Darwin on trial: Evolution hearings open in Kansas

[pegwinn]

You lost your argument...back to debate 101 for you!

Where is debate 101 located?

I think that an Omnipotent Being could easily adjust seven days to however long he wanted, Hell I think that God could have simply blinked it all into being if he wanted.

What I believe actually happened is that God spoke the universe into existence (that would be that big bang) and guided it along much as you or I would guide a plant. I believe that Darwin was right. God did it and Mr D was smart enough to figure out the way he did it on a grand scale.

 

[archangel]

Where is debate 101 located?

I think that an Omnipotent Being could easily adjust seven days to however long he wanted, Hell I think that God could have simply blinked it all into being if he wanted.

What I believe actually happened is that God spoke the universe into existence (that would be that big bang) and guided it along much as you or I would guide a plant. I believe that Darwin was right. God did it and Mr D was smart enough to figure out the way he did it on a grand scale.

Your guess is as good as mine..Off hand I would say Air America radio...what say you?

 

[IControlThePast]

You lost your argument...back to debate 101 for you!

You've got me figured all wrong, I just don't like to embarass people in public. Check your PMs

 

[archangel]

You've got me figured all wrong, I just don't like to embarass people in public. Check your PMs

:clap1: :clap1: :clap1:

 

[archangel]

:clap1: :clap1: :clap1:

Another liberal bites the dust...where did he go when I gave him permission to post my answer to his pm...embarrassed I am not,however he must be! :moon4:

 

[Nienna]

Bio-chemical evolution on earth is an incontrovertible fact.

It is not a fact, but a theory which cannot be observed or repeated.

The evidence is overwhelming: the fossil record,

There has never been an example of a fossil "link" that stood up under scrutiny. Even evolutionists admit this.

radio-carbon dating,

has been proven to be extremely unreliable.

animal and plant morphology, the geographical distribution of related species, and the recorded genetic changes in living organisms over many generations.

These show natural selection and microevolution, but not biochemical evolution. Genetic change through mutation is a shuffling or loss of genetic information. These vehicles could never produce a man from a microbe. One cannot become a millionaire by losing a penny a day for 30 years. Neither could a man evolve from a microbe by losing one gene a century for 3 billion years.

None of that evidence will convince those who insist that the Bible is the literal word of God.

This is true.

So be it. Educate your children in a private school where religion trumps scientific evidence. Please do not insist that religion, disguised as unprovable pseudo-science, must be injected into public schools. I do not attend churches where the Bible is taught as the literal word of God to insist that they consider evolution. Why do they feel the need to inject their religion into public schools? Must everyone be taught their religion in public schools because evolution contradicts their beliefs?

Actually, where macroevolution is taught in schools, religion is being taught. This theory is founded on the premise of naturalism, which is the religious assumption that the universe could have arisen without supernatural aid. To teach both positions in the classroom is to restore scientific objectivity.

Nonsense. That is the same type of religious hysteria that confined Galileo to house arrest for the last years of his life. Religious conservatives, convinced that the Bible was the categorical word of God, locked up one of the brightest human beings to have ever lived. What was his crime? Galileo had the temerity to contradict the Bible by showing telescopic evidence that the Earth was not the center of the Universe.

Actually, this legend is false. Galileo, himself believed the Bible's account of creation and sought to show that the solar system was heliocentric. He was in trouble with the church for disobeying a papal decree, not for his scientific views.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/galileo.asp

 

[mrsx]

I see what you mean...

 

[Nienna]

I'll be a Bio major at a well respected university and made it through the highest levels of high school biology offered, so I'll give this a crack.

Congratulations to you! And good luck in your career!

ID is a reiteration of Paley's complexity argument which Darwin solved through natural selection. Yes, it even accounts for how these complex systems have arisen.

