Policy resolved on origin of life

Cleveland Plain Dealer ^ | 12/11/2002 | Scott Stephens

[jennyp]

Columbus - The State Board of Education yesterday unanimously adopted a set of science standards that makes Ohio the first state to require students to examine criticisms of biological evolution.

But board members also agreed to a last-minute disclaimer stating that their action should not be construed as support for the controversial concept of intelligent design, the idea that life had to be guided by a higher power.

Without the disclaimer, at least a half-dozen board members had intended to vote against the standards because they feared it would give schools a green light to bring religion and philosophy into science classes.

The compromise effectively ends a tumultuous, yearlong debate on how to best teach the origin and development of life.

That debate made Ohio the flashpoint in a battle between supporters and critics of Charles Darwin's theory that life evolved through natural processes - a battle that has raged since the "monkey trial" of biology teacher John Scopes 77 years ago.

"Clearly, it was being misrepresented by adults fighting their own battles and using these standards to fight their own battles," said board member Joseph Roman of Fairview Park, who introduced the disclaimer the board adopted yesterday.

The state academic standards don't dictate what local school districts teach, but they provide a powerful incentive by outlining what students must know by the time they graduate. While intelligent design will not be on the new 10th-grade graduation tests, evolution will.

Local districts that decide to teach intelligent design also could face a legal challenge, said Christine Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. She said intelligent design is a form of creationism, and courts have ruled that teaching creationism is unconstitutional in public schools.

"If any school district implements the teaching of intelligent design, the ACLU will act swiftly," Link said. "Our concern is this gives local districts a false green light."

Board members traveled here Sunday sharply divided on how to come to grips with the issue. The disclaimer that emerged resulted from an 11th-hour compromise fashioned by board members Martha Wise of Avon - a staunch evolutionist - and Deborah Owens Fink of Richfield, who led the charge to bring evolution alternatives to Ohio classrooms.

"Neither side got what they wanted, totally," Wise said. "But this is a win-win."

Stephen Meyer of the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute in Seattle, called the board's action "historic." Already, intelligent design organizers have set up shop in New Mexico, which will soon be drafting its own science standards.

"This represents an important milestone in the effort to ensure that students learn the full range of relevent scientific evidence," Meyer said.

But the disclaimer satisfied most evolutionists.

"The board made a clear statement and said 'no' to pseudo-science," said Patricia Princehouse, a Case Western Reserve University professor and a board member of Ohio Citizens for Science.

The new standards will help Ohio recover from the black eye it received two years ago when a national study gave it a failing grade for not even mentioning evolution in its science standards. Retired California physicist Lawrence Lerner, who headed the study, said Ohio would have received an 'A' this time had it not made a point of singling out evolution for critical analysis. Instead, it will get a 'B' or a 'C,' " he said yesterday.

"Ohio has the opportunity of leaping from the bottom of the heap to a par with excellent state standards," Lerner said. "The compromise would place Ohio in the mediocre middle."

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker (to skip over a dozen worthless posts of pure gibberish).

[annflounder]

Anything which is possible doesn't take billions of years.

Things that make you go "hmmmmm..."

It made Stephen Gould go hmmmmmm; that's why he invented punc-eek. Nobody with any real expertise in the fields has been claiming that long periods of time are involved in evolutionary changes for thge last 20 years at least.

[annflounder]

Excellent argument. The meanest arguers seem to be Darwinites...defensive maybe?

Close; I think the word you're looking for is defective.

[Dimensio]

With that admission, you have just distinguished yourself as far more honest than many 'famous' creationists, like Duane Gish and Kent Hovind.

I'm really not sure what I think about that.

[f.Christian]

I never liked ayn rand or atheism...sick of evolution---recovering!

[forsnax5]

The history of fruit fly experiments is well known. You might get fruit flies with blue-green wings instead of green-yellow, but they're all still fruit flies.

Every time I see this bit of logic, I immediately think of the primates. Why doesn't anyone say "Sure, Humans and Chimps may have a common ancestor, but that's not evolution -- we're all still primates."

[Lurking Libertarian]

The history of fruit fly experiments is well known. You might get fruit flies with blue-green wings instead of green-yellow, but they're all still fruit flies.

That's like saying that humans, chimps and bonobos are "all still primates." If they can't mate and produce fertile offspring, they're different species.

[ricpic]

Well I'm releaved.

---

No releaving until springtime. Releaving now would be an evolutionary dead end.

[AndrewC]

Placemarker (to skip over a dozen worthless posts of pure gibberish).

And your post is some fount of knowledge?

[annflounder]

Like I say, there were famous cases of scientists renouncing evolution because of what they saw in those experiments; if any of them had believed that they had seen a change remotely close to as large as between a chimp and a human, that would not have happened.

[annflounder]

There's another consideration here as well. Macroevolution is normally taken to mean a change to a creature with one or more of new kinds of organs, new capabilities for existing organs, or a new basic plan for existence. Humans have at least one and a half of that versus chimps. The human voice box is essentially an organ which chimps do not have; they can be taught to communicate using deaf signing conventions but cannot produce any of the sounds needed for human speech. Moreover, using our legs as major limbs the way we do is a basic change of plan from apes and monkeys; all apes and monkeys use they arms as major limbs. No change anywhere near that big was observed in the fruit fly experiments.

