The Crusade Against Evolution

[OneBlueSky]

talk about scary stuff . . . not only are they invading the classroom, they're also impacting what's in textbooks and even peer-reviewed biology journals . . . the separation of church and state gets more tenuous by the day . . .

The Crusade Against Evolution
How the next generation of "creation science" is invading America's classrooms
by Evan Ratliff
wired.com
October, 2004

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

On a spring day two years ago, in a downtown Columbus auditorium, the Ohio State Board of Education took up the question of how to teach the theory of evolution in public schools. A panel of four experts - two who believe in evolution, two who question it - debated whether an antievolution theory known as intelligent design should be allowed into the classroom.

This is an issue, of course, that was supposed to have been settled long ago. But 140 years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, 75 years after John Scopes taught natural selection to a biology class in Tennessee, and 15 years after the US Supreme Court ruled against a Louisiana law mandating equal time for creationism, the question of how to teach the theory of evolution was being reopened here in Ohio. The two-hour forum drew chanting protesters and a police escort for the school board members. Two scientists, biologist Ken Miller from Brown University and physicist Lawrence Krauss from Case Western Reserve University two hours north in Cleveland, defended evolution. On the other side of the dais were two representatives from the Discovery Institute in Seattle, the main sponsor and promoter of intelligent design: Stephen Meyer, a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University's School of Ministry and director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, and Jonathan Wells, a biologist, Discovery fellow, and author of Icons of Evolution, a 2000 book castigating textbook treatments of evolution. Krauss and Miller methodically presented their case against ID. "By no definition of any modern scientist is intelligent design science," Krauss concluded, "and it's a waste of our students' time to subject them to it."

(snip)

The debate's two-on-two format, with its appearance of equal sides, played right into the ID strategy - create the impression that this very complicated issue could be seen from two entirely rational yet opposing views. "This is a controversial subject," Meyer told the audience. "When two groups of experts disagree about a controversial subject that intersects with the public-school science curriculum, the students should be permitted to learn about both perspectives. We call this the 'teach the controversy' approach."

Since the debate, "teach the controversy" has become the rallying cry of the national intelligent-design movement, and Ohio has become the leading battleground. Several months after the debate, the Ohio school board voted to change state science standards, mandating that biology teachers "critically analyze" evolutionary theory. This fall, teachers will adjust their lesson plans and begin doing just that. In some cases, that means introducing the basic tenets of intelligent design. One of the state's sample lessons looks as though it were lifted from an ID textbook. It's the biggest victory so far for the Discovery Institute. "Our opponents would say that these are a bunch of know-nothing people on a state board," says Meyer. "We think it shows that our Darwinist colleagues have a real problem now."

- much more . . .

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

[realisticphish]

1. no matter what

our idiot school board says, our biology teachers will NOT take this sitting down, i assure you. i know when in particular who would rather lose his job than adjust to this crap

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[WindRavenX]

3. as a (hopefully) future biology teacher..

I find it horrifying that 1)70% of Americans do not believe in evolutions and 2) People do not understand you can have God and evolution. Evolution says nothing of origin of life; only the mechanism that describes how organisms change over time.

[K-W]

5. You can have a god and evolution, you cant have God.

It is a fundemental aspect of christian faith that human beings were created by God. Human beings are not animals. This runs deeper than the creation story. The idea that human beings are God's children is one of the most fundemental aspects of western religion. It is really fairly impossible to believe that human beings participate in some otherwordly plane of existance with a God and the heavens when you accept that we are descended from apes.

Which leaves two options, reject God, or reject science. Many people reject God and replace him with a more personal god, a god of the shadows. He didnt create things, but he exists, and hes kinda behind everything.

[More Than A Feeling]

8. False choice, very easy to have a creator god and evolution...

Creation doesn't specify the method God used, so easy to postulate that what we call evolution is nothing more than God's way of creating man.

[K-W]

9. Thats quite a stretch.

First off, the creation story, if taken literally, as some people do, can not possibly be reconciled with evolution. But if you pick and choose what you want to believe, you can come up with a mixture of evolution and creationism. Whereas God created some elaborate system by which single celled organisms would devide and evolve in relationship with an enviroment that was itself constantly changing, and that the end result would be the evolution of the species homo-sapien.

Im sorry, but the perfect scientits god is simply not the same God that is discussed in the bible. That God was all powerful. He created everything, he didnt pour the right contents into a beaker.

