Posted on 03/24/2002 7:03:09 PM PST by scripter
Scientists urge 'academic freedom' to teach both sides of issue
Posted: March 24, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Julie Foster © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
In an effort to influence high-school science curriculum standards, more than 50 Ohio scientists issued a statement this week supporting academic freedom to teach arguments for and against Darwin's theory of evolution.
Released Wednesday, the statement was signed by 52 experts from a wide range of scientific disciplines, including entomology, toxicology, nuclear chemistry, engineering biochemistry and medicine. Some are employed in business, industry and research, but most teach at state and private universities. A third of the signatories are employed by Ohio State University.
The statement reads, in its entirety:
To enhance the effectiveness of Ohio science education, as scientists we affirm:
That biological evolution is an important scientific theory that should be taught in the classroom;
That a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science;
That a science curriculum should help students understand why the subject of biological evolution generates controversy;
That where alternative scientific theories exist in any area of inquiry (such as wave vs. particle theories of light, biological evolution vs. intelligent design, etc.), students should be permitted to learn the evidence for and against them;
That a science curriculum should encourage critical thinking and informed participation in public discussions about biological origins.
We oppose:
Religious or anti-religious indoctrination in a class specifically dedicated to teaching within the discipline of science;
The censorship of scientific views that may challenge current theories of origins.
Signatories released the statement as the Ohio State Board of Education works to update its curriculum standards, including those for high-school science classes, in accordance with a demand from the state legislature issued last year. Advocates of inclusion of evolution criticisms believe the Ohio scientists' statement echoes similar language in the recently passed federal education law, the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001." Report language interpreting the act explains that on controversial issues such as biological evolution, "the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist."
As part of its efforts to update the science standards, the Board of Education held a moderated panel discussion on the question, "Should intelligent design be included in Ohio's science academic content standards?" The debate was conducted during the March 11 regular board meeting and included two panelists from each side of the issue, who were given 15 minutes each to present their arguments. One of the panelists in favor of including "intelligent design" arguments (the idea that biological origin was at least initiated by an intelligent force) was Dr. Stephen Meyer, a professor at Whitworth College in Washington state and fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.
Meyer has written extensively on the subject, including a column for WorldNetDaily in which he criticizes the PBS series "Evolution." The series, he wrote, "rejects – even ridicules – traditional theistic religion because [religion] holds that God played an active (even discernible) role in the origin of life on earth."
Additionally, Meyer co-wrote a February 2001 Utah Law Review article defending the legality of presenting evolution criticism in schools. The article states in its conclusion that school boards or biology teachers should "take the initiative to teach, rather than suppress, the controversy as it exists in the scientific world," which is a "more open and more dialectical approach." The article also encourages school boards to defend "efforts to expand student access to evidence and information about this timely and compelling controversy."
Dr. Robert DiSilvestro, a professor at Ohio State and statement signatory, believes many pro-evolution scientists have not given Darwin's theory enough critical thought.
"As a scientist who has been following this debate closely, I think that a valid scientific challenge has been mounted to Darwinian orthodoxy on evolution. There are good scientific reasons to question many currently accepted ideas in this area," he said.
"The more this controversy rages, the more our colleagues start to investigate the scientific issues," commented DiSilvestro. "This has caused more scientists to publicly support our statement." He noted that several of the 52 scientists on the list had signed after last week's Board of Education panel discussion.
However, panelist Dr. Lawrence Krauss, chairman of Case Western Reserve University's physics department, said intelligent design is not science. ID proponents, he explained, are trying to redefine "science" and do not publish their work in peer-reviewed literature. In a January editorial published in The Plain Dealer, Krauss wrote that "the concept of 'intelligent design' is not introduced into science classes because it is not a scientific concept."
Promoters of ID bemoan "the fact that scientists confine their investigation to phenomena and ideas that can be experimentally investigated, and that science assumes that natural phenomena have natural causes," his editorial continues. "This is indeed how science operates, and if we are going to teach science, this is what we should teach." By its very nature, Krauss explains, science has limitations on what it can study, and to prove or disprove the existence of God does not fall into that sphere of study.
Krauss was disappointed in the Board of Education's decision to hold a panel discussion on the subject, saying the debate was not warranted since there is no evolution controversy in scientific circles.
"The debate, itself, was a victory for those promoting intelligent design," he said. "By pretending there's a controversy when there isn't, you're distorting reality."
