The evolving Darwin debate

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.

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.

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 a highly conserved gene to have had only one mutation since humans and chimps diverged.

Your usual garbage.

First of all the article says the cytochrome c's of chimps and humans are identical. ARE YOU NOW SAYING THAT THE ARTICLE THAT YOU AND OTHERS CONSTANTLY GIVE AS PROOF OF EVOLUTION WAS A LIE?????????

Second of all, cytochrome c is the gene chosen by evolutionists for their 'molecular clock' because it changes so much between species.

Therefore Vade, the question needs to be posed - are your article and the majority of evolutionists lying or are you lying? Take your choice.

First of all the article says the cytochrome c's of chimps and humans are identical. ARE YOU NOW SAYING THAT THE ARTICLE THAT YOU AND OTHERS CONSTANTLY GIVE AS PROOF OF EVOLUTION WAS A LIE?????????

No, I am not. Calm down.

I agree that the cytochrome cs are identical.

I also insist that there has been one mutation to the genome.

I also insist that you cannot have carefully read the article you claim to have rebutted. How do I know this?

You have delusions of adequacy.

I am going to tell you something Vade, if you disagree with what I post, if you think it's wrong - PROVE IT. There is no call for insults and it only shows your utter desperation in seeing your phony atheistic/materialist theory torn to shreds and not being able to defend it with facts.

Second of all, cytochrome c is the gene chosen by evolutionists for their 'molecular clock' because it changes so much between species.

Again, no. That statement's as well founded as your assertion that DNA evidence has eliminated a hippo-whale relationship. It's as well-founded as your statement that no amino acids have ever been found in a meteorite.

It is without foundation.

since man and chimp branched apart over 5 million years ago..-me-

You really do believe in evolution.

No I do not. I forgot to put a caveat on there like supposedly or according to evolutionists, in that you are correct. However, I put enough of them in my statements to make it quite clear that I do not.

I am going to tell you something Vade, if you disagree with what I post, if you think it's wrong - PROVE IT. There is no call for insults and it only shows your utter desperation in seeing your phony atheistic/materialist theory torn to shreds and not being able to defend it with facts.

I see you're back to crying to the moderator when your tactics generate the reaction such obvious dishonesty is going to generate. I refer to the deletion of 660.

If you really want respect, try being respectable.

No single species has even close to a half of the distinct characteristics of the platypus which I stated in the post you responded to. -me-

I doubt everyone would agree. There are lots of funny animals out there.

You were posed a challenge and you have failed miserably in meeting it so in total Darwinian fashion you try to explain it away by putting the burden of proof on others than yourself. You have insulted me many times for making the claim that the platypus disproves evolution. You have not met the challenge and I have proven my claim. So go back to work and find the species which has all those eleven traits of the platypus. Facts talk, rhetoric walks.

You were posed a challenge and you have failed miserably in meeting it so in total Darwinian fashion you try to explain it away by putting the burden of proof on others than yourself.

Your disproofs of evolution consist of your infallible ability to misunderstand same, to ignore evidence, to remember nothing, and to abuse logic.

Facts talk, rhetoric walks.

Bozo squawks.

It's a highly conserved gene to have had only one mutation since humans and chimps diverged.

in post#650 you said the above, you now say:

I agree that the cytochrome cs are identical.
I also insist that there has been one mutation to the genome.

You are trying to weasel out of your statement. Furthermore, even your last statement is contradictory (like the article that Stultis posted and you agreed was the best proof of evolution in those 29 evidences). Things cannot be identical if there is something different about them. If you try to weasel out of that by saying that you were speaking of the total genome of man and chimp then that is also nonsense since there is far more difference between man and chimp than one DNA base pair difference in the 3 billion DNA base pairs in humans and chimps.

Therefore, it is way more than a lack of fossils that is at work here, there is a complete lack of even the remotest proof of any descent of the platypus from any single species. -me-

No.

What a brilliant refutation! How many years did you research that answer?

What a brilliant refutation! How many years did you research that answer?

A better question, how many times have I already told you? But still you say there is nothing.

Two species of Obduron, one Steropodon, and one Monotrematum sudamericanum. Not much, but 4 does not equal zero. Thus, "No."

You've also been saying dicksoni is only a bit of jawbone.

This was followed in 1985 by a spectacular find: an almost complete skull of a fossil platypus about 15 to 20 million years old. This has been named Obdurodon dicksoni (Archer, Jenkins, Hand, Murray, & Godthelp. 1992; Archer, Hand, & Godthelp, 1994). Its skull is more generalized, and about 25% longer, than that of the modern platypus. Some other fossils, including a partial lower jaw, have since been discovered at Riversleigh.

So, you're going to drop that, right? A nearly complete skull and a partial jaw is more than a partial jaw, would you agree?

Since the evolutionist assumption that non-coding DNA was disproven, and since other evolutionist assumptions that "useless" organs were not useless such as the appendix and the tonsils, I think evolutionists have a very big credibility problem when they make such claims. Therefore, it is now up to the evolutionists to prove that non-coding DNA is indeed junk. It is an assumption without any proof to back it. The statement that non-coding DNA is not junk, has been proven. In addition, even with genes, we do not know what all of them do. However, enough have been proven to have a purpose that no one assumes that the rest of them do not have a purpose. Scientific assumptions are only legitimate when they have facts to back them up. The evolutionist assumption that junk DNA is junk is not science, it is total nonsense. As I said about medicine regarding the appendix and the tonsils, I can also say about biologists - lucky they did not listen to the phony theory of the Darwinists otherwise we would have closed up some of the most interesting discoveries yet to be made.

I'm going off for the night and don't want to leave you in suspense.

There are 10⁴⁹ ways to code just that one version of cytochrome c that humans and chimps share. The proteins are identical. The genomes responsible differ by one base pair, a difference that happens to be non-functional.

All of which and more the 29 Evidences article you've supposedly "been there and done" explains fully. You need to give it a real study sometime, with the brain switch in the ON position.

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