Democrats & Liberals Archives

There, there now, dear Bill; things are not so bad! Remember (as Reagan Secretary of the Interior James Watt used to constantly remind us), Jesus is coming back soon and will put it all Right! So let’s go ahead and stripmine the Northeast Grand Canyon, and clearcut those pesky Redwoods (which, as Raygun used to tell us - first as Governator, then as President - are a leading cause of Air Pollution). When the Saviour returns, all the Good People will be taken to Heaven, and all the Bad People (you know: *THEM*, those “Unknown Unknowns” Rumsfeld and Resident Bush warned us about) will be buried under heaps of ashes and brimstone (from the Stripmines, y’ken?) somewhere between Abu-Ghra’ib and Guantanamo - right where they Belong. Because, as the Lord has told us through his Son and Messenger:

- Be immoderate in your Consumption; blessed are the Consumers, for they shall have Dominion over the Earth…

- If someone strikes you, strike them back; better yet, strike them before they can strike you! For *blessed* are they who have Rapid Deployment and Aerial Supremacy: yea, verily, Shock and Awe shall follow them all the days of their lives…

- Be “Pro-Life:” support the Death ‘Penalty’ and whatever War you may find reason to start - and, as God Knows, Jesus was a big fan of Capital Punishment! Yea, *blessed* are they who support Life before it is born, but not Afterwards, for they shall be The Man - hosanna! - for-ever and ever…

and, above all:

- To thine own selves be UnTrue; seek at all times to Limit God to a child’s fantasy of what He is and is-not capable of - God *clearly* could not have the Power or the Subtlety to engineer such marvels as the Expanding Universe or Evolution! He must be constrained to playing about with the Mud and - God *Knows*! - telling us not to use the brains He gave us to figure out the universe we live in! For *blessed* are the Ignorant and self-limiting; theirs shall be the Bliss of My Pet Goat.

I went through William Dembski’s book Intelligent design. Had to constantly fight the impulse to throw the thing against the wall.

In science, ignorance gives no authority. You can’t claim that the absence of knowledge about something proves anything. Just because you don’t see every step of the evolutionary path for a creature doesn’t mean those other generations don’t exist. You assume that the basic rules of physics and biology don’t change, and that if you see discontinuity, either time and process destroyed that information, or you’re just not looking at it right.

In the case of bacteria, the Flagella and cilium, they argue the unlikeliness of the protein motor that runs the whiplashing little structure prohibits evolution as the force behind it. Unfortunately for them, they can’t prove that statement.

Could other configurations of proteins do something similar? Are their other examples of protein motors? As far as I know there aren’t fossils of germs of sufficient detail to prove either way, and the presumption and better proven theory would be that they evolved somehow. The rules can’t stop with merely the obvious and the recent, what we can easily observe.

And that approach has worked. Our computers work because of a theory that deals with things no human eye can see. But we see the results, in computations completed, and from a monitor whose very function depends on the discrete spectrum of radiation that each element and compound has, whether reflected, refracted, or given off as an energetic glow.

We don’t see the electrons jump instantaneously to higher energy orbitals. They do it anyways. We don’t see the charges in a transistor change the flow of electricity through a circuit billionths of meters wide, but it happens anyways.

Mutations occur everyday. Cancer is one result. the other results can be the slight alterations of pre-existing traits. Over time, those inevitable changes force species to branch off. The change doesn’t stop in the meantime. The main fallacy about evolution is that one creature evolves in a line, then a more advance creature evolves, and so on and so forth. The reality is that all creatures evolve in parallel. When Humans and their fellow apes split from one another, they weren’t much different. It took years of separate evolution for the distinct differences to accumulate. We are indeed distant cousins to apes, not descendants.

As a fairly religious person, I would say that evolution is a lesson in humility, saying we are raised from the dust and returned to it, that we are creatures of creation, set apart by little but our minds and hearts. The choice offered is that we can throw away our advantages as human beings and act like animals, or we can take our fortunate adaptations and reach for something higher.

ID is a joke. If one assumes a creator because of the complexity of life, then this implies that the complexity of the creator must therefore be equal to or greater than the complexity of his creation, so when one looks upon the complexity of a creator, one must assume another more complex creator ad infinitum. Though this doesn’t discount their quaint philosophy, it certainly doesn’t make it any more reasonable.

There is no practical application of ID. It should never be taught as science. If they must, they should teach it in philosophy.

I just don’t understand the proponents of teaching ID in school.

“�I think it�s a downright fraud to perpetrate on the students of this district, to portray one theory over and over,”� said Buckingham. �”What we wanted was a balanced presentation.”�

He wants ID, a useless theory, presented equally with evolution, an infinitely applicable theory. Why would anyone want to waste tax dollars and precious education time on this garbage? As science increases human knowledge, we have less time to teach our children the necessary information. It only gets worse. We have no time to spare this pseudo-theology posturing as science.

Joseph Briggs:
“There is no practical application of ID. It should never be taught as science. If they must, they should teach it in philosophy.”

Yes, where it belongs.
But of course, one of these days Dubya’s going to be announcing that public schools are no longer necessary and much too great a drain on the economy - much like Social Security - and then the whole idea of secular public school will be done away with, only to be replaced with lots of privately owned Christian schools that folks will be getting vouchers for to send their kids to.
And when that day comes, we’ll realize that stuff like this was just our first glimpse at the tip of a very scary iceberg.

SAVE SECULAR PUBLIC EDUCATION!!!
HOORAY FOR THE ACLU!!!

Stephan,

On the surface you make a good argument however, that argument can also be turned on end to show that ID or Creationism is also a valid theory.

You can’t claim that the absence of knowledge about something proves anything.

You also can not claim that the absence of knowledge (proof)about something disproves anything. Just as your example of the computer, even though it works on a “theory that deals with things no human eye can see.” it happens anyway.

Just because you don’t see every step of the evolutionary path for a creature doesn’t mean those other generations don’t exist.

Nor does it mean that they do exist. As God created all the birds of the air, fish of the sea and animals you would expect some similarities to exist between those creatures. Just as there are similarities between painting produced by the same artist, books written by the same author or buildings designed by the same architect.

Therefore your statement that we are distant cousins to apes hold some validity as we were both created by the same Creator.

You assume that the basic rules of physics and biology don’t change

One thing that people refuse to see is that the rules of physics and biology are based on Nature, not the other way around.

I would ask if the ACLU wants all plausable theories presented in a class room. Or is the ACLU trying to impose their favorite theory (evolution) on everyone as they often claim those who support Creationism are trying to do.

You see, Evolution is a theory not a fact. There is evidence presented to show that Evolution is a plausable theory. Therefore it should be taught as such. There is also historical / physical evidence produced that that show the accounts of the Bible to be a plausable theory. Therefore, it should be taught as well.

Over the years what many considered to be Scientific fact have been proven wrong. Things such as the earth is flat, man’s body could not withstand speeds in excess of the spped of sound, the electron was the smallest form of matter. Shall I go on.

For anyone to say that Evolution is proven and therefore the only theory worthy of being espoused is far from thinking with a scientific mind. That person is thinking with a closed mind and ignoring evidence to the contrary.

I personaly believe that God created the Heavens, the Earth and all within it. I also believe that humans finite brains will never grasp the complexities of His creation as we approach everything from our limited perspective.

So, I support schools teaching Evolution as a plausable theory along with Creationism. Don’t deny other plausable theories their own place in the classroom. If we do we kill our thirst for expanding knowledge since everything is already known.

Kirk:

So, I support schools teaching Evolution as a plausable theory along with Creationism. Don’t deny other plausable theories their own place in the classroom.

Teaching multiple plausible theories is fine, in principle. And if you believe that there are alternative theories about creation that your children should know, by all means teach them. I’ve already had discussions with my 8 and 12 year olds covering the basic rationalist arguments for reconciling belief in G-d with science. Teaching your kids is important, and that’s what Sunday school is for.

But the case in Dover, PA is crystal clear. The push for intelligent design is not coming from those that want kids to get the best classroom education. It’s coming from the fundamentalist right wing, who want to push their brand of religion into the public schools, and we should push back.

And Kirk, teaching creationism in science class is not a case of multiple good plausible scientific theories. Creationism, by its very nature, can explain anything, but predicts nothing. But evolutionary hypotheses are consistently predictive - the evolutionary interrelatedness of living things is used over and over in biology, from running cancer tests on mice to isolating genes in DNA sequences. Evolution is accepted by all mainstream working biologists, and underlies whole subfields of biology, like comparative genomics.

From a technical point of view, you’d be better off warning our children that arithmetic is just a theory. (Have them read Russell & Whitehead, then Godel, maybe).

If we do we kill our thirst for expanding knowledge since everything is already known.

It’s total nonsense to say that everything is already known. Biology is a huge, fast-moving field, with new discoveries made every day about how life works - even down the molecular level. A lot of these discoveries have important implications in medicine and agriculture. In order for Americans to stay in the forefront of a fast-moving technical field like this, they need to be educated. Well educated.

And, Kirk, education on biology is important. For starters these are the kids whose science and medicine is going to keep you alive and comfortable in your declining years.

So, to get the best scientific education possible for our children, who do you think should decide which theories are plausible? Should it be scientists and science educators, like in ever other first-world country - like the countries that our children will be competing with for jobs, when they grow up and join the global economy?

