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To: That Subliminal Kid
Unfortunately, he never ads anything to these discussions. He just makes snide comments and slings ad homs around hoping against hope that someone somewhere will view him in the same light as the few genuinely rational people on these threads. It's really kind of pathetic, and it would be sad if it weren't so damned funny.

and what have you added to this thread other than exactly the same you claim the others have done. In the one paragraph I clipped from your post, you make snide comments, throw around ad hominem attacks, and generally say nothing.

Thanks for your input

264 posted on 06/17/2002 9:22:10 AM PDT by dmz
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To: dmz
He's added this gem of self-abnegation:

I wont go on a tirade against science like you have against religion as I feel I am above that. Can you possibly humble yourself and do the same?

272 posted on 06/17/2002 9:28:08 AM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: All
The same issue of Scientific American which contains the lead article for this thread also has this editorial, which is related.
Preaching to the converted is unrewarding, so why should Scientific American publish an article about the errors of creationism? Surely this magazine's readers don't need to be convinced. Unfortunately, skepticism of evolution is more rampant than might be supposed. A Gallup poll from 1999 and a National Science Board poll from 2000 both revealed that close to half the American public rejects evolution. Inadequate education plays a part in this--confidence in evolution grows with schooling--but clearly a lot of remedial tutoring is in order: the NSB also determined that only about half the population recognized the statement "The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs" as false.

With respect to evolution and science education, this year has already had a mixed record. The state legislatures of Mississippi and Georgia considered bills that would have undermined the teaching of evolution (thankfully, the bills died in committee). The Cobb County Board of Education in Georgia voted to insert into new science textbooks a notice that evolution is "just one of several theories" about the diversity of life on earth. As of this writing, the Ohio Board of Education is still deciding whether to give equal time to the creationist ideas known as intelligent design.

Ideas deserve a fair hearing, but fairness shouldn't be an excuse for letting rejected, inadequate ideas persist. Intelligent design and other variants of creationism lack credible support and don't mesh with the naturalistic fabric of all other science. They don't deserve to be taught as legitimate scientific alternatives to evolution any more than flat-earth cosmology does.

Unfortunately, creationism's allies set up smoke screens. For example, writing in the Washington Times, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania claimed that the federal education bill signed into law this year contained a provision that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist." But biologist Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University has pointed out that the law says no such thing--the "Santorum amendment" was removed before the bill was signed.

Addressing the Ohio education board, two prominent advocates of intelligent-design theory, Jonathan Wells and Stephen C. Meyer, submitted a bibliography of 44 peer-reviewed papers that they said "challenge" evolutionary explanations for life's origins. Sleuthing by the National Center for Science Education revealed, however, that this list is less than it seems. The NCSE attempted to contact all the authors of those papers and heard from 26 of them, representing 34 of the 44 publications. None of those authors agreed that their work contradicted evolution, and most insisted that their work actually supported it (the complete story can be found at www.ncseweb.org).

Readers of Scientific American are well placed to expose ignorance and combat antiscientific thought. We hope that this article, and a new resource center for defending evolution at www.sciam.com, will assist them in doing so.

Source of this editorial: Bad Science and False Facts .
283 posted on 06/17/2002 9:38:15 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: dmz
What snide comments and ad homenim attacks have I made? I would suggest you look up the meaning of the words you're using. I have not made any ad homenim remarks, and of course, snideness is in the eye of the beholder.
297 posted on 06/17/2002 9:48:17 AM PDT by That Subliminal Kid
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