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.
I have told you many times how science proves its theories. You keep spouting garbage about absolute proof. That is not what science is about and you know it. So you are being completely disingeneous in this discussion. You know quite well that science is not a series of rhetorical flourishes. You know quite well that scientific theories give proof of their veracity. So stop insulting and start giving facts instead of rhetoric.
Yet evolutionists constantly give as proof of their theory that since the answer to a question can never be God, therefore evolution must be true.
It is precisely the implicit assertion that "this theory is true" which is empirically tested by means of the many implications regarding natural objects, systems and their behavior which can indeed be deduced from good scientific theories.
Very good! Finally after dozens of posts you have admitted that there is a test of scientific theories. After dozens of excuses you finally admit that evolution has to say more than I believe this for it to be valid. So now, it's time to put up the facts and show how in any scientific manner, evolution is more than pure sophistry.
This is one of the current speculations. Because some sections of the genome have been shown to overlap, it may be that the "junk DNA" speculation is wrong, and a lot of this DNA codes for things not currently in use, or for structures that appear during development but disappear at birth, like lungs.
Surprisingly, g3 may have this correct. Don't go looking for proof though. It'll be decades before this gets sorted out, if then.
I am getting sick and tired of your insults. I have asked you a dozen times for what makes evolution science and you keep coming back with semantic excuses and verbal diarrhea. You continue to ignore my statements, you continue to misrepresent them and you continue to talk about the meaning of "is" and the meaning of "alone" as if anyone cared a hoot about it. You are being totally dishonest and avoiding giving an answer.
The above is total bluster, and does not have an iota of proof behind it. Like all evolutionists you make totally broad assertions without anything to back them up. Let's hear the evidence for your statement above.
Perhaps you have a proof of this?
Of course, unlike the evolutionists here I give proof for my statements, not excuses. Read post#375.
While the automatoin of the reading of the human genome went faster than anyone thought, automating the process of decoding an entire organisms genome is a vastly larger and more complicated project. I'm thinking this an application for these new biological computers. What a mess to set up though. I don't see how this can happen in my lifetime.
What a ridiculous statement! Let's see some examples of matter arranging itself into anything highly complex. There are not any. A tornado does not build houses. The wind does not build airplanes. The sea does not build ships. Intelligent beings arrange matter, not immaterial forces. Now if you want to prove abiogenesis, then let's see how it happened according to you.
Simply making a claim as this post does is not a proof. If you have no proof, just say so. A plausible conjecture is often worth discussing.
Wrong, absolutely wrong. I already posted proof showing that this evolutionist prediction is absolutely false in post#375.
You are correct I did not guess, I knew and gave proof that your statement was wrong - and that evolutionists who had been cackling since the genome project that they had found the solution to the problems in their theory were again proven wrong by real science.
Oh, the old standby of evolutionists - if something happened it is proof of evolution, very convincing, very scientific - NOT.
Sounds like proof positive to me.
Yes it is and let me show you again where he encourages the killing of the weak, the imbecile, the unhealthy, even the poor:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Chapter V.
No it is not speculation. Speculation is the assertion of evolutionists that all that DNA was total junk. That was total speculation based solely on the needs of their theory and having nothing to do with any scientific facts or experiments. What has been proven is that the DNA which evolutionists call junk does indeed have purpose and because all of it has not been deciphered does not mean that the rest is junk. It is up to evolutionists to prove that the rest is junk now.
Here are some of the things the "junk dna" has been proven to do:
non-coding DNA regulate translation of proteins.
non-coding DNA as silencers for suppression of transcription of proximal genes
non-coding DNA as enhancers for transcription of proximal genes.
noncoding DNA plays a vital role in the regulation of gene expression during development
The above from: http://www.psrast.org/junkdna.htm
Read the whole article. That was the conclusion. If you still do not believe it, then look further on your own and you will find more proof of it. I gave you evidence - something which you and the evolutionists never do. If you wish to refute it, let's see proof against it instead of lame rants.
