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.
Faint praise.
From your point of view?
When hell freezes over.
I live right down the road from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and have quite a few friends from there and at a large bioinformatics corporation that makes the technology to study the genome, proteins, etc. (I turned down a job there actually, I was to be doing client/server protein modelling).
I never got that from his writings. Anyway, yes, lots of people killed Christians too. But usually the reason for killing or repressing Christians as in your examples is the reason China jails them today: not for a hatred of Christianity but because they represent a power structure different from the state (the state may own your body, but the religions own your soul). Hitler had that same problem with Catholics, until he made a deal with the Catholic church.
The Rosenburgs gave the A-Bomb to the Soviets because they wanted Christian civilization wiped off the map.
I studied that case and can't believe it. Julius was sympathetic to Communism, but not necessarily anti-Christian. And Ethel was innocent.
Explain why 150,000 Mischlinge [kansaspress.ku.edu] served in the Wehrmacht and Kreigsmarine.
Those are regular ground troops. People often confuse them with the SS or other Nazi/political forces.
there is lots more dirt to throw.
You started throwing dirt. Let's just say that any institution or idea that has an element of power can be twisted to one's own ends. Religion has more power than most things, and the fact that "one billion people find solace in" it (and that's just Christianity) makes it all the more powerful and abuse-prone. Look what people are doing with Islam these days.
She was not. Both of the Rosenburgs recommended Ruth Greenglass as agent, and for a recommendation to be accepted from you, you had to be a trusted comrade. Moscow wanted confirmation of Ethel's trusted status and they got it. Their "rezidentura" vouched for her and listed her level of knowledge about her hubby's activities. She knew about what her husband was doing for them and knew about his contacts. The confirmation of her loyalty and value was signed by Leonid Kvasnikov, a soviet intelligence officer at the time. He was the guy who was in charge of nuclear/atomic spying. Ethel knew what was going on, she was in a position to actively support with Greenglass.
"Of course they were guilty. but you can't quote me. My public position is that the Rosenburgs were innocent. ...What's wrong with what they did/ If I were in their place, I would have done the same thing...It was the responsibility of a good Communist to do whatever he could to help the Red Army gain victory. Don't think i'm so dumb that I don't believe the Rosenburgs weren't engaged in espionage." - lawyer Victor Rabinowitz, first guy approached by Julius to be his counsel, as told to former communist Ronald Radosh
Your answer:"When hell freezes over." So much for honest discussion from you. Of course evolution cannot answer the question, phony paleontology cannot answer the question either.
THE POPE SAID IT'S OKAY FOR CATHOLICS TO BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION!
Only a fool will ignore current biological facts, refuse to accept overwhelming biological evidence, and insist that HIS or HER interpretation of Biblical scripture is correct, and scientific facts are wrong.
Neither scientific fact nor scripture are irreconciable if you open your mind and look at both from the proper perspective. If you do not, you are painting yourself into an intellectual corner and discrediting a true faith. If you reject the intellect - you have good company - The Inquisition, the Medieval Papacy, etc.
Nope, he is proposing action against the weak. Read the following:
Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never be even partially realised until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids towards this end.
From: Descent of man Chapter 21.
Notice the words "everyone" he wants laws to put "selection" into action. He wants "purification" of the human race.
Why, when someone posts something you don't want to deal with, do you retreat into this "post it here," business? Blast the entire 29 Evidences article in-line on this thread? That sort of thing with an article of that size goes beyond fair use in copyright law. It also blows the thread out of the water for people who don't care much about this particular subtext of the argument.
You know it's not that hard to click on a link. You just need a way to bluster and (you hope) avoid looking like a total weakling when you have nothing substantive.
Made sense to me.
The evolutionists first tried to show that abiogenesis could have happened here on earth. That was disproven . . .
Fiction. Nothing of the sort has happened.
. . . so like good liars, they now take it into space.
The article misrepresents nothing. You might notice on that thread where I linked an article on carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.