[forsnax5]

Like I say, there were famous cases of scientists renouncing evolution because of what they saw in those experiments

Watch it, Ted -- you're getting your identities mixed up... :)

[PatrickHenry]

Watch it, Ted ...

Hey, we're not supposed to notice.

[gore3000]

Apparently you have never read the writings of Nazism's primary racial theorist,

Apparently you have never heard of Ernest Haeckel, who Darwin lavishly praised in his 'Descent of Man' and was responsible for the fraudulent embryo drawings still used in textbooks to promote the fake theory of evolution. He was the spiritual ancestor of Nazism. Furthermore, Darwin, advocated eugenics, the idea of inferior races, and the survival of the fittest which he made into an integral part of his theory of evolution. Darwin and his minions popularized the ideas of Nazism and made the despicable actions of Hitler 'scientifically acceptable' to the populace.

[annflounder]

I've mentioned the thing about the fruit flies on several threads. You people seem to be getting paranoid.

[gore3000]

Any event leading to the origination of new species is "macroevolution," and some instances of speciation have been observed, or can be securely inferred to recently occured.

Nonsense, and a great example of the 'fluid' way in which evolutionists treat the facts in order to attempt to give evidence for their theory. Evolutionists have been trying since Darwin to confuse micro-evolution and macro-evolution. No one disagrees with micro-evolution - the small changes that species make to adapt to their environment. However, the meat of the theory of evolution is not small changes. Indeed, they should not even be called changes at all, they should be called transformations. The theory of evolution posits that step by step through the millenia since life began, species have been transforming themselves into new species each one more complex in their organisms than the previous ones. They posit that fish developed legs and started walking on earth. They posit that reptiles grew wings and became birds. They posit that reptiles again grew mammary glands, became live bearing, and turned themselves into mammals. These transformations by small adaptations were very questionable even when first made. However, genetics and specifically the discovery of DNA has made them quite impossible. Adaptations can occur by single point mutations in a gene. Transformations require not just a totally new gene, but many new genes to be created to support those transformations. The impossibility of this happening by random mutations (and there can be no selection in the creation of a gene since there is no function until the gene is completed) is astronomical. The possibility of thousands of new genes being created for the millions of species living and dead is a total impossibility.

Speciation while a prerequisite to such transformations is not proof of macro-evolution. A species (especially with the loose terminology of evolutionists) can arise (according to evos) by merely being geographically isolated from the rest of the group (guess Robinson Crusoe was not a man anymore because he ended up in a deserted island), it can also (according to the evos) become a new species just because the bird-songs it sings are not recognized for mating by other individuals having all the same characteristics. The classic definition of speciation is the ability to mate and produce offspring. This however is not sufficient because the two species can still have essentially the same characteristics and still not be able to produce offspring with each other. In other words they will still be birds, they will still be fruit flies, they will still be fish. They can be the same in all essential characteristics and still not be able to produce progeny. This is still micro-evolution because the species, neither one, has acquired any new faculties, and has not become more complex in any way.

So to sum up. Macro-evolution is a transformation requiring new genes, more complexity and new faculties. In terms of genetics, it requires at a minimum the creation of more than one new gene. In terms of taxonomy it would require an organism to change into a different genus.

[gore3000]

tests showed reproductive isolation between the two strains.

Reproductive isolation is not evolution. Speciation is not evolution. New functions, greater complexity is evolution. You do not gain complexity by splitting an existing gene pool in half. All you gain is a less fit species than you had before. In none of the examples the flies had any abilities or functions that were not present in the original group or groups. Evolution requires new functions, new genes, new abilities. These experiments did not show the creation of any such. Without the creation of new genetic information it is impossible for humans to have arisen from bacteria. What you and evolutionists need to prove is the creation of more complex creatures, this you cannot do, and has never happened that is why evolutionists try to confuse speciation (and make up numerous new definitions of it!) with evolution. They are not the same.

[gore3000]

When you deal with creationists, all definitions are subject to drastic modifications to suit their purposes.

Really? So what exactly is the definition of evolution Patrick? How come the evolutionists who are so proud of their theory never mention what it says?????????

[gore3000]

Then comes the real stunner: "There are no creationists!"

That's right, there are no creationists. There are Christians, there are Jews, but there are no creationists. Creationist is just an insult word made up by evolutionists to demean Christians and Christianity and bring it down to their level. Christianity is not an ideology like evolution, it is a religion and the attempt by evolutionists to equate it with their decrepit ideology is insulting. It is also a cowardly backhanded attack at Christians. Evolutionists do not dare say they are attacking Christianity, instead they attack those who dare to believe that God is the Creator as Christianity says. This is supposed to evade the charge that they are atheists, but what else can attacking the central tenet of Christianity be?

[gore3000]

Sorry, but "evolution at the species level" is a standard definition of "macroevolution".

To you perhaps, but speciation is not evolution because it does not give proof of increased complexity. All that speciation shows is that the gene pool of a species has split in two parts. It does not show the creation of any new genetic material which is what evolution requires. In other words Stultis, this is another lie of evolution, a redefining of terms to fit the theory promulgated because no one can find any evidence for the theory of evolution.

If evolution were true, the signs of it would be everywhere. According to evolution all species are gradually transforming themselves into more complex species. So at any point in time, like the present, we should be able to see species going through these transformations. We should be able to see species acquiring new functions, new genetic information, new abilities. We have never seen that in the millions of species living on earth.