ID is indeed a modernized continuation of Paley's arguments. Darwin thought he had sloved this problem with the idea of natural selection. But, due to the time period in which Darwin lived, he was ignorant of much of the evidence. He said himelf that if it could ever be shown that an irreducibly complex system existed, his theory would fall. At his time, cells looked like simple blobs under the microscope. Now we know that there are many examples of irreducibly complex systems, in which, if one element is taken away, the entire system will not work. One example is the flagellar motor in bacteria. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4192msc1-10-2000.asp

Natural selection and mutation could never account for macroevolution, since they involve a loss of genetic information, not a gain.

The theory of evolution taught in schools is not one that deals with how the world started, at least not in Biology.

Perhaps your curriculum is different from the one in our area.

However, it is a theory better supported than many theories we use today, like Atomic Theory. Don't worry that the schools are trying to subvert your religious beliefs with Evolution.

Atomic theory has some indirect method of repeatable observation. Biochemical evolution cannot be repeated.

Schools have very effectively subverted Biblical beliefs with evolution by asserting that the Bible is unreliable where it touches on history and science. Popular scientific views are in direct conflict with the literal reading of Genesis. This has left the Bible open to "interpretation," allowing people to pick and choose which parts mean what they say or should be "interpreted" to mean the opposite (The "Biblical arguments used to support homsexuality are one example of this). Many have turned away from Christianity because of this theory. However, this is not a subject that can be covered in the schoolroom. What can be covered is the mention that alternative explanations for the origin of the universe do exist, a basic outline of what they are, and how observed scientific data fits or doesn't fit each model.

ID on the otherhand makes an ideological leap to an axiomatic assumption that a creator must exist based on the complexity argument. This is not a conclusion that could be scientifically drawn, plain and simple, so it should be kept to Philosophy classes. You can't say "We don't know how Egyptians built the pyramids, so therefore Aliens must have helped them." ID violates Occams Razor, a founding principle of science, and violates the rule of falsifiability. Of course, if there was a rational proof of God, then that would detract from the whole Christian Faith tenement.

I disagree with your application of Occam's (Ockham's) Razor (the logical principle that one should not make any more assupmtions than necessary, and one should choose the simplest explanation for a phenomenon). Evolutionists must make many more assumptions about the complexity of living organisms than creationists. The simpler explanation is that if it appears to be designed, it was. Rather, evolutionists cling to the belief that there must have been some other way, making many rationalizations to argue the point (the appearance of design is just a coincidence, or that the human brain seeks to recognize order, so it will impose order on otherwise neutral objects). These machinations actually muddy the debate. There is rational evidence for the Creator, if one would apply Occam's Razor, and "shave off" these extraneous assumptions.

 

[mrsx]

Oh-Oh, Toto

 

[IControlThePast]

Congratulations to you! And good luck in your career!

Thank you

ID is indeed a modernized continuation of Paley's arguments. Darwin thought he had sloved this problem with the idea of natural selection. But, due to the time period in which Darwin lived, he was ignorant of much of the evidence. He said himelf that if it could ever be shown that an irreducibly complex system existed, his theory would fall. At his time, cells looked like simple blobs under the microscope. Now we know that there are many examples of irreducibly complex systems, in which, if one element is taken away, the entire system will not work. One example is the flagellar motor in bacteria. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4192msc1-10-2000.asp

Darwin's views are archaic in light of modern Evolution, and he get's a lot of ideas unfairly assigned to his name. Darwin believed that Evolution was non-directional, that we didn't come from apes. It is possible to have an irreducibly complex system come through natural selection. Cooption is an important part in Biology, and it deals with how existing features become adapted for new functions, which can form "irreducibly" complex systems.

Natural selection and mutation could never account for macroevolution, since they involve a loss of genetic information, not a gain.

Perhaps your curriculum is different from the one in our area.
Atomic theory has some indirect method of repeatable observation. Biochemical evolution cannot be repeated.

