Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@wandeljw,

Heres what the Discovery Institute claims wrt the conditions behind the suit

Quote:

It’s amazing to me how many Darwinists are willing to embrace government censorship in order to prop up their favored theory. It’s equally amazing to me how few Darwinists understand the key difference between what private groups can do (they can sometimes discriminate based on viewpoint) and what government agencies are allowed to do (they must treat all citizens equally, regardless of viewpoint). These issues are coming out with full force in discussions spurred by the Los Angeles Times story this week highlighting the California Science Center’s censorship last October of a privately-sponsored screening of the pro-intelligent design film Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record.

On a radio show this week, someone defended the Science Center’s censorship of Darwin’s Dilemma by equating intelligent design to Holocaust denial and arguing that the Science Center’s censorship was no different from the Simon Wiesenthal Center (a private group) denying someone permission to screen a Holocaust-denial film at its Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

The fact that some Darwinists can’t resist comparing intelligent design to Holocaust denial tells one more about their own insecurity and incivility than it does about the legitimacy of intelligent design. The debate over whether nature is the product of intelligence or a blind process is one of the great debates of Western Civilization, and significant numbers of philosophers, scientists, and other scholars have espoused some form of intelligent design over the past century, including the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Alfred Wallace! Comparing support for intelligent design to Holocaust denial is a shameful effort to suppress open debate by smear tactics. This tactic is especially appalling given the clear historical connection between Darwinism and the development of Nazi ideology itself. Given the role played by Darwinism in the ideology of the Holocaust, one would think that modern Darwinists would be a little squeamish in equating their critics to Holocaust deniers.

DARWINIST "SMEAR TACTICS"notwithstanding, the comparison between what the California Science Center did and the hypothetical case of the Simon Wiesenthal Center completely misses the point. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is a private entity, and so it certainly has the legal right to limit the rental of its facilities to those who support its mission.

But the California Science Center is a government agency, not a private organization. As a part of California state government, the Science Center is required to abide by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

The emphases are mine. I especially like the DI's appeal to the Constitution, when all they wish to do is circumvent it with their dogma. Why dont they make their appeal, instead of free speech, be based more on Freedom of religious practice? That would demolish their attempts at appearing like real scientists instead of the clergy they really are.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

It's not possible for them to even "appear" like scientists when their primary message is based on some imagined god who created everything.

It's up to them to prove their first and primary claim that a god exists. It can't be done.

Everything else they claim is moot.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Their attempt is to pass as agnostic on that issue CI. When the entire Dover case transpirede, it was the attempt by the DI to "make believe" that Intelligent Design was not tied to a god, thus, in their minds it was a valid science. To this day they cannot provide any data for their claim for universal design. The website sponsored by the DI which was supposed to feature design research is still rather void, and its now four years later since its launch on the web.If you recall, they posted grand plans to present all kinds of research into the concept of design (from a positive standpoint), instead they, like their cousins the Creationists, are only busy trying to critique standard science, in this case the paleontological research behind the Cambrian fossil assemblage.

I never get bored reading their stuff, its as circular as some of the posters herein.

2 Replies

@farmerman,

You two obviously think that these people to whom you refer are stark, staring mad and that you are the only sane posters herein. Which is, of course, circular.

As sane people you must be correct in everything you say, and they must be incorrect, which is proof that the premiss you start with, that you are correct at all times, is a scientific fact. Which is really quite comforting and not that difficult to do. A bit similar to wanking actually except that it can last all day.

One might understand your position if the mad ones were all incarcerated in asylums and prevented from communicating their crazy ideas to the ignorant and superstitious masses but the reality seems to be somewhat different. Not only are they running loose and making waves but they comprise a large body of the population and they have been to the very same schools and colleges you have been to. Indeed, some of them are very highly qualified and have had a fair degree of success in life.

How many of the graduates at degree ceremonies are stark staring mad?

The attention you pay them doesn't sit comfortably with the status you allocate to them as mad people. One might casually refer to the antics of mad people now and again but to be obsessed with them to the extent of not answering a couple of simple questions put to you on this thread just recently and to be seen constantly coming back to them as if your lives depended upon it strongly suggests that you respect them far more than you really ought to do in view of the fact that they are all nuts.

Perhaps an intensive indoctrination programme into the paleontological research behind the Cambrian fossil assemblage would bring them all back to their senses. One really ought to do what what can to help mad people to become sane and normal like you two. Continually harping on their madness seems to me to be an exercise in futility.

