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Ayatollahs in the classroom [Evolution and Creationism]
Berkshire Eagle (Mass.) ^ | 22 January 2005 | Staff

Posted on 01/22/2005 7:38:12 AM PST by PatrickHenry

A movement to drag the teaching of science in the United States back into the Dark Ages continues to gain momentum. So far, it's a handful of judges -- "activist judges" in the view of their critics -- who are preventing the spread of Saudi-style religious dogma into more and more of America's public-school classrooms.

The ruling this month in Georgia by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper ordering the Cobb County School Board to remove stickers it had inserted in biology textbooks questioning Darwin's theory of evolution is being appealed by the suburban Atlanta district. Similar legal battles pitting evolution against biblical creationism are erupting across the country. Judges are conscientiously observing the constitutionally required separation of church and state, and specifically a 1987 Supreme Court ruling forbidding the teaching of creationism, a religious belief, in public schools. But seekers of scientific truth have to be unnerved by a November 2004 CBS News poll in which nearly two-thirds of Americans favored teaching creationism, the notion that God created heaven and earth in six days, alongside evolution in schools.

If this style of "science" ever took hold in U.S. schools, it is safe to say that as a nation we could well be headed for Third World status, along with everything that dire label implies. Much of the Arab world is stuck in a miasma of imam-enforced repression and non-thought. Could it happen here? Our Constitution protects creativity and dissent, but no civilization has lasted forever, and our current national leaders seem happy with the present trends.

It is the creationists, of course, who forecast doom if U.S. schools follow a secularist path. Science, however, by its nature, relies on evidence, and all the fossil and other evidence points toward an evolved human species over millions of years on a planet tens of millions of years old [ooops!] in a universe over two billion years in existence [ooops again!].

Some creationists are promoting an idea they call "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwinism, eliminating the randomness and survival-of-the-fittest of Darwinian thought. But, again, no evidence exists to support any theory of evolution except Charles Darwin's. Science classes can only teach the scientific method or they become meaningless.

Many creationists say that teaching Darwin is tantamount to teaching atheism, but most science teachers, believers as well as non-believers, scoff at that. The Rev. Warren Eschbach, a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pa., believes that "science is figuring out what God has already done" and the book of Genesis was never "meant to be a science textbook for the 21st century." Rev. Eschbach is the father of Robert Eschbach, one of the science teachers in Dover, Pa., who refused to teach a school-board-mandated statement to biology students criticizing the theory of evolution and promoting intelligent design. Last week, the school district gathered students together and the statement was read to them by an assistant superintendent.

Similar pro-creationist initiatives are underway in Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. And a newly elected creationist majority on the state board of education in Kansas plans to rewrite the entire state's science curriculum this spring. This means the state's public-school science teachers will have to choose between being scientists or ayatollahs -- or perhaps abandoning their students and fleeing Kansas, like academic truth-seekers in China in the 1980s or Tehran today.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: antitheist; atheistgestapo; chickenlittle; creationism; crevolist; cryingwolf; darwin; evolution; governmentschools; justatheory; seculartaliban; stateapprovedthought; theskyisfalling
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To: Junior
"I'm open to any possibilities that meet the criteria of being a scientific theory. ID does not yet do that."

You are mistaken. Intelligent Design *already* explains, correctly, the process behind the creation of artificially intelligent software, self-replicating machines, computer viri, etc.

221 posted on 01/22/2005 3:55:44 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: balrog666

Should Bibles and prayer be allowed in schools outside of science classes?


222 posted on 01/22/2005 3:56:31 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (AHEM Useful Idiots: YOU are the REDS. You and your Red-Stream Media. True America is BLUE.)
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To: Blurblogger
Should Bibles and prayer be allowed in schools outside of science classes?

What has that got to do with what is taught in science classes?

223 posted on 01/22/2005 4:03:13 PM PST by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: Southack
You are mistaken. Intelligent Design *already* explains, ...

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!

ID/IOT explains nothing. Ever. That is why it exists.

224 posted on 01/22/2005 4:04:25 PM PST by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: balrog666
"ID/IOT explains nothing."