Evolution can involve a loss of genetic information. Unfit phenotypes become extinct, leading their genotypes to do the same, "losing" the information. The curriculum is pretty standard from what I've seen, especially considering there is a nationally standardized test for the Bio classes that go deep into Evolution. Atomic Theory is an indirectly observable as macroevolution.

Schools have very effectively subverted Biblical beliefs with evolution by asserting that the Bible is unreliable where it touches on history and science. Popular scientific views are in direct conflict with the literal reading of Genesis. This has left the Bible open to "interpretation," allowing people to pick and choose which parts mean what they say or should be "interpreted" to mean the opposite (The "Biblical arguments used to support homsexuality are one example of this). Many have turned away from Christianity because of this theory. However, this is not a subject that can be covered in the schoolroom. What can be covered is the mention that alternative explanations for the origin of the universe do exist, a basic outline of what they are, and how observed scientific data fits or doesn't fit each model.

John Paul II even admitted in light of more recent discoveries the Church needs to consider Evolution more than a hypothesis. Science does conflict with a literal reading of Genesis, but I can assure you that in no public school does a course mention how science is related to Genesis. Like you've said, it doesn't occur in a schoolroom, so the schoolroom doesn't decide which way people think. I agree about the models, but only as long as we stick to scientific models, which would exclude Creationism and ID. We can talk about what we know of Egyptian construction methods and say that people aren't really sure, but we can't say that Aliens or God put the pyramids there.

I disagree with your application of Occam's (Ockham's) Razor (the logical principle that one should not make any more assupmtions than necessary, and one should choose the simplest explanation for a phenomenon). Evolutionists must make many more assumptions about the complexity of living organisms than creationists. The simpler explanation is that if it appears to be designed, it was. Rather, evolutionists cling to the belief that there must have been some other way, making many rationalizations to argue the point (the appearance of design is just a coincidence, or that the human brain seeks to recognize order, so it will impose order on otherwise neutral objects). These machinations actually muddy the debate. There is rational evidence for the Creator, if one would apply Occam's Razor, and "shave off" these extraneous assumptions.

Assumptions are axiomatic, and the "many more assumptions" are proven (through microevolution) pathways that proponents of ID also believe in. The only difference in belief is whether or not these pathways combined to form macroevolution. If there was something beyond these pathways, like the Creator in ID, that would need to be another assumption added, violating Occam's Razor.

 

[IControlThePast]

Another liberal bites the dust...where did he go when I gave him permission to post my answer to his pm...embarrassed I am not,however he must be! :moon4:

Some people have things to do during the day :tng:. As for Debate 101, that would happen to be in the city across the River Charles .

"Liberalism is a mental disease" you just proved it...Einstein a pacifist and socialist...bah hum bug! E=mc(2) ring a bell..."Manhattan Project"Where else would you like to take this debate?You are grasping for the mysterious straw that is non existant!

I would like to take this debate to you providing a more reliable argument with support from a reliable source rather than trying to create an argument out of three word sentence fragments. Maybe if I was trying that hardly cogent debate style you could accuse me of grapsing for a non-existant straw .

Einstein initially favored construction of the bomb, but once he saw what it did he immediately lobbied for nuclear disarmament. Look up the Einstein-Russell manifesto, and the Pugwash Conferences. There are also his explicitly pascifist and socialist statements I have listed. The FBI reccomended that Einstein be barred from immigrating to the US even because of his alleged affiliation with 34 Communist/Socialist fronts. He was so outspoken on his positions our own government considered him a possible spy.

You argue a good point,however he was still cleared to work on the "Manhattan project" So was the FBI overruled..or was the initial info flawed?

The FBI was overruled because of Einstein's importance to our government. He wasn't a spy but all of their information on Einstein's interaction with the socialist fronts. While acknowledging he was a socialist, the overrulers knew of Einstein's criticism of the repressive USSR, which could hardly even be called Communism, so those higher-ups doubted that he was working for the USSR.