Or do you think that should we turn science education over to religious fundamentalists, with very specific religious agendas about what children should hear - as in fundamentalist theocracies like Iran and Afghanistan?

And when that day comes, we’ll realize that stuff like this was just our first glimpse at the tip of a very scary iceberg.

Adrienne - hang tough, girl. I think we’re seeing a time when 51% of 51% are trying to take charge. And if the country lets them, you’re right - we’ll end up in a very scary place. Butmost Americans don’t think this way, and reality has a way of catching up to people after a while.

Have a great holiday season!

Adrienne and the ACLU share more than one thing in common: they are both Correct and Persistent. (If ‘Patriot’ III doesn’t end up banning them as a Proscribed Organisation, the ACLU will hold the front lines until the present National Nightmare has passed. As for Adrienne - Katie bar the door!)

With regard to God and the Universe: scientific practice (at least as regards Quantum Physics) is ever growing closer to Mysticism. Stephen Hawking has already published work showing mathematically the ability of relativistically-rotating hypermasses to produce Matter and Energy in infinitely random configurations. At a seminar for PhD’s he gave in the 1980’s (at either CalTech or U.C. Santa Barbara - I forget which just now), he indicated that a sufficiently massive hypermass, rotating with sufficient angular velocity, could (and eventually would) produce “…everything from a Ham Sandwich to God and All His Angels…” I can think of no greater Hypermass than the Protomass: the Universe just prior to the Big Bang - a singularity incapable of becoming a Hole of any sort (black-, white-, or worm-), and rotating at - erm - God Knows what velocity… If Hawking’s maths are correct (and *I* will not nay-say them), then what better explanation than that God and the Universe created Each Other at the same time? Genesis reads like an ancient primer on Cosmography and Evolution: first there is a Void, then there is Light, then Matter, then Water, then Life… And the order in which the life appears is right in line with Evolutionary Theory - not bad for a work written when it was, eh? It’s not insignificant, either, that the Protomass is so “hot,” (energetically speaking) that Light itself is unable to exist in it: indeed, only a few very hardy sub-particles - leptons, quarks, tachyons, and gluons - could exist in such a stew. So the phrase, “Let there be Light,” is very apt indeed: Light would be one of the first by-products of a Newly Formed Universe - a Universe in which the Rules were just newly laid down. The Rules would consist of the Constants: in “our” case pi, ‘c’, etc. And if Hawking’s hypothesis is correct, then the Protomass would only expand once it had randomly-generated a Being capable of, A.) withstanding its Conditions and, B.) ordering its constituents. Such a randomly-generated Being would Set The Rules for the new universe-to-be. It would *NOT* muck about in the Mud creating life with its Breath and so forth; it would *NOT* have a long beard and no navel - in fact, it would most likely not be anything like what holy-rollers and pulpit-pounders think It would be like in any way whatsoever. However, *we* (and indeed, any self-aware creatures anywhere in the universe) would most likely be a little bit like It, in some ways. (As above, so below.)

As String Theory and Quantum Dynamics push Science further towards the realm of the Spiritual (or at least, allow the one to understand the other), man’s utter Folly in trying to Limit God - by making It into a medieval child’s fantasy with a long beard, no navel, and an inexplicable fascination with who particular humans are sleeping with - becomes more and more laughable. What a piece of Work we are, indeed! How biased in Reason! How self-limited in Faculties! In form and moving how narrowminded and bigoted! In action, how like a Turnip; in apprehension, how like a Worm!

And the worst part is, although all of the major religions on the planet share Common Points - which *should* tell us something very Significant, given how they hate each other for the most part - we refuse to listen to those mighty and important Points, preferring instead to engage in warfare to expunge the “unbelievers.” Jesus wept.

Nonetheless: may each and every one of you have a Happy Christmahanukwanzaakah, and may the Great Unknowable Spirit bless us all, every one! :~}

[Hawking] indicated that a sufficiently massive hypermass, rotating with sufficient angular velocity, could (and eventually would) produce “…everything from a Ham Sandwich to God and All His Angels…” […]

And if Hawking’s hypothesis is correct, then the Protomass would only expand once it had randomly-generated a Being capable of, A.) withstanding its Conditions and, B.) ordering its constituents.

I haven’t read or heard anything about this and nothing much comes up about it in Google so I can’t properly parse it, but does the hypothesis actually suggest that “the Protomass would only expand once it had” randomly generated this “Being” you mention? (What does Kip think of this? What’s the bet this time?) I can understand saying it could produce such entanglements but having a universe as we observe it predicated on it seems unlikely. Do you have a link?

William,

But the case in Dover, PA is crystal clear. The push for intelligent design is not coming from those that want kids to get the best classroom education. It’s coming from the fundamentalist right wing, who want to push their brand of religion into the public schools, and we should push back.

The same can be said for the ACLU. By attempting to limit the discussion to Evolution they are pushing their brand of religion into public schools. Unfortunately unlike me and it appears the case in PA where ID will be taught in conjunction with the theory of evolution, the ACLU wants to limit discussion to a single theory.

This is far from a scientific approach which is to look at all theories or alternate possibilities.

Please read my post again. I did not say that everything is already known. What I very clearly said is that if we limit the discussion to a single theory that theory becomes in essence a “fact”, regardless of the validity of other theories, and kills our quest for knowledge.

I was a pre-med major in collecge before family and financial issues forced a change in career directions in my junior year. So, needless to say I have had my fair share of Biology, Chemistry and Physics classes. There are numerous scientists who are Christians and still work in their field. If you care to do some research into it you will find many different theories on life put forth by these learned individuals. But in nearly every case there is a Creator involved be it young earth theory, old earth theory, directed evolution theory etc.

Or do you think that should we turn science education over to religious fundamentalists, with very specific religious agendas about what children should hear - as in fundamentalist theocracies like Iran and Afghanistan?

No we should not turn science education over to religious fundamentalists. Nor should we turn it over to the ACLU who is attempting to limit the scope of knowledge desiminated in the schools just as is done in those fundamentalist theocracies. If Evolution “is” the only true theory why should evolutionists be afraid of other theories seeing the light of day in a classroom.

People who do not believe the theory of ID could explain to their children the merits of evolution and the reasons that they should not ascribe to ID, just as I now have to do with my children where evolution is concerned.

Once again present all plausable theories including evolution and ID. Let the evedence for and against each theory be the judge not someone with a robe behind a bench.

ACLU = American Crybaby and Losers Union

Here is some reading for you to consider that mathmatically proves that the formation of spontaneous life and thus the starting of the evolution process in all but impossible.

http://www.innercite.com/~tstout/cs/pog_3.shtml

A typical human cell contains about 3,000,000,000 nucleotide pairs which make up its genetic code. There are twenty amino acids used by the human body and coded for by DNA. There are twenty six letters in the English alphabet, but some of these are used rather infrequently. Thus, in very general terms, we could say that the chances for picking a single amino acid of the available choices is about the same as picking a single letter of the English alphabet from the available choices. Thus, a sequence of 1,000,000,000 amino acids represents roughly the same information as a sequence of 1,000,000,000 letters of the alphabet.

No honest person could ever believe that 1 billion random letters could be put together to write a complete comprehendable book. There are several other chapters available at the above link if you choose to study further.

As for scientists not being believers in Creationism, Werner Von Braun (1912-1977) was the father of space science. He wrote, .”..the vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”

“I also find it intriguing that the five greatest physicists in history—Newton, Faraday, Thompson, Maxwell, and Einstein—were each outspoken in their belief that the universe was placed here by a Creator. Furthermore, four of the five were staunch Christians with firm convictions that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God.” Timothy R Stout (physicist).

The same can be said for the ACLU. By attempting to limit the discussion to Evolution they are pushing their brand of religion into public schools.

No, Kirk: separation of church and state is not a religion, it is a constitutional principle. The ACL is saying that scientists and educators should choose the curriculum based on its scientific merit - not theologians and religious leaders.

If you really care about giving equal time for alternative scientific theories, that’s fine. There are many, many opportunities for this in basic science education. But giving equal time to alternative scientific theories should not mean that fundamentalist Christians should decide what alternatives are appropriate. That’s the job of science teachers.

ID does not deserve equal time as science, because it is bad science. It’s being pushed into the curriculum by fundamentalist Christians because is supports a particular theology. (This is the case in Dover, at least: there the proponents of ID are not scientists or science educators.)

I’ll reply to your combinatorics point in a second post…

William,

Please for my edification, will you point out the clause in the Constitution that defines the Separation of Church and State principle?

Kirk,

The premise sounds flawed. It’s not just chance. It’s chance plus physics. It makes all the difference. And just because our concepts regarding the “size” of information are skewed by our abstract proclivities does not mean that this matters at all to the components of organic chemistry. Luckily. Carbon has a lot of incentive to make something happen. The letter “t” has no inherent attraction to the letters “h” and “e” to form the word, “the.”

