School Board Panel: Ohio Students Should Be Taught Evolution, Controversies That Surround It

Associated Press / ABC ^

[RCW2001]

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio Oct. 14 — A state school board panel Monday recommended that Ohio science classes emphasize both evolution and the debate over its validity.

The committee left it up to individual school districts to decide whether to include in the debate the concept of "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is guided by a higher intelligence.

The guidelines for the science curriculum simply put into writing what many school districts already do. The current guidelines do not even mention evolution.

"What we're essentially saying here is evolution is a very strong theory, and students can learn from it by analyzing evidence as it is accumulated over time," said Tom McClain, a board member and co-chairman of the Ohio Board of Education's academic standards committee.

Conservative groups, some of which had tried and failed to get biblical creation taught in the public schools, had argued that students should learn about intelligent design. But critics of intelligent design said it is creationism in disguise.

On Monday, the committee unanimously forwarded a final draft without the concept in it to the full 19-member board.

Board member Michael Cochran, who had pushed for intelligent design in the standards, said, "The amendment allows teachers and students in Ohio to understand that evolution really is a theory and that there are competing views and different interpretations. This allows them to be discussed."

The Ohio school board will decide Tuesday whether to adopt the new standards or order that they be revised.

On the Net:

Ohio Department of Education: http://www.ode.state.oh.us/

[gore3000]

You haven't posted a reference for this piece of utter nonsense.

Your wish is my command:



You will notice that all the linear joins are the same, therefore there is no chemical reason for preferring one join over the other. The only chemical bond, and this is a necessary one is lateral between the two strands.

Being that you claim to be a professor and to have special knowledge of the subject at hand one must therefore ask whether:

1. You have been making a false claim of special knowledge.

OR
2. You have been dishonestly arguing against something you know to be true.

Either way, your credibility is now a big fat ZERO.

[gore3000]

The chemical bonds called phosphodiester bonds hold the nucleotide bases together along the strand. Hydrogen bonds pair the complementary bases between the DNA strands. Be sure that all reactions involving DNA, including the addition or change of the specific sequence, use normal physical and chemical forces.

You are being very dishonest. While the above is correct, Heartlander was speaking of the linear bonds along the strand. All these linear bonds are the same so there is absolutely no possible preference from one sequence to the other. I know that you know that his statement was true and to attack him on what amounts to an irrelevant mistake is totally despicable of you.

[gore3000]

Michael Behe is, indeed, a creationist.

Michael Behe is a Christian that does not believe in evolution. He is a PHD of some 20 years experiend in BIOLOGY which is more than Gould or Dawkins could ever claim. His claim that the flagellum is unexplainable by evolution is still unrefuted after some dozen years. Seems that evolutionists when they cannot refute what someone says must tag them with some despicable label. That's how empty a theory evolution is that it must defend itself by ad hominems on opponents instead of discussing the scientific facts.

[gore3000]

There is no debate on the validity of evolution because there is no reasonable basis to doubt the existence of evolution.

This is utter garbage and neither you nor any evolutionist can back this nonsense up. That the statement is utterly false is shown irrefutably in Evidence Disproving Evolution .

[gore3000]

Behe can wriggle all he wants, but 'design' is creation,

Who cares what it is. The fact is that Intelligent Design is true. It has been proven many times to be true and it at the same time proves evolution to be false. The bacterial flagellum is the most famous proof, however there are many more. The following story is one:

A Moment in History...

That a maker is required for anything that is made is a lesson Sir Isaac Newton was able to teach forcefully to an atheist-scientist friend of his. Sir Isaac had an accomplished artisan fashion for him a small scale model of our solar system which was to be put in a room in Newton?s home when completed. The assignment was finished and installed on a large table. The workman had done a very commendable job, simulating not only the various sizes of the planets and their relative proximities, but also so constructing the model that everything rotated and orbited when a crank was turned. It was an interesting, even fascinating work, as you can image, particularly to anyone schooled in the sciences.

Newton's atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. "My! What an exquisite thing this is!? he exclaimed. "Who made it?? Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, "Nobody."

Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: "Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this. Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. "Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has." "You must think I am a fool!? the visitor retorted heatedly, "Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is."

Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: "This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?"
From: Sir Isaac Newton Solar System Story, "The Truth: God or evolution?" by Marshall and Sandra Hall

The above story has been proven through since then, that is why atheists are proposing an infinite amount of universes as the explanation for our universe.

Another proof is the impossibility of abiogenesis. First of all is Pasteur's proof that life does not come from inert matter (and this was of course at one time the prediction of materialists). Then came the discovery of DNA and the chemical basis of organisms. This poses a totally insurmountable problem to abiogenesis. The smallest living cells has a DNA string of some one million base pairs long and some 600 genes, even cutting this number by a quarter as the smallest possible living cell would give us a string of some 250,000 base pairs of DNA. It is important to note here that DNA can be arranged in any of the four basic codes equally well, there is no chemical or other necessity to the sequence. The chances of such an arrangement arising are therefore 4^250,000. Now the number of atoms in the universe is said to be about 4^250. I would therefore call 4^250,000 an almost infinitely impossible chance (note that the supposition advanced that perhaps it was RNA that produced the first life has this same problem).