You are mistaken. Of course, you are welcomed and encouraged to show another theory *besides* Intelligent Design to explain how artificially intelligent software was formed, or how computer viri were made, or how self-replicating machines were built, etc.

Not that you can...

225 posted on 01/22/2005 4:11:08 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Blurblogger
Michael Newdow, the ACLU and evolutionists be (in such a case) so pathologically focused on such a consuming, pathetic, quixotic mission as merely eliminating prayer in schools, banishing public crosses, seeking the removal of Ten Commandments from courthouses and "Under God" from our Pledge of Allegiance?

Are you in such a need of a boogy man to oppose that you fail to see the difference between those of us who have nothing against Christianity, we just don't want children taught false science. We believe in the truth, and Newdow and his ilk have nothing to do with it.

I believe that this ID stuff has the potential to do great damage to Christianity. Science and the elite classes have ignored religion for years. But ID is picking a fight with them and they are reacting. Can Christianity handle genuine attacks? And I mean genuine attacks, not just eliminating prayer in schools.

What happens when professors actively challenge the faith of students? How many will reject their faith under such direct attacks? Some will, for sure.

Christians are provoking this issue. Not the other way round. I'm afraid this will do great damage to Christianity. If I were genuinely against God and religion, I would keep my mouth shut and let the damage occur. But I genuinely support what Christians are doing, and I don't want to see the carnage that will result in this war of faith.

Christians will lose. Big time.

226 posted on 01/22/2005 4:12:45 PM PST by narby ( A truly Intelligent Designer, would have designed Evolution)
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To: Blurblogger
Estimates about its probable reduction in size (estimated only about 1% over estimated millions/BILLIONS of years, etc.) are ESTIMATES--some including I would say biased to fit a particular set of presuppositions.

No, they are the result of calculations, not estimates. First of all, they represent an upper bound on the mass loss (not change in size) a star can undergo during the "life" of a star. That calculation comes from the maximum energy conversion available via the various nuclear reactions that take place in a star such as the sun, and would only be that large if the entire supply of hydrogen in the sun were fused into heavier nuclei, which can't happen because most of the hydrogen in the star lies in regions outside of the fusion reaction zone. Most stars switch to helium burning after about 10% of the hydrogen is fused, which for the sun should be in about another 5 billion years.

The point is that the mass change of a star such as the sun is exquisitely small, and hence the change in gravitation is also minute.

What is difficult to understand is that if you are interested enough in the subject to have formulated "your own hypothesis" that stars are burning fuel like giant furnaces, why didn't you do some simple research on the subject on the internet to discover that hypothesis could not possibly be true? The text book I cited for you gives a wonderful discussion of the arguments that refute all sources of energy in stars (including chemical reactions, as you proposed) as being adequate other than fusion reactions.

227 posted on 01/22/2005 4:13:15 PM PST by longshadow
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To: balrog666
Should Bibles and prayer be allowed in schools outside of science classes?

What has that got to do with what is taught in science classes?

(Blurblogger realizes the impossibility of seeking to nail Jell-O to the wall, shrugs, walks away)
228 posted on 01/22/2005 4:15:30 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (AHEM Useful Idiots: YOU are the REDS. You and your Red-Stream Media. True America is BLUE.)
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To: longshadow

Thanks for your link. The topic is of interest and I'll save it for future reference.


229 posted on 01/22/2005 4:18:52 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (AHEM Useful Idiots: YOU are the REDS. You and your Red-Stream Media. True America is BLUE.)
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To: Southack

But it doesn't explain biological processes, and that's what we're talking about here.


230 posted on 01/22/2005 4:26:36 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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Comment #231 Removed by Moderator

To: Oztrich Boy
Blurblogger certainly says something about the effectiveness of education:

The sun HAD to be larger. It's on fire!

232 posted on 01/22/2005 4:27:34 PM PST by js1138
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To: Junior
"But it doesn't explain biological processes, and that's what we're talking about here."

What specifically makes you claim that?

233 posted on 01/22/2005 4:30:21 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: NJ Neocon

Tell me when scientific evidence was in 'opposition'.
[besides, that is, to darwinite beliefs.]


