Federal lawsuit could follow board vote [Evolution in Kansas & Dover]

Lawrence Journal-World [Kansas] ^ | 08 November 2005 | Joel Mathis

[editor-surveyor]

"How do we keep science from encroaching into an area that it has no business?"

Wrong question. Not all things that pretend to be science can support that claim. If you have reached your conclusion prior to gathering the evidence, and that conclusion causes the rejection of the bulk of the evidence because it fails to support your pre-conclusion, then you are not a scientist.

This test eliminates more than 99% of those posting here in the name of teaching evolution.

[tallhappy]

My opinion is it is a trivial issue and not cause for the hysteria it has engendered.

I think it is like the Dem/Johm Kerry replay of Vietnam. Iraq becomes Vietnam. Re-fight that.

This is a silly replay of Scopes, this time the sides are switched in terms of who has the power. It's boring and pathetic.

As I said it is the battle of the mediocrities with world views of the early 20th century.

[wyattearp]

That's ok. I talk to myself a lot as well. %-)

One guy at work teased me about it, saying "you're talking to yourself again!", to which I responded "sometimes that's the only way to have an intelligent conversation around here!"

(I'd like to say that I came up with that witty response myself, but I honestly picked it up from a comedy routine. It was worth remembering, in case I ever had the opportunity to use it. The look on the guy's face when I said that to him was priceless).

[Right Wing Professor]

This is your impression of all private schools?

The Protestant religious ones.

You think all public schools suck?

Issues with reality dude.

Coming from an IDer, that's rich.

I think the reason so many here get so hysterical at the thought of Behe saying his stuff is because they are the flip side of the coin. Nothing personal to anyone on any side, but this is rather the war among the mediocrities with no better things to do or think about.

Ah, thank you for enlightening us from your Olympian heights, oh Great One. And what year did you win your Nobel Prize?

[Liberal Classic]

It seesm those concerend about critical thinking have more issues with hysteria -- their own.

*sigh*

Science curriculum should teach the prevailing scientific theory. In the life sciences, this means teaching evolutionary theory. Students spend precious few hours in science class as it is, and there simply isn't enough time to spend on digressions about alternative points of view. Also, as most schools are geared towards college prep, science curricula should take this into account. Public schools should cover material in the same way students will be exposed to them in college, so that they will have the proper foundation in the subject when the continue in their studies at university.

[Liberal Classic]

My opinion is it is a trivial issue...

Then I shouldn't hear any objection to the suggestion that evolution be taught in biology class and creation be taught in Sunday School.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Don't they ever read their own posts?

Yes, but with no more understanding that their reading of yours.

[tallhappy]

Coming from an IDer, that's rich.

I'm not an IDer. Why do you have that impression?

Talking to you guys is like being in the twilight zone.

I won my Nobel the same year you won yours.

[mlc9852]

But your kids would NEVER fall for that so why are you concerned?

[Alamo-Girl]

If you have reached your conclusion prior to gathering the evidence, and that conclusion causes the rejection of the bulk of the evidence because it fails to support your pre-conclusion, then you are not a scientist.

Indeed, if an investigator chooses to ignore contradictory evidence he is not helping anyone. Perhaps such a one should change careers and become a mainstream investigative journalist where this skill is evidently highly valued. LOL!

[connectthedots]

But Gunn (ACLU) noted that the vast majority of scientists believed in evolution as a proven explanation for the origins of life. The “handful” who don’t, he said, have resorted to making their case through politics instead of through traditional scientific methods.

Evolution explains the 'origins of life'?

Someone needs to tell this guy that evolution has nothing to do with the origins of life.

[Doctor Stochastic]

However, people pushing this pseudo-science are in charge of public health and nuclear weapons development work and disaster rescue.

[wyattearp]

You're working on the presumption that the schools are actually teaching evolution correctly and that the kids are really learning it.