But Meyer counters that a controversy does exist over the validity of Darwinian evolution, as evidenced by the growing number of scientists publicly acknowledging the theory's flaws. For example, 100 scientists, including professors from institutions such as M.I.T, Yale and Rice, issued a statement in September "questioning the creative power of natural selection," wrote Meyer in his WND column. But such criticism is rarely, if ever, reported by mainstream media outlets and establishment scientific publications, he maintains.
At the Board of Education's panel discussion, he proposed a compromise to mandating ID inclusion in science curriculum: Teach the controversy about Darwinism, including evidence for and against the theory of evolution. Also, he asked the board to make it clear that teachers are permitted to discuss other theories of biological origin, which Meyer believes is already legally established.
But such an agreement would only serve to compromise scientific research, according to Krauss. "It's not that it's inappropriate to discuss these ideas, just not in a science class," he concluded.
It's the same kind of reasoning used to solve crimes. You see that something has happened. You discover means, motive and opportunity. You draw conclusions.
From a God's eye perspective, you haven't proved anything. It's not the kind of proof required in mathematics. The events can't be re-run in a laboratory. But people are executed based on this kind of reasoning.
Your eyeballs scanned what I wrote, but you didn't really read it.
Consider this:
Would you bet on your ability to flip 10 heads in a row if you didn't have to show every toss? Suppose you could do the flips behind a curtain and only raise the curtain at time of your choosing?
The prosseses of life are very cruel and wasteful. In sexual reproduction, millions of sperm never fertilize anything. Millions of embryos are naturally aborted in the first 30 days. These are hidden coin tosses.
This kind of selection operates on every level -- even on the non-living level. This is how chemical elements evolve in stars, how simple elements can evolve into amino acids.
It is absolutely and completely false to assert that everything prior to the current toss is garbage. Everything that has previously been selected is available to build upon. Every toss is independent of the past history of tosses. You cannot multiply the the probabilities of all the tosses to get the final probability, because selection cheats. It hides bad tosses.
...and multiplies good tosses.
Good tosses are rare but if they occur they spread pretty fast.
(mendelian genetics contradicting evolution?) just curious.
Fair enough with me. Let's just teach science. Let's get atheistic materialism out of our science courses. Let the Darwinians teach their religion in the church of the holy pond scum.
Science proves its propositions. Evolution has never proven its atheistic/materialistic proposition in any scientific way. It has never, and cannot now give proof of its main contention: that macro-evolution has ever occurred.
Why would such a thing occur - a similar protein, similar accross species function differently? You are so inbued with the nonsense of evolution that you ascribe everything that occurs to evolution. The actions of this protein show quite clearly intelligent design and the individuality of species.
Here's why. If these proteins had evolved in the process of being tranferred from one species to another, they would act in the same way because evolution supposedly works by small changes and in making a new creature it would copy as much as possible not just genetically but also functionally from the previous species. What we have here is a designer using bits and pieces of the genetic design of one species and by small tweaking using them for a completely different purpose in another species. Therefore, your dilemma is proof against evolution.
1. Mendellian genetics - he proved it himself with a bunch of peas, has been further verified by many breeding experiments.
Wow, really!? Do you mean to say that all of "mendellian genetics" has been proven? You do realize that this is not a single theory, but a whole field with many, many theories, principles, techniques, working assumptions, etc? Why is this such an active field, with many theories and hypotheses constantly being proposed, tested and investigated, if it has all been "proven".
You need to specify a particular theory within the broad rubric of "mendellian genetics" for which you believe positive "proof" has been provided, but for the moment I will assume (from your reference to his peas) that you mean to refer to Mendel's ratios.
The first problem you have here is that Mendel's ratios are LAWS, not THEORIES. (The theory part involved the entities of hereditary factors or "genes" that Mendel hypothesized to explain his ratios. OTOH I also claim that laws and facts, like theories, are also not "proven" and are subject to revision.)
The greater problem you have is that Mendel's ratios are not true!!!! That is to say, rather, that they are only true some of the time. How can a claim which is not universally true be "proven"?
Mendel had the sheer good look to have chosen traits for which the genes resided on different chromosomes. If this is not the case then Mendel's ratios do not always work. See: Linked Genes On The Same Chromosome Exhibit Distorted Mendelian Ratios There are a number of other phenomena which lead to non-Mendellian ratios, e.g. multiple alleles with co-dominance, semi-dominance, recessive lethal alleles, alleles that are lethal in combination, and so on.
The point here, which should be getting through even your hyper-robust cranium (but probably isn't), is that scientific theories are never finished (and therefore never "proven"). Although Mendel's detective work with his peas, and his inference that his data could be explained by hereditary "factors" acting in pairs, was brilliant, it was only the merest beginning. It eventually led to a greater understanding of genetics, chromosomes, and to a general explosion of knowledge about the material basis of heredity, and to completely unexpected discoveries like linked genes, precisely because it wasn't completely true and final.