2 Replies

UPDATE ON OHIO SCIENCE TEACHER HEARING

Quote:

Mount Vernon science teacher's survey addressed faith
(By Dean Narciso, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, December 30, 2009)

Incoming students to John Freshwater's eighth-grade science class were asked if they could survive in a course where textbooks were used only partially and whether religion was important to them, according to questionnaires Mount Vernon school officials found in his classroom.

An attorney for the school district introduced the forms yesterday as evidence that Freshwater should be fired from his teaching job.

The forms, completed at the start of the school year, were discovered after Freshwater was accused in early 2008 of teaching creationism and intelligent design in addition to science, said David Millstone, the attorney representing the school district.

The Mount Vernon school board, in a 2008 vote, said it intended to fire Freshwater for promoting religion in the classroom, failing to remove religious materials including his personal Bible, and burning crosses on students' arms. He first is entitled to an independent hearing after which a referee will make a recommendation to the board.

Freshwater has denied the allegations against him, saying this month that he might have talked about religion in the classroom to illustrate how bias and "faulty science" can affect the learning process.

Millstone asked Freshwater yesterday whether he had ever surveyed incoming students. Freshwater said he hadn't.

But when he was shown at least two completed student questionnaires, he studied them closely and, after a long pause, replied, "It appears like you have gone through my room and taken some stuff out."

One questionnaire, called a Multiple Intelligence Survey, asked students personal questions including whether religion was important to them.

Millstone asked Freshwater several questions about another survey, in which students apparently were shown a prehistoric fossil called a trilobite and asked to describe it.

One student said trilobites became extinct in Ohio about 400 million years ago and that one had been found with a human shoeprint or footprint.

Freshwater denied telling students that trilobites had existed with humans, but he did confirm showing the fossils.

Millstone used Freshwater's testimony from the 14-month-long hearing, his deposition in a federal lawsuit filed by a former student and the transcript of an independent investigation against him to catch him in apparent contradictions.

Asked if he referred students to Answers in Genesis, a religious Web site, Freshwater said no. Later, he reversed that statement, admitting that he had. "I'm not sure that you're taking it out of context," he said.

Freshwater, who is on unpaid leave pending the hearing, has said his rights were violated in part because investigators hired by the district didn't interview enough witnesses and mischaracterized his statements.

According to an investigative transcript, Freshwater was asked whether he ever prayed with kids at after-school meetings for Christian athletes.

"Yeah, if the kids are praying. I'm praying all the time," he told an investigator, according to a transcript that Freshwater provided. "It may be verbal. It may not."

"Would it be fair to conclude that you pray with kids?" Millstone asked yesterday.

Freshwater said it would be unfair. The investigators "should have went into greater detail."

2 Replies

@wandeljw,

He has a great future teaching for the Creation Research Institute, they will buy any craziness.

0 Replies

@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

UPDATE ON OHIO SCIENCE TEACHER HEARING

Quote:
Mount Vernon science teacher's survey addressed faith
(By Dean Narciso, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, December 30, 2009)

But when he was shown at least two completed student questionnaires, he studied them closely and, after a long pause, replied, "It appears like you have gone through my room and taken some stuff out."

Awww, poor guy, caught red-handed. It's so sad.

0 Replies

@spendius,

you are making no sense as usual. Who said anything about being stark staring mad? You employ the tools of the Creationists, (exaggeration,miscue,mischaracterization) quite well, perhaps you should send your resume to the Discovery Institute, they also go around making believe that they are only interested in science while, at the same time, they wish to prepare the way for the second coming of Christ.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi wrote:

Quote:

Not only are they running loose and making waves but they comprise a large body of the population and they have been to the very same schools and colleges you have been to.

It does not matter squat which school one matriculates from. It also doesn't matter who their parents are; good and evil people come from good and bad genes, the environment, and all religions.

Your inability to realize the simplest of facts and reality shows why your outlook are usually on the wrong track. You really don't understand the world in which you live, and I daresay that it's because of your cloistered life.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Who said anything about being stark staring mad?

You lot and on many occasions. You just did again in that very post. Obviously "making believe" and "preparing the way for the second coming of Christ" are both synonymous with stark staring mad as are many other expressions anti-IDers have used all along the thread.

