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.

Note all the redundancies. Lotta ways to skin a cat there.

I am quite aware of the above. However, I am quite aware that exactly the same, means exactly the same - no changes. In addition to which, when scientists, real scientists write the DNA code for a gene, they do not write it that way. They just use letters for each of the 20 amino acids produced. That is what they sequence for, so you lose again.

Also, if you know the above, you certainly know that DNA is the code that makes the proteins, so your whole argument about proteins and DNA having nothing to do with each other was a blatant lie.

When you finally catch up on this thread, your cheeks are going to really burn.

Well I finally caught up with the thread and it shows you to be a complete liar. Clearly you do not mind lying for evolution, making yourself look like an idiot for evolution, or playing childish games for evolution. Just as you misrepresented my statements you knew darned well that the relationship between the DNA code and the proteins produced are identical. So yes, you have proven yourself a liar. Congratulations!

Oh, and by the way, the article you gave as proof of macro-evolution is still bunk. It is self-contradictory as I showed in my original post -before you started with the lies and obfuscations.

Darwin was a fink.
Glad you saw my proof of Darwin's advocacy of eugenics.

The platypus is my chosen creature.
Well, don't know about that, but no one here has yet shown a credible ancestor of the platypus.

The fossil record is bunk.
Indeed it is - at least as far as proving evolution. After 150 years they are still looking for the missing links between the major orders of creatures on earth.

All evolutionists are slimers.
Not all, however many are and that is why they get their posts pulled.

Don't think; don't ask questions.
If you say so, I will take your word that it is true of you.

Join the Taliban and fight against the infidels.
It would not be a Patrick Henry post without an insult to religion.

The skull is reported as "more generalized." That means "less specialized." That means "not yet fully a platypus." It's a transitional. That's what you wanted, right? (WRONG!)

No what I want is for someone to show the descent of the traits of the platypus from one specific species. You have lots of species to pick from - over a million living species and perhaps ten times that which are extinct. Can you not find just one from which the platypus's features might have descended?

A lot of people who had supported the Rosenburgs, once finally convinced of Julius' guilt, clutched desperately to the idea that Ethel was 'innocent.'

This is good enough for a whole other thread. You may be right, but from what I've read, including a later recantation from a star witness shows me she was innocent. The FBI jailed her to put pressure on Julius to confess and give up the whole spy ring, and when he didn't spill everything, they had no choice but to proceed with her prosecution or they'd look bad.

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.

Wrong. In a created world, I would assume that unless a particular protein is involved directly in a process that makes one species different from another, i.e. a "furry" protein for cats vs. a "naked" protein for humans, it should have the identical sequence, both at nucleotide and at amino acid levels, and an identical function. From a creationist standpoint, there is absolutely no reason exposure to a certain toxin should be lethal to a guinea pig while a several fold higher dose merely causes a persistant rash in humans. The same protein mediates both responses. The sequence is similar, but not identical in both species. Evolution, not creation, explains the wide variance in response to the toxin.

In the paragraph above the only major point we disagree on is the effect of mendellian genetics on evolution...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.

It is really irrelevant whether Darwin knew about Mendel's work or not. He knew enough about genetics to know that certain observable phenotypes may be passed from parent to offspring.

What mendellian genetics shows is that it is very difficult, if not impossible to pass on a new trait throughout an entire population.

It shows nothing of the sort. A favorable mutation is one that, by definition, confers a survival advantage to the organism. An organism with an advantage has a better chance of reproducing, thus of spreading the mutation. An unfavorable mutation tends to be bred out of a population, and a neutral mutation remains in the population at pretty much a stable frequency. The spread of mutations throughout a population is not random, nor does it take a long time. This is all basic biology, which is usually taught in freshman level biology courses.

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.

Actually, a couple of billion years is an inconceivable amount of time. Consider how quickly the flu virus mutates itself, or how quickly bacteria develop resistances to new antibiotics, or insects to new pesticides. These events take only a handful of years.

And let's not forget, it was the "brilliant" scientists of the day who wanted to kill Galileo for stating that the planet earth revolved around the sun, and not vice-versa.

Those scientists were in the church's pocket, they toed the party line because to do otherwise was dangerous. And it was the church that had Galileo arrested for his heresy in contradicting the Bible's verision of things.

This seems to somewhat mirror the modern heresy of evolution.

So ore-gay's an oll-tray but I won't ell-tay.
Oh, cut it out! Just say it: he lives under a bridge.

Ah, the fascinating evolution of language in action! Remember, a troll such as gore3000 is not a creature who lives under a bridge. A troll is a fisherman.

Let scientists prove that God did not create the universe, and does not exist. Good luck.

Let you prove that the Invisible Pink Unicorn (PBUHH) did not create the world with a trampling of Her hooves. We have text records given to man by Her Pinkness "which explain the origin of everything including the spiritual rebelliousness exhibited by those who have no Faith."

Good luck disproving that.

It isn't as though the evolutionary scientists were here first, and then these religious interlopers came along trying to inject their radical ideas about Creation into the world.

You're mixing religion and science. There was no scientific theory for origins, only ancient creation myths (in your case, started by polytheistic nomadic desert tribes, later edited to reconcile the more recent monotheistic version with the original polytheistic one).

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.

Actually, it's more or less one gene, one function, unless you are referring to the production of antibodies, which is a completely different matter.

What I was talking about is the physical movement of a piece of DNA from one location to another, either on the same chromosome or another. In lower organisms, this kind of shuffling is quite common; the fruit fly, for example, has enzymes for just this purpose. Where the new functions can arise is this: Proteins are modular, with regions of highly ordered structure. There really aren't that many different structures that occur in proteins--alpha helices, beta sheets, random coils--and protein functions are determined chemically, by the type of amino acid (acidic, basic, hydrophobic, hydrophilic, etc.) predominant at any particular region of the protein. Suppose, by their biochemistries, that Protein X can attach to DNA, and Protein Y can bind to a hormone, and a shuffling event occurs such that a new Protein XY is produced, having both properties. Furthermore, by mutating the DNA binding site, the protein can attach to a different DNA sequence, and by mutating the hormone binding site, the protein will recognize a different hormone. Voilà, new proteins with new functions.

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.

You can't embrace the idea of "micro-evolution" while rejecting the idea of "macro-evolution." It is all the same thing.

This historical text upon which you spit has made thousands of predictions through the prophecy of God's elect, of which a handful remain to be fulfilled, and you say that I have to prove it's accuracy?

Let me guess, you believe Nostradamus too?

How do you think these psychics (con men & women) stay in work today? If you word a prediction correctly, and only push occurrences that can be fit into the wording, you too can be thought of as a great predictor.

I've seen James Randi do a cold reading just like Sylvia Browne did, and he very impressed the audience. Of course later he showed them it was all a sham and exposed his methods. But people keep believing...

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