As I said, you can have a god that fits with evolution, but it isnt the same God christians worshipped before evolution. Why did it take discovering proof of evolution for anyone to even think about it? I mean if thats what God did, why didnt he tell anyone? Why didnt Jesus correct everyone when he was on earth? He must have known that the creation story they told was false.

[More Than A Feeling]

13. The Creation story, if taken literally, contradicts itself

because there are two different creation stories in the Bible, one after the other, that do not fit with each other. I agree that they do not fit with evolution, because they are pre scientific myths, which nonetheless have value.

Secondly, of course the Israelites who wrote the Bible couldn't conceive of a God who set evolution in motion, because they didn't know about evolution. What they believed in the area of science has little to do with what we know to be true today. But that doesn't mean that God isn't behind it anyway, just that at a certain time, a certain group of people didn't understand the way we do now. Nothing anti-evolution about it, just ignorance.

God in the Bible was indeed all-powerful, but it doesn't necessarily follow that he/her/it would just wave his/her/its hands and create us, because, as science tells us, that clearly did not happen.

Finally, a change in our knowledge about God does not imply a change in God but rather a change in us. The Pre-evolution God and the God of today are one and the same, we just think differently about him/her/it.

As for why God didn't tell everyone by appearing in the sky, or through Jesus, that I do not know.

[Elginoid]

12. god did not create man in his image...

it's the other way around, actually.

[Swamp Rat]

2. The Flat Earth Society in the 21st Century

Here come the Dark Ages II.

[Still_Notafraid]

4. Sigh

They don't want Darwinism in there science/history books but when it comes to running the country social Darwinism is ok,morans don't get half the point of Darwinism that its not just animals but everything i mean everything evolves its like Murphy's law.they simply see it as a threat to there Christianity,its like a complete contrast to there teachings of faith,if you have Faith there is no threat Moran's.

[K-W]

6. It is a threat to faith all right.

Lets not make strawmen here. Evolution is a threat. Science is a threat. Ways of interpreting the world that dont include God running point are a threat to religion. We live in an age where science has proven religious dogma wrong soo many times that most people are forced to compartmentalize them in thier heads.

There was a time when God was everything, you woke up by the grace of God, you ate because God sent you food, your daughter died because it was God's plan, and you thanked God for creating you and creating this world for you.

Now most people wake up because the earth rotates exposing them to sun, people eat because we have agricultural technology, your daughter died from a genetic disorder, and you evolved from an ape and are just a part of this world.

You cant tell me that religion has lost nothing in this transformation.

[Still_Notafraid]

10. Yes I totally agree

Thats what i am saying i lived with some of these wacko's if your faith is threatened by things like evolution then you have no faith,faith means no questioning its just knowing,the fact that it is a threat shows they have no faith,those are the scared of hell Christan's who bought the brain washing bit,there for are Christan for the wrong reason.

[K-W]

11. Well, I dont see how that is lacking faith.

Faith is persisting belief without proof. Nobody shows more persisting belief without proof than creationists.

[Ruffhowse]

7. Creationism in sheep's clothing

"Some people have opinions that the Holocaust never happened, but we don't teach that in history."

"And intelligent design "is not science. It makes no predictions and doesn't offer any explanation whatsoever, except for 'God did it.'"

Two very good points given in this article. These "Intelligent Design" wackos dress creationism up in fancy 21st century techno-babble and call it a scientific theory. It would be laughable if they weren't making some minor progress in their efforts to get this crap taught in our classrooms.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. "Where did 'Mrs. Cain' come from?" I always liked that question in the

play Inherit the Wind where Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow's character) cross-examines Matthew Brady (Wiliam Jennings Bryan) as an authority on the Bible. Ends all debate for me right there as it's on record in the Bible that God stopped at Adam and Eve, and Eve stopped at Cain and Abel.

[phylny]

15. Here's my thought on evolution and Genesis:

Jesus told parables, or stories, that he used to illustrate his points. Why wouldn't God also tell parables, or stories, since in my belief system, Jesus is God as man on Earth?

I have no problem reconciling the Biblical story of how the world was created and the scientific proof of how the world was created. In my view, God created the heavens and earth, and the creation story in Genesis was a parable about how it happened.

Of course, maybe I'm whacked ;)