The problem though is even worse than that. Not only do you need two (2) strings of DNA perfectly matched to have life, but you also need a cell so that the DNA code can get the material to sustain that life. It is therefore a chicken and egg problem, you cannot have life without DNA (or RNA if one wants to be generous) but one also has to have the cell itself to provide the nutrients for the sustenance of the first life. Add to this problem that for the first life to have been the progenitor of all life on earth, it necessarily needs to have been pretty much the same as all life now on earth is, otherwise it could not have been the source of the life we know. Given all these considerations, yes, abiogenesis is impossible.

Another proof is that biologists call the developmentat process whereby one cell multiplies into 100 trillion cells in exactly the correct place, of the exactly correct type during development a program. That is a trifecta against materialism and no one can refute it.

[f.Christian]

To: Tribune7

Many posters, even many on this site, have vehmently expressed the view that Christianity held back the advancement of human progress,

The charge that Christianity has held back scientific progress is utterly ridiculous. Perhaps the best example of pagan materialistm is atomism. The fortuitous and mindless joining of atoms holds absolutely no prospects for scientific inquiry and neither does the fortuitous and mindless mutations held by present day materialists.

Only theories which deny mindlessness and propose order can be the source of scientific inquiry. It is this belief in order, in natural laws which as stated in our Declaration come from God that has proven to be the source of the scientific spirit and scientific progress in the Christian West.

12 posted on 9/15/02 6:07 AM Pacific by gore3000

[gore3000]

Therefore any a priori calculation of the odds of our not existing involves counting scenarios that simply did not, and could not have happened, without some exterior alteration of reality.

Wrong. The truth of a scientific theory depends on the how. Existence only proves existence, it does not prove how we got here. To exclude any theory out of hand - as you and evolutionists wish to do - makes whatever result you get a false one. Evolution has been proven to be utterly impossible by the scientific advances of the last 150 years. Here's why:

While evolution claims to explain the descent of one species from another, it has never been able to do so. The original explanation for how evolution transforms species, natural selection, has things backwards. Natural selection kills, it does not create anything. For evolution to be true it needed to propose a creative force which would have been able to add new traits, new functions to the simplest creatures and gradually transform them into more complex ones. The original proposal by Darwin, the melding of features from the parents, did not answer this problem, nor does the more modern version of the exchange of genetic information that occurs in procreation. Such methods do not add any information either, they just reshuffle the information which already exists in the species. Clearly this cannot be the source of increased complexity either.

With the re-discovery of genetics in the 20th Century, the Darwinists finally accepted the incorrectness of the melding theory and proposed mutations as the agent of creation of new information. They ran into the problem that with individuals receiving half their genes from each parent and half the genes of each parent being passed on to the progeny, the chances of a new mutation, even one which might be favorable, had not only a very small chance of surviving more than a few generations, but also had an almost impossible chance of spreading throughout a species. They therefore proposed that most mutations were neutral ones and by gradual accumulation they would change the species. This explanation did not even solve the problem of how difficult it was for any mutation to survive, let alone spread throughout a species.

The discovery of DNA made the above possibility, already quite unlikely and totally unproven, just about totally impossible. The high complexity of a gene and more importantly experiments showing that changing even one of the thousand DNA bases of a gene are likely to destroy functioning completely and are extremely unlikely to enhance it, presented another serious problem for evolution. This was 'solved' by proposing that gene duplication would create new functions without destroying necessary functioning. Of course, as before, this was only theory and no experimental proof of it was found to support it. The same problem of it being hard to change a gene favorably applied to such genes, the only explanatory gain was that incorrect mutations would not be deadly. Even then, this was insufficient explanation for the transformation of species. Similar genes, which are fairly common, only accomplish similar functions. The vast changes required for complete species transformation, are unexplainable without the creation of totally new genes.

With the discovery that genes themselves are just factories and are controlled by other DNA in the organism, and that a single gene often produces many proteins, this explanation was rendered inadequate. Now a new function, which was already known to most likely require more than a single new gene, would require a whole complex of DNA outside the gene to make it work when and if needed. This makes the evolutionary explanation of random, non-directed species change totally untenable and indeed biologists are beginning to call the developmental process of an organism a program. Like all programs, those for life are not made at random.

[gore3000]

Au contraire. FliI is an ATPase with a known sequence homology to the protonmotive ATPase.

Aaaah, homology! What is the scientific definition of homology? Care to give it? There is none, just like there is no scientific definition for the word 'similar'. In other words, it is a nonsense term used by evolutionists to claim something for which they have no proof. If it was the same protein it would be called the same. This protein is specific to the flagellum as are numerous others detailed in the post you are replying to.

[Nebullis]

I know that you know that his statement was true and to attack him on what amounts to an irrelevant mistake is totally despicable of you.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the Japanese river demon Kappa.

