Evolution vs. Intelligent Design : Chesterfield School Board takes up debate on theories of life.

How were the oceans, puppies and human beings formed? Was it through evolution, creationism or something in between?

It's a heavy topic that's generated debate for years. That discourse landed in Chesterfield School Board members' laps recently when they set about adopting new science textbooks for middle and high schools.

At issue was the concept of intelligent design, and why none of the proposed textbooks offered an alternative to evolution for how the universe came to be.

Intelligent design proponents urged the School Board to include that theory in the school system's science curriculum so students can consider differing viewpoints in the classroom. But, federal law requires school systems to remain neutral on the topic, making it illegal for teachers to prompt discussions involving intelligent design or creationism.

In the end, members unanimously approved the proposed textbooks, but issued a formal statement saying, "It is the School Board's belief that this topic, along with all other topics that raise differences of thought and opinion, should receive the thorough and unrestricted study as we have just articulated. Accordingly, we direct our superintendent to charge those of our professionals who support curriculum development and implementation with the responsibility to investigate and develop processes that encompass a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of these topics."

(To read the School Board's complete statement, visit www.chesterfieldobserver. com and click on the link for "special" in the menu on the left.)

Superintendent Marcus Newsome was also asked to ensure teachers are aware of federal laws regarding any discussions of religion in the classroom. Currently, any discussions of creationism or intelligent design must be raised by students – not teachers – and teachers must remain neutral on the topic.

But some proponents of intelligent design who spoke before the School Board last week believe limiting discussions to evolution is anything but neutral.

"Our children are not being educated; they are being indoctrinated," said Cathleen Waagner. "Let the evidence speak for itself and let [the students] draw their own conclusions."

Another speaker, Michael Slagle, presented a document containing 700 signatures of scientists worldwide who have questioned the validity of evolution.

"Students are being excluded from scientific debate. It's time to bring this debate into the classroom," he said.

On a personal level, some School Board members appeared to agree that discussions on the beginning of life should encompass more theories than just evolution. Dale District representative David Wyman said limiting discussions to evolution is "counterscientific" and said religious topics are already frequently touched on in classrooms. He cited the Declaration of Independence, the paintings in the Sistine Chapel and the Crusades as examples.

School Board Chairman Tom Doland stressed that students are not discouraged from discussing alternatives to evolution or any religious topic. "They do not leave their First Amendment rights at the door," he said.

"As individuals, as parents, we have the right to instruct our children, and we should never turn that over to someone else," he added.

Clover Hill District representative Dianne Pettitt reminded everyone that "teachers are agents of the government…Students are free to initiate discussions…but we do have to stay within the limits of the law. We cannot just do what we personally want to do."

Midlothian District representative Jim Schroeder said he didn't want those who attended the meeting to "walk out of here thinking, 'There goes the public schools kicking God out of the schools again.'"

"I believe God is the author of life, and I don't want anything taught in schools that denigrates that," he added.

Bermuda District representative Marshall Trammell Jr. was more cautious, saying he was afraid to have teachers deal with such issues in the classroom because they might infringe on students' personal religious beliefs.

"I don't want that in a public school," he said. "That is a matter for church and home."

"You say that evolution invokes naturalism and then proceed to define it. OK, let’s use your definition. If evolution invokes naturalism and intelligent design does not, then intelligent design must not restrict itself to natural processes as the sole means of extrapolating observations into unobserved events. What are the other means? Super-natural means, of course. I present you a definition from the AHD, as follows:"

"Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces."

No, naturalism merely means no intelligent design. Apparently you admit that mankind is a supernatural creature since man is capable of intelligent design.

"And, according to your definition of evolution invoking naturalism and intelligent design not invoking naturalism, intelligent design in the context of evolutionary biology includes supernatural explanations."

I already explained that intelligent design does not require supernatural explanations because intelligent aliens could have created life on earth. They would be intelligent, use design and not be supernatural if they 'evolved' elsewhere.

