Using Religion to Suppress Debate on Evolution

The Washington Post ^ | March 27, 2009 | John G. West

[GodGunsGuts]

Using Religion to Suppress Debate on Evolution

By John G. West Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute

Evolution was back in the headlines this week as the Texas State Board of Education voted 13-2 to require students to "analyze and evaluate" major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations, as well as adopting a critical thinking standard calling on students to "critique" and examine "all sides of scientific evidence."

The vote was a loss for defenders of evolution who had pushed the Board to strip the "analyze and evaluate" language from the evolution standards and gut the overall critical thinking standard.

Evolutionists typically cast themselves as the champions of secular reason against superstition, but in Texas they tried to inject religion into the debate at every turn.

Indeed, this past week it seemed that they couldn't stop talking about religion. They boasted about their credentials as Sunday School teachers and church elders. They quoted the Bible and appealed to theology...

[Gordon Greene]

If I get zotted for calling you a dork so be it. I’m tired of you guys (look at the company you keep) calling us simpletons, morons and every other name in the book. You paint us with a broad brush and lump us together in the same mold while you all talk out of the same evolutionist handbook.

There ain’t no red-face on this side, but I do have an argument if you’d be so kind as to use the grey-matter God gave you.

And you have to admit... the soul-mate comment was dorky. So report me. I love the site, but I’ll stand for what’s right.

[Gordon Greene]

“In these times of Obamanation, I should hope that finding a way to promote freedom, the Constitution, and patriotism would be far more important than the silly disagreements with people who lack even a basic understanding of biology, geology, astrophysics, physics, and chemistry.”

You just got my vote. Discussion on... (after I go sleep for a while)

[GodGunsGuts]

==Evolution may not be compatible with a literal reading of the bible, however. So, a minority of Christian literalists establish a Christian litmus test

A minority of Chrisitian literalists? Where have you been?

Belief system>	Creationist view	Theistic evolution	Naturalistic Evolution
Beliefs-->     Year	God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.	Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation.	Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process.
1982-JUL	44%	38%	9%
1993-JUN	47	35	11
1997-NOV	44	39	10
1999-AUG	47	40	9
2001-FEB	45	37	12
2004-NOV	45	38	13

[Gordon Greene]

“Besides, I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would want a prize from the same crooks who gave Al Gore a prize.

I wouldn’t.”

HEAR, HEAR!!!

[Buck W.]

I thought you said good night...

And reading your sweeping generalizations about “the company I keep”, you’re on awfully thin ice when you take offense at the “broad brush”.

A fine Christian.

[Fichori]

“If I get zotted for calling you a dork so be it.” [excerpt]

You probably won't get zotted for that, but I wouldn't make a habit of that sort of thing.

Evo's have said way nastier stuff and only received suspensions.

Obviously, the Religion Forum is a different story... (stiff rules enforced stiffly, which is good for the RF)

[Buck W.]

I’m sorry—is that from New Scientist?

What’s the underlying correlation between literalists and belief in the sample? That was, after all, my point.

Finally, I refer you to your own thread, and my post therein:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2189577/posts?page=126#126

[Gordon Greene]

I know, I know... I’m not a Christian because I disagree with you and the other folks like you. My apologies for not being asleep yet.

My point, though you’re probably too bruised to get it is that the other people who believe like you do slam those who believe like I do on a site that is run by Christian conservatives. The people who run the site let us have our little debates with little interference and that lends itself to abuse by folks who just want to stir the creation crowd up here. I decided not to play nice anymore with those people that do just stir it. If you got caught in the crossfire, I apologize. There are some honest evolutionists here who try to have good discussion and you seem to be one of them.

I’m not going to stop adamantly defending what I believe though. And as soon as you claim to know and follow the scripture in any part I take the gloves off. I’m not the smartest guy in the world but for the most part I know what I believe and I will fight for it.

In my humble opinion Christianity is under attack from all sides in this country today... if there are those who would declare war on it, I will stand against them. If there are those who don’t like my brand of fighting I’m really sorry there... I’ll pray God will show me if I’m doing it wrong.

I won’t take advice from those who call the Word of God in its entirety allegory, though. If you fall into that category... oh well.

[GodGunsGuts]

No it’s a compilation of national polls. The number goes way up when you just count people who regularly attend church.

[Gordon Greene]

Still fairly new... I appreciate the word.

