abiotic molecules could be used to create important biotic compounds thought to be necessary for the origin of life.

However, most of the scientific community now believes that the early Earth's atmosphere was not reducing. Instead, scientists beleive the atmosphere was full of oxidants, such as CO2 and N2. An oxidizing atmosphere is essentially neutral, and does not permit organic chemistry to occur.

Along the lines of what you said, discoveries in the last twenty years by NASA scientists have shown that the concentrations of ammonia, methane and hydrogen Miller (along with Oparin who also worked on it) assumed in their experiment bare little resemblance to early earth. Further, even at the time, Miller and Oparin didn't have any real proof that the earth's early atmosphere was composed of ammonia, methane and hydrogen. They based their theory on physical chemistry. They wanted to get a chemical reaction that would be favorable, so they proposed an atmosphere rich in those gases.

The really scary thing is that Miller's experiment was taught for years and still shows up in many textbooks as fact even though it has been discredited. I think we all can agree that teaching our children what we know or currently believe to be true is acceptable. I think we can also all agree that presenting something to our children as true and factual that we KNOW for a fact to be false is completely unacceptable.

[JediGirl]

Halloween?

No, candy corn makes me a little sick. I prefer Christmas when i get those Reese's peanut butter cups in the holiday-esque wrapping. How about you?

[VadeRetro]

There's nothing in the paraphrase that gives one a clue why the orginal post was removed.

Apparently (no actual explanation has been given, of course) another post appeared blasphemous to the Taliban. So poster and all posts got nuked. The offending post was the kind of thing you can say in a secular society but not in Iran.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Have you spent some time with HS or middle school math textbooks lately? Go find the place where they explain why the product of two negative numbers is a positive number. You'll either find a bad explanation, or none at all. (Gelfand's beautiful little monograph is an exception -- thank God it was translated from the Russian. You've to love the AMA.) Middle school and HS math texts suck. Middle School and HS science texts suck. Middle school and HS history texts suck. The only conclusion I draw is that education majors and education graduate students are an unspectular group. And maybe that's for the best. There are only so many smart people to go round. Putting a large number of them in the public sector might not be such a good idea. Best to use scare resources wisely.

[VadeRetro]

The really scary thing is that Miller's experiment was taught for years and still shows up in many textbooks as fact even though it has been discredited.

Maybe the discrediting hasn't been so thorough as you imagine. Banded iron formations (containing unoxidized iron) and pyrites don't form in the kind of oxidizing atmosphere you claim. Nevertheless they exist on the earth only in very old formations..

It's entirely possible that the early Earth had a weakly reducing atmosphere which would have slowed the Miller effects down but still fostered them.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Blasphemous? You mean, someone said "God does not exist" and all their posts were removed? That can't be. Religious people are very secure in their beliefs and would take that as an invitation to engage in a thoughtful conversation on the merits. You must be mistaken.

[f.Christian]

This evolution is the midas touch...I'm getting sick of 'gold'!

[Pete]

I have enjoyed our debate. It is refreshing to discuss this issue without having either side resort to name calling and insults. Unfortunately, our discussion was a small subset of this thread and like so many other threads on this subject, it seems this one has completely degenerated.

I usually stay away from threads likes this for just that reason - I can't stand the screaching. Also, I have found (and maybe you have too) that 99% of the people participating are waaay behind the curve on where the current debate lies. As a result, issues that have long been resolved and agreed upon by scholars on both sides end up being hashed out again and again and again. It so pointless.

Again, you guys are a pleasant exception. And, OBAFGKM, I haven't forgotten that I still owe you some examples from way back on post #19.

[VadeRetro]

You mean, someone said "God does not exist" and all their posts were removed?

It mentioned the cultural context of OT Yahweh and NT God. It contained animal herding.

Worse, when they threw him in the water to see if he was a witch, he swam to shore. So they hanged him.

[ArGee]

Thank you.

As I understand it, when pulsars were first discovered the folks at SETI were excited because they thought they had found a meaningful signal. Then IT was applied and it was determined to be not-meaningful. Is that the case?

Shalom.

[f.Christian]

I read it...pure hard core blasphemy---need the details?

[Pete]

I am somewhat confused by your #260 post and then your #272 post. In #260, you paint homeschoolers as some type of head-in-the-sand lunatics and then in #272 you slam the public education system.

I considered responding to #260 but decide it probably wasn't worth it. Leave it to say that you appear to assume that all the evidence points to a naturalistic conclusion. I would simply disagree. And, no, I don't really have any motivation to lay it all out here. (see my post #276 for some insight as to why I don't.)

One more thing. My children are homeschooled and I can tell you that it bares no resemblance to your "indoctrination" theory outlined in #260. Further, I would say that nationally, statistics show that what you suggest is simply not happening.