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The attack on evolution
The Economist ^

Posted on 10/07/2002 12:44:39 PM PDT by wallcrawlr

A suburban school board declares that evolution is just another theory

NEWT GINGRICH, while he was a Georgia congressman and then as speaker of the House, was known for his interest in scientific research. Some Georgians prefer a different approach. On September 26th the school board of Cobb County, in the north-western Atlanta suburbs, voted to amend existing policy to allow discussion of “disputed views of academic subjects”, specifically the idea that God created the universe in six days—Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould and the rest of them be damned.

The vote came after a month of deliberation, at a meeting crowded with concerned parents. Some 2,000 of the county's residents signed a petition last spring to have the board put stickers on biology textbooks telling students that evolution is a theory, not a fact. “What they're trying to do is appease the religious right,” says Michael Manely, the lawyer representing a local parent who wanted the stickers removed.

The war between creationists and evolutionists had recently fallen quiet. In 1999, the Kansas state board of education dropped evolution from state examinations; but by 2001 the three most prominent anti-evolutionists had been voted out of office, and the decision quietly reversed. Of late, the Christian right has focused on other topics. But the anti-evolutionists' victory in Cobb County may stimulate similar-minded people elsewhere. In Ohio, the state board of education is under pressure to include “intelligent design”—the idea that the complexity of the universe proves the existence of the divine—when it issues a new science curriculum.

Cobb County's new policy argues that providing information on “disputed views” is “necessary for a balanced education” and will help to promote “acceptance of diversity of opinion”. A poll commissioned in 2000 by People for the American Way, a liberal-minded group, shows that many Americans think this way. Nearly half of the respondents believed that the theory of evolution had not yet been proved. And of those who believe in evolution—only a fifth wanted evolution taught alone—three-quarters liberally agreed that students should be presented with “all points of view” and “make up their own minds”. In this post-modern reasoning, evolution and the Book of Genesis are equally valid.

The losers have already begun worrying aloud that this will hurt Cobb County's reputation as a place where children can get a good education. Cobb's schools consistently rank above the state average, which is not saying much. But what happens if superior schools insist that previously accepted facts have become mere theory? No comment from Mr Gingrich, who now lives in Virginia.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creationism; crevolist; evolution
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To: js1138
Creation/God...REFORMATION(Judeo-Christianity)---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc-religion/rhetoric)...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-America---the post-modern age

To: f.Christian

Now I follow, thank you. Actually, I don't disagree with this at all since I see the left as abandoning the uncertianty of democracy and majority rule for the assurance technocracy and expert rule.

152 posted on 9/10/02 12:17 PM Pacific by Liberal Classic

mr expert/pope/czar...js1138?

121 posted on 10/08/2002 1:00:59 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: matthew_the_brain
What makes you want to kneel at the altar of Darwin and Gould?

There is no kneeling at any altar. Sorry to disappoint you.
Just because I happen to agree with the theories of men like Newton, Watson, Clausius, Faraday, Maxwell, Darwin, Einstein, Dobzhansky, Gould, etc., doesn't mean I kneel at their altar or worship them in any other way.

122 posted on 10/08/2002 1:01:12 PM PDT by BMCDA
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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
...if there is a scientific question open for debate, it should be done so in its merits, not on the position of evolutionism vs creationism. To do otherwise invites the charge that evolutionism is more a religion than actual science.

Exactly, FB -- and amen to that.

123 posted on 10/08/2002 3:17:34 PM PDT by betty boop
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To: f.Christian
Below the ground...there is a plate---DETECTABLE that matches the perimeter of every mountain---range...

Geologists would say that mountains formed during plate collisions: the Himalayas, for example, forming as the Deccan ploughed (and continues to plough) into Asia. Is that what you're referring to?

124 posted on 10/08/2002 3:23:09 PM PDT by Da_Shrimp
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To: f.Christian
The real geologic column clearly explained proves evolution could not possibly have happened.

It does? Please clarify.
What is the 'real' geological column?
Is there a fake one?

125 posted on 10/08/2002 3:26:33 PM PDT by Da_Shrimp
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To: f.Christian
Evolution is gone--history--passe...get over it!

Only in the contorted hell that exists in your mind.

126 posted on 10/08/2002 4:11:50 PM PDT by FreeLibertarian
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To: Da_Shrimp
Is there a fake one?

All of evolution is 100% fake---FRAUD!

127 posted on 10/08/2002 4:54:43 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: FreeLibertarian
Maybe that is geek(science)--libertariansm...not 'free'!

Actually free anything is a hoax... Realatarian Party!

128 posted on 10/08/2002 4:59:39 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: Da_Shrimp
tests...

can prove/disprove the age of mountains and the Earth...

or at least my theory about them!