Looking at the big picture, the point of listing the pascifist and socialist examples was "though you hold Einstein in high esteem, you don't believe everything Einstein said." Since Einstein was a self-proclaimed Socialist in the quotes I posted before, you are left with two options. (1) You don't believe Einstein was Socialist, therefore since Einstein declared he was a Socialist you don't believe everything Einstein said. (2) You believe Einstein was a Socialist, in which case you don't share his views and don't believe in everything he said. The debate of whether he actually was a Socialist is unnecessary for me to have even won the debate against you, but I shall continue to do it for bonus points .

 

[deaddude]

I am fine with teaching creation stories in schools. I am not fine with teaching one religions creation story and claiming it to be a science. First of all for you creation "science" people, let us assume that there is a higher power which did create the universe and that evolution did not occur. (That is a huge ******* assumption that I am going to give as a hypothetical out of the goodness of my heart) do you have any "scientific" evidence which can lead you to the nature of the higher power? That is to say if creation science is allowed to be taught in Kansas, Why shouldn't they be teaching the story of the Cosmic Egg? How about Ymir? Gaia and Uranus? Satan created God (yes there are creation stories like this)? The cosmic wheel? What "scientific" evidence backs your creation story and not these?

 

[IControlThePast]

I am fine with teaching creation stories in schools. I am not fine with teaching one religions creation story and claiming it to be a science. First of all for you creation "science" people, let us assume that there is a higher power which did create the universe and that evolution did not occur. (That is a huge ******* assumption that I am going to give as a hypothetical out of the goodness of my heart) do you have any "scientific" evidence which can lead you to the nature of the higher power? That is to say if creation science is allowed to be taught in Kansas, Why shouldn't they be teaching the story of the Cosmic Egg? How about Ymir? Gaia and Uranus? Satan created God (yes there are creation stories like this)? The cosmic wheel? What "scientific" evidence backs you creation story and not these?

Or you could ask "Who created the irreducibly complex Creator?"

 

[Nienna]

It is possible to have an irreducibly complex system come through natural selection. Cooption is an important part in Biology, and it deals with how existing features become adapted for new functions, which can form "irreducibly" complex systems.

Natural selection is a phenomenon embraced by creationists. Creatures can indeed learn to use existing features for new functions. However, macroevolution cannot explain how the features arose to begin with. Mutation and natural selection involve the loss or shuffling of genetic information. As I said before, a man could never become a millionaire by losing a penny a day for 30 years. In the same way, a microbe could never become a man by losing one gene a century for 3 billion years.

Atomic Theory is as indirectly observable as macroevolution.

One can split atoms in the lab and observe results thereof, or see the effects of quantum mechanics. These tests can also be repeated. No one has ever observed life from a non-living chemical concoction or one instance of a spontaneous appearance of a new gene. These would be an indirect way of observing macroevolution. The microevolution we observe actually serves to disprove macroevolution, for the reason I gave above. The genetic code is losing information, which is the opposite of what is needed to produce a man from a microbe.

John Paul II even admitted in light of more recent discoveries the Church needs to consider Evolution more than a hypothesis.

This is an example of how this pervasive philosophy affects people's religious beliefs, when the Pope does not even claim to have faith in the Bible.

Science does conflict with a literal reading of Genesis, but I can assure you that in no public school does a course mention how science is related to Genesis. Like you've said, it doesn't occur in a schoolroom, so the schoolroom doesn't decide which way people think.

Now, now... I give people a lot more credit for intelligence than that! Even if Genesis is not mentioned in the schoolroom, people are perfectly capable of seeing the conflict between a literal Genesis and the theory of evolution. This has led some to abandon their faith, others to compromise it. Who has more knowledge and authority? God or the men He created? In many, many cases, people believe that men do, since they adjust the Bible to fit around evolution rather than adjusting their theories of origin to fit the Bible. However, as I stated before, in this social climate, I would not expect this to be brought up in a science classroom.