Timothy describes it himself:

Each enzyme has very specific behavior, which is controlled by its shape. Enzymes are made from a series of amino acids chained together. Twenty different amino acids are used in living systems and coded for by DNA. These twenty amino acids differ from each other by size, degree of attraction to or repulsion by water, and electrical charge. Since the interior of a living cell is mostly water, an enzyme exists in a liquid environment. When the cell builds an enzyme, it adds one amino acid at a time to one end of a forming chain, within a predominately water environment. The amino acids which are repelled by water are pushed towards the center of the folded structure; this movement is reinforced because these kind tend to attract to each other as well. Conversely, the amino acids which are attracted to water are pulled towards the outside of the structure. This combination of pulling and pushing causes the chain to fold back and forth over itself, assuming a very specific shape.

This easily can be argued to be intelligent design, but what we perceive to be clever about organic chemistry is not dependent on some entity to have initiated it.

The second major flaw is that Timothy uses what he admits to be evolutionists’ flawed theory of the beginnings of life to disprove itself. Just because of a heretofore failure of imagination on the part of evolutionists regarding the specifics of life’s origins is no reason to discount the entire premise behind evolution theory and then claim we are therefore a product of a creator.

Our understanding of gravity has also been fraught with gaps and flaws, but the theory still managed to create massive amounts of science and applications. Evolution has done the same. What has ID done except create even more wasteful and divisive social politics?

No honest person could ever believe that 1 billion random letters could be put together to write a complete comprehendable book. There are several other chapters available at the above link if you choose to study further.

Kirk, I’m familiar with the ID arguments about irreducible complexity. But these 1B letters are organized into 25000 genes, most of which are homologous - sorry, similar - to genes in simpler organisms, and most of which are independently meaningful, in that they have some clear function independent of the other genes. It’s not 1B letters, it’s 25,000 paragraphs. And there are meaningful sentences (protein motifs) and chapters (interacting networks of proteins) as well. The combinatoric argument you point to just doesn’t apply.

If you know some biology, there’s a nice refutation of the “irreducible complexity” of the flagellum and the TCA, two common examples in ID, here.

And, I’ll readily grant that there are huge steps of evolution we don’t understand: from non-life to life, from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, etc. But lack of an explanation doesn’t mean explanaton is impossible.

As for scientists not being believers in Creationism, Werner Von Braun (1912-1977) was the father of space science. He wrote, .”..the vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”

I’m a scientist, and I believe in a Creator as well, but that doesn’t mean I want my kids science classes to be based on religious principles. Did Einstein ever come out against teaching evolution? no? I didn’t think so.

As an aside, if you want to talk philosophy instead of politics: If you recall your Douglas Adams, one of the hitchhiker books mentions a remote planet on which the Creator left behind a message for all intelligent beings (which, being Douglas Adams, was “please pardon the inconvenience”). I think that there is no such message - and ID proponents are simply trying to find one. If they hope to prove their hypothesis, they’re deluded. Belief in G-d is a matter of faith, not a matter that can be proved conclusively one way or another. (And if there was a proof, would it really be found by performing statistical analyses of how finch beak sizes correlate with weather patterns?)

Since G-d’s existence can’t be proved scientifically, it must be that nature, whether it was designed or not, has with rules and principles that we can find, using rational scientific methods. Determining these rules is the subject of science. And this is all interesting stuff to talk about, and teach - but it’s not a prerequisite for biology, any more than reading Godel is a prerequisite for learning arithmetic.

Kirk, are you insinuating the myth of explicit constitution?

The following deals with this argument and many others in the same vein.

In his book The Myth of Separation, David Barton repeats the New Right mantra that the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights, a fact he uses to try to discredit Supreme Court cases that draw on that metaphor.~’~

Of course, constitutional principles such as the “separation of powers” and “a system of checks and balances” do not appear by name in either document either, yet all legal scholars would agree that these concepts are part and parcel of the Constitution. In writing that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” the Founders believed these words contained the idea of “separation of church and state.” Thomas Jefferson used the “wall of separation” imagery to describe the meaning of the First Amendment religion clauses. He is joined by James Madison, drafter of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, who passed Jefferson’s religious freedom statute in Virginia, and whose “Memorial and Remonstrance” explicated the reasons for the wall. Older than the Framers, but with influence on the nation’s ideals of religious freedom, Roger Williams, Baptist preacher and founder of Rhode Island, actually originated the “wall of separation” metaphor.

Kirk, separation of church and state is based on the first amendment in the Bill of Rights.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

William,

Below is a rather lengthly block quote but a very important one for this discussion.

There is a common saying that “the best defense is a good offense.” If you were to ask most people what the best proof of general evolution is, they would respond that it is the fossil record. This is because the fossil record is so aggressively presented as incontrovertible evidence of the validity of evolutionary theory.

The truth of the matter is that the fossil record does not support general evolution. Darwin himself was so concerned about the problems presented by the fossil record that he made the comment, “The case at present (problems presented by the fossil record) must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.” ref 1

In another location he admits, “The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several paleontologists—for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick— as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection.” ref 2

So, exactly what is this problem that Darwin admits would be fatal to his theory if it were to be confirmed? It is simply the manner in which fossils are distributed within the fossil record. Let’s illustrate the problem.

Let’s suppose we want to sort fossils into buckets according to their categories. We have at our disposal a large football field on which to place the buckets. We have all seen diagrams showing a tree-like structure for evolution. Starting off at the base there is the initial progenitor of the members of the tree. As we move up the trunk, there are various branches going out to sub-trunks, limbs, and twigs. At various locations on this tree will be worms, insects, fish, men, birds, etc. Let’s take this diagram and enlarge it until it is the size of the football field and then transfer it onto the field. Next, we will place buckets along all of the trunks, branches, and limbs of the tree. The buckets will contact each other so that there are no gaps in between them. Finally, we will place each of the fossils we have collected into the bucket which most appropriately represents its location on the diagram.

Darwin’s theory says that a dominating species will be abundant and widespread. However, it will be making slow, gradual changes as it responds to selective pressures on its variation. Thus, a species should gradually acquire the characteristics of a new species. If a small group becomes isolated from a main group, then the evolutionary course of the separate populations may diverge. But, slow gradual change is the dominating characteristic along the main bodies of the trunk. So, we would expect that the buckets along the trunk and branches would contain some representative samples of the stage of development they represent. It is acknowledged that there may be some gaps due to incompleteness of the geological record, but still, overall, the buckets along the main trunks and branches are the ones giving rise to the future generations and they should contain their representative samples.

So, we now have our buckets laid out and have a prediction of the distribution pattern based on the theory. However, once we do the sorting, we find something unexpected. Basically, the only buckets with any fossils in them are at the tips of the outermost limbs, at the twigs. There are no fossils in the buckets along the trunks or main branches themselves. Furthermore, whenever a new species was found in the fossil record, it tended to remain unchanged from the time is was first found until it disappeared.

Before he wrote The Origin Darwin had spent over twenty years contemplating this and the more he thought about it the more perplexing it became to him. This is the exact opposite of everything predicted by his theory. By the time he wrote the sixth version 13 years later, he had spent 33 years mulling this over and was still disturbed.

In fact Darwin was so disturbed by these results that he admitted that if this is really what the fossil record shows, then his theory is invalid. This we just read in the above two quotations. I believe very few people have understood evolutionary theory as well as Darwin. Much of his insight about natural selection and principles of micro-evolution have been confirmed by genetics. It is amazing that he understood as much as he did with what little he had to work with. If a person is not as disturbed as Darwin by these observations, it is because he does not know enough to be disturbed by them, has not spent enough time thinking through their implications to be disturbed by them, or is so enamored with the philosophical and religious implications of evolutionary theory that the quality of the evidence in its support has become irrelevant to him. The truth is that Darwin understood these things and they greatly disturbed him.

The father of the Evolution Theory himself is so disturbed by his findings that he himself starts to bring forth objections to the theory.

Maybe Evolution “does not deserve equal time as science, because it is bad science.” However, in my opinion since it is subscribed to by many in the scientific community it does have a place in the classroom next to the other plausable theories. Once again present them all and let the evidence be the arbiter not the ACLU which the last time I looked was not recognized as a scientific organization.

Joseph,

The letters t h and e do have an attratction to each other if as in the example 1,000,000,000 random letters are to form a complete comprehendable book. I can tell you that my scrabble letters have never worked out that well.

You stop short with your quote above. Just a few short paragraphs later Mr Stout states “This requirement of sequential fabrication places an overwhelming additional burden on any proposed mechanism for an enzyme to develop through natural, random processes outside an already living cell, such as would be needed for the spontaneous origin of life.”

I believe very few people have understood evolutionary theory as well as Darwin.

Yeah, it’s not like we’ve had any time to think it over, or analyse and test it.

If a person is not as disturbed as Darwin by these observations, it is because he does not know enough to be disturbed by them, has not spent enough time thinking through their implications to be disturbed by them, or is so enamored with the philosophical and religious implications of evolutionary theory that the quality of the evidence in its support has become irrelevant to him.

A claim that whoever doesn’t agree with his asessment must be ignorant, lazy, or fanatical. Great.

The father of the Evolution Theory himself is so disturbed by his findings that he himself starts to bring forth objections to the theory.

So? How does this in any way discount the utility of the theory? Einstein had deep reservations about his theories on relativity.

William,

And, I’ll readily grant that there are huge steps of evolution we don’t understand: from non-life to life, from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, etc. But lack of an explanation doesn’t mean explanaton is impossible.

Which means that evolution is no more than a theory, which is a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation. Argue and investigate Evolution and ID along with any other plausable theory. Do not limit teaching to a single theory doing so makes that theory a “defacto” fact.