"I am merely requesting a direct answer. Just like you've never directly said, "God did it," you've also never directly stated that under the accepted definition of evolution, evolution has occurred. To clarify, I am talking about evolution as fact. The theories of evolution all rest on this fact."

Let me explain again, the 'accepted definition of evolution' is a game where the word is defined to be consistent with observations and the same word is then used to refer to unobserved processes and events. This is a bait-and-switch game that naturalists are quite proud of and actually think means something. It is nothing more than a game, however and many, many people see right through it.

"Also, your comment in Post 220, "You like the game now that the shoe is on the other foot?", indicates that you are playing the game even though you don't like it. It baffles me that you choose to continue."

Lots of things baffle you. Why stop now?

Would you have a problem with voters who decided that they wanted their children to be taught about the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

NO.

I would rather trust the voters than the judges regarding what best to teach their kids.

This country is based on freedom. Including the freedom to believe anything you want as long as you don't harm anybody else.

I would also be very uncomfortable with a judge who decided what is and what is not science without considering testimony, evidence, precedent, and so forth. That is undoubtedly judicial activism. But, Judge Jones did not take it upon himself to decide what is and what is not science. He listened to the testimony of DEFENSE expert witnesses. Please note that I did mention that the expert witnesses who claimed intelligent design was at best a fringe science were from the DEFENSE.

BTW, any person who uses his head should not be too worried about the word -- FRINGE. Most new discoveries that were later accepted were considered "fringe" during their infancy ( and that included Darwin's theory of evolution ).

Copernicus and Galileo were considered "fringe" during their times. Suffice it to say this -- you do not make a decision regarding what a community decides what their children should be exposed to based on this one testimony alone.

In fact, a case can be made that the Dover trial was about censorship. Dover never even required that ID be taught in school. It simply made the book OF PANDAS AND PEOPLE a recommended reading ( not even REQUIRED ) for those who are interested in looking at the case for ID. YET, for the Darwinists, this was enough to bring a lawsuit.

In other words, Judge Jones ruled because of the testimony of the defense experts on your side of the argument.

If you are talking about his ruling that there should not even be a statement suggesting that students can read a book on their own if they are interested simply because ID is at a fringe state today ( similar to the fringe state that Galileo and Copernicus' ideas were ), then that says a lot about Judge Jones' decision more than anything else... which is to say -- IT IS ISN'T BASED ON SCIENTIFIC REASONING AT ALL. Which makes MY POINT. I don't want an individual deciding for my county what and what not to recommend as reading material. That infringes on my freedom.

If you want to disown them, fine with me.

Hey, I do not want to disown the fact that Copernicus and Galileo were considered fringe during their time. Why should this be disowned ? The word FRINGE is a NEUTRAL connotation. You seem to want to equate FRINGE with FALSE. That is an unwarranted extrapolation ( much as evolutionists are doing extrapolating what they see in the micro-world to the macro-world ).

There is nothing wrong with assigning a word to represent an occurrence (i.e. defining a word to be consistent with observations.) For example, let’s say that I go to a gym and I see a person in a squat position with his hands on a weighted bar that is resting on the floor. A second later, the bar is over his head, and one a second afterward, he squats up. I have just observed this person executing what is known as a snatch. The snatch is defined as a movement where the bar is explosively driven over the head in one movement. Based on my observation, the person did just that. Am I wrong to say that he did a snatch because I used a word that is defined to be consistent with an observation and is also used to refer to unobserved events (i.e. other people snatching in gyms that I’ve never been to)? No, he did a snatch because he moved the bar over his head in one movement. What he did fits the definition, therefore he did it.

Evolution is defined as “change in allele frequencies of a population over time.” We see this with the moths and bacterial populations that are no longer susceptible to certain antibiotics. Because the allele frequencies of the moth and bacteria populations changed over time, evolution occurred. All the reasoned arguments, papers, and experiments in the world from persons far more intelligent than I cannot convince you that under the accepted definition of evolution, not your definition, evolution has occurred.

Intelligent design is also a game under your definition of evolution, for it is defined to be consistent with observations and is then used to refer to unobserved processes and events.