Below the ground...there is a plate---DETECTABLE

that matches the perimeter of every mountain---range...

proving the mountain/hills(appalachia types/large openings)...

were formed from beneath---via the plate openings...

and resulted in triangular pointing up extruded masses with plate parts/residue on top.

The tops of the mountain/plateaus/buttes would match the original opening/crack in the plates!

The bottoms of the mountain would match where the plates stopped...

probably still touching!

Raised valleys stuck between mountains would have natural filling and resevoirs below them holding/trapping---water/gas/oil...ect.

A valley would be a central plate floor caught/floating/lifted from the mountains rising...

much higher than submerged plates around the mountains perimeter!

and canyons(small openings)...inverted mountains---the same way!

am not talking about Himalaya/rocky type mountains whose origins are different...

but this whole evolution idea of erosion---sedimentary levels is bogus!

Post cambrian levels can also be explained by volcanic and flood layering that doesn't take billions of years to complete!

There is a plate---

that matches the perimeter

that is detectable that matches the slopes of all these mountain/hills!

There are always exceptions to the overall theory but basically earth topography is pretty much redundant/same!

Valleys floors...plate tops---surfaces...

mountains/hills/canyons plate...crack---openings!

129 posted on 10/08/2002 5:39:01 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: wallcrawlr
"...anti-evolutionists..."
 
Well, that's a first. Is that like anti-choice? Not really pro-anything, just anti- something else. Good grief.

130 posted on 10/08/2002 5:49:41 PM PDT by AnnaZ
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To: AnnaZ; gore3000
Normally I'd just say "creationist", but some of 'em (like g3k) object to that as a smear.
131 posted on 10/08/2002 6:15:56 PM PDT by Virginia-American
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To: f.Christian
blah -

blah, blah -

yadda, yadda, yadda -

more yadda / yagga / yamma

Boop!

132 posted on 10/08/2002 6:28:58 PM PDT by balrog666
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To: balrog666
To: Dimensio

As I see it, evolution is an ideological doctrine. If it were only a "scientific theory", it would have died a natural death 50 - 70 years ago; the evidence against it is too overwhelming and has been all along. The people defending it are doing so because they do not like the alternatives to an atheistic basis for science and do not like the logical implications of abandoning their atheistic paradigm and, in conducting themselves that way, they have achieved a degree of immunity to what most people call logic.

488 posted on 7/29/02 5:18 AM Pacific by medved

133 posted on 10/08/2002 6:31:09 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: PatrickHenry
Until tomorrow placemarker.
134 posted on 10/08/2002 7:02:41 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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Comment #135 Removed by Moderator

To: f.Christian
From the article you referenced;

When I meet someone whose eyes glaze over as they decree the earth to be exactly 6,000 years and so many days old because it can be derived from page so-and-so of the Bible, regardless of the fact that radioisotope decay rates converge at a point more than a billion years ago and fossils take millions of years to form in the layers at which they are found, it's time for me to head for the door, or push them out the door, depending on whose door it is. There are some overextended crackpot right-wing economic theories floating about, and glassy-eyed people who are compulsively driven to recite them like robots with auto tape rewinds, who are an embarrassment.

Consider yourself pushed.

136 posted on 10/08/2002 9:56:24 PM PDT by FreeLibertarian
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To: FreeLibertarian
You're proof of my theory that libertarians are the loose cannons of sunken shipwrecks....liberals---anarchists!
137 posted on 10/09/2002 12:43:06 AM PDT by f.Christian
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To: matthew_the_brain
When they admit they are Darwinists they admit they follow a fraud like sheep and are devoid of independent thought.

Hail Darwin... bah baahhh
138 posted on 10/09/2002 1:01:46 AM PDT by ALS
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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
Unfortunately, evolutionists too often greet even the mildest of sceptism with the most scurrilous of ad-hominem attacks.

That is because here on FR any time some evidence casts doubt on a particular aspect of evolutionary theory, no matter how minor, it is immediately seized upon by the creationists who point to it and say that it disproves evolution in its entirety. The problem is that those interested in real science on this forum have to compete with the blowhards who have never even picked up a genetics textbook. There are too many people here who think they are qualified to comment intelligently on evolution "cuz they read genesis." Frustration enusues and the crevo threads degenerate into little more than shouting matches.

139 posted on 10/09/2002 1:04:16 AM PDT by rmmcdaniell
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To: gore3000
This peer review garbage is total nonsense. Nobody reads that nonsense and some of the stuff I have seen in Nature and Scientific American is not worthy of an 8 year old.

Well peer reviewed articles are not written for the average joe six pack. Just because you can't understand them doesn't make them garbage.

140 posted on 10/09/2002 1:14:15 AM PDT by rmmcdaniell
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