I agree about the models, but only as long as we stick to scientific models, which would exclude Creationism and ID. We can talk about what we know of Egyptian construction methods and say that people aren't really sure, but we can't say that Aliens or God put the pyramids there.

Why do you say that Creationism and ID aren't "scientific"? Do they not observe data and test against the theory? Just because the theory involves a supernatural Being? Evidence of this Being is just as observable as evidence of a "Big Bang," if not more so. Once again, what you are seeing is the clash between two belief systems, atheism v/s belief in God. Why should one have exclusive coverage in the classroom?

Assumptions are axiomatic, and the "many more assumptions" are proven (through microevolution) pathways that proponents of ID also believe in. The only difference in belief is whether or not these pathways combined to form macroevolution. If there was something beyond these pathways, like the Creator in ID, that would need to be another assumption added, violating Occam's Razor.

No assumptions added. Both models assume a beginning. The universe had a beginning at some point. The axiom is "whatever has a beginning has a cause." This is self-evident. What model fits best? That an eternal Being (who had no beginning, and therefore needs no cause) created the universe, or that the universe created itself, making the assumption that it existed (in order to create itself) before it existed. This is a logical absurdity.

Saying "microevolution leads to macroevolution" is not axiomatic. It, too, is a logical absurdity. It is, in essence, saying that the process of losing genes, if given enough time, will result in creatures with more genetic information.

 

[archangel]

Some people have things to do during the day :tng:. As for Debate 101, that would happen to be in the city across the River Charles .



The FBI was overruled because of Einstein's importance to our government. He wasn't a spy but all of their information on Einstein's interaction with the socialist fronts. While acknowledging he was a socialist, the overrulers knew of Einstein's criticism of the repressive USSR, which could hardly even be called Communism, so those higher-ups doubted that he was working for the USSR.

Looking at the big picture, the point of listing the pascifist and socialist examples was "though you hold Einstein in high esteem, you don't believe everything Einstein said." Since Einstein was a self-proclaimed Socialist in the quotes I posted before, you are left with two options. (1) You don't believe Einstein was Socialist, therefore since Einstein declared he was a Socialist you don't believe everything Einstein said. (2) You believe Einstein was a Socialist, in which case you don't share his views and don't believe in everything he said. The debate of whether he actually was a Socialist is unnecessary for me to have even won the debate against you, but I shall continue to do it for bonus points .

Well since you want to increase your points...here you go.....
I will concede that Eisnstein was possibly a socialist...on the same level as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair...This does not address my main point which was....Einstein said "The more he learned the more he believed in a higher creator"Which was our original argument... which you sidetracked into what party he belonged too!

 

[IControlThePast]

Well since you want to increase your points...here you go.....
I will concede that Eisnstein was possibly a socialist...on the same level as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair...This does not address my main point which was....Einstein said "The more he learned the more he believed in a higher creator"Which was our original argument... which you sidetracked into what party he belonged too!

That's already been dealt with. You used that quote saying you'd believe Einstein before my comment on Evolution just because he was Einstein, a genius. I've shown that a higher creator and evolution aren't necessarily in conflict, therefore that the quote is not in defense of ID, and that you don't believe everything Einstein said even though he was that intelligent, so you don't really believe in that quote just because Einstein said it .

 

[Nienna]

Fair Play
The Intelligent Design Controversy Returns to Kansas
May 10, 2005

Americans believe in fair play. If a football or baseball team doesn't show up, it forfeits the game. If the defense lawyer in a trial puts on no case, the judge is likely to declare a summary judgment to the plaintiff. You play by the rules, or you don't play.

So why have so many evolutionists apparently decided that the rules don't apply to them?

This pattern is surfacing once again in Kansas, where you may remember a huge controversy broke out a few years ago, and the evolutionists squashed any other teaching in Kansas. This time the new state board of education is holding hearings to consider revisions that a group of scientists and educators has called for. These would allow Darwin's theory of evolution to be taught in schools, but they would permit scientific challenges to Darwinism to be taught as well.