[gore3000]

Let me stop you right here. Not all genes have introns. Therefore, that part isn't irreducible. Nor are all genes regulated; some gene expression is constitutive. So that's also not irreducible. Even in the complex machinery of a eukaryotic cell, some parts sometimes simply aren't used all the time.

I did not say that all the above occur in all cases, but they do occur in most cases. In fact, that there are exceptions to almost any rule in the organism is indeed a sign of the complexity which cannot be accounted for by any materialist explanation. The fact that proteins are used only when needed is part of the complexity and part of the need for a strong regulatory mechanism. The regulatory mechanism needs to be so strong in fact that the source of many cancers spreading is the production of too much of a protein which regulates the duplication of cells.

We've evolved complexity over time, and even the simplest organisms are more likely degenerate versions of more complex predecessors, rather than remnants of ancestral primitiveness.

That's a very silly argument for an evolutionist to make. You are arguing for DEvolution not evolution now! Shows the desperation of evolutionists in the face of what modern science has found. Every single function of the human organism both affects and is affected by other parts of the organism. It is utterly impossible to randomly throw in a new function because like in a jigsaw puzzle every piece has to fit exactly where it belongs.

[jennyp]

I guess I just have a whole lot more faith in high school students than you do. Can't say the same for their public school teachers.

I'm asking you, if you think CSI can't be described at less than a book's length, then what exactly would you put insert into the HS biology class curriculum?

[jennyp]

That is all the Kansas School Board did several years ago also, but I am noticing nobody is covering this Ohio story hardly at all. Interesting.

There have been many stories on the Ohio decision. Half of the stories noticed that it emphasizes evolution, & the other half noticed that it implicitly allows ID to keep a foot in the door. Like a transitional fossil, people can't seem to come to a consensus over whether it's fundamentally one or the other. :-)

[jennyp]

How reducible is the system? Well, no-one knows. RNA molecules substitute for DNA as carriers of the genetic code. They also can do enzymatic functions. We've evolved complexity over time, and even the simplest organisms are more likely degenerate versions of more complex predecessors, rather than remnants of ancestral primitiveness. But to say this complexity must always have been there is silly; one might as well argue that because brains are crucial to humans, no organism can exist without a brain.

Or more ironically, given that we're all conservatives here: There are companies that are cash-only, but if you removed the checking system, our modern free market economy would collapse. Likewise if you removed the gas stations, our modern free market economy would collapse. If you removed the gas-powered vehicles, our modern free market economy would collapse. If you removed the computer industry, our modern free market economy would collapse.

According to ID logic the conclusion is obvious: The Communists were right. Complex modern economies must be designed; they cannot evolve on their own from simpler beginnings.

[f.Christian]

Communism came from Darwin/marx---EVOLUTION/liberalism---socialists/statists!

[jennyp]

Intelligent Design is to biology what Communism is to economics.

Think about it. Meditate on it. Turn it over & over in your head. But let me step out of the room first to avoid the shockwave...

[f.Christian]

Do you think Adam Smith...the 'invisible hand' was a communist/socialist!

Do you have a 'reality' license/wand?

[gore3000]

Or more ironically, given that we're all conservatives here: There are companies that are cash-only, but if you removed the checking system, our modern free market economy would collapse. Likewise if you removed the gas stations, our modern free market economy would collapse. If you removed the gas-powered vehicles, our modern free market economy would collapse. If you removed the computer industry, our modern free market economy would collapse.

A horrible analogy because economies are the result of the actions of intelligent individuals. Evolution denies intelligent actions. More importantly though, the argument of design is quite strong as I show in Post# 245 . It does not depend completely on irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity is just a supporting argument. The real argument is that one cannot ascribe to random coincidence very complex, very specific, creations. The universe, the arisal of life and the creation of species are examples which science has shown could in no way have arisen by chance or any sort of known materialistic means.

[Gumlegs]

Science is about discovering the truth, not about how it is found or what conclusions can be made from it. What you and evolutionists are trying to do is to politicize science as a means of promoting a materialist ideology.

You've missed the point. Again. Most people are capable of seeing the contradiction between Dembski's statement, "Intelligent design is a strictly scientific theory devoid of religious commitments, " and the title of the book in which he makes it, "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology."

It's got nothing to do with politics or ideology. The point is consistency, which, obviously is beyond you.

[Right Wing Professor]

These are schematics denoting the connectivity of the covalent bonds, not structures. Go email Michael Behe and ask him if they realistically represent the three-dimensional structure of DNA, and particularly the non-bonding interactions.

Evidently you don't know the difference. Go check out the little computer program whose link I posted, read the papers by Breslauer and others, and get back to me. You're ignorant, and you're not even on the first step of the way to knowledge, awareness of your ignorance.

Being that you claim to be a professor and to have special knowledge of the subject at hand one must therefore ask whether:

You seem to be unduly obsessed the fact that I have a Ph.D. in biophysics and teach this subject at the graduate level, Gore3000. Let's talk about your credentials. Did you finish high school?