When I was in high school, we had to do one year of science. We had a choice between Biology, Physics, or PhysChem (a mix of physics and chemistry). Most kids chose one of the latter two, especially the girls. The Biology teacher was a major sexist and pervert, and he was hell on the female students. For example, he would let cheerleaders roll dice for their grades, as long as they wore their cheerleading outfit. Less attractive girls had to be absolutely perfect with their work (and were severely harrassed in class), while the more attractive girls got a lot of "gimmies".

I took PhysChem. I wanted nothing to do with that Biology teacher. The theory of evolution never even came up in high school unless you took Biology. Even then, the Biology teacher spent more time on anatomy than evolution. The man was a pig.

[Tax-chick]

My question still remains: "How do we get government out of education?"

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"If you have reached your conclusion prior to gathering the evidence, and that conclusion causes the rejection of the bulk of the evidence because it fails to support your pre-conclusion, then you are not a scientist."

Thank you for explaining why creationism and ID are not science. :)

[Hacksaw]

I wonder if Kansas may be a lost cause? Mostly pretty rural and hard to get the word out about what's really going on.

Yeah - sounds like it is unfriendly territory for the cultural Marxists.

[connectthedots]

Behe had better hope that his creationist supporters don't actually read his book, lest they learn he acknowledges both an old earth a common ancestor between humans and other primates, not to mention the fact that we should teach that the Creator may be dead, since He hasn't done actually anything in millennia....,

Can you cite the page numbers where he makes the statements you claim? Have you even read the book?

BTW, I have read it; and still have my copy.

[Right Wing Professor]

I'm not an IDer. Why do you have that impression?

C'mon guy, I know you from way back.

I won my Nobel the same year you won yours.

I'm not haranguing people about mediocrity.

[tallhappy]

Yes. My biology teacher sat around joking with the other one all day, mainly sex jokes. The other actually ended up with one of the female students later.

Some one-day comment in passing in a minute percentage of biology classes in High schools that some people believe in ID is about as trivial an issue as there is.

The massive hysteria on the part of those "objecting" is telling of larger issues.

[jennyp]

[ModernDayCato] Here's some science for you, friend. I happened to be listening to talk radio on the way to work yesterday. There was a molecular biologist talking about so-called 'random evolution,' with regard to a single-celled organism.

He said that the odds of that organism evolving randomly were calculated to be 10 to the fifty thousandth power, which is basically an unfathomable number, which validates what I suspected since the first time I heard it...Darwin was the first person to push junk science.

[ModernDayCato]But seriously, no. Google actually buttressed the argument. Take a look for yourself.

[Dimensio]How can we "take a look for ourselves" when you refuse to provide any references, or even a justification for the starting premises of the alleged probability calculation?

It sounds like ModernDayCato's "scientist" authority is repeating (with mutations) the old creationist chestnut from Hoyle & Wickramasinghe:

The most commonly cited source for statistical impossibility of the origin of life comes from another odd book, Evolution From Space, written by Fred Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe (Dent, 1981; immediately reprinted by Simon & Schuster that same year, under the title Evolution From Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism). The statistic 10^40,000 is calculated on p. 24 (Hoyle repeats the exact same argument on pp. 16-17 of The Intelligent Universe (1983)). A twenty-amino-acid polypeptide must chain in precisely the right order for it to fit the corresponding enzyme. Although Hoyle does not state it, this would entail that there must have been a minimum specificity, of one specific possibility, for the first enzymic life, of 10^20, a value to which Hoyle himself says "by itself, this small probability could be faced" (and this statistic even fails to account for that fact that any number of "first enzymic organisms" are possible, and not just one as his calculation assumes). Hoyle then goes on: "the trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes," (in "the whole of biology," p. 23), "and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^2000 = 10^40,000..."

There are three flaws in this conclusion: he assumes (1) that natural selection is equivalent to random shuffling, (2) that all two thousand enzymes, all the enzymes used in the whole of biology, had to be hit upon at once in one giant pull of the cosmic slot machine, and (3) that life began requiring complex enzymes working in concert. ...

MDC, please click on the link to the whole article. You need to understand just how dishonest these "impossible odds" arguments are. The authority figures you respect (WRT creationism) are lying to you.