In a hearing of this sort, you would expect the proposal to be argued on its merits. But instead, most evolutionists simply claim that the whole controversy is beneath them, and they try to make a laughingstock of their opponents. They act as if those simple Midwesterners are just too uneducated or unintelligent to understand the most basic scientific concepts. The title of Thomas Frank's recent book What's the Matter with Kansas?, a real putdown which deals with evolution and several other hot-button issues, says it all.

In this particular case, the New York Times reports that "Darwin's defenders are refusing to testify at [the] hearings," although they do have an attorney there to argue their case for them. But for the most part, they have stuck to trying the case in the media, judging their opponents' claims unworthy without even really giving them a fair hearing.

This has become a favorite tactic for many evolutionists when dealing with the claims of intelligent design. There's a good example of this in my forthcoming book, The Good Life, which tells the story of Lehigh professor Michael Behe. Behe published in 1998 a blockbuster book called Darwin's Black Box, in which he argued that the human cell is "irreducibly complex" and, therefore, could not have come about by evolution—all of the parts had to operate at the same time. Nobody challenged him for a long while, and then along came Dr. Richard Doolittle, the leading authority on cell structures in America. He published an article citing a study that he said disproved Behe. Behe went back and then checked the study and discovered that Doolittle had completely misread it: It confirmed Behe. Behe brought the matter to Doolittle's attention, and Doolittle admitted it. But he continued to insist that his own argument was correct, and he never publicly retracted his article.

How does a prominent scientist get away with such shoddy work? The pro-evolutionist forces have made it seem as if their arguments are the only ones worth considering, that's how. If Darwinism and naturalism are all there are, that's it, case closed—criticisms from intelligent design theorists aren't worth bothering about. It's an effective tactic, all right, because in the Times article, a physics teacher complained that people at scientific conferences laugh at her simply for being from Kansas—and she's pro-evolution! They have done their smear job well.

If you live in Kansas, stand your ground and demand the evolutionists deal with the facts, not name-call. If you're from another state, watch out for this tactic and alert your friends to what is going on here. The evolution lobby simply will not debate the merits because they know they will lose.

www.breakpoint.org

 

[archangel]

That's already been dealt with. You used that quote saying you'd believe Einstein before my comment on Evolution just because he was Einstein, a genius. I've shown that a higher creator and evolution aren't necessarily in conflict, therefore that the quote is not in defense of ID, and that you don't believe everything Einstein said even though he was that intelligent, so you don't really believe in that quote just because Einstein said it .

Please refrain from trying to put words in my mouth when you make your analogies...I will believe what I choose to believe not Hypothesis from a undergrad in training...thank you very much!

 

[mrsx]

I suspect that the evolutionists don't reply because they don't see themselves as "evolutionists." When Kansas gets around to teaching that the earth if flat - and it sure looks flat from Kansas, there won't be any geologists or astronomers rushing in to debate their claim. The "round earthers," like the "evolutionists" have moved on to other issues generations ago. I once saw a man in the Harvard Square MBTA station shouting that fire and brimstone were about to fall on Boston for its sins. No one from Harvard's faculty appeared to debate him on the topic. Perhaps they were scared because they knew he was right. If he was right, he was way ahead of his time. The incident happened 40 years ago.

 

[007]

Or you could ask "Who created the irreducibly complex Creator?"

Excelent question. I've pondered that one myself... to no avail. It's beyond the comprehension of a human.

Maybe one day man will have all the answers. Unfortunately for now, all we can do is speculate and argue our own points of view, of which no one here can prove they're right and another is wrong.

Some day about three trillion years from now, our sun is going to Nova, and then all this talk about where we came from won't matter anymore, because our home, the earth, and all that ever existed here will be gone forever. Our little solar system will just be another gas cloud in the never ending expanse of space.