2. Gravity - by the American landing on the moon. All the calculations were made using the theory of gravity.
Wrong. It was the LAW of gravity which was so used. A complete and satisfactory THEORY of gravity has yet to be devised!!! (Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is essentially a theory of gravity -- arguing that gravity is caused by mass induced warping of space-time, that it is phenomenologically indistinquishable from acceleration, and so on -- but it leaves many important questions unaswered. E.g. whether the force is mediated by a particle, whether it is quantitized, etc.)
3. Relativity - the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb.
More specific, please. General or Special relativity? Also, how have you (or anyone else) logically and conclusively eliminated the possibility that a yet to be devised theory may explain the operation of "the atom bomb" as well as "relativity" and also explain things that relativity cannot?
Don't you see that claiming a theory has been "proved" is essentially a claim of omnipotence? You are claiming that no future evidence could ever overturn the theory. I'm sorry, but to anyone familiar with the history of science, this is a VERY STUPID claim. This assumption is also absolutely contrary to the core scientific value that holds nature as the ultimate arbiter of all our theories.
Sorry, gore. You attempt to specify a proven scientific theory has failed. But then you seem unable to even delinate a specific theory (proved or otherwise).
In the paragraph above the only major point we disagree on is the effect of mendellian genetics on evolution. At the time "On Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" was published, Mendellian genetics had not been discovered. Darwin made the assumption that the traits of each parent 'melded' in their progenitors and that therefore a favorable mutation would be easily passed throughout a whole species in a short time. This made his theory very viable. This was proven untrue because like the rest of his book it was not science but a bunch of assumptions without scientific basis strung together to prove a theory. What mendellian genetics shows is that it is very difficult, if not impossible to pass on a new trait throughout an entire population. Here's why. For each gene we have a reciprocal gene called an allele. During reproduction only one of these paired genes gets passed on to the next generation. This selection is totally random. So right from the start a new gene has only one chance in two of being passed on to the next generation. Being a new gene, no one else in the population has it. Therefore the chances of its being passed on to each succeeding generation are cut in half with each generation. This makes the spread of a new mutation almost impossible. It can happen, but it will take numerous favorable mutations to die in the genetic abyss before one will finally make it throughout the whole population. Now evolutionists thing that there has been enough time for all these new genes to spread throughout all these different species, but that is not the case. The two-three billion years since life began on earth are insufficient time for the numerous mutations that were necessary to spread throughout all living things when the delays caused by Mendellian genetics are taken into account. Darwin realized quite well that the amount of time to spread these traits was critical for the viability of his theory. Mendellian genetics extends the time far too much for his theory to be viable.
I am aware that there is shuffling amongst genes and that for example 100 genes can perform (say)some 300 functions due to the shuffling. However, I do not understand how you arrive at the conclusion that due to this new functions arise or more importantly as to the matter of evolution, how it ends up in the creation of new species. After all, it seems to me that all individuals with the same genetic structure would be able to do these functions so that these functions, though not residing in a particular gene as we commonly think, would still be part of the species and would not result in a new species. In fact, I think it is this "shuffling" that is the cause of what is called micro-evolution - changes caused by the environment to help a species adapt to it.
Okay, what experimentation have they stood up to? Can you give some examples for discussion?
Very nice. However, the problem is that evolution has been saying that it is proven science for 150 years and we yet have not seen any scientific proof for it. You are telling us to continue to wait. I say it is time for evolutionists to stop telling us that evolution is science until such time as they can give proof for their theory. Enough of this someday nonsense which everyone from Ms Cleo on uses to fool people.
What would that leave? Isn't all science non-theistic and materialistic? All Darwin's theory says is that no miracles are needed to explain the diversity of life; it says nothing about abiogenesis or theology, except that a literal reading of parts of Genesis is wrong. But astronomy and geology teach us the same thing.
There is no evidence for evolution, yet it gets taught in the classroom as science, which it is not. All that evoilution is is a materialistic/atheistic philosophy posing as science.
This crap is getting offensive; you know as well as anyone else, you've certainly been told enough times, that scientists (including bioligists) come in all flavors when it comes to religious belief.
Your statement is total sophistry. All these theories have given experimental, mathematical and practical proof that they are true. You are trying to establish an impossible standard of proof because your silly theory cannot give any proof at all of its validity. If you do not believe in the proven theories of science, then go live in a cave without tv's, cars, planes, refrigerators, medicines, and the millions of other things which science, true science has done to advance all our lives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.