To date I do not think there has be irrefutable evidence that Evolution is the only true explanation for human life. Do not make it a “defacto” fact by limiting study of other theories.

Our concept of “comprehendible” doesn’t matter in the realm of organic chemistry.

You stop short with your quote above [regarding organic complexity and chance].

Well, I did address the premise later with:

This easily can be argued to be intelligent design, but what we perceive to be clever about organic chemistry is not dependent on some entity to have initiated it.

[…] Just because of a heretofore failure of imagination on the part of evolutionists regarding the specifics of life’s origins is no reason to discount the entire premise behind evolution theory and then claim we are therefore a product of a creator.

In other words, just because evolutionists have yet to come up with anything better than the organic chemist’s equivalent of immaculate conception doesn’t mean the whole theory can be discounted, or such flaws can be used to justify wasting tax dollars on fairly representing ID alongside evolution in public science education.

Joseph

Just because of a heretofore failure of imagination on the part of evolutionists regarding the specifics of life’s origins is no reason to discount the entire premise behind evolution theory and then claim we are therefore a product of a creator.

By the same token, since there is mathmatical improbability involved, along with a “lack of imagination” is it not imperative on science to look at ALL possible theories? I would say it is. Otherwise we may be hanging our hat on a deeply flawed and so far unprovable theory.

In other words, just because evolutionists have yet to come up with anything better than the organic chemist’s equivalent of immaculate conception doesn’t mean the whole theory can be discounted, or such flaws can be used to justify wasting tax dollars on fairly representing ID alongside evolution in public science education.

Since you are so quick to discount a Creationist’s ideas of immaculate conception, why are you so eager to accept an Evolutionist’s? Again Evolution is a theory. ID since it can not be definativley proven is also a theory. A theory that holds as much validity as Evolution given the major flaws associated with Evolution’s origins of life and fossil record shortcomings.

Due to these it could be argued that it is a waste of tax dollars not to present ID along side Evolution. To not present all plausable theories short changes our students.

I thought this was hurray for the ACLU who worries about separation of church and state and fears state control.

Tell where and when there was ever any state control of religion in this country? Marvelously , we have done so well without it happening and without the ACLU shouting fire in the theatre.

[…] is it not imperative on science to look at ALL possible theories?

Sure, any scientific theory is fine.

ID since it can not be definativley proven is also a theory.

Nope. The fact that something cannot be proven true or false is not a defining characteristic of a theory. A theory is a scientific hypothesis that has been established and expanded by verifiable observation, experimentation, and peer review. ID, on the other hand, is an impossible argument with no possibility to be addressed within the realm of the scientific method. ID proponents use the scientific method only to resort to fanciful speculation about some god - excuse me, some unspecified higher power.

Since you are so quick to discount a Creationist’s ideas of immaculate conception, why are you so eager to accept an Evolutionist’s?

I don’t accept the evolutionists’ idea of an original self-replicating molecule. That’s why I called it a failure of imagination and used the immaculate conception metaphor. Nevertheless, evolution proves itself applicable science, ID does not. Present to me another scientific theory that has the potential to create as much, if not more, applicable science as evolution, and I will be happy to consider it, regardless of whether it says we were created by an old, crotchety white man or four turtles and a blue elephant. And prayer doesn’t count as an application.

Maybe Evolution “does not deserve equal time as science, because it is bad science.” However, in my opinion since it is subscribed to by many in the scientific community it does have a place in the classroom next to the other plausable theories. Once again present them all and let the evidence be the arbiter not the ACLU which the last time I looked was not recognized as a scientific organization.

Once again, Kirk: the positions of the ACLU and Buckingham are in no way symmetric. The ACLU is not attempting to an impose a change on the curriculum in Dover, PA. They are representing parents of students in Dover, PA who are resisting a change, a change proposed by born-again fundamentalist Christians on the school board, not by science teachers; a change that they, the parents, feel is motivated by religious belief, rather than scientific evidence.

The ACLU is defending the principle that the state-sponsored and state-sponsored public-school instruction does not become a mouthpiece for a particular religious organization. It is defending the freedom of the teachers and parents to set science curriculum without interference from any particular religious sect.

The counter-arguments to the ACLU’s position are either (a) that ID is real science and should be taught, or (b) that separation of church and state is fine, really, and we should be happy to have religion in our schools.

No one seems to be arguing for (b) here - maybe that’s something we actually agree on? seems unlikely. There are many arguments for (a), but they are all pretty easy to shoot down.

For instance, in your quote, Darwin noted that the fossil record doesn’t seem to support uniform rates of evolution. Now that we understand more about how organisms work, we understand more about why evolution might be non-uniform. The development of splicing in eukaryotes, for instance, means that an single gene can express many different proteins, under alternative splicings: a huge change in the potential diversity. The same is true for histones, which allow DNA to be packed much more tightly than in bacteria, and also introduce a whole new set of regulatory mechanisms. Since new mechanisms for promoting diversity can have non-linear effects, there’s no reason to expect the fossil record to be linear.

So, should we introduce high school biology students to these arguments - arguments like the ones you and I are making? Absolutely not: you can’t understand any of the real arguments for and against ID until you really understand combinatorics, information theory, molecular biology - and evolutionary theory, of course. Furthermore, there’s no point scientifically in teaching ID, since it makes no predictions about biology, and leads to no experiments that you can test.

Properly speaking, ID, creationism, and the like should perhaps be taught in philosophy of science, or civics. But it makes no sense to make it part of a standard secondary school science curriculum.

Dee Lee:

Tell where and when there was ever any state control of religion in this country? Marvelously, we have done so well without it happening and without the ACLU shouting fire in the theatre.

I’d love to beleve that you’re right, DL, and that there are no threats. But great changes in a society can happen little by little, over time, and one has to plan for the worst. I’m more worried now about personal liberties than ever before - maybe I’ll take a most sometime to explain why.

If it’s worth sending 150k troops to Iraq to defend ourselves against the possibility of fundamentalist Islamic radicals attacking us, surely it’s worth a little effort to defend smaller attacks on freedom here at home, and to help fund and support the defenders.

[Back From Most-Spiritual-Philosopher-Jesus Celebratory Holiday]

Joseph - In answer to your question, Hawking’s maths and Common Sense boil it down to this: the Protomass is just sitting there, Being *EVERYTHING* (no, really, it IS: it is All Space and All Mass and All Energy, and Time [as we know it] does not exist), and it is very likely Spinning (due to the fact that it has contracted into Itself since the heat-death of the Previous Universe - yes, really), and it keeps producing Random Configurations of matter and energy - virtually *ALL* of which are immediately sucked back into it and destroyed in less than a nanosecond (if we could Measure Time yet, which we can’t, remember?) by the astounding “Heat” and Gravitation and the Tidal Forces of the spinning Proto-Universe. (Remember, it’s so “hot” that Light itself is broken down, and the only things capable of existing beyond Elemental Strings are various of the more basic Muons, Gluons, and Tachyons [which would be spiralling off backwards in Time, as tachyons are wont to do, if Time existed - which it does not yet, so they cannot] - pretty kewl, eh?) Now, over the course of many Strange Aeons (pun intended), this Ultimate Relativistically-Rotating Hypermass will produce (eventually) a Random Configuration of Matter and Energy which has the following characteristics:

1.) It will be capable of surviving the stramash of ultimately-vibrating Strings and superenergetic Subparticles, the Tidal Effects, and the Total Gravitation, and

2.) It will be Aware - hence a “Being” - as no doubt many Random Configurations which had already been produced were (for the split-nanosecond before they were utterly destroyed at the subatomic level and re-subsumed into the Protomass), and

3.) It will have the capability of Ordering Spacetime - i.e., It will be capable of willing the “Void” into shape, of “Making The Rules” for the next Universe, of saying “Let There Be Light” and having it actually Happen…

*Boom*!

or, rather,

*Bang*!

And there you have it: another Expanding Universe, with its own set of Laws and Constants, which will continuously expand until the last nano-erg of energy has cycled down to the infrared and expunged itself. At which point, the only Force left to act is Gravity: the Galaxies begin to contract; Local Clusters within them do the same; Stars fall together; Solar Systems are compressed and consumed - everything falls towards the Middle, yes? And, as it does, it gets Hotter: collisions produce by-products; Stellar Fusion begins again; as the space between matter reduces the matter gets more energetic… *But* - at this point nothing will stop it: there is no counter-momentum; quite literally, *EVERYTHING* will fall back into Itself until it comprises an ultimately-energetic Protomass again, a Singularity incapable of collapse into a proper Hole (since it comprises Everything), it will just sit “there” and Spin, producing random combinations of matter and energy…

Just as it has done, Forever. World without End.

(And before anyone brings up the Dark Matter heresy, they’d best check the latest revisions of that - now bankrupt - theory: since the latest developments in multi-dimensional String Theory, it looks as if the Universe is Cyclical after all.)

Carl Sagan had an inkling of this vision, as he tried to link Hindu Spirituality with the cyclical universe. Einstein had protested, “God does not play Dice with the Universe!” But Hawking has observed: “Not only does God play Dice with the Universe, He hides the Rolls behind His hand!”