"Junk DNA" Over 95 percent of DNA has largely unknown function By Jaan Suurkula M.D. Presently, only the function of a few percent of the DNA is known, the rest has been believed to be "junk". The most exhaustive knowledge is about the genes responsible for the bodily structures, the structural genes, which are the simplest part of the system. But the knowledge about the most important part of this system, the regulator genes, is incomplete. The genetic code language of these genes is only partially known. More than 95 percent of all DNA, was called "Junk DNA" by molecular biologists, because they were unable to ascribe any function to it. They assumed that it was just "molecular garbage". If it were "junk", the sequence of the "syllables", i.e. the nucleotides in DNA should be completely random. However it has been found that the sequence of the syllables is not random at all and has a striking resemblance with the structure of human language (ref. Flam, F. "Hints of a language in junk DNA", Science 266:1320, 1994, see quote below). Therefore, scientists now generally believe that this DNA must contain some kind of coded information. But the code and its function is yet completely unknown. It has been reported that the sequences of this unknown DNA are inherited and that some repetitive patterns in it seem to be associated with increased risk for cancer. Also, the DNA has been found to mutate rapidly for example in response to cancer. It has been speculated that this DNA may contribute to the regulation of cellular processes. Haig H. Kazazian, Jr., chairman of genetics at the University of Pennysylvania has recently found reasons to suspect they may be a key force for the development of new species during evolution. He thinks this DNA may be essential for increasing the plasticity of the hereditary substance. Such observations have spurred an extensive research into "Junk DNA" in recent years, some of which is briefly presented below. Recent studies Various important roles of "Junk DNA" have been discovered in recent years. Some studies have found that noncoding DNA plays a vital role in the regulation of gene expression during development (Ting SJ. 1995. A binary model of repetitive DNA sequence in Caenorhabditis elegans. DNA Cell Biol. 14: 83-85.), including: development of photoreceptor cells (Vandendries ER, Johnson D, Reinke R. 1996. Orthodenticle is required for photoreceptor cell development in the Drosophila eye. Dev Biol 173: 243-255.), the reproductive tract (Keplinger BL, Rabetoy AL, Cavener DR. 1996. A somatic reproductive organ enhancer complex activates expression in both the developing and the mature Drosophila reproductive tract. Dev Biol 180: 311-323.), and the central nervous system (Kohler J, Schafer-Preuss S, Buttgereit D. 1996. Related enhancers in the intron of the beta1 tubulin gene of Drosophila melanogaster are essential for maternal and CNS-specific expression during embryogenesis. Nucleic Acids Res 24: 2543-2550.). Over 700 studies have demonstrated the role of non-coding DNA as enhancers for transcription of proximal genes. This includes a/o: eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EDN) and eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) (Tiffany HL, Handen JS, Rosenberg HF. 1996. Enhanced expression of the eosinophil-derived neurotoxin ribonuclease (RNS2) gene requires interaction between the promoter and intron. J Biol Chem 271: 12387-12393), the variable region of the rearranged immunoglobulin mu (IgM) gene (Jenuwein T, Forrester WC, Fernandez-Herrero LA, Laible G, Dull M, Grosschedl R. 1997. Extension of chromatin accessibility by nuclear matrix attachment regions. Nature 385: 269-272.; Nikolajczyk BS, Nelsen B, Sen R. 1996. Precise alignment of sites required for mu enhancer activation in B cells. Mol Cell Biol 16: 4544-4554), the alpha-globin gene (Bouhassira EE, Kielman MF, Gilman J, Fabry MF, Suzuka S, Leone O, Gikas E, Bernini LF, Nagel RL. 1997. Properties of the mouse alpha-globin HS-26: relationship to HS-40, the major enhancer of human alpha-globin gene expression. Am J Hematol 54: 30-39), the activin beta A subunit gene (Tanimoto K, Yoshida E, Mita S, Nibu Y, Murakami K, Fukamizu A. 1996. Human activin betaA gene. Identification of novel 5' exon, functional promoter, and enhancers. J Biol Chem 271: 32760-32769). Over 60 studies have demonstrated the role of non-coding DNA as silencers for suppression of transcription of proximal genes. Such silencer genes include a/o: apolipoprotein A-II gene (Bossu JP, Chartier FL, Fruchart JC, Auwerx J, Staels B, Laine B. 1996. Two regulatory elements of similar structure and placed in tandem account for the repressive activity of the first intron of the human apolipoprotein A-II gene. Biochem J 318: 547-553.), the osteocalcin gene (Goto K, Heymont JL, Klein-Nulend J, Kronenberg HM, Demay MB. 1996. Identification