234 posted on 01/22/2005 4:30:51 PM PST by metacognative (follow the gravy...)
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To: narby; Liz
But ID is picking a fight with them and they are reacting. Can Christianity handle genuine attacks? And I mean genuine attacks, not just eliminating prayer in schools.

What happens when professors actively challenge the faith of students? How many will reject their faith under such direct attacks? Some will, for sure.

Christians are provoking this issue.

There has been a nonstop virulent attack on Christianity for 80+ years. Thomas Dewey, Freud, Marx, Darwin and others "rule from the grave" as has been said. These are indeed genuine attacks, always have been as far back as the Scopes trial and earlier....Some teachers and professors constantly challenge the faith of students daily....I experienced it myself in the mid-1970s in college....the Christians are reacting in united ways now to turn back the tide and this is what is causing the tension...until the past few years, resistance to the NEA and its agendae was ineffective as Christians were in denial or apathy. The times have changed and there is sunlight being shined on the vampire.... That said, I do not want the pendulum to swing too far the other way, thus hurting the Conservatives, the Republicans and the Christians, jointly or severally. In fact, I pray that we exercise the utmost wisdom in being retro-change-agents, with Grace and Truth.
235 posted on 01/22/2005 4:31:09 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (AHEM Useful Idiots: YOU are the REDS. You and your Red-Stream Media. True America is BLUE.)
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To: Southack; Right Wing Professor
On the contrary, math gives wonderfully precise answers.

And in science classes you can learn that precision and accuracy are not the same.

236 posted on 01/22/2005 4:31:54 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (Not a tag line)
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To: js1138
It's on fire!

Big fire in sky. Oook, oook!

And these people want to decide what gets taught in science classes.

237 posted on 01/22/2005 4:32:36 PM PST by PatrickHenry (<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: Junior
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/370035.stm

Sci/Tech

Biological computer prototype unveiled


The model shows how a biological computer could work

By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse

A large-scale prototype of a computer that could be smaller than a living cell has been designed by an Israeli scientist.

Some scientists believe that, in the future, small biological computers could roam our bodies monitoring our health and correcting any problems they may find.

The prototype has been developed by Professor Ehud Shapiro of the Computer Science Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science.


[ image: Ehud Shapiro hopes new biotechnology will make his computer possible]
Ehud Shapiro hopes new biotechnology will make his computer possible
It is being presented at the Fifth International Meeting on DNA-Based Computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In terms of the logic on which it operates, the prototype will behave in a similar way to molecules inside a living cell, a "biomolecular machine".

A living computer

Each cell of our bodies is a collection of machines made out of biological molecules. These molecules can form pulleys and gears to move other molecules around the cell.

Some molecules have the ability to assemble and take apart other molecules. Others gather small molecules and use a template to construct new molecules.

In a sense, each of our cells is a complicated city of biological machines all working together.

It is possible that a future biomolecular version of Professor Shapiro's device could lead to the construction of computers, smaller than a single cell, and with the ability to monitor and modify them.

238 posted on 01/22/2005 4:34:40 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
On the contrary, math gives wonderfully precise answers.

Math give precision, but only answers the question asked. No one can ask the question needed to settle the question of abiogenesis, because no one knows what steps are necessary and sufficient. No one assumes that DNA and proteins just poofed into existence in one step, and no one (yet) knows the steps necessary. And no one knows if these steps lead naturally to each other. We do know it is possible to synthesize self-replicating molecules that are much less complex that proteins and DNA. This doesn't solve the problem, but it suggests the universe is inherently biased towards self-replication.

239 posted on 01/22/2005 4:36:55 PM PST by js1138
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To: Blurblogger
There has been a nonstop virulent attack on Christianity for 80+ years. Thomas Dewey, Freud, Marx, Darwin and others "rule from the grave

No, I'm afraid you don't realize what a real attack against faith would be. I don't know, but it would not surprise me if Newdow was motivated by opposition to ID. He is only the beginning.

Christians are doing the provoking here. This will not be pretty.

240 posted on 01/22/2005 4:38:19 PM PST by narby ( A truly Intelligent Designer, would have designed Evolution)
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