Lots of things do baffle me. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Are you?

All the reasoned arguments, papers, and experiments in the world from persons far more intelligent than I cannot convince you that under the accepted definition of evolution, not your definition, evolution has occurred.

It is important that we understand out terms otherwise we end up mis-stating the point of view of the other side.

What you have just presented is MICRO-EVOLUTION.

No creationist or ID proponent I know denies this and to say that they do is a caricature.

Natural selection is an observable process that falls into the category of operational science. We have observed mosquitoes, birds, and many microorganisms undergoing change in relatively short periods of time.

The problem is --- in the media, textbooks, and scientific literature the occurrence of evolution has become a “fact.” The definition of the word evolution has also taken on two different meanings that are not equal.

Evolution can be used in the sense of change in a species by natural selection. This is often referred to as microevolution and is accepted by evolutionists and creationists alike as good observational science. This type of evolution
allows change within groups but not between groups.

Now here's where the dispute lies ...

The other meaning of evolution involves the idea that all organisms on earth share a common ancestor by descent with modification. This idea is commonly referred to as macroevolution.

The two definitions are often used interchangeably.

Typically, textbooks show that new species can form—evolution has occurred—so they argue that it is obvious that evolution, in the molecules-to-man sense, must have occurred. The problem is that just because natural selection and speciation have occurred (and there is strong evidence to support such claims) the claim that all life has evolved from a common ancestor is based on many assumptions that cannot be ultimately proven.

People believe the ideas of the evolutionary development of life on earth for many reasons: it is all that they have been taught and exposed to, they believe the evidence supports evolution, they do not want to be lumped with people who do not believe in evolution and are often considered to be less intelligent or “backward,” evolution has the stamp of approval from real scientists, and evolutionary history allows people to reject the idea of God and legitimize their own immorality. Evaluating the presuppositions behind belief in evolution makes for a much more productive discussion. Two intelligent people can arrive at different conclusions using the same evidence; so their starting assumptions is the most important issue in discussing historical science.

When we deal with the issue of origins, we must realize that no people were there to observe and record the events. When scientists discuss the origins of the universe, the earth, or life on earth, we must realize that the discussion is based on assumptions. These fallible assumptions make the conclusions of the discussion less valid than if the discussion were based on actual observation. Almost all biology books and textbooks written in the last two generations have been written as if these presuppositions were true.

Proponents of the evolutionary worldview expect everyone to accept evolution as fact. This is a difficult case to make when the how, why, when, and where of evolutionary history are sharply contested or unknown by the scientists who insist evolution is a fact.

Evolutionists often claim that belief in Intelligent Design is not scientific because of the unprovable assumptions that it is based on.

What about looking at the mirror for a change ?

The fact that evolution is based on its own set of unprovable, untestable, and unfalsifiable assumptions is recognized by many in the scientific community.

Within the scientific literature, the mathematical and chemical impossibilities of the origin of the universe and life on earth are recognized. Many notable scientists, including Sir Fred Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, have gone so far as to suggest that life originated on other planets or was brought to earth by an intelligent being. These ideas are no less testable than special creation but avoid invoking God as our Creator.

Just because organisms can be observed to change over a period of time does not necessarily mean that macro-evolution ( change from one specie to another) is true. If we think of the classic peppered moth example, we started with light and dark moths (Biston betularia) and ended up with light— and dark—colored moths of the same species in different proportions. This SIMPLY exemplifies idea of variation within a kind. Any conclusion beyond that is EXTRA-POLATION.

Natural selection has been shown to change organisms but always within the boundaries of their OWN kinds. This type of change is often termed “microevolution,” and the hypothetical type of change that turns fish into philosophers is known as “macroevolution.” ( this is and has always been the point of contention )

The large-scale changes through time are simply dramatic extrapolations of the observed phenomenon of natural selection. This degree of extrapolation has no basis in operational science. There are limits to the amount and type of genetic change that can occur—no matter what amount of time is allowed. As an illustration: if you can pedal a bicycle at 10 mph, how long would it take to reach the moon? Bicycles have limits that would make this goal impossible regardless of the time you have to accomplish it.