of an osteoblastic silencer element in the first intron of the rat osteocalcin gene. Biochemistry 35: 11005-11011), the 2-crystallin gene (Dirks RP, Kraft HJ, Van Genesen ST, Klok EJ, Pfundt R, Schoenmakers JG, Lubsen NH. 1996. The cooperation between two silencers creates an enhancer element that controls both the lens-preferred and the differentiation stage-specific expression of the rat beta B2-crystallin gene. Eur J Biochem 239: 23-32). Some studies indicate that non-coding DNA regulate translation of proteins. This includes a/o the Lipoprotein Lipase gene (Ranganathan G, Vu D, Kern PA. 1997. Translational Regulation of Lipoprotein Lipase by Epinephrine Involves a Trans-acting Binding Protein Interacting with the 3' Untranslated Region. J Biol Chem 272: 2515-2519) glutathione peroxidase and phospholipid-hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase genes (Bermano G, Arthur JR, Hesketh JE. 1996. Role of the 3' untranslated region in the regulation of cytosolic glutathione peroxidase and phospholipid-hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase gene expression by selenium supply. Biochem J 320: 891-895), the luteinizing hormone/human chorionic gonadotropin receptor gene (58. Lu DL, Menon KM. 1996. 3' untranslated region-mediated regulation of luteinizing hormone/human chorionic gonadotropin receptor expression. Biochemistry 35: 12347-12353), the thyrotropin receptor gene (Kakinuma A, Chazenbalk G, Filetti S, McLachlan SM, Rapoport B. 1996. BOTH the 5' and 3' noncoding regions of the thyrotropin receptor messenger ribonucleic acid influence the level of receptor protein expression in transfected mammalian cells. Endocrinology 137: 2664-2669), the interleukin 1 type I receptor gene (Ye K, Vannier E, Clark BD, Sims JE, Dinarello CA. 1996. Three distinct promoters direct transcription of different 5' untranslated regions of the human interleukin 1 type I receptor: a possible mechanism for control of translation. Cytokine 8: 421-429) Conclusion The idea that a major part of our DNA is "garbage" ignored the fact that a key feature of biological organisms is optimal energy expenditure. To carry enormous amounts of unnecessary molecules is contrary to this fundamental energy saving feature of biological organisms. Increasing evidence are now indicating many important functions of this DNA, including various regulatory roles. This means that this so-called non-coding DNA influences the behavior of the genes, the "coding DNA", in important ways. Still there is very little knowledge about the relationship between non-coding DNA and the DNA of genes. This adds to other factors making it impossible to foresee and control the effect of artificial insertion of foreign genes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JUNK DNA- May Not Be Junk After All (Quoted from Gene exchange no 2, 1996) In another reminder that we may not understand the full ramifications of genetic engineering, Science magazine recently reported new work on the function of genetic material*. Scientists have long been puzzled by the fact that fully 97% of the DNA in human cells does not code for proteins and appears to consist of meaningless sequences. The possibility that this apparently useless DNA has some as yet unknown function continues to tantalize scientists. The Science article reports on a paper suggesting that the non-coding 97% of the DNA, commonly referred to as junk DNA, might have a function. The authors of the paper employed linguistic tests to analyze junk DNA and discovered striking similarities to ordinary language. The scientists interpret those similarities as suggestions that there might be messages in the junk sequences, although its anyone s guess as to how the language might work. * F. Flam, Hints of a language in junk DNA, Science 266:1320, 1994.
Our omnipotent God is perfectly capable of saying: "Let this next quantum event create a universe from which will spring forth stars, galaxies, planets and life from elemental particles. I have set the universal constants such that all this will occur without my needing any further intervention." What part of omnipotent do you not understand?
Man is not potent enough to plan his projects such they will work perfectly from the get go. God has no such limitations. He is perfectly capable of creating a universe such that life will evolve from what we see as random events. What part of omnipotent do you not understand?
I find it shocking that you would attempt to limit God's power to that which you, a man of limited power, can conceive. Not only is it shocking, it is an insult to the very nature of God. What part of omnipotent do you not understand?
Why do you insist that God play by your rules? Why would you want to forbid God's allowing for abiogenesis? What part of omnipotent do you not understand?
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