As with the CI chondrites, the CM chondrites are well known to contain a wealth of complex organic compounds. The well-studied meteorite of Murchison, a CM2 that fell in Australia in 1969, was found to contain more than 230 different amino acids, whereas on earth only 20 different amino acids are known and used as fundamental building blocks of life. Some of these extraterrestrial amino acids were found to exhibit strange isotopic signatures that might indicate that they don't have their origin within our solar system. These amino acids are believed to represent actual interstellar matter from other systems and nebulae that were trapped in this meteorite more than 4.5 billion years ago.The idea hinted at here is that a lost, ripped up planet whose destruction created much of the asteroid belt once generated these amino acids in an environment rather like the one in the Miller experiment. Frozen chunks of the same are apparently still floating around out there. A bombardment of this type of material may have assisted any native earth processes making such compounds as well. Extra stock for the soup.Because of this fact, some researchers have promoted the idea that Murchison and other CM chondrites, e.g. the witnessed falls of Murray, and Nogoya, might be of cometary origin, but recent research indicates that certain dark asteroids within the main asteroid belt are the real source of the CM meteorites. There is for example a certain spectral match between the reflectance spectra of the CM chondrites and the largest asteroid of our solar system, 1 Ceres - an irregular dark chunk of matter in the size of Texas. However, recent research has found an even closer match, at least for Murchison - the asteroid 19 Fortuna which is a good candidate to be the lost parent body of this peculiar meteorite and maybe of the other CM chondrites, too.
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.
So which is it, al? Did we "never post" them, or did we post "a lot of them ... over a year ago"?
(Here we get a rare opportunity to see gore3000's mind at work, momentarily uncertain which form its envitable denial should take.)
Since gore3000 insists, here is one of the 29 points chosen at random. As you read this bear in mind gore3000's claim that "all of [these] are so badly written that all they prove is the awful illiteracy of the author." This should tell lurkers a great deal about gore3000's objectivity and crediblity. The fact that he has never bothered to repond to these with anything but ridicule, and has never specified any specific error of fact or of reasoning, should tell lurkers even more.
The support for common descent given by studies of molecular sequences can be phrased as a deductive argument. This argument is unique within this FAQ, as it is the only instance we can directly conclude that similarity implies relatedness. This conclusion depends upon the similarity of biological structures within a specific context: the similarity observed between ubiquitous genes from different species.
The following discussion is somewhat technical, so it is first presented in the outline of a deductive argument, which makes the logical thread easy to follow. Here are listed the premises of the argument followed by the conclusion and further discussion.
(P1) There are certain genes that all living organisms have because they perform very basic life functions; these genes are called ubiquitous genes.
(P2) Ubiquitous genes have no relationship with the specific functions of different species. For example, it doesn't matter whether you are a bacterium, a human, a frog, a whale, a hummingbird, a slug, a fungus, or a sea anemone - you have these ubiquitous genes, and they all perform the same basic biological function no matter what you are.
(P3) Any given ubiquitous protein has an extremely large number of different functionally equivalent forms (i.e. protein sequences).
(P4) Obviously, there is no a priori reason why every organism should have the same sequence or even similar sequences. No specific sequence is functionally necessary in any organism - all that is necessary is one of the large number of functionally equivalent forms of a given ubiquitous gene or protein.
(P5) There is one, and only one, observed mechanism which causes two different organisms to have ubiquitous proteins with similar sequences. That mechanism is heredity.
(C) It follows that organisms which have similar sequences for ubiquitous proteins are genealogically related, and the more similar the sequences, the closer the relationship.
Before the advent of DNA sequencing technology, the amino acid sequences of proteins were used to establish the phylogenetic relationships of species. Sequence studies with functional genes have centered on genes of proteins (or RNAs) that are ubiquitous (i.e. all organisms have them). This is done to insure that the comparisons are independent of the overall species phenotype.
For example, suppose we are comparing the protein sequence of a chimpanzee and that of a human. Both of these animals have many similar anatomical characters and functions, so we might expect their proteins to be similar too, regardless of whether they are genealogically related or not. However, we can compare the sequences of very basic genes that are used by all living organisms, such as the cytochrome c gene, which have no influence over specific chimpanzee or human characteristics.
Cytochrome c is an essential and ubiquitous protein found in all organisms, including eukaryotes and bacteria (Voet and Voet 1995, p. 24). The mitochondria of cells contain cytochrome c, where it transports electrons in the fundamental metabolic process of oxidative phosphorylation. The oxygen we breathe is used to generate energy in this process (Voet and Voet 1995, pp. 577-582).