So please, if you want to tell us evolution is a FACT, qualify your terms -- are you talking about evolution of the observable (i.e. MICRO ) kind ? Or are you talking about the HUGE and HUMONGOUS EXTRAPOLATION Darwinists have been claiming has occured ( which has never been observed ) ? If it is the later, then yes, many of us and most Americans have issues with you ( unless of course, you can show via operational science that it has indeed occured, not just give us just-so stories ).

Under the accepted definition of evolution – change in allele frequencies of a population over time – has evolution happened?

I don’t have a problem with Mutation plus Natural Selection in microevolution although I believe the Random Mutation is overrated and most if not all microevolutionary adaptation is the result of more or less randomly selected permutations of preexisting phenotypic options - like shuffling a deck and dealing a hand of cards - no new cards are created even though new hands are created.

I point to dogs as the model species for the limitations of Randmom mutation in microevolution. All are the result of 20 thousand years of selective breeding of a few natural ancestors - wolves, coyotes, and jackals. The result is variation in cosmetics and scale and all variations remain able to produce fertile hybrid offspring while no novel new structural elements such as cell types, tissue types, organs, or body plans emerged. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that Random Mutation can create novel cell types, tissue types, organs, or body plans.

Explanation of how these structural elements were created is required of any theory of evolution that attempts to explain descent with modification from bacteria to baboons and everything between and around, living or extinct, while remaining in complete accord with the indisputable testimony of the fossil record and experimental biology on living tissue.

That is and has always been the issue.

No creationist or ID proponent I know denies this [microevolution] and to say that they do is a caricature.

That's what I thought, too. Then, I encountered GourmetDan, who to date has not acknowledged that under the most basic definition of evolution, change in allele frequencies of a population over time, evolution has occurred.

In my post 240, I asked the following question that you later quoted in post 250:

Under the accepted definition of evolution – change in allele frequencies of a population over time – has evolution happened?

GourmetDan’s response? “…the 'accepted definition of evolution' is a game where the word is defined to be consistent with observations and the same word is then used to refer to unobserved processes and events…It is nothing more than a game, however and many, many people see right through it.”

He doesn’t even acknowledge that under the simplest, most basic, and least offensive definition of evolution, allele frequency change at the population level, evolution has occurred. Basically, he doesn’t like the common definition, so he uses his own definition of evolution that no one in biology recognizes.

Microevolution does not conflict with intelligent design ideology, but GourmetDan simply does not realize that. It is no caricature to say that he denies the validity of microevolution.

The other meaning of evolution involves the idea that all organisms on earth share a common ancestor by descent with modification. This idea is commonly referred to as macroevolution.

I disagree.

According to Campbell and Reece, the authors of an introductory biology textbook, macroevolution is defined as change in allele frequencies at or above the species level.

Origin of life theories are certainly related to macroevolution. They depend on macroevolution, but the opposite is not true. Even if it were shown that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was responsible for creating the first prokaryote, it would not negate macroevolution. Change in allele frequencies at or above the species level has been readily observed. I believe many pages back I provided a novel example about meiosis errors in a plant resulting in offspring with polyploidy. If two organisms cannot produce viable offspring, then these two organisms belong to different species. The offspring with polyploidy cannot reproduce with other members of the parent species. Therefore, it is a different species. Macroevolution has occurred. This is but one example. The textbook I mentioned includes several more.

There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that Random Mutation can create novel cell types, tissue types, organs, or body plans.

Would you be surprised if I told you that one of the defense expert witnesses on “your side” wrote a paper that actually showed mutation could result in novel cell types?

Does ID, in any of its incarnations, admit that natural processes, including but not limited to Evolution, are quite capable of producing the complexity and variety of Earthly organisms?

"If by the term --- not limited to Evolution, you are opening the way for some intelligent agent that guided or directed the process, then the answer is YES.

