Posted on 03/30/2009 8:31:35 PM PDT by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.washingtonpost.com ...
Excellent point, GG! I had never thought of it that way. But you are spot on.
“I think you are arguing with the teleprompter reader.”
Yes... and everytime I post a reply to one of “them”.
I just love the way it raises my blood pressure. Makes me feel like I’m in a racecar.
LOL! TOTFR. LOL!
“I had never thought of it that way.”
I haven’t had one address the question directly... always some gobbledygook about “it’s just not that simple to answer” or “that’s not the way it works”.
I’ll keep asking until one of them finally says there is something they do not know. Then I’ll die a happy man. That way I’ll never have to die.
First, take a deep breath and have a cup of decaf.
I did answer your question—you just didn’t like the answer. Furthermore, you continue to ust the word “myth”. I specifically noted that allegory is not myth, but yet you persist.
Bottom line: I really don’t care.
You use the term “scientific fact”:
“If evolution is scientific fact then that would conclude there are...”
Evolution is not scientific fact. It is a scientific theory that is supported by substantial observational evidence and which has morphed significantly over the past 150 years. Moreover, if credible evidence is uncovered, verified, and presented (preferably in that order) that contradicts the theory in its entirety, it will be abandoned.
Can you say the same about creationism?
Really, creationism is not science. It is rationalization.
You will never die anyway. I think that’s another reason why the Evos hate us!
“One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years and another part at 44,000. —Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30.
“One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the “wood immediately around the carcass” was 9-10,000. —Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30
“The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY. —In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124
The two Colorado Creek mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 670 and 16,150 230 years respectively.” —In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124
“A geologist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, [Carl] Swisher uses the most advanced techniques to date human fossils. Last spring he was re-evaluating Homo erectus skulls found in Java in the 1930s by testing the sediment found with them. A hominid species assumed to be an ancestor of Homo sapiens, erectus was thought to have vanished some 250,000 years ago. But even though he used two different dating methods, Swisher kept making the same startling find: the bones were 53,000 years old at most and possibly no more than 27,000 years— a stretch of time contemporaneous with modern humans.” —Kaufman, Leslie, “Did a Third Human Species Live Among Us?” Newsweek (December 23, 1996), p. 52.
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.
“First, take a deep breath and have a cup of decaf.”
Number one... I NEVER drink decaf. It’s against my religion.
Number two... You’d be surprised how calm I am. I just write that way... it’s my little pressure relief valve.
However... that’s the answer I expect. “I did answer your question—you just didn’t like the answer. “
Have you answered the question as to where all the millions of gaps are? I don’t expect that you will answer it or even think through it much as you would have to abandon your faith... and we all know how hard that is.
==Really, creationism is not science. It is rationalization.
Is that why the Evos keep telling us the Universe, our solar system, the Earth, and all life merely give the illusion of design, but are really just the product of blind processes that did not have us in mind?
Regarding the Vollosovitch mammoth, the first site my web search turned up was this:
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie001.html
If it’s this easy to call BS on you evidence, I won’t bother with the rest of the claims.
Faith is outside the domain of scientific inquiry. Science does not analyze the mind of God. Why does a minority of Christians persist in this line of attack on reason?
How is inferring that the fine-tuning of the universe, our galaxy, our solar system, the Earth, and all life is in fact what it appears to be an attack on reason?
Substitute the name of any FR YEC for Luther!
Thanks for posting the carbon dating thing... that’s what I was discussing with someone the other day.
Let’s say for instance I have a level on a refrigerator. The front is about a 16th of an inch off at the back of the level. Not a big problem, huh? Well let’s say that the level and the refrigerator are two miles long. What would be the distance between the level and the refrigerator at the end of the level then?
If something carbon dated to be 100 years old was off by say, a minute, a day and a half or even a week that would not be such a big deal. However, how far off does that put it at 200 years... 500 years... 1000 years... 100,000 years... 10 million years.
I’m far from a scientist, but how do they square that kind of innacuracy and still call it reliable? And I think the rate in carbon dating grows exponentially.
And what we cannot know or take into account is how the environment and the “evolutionary process” (to use their language) might have affected the deterioration of carbon over the millenia.
Can you tell me if I’m misunderstanding something about carbon dating?
I’m not supprised. Zelots are often not willing to accept any contrary evidence as it threatens their religion.
“There’s nothing “proven” in science (outside mathematics). “
Hey, friend... I have no problem following logic in factual, tangible evidence. But there is not enough of a body of evidence to prop up evolution as fact or even as plausible theory. It’s just been used as an educational tool to explain something none of us have physical “proof” of. Bones and fossils... theories and suppositions. There is still no one who seems to be able to tell me where even a few hundred of the millions of transitional species are. Dog - wolf... I get it. But I want to see some of those subtle changes in living beings. Show me a line of 30 subtly related fossils. There are just way too many holes to justify the evolution religion that exists.
At least we as Christians have the good graces to call our reliance on God “faith”.
“Where are the millions of transitionary species?”
The claim of a lack of transitional forms is a red herring, which is itself, of course, a transitional form between yellow herrings and purple herrings.
There are many ways to look at the progression of life’s evolution. Although the complete article requires a payment, you can start here and then go the the library:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726451.700-evolution-what-missing-link.html?full=true
There are other possible explanations as well—you can do your own research.
Oh, and as the above link is to New Scientist, your soulmate GGG ought to be in complete alignment with the article. Just make sure that his quotes accurately reflect the meaning of the author.
Horrors! Is nothing sacred?
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