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/

[Right Wing Professor]

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!

You don't know enough to dismiss it as silly.

Parasites as a general class tend to lose the organs they don't need, and so in a sense become less complex. They usually retain vestigial remnants though, which is yet another puzzle for the two or three 'ID theorists' in the world. Similarly, a creationist, as he relies more and more on cut and paste articles from web pages, increasingly loses the ability for critical thought, even though rumor has it some of them still have enough brain function to maintain basic bodily functions.

[PatrickHenry]

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?

In time, learned sir, you will abandon your noble, but fruitless attempts to penetrate the barrier that shields the minds of certain creationists. You will learn the key to happiness -- placing certain posters on "virtual ignore," and then disregarding their mindless rants (it's easy, as they're usually in blue font). At that blessed moment, you will achieve the level of emotional tranquility that most of us have attained -- but only after enduring long periods of suffering such as you are now undergoing. It seems you must experience the pain and bewilderment first, and then comes the realization of ultimate wisdom -- some people are just flat-out beyond help. I sense that you are well on the road to enlightenment.

[Right Wing Professor]

I did not say that all the above occur in all cases, but they do occur in most cases.

What part of 'irreducible' don't you understand? If you want to redefine words at your convenience, perhaps you should join the Clintonoids over on DU?

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.

BWAHAHAHA!. So when every part is necessary to the whole, that's a sign of ID, and when it turns out that every part is not necessary to the whole, that's a sign of ID too! Well, that's an irrefutable argument. You've got me there.

That's it, Mr. 'I know how to change the font colors on html, that's as good as a Ph.D. any day'. I don't know what I expected when I decided to start repling again to your hysterically funny posts, but I got a real jewel of creationist logic as a reward. I'm off to Vegas for the weekend to study a priori probabilities some more. BYE!

[Right Wing Professor]

Oh, but if you dig thrrough the dross, you get such jewels, as in 'atheists can't be healers' and the latest irrefutable proof from Gore3000, that no matter what the experimental observations, they all prove ID to be true. I've begun to understand why they rely on cut and paste so much, though. It's when they try to think for themselves that the real hilarity starts. Bonaparte's the smartest of them; he flat out refuses to explain what he means, citing Dembski instead, and knowing Dembski ain't around FR to be humiliated.

[VadeRetro]

That's the education in arguing with creationists. Creationism really does belong in the schools, college level, probably in Abnormal Psychology.

[PatrickHenry]

Bonaparte's the smartest of them; he flat out refuses to explain what he means, citing Dembski instead, and knowing Dembski ain't around FR to be humiliated.

He's smart all right. Smart enough that he never responded to my last post to him about how Dembski has to prove a negative.

[Virginia-American]

Creationism really does belong in the schools, college level, probably in Abnormal Psychology.

I'd say in rhetoric.

[gore3000]

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. -me-

You've missed the point.

Nope. I did not miss your point. I just find it irrelevant. It is the usual evolutionist rhetorical games. What is important in science is the truth, how it is found is not important. If you exclude possibilities out of hand like evolutionists try to do, then whatever result you come up with cannot be said to be the truth. Only when one examines the evidence without presupositions can one arrive at the truth.

[gore3000]

These are schematics denoting the connectivity of the covalent bonds,

Yup, and they show that the various DNA codes A, C, G, and T join in absolutely the same way regardless of the linear order. So your statement was false, totally false. There is therefore no chemical reason for the ordering of DNA bases.

[gore3000]

You don't know enough to dismiss it as silly.

Aaaah, the fake biologist which does not know how DNA bases join is resorting to insults, we are going to hear a whopper now.

Parasites as a general class tend to lose the organs they don't need, and so in a sense become less complex.

Which is totally irrelevant to my statement. Evolution claims that higher species descended from lower, less complex species. What you speak of is not evolution is DEvolution which shows quite well how desperate evolution theory has become.

[gore3000]

In time, learned sir, you will abandon your noble, but fruitless attempts to penetrate the barrier that shields the minds of certain creationists.

Uhmmm, Placemarker Patrick again trying to shut off discussion. Sorta shows to me that YOU KNOW THAT EVOLUTION IS BUNK AND IT CANNOT BE DEFENDED.

Thanks again for showing how decrepit the theory of evolution is and that your mantra that 'evolution is science' is total nonsense.

[gore3000]

BWAHAHAHA!. So when every part is necessary to the whole, that's a sign of ID, and when it turns out that every part is not necessary to the whole, that's a sign of ID too!

Again you keep mistating what I said. I did not say that you cannot take out functions. I said that you cannot ADD functions. This is what evolution requires. Show me how new functions can be added. Let's see some examples of new functions found experimentally in the numerous experiments done in labs. You have none. The reason is that every single function requires more than one mutation for it to be possible. You cannot add complexity to an already complex organism at random. You cannot add code to a program at random. Living organisms are a program which cannot be changed at random.

[Virginia-American]

I said that you cannot ADD functions.

We've discussed this before, but I still contend that sickle-cell is an added function: It protects against malaria infection.

[f.Christian]

well on the road to enlightenment.

divorced from reality...catatonic schizophrenia!

[Gumlegs]

Nope. I did not miss your point. I just find it irrelevant. It is the usual evolutionist rhetorical games.

Dembski managed to contradict himself in explaining what he was doing, and you find that an irrelevant "rhetorical game"? Guess what ... you missed the point. If Dembski can't keep his story straight, why should anyone listen to him?

What is important in science is the truth, how it is found is not important.

The ID numbers "game" is very important. How anyone can expect to arrive at some "truth" or other by making up a bunch of "probability" numbers without having any idea of the number of variables, how they interact or how many times, and the times frame involved is fraudulent, no more, no less.

If you exclude possibilities out of hand like evolutionists try to do, then whatever result you come up with cannot be said to be the truth. Only when one examines the evidence without presupositions[sic] can one arrive at the truth.

Spare me the homily. I am interested to see that you are now disagreeing with Newton. You claim that the only way to arrive at "truth" is by examining "the evidence without presupositions[sic]." Newton, on the other hand, said this:

If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

That's from The Columbia World of Quotations, 1996. Sounds like Newton believed in using "presupositions[sic]."

[Right Wing Professor]

These are schematics denoting the connectivity of the covalent bonds,

Yup, and they show that the various DNA codes A, C, G, and T join in absolutely the same way regardless of the linear order.

You don't know what a van der Waals interaction is, do you?

Data from Tinoco's Physical Chemistry, 4th edition

Forming a GC base pair adjacent to a CG pair
Free energy change -9.1 kJ/mol
Enthalpy change -44.4 kJ/mol
Entropy change -113.9 J/(mol.K)

Forming a GC base pair adjacent to a AT pair
Free energy change -5.4 kJ/mol
Enthalpy change -32.7 kJ/mol
Entropy change -87.9 J/(mol.K)

I know you don't understand the most elementary principles of thermodynamics, but for the amusement of the non-creationists out there, the enthalpy difference, 11.7 kJ/mol, is over 3 times the translational thermal energy available to a molecule at room temperature.

[Right Wing Professor]

Evolution claims that higher species descended from lower, less complex species.

More utter nonsense. Is there anything on which you're capable of an informed opinion?

[Right Wing Professor]

You mean like claiming that mathematics isn't science?

Yes, that would clearly show that, for example, he knew that when we talk about Math/Science education, we mean two separate things, and we're not just being redundant.

[f.Christian]

JP...

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...

255 posted on 10/18/02 12:15 AM Pacific by jennyp

fC...

Evolution is reverse--backward Truth/history---LIES