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.
He certainly makes a frequent claim, if not an excellent one. I disagree with it.
You keep denying what I have already given you proof of. Here it is again from post#132 so that all can see how evolutionists keep trying to cover up the truth by the repetition of lies:
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.
From: Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Chapter V.
Like all charlatans, the evolutionists always claim that the proof will be found. They have been saying that for 150 years, and they still have not found it.
Life's Building Blocks From Interstellar Space.
Your failure to see may not be scientific evidence.
Actually you have it backwards. It is the evolutionists here who deny that science comes up with anything. Quila and Stultis for example have been making an utter mockery of science in order to avoid giving any proof for their statement that evolution is true.
I know microbiologists who sit back with amazement at the complexity of life, but I've still yet to meet one who believes it was specifically designed though. But then I only know microbiologists in atheist Germany, right? (you know, the Germany where there is no separation of church and state, and religion is taught in the schools)
Aaaah the "29 proofs of macro-evolution"! The 29 proofs which the evolutionists never post even after being asked to show just one through hundreds of posts! The 29 proofs which you have been bashing science for hundreds of posts in order not to give them! But wait, did you not say that there is no proof in science? Did you not say that dozens of times? Were you lying then or are you lying now? Or are you perhaps trying to tell me that evolution is not science by telling me that there is proof of evolution?
Those 29 proofs are no proof at all. I saw a lot of them when they were originally posted on FR over a year ago. Some are proofs of micro-evolution. Some are not proofs at all. All of them are so badly written that all they prove is the awful illiteracy of the author. However, since these seem to be the "Bible" of the evolutionists, I am sure you know it quite well. Pick the strongest of those proofs, post it here for all to see and we will discuss it. Hope I do not have to wait 150 years for the answer!
Okay, where's the proof of what ONE species the platypus descended from? Where is the proof of any one other species from which the platypus could have descended that had the 11 characteristics of the platypus I noted. Put up or shut up.
And why do you start every thread born new, knowing nothing? What's the matter with you, boy?
The title clearly says "29 Evidences." The Proof-Goof artlessly changes it to "29 Proofs."
Too many artless misunderstandings, forgettings, ill-reasonings. I pity the suckers who bite when you troll.
Then post the genome map with the genes mapped to the base pairs. I have a map right down the hall from my desk I can compare it to. Otherwise this is more of your nonsense.
Must be a fairly recent map?
Don't worry. He will.
Interesting. So the theory of gravity isn't a "theory" by your lights because it only describes a phenomenon without explaining how it works.
Since g3 is the only person in the universe with this information, he should share it or hire a good marketing firm. I have a lot of manufacturing and regulatory experience in this industry and maybe I can get a job with his new company.
I just wanted him to carry out his thesis and explain the existance of the Platypus in his own little universe.
Subtle understatement. Very nice!
Wrong. A theory says what is going to happen under a given set of circumstances. It does not need to explain how it happens. A theory is something that can be used to predict an outcome given certain stimuli.
For example, I had a theory that predicted that you would invoke the bible as the defining document for proving that evolution is false if I asked you for proof of that falseness. I tested the theory and you responded as required by the theory.
I have also developed, tested a proven several other theories about how you will respond to certain stimuli. While my theories and experiments would not stand up to rigorous peer review, they do provide me with some useful data about methods of pulling your chain.
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