So it looks as though God and the Universe (as we, or others, might know it) create Each Other at the same instant. How pitiably small are the minds of those - whether they be narrow-minded Theologians or narrow-minded Scientists - who cannot and will not allow for the existence of a God who is not some patriarchally-bearded Magician in long robes with No Navel. If in fact God is the first being produced by the protomass that is capable of surviving it and ordering spacetime (thereby setting both the scientific and spiritual Rules of the New Universe), should we not seek to either state that It does not exist, or that It must be some figment of our rather limited imaginations? Is that not the height of hubris and human folly?

Kirk - viable Amino Acids have been successfully produced in laboratories out of Base Constituents since the mid-1960’s. One fills a sealed glass container with some carbon, water, phosphorus, sodium, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., and then one shocks the hell out of it with artificial “lightning” whilst nearly boiling it over an artificial “lava-vent,” and Lo! Amino Acids suitable for eventual formation of Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine are created in a thick reddish-yellow “soup” which is very likely similar to what formed on Earth in lightning-struck volcanically-heated shallow seas aeons ago. So much for Evolution being fictitious. If you want to inject God into the matter, why not do it by Thanking God for: Avogadro’s Number, Faraday’s Constant, Ionisation, Reduction, and Oxidation (which is, according to T. H. Huxley, the Meaning Of Life…)? And, above all, why do you not Thank God for Evolution, which is God’s Rule for all living beings, everywhere?

3.) It will have the capability of Ordering Spacetime - i.e., It will be capable of willing the “Void” into shape, of “Making The Rules” for the next Universe, of saying “Let There Be Light” and having it actually Happen…

There is nothing in the process you describe that demonstrates that an expanding universe is predicated on this “being” being created in a preexisting protouniverse. It might state that the protomass may eventually create such a being but it doesn’t state, as you describe it, that such a being is required for the universe to expand out of the protomass. Unless it simply presumes that no other force is capable of initiating such a process. Which would seem a little weak to me.

[…] *EVERYTHING* will fall back into Itself until it comprises an ultimately-energetic Protomass again

[…] (And before anyone brings up the Dark Matter heresy, they’d best check the latest revisions of that - now bankrupt - theory: since the latest developments in multi-dimensional String Theory, it looks as if the Universe is Cyclical after all.)

Any links for this? The evidence of an accelerating expanding universe seemed pretty solid, though I wasn’t too keen on dark matter theory anyway.

Joseph - you are falling prey to the ubiquitous “Chicken/Egg” problem compounded by the already referenced straw man of “Absence of Evidence vs. Evidence of Absence.” To assume that there must be Another Way in which an otherwise Stable System such as the (entirely hypothetical) Protomass can explode in the cataclysm we call the “Big Bang” is exactly as erroneous as Assuming that it is the Only Way for it to happen… You’ll not trap me so easily, lad, for I have no axe to grind in this affair (although, I freely admit to having entered my Dog into the Show)!

This is where the Common Sense comes in. If you are all conversant with Set Theory and Boolean Logic, you will realise that such an Engine, over an Infinity of Not-Time (let’s pay homage to what we’re dealing with, here) will certainly produce Everything, capable of being produced as a truly Random configuration of Energy and Matter. That includes, O WatchBlog Horatio, more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your (or, for that point, my philosophy!

Accordingly, Occam’s Razor directs us to find the Simplest causal factor. The two Candidates are:

1.) Some configuration of Energy and/or Matter which cause an otherwise Stable State (the Protomass) to suddenly Explode, thus creating a God-Free Universe, or

2.) Some configuration of Energy and/or Matter capable of ordering the Otherwise Stable protomass into a Universe, according to a series of Laws and Constants (which modern String Theory says can change and be Entirely Different within each Universe, as it Exists within its own point of reference).

I don’t know about you, dear fellow, but until I hear otherwise from the Almighty, I’ll choose to put my Faith in ‘2’, Above… ;~}

you are falling prey to the ubiquitous “Chicken/Egg” problem compounded by the already referenced straw man of “Absence of Evidence vs. Evidence of Absence.” To assume that there must be Another Way in which an otherwise Stable System such as the (entirely hypothetical) Protomass can explode in the cataclysm we call the “Big Bang” is exactly as erroneous as Assuming that it is the Only Way for it to happen… You’ll not trap me so easily, lad, for I have no axe to grind in this affair (although, I freely admit to having entered my Dog into the Show)!

I don’t assume there must be another way, I assume what way(s) we can conceive may not encompass all possibilities, which I think is a fair assumption. I have no axe to grind, either. I have been expressing genuine interest in this “dog” in an attempt to understand it.

This is where the Common Sense comes in. If you are all conversant with Set Theory and Boolean Logic, you will realise that such an Engine, over an Infinity of Not-Time (let’s pay homage to what we’re dealing with, here) will certainly produce Everything, capable of being produced as a truly Random configuration of Energy and Matter. That includes, O WatchBlog Horatio, more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your (or, for that point, my philosophy!

Again, given that this protomass can and will produce everything, I see no reason to think the theory therefore states that out of all possible everythings, there is only one bit of it, this being you describe, that can initiate an expanding universe. I don’t think my assessment of what you have thus far described is outside the realm of common sense.

Accordingly, Occam’s Razor directs us to find the Simplest causal factor. The two Candidates are:

1.) Some configuration of Energy and/or Matter which cause an otherwise Stable State (the Protomass) to suddenly Explode, thus creating a God-Free Universe, or

2.) Some configuration of Energy and/or Matter capable of ordering the Otherwise Stable protomass into a Universe, according to a series of Laws and Constants (which modern String Theory says can change and be Entirely Different within each Universe, as it Exists within its own point of reference).

I don’t know about you, dear fellow, but until I hear otherwise from the Almighty, I’ll choose to put my Faith in ‘2’, Above… ;~}

This, I truly don’t understand. How does one use Occam’s Razor to argue that a god initiated system is simpler than a non-god initiated system? Since the non-god initiated system has one less component, i.e. no god, it would therefore be simpler, no? There is a puck-like quality to your posts (emphasized by the Shakespeare references) so I can’t really tell if you are serious or not.

Joe, and especially Captain Ozone: I’m completely flummoxed by your arguments. Protomass? String theory? chickens? huh?

If anyone else is still following, the National Academies (of Science, Engineering and Medicine) have been, since they were formed by Lincoln, the main source of technical advice to the government. They have a page on evolution & education, and an book discussing the issue (online, if you want, Kirk).

Below is the description of this book from the NA Press:

While the mechanisms of evolution are still under investigation, scientists universally accept that the cosmos, our planet, and life evolved and continue to evolve. Yet the teaching of evolution to schoolchildren is still contentious. In Science and Creationism, The National Academy of Sciences states unequivocally that creationism has no place in any science curriculum at any level.

Briefly and clearly, this booklet explores the nature of science, reviews the evidence for the origin of the universe and earth, and explains the current scientific understanding of biological evolution. This edition includes new insights from astronomy and molecular biology.

Attractive in presentation and authoritative in content, Science and Creationism will be useful to anyone concerned about America’s scientific literacy: education policymakers, school boards and administrators, curriculum designers, librarians, teachers, parents, and students.

Sorry, William, I don’t mean to encourage a derail. I don’t really know what the captain is talking about either. I’m just hoping he can elucidate. The idea that Hawking might suggest in one of his theories or equations that the universe is somehow predicated on the existence of a god seems ludicrous. And since a google search didn’t bring up much, I had to ask.

William,

I read a portion of the book you reference and noticed something in the chapter pertaining to the origins of life. Following the explanation of how scientists have estimated the age of the universe following the “Big Bang” there is a 6 paragraph discussion of the possible origins of life.

In that 6 short paragraphs there is the following;

1)…they may have existed…
2)…organism must have been simple…
3)…there must have been structures…
4)Experiments cunducted under conditions intended to resemble those present on primitive earth…
5)…could have been available…
6)…ribozymes, can act as catalysts…
7)…molecules could have been “autocatalytic”…
8)…they could have replicated…
9)…eventually could have become…
10)…whether life could have originated…
11)…pathways might have been followed…
12)…speculating about…
13)…Earth could have provided…
14)…units that might have been…
15)…recent speculation…
16)…includes the possibility…
17)…living cells might have arisen…
18)The job of science is to provide plausible natural explanations for natural phenomena.

There are a lot of what ifs and maybes in these paragraphs.

On Creationism, it states that many including many scientists, hold that God created the universe….”theistic evolution” is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution. Indeed it reflects the remarkable and inspiring character of the physical universe revealed by cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology and many other scientific disciplines.

Given the many questions surrounding evolution and the statement above, I would say that there is more than adequate reason to present ID as a plausible alternative to Evolution.

You stated previously that you were a scientist who believes in a Creator. What is your belief concerning the origins of life. Is it that organic matter somehow got together in the primordal soup and life was the result or is it that a greater power created life?

Overall these are my impressions of ID proponents’ arguments:

Evolution is flawed therefore god exists
Evolution is flawed therefore it is only a guess
Evolution is flawed therefore we should teach children ID
Evolution is incomplete therefore ID is a plausible alternative to Evolution

Notice there is no logical connection between premise and conclusion.

Joseph - I think what you need, in order to be able to See from my point of View, is to have a Tree or two cut down which at present may be blocking the Forest I am describing. Bringing forth my Mighty Chainsaw of Guerilla Ontology, I shall endeavour to hack them down - snicker-snack! - and clear the Vision for you. (Stand well back, or you might catch a beam in your eye!)