No, what I am asking is if ID posits that there is possibly another completely natural (meaning non-guided) process that can produce the kind of complexity we see in Earthly life, or is anything of that complexity limited to intelligent design?

Does ID suggest that any of the non-supernatural intelligent agents putatively responsible for Earthly life are less complex than Earth life?

"Here is where we see VARIATIONS and IN-HOUSE DEBATE within proponents of ID. The simple answer is WE DO NOT KNOW AT THIS TIME. The way I understand ID proponents is this --- they argue by everyday observation -- SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY ALWAYS requires intelligent, purposeful agents."

OK, I can assume by this then that all Earthly life exhibits signs of CSI, is that correct?

How can we objectively identify and measure CSI?

"ID as a science is principally interested in DESIGN INFERENCE and DETECTION. It does not purport at this time to describe WHO the designer is."

How is the determination and detection of design done?

However, my initial impression would be that an alternative splicing is just a copy of the original which left out part of the protein coding.

Bingo. Which answers your question (to paraphrase, since your post is not in front of me at the moment), "What use is half a protein?" In some cases, it's quite useful, although it does not serve the same role as a lengthier protein that shares some of the same sequence.

I don’t believe that this contradicts what I was saying since (If I correctly understand what you are talking about) no new information has been developed instead a part of an existing protein string has been copied incompletely.

I see the supposed information problem popping up. There are many creationists who say that mutations cannot add information because all of the big creationists keep saying this. It's not true. We can look at this several ways:

It is possible for a protein to undergo a mutation that deactivates it. Creationists would call this mutation a loss of information. However, the same mutated gene can then experience another mutation that reverts it to the original unmutated state and produces a functional protein. This according to creationists would be an addition of information. Clearly then mutations can add information. We can observe mutations such as this in bacteria with genes knocked out by a point mutation, over time some will revert.
In your body all the time mutations which add information occur. Your adaptive immune system relies upon mutation in your B cells to generate all of the antibodies that you need to fight off various infections. These B cells have evolved to hypermutate the part of their genome that codes for their antibody product. When you experience infection by a new pathogen, by chance some of these B cells will produce antibodies that somewhat match with a molecule on the invader. These B cells will reproduce and mutate. Some of their offspring will match even better to the foreign molecule, and these will reproduce and mutate again (others might not even match as well as their parent cell, but these won't continue to multiply and are not of interest to us). What we see over time is initial antibodies that bind weakly trending towards antibodies that bind strongly. At the same time, we'll start to see different classes of antibodies against this molecule appear as other types of mutations occur to cause what is known as "class switching". If either of these mutational pathways is damaged you will experience immune deficiency.
Another example is methicillin resistanct Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). This pathogen is being targeted by many researchers because it has gained the ability to resist many of our most often used antibiotics. The gene responsible for this resistance, mecA, popped up suddenly and spread rapidly. Analysis of the mecA gene sequence show that it most likely came from Staphylococcus sciuri, which has a very similar gene. However, the gene in S. sciuri does not give antibiotic resistance, but has some other unknown function. The antibiotic resistance was aquired when the mecA gene mutated following lateral transfer from S. aureus to S. sciuri. Here is another case of a mutation adding information.
I am also reminded of other studies involving in vitro peptide evolution using error-prone DNA transcript copying methods and mutation of an existing protein as a transgene in bacteria to produce emerging antibiotic resistance.

It is simply not true that mutations cannot add information in the form of new function.

This still does not show that natural selection would favor a mutation which produces a new sequence of bases which partially codes for a new protein.

Certainly it does. Take the initial gene we spoke of, which produces variants through alternative splicing. Copy the gene (we know gene duplication events take place). Mutate the gene to produce a new stop codon and truncate the protein product (creationists would definitely allow this). Now it codes for the same shortened protein produced by the first gene by alternative splicing and the new gene does serve a role. If you like you can mutate that (as shown above, such mutations can produce new function) and voila, completely new protein that may have a completely new function.