Using a ubiquitous gene such as cytochrome c, there is no reason to assume that two different organisms should have the protein sequence, unless the two organisms are genealogically related. This is due in part to the functional redundancy of protein sequences and structures. Here, "functional redundancy" indicates that many different protein sequences form the same general structure and perform the same general biological role. Cytochrome c is an extremely functionally redundant protein, because many dissimilar sequences all form cytochrome c electron transport proteins. Functional redundancy need not be exact in terms of performance; some functional cytochrome c sequences may be slightly better at electron transport than others, but that is irrelevant for the purposes of this argument.
Decades of biochemical evidence have shown that most amino acid mutations, especially of surface residues, have no effect on protein function or on protein structure (Harris, Sanger et al. 1956; Li 1997, p. 2, Matthews 1996). A striking example is that of the c-type cytochromes from various bacteria, which have virtually no sequence similarity. Nevertheless, they all fold into the same three-dimensional structure, and they all perform the same biological role (Moore and Pettigrew 1990, pp. 161-223; Ptitsyn 1998).
Even within species, most amino acid mutations are functionally silent. For example, there are at least 250 different amino acid mutations known in human hemoglobin, carried by more than 3% of the world's population, that have no clinical manifestation in either heterozygotic or homozygotic individuals (Bunn and Forget 1986; Voet and Voet 1995, p. 235). The phenomenon of protein functional redundancy is very general, and is observed in all known proteins and genes, regardless of the species.
With this in mind, consider again the molecular sequences of cytochrome c. It has been shown that the human cytochrome c protein works just fine in yeast (a unicellular organism) that has had its own native cytochrome c gene deleted, even though yeast cytochrome c differs from human cytochrome c over 40% of the protein (Tanaka et. al 1988a; Tanaka et al. 1988b; Wallace and Tanaka 1994). In fact, the cytochrome c genes from tuna (fish), pigeon (bird), horse (mammal), Drosophila fly (insect), and rat (mammal) all function well in yeast that lack their own native yeast cytochrome c (Clements et al. 1989; Hickey et al. 1991; Koshy et al. 1992; Scarpulla and Nye 1986). Furthermore, extensive genetic analysis of cytochrome c has demonstrated that the majority of the protein sequence is unnecessary for its function in vivo (Hampsey 1986; Hampsey 1988). Only about a third of the 100 amino acids in cytochrome c are necessary to specify its function. Most of the amino acids in cytochrome c are hypervariable (i.e. they can be replaced by a large number of functionally equivalent amino acids) (Dickerson and Timkovich 1975). Importantly, Hubert Yockey has done a careful study in which he calculated that there are a minimum of 2.3 x 1093 possible functional cytochrome c protein sequences, based on these genetic mutational analyses (Hampsey 1986; Hampsey 1988; Yockey 1992, Ch. 6, p. 254). For perspective, the number 1093 is about one billion times larger than the number of atoms in the visible universe. Thus, functional cytochrome c sequences are virtually unlimited in number, and there is no a priori reason for two different species to have the same, or even mildly similar, cytochrome c protein sequences.
In terms of a scientific statistical analysis, the "null hypothesis" is that the identity of non-essential amino acids in the cytochrome c proteins from human and chimpanzee should be random with respect to one another. However, from the theory of common descent and our standard phylogenetic tree we know that humans and chimpanzees are quite closely related. We therefore predict, in spite of the odds, that human and chimpanzee cytochrome c sequences should be much more similar than, say, human and yeast cytochrome c - simply due to inheritance.
Humans and chimpanzees have the exact same cytochrome c protein sequence. The "null hypothesis" given above is false. In the absence of common descent, the chance of this occurrence is conservatively less than 10-93 (1 out of 1093). Thus, the high degree of similarity in these proteins is a spectacular corroboration of the theory of common descent. Furthermore, human and chimpanzee cytochrome c proteins differ by ~10 amino acids from all other mammals. The chance of this occurring in the absence of a hereditary mechanism is less than 10-29. The yeast Candida krusei is one of the most distantly related eukaryotic organisms from humans. Candida has 51 amino acid differences from the human sequence. A conservative estimate of this probability is less than 10-25.
One possible, yet unlikely, objection is that the slight differences in functional performance between the various cytochromes could be responsible for this sequence similarity. This objection is unlikely because of the incredibly high number of nearly equivalent sequences that would be phenotypically indistinguishable for any required level of performance. Additionally, nearly similar sequences do not necessarily give nearly similar levels of performance.
Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, let us assume that a cytochrome c that transports electrons faster is required in organisms with active metabolisms or with high rates of muscle contraction. If this were true, we might expect to observe a pattern of sequence similarity that correlates with similarity of environment or with physiological requirement. However, this is not observed. For example, bat cytochrome c is much more similar to human cytochrome c than to hummingbird cytochrome c; porpoise cytochrome c is much more similar to human cytochrome c than to shark cytochrome c. As stated earlier in prediction 3, the phylogenetic tree constructed from the cytochrome c data exactly recapitulates the relationships of major taxa as determined by the completely independent morphological data (McLaughlin and Dayhoff 1973). These facts only further support the idea that cytochrome c sequences are independent of phenotypic function (other than the obvious requirement for a functional cytochrome c that transports electrons).
The point of this prediction is subtly different from prediction 3, "Convergence of independent phylogenies." The evidence given above demonstrates that for many ubiquitous functional proteins (such as cytochrome c), there is an enormous number of equivalent sequences which could form that protein in any given organism. Whenever we find that two organisms have the same or very similar sequences for a ubiquitous protein, we know that something fishy is going on. Why would these two organisms have such similar ubiquitous proteins when the odds are astronomically against it? We know of only one reason for why two organisms would have two similar protein sequences in the absence of functional necessity: heredity. Thus, in such cases we can confidently deduce that the two organisms are genealogically related. In this sense, sequence similarity is not only a test of the theory of common descent; common descent is also a deduction from the principle of heredity and the observation of sequence similarity. Finally, the similarity observed for cytochrome c is not confined to this single ubiquitous protein; all ubiquitous proteins that have been compared between chimpanzees and humans are highly similar, and there have been many comparisons.
Without assuming the theory common descent, the most probable result is that the cytochrome c protein sequences in all these different organisms would be very different from each other. If this were the case, a phylogenetic analysis would be impossible, and this would provide very strong evidence for a genealogically unrelated, perhaps simultaneous, origin of species (Dickerson 1972; Yockey 1992; Li 1997).
Furthermore, the very basis of this argument could be undermined easily if it could be demonstrated (1) that species specific cytochrome c proteins were functional exclusively in their respective organisms, or (2) that no other cytochrome c sequence could function in an organism other than its own native cytochrome c, or (3) that a mechanism besides heredity can causally correlate the sequence of a ubiquitous protein with a specific organismic morphology.
I told you and your friends - pick the strongest one and discuss it here - several times. As to copyright law, that's a new excuse! Plus all of them have already been posted on FR anyway. Post it here. The name of a link is proof of nothing. Stop making excuses. And no you don't even have to post the whole article - just a relevant paragraph or two. You guys have no proof and what you call proof is totally laughable so you always refuse to post it where all can see.
Creationists trying to discredit a fossil for showing the very transitional character demanded by creationists in the first place is just another old-hat game. Gish attacking Pakicetus for having fully terrestrial legs--"What kind of whale is that?"--comes to mind.
In other words, if the "ancestor" species offered as evidence of evolution is notably different from the descendant, scoff and demand transitionals. Do this no matter how many proposed ancestors form the chain and how logical the sequence may appear.
Of course, if the difference is imperceptible between ancestor and descendant, scoff and say so. Either way, you get to scoff.
You scoffed away the reptile-to-mammals skull series, claiming that the author of the article had simply done a lot of creative drawing. (Did he make up all the references to the paleontological literature too?) Funny, there's this overwhelming pile of evidence, but gore simply waves hands, calls a few people liars and fakers, and it's all gone--at least from gore's mind. But there's a separate line of evidence that Cuffey didn't tie in and of which I for one was unaware at the time.
You know how we can see the reptilian jaw reforming to become the mammalian earbones, in nice easy stages, in the fossil record? You can see the same thing happening in mammalian embryos, pigs and humans that I know for sure.
I pinged you on another thread about this after I linked some articles, but you didn't answer.
Fine, I see Stultis picked a nice one in 617. I'd have picked that one, myself.
But why do you try to turn every thread you're on into every thread you've ever been on? Why do you remember nothing, nothing, nothing?
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