Tree(1): The idea of “God” is clearly offensive to at least a few of your sensibilities - therefore, let’s Redefine Our Terms: let us not use the word “God” (and all that seems unattachable from it for you) and substitute “Being” or “Entelechy” or “Awareness” or “Bug-Eyed, Chicken-Headed Monster From 50,000 Fathoms Below The Deep,” or whatever you choose instead, eh? Pick something you feel Neutral about; you’ll feel better about the consideration of this theory immediately.

Tree(2): Consider the nature of the Protomass. All Matter, All Energy, All Mass, All Space - compressed as far as it can possibly be compressed, occupying as little volume as it can, yet encompassing All Volume… A thing which *would* collapse into itself leaving the Mother Of All Singularities - except that it can’t, because it quite literally has nowhere to Go! It *is* all spacetime manifolds: All Dimensions, Everything. It is so “hot” that even Light breaks down; photons are far too Complex and Fragile to exist within such an environment. Time itself has no meaning; causality is not governed by the Laws or Constants we are familiar with. Instead, what it is doing is randomly producing configurations of Matter and/or Energy - virtually all of which are instantly broken down and subsumed back into the ultra-energetic stew of primordial Forces which spawned them. There *IS NO* Explosion which can “blow it up.” It *IS* already the Biggest, Hottest, Most Violent thing that has ever existed! No Process, no Item, could possibly have effect upon it, since it *Is EVERYTHING* already. (Sorry for the Fontifical Histrionics, but I am trying to hammer home to you just what you are trying to imagine at this moment: whatever you can imagine is probably not Big enough, not Violent enough, to encompass the reality of the Pre-Nascent Universe.) Given such a milieu, and given that, of the infinity of various combinations of Matter and Energy it is Randomly Producing - over an infinity of Not-Time - some of them will be Aware Entelechies, it is not too difficult to see how the most likely advent of a “Big Bang” will be the formation of such a being capable of Ordering Spacetime.

Now, if you have successfully ditched your pre-conceived notions of what “God” is like (and your distaste for the notion of “God”) you will likely be able to see the Forest I am trying to point out to you, just There - do you See it? - just There, over the Event Horizon… Goodbye to things that bore you! Joy is waiting for you! What matter where you go, if you are Free! :~}

P.S.: I am rarely Entirely Serious; life is too short.

(Sorry for the Fontifical Histrionics, but I am trying to hammer home to you just what you are trying to imagine at this moment: whatever you can imagine is probably not Big enough, not Violent enough, to encompass the reality of the Pre-Nascent Universe.)

Unfortunately, I think your fontifical historonics is the entire problem. That and a simple presumption that I haven’t been exposed to such ideas before and would thus require turgid explanations and fanciful metaphor in order for my lack of imagination to grasp the very simple concepts you are trying to get across.

Luckily, I think I found it:

Given such a milieu, and given that, of the infinity of various combinations of Matter and Energy it is Randomly Producing - over an infinity of Not-Time - some of them will be Aware Entelechies, it is not too difficult to see how the most likely advent of a “Big Bang” will be the formation of such a being capable of Ordering Spacetime.

Here, you are speculating that what, to you, seems most plausible is what must have happened. I can easily see how this could be one possible outcome to what you describe, but I cannot see how anyone could assert that it is the only possible outcome.

If you can cite some book, journal, or online resource that might elucidate the issue better, I will be glad to check it out.

Joseph,

In looking back at the previous posts, it seems that I am the only one really advocating ID here. So, I hope you did not draw your conclussions from anything I have said.

Let me address your comments one by one.

Evolution is flawed therefore god exists

God exists in spite of any flaws in Evolution not because of those flaws.

Evolution is flawed therefore it is only a guess

Evolution is not a guess it is a theory which is defined by Webster as: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation. Evolution can not be proven, it is a hypotheses not a fact. I will admit there is evidence to show that Evolution is a plausible theory and therefore it should be taught in the classroom along with other plausible theories.

Evolution is flawed therefore we should teach children ID

We should not teach ID because of any flaws in the Theory of Evolution. We should teach ID because it is a plausible theory supported by numerous scientists. The support of the scientists is even acknowledged by the book supported by National Academy of Sciences. When a theory has support of a portion of those in multiple disciplines of the scientific community as a plausible theory it should be taught along side other plausible theories.

Evolution is incomplete therefore ID is a plausible alternative to Evolution

ID is a plausible theory regardless of the incompleteness of the Theory of Evolution. The major gaps in the fossil record, the way that most species appear and then disappear in much the same form, and the lack of an explanation for the origin of life make the Theory of Evolution suspect at best. Since it is a Theory and not a proven fact other alternatives need to be explored and taught to our students.

I am not advocating ID instead of Evolution. I am advocating ID in conjunction with Evolution. This is the same course of action planned by the Dover, PA School Board. Let the students hear all sides of an argument. Evaluating the evidence for and against various theories will foster critical thinking on their part. Critical thinking skills are vital in the real world. Teaching a single theory as the only plausible theory leads to that theory being viewed as a defacto fact and dampens these critical thinking skills.

Our students deserve better.

Kirk,

I was speaking of ID proponents in general. And really, your comments just emphasized my point: there are no logical connections among my impression of the ID argument.

Science is only useful when it functions in both directions of time. It should be able to accurately predict the past and the future, which is all about applicability. ID contributes nothing more than an argument against evolution. It says nothing more about the past except that we were created by an intelligent designer. It says nothing about the future. It can’t be tested. And I have yet to hear what it might contribute to applicable science.

This is from the first site listed on a Google search and a good representation of the face of ID.

Positive evidence of design in living systems consists of the semantic, meaningful or functional nature of biological information, the lack of any known law that can explain the sequence of symbols that carry the “messages,” and statistical and experimental evidence that tends to rule out chance as a plausible explanation. Other evidence challenges the adequacy of natural or material causes to explain both the origin and diversity of life. (bold, theirs; emphasis, mine source)

The only positive assertion is the first! And it in now way proves design. This is saying, in effect, that since any form of life exists, it is a sign of intelligent design; how novel. Everything else is about “the lack of,” “challenges,” and “tends to rule out.” Not “evidence of,” “refutes,” or “rules out conclusively,” all phrases one would associate with the concept of “positive evidence.” Why does this site have to lie in an attempt to advance their argument?

I tend to trust what I know of both science and history to determine the validity of weak pretexts applied with as much vigor as the ID movement. My concern and arguments are not necessarily for you or your opinion (no offense), but for the course of public policy as it is and may be manipulated by movements like ID.

Sorry Joseph, both for any inference you might have drawn that I did not realise you were an Expert on both theosophy and cosmology, and for not being arsed to do Research for you.

Were I able to find you a nice Web Link to Hawking’s astounding revelation at the seminar (and I might well be able to do so; I just don’t know), would it suddenly make it more Real to you than it is to me in my memory?

Does the presence or absence of furnished Web Links hold the key to the reality and existence of events? I.e.: if a tree falls in Joseph Briggs’ forest, and it is not reported in a Web Link reserched by someone else, had it ever fallen at all?

Only time will tell. (Personally, I believe You to be the only Real thing on earth: the rest of us are all clearly just figments of your powerful and insightful imagination.)

:~}

P.S.: I’ll trade you your “historonics” for my “reserched”… (Obviously, neither of our Spell Checkers were provided with enough Web Links in order that they might have caught those errors, let alone any Tugidity [or, in your case, Flaccidity] in the prose.)

By the way, I agree with you entirely on the point of this article: no variety of metaphysical conjecture ought be funded in American public schools on the taxpayer’s dime. If Evolution is, in fact, part of a Universe begun by a “God,” then I’m quite certain that deity would want All Its Creatures to figure that out on their own, without having it stuffed into their heads by some arrogant Middleman as part of some knee-jerk dogma he espoused.

Sorry Joseph, both for any inference you might have drawn that I did not realise you were an Expert on both theosophy and cosmology, and for not being arsed to do Research for you.

You’re not to blame for your lack of clarity. In fact, it’s why I was so patient about it and didn’t begin to express my annoyance until, what, the fourth post on the subject matter. I never asked you to do research for me, I asked for a link or a reference. You could have said, “No.” A web cite would not prove either your claims about the issue or the issue itself. I wanted to understand it. A link might have helped. I am equally as proficient with paper. Clarification of where and when Hawking gave the lecture would have been fine. None of this misfortunate exchange was to imply that my opinion on this matter was the final say on what is or is not reality.

And what expertise I might have is beside the point. I expressed what questions I had on the matter. You on the other hand felt it more important to express your flippant attitude than the merits of your assertion. I can’t help it that you feel my inquiries were such a burden on you but I can offer you some advice: if you don’t feel like answering, don’t. It would show the true value of your comments and you wouldn’t end up wasting my time. And we would all be better off.

“Please for my edification, will you point out the clause in the Constitution that defines the Separation of Church and State principle?”

- Great question Kirk. Loved how it was so quickly brushed aside.

What are you talking about kctim? Both William and I addressed it. It wasn’t brushed aside.