The DI, like the defence at Dover, is hamstrung by an acute sensitivity to the feelings of the female relatives and friends it is associated with and also those of the educated gentlemen regarding the scientific facts relating to those species which have no religion.

I'm very surprised, once again, to see you resorting to expressions such as--"you are making no sense as usual". Such expressions make no sense.

My post made perfect sense and you being unable to counter it in any other way leaves it standing without a glove being laid upon it.

1 Reply

@spendius,

We can now add "evil" to "stark, staring mad".

Secure mental asylums are designed for such people.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

The DI site is full of nearly all (not very cleverly hidden) political rambling, still hell bent on labeling all evolution scientists "Darwinists," as if that was a nasty word (we know they want to anchor their whole ID theory and what Darwin didn't know). I just watched NOVA's "What Darwin Never Knew," (for the second time) which followed along what Darwin admitted he couldn't know at the time. It was thorough in its examination of how the 23 Chromosomes, 23,000 genes which is about the same as all animal life (scientists before these studies believe they'd find humans had an huge difference in gene count, up a a million) and that large percentage of the double Helix that appeared to be useless garbage (dark matter, if you will). Turns out, that collection of molecules have a purpose -- to send signals to the genes actually capable of making changes and being directed by other other molecules based on environmental and other changes. The example of a small mouse which had fur matching the surrounding soil to protect it from getting picked off by a hawk, or other predatory bird. Black soil had appeared in areas and the little mouse adapted by changing its fur color to black (yet the underside remained light brown).

The animated illustration of how similar embryos of other animals are to human embryos was really dramatic. Some human embryos have not evolved past the weasel from across the pond on this forum.

You could slap those guys at DI in the face with evidence and they would think it's a chiffon pie.

3 Replies

@Lightwizard,

I saw an interesting tv program about a week ago where some company on the east coast have developed a way to grow human limbs. I believe this is the precursor to the ability to humans to do almost anything about "creating" life.

1 Reply

@Lightwizard,

He doesn't care about facts; only the consequences of learning facts. Better to be ignorant than face reality when it changes his perceptions.

0 Replies

I found this on the regrowth of limbs:

Quote:

March 23, 2008
Medicine's Cutting Edge: Re-Growing Organs
The Future Is Here: Regenerative Powder, Ink Jet Heart Cells And Custom-Made Body Parts

The field of regenerative medicine works under the theory that organs can be grown outside the body. The science could revolutionize organ transplants and make big bucks. Wyatt Andrews reports.
* Video Powder Mends Severed Finger

"Only On The Web": Lee Spievack lost his finger tip in a model airplane propeller. His brother, an expert in regenerative medicine, sent him a special powder. Within weeks, his finger was healed.

* Lee Spievack sliced off a half-inch of this finger " but with the help of doctors and a special medical powder, he grew it back.

Lee Spievack sliced off a half-inch of this finger " but with the help of doctors and a special medical powder, he grew it back. (CBS)

(CBS) Imagine re-growing a severed fingertip, or creating an organ in the lab that can be transplanted into a patient without risk of rejection. It sounds like science fiction, but it's not. It's the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine, in which scientists are learning to harness the body's own power to regenerate itself, with astonishing results. Correspondent Wyatt Andrews brings you to the scientific frontier.
Three years ago, Lee Spievack sliced off the tip of his finger in the propeller of a hobby shop airplane.

What happened next, Andrews reports, propelled him into the future of medicine. Spievack's brother, Alan, a medical research scientist, sent him a special powder and told him to sprinkle it on the wound.

"I powdered it on until it was covered," Spievack recalled.

To his astonishment, every bit of his fingertip grew back.

"Your finger grew back," Andrews asked Spievack, "flesh, blood, vessels and nail?"

"Four weeks," he answered.

Andrews spoke to Dr. Steven Badylak of the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine and asked if that powder was the reason behind Spievack's new finger tip.

"Yes, it is," Badylak explained. "We took this and turned it into a powdered form."

That powder is a substance made from pig bladders called extracellular matrix. It is a mix of protein and connective tissue surgeons often use to repair tendons and it holds some of the secrets behind the emerging new science of regenerative medicine.

"It tells the body, start that process of tissue regrowth," said Badylak.

Badlayk is one of the many scientists who now believe every tissue in the body has cells which are capable of regeneration. All scientists have to do is find enough of those cells and "direct" them to grow.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

A finger tip is a far cry from an arm.

2 Replies

@edgarblythe,

edgar, You're right. Here's what I found on the web.