GG

[Buck W.]

You’re not claiming that those despots were driven to genocide because they believed in evoloution are you?

Are you?

You might equally reasonably conclude that they did so because they were male, or had dark hair.

[atlaw]

You’re right. Any decent “creation science” curriculum has to include at least a week on the “evolutionists are nazi-commie-murderers” theme. As you think of more, let me know.

[Fichori]

Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.

[tacticalogic]

Carbon 14 is formed in the atmosphere when cosmic rays collide with Nitrogen molecules. It is absorbed by plants and animals and if they become fossilized becomes part of the fossilized remains. It has a relatively short half-life, and after about 60,000 years is reduced to pretty much undetectable levels. There is some inaccuracy involved because you can't know when any given molecule became part of that organism. It might have stayed in the atmosphere, or existed in other organism in the food chain for thousands of years before that.

It is at best an approximation, but any dating of fossils or artifacts beyond about 45,000 years had to be done by some method other than carbon dating. Other elements have radio isotopes with much long half-lives that are more reliable for dating older samples. Carbon-14 is useful in dating organic samples within that 45,000 year range, since all organic samples contain carbon. There are cases where it has produced odd results, but hopefully you can see why we find those inconsistencies. You have to decide if it's really warranted to say that those few samples in the thousands or millions of instances of carbon dating that have been done really warrant disallowing it as a method of estimating the age of fossils or artifacts.

Earth age estimates are made based on examination of Uranium samples. Uranium goes through a process that takes billions of years on it's way to becoming lead.

[metmom]

There's a Nobel Prize waiting for you as soon as you find that fossil rabbit in the Cambrian.

We've heard that line before, retread.

All that evos would do would reclassify that rabbit as a living fossil and announce to the world that mammal evolution has been pushed back several million years because now there's evidence that it happened earlier than we thought.

[metmom]

If I get zotted for calling you a dork so be it. I’m tired of you guys (look at the company you keep) calling us simpletons, morons and every other name in the book. You paint us with a broad brush and lump us together in the same mold while you all talk out of the same evolutionist handbook.

That's because evos worship science and intellectualism above all. They seem to honestly believe that any objection to the ToE is due to a deficiency of intellectual ability.

You hear comments of *go back to school and learn what you're talking about*. The implication is that the evidence for the ToE is so overwhelming that if you simply knew it, then of course you'd believe as they do; you couldn't help yourself.

They don't understand that there are people who can think out of the little materialistic naturalist box that they've crammed themselves into and don't buy the brainwashing necessary to think that all of this could have just happened on its own.

So, to them the greatest insult going is to insult one's intelligence, hence the pejorative of "cretard" and such affectionate terms.

[tacticalogic]

Ok, error on my part thousands not millions. That still does not change the FACT that carbon dating is wildly inacurate and that FACT has not and is not presented during the teaching of evolution theory.

What does "wildly inaccurate" mean? If I give you a list of 50 examples of particular medical test producing results that resulted in a misdiagnosis, would it be reasonable to conclude from that the test is "wildly inaccurate", or would you want to know how many times the test was done and produced an accurate diagnosis for comparison before you started drawing conclusions?

[BrandtMichaels]

My faith is verifiable and not falsifiable. Of course I don’t think you’d understand how since your faith appears not to be strong nor true. Science appears to be above faith in your mind.

One of the myriad reasons that my faith is verfiable and not falsifiable is the uniqueness and truthfulness of God’s Word - The Holy Bible. Just study some of the prophecy that has already been fulfilled and was written beforehand - say Psalm 22 - and try to use your scientific process to refute it.

YOU CAN’T, if you are truthful and accurate in your analysis. The supernatural trumps the natural order of things anytime God so desires.

[Buck W.]

“My faith is verifiable and not falsifiable.”

Then the conclusions that you draw from faith cannot be called science. Faith and science, though, coexist. Evolution and Christianity are prefectly compatible.

Only science should and will continue to be taught in science class.

[Diamond]

Then add a couple of weeks discussing what filthy heretics the kids' Catholic, Mormon, and Jewish neighbors are, and a week exploring the Islamic-Creationist "truth" that 9/11 was perpetrated by evolutionary biologists disguised as Muslims, and you have a complete "creation science" curriculum.

On the Darwinist view, what's wrong with any of that?

Cordially,