No, you supplied a liberals views on the topic and William posted the amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”

Congress has not even tried to make a law establishing a particular religion and the only people who are prohibited from exercising their beliefs are the ones who are told they can’t even thank god or mention religion in any way when delivering a speech or when wearing a certain kind of clothing while on public property.

Using the framers words as a reference is great, but one must use the whole intent, not just particular words or sentences that support an agenda.

Kirk:

There are a lot of what ifs and maybes in these paragraphs.

Which don’t effect in any way the claims about evolution vs inteillgent design. Gravitation is a theory too, yet there are and have been unresolved questions about precisely how gravitation affects certain solar-system objects. Because Jupiter’s gravity “may” have causes large asteroids to move out of orbit does not mean we should teach students that an unknown “intelligent” agency is moving stuff around out there..

On Creationism, it states that many including many scientists, hold that God created the universe….”theistic evolution” is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution.

However, “theistic evolutioin” is in disagreement with the assumptions behind ID. Theistic evolution accepts that evolution is the scientific description of how organisms change over time; that all organisms have got here through descent with modification.

You stated previously that you were a scientist who believes in a Creator. What is your belief concerning the origins of life. Is it that organic matter somehow got together in the primordal soup and life was the result or is it that a greater power created life?

Let’s not derail the discussion. The origins of life are pretty much irrelevant to the discussion about ID, and are (or should be) a very small part of any secondary-level bio course.

I have a college-level text on molecular biology. It’s 1400+ pages long, and devotes seven pages to origins of life—-and emphasizes in those pages that it’s all highly speculative. Seven out of 1400 is 0.05%.

Evolution is about how life changes over time. ID denies that natural processes determine those changes.

My personal philosophy is nearly here nor there, but I did summarize it in a previous post.

Congress has not even tried to make a law establishing a particular religion and the only people who are prohibited from exercising their beliefs are the ones who are told they can’t even thank god or mention religion in any way when delivering a speech or when wearing a certain kind of clothing while on public property.

KC Tim, I didn’t brush anyone off. If you look above, I’m stunned that nobody’s come in to attack my support for keeping church and state separate.
I’m tempted to ask you which prohibitions, exactly, you’re talking about.

But I don’t want to derail the main argument.

Are you arguing that (a) teaching a particular religious theory in school is (a1) constitutionally allowed and/or (a2) a good thing? Or are you just sticking with Kirk’s argument that (b) ID is not religion, but science?

No, you supplied a liberals views on the topic […]

So you dismiss arguments based on their political leanings and not on the facts of the argument. Nice.

William
“Are you arguing that (a) teaching a particular religious theory in school is (a1) constitutionally allowed and/or (a2) a good thing? Or are you just sticking with Kirk’s argument that (b) ID is not religion, but science?”

(a1) Yes. Teaching a theory is not unconstitutional.
(a2) A good thing? No.
(b) ID is simply a theory to me, based in religion. I personally have not seen any proof of ID, but when taught as a theory, it is very interesting.

JB
“So you dismiss arguments based on their political leanings and not on the facts of the argument. Nice.”

When the facts are “created” to prove ones point, yes I do dismiss them.
For every liberals “opinion” on what the framers meant, one can find a different “opinion” from the right.

Bartons leftist “leanings” have looking at only the part of Danbury which supports his agenda. There is more to it.

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions”

KCTim,

(a1) Yes. Teaching a theory is not unconstitutional.

Well, we all have opinions. I guess it will be up to the lawyers and courts to decide if, in this case, having public schools teach this theory that is “based in religion” is constitutional.

I haven’t read Barton or Danbury, but your quote below contains nothing I disagree with. Religion should be the choice of individuals, not the province of the government. And actions taken by the government with the aim of promoting the common welfare - for instance, education - should not be corrupted to promote a particular set of religious beliefs.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions.

KCTim, here’s some info summarizing what is believed to be the state of current law. It’s on an ACLU site, but a number of non-liberal religious organizations (the National Council of Churchs) have signed on to verify that this is an accurate statement of current law:

“Students may be taught about religion, but public schools may not teach religion. As the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly said, “[i]t might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion, or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization.” … The history of religion, comparative religion, the Bible (or other scripture)-as-literature (either as a separate course or within some other existing course), are all permissible public school subjects. …

These same rules apply to the recurring controversy surrounding theories of evolution. Schools may teach about explanations of life on earth, including religious ones (such as “creationism”), in comparative religion or social studies classes. In science class, however, they may present only genuinely scientific critiques of, or evidence for, any explanation of life on earth, but not religious critiques (beliefs unverifiable by scientific methodology). Schools may not refuse to teach evolutionary theory … Public schools must not teach as scientific fact or theory any religious doctrine, including “creationism,” although any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught.”

When the facts are “created” to prove ones point, yes I do dismiss them. For every liberals “opinion” on what the framers meant, one can find a different “opinion” from the right.

What a lazy and cowardly argument you got there tim. Argue the facts not your opinion of them.

Are you even asserting anything? Or are you just hear to drop your usual snide insults?

William:
“Adrienne - hang tough, girl. I think we’re seeing a time when 51% of 51% are trying to take charge. And if the country lets them, you’re right - we’ll end up in a very scary place. Butmost Americans don’t think this way, and reality has a way of catching up to people after a while.”

I think you’re right - but being one of those kids who had to suffer, and later overcome, what “New Math” did to me in the 1970’s (does anyone here remember that travesty?), all I can think of is how they may have the chance to screw up a whole generation of kids by injecting religion into science (or other subjects) before we get a chance to stop them!

“Have a great holiday season!”
I am thanks, hope you’re enjoying yours too!

captainozone:

“As for Adrienne - Katie bar the door!”

Ummm… Thanks?

William Cohen:
“Religion should be the choice of individuals, not the province of the government. And actions taken by the government with the aim of promoting the common welfare - for instance, education - should not be corrupted to promote a particular set of religious beliefs.”

Very well said!
And to return to the topic of your article - this is _highschool_ science we’re discussing. In those years it is important for kids to understand the proceedures and scientific means by which experts in the field have formulated, and tried to prove or disprove theories. If ID should be taught at all (which is infinitely debateable) it should probably be done in a college setting as an elective, rather than a required, science course.

I still agree with Joseph Briggs earlier assertion that it belongs with philosophy.

Thanks for the link William, I’ve been looking for one like that.
Do you think it would be possible to teach ID without mentioning God?
Would it be possible to teach the theory of ID in a non-religious way?
I don’t want my children learning religion in school, but as of right now, ID is a viable response to human evolution. Afterall, there is no concrete evidence to support either theory.

“Argue the facts not your opinion of them.”
- And I am wrong for doing this because…?

“Are you even asserting anything? Or are you just here to drop your usual snide insults?”
- I actually understand this one.
I can see where my being openminded and not totally discounting another persons belief could be viewed as an insult to those who are blinded by their own views or party loyalty.

Quite simply, the intent of the Founders of this experiment in governance was to preclude any one Religion from achieving a position of Government Support. Full Stop. If one teaches Religious Doctrine within the Science Curricula of a taxpayer-funded school, one violates this simple and worthwhile principle.

Whereas it is true that the Founders were nearly to a man professed Christians of one sort or another, and that Congress opens with a prayer, etc. - these are red herrings, and not in any way germane to the issue. If you want to go against the Founders’ Intent, kctim and anyone else, simply state that is your agenda and let the world see how Anti-American the present group of Conservative thugs really are! After all, you advocate amending the constitution in order to make what is presently un-constitutional legal for enforcement! Why not reveal your true nature as modern-day Beer-Hall Putsch Nazis seeking to inflict *YOUR* dogma and *YOUR* view of Liberty upon the drooling monkeymass (who, no doubt, will sit quietly by for it so long as they don’t miss an episode of their favourite sitcom and so long as wonderbread is still available in the stores).

“Argue the facts not your opinion of them.” - And I am wrong for doing this because…?

I’m saying the counter-argument “I won’t argue because it’s from a liberal” is lazy and cowardly, not wrong.

I can see where my being openminded and not totally discounting another persons belief could be viewed as an insult to those who are blinded by their own views or party loyalty.

I’m not discounting another person’s belief. I’m discounting an ideology. If all you can do is assert some emotional fallacy that I am dismissive of a person’s belief then that’s just as weak as the argument noted above.

The US government was born out of religious tyranny and the separation clause of the constitution was created to prevent such tyranny from arising again. They founders et al allowed display and expression of religion in government because they only saw these as harmless. They were more concerned with preventing religion gaining real power in government, not symbolic display. And if you knew anything about my views, you would know that I agree with them. I don’t mind Bush talking about Jesus. I don’t mind Sunday prayer meeting in the White House. I don’t mind voluntary prayer in schools. I don’t mind the cross in the California state flag. I don’t mind the ten commandments in front of the court house, in the court house, in the court room, or embroidered on the judge’s robes.

What I do mind is when religion starts encroaching on government through devious (or any) means like teaching ID in schools, abstinence-only sex education, restrictions on stem cell research funding, seeking a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, or seeking a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, or in lieu of this, tying government money to restrictions on abortion speech at clinics and other medical facilities. I am against religion exerting power over government.

Thanks for the link William, I’ve been looking for one like that. Do you think it would be possible to teach ID without mentioning God? Would it be possible to teach the theory of ID in a non-religious way? I don’t want my children learning religion in school, but as of right now, ID is a viable response to human evolution. Afterall, there is no concrete evidence to support either theory.