Quote:

I am amazed by how my Axolotl Sally's leg is growing back! I'm unsure how it was removed in the first place , but perhaps Xena mistook it for her favourite food - a worm!.. If only humans were able to regenerate limbs like this , I think that scientists need to keep exploring ways to make this possible for human kind!.. This has prompted me to do my own online research on the matter and well call me slow but it seems that the scientists are already on the ball with human cell regeneration but it's going to be awhile before we are able to grow back limbs..

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@Lightwizard,

That's useless garbage (dark matter, if you will) Wiz. It partakes of mere description with labels of what, I presume, somebody else has described. It does nothing for the understanding. There is no attempt to discuss the nature of chromosomes, how they work and where they derive from. It's very psuedo-science. And the same with genes. These words are used merely in the service of trying to fake the impression that you know what you are talking about and they convey the opposite impression to anybody with a reasonable intelligence.

At least some mention of the excitation-contraction coupling processes in respect of the isometric and isotonic twitch mechanisms in the striation patterns of the myofibril structures under, say, double gins conditions and Horlicks type ones in various locations defined by class, education and geography and at different temporal settings is the least we can expect despite those being but a fragment of the business you are trying to educate us on as if we are all kiddywinkies.

I'll take your word for it that the DI site "is full of nearly all (not very cleverly hidden) political rambling" . But what isn't? Picking the DI out from the welter of not very cleverly hidden political ramblings exposes your subjective prejudices clearly to view.

By piling similar garbage high at least Darwin convinced some people that he knew what was going on and why but your's is too puny to convince anybody.

Do you think differences in our genetic inheritance from that of the animal world in respect of the unique length of our dependence on Mamma for sustenance, comfort and love weighs more in the scale than these chromosomes and genes you so glibly speak of. People don't use the expression Alma Mater for no reason.

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

It's definitely worth watching this 2 hr. NOVA -- a very good summation of where we are with evolution science today and inspires looking into a lot of the details in science journals. Of course, one could get lost in picking through so much material and it's always easier to check science journalist's articles, one against the others, to confirm new information.

Of course, some believe they already have it all figured out and don't like the proven scientific knowledge's message so will continue with their old, dried up, fuddy-duddy bias until there are no longer any tides.

1 Reply

@Lightwizard,

And what pray is the proven scientific knowledge's message Wiz relating to what shape immpressionable little minds, which we are relying on for when we start doddering on the perch, should be shaped into?

All mind shapes are arranged to make the best fit with the environment they are in. Extinction awaits anything else and often awaits the shaped ones too.

How do you see the fit between the mind shape you are promoting and the environment you are in.

One can, of course, get lost in picking through so much material which is involved but it is a profound scientific question and you need to provide some sort of answer before seeking to bring in radical changes.

I saw an animal under a slide
Wiggling and stretching from side to side
Didn't look like it could build a dome
I think I'll call it a chromosome.

And "chromosome" is an unscientific word in my opinion. The "chromo" part relates to the observed capacity of the entity you have lassooed with a name to be stained by certain dyes. And dyes are a very recent invention, a million years at a stretch, compared to this thingy which is probably giving you the urge to smack me in the teeth. Your Id say. That's another name. It is one to conjure with. Id--ID--geddit? The "some" derives from the "soma" but that's a dirty word on this thread. It's one of the many things, though related to the rest, which many bold and intrepid scientific investigators find to be a load of crap. Which is not unexpected.

I'm wondering if it might be a phallic symbol. It's definitely anthropomorphic and that's not science. But that's a quibble I'll readily admit. Science is about when you see some shiny globules of waste on the floor of the glass-blowers shop and you pick a few up to take home and play with and you find that by holding one an inch from your eye and the other at a bent arm's length you can get a view of the nunnery bedroom windows which had never been known before to be overlooked. One would soon start polishing them. Okay--some of the images were distorted like you see in those mirrors in fun fairs but trial and error is a fine procedure. Having got quickly bored with that the surroundings might easily be next. And then lying in bed thinking. Mainly about how many ducats you could wring out of the tight-wads in the Vatican.

And no patent office too.

So the fine ladies' tastes, ever changing as a matter of course, in expensive and novel glassware for their dinner parties and salons is the source of the microscope and thus the chromosome. The waste.

Show us some science Wiz. Wordplay doesn't butter any parsnips with me.

1 Reply

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