Now that we've considered alternative splicing, the objection to "a new sequence of bases which partially codes for a new protein" is groundless since truncated proteins may be just as functional as longer ones sharing some of the same sequence. A "protein" is not an absolute thing where you can look at one polypeptide and say "Now that's a protein" and look at another and say "Oh, that's only half a protein." A protein is just a polypeptide that serves some purpose, and some are big and while some are smaller.

I read the abstract of the web page you gave...

I think you are mis-reading Michael Behe. If he indeed believed in macro-evolution, he would have said so. That paper you cited does not in any way show how novel cell types, tissue types, organs, or body plans could be created by random mutation.

In Michael Behe’s Recent Book : The Edge of Evolution. He offers hard evidence for what most people recognize. (Those who have been blinded by Darwinist indoctrination are obviously excluded.)

Mutations break things. However, on occasion, with huge probabilistic resources, a broken thing can promote survival in a specific environment (e.g., bacterial antibiotic resistance).

But broken things represent a downhill process, informationally, and cannot account for an uphill, information-creating process, not to mention the machinery required to process that information.

Understanding this is not difficult, unless one has a nearly pathological commitment to the notion that design in the universe and living systems cannot possibly exist.

Don’t get me wrong Michael Behe Behe accepts that cumulative selection happens. At issue is the SUFFICIENCY and UBIQUITY of the mechanism. Behe make a good case that what is claimed as innovation is more akin to DESTRUCTION.

It is like one army blowing up it’s own bridges in an attempt to slow and invasion. The affects of blowing up multiple bridges are cumulative, but not innovative.

In fact When Behe discusses pyrimethamine for instance, he is not only acknowledging the effects of cumulative mutations, but also highlighting with the specific case that even these beneficial mutations can have a net negative effect on the organism. In order to achieve the added resistance of the new mutations protein function is lost.

In order to make the new mutations selectable the virus must simultaneously acquire an independent mutation to compensate for this loss.

Behe acknowledges the existence of the cumulative effect, investigates the actual empirical evidence, compares this to the huge population of mutating malaria, and draws his conclusions based upon the relevant data.

He also discusses in one chapter of his book the very Darwinian hypothesis for the existence of anti-freeze in the blood of the Notothenioids. Gene duplication, cumulative beneficial mutations, and even a serendipitous deletion.

Here is what he said :

“Instead of pointing to greater things, as Darwinists hoped, the antifreeze protein likely marks the far border of what we can expect of random mutation in vertebrates.” -— page 82

This is what his book is about - what Darwinian evolution can do, and WHAT IT CANNOT. What it cannot is what I said — create NOVEL TISSUE TYPES, ORGANS OR BODY PARTS.

Behe also said :

“…random variation doesn’t explain the most basic features of biology. It doesn’t explain the elegant, sophisticated molecular machinery that undergirds life. To account for that - and to account for the root and thick branches of the tree of common descent - multiple coherent mutations are needed.
…
Most mutations that built the great structures of life must have been non-random.”

page 83

So please, don’t use Behe as your advocate. He knows what he’s talking about and he has researched the issue and is quite honest about it. If he agreed with you, he would have
not have been an ID proponent. The man may be many other things but he ain’t stupid.

"Based on my understanding, I think the answer is NO. And here's my question to you --- what other unguided process (other than random mutation plus natural selection ) can you think of that could possibly explain the complexity of life ?"

I'm not sure, but I'm hardly an exquisite original thinker. My question was/is an attempt to build a path through ID that does not ultimately source from some God. I'm not sure that it can be done, it seems to me that,logically at least, ID has to end up with some supernatural initiator.

Of course that does not mean that ID cannot develop an objective, reliable methodology to differentiate Specified complexity from unspecified complexity which would be independent of the source of complexity.

My interest is in how that can be done without relying on purely subjective criteria. If ID is restricted to just 'proving' that evolution could not accomplish the same thing then it is not showing that ID is the only possible alternative. There must a methodology used by ID that is completely independent of Evolution

"I refer you to a lecture given by William Dembski in response to this question. He says things better than I ever could. See here :

http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_anotherwaytodetectdesign.htm"

Let me digest this before I get back to you.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.