I don’t know what you mean by “in a non-religious way”. “Intelligent design” certainly implies an intelligent designer.

And to summarize the whole argument above: as of right now, ID is not a “viable response to human evolution”.

Evolution is tested, confirmed by multiple lines of reasoning (most recently by analysis of fully sequenced genomes), and underlies, is the foundation of, huge portions of biology.

ID claims that there are specific mechanisms that cannot and therefore have not been evolved. If makes no testable predictions, and on that basis alone serves no purpose in a science course. But beyond that, it’s bad science, pseudo-science. Every technical argument for it (and Kirk made many above) can be easily demolished by anyone with a competent grasp of math and biology. For every so-called “scientist” that preaches ID one can find 100 working scientists and educators that dismiss it utterly. And if you look at the case under discussion, ID is not proposed by actual science teachers seeking to broaded a curriculum; it’s being rammed down their throats by fundamentalist Christians on the school board.

Well, Joseph, I bloody well mind “… the ten commandments in front of the court house, in the court house, in the court room, or embroidered on the judge’s robes,” - !

Whereas I support the Freedom Of Expression necessary to justify allowance of, say, burning the National Flag (a Symbol) in protest over National Policy (a Reality), I agree with you that the Founders had a particularly good set of reasons to oppose any governmental pressure or infiltration by Religion. The European experience with Religion - first the Catholics with their Inquisitions, then the bloody Reformation - had quite put them off it.

Theocracy is far less desirable than even Monarchy; withal Empire is preferable to the both (and I speak as a Democratic Socialist). There are two pillars of Human Society which must be kept from Governance at all cost: Religion and Industry. Both will seek to pervert and control governments towards their own benefit; whereas no proper Government has designs on either. Therefore Government alone, by right of the Governed, must be sovereign over Industry and neutral with regard to Religion. If Industry (Business) gains too much access to the policies of government, the state eventually atrophies and decays into a plutocratic Oligarchy. If Religion gains too much access (“Faith-Based Initiatives” is a shoe in the door), the state may eventually strengthen into an unbearable Theocracy.

If there are any true Patriots left among the Moneyed and the Faithful of this nation, let them stand with such organisations as the ACLU and the EFF against either eventuality.

The Ten Commandments Judge’s Robe

The robe is pretty extreme but I think the more is made of it, the worse it is. Just let the freak have his day and let him feel clever and eventually we’ll all forget about it. (The judge was hilarious in his defense, when asked about how non-Christians might react to facing a judge in such a robe he said something to the effect, well, there aren’t that many in his town so it’s no big deal. The best counter-measure to this I’ve heard was to have a lawyer’s robe to wear in his court with Luke 18:2 sewn on it: “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.”)

William
Thanks for your last reply, it does make alot of sense to me.
My beliefs are simple, we evolved throughout time and when we die, we are worm food, thats it.
I know evolution is well tested but “human” evolution has not been nailed down yet, has it? Maybe its just me being stuck on the whole beginning of the world thing, I’m not sure. But until there is an absolute understanding of how everything started, shouldn’t all theories be looked at with an open mind?

“I don’t know what you mean by “in a non-religious way”. “Intelligent design” certainly implies an intelligent designer.”
- Yeah, now that I have read it again, it doesn’t really seem possible. It would be a pretty short class though, “a being created everything, class is over.”

Anyway, thanks for your help on this one.
I guess my posts on this topic were more inquisitive than support for any side.
Sometimes, not believing in anything(atheist) leaves me confused.

JB, JB, JB
“I won’t argue because it’s from a liberal”
- It doesn’t make sense to argue a point with a liberal or neo-con if that person refuses to accept all of the facts. That is all I am trying to say.
I understand that even though you do not know me, you do not like me. Snide? insulting? emotional? Thats all cool with me.
But here is whats funny: on this issue, you and I are just about in total agreement.
Weird huh?

P.S.
Not really sure how I insulted you, but it was not intentional.

Evolution is about how life changes over time. ID denies that natural processes determine those changes.

ID does not claim that no evolutionary process is involved in the origin of various species. It merely claims that evolution is inadequate to explain all the diversity of life.

From the National Association of Biology Teachers

The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies, and changing environments.

Fossils alone attest to the stunning variety of increasingly complex plants and animals no longer living. No doubt life has changed. But what caused the change? Darwin and his successors contend that an unguided, mindless natural process caused the changes, that law and chance alone (natural selection acting on random variations) are sufficient to explain all of life’s diversity and life’s origin.

The question is not has there been change, but what caused the change.

From the Intelligent Design Network

The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences. ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings. This is particularly necessary in origins science because of its historical (and thus very subjective) nature, and because it is a science that unavoidably impacts religion.

Positive evidence of design in living systems consists of the semantic, meaningful or functional nature of biological information, the lack of any known law that can explain the sequence of symbols that carry the “messages,” and statistical and experimental evidence that tends to rule out chance as a plausible explanation. Other evidence challenges the adequacy of natural or material causes to explain both the origin and diversity of life.

Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement that includes a scientific research program for investigating intelligent causes and that challenges naturalistic explanations of origins which currently drive science education and research.

William,

I have noticed in several of your posts you have made a statement about how ID is being pushed by “fundamentalist Christians”.

The web address below will take you to an Islamic ID site.

http://www.hyahya.org/

Kirk, thanks for the clarifications of the scope of the claims for ID, and the scope of its support. My comments about the influence of fundamentalist Christians were specific to the Dover, PA, case - as far as I know there is no Islamic influence at work there.

PS. I didn’t mean my usage of the term “fundamentalist Christians” to be pejorative, btw.

Back after Christmas vacation. If the word offends anyone,I have unChristian thoughts for you. Now, W. Cohen,on Dec. 26 you feared loosing your liberties. I can think of none that I have lost. Some inconvenience here and there. Bumping into unintelligent bureaucracy here and there. Small price considering the threat we face. But I still enjoy the freedom of America.

Everybody! A cross or any other religious symbol on public land is not “establishing” It is showing respect and recognizing a huge portion of this country’s people and history. You are not very secure if that worries you.

“feared loosing your liberties. I can think of none that I have lost”

Your kidding, right?
Maybe you should tell Sherman Austin that his liberties have not been lost. Or maybe some of the Americans of Arab decent.
Have you even read the Patriot Acts? Just because some liberties don’t concern you doesn’t mean they are less important when they are lost.

Sorry to get off topic all.

To kctim.12/30 I have read the Act, at least most of it. I am concerned with everyone’s liberties, but not about their wanting license. I agree there’s bad stuff in the Act. It is being shot at. I don’t trust the government to have such a free hand( not having to show cause to a judge in some instances is an example). I don’t trust politicians to get anything right the first time.Acknowledge that they are still working on it. I do trust any all to take those shots you support. Nevertheless, I just don’t have the fear you do. Maybe because it is steadily under revisement.Just don’t confuse “license” with liberty.

If “Intelliginet Design” is such balony, why not allow it to be taught and scientists can debunk this superstition. The reason is because evolution will be ripped to shreads the by the evidence and misinformation they have propigated through the years.

Eveloution has been riddled with errors misstatements and balony from the beginning. From the very start it has been shown that most of these are just a bunch of balony.

People are starting to wake up to the fact it is crazy! One single cell has over a BILLION CHEMICALS in it, and this happened by chance? It is more complicated than any machinry humans know of and they want to tout misinformation of evolution? Darwin called it “the simple single cell”. Biggest joke I have ever heard. Also, there is NO EVIDENCE (just fraud) of transitional forms it is all balony. The ACLU touts “free speech” they only want THEIR SPEECH TO BE FREE!!

The ACLU and other liberals loves to hail the Scopes trial as such an elightning strike against superstition but they won’t tell you what really happeneed at the trial. They brought up hoaxes of prehistoric man, that have shown to be balony.
However, “Inherit the Wind” is wonderful piece of propoganda, Goerbles would have been proud.

Here is some reading for my friend.

http://evolution-facts.org/3evlch30.htm

Here are some more links of evolutions, bloopers blunders and balony.

http://www.reclaimamerica.org/PAGES/NEWS/newspage.asp?story=12

http://evolution-facts.org/introductory_scientists_speak_about_evolution_1.htm

In fact, that poster needs some education, lets just have him start at the beginning.

http://evolution-facts.org/Cruncher%20TOC.htm

Dee Lee
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Your faith in govt is admirable but one I can no longer offer. The 2nd and 4th Amendments are virtually gone and the 1st is right behind them.
I will say hooray for the aclu only when they no longer exist.

“Intelliginet Design” - balony - shreads - propigated - Eveloution - balony - balony - machinry - balony - other liberals loves to hail - elightning - happeneed - balony - propoganda - Goerbles - Here are some more links of evolutions, - balony - In fact, that poster needs some education, lets just have him start at the beginning …

*Thank you* for that highly-educated and intelligenet post! You have clearly enlightninged us all on what Propoganda and Balony the Liberals have propigated upon us, and torn it to shreads with your incisive remarks! I just loves to have read such an Educated attack on the machinry of leftist propoganda! You are certainly a fine example of what All America could be like, if only we provide Vouchers for Faith-Based- and Home-Schooling, and